At the meeting in Tahoe Michael clearly "gives" the Roth assassination job to Rocco who says it is difficult, but not impossible. The question is that Rocco had "men" working for him, but evidently lacked the wit to use them in a way that would get Roth killed but spare himself. Directorial license and the elements of drama aside, why would he be the one to pull the trigger in front of the press, police, IRS and FBI? All Michael wanted was Roth dead. This is akin to Sonny wanting Paulie dead. He gave Clemenza the order and Clemenza had it carried out. Rocoo should have learned from that. LAter when Sonny asked about Paulie, Clemenza simply said, "You won't see him no more." And that was that. Had Rocco been more creative he could have had Roth wacked and gone back to work with Michael.

Good Question. I think somebody offered a few interpretations on this subject a few years back. One reason why Rocco might have done it was to prove his loyalty to mike and the crime family. Even though he is a capo and has men he was willing to do an important job and lay done his life to show loyalty. Remember by the end of Part 2 mike was basically a paranoid maniac who was accusing all those close to him of betraying him or going against him

Well, I don't know who he accused of anything except Tom and I don't know why Rocco would have to prove anything.

DT, you just can't place directorial license and the elements of drama aside. Those things tend to dictate alot of what we see in the films.

I've argued many times that a possible reason is that Rocco was being pushed aside by Neri (who also was trying to push Tom aside) in Neri's quest to be Michael's #2. And Rocco was Clemenza's choice, just as Tom was Vito's choice. But Neri was Michael's choice.

The juxtaposition of dialog reinforces this: Michael humiliates Tom (we see Neri smirking when Michael talks about him moving himself, his family and his mistress to Vegas--Neri probably was the source of that info). Then he digs the knife in by saying, "Y'know, Tom, you surprise me. If history proves anything, it's that you can kill anyone." And he says, instantly,"Rocco?" Now, what was Rocco going to do? Reply by sayiig, "Yeah, Mike, Tom's right--killing Roth would be like killing the President"? No, Rocco was on the spot.

At that instant Michael could have turned to Neri. But he didn't. That's because he needed Neri, but Rocco was superfluous at that point. And, yes, Rocco had men under him. But, I'm assuming that since he thought he had to prove himself to Michael at that point, he went on the mission alone.