When Vito "makes peace" with Tattaglia during the meeting of the Dons, he took full advantage of their perception of him as weak, without the muscle to go on with the war, and wlling to compromise.

Where Vito was brillliant was his way of taking advantage of this perception. He swears he will never take vengence, and he swears he will go along with the compromise about selling drugs. But he does so only on the condition that Michael is allowed to safely return to the U.S.

Everyone at the table knwe Michael killed Sol and McL. and they also knew that Vito probably had the connections in the legal system to expnerate him of these "false charges."

With this condition Vito makes it very clear that should anything happen to Michael including a feked suicide or a bolt of lightning, he owuld hold people accountable for it. The truth is he did not have the muscle to do this. He knew it, and Barzini had to know it as well.

This was an extraordinarily clever move by Vito. Michael was the only card he had left to play, and he knew that everyone in that room underestimated Michael. He played on this perception and basically got a consensus that Michael would have safe passage home.

As for his threat to hold people accountable, he understood everyone would see it as a matter of pride and old fashioned honor, and that nothing would happen to Michael.

The impression he left was "let the old man have his young sone come home. He has nothing left except a spoiled daughter and an idiot son, and a weak family.
If he wants to feel good about hanging a threat over our heads, so be it, ut lets allow the Ivy League kid to come home."

Vito out foxed them all by getting this favor, and did so from a position of extreme weakness. Noe THAT is cunning.

All that you said is true, dt, but there was more: Vito held an ace in his hand--police/political protection for the drugs business. If the Dons hadn't agreed to allow Michael to return, and not to move against Michael, the protecton would have disappeared, even if Vito didn't have the muscle to carry out his threat.

So are you saying if Michael had been hit by a bolt of lighning, that suddenly the police and judges might stop protecting "some of the people in this room?"

One of the things that I think we don't pay enough attention to is the nature of a Mafia Don and of the business in which they are engaged. It's probably true that most of the time they are looking for opportunities to expand their reign and revenue. They are prudent though. Given that, what would they profit from Michael's demise? At that point, they still had to deal with Vito and, despite his misfortunes, they knew he was still a power with which they had to contend. Of course DT, Vito's withdrawal of drug business protection was also a risk which I'm sure they acknowleged. But, again, how would they profit from harming that protection? Maybe Barzini would profit; he coveted the Corleone empire and probably had for some time. But that had little to do with what Vito and the other Dons wanted to accomplish through the meeting.

Good point Oli. What they would profit long term, if they had the foresight, would be to erase the Corleonnes last best chance at survival. It was well known that Michael was bright and courageous, and it was also known he wanted no part of the family business, so when he stepped up and killed Sol and McC it should have been foreseeable that he would take over the faltering family. They tried to kill him in Sicily and that failed (they got Appollonia only) so why not try again. All those cops and judges and politicians who were on the take from vito would look somewhere to keep lining their pockets. It was in their best intereest to get rid of Michael when they had the chance.

Well, DT, I don't think that we can accrue the reasoning you express to all of the Dons. Barzini had a vested interest in the Corleones' denouement, but with that went the loss of protection. Also, I wonder if they had reservations about Barzini replacing Vito. As the leading Mafioso in the country, Vito was a known commodity. However, did they feel the same way about Barzini assuming that position.

In addition, I don't think the Dons had any interest in eliminating Michael as a potential successor to Vito. Vito's warnings at the meeting were directed at Barzini and Tattaglia to preclude any attempt at revenge.

I inferred that as part of Vito's threat.
As Oli notes, it really wasn't in their interest at that point to whack Michael and prolong a war that had cost all of them plenty. Some of the smarter Dons should have figured tht Michael was an up-and-comer. But, evidently he and Vito did a great job of pretending to be meek and harmless. As the novel says, the Don's thought Michael "lacked force."

A small sidebar: Around the time that Vito states his opposition to the drug traffic, we see Tattaglia speaking to his aid. Of course, we don't know what he told him, but I wonder why FFC placed that scene in the movie?

Maybe Tatt was afraid to show his hand that it was Barzini running the show and he was asking his aide how to handle the situation.

I disagree, at the meeting Micheal was still a unknown quantity. So far what had he proved to the other bosses? That he perform a daring hit restaurant? That's about it.

The other Dons had no idea it was taken on Micheal's initiative, for all they could have known it might have been one of Sonny's impulsive schemes. The attempted hit in Siciliy was payback for Solozzo and another way to get at Vito.

There was no real foreknowledge that Micheal was a future threat at that time, he was merely Don Vito's kid who took advantage of being a "non-combatant" at a sit-down to get his personal revenge, there wasn't much major-league cunning behind that.

I think it's shown, both in the book and the movie, that Michael really started come in to his own in Sicily and his education wasn't complete until Vito had a chance to coach him after he came back from there. Before all of that, Michael wasn't much more than a brave and determined kid who got a chance to make no-miss hit in a restaurant.

Before the peace conference, making a hit on Michael was leverage on Vito for Tattaglia and Barzini; not eliminating a current or future threat.

Live At Home Mobster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTo7PSCcpnc

Well, once again we turn to the novel for enlightenment.

[To the Barzinis and Tattaglias] "Michael, formidable as he might prove to be, could never hope to equal the Don in cunning and influence for at least another decade."

"I [Vito] would not have made that peace but that I knew you would never come home alive otherwise."