Selecting Rudy as its man of the year for 2001, Time included this on Giuliani's father:
"By conventional standards, Harold Giuliani was not a great man. In 1934, he was arrested for robbing a milkman at gunpoint in the vestibule of a Manhattan apartment building. A court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed him as an 'aggressive, egocentric type.' He served a year and a half, and then went to work as a bartender and enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo's loan-sharking operation, according to court documents and eyewitness accounts uncovered by Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett."
As the case against the top bosses of the New York mafia began, Giuliani explained his strategy and objective in simple terms:
"Our approach is to wipe out the Five Families." In equally simple terms, he described his mission: "To make the justice system a reality for the criminal."
The "reality" in this case turned out to be hundreds of years in prison for eight top-level New York mob bosses. Before leaving the courthouse, never to see freedom again, Corallo offered the traditional "Cent'Anni" toast, "May we live 100 years." Replied Lucchese family underboss Salvatore Santoro, "I think it's time to get a new toast."
Arguing that it's a mistake to "socialize the responsibility for crime," a mistake to turn the explanations for crime into excuses for crime, Giuliani stressed individual accountability rather than collective culpability:
"We elevate human beings by holding them responsible. Ultimately, you diminish human individuality and importance when you say, 'Oh, well, you're not really responsible for what you did. Your parents are responsible for it, or your neighborhood is responsible for it, or society is responsible for it.' In fact, if you harm another human being, you're responsible."
