Kidnapping of Aldo Moro - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro (Italian: Caso Moro) was a seminal event in Italian political history.

On the morning of 16 March 1978, the day in which the new cabinet led by Giulio Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...

would undergo the confidence

Confidence and supply

In a parliamentary democracy confidence and supply are required for a government to hold power. A confidence and supply agreement is an agreement that a minor party or independent member of parliament will support the government in motions of confidence and appropriation votes by voting in favour...

vote at the Italian Parliament, the car of Aldo Moro

Aldo Moro

Aldo Moro was an Italian politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years....

, former prime minister and then president of Christian Democracy (Italian: Democrazia Cristiana, or DC, Italy's relative majority party at the time), was assaulted by a Red Brigades

Red Brigades

The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...

(Italian: Brigate Rosse, or BR) terrorist in Via Fani in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. Firing automatic weapons, the terrorist killed Moro's bodyguards (two Carabinieri

Carabinieri

The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...

in the car which presumably housed the politician and three policemen

Italian police

Law enforcement in Italy is provided by eight separate police forces, six of which are national groups in Italy.During 2005 in Italy, the number of active police officers from all agencies totaled 324,339, the highest number in the European Union both overall and per capita, twice the number of...

in the following car) and kidnapped him.

On 9 May 1978 Moro's corpse was found in the trunk

Trunk (automobile)

The trunk or boot of an automobile or car is the vehicle's main storage, luggage, or cargo compartment. Trunk is used in North American English and Jamaican English; boot is used elsewhere in the English speaking world. Trunk is also primarily used in many non-English speaking regions, such as...

of a Renault 4

Renault 4

The Renault 4, also known as the 4L , is a hatchback economy car produced by the French automaker Renault between 1961 and 1992. It was the first front-wheel drive family car produced by Renault....

in Via Caetani after 55 days of imprisonment, during which Moro was submitted to a political process and the Italian government was asked for an exchange of prisoners. Despite the common interpretation, the location was not midway between the locations of the national offices of DC and of the Italian Communist Party

Italian Communist Party

The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

(PCI) in Rome, but towards the Tiber River, near the Roman Ghetto

Roman Ghetto

The Roman Ghetto was a ghetto located in the rione Sant'Angelo, in Rome, Italy, in the area surrounded by today's Via del Portico d'Ottavia, Lungotevere dei Cenci, Via del Progresso and Via di Santa Maria del Pianto close to the Tiber and the Theater of Marcellus...

The assault

The terrorists had prepared the ambush by parking two cars in Via Mario Fani which, once moved, would prevent Moro's cars from escaping. According to the official reconstruction of the subsequent trials eleven people participated in the assault. However several doubts have been cast about the terrorists' declarations on which the official accounts were based, and about the exact identity of the ambush team's members. The presence of Moro himself in via Fani during the ambush has been also questioned after revelations in the 1990s (see Theory of the alternative kidnapping).

At 8:45 AM the Red Brigades members took their positions at the end of Via Fani, a downhill street in the northern quarter of Rome. An unknown number, from at least two to the whole team, were wearing Alitalia

Alitalia

Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane S.p.A. , in its later stages known as Alitalia - Linee Aeree Italiane S.p.A. in Extraordinary Administration, was the former Italian flag carrier...

airline crew uniforms. The reason for using uniforms was that not all of the team members knew each other, and so needed them to avoid friendly fire. In the upper part of the road, and on the right-hand side, Mario Moretti

Mario Moretti

Mario Moretti is an Italian former terrorist. A leading member of the Red Brigades in the late 1970s, he was one of the kidnappers of Aldo Moro, president of Italy's largest party, Democrazia Cristiana, and several times premier, in 1978; he later confessed to have been the one who killed the...

was inside a Fiat 128

Fiat 128

The Fiat 128 is a small family car manufactured by the Italian manufacturer Fiat from 1969 to 1985. The engine was designed by the famous Ferrari racing engine designer Aurelio Lampredi.-History:...

with a fake plate of the diplomatic mission

Diplomatic mission

A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation in the receiving state...

