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Originally posted by JustMe:
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Originally posted by Turnbull:
[b]Cicci was just a button. And he may even have tried to help Michael at the Senate hearing:

When asked by Senator Geary if he had ever received a direct order from Michael, he replied, "No, I never talked to him." In fact, he did. Recall that, near the end of GF, as Tessio was about to get into his car, Cicci says, "Sal, Tom, the boss says for you to go ahead and he'll come later." Sounds like he got a direct order from Michael that, in effect, made him an accessory to Tessio's murder.
Yes, so it sounds, but it doesn’t mean that he really had any direct order. Michael was clever enough not to give direct orders to buttonmen. In the book, Michael talks to Tom before that: “Send Clemenza in to me. I’ll instruct him personally. I don’t want to see Tessio at all. Just tell him I’ll be ready to go to the Barzini meeting with him in about half an hour. Clemenza’s people will take care of him after that.” So, Mike instructed Clemenza alone to take care of Tessio, he didn’t go into details, he didn’t care who exactly will be those “Clemenza’s people”, it was his (Clemenza’s) job to pick necessary number of bodyguards for Tessio’s transportation.
When in the beginning of the novel Sonny tells Clemenza to “take care” of Paulie Gatto, he also doesn’t tell him details, and Clemenza has to work out the plan himself. He needs to throw his victim off the track, and find an excuse for their trip together, so he invents a story: “Damn that Sonny… He’s already thinking of going to the mattresses. We have to find a place on the West Side.” Of course Sonny gave him no such order, but is it important what lies will he tell to the traitor who will die in a few hours?
So I believe it was with Ciccie. He never spoke to Michael, who might not know him at all - just another buttonman. But when Clemenza received his orders from Mike he had to organize everything so that Tessio wouldn’t suspect anything to the last, so that he couldn’t resist or run away. That’s why Tom goes to the kitchen as if nothing happened and says to Tessio that Mike is ready and he’d better make his call. Tessio is at ease, he calls and they exit the Don's house to go to Michael’s. If there were many bodyguards waiting for them, it might awake his suspicions, so they were met at the doors of Mike’s house by “one of the bodyguards”, who told them “boss says he’ll come on a separate car”. Mike had nothing to do with it, but it was necessary to stop them there, outside the house, where the car was waiting for them, and more people hidden. When Tessio says, “He can’t do that!” - “Three more bodyguards materialized around them”. Now Tessio had no chance to escape, and Tom could safely say “I can’t go with you either, Tessio.”
It’s clear that this entire situation was carefully prepared and directed by Clemenza, and perhaps that line was his idea, and he told the bodyguard what to say. Michael might really never talk to Ciccie.
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One thing about the Godfather is that the book differentiates from the movie. So in the film Cicci ha dto have gotten the order from Mike to kill Tessio.