IT was summertime, 1990, and John Gotti, the ultimate family man, was concerned how his oldest son would be able to provide for his budding brood.

Son John A. (Junior) Gotti, a full-fledged Gambino mobster, was certainly not struggling to make ends meet. He owned his own trucking company and got a ton of money from family friends who attended his gala wedding reception at the Helmsley Palace.

Young John and his bride got down to the business of raising a family, and, well, you know how some men feel about grandchildren. The day after he became a grandfather in 1984, the Dapper Don bought his grandson a $20,000 bond. "Second day of his life, the kid has $20,000," said Gotti to a fair-weather friend wearing a wire. "Me, I had two f----n' cents."

The elder Gotti also did what any self-respecting father who was also chief executive officer of any huge conglomerate would do: He decided to make his son an executive of the company -- a capo in the Gambino crime family.

He called Frank (Frankie Loc) LoCascio and Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano to a top executives-only meeting in an apartment above the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy and asked if they would recommend young John to be a capo.

The discussion took place long after the FBI had removed its bug from the apartment, but according to sources familiar with the conversation, LoCascio and Gravano reacted as expected, fighting each other to get the words out first: "Sure." "Great idea, John." "Great choice."

LoCascio and Gravano wasted no time. Later that day, they met Junior Gotti and told him that their boss wanted him to be a capo with his own crew.

That night, they took young John and formally presented him to his father.

"This is your new caporegime," they said.

Turning to the new capo, "This is your representante," they said, using the word that gangsters in Sicily would use to describe the boss.

Then, father and son, representante and caporegime, embraced.

Later, LoCascio and Gravano introduced the young capo to he capos who had the good fortune to be at the Ravenite that evening.

Despite some resentment from fellow capos over his favored-son promotion, young Gotti has surprised many with his staying power. The true test, however, will come if -- make that when -- his father's conviction is upheld on appeal.

So for, however, he has weathered all criticism, including hot-tempered, finger-pointing by supercapo James (Jimmy Brown) Failla, a former chauffeur/bodyguard to Carlo Gambino.