. Alvaro Lojacono

Alvaro Lojacono

Alvaro Lojacono is an Italian terrorist, currently a Swiss citizen.-Biography:Lojacono was born in Rome, the son of a member of the Italian Communist Party....

and Alessio Casimirri

Alessio Casimirri

Alessio Casimirri is an Italian terrorist and member of the Red Brigades , currently fugitive.Casimirri was born in Rome. His mother was a Vatican City citizen, and his father had worked for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and as the public relations man for three Popes.After a...

were in another Fiat 128 some meters after him. On the opposite side there was a third Fiat 128, with Barbara Balzerani

Barbara Balzerani

-Biography:Balzerani was born at Colleferro, in the province of Frosinone.In the 1970s she became a leader of the Red Brigades in Rome. She took part in several killings, such as that of Girolamo Minervini and the assassination of Aldo Moro's escort in Via Fani...

inside, facing the supposed direction from which Moro would arrive. Bruno Seghetti occupied a fourth car, a Fiat 132, near the crossroads where the street ended.

Moro left his house a few minutes before 09:00 AM. He was sitting in a blue Fiat 130

Fiat 130

The Fiat 130 is a large executive car manufactured by the Italian automaker Fiat, which was available as a saloon or coupé.The saloon was launched at the 39th Geneva Motor Show in March 1969, replacing the previous largest and most exclusive Fiat saloon, the Fiat 2300...

driven by Domenico Ricci. Another carabiniere

Carabinieri

The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...

, marshal Oreste Leonardi, sat beside him. Leonardi was the head of the bodyguard team. The Fiat 130 was followed by a white Alfetta with the remaining bodyguards: Francesco Zizzi, Giulio Rivera and Raffaele Iozzino.

The ambush started when the two cars entered Via Fani and the arrival of the car was notified to the terrorists by a lookout, Rita Algranati. Moretti's Fiat 128 cut the road in front of Moro's car, which bumped into the rear of Moretti's car and remained blocked between it and the bodyguards' Alfetta. Leonardi tried an escaping manoeuver, but was thwarted by a Mini Minor parked at the crossroad. Moro's cars were finally trapped from behind by Lojacono's 128. At this point four armed terrorists jumped out from the bushes at the sides of the street, firing their machine pistol

Machine pistol

A machine pistol is a handgun-style, often magazine-fed and self-loading firearm, capable of fully automatic or burst fire, and normally chambered for pistol cartridges. The term is a literal translation of Maschinenpistole, the German term for a hand-held automatic weapon...

s. The judiciary investigations identified them as Valerio Morucci

Valerio Morucci

Valerio Morucci is an Italian former terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades and who took part in the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978.-Biography:...

, Raffaele Fiore, Prospero Gallinari

Prospero Gallinari

Prospero Gallinari is an Italian terrorist, a member of the Red Brigades in the 1970s and 1980s.-Biography:Gallinari was born at Reggio Emilia, into a family of Communist tradition...

and Franco Bonisoli. The action has shown an analogy to a similar one by the German far-left formation RAF. One unidentified witness declared that a German voice was heard during the ambush, which led to a presumption of the presence of RAF militiamen in the ambush.

91 bullets were fired of which 45 hit the bodyguards who were all killed. 49 shots came from a single weapon, and 22 from another of the same model, the FNAB-43

FNAB-43

The FNAB-43 is an Italian designed and developed submachinegun manufactured from 1943 to 1944. The first prototype was built in 1942 and the 7,000 built by the FNA-B were issued to German and Italian RSI units fighting in Northern Italy...

. The remaining 20 came from other weapons which included a Beretta M12. Ricci and Leonardi, who were sitting in the front seat of the first car, were killed first. Moro was immediately kidnapped and forced into the Fiat 132 which was next to his car. At the same time the terrorists killed the other three policemen, dispatching each of them with a single shot in the neck. The only one of the policemen who was able to shoot back was Iozzino, but he was immediately hit in the head by Bonisoli. The blue Fiat 132 was found at 09:40 AM in Via Licinio Calvo with some blood stains inside. The other cars used for the ambush were also found during the following days in the same road (according to the declarations of Red Brigade members, the cars had been left in the road that same day).

The action was claimed by the BR in a phone call to ANSA

ANSA

ANSA may refer to:* ANSA, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs , also sometimes abbreviated NSA*Armed non-state actors, a term used in political science*Ansa *Artists for a new South AfricaTechnology:...

. At 10:00 AM Pietro Ingrao

Pietro Ingrao

Pietro Ingrao is an Italian politician, and was for many years a senior figure in the Italian Communist Party .-Political career:Ingrao was born at Lenola, in the province of Latina....

, president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies

Italian Chamber of Deputies

The Italian Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Parliament of Italy. It has 630 seats, a plurality of which is controlled presently by liberal-conservative party People of Freedom. Twelve deputies represent Italian citizens outside of Italy. Deputies meet in the Palazzo Montecitorio. A...

