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The First Mafia War was not just a violent clash. It was the moment when the Mafia revealed, for the first time, what it truly was. Between 1962 and 1963, Cosa Nostra turned its violence inward, and Palermo became a battlefield where alliances shifted, betrayals multiplied, and power was decided with bombs and executions.

For years, it was described as a simple conflict between an “old Mafia” and a “new Mafia.” On one side stood Salvatore Greco, head of the Commission. On the other, the ambitious brothers Angelo La Barbera and Salvatore La Barbera, who had risen quickly and were trying to reshape the balance of power. But this explanation does not hold. The reality was far more unstable: men from both “worlds” were mixed on each side, and the lines between allies and enemies were already blurred.

At the center of the conflict was control. Control of the Commission. Control of decisions. Control of the future of the organization. According to Tommaso Buscetta, the La Barbera brothers were pushing to change internal rules in order to weaken older bosses and gain influence. Others resisted. Tension grew quietly, inside meetings, inside conversations, until it exploded.

The spark came with the murder of Calcedonio Di Pisa in December 1962. But even that was not what it seemed. The killing was manipulated, blamed on the wrong people, used to trigger a chain reaction. From that moment on, violence spread rapidly: executions, bomb attacks, disappearances. No one knew who to trust anymore.

Then came the turning point. On June 30, 1963, a car bomb exploded in Ciaculli.

Ciaculli Massacre

Seven men from the Italian security forces were killed while trying to defuse it. That explosion changed everything. Until then, the Italian State had largely underestimated or even denied the existence of the Mafia as an organized system. After Ciaculli, it could no longer be ignored.

But inside Cosa Nostra, the consequences were just as significant. The war had exposed something dangerous: it was no longer clear who was really in control. Figures like Michele Cavataio were later accused of having manipulated events from the shadows, triggering the conflict to weaken both sides and reshape power for themselves.

This is where the myth ends and the real story begins.

Because the First Mafia War was not simply a fight.
It was the first sign that the Mafia was evolving into something more organized, more strategic, and far more dangerous than anyone had understood before.

And like everything in this world, the truth does not come from simplified versions.

It comes from what men like Buscetta later revealed — under oath.