I take it to mean they don’t want two of their “friends” to have independent communications — so the mob can keep control of whatever the two of them are doing that might be “business”-related.

That makes sense. If A & B are getting together without a third person knowing about it, it becomes safe to assume they’re up to no good since they’re violating this rule.

Actually , its to control each and every introduction. So if I ( just a made guy) were to introduce someone new to you (your the boss) I would say ‘Hey JYB, this is so-and-so he’s a “friend of mine” ’ or ‘he’s a “good friend of mine” ‘. .In that way, using simple code, anyone/everyone knows who the news guy is as far as his ‘made’ status and how much he can be trusted. Even his heritage is hinted at in the intro. Without saying too much here.… It also puts ALL of the liability on the one person doing the introducing…its his arse if the new guy is a cop or rolls (rats) later on.

uh, that would be NEW guy, not a ‘Cronkite’ newS guy.

I figured #1 is the Mafias way of making sure any new guys have good references (so to speak), but if they turn out to be a snitches then everyone knows who to blame.

The first rule also prevents impostors from infiltrating your organization.

A guy can’t just come up to you and say, “hey, I’m a friend of Johnny ‘Elbows’ Macaroni, and he said you could give me some work”. Elbows himself, who is already known to you, must make the introduction in person.

Otherwise the police could interrogate somebody, get enough information out of them to establish their own bonafides, and get close to you posing as a “good friend” you just haven’t happened to meet personally before.

As to the rest of the rules, keep in mind that these guys deal outside the law, where the only real recourse in the event of bad dealing is murder. Even more than for us “civilians”, it’s important that they strictly maintain appearances and protocols.

I can totally see what TChump and DRJ are saying for a first introduction. Maybe that’s all it meant. Reading it the first time I thought it meant every meeting had to have a third person present, but it makes more sense if it’s just the initial presentation.