, stopped the session and announced that Moro had been kidnapped. In the same day Andreotti's government obtained a large majority of votes, including those of his traditional enemies, notably PCI. Before the kidnapping the Communists were supposed to enter the government in a direct role but the emergency changed the situation, resulting in an another right-centre cabinet under the firm control of DC.

Motivations

A large amount of literature exists about the reasons for the kidnapping. According to some the Red Brigades chose Moro due to his mediation role between DC and PCI, the two main parties in Italy at the time, which had both participated in the Fourth Andreotti Cabinet. It was the first time since the 1940s that Italian Communists had a government position, even if indirect. The success of the action would thus halt the Communists rise to the Italian state institutions, reassuring the BR as a key point in a future revolutionary war against capitalism. According to others BR aimed to strike at the whole DC who were the main exponent of a regime that, as described in BR's first communicate after the kidnapping "... was suppressing the Italian people for years"

According to later terrorist declarations, in the months before the kidnapping they had also envisaged the possibility of kidnapping the other leader of DC, Giulio Andreotti. This was abandoned once they deemed that Andreotti's police protection was too strong.

The immediate consequence of the kidnapping was the exclusion of PCI from any government cabinet in the following years. Although increasingly weakened, DC remained the main government party until 1992 (although in 1981, for the first time since the formation of the Italian Republic Giovanni Spadolini

Giovanni Spadolini

Giovanni Spadolini was a liberal Italian politician, the 45th Prime Minister of Italy, newspaper editor, journalist and a noted historian.-Biography:Spadolini was born in Florence....

, a non-Christian Democratic, became premier in a DC-based alliance).

Imprisonment

The exact location of Moro's imprisonment is disputed. The official reconstruction in the trials identified it as an apartment in Via Camillo Montalcini 8 in Rome, which had been owned by a BR terrorist for a few years. Moro would be killed there, in a subterranean car box. Months after the kidnapping the apartment was put under investigation by UCIGOS, the Italian police's central directorate for political crimes, and was thus abandoned by the Red Brigates.

Aldo Moro's brother Carlo Alfredo, a judge, wrote in his book Storia di un delitto annunciato that the politician was not detained in via Montalcini, but in a seaside location. His theory is based on the fact that sand and vegetable remains were found in the car together with Moro's corpse. Further, Moro's corpse had a generally good muscular tone and according to Moro's brother this, along with several contradictions in the terrorists' declarations, would deny the traditional view of the politician closed in a very tight cell with little space to move.

Aldo Moro's letters

During his detention, Moro wrote 86 letters to the main members of Christian Democracy, his family and to Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI

Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...

. Some arrived to their addressees, others which had not been sent, were later found in another base of the BR in via Monte Nevoso, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. In the letters Moro puts forwards the possibility of negotiation for his liberation if help from his party's colleagues and of the highest figures of the Republic could be obtained.

Some of Moro's letters allegedly contain hidden allusions and hints. In one letter he asks: "Is maybe there, behind keeping it hard against me, an American or German instruction?" Writer Leonardo Sciascia

Leonardo Sciascia

Leonardo Sciascia was an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, playwright and politician. Some of his works have been made into films, including Open Doors and Il giorno della civetta .- Biography :Sciascia was born in Racalmuto, Sicily...

suggested that in his letters Moro was including clues about his position, as when he wrote "I am here in full health" to indicate that he was in Rome. In the letter of 8 April Moro launched a vibrant attack at Benigno Zaccagnini

Benigno Zaccagnini

Benigno Zaccagnini was an Italian politician and physician.-Political career:Zaccagnini was among the founders of the Democrazia Cristiana , and was elected at the Constituent Assembly and the Chamber of Deputies of the new-born Italian Republic...

, national secretary of Christian Democracy, at Francesco Cossiga

Francesco Cossiga

Francesco Cossiga was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari....

, then Minister of the Interiors, as well as on the whole of his party: "Of course, I cannot prevent myself from underlining the wickedness of all the Christian Democrats who did not agree with my position [...] And Zaccagnini? How can he stay tranquil in his position? And Cossiga could not devise any possible defence? My blood will fall over them."

Doubts have been cast over the complete publication of Moro's letters. The Carabinieri general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa

Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa

Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa was a general of the Italian carabinieri notable for campaigning against terrorism during the 1970s in Italy, and later assassinated by the Mafia in Palermo.-Biography:...

(then coordinator of the fight against terrorisim in Italy, and later killed by mafia, according to some pentiti

Pentito

Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...

, as a favour to Giulio Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti

) found copies of some previously unknown letters in an apartment used by the terrorists in via Monte Nevoso. For undisclosed reasons the finding was not publicly revealed for years. During the kidnapping the prevalent view was that Moro did not enjoy complete freedom of writing. Despite Moro's wife declaring that she recognized his writing style in them the letters would be considered, if not directly dictated by the terrorists, at least inspired or controlled by them. Some experts of an analysis committee formed by Cossiga, initially declared that Moro had been subject to brainwashing. Cossiga would later admit that he had partially written the speech held by Giulio Andreotti in which it was said that Moro's letter were to be considered "not morally authentic".

Communications and negotiations

During the 55 days of Moro's detention the Red Brigades issued nine "Communications" in which they explained the reasons of the kidnapping. In the Communication No.3:
And:
The Red Brigades proposed to exchange Moro for imprisoned terrorists (Communication No.8). They later accepted to exchange him for a single terrorist. On 22 April 1978 Pope Paul VI made a public speech and asked BR to return Moro to his family, specifying that such act should also be "without conditions". Moro, who had previously written a letter to the Pope, reacted angrily to the latter point, feeling he had been abandoned by the Vatican. The specified "without conditions" is controversial—according to some sources it was added to Paul VI's letter against his will, and the pope instead wanted to negotiate with the kidnappers. Government members like Cossiga denied this hypothesis.

Italian politicians were divided into two factions: one favourable to negotiations which, amongst others, included the secretary of the Italian Socialist Party

Italian Socialist Party

The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...

, Bettino Craxi

Bettino Craxi

Benedetto Craxi was an Italian politician, head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993, the first socialist President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from 1983 to 1987.-Political career:...

and the others totally negating that possibility, most of the Christian Democracy and Italian Communist Party, including the latter's national secretary Enrico Berlinguer

Enrico Berlinguer

Enrico Berlinguer was an Italian politician; he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1972 until his death.-Early career:...

. The second faction noted that any negotiation would seem a legitimisation of the violence of the terrorists. Further, that solution would not be accepted by the Italian police forces who had seen numerous of their members fall during the war against terrorism in previous years.

Writers, including Moro's brother, underlined how the BR's communication lacked any reference to the possible role of the Communist Party in the Italian government. This was in spite of the day chosen for the kidnapping being that in which PCI, for the first time since the early republican years, was going to obtain an active government role in Italy. A letter by Moro to Zaccagnini, in which he was referring to this argument, had to be rewritten by the politician.

A second point put forward was the premise that Moro's revelations, from most of the communication during his "political process", would be made public. Unlike other people kidnapped by the BR and subjected to same procedure and, in spite of the unprecedented repetition of the point, in the case of Moro this never happened. Much of the material collected by the terrorists, including Moro's letter and personal notes written during his imprisonment, became public only after the discovery of the base in via Monte Nevoso. The terrorists later declared they had destroyed all the material including that containing references to the Gladio undercover organization and the collaboration of DC and Italian institutions in beginning the strategy of tension

Strategy of tension

The strategy of tension is a theory that describes how to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions....

Discovery of the corpse

Communication No.9 stated that:
The depositions made to the Italian judges during the trials showed that not all the Red Brigades leaders were for condemning Moro to death. Mario Moretti called Moro's wife by phone, asking her to push the DC leaders for negotiations. Adriana Faranda

Adriana Faranda

Adriana Faranda is an Italian former terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades during the kidnapping of Aldo Moro.-Biography:Faranda was born at Tortorici, in eastern Sicily....

, a member of BR, mentioned a night meeting held in Milan a few days before the murder of Moro where she and other terrorists, including Valerio Morucci and Franco Bonisoli, dissented although the final decision was taken after voting.

On 9 May 1978, after a summary "process of the people", Moro was murdered by Mario Moretti. It was also determined that the participation of Germano Maccari and Prospero Gallinari

Prospero Gallinari

Prospero Gallinari is an Italian terrorist, a member of the Red Brigades in the 1970s and 1980s.-Biography:Gallinari was born at Reggio Emilia, into a family of Communist tradition...

was likely. The corpse was found that same day in the trunk

Trunk (automobile)

of a red Renault 4 in via Michelangelo Caetani in the historic centre of Rome. The location was mentioned by journalist Mino Pecorelli as the residence of opera director Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch was a Ukrainian, Italian, and French composer and conductor.- Origin :Igor Markevich was born in Kiev, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century...

who, according to some theories, was the alleged instigator of the whole kidnapping (see here and here).

According to the terrorist's declarations, made some ten years after the event, Moro was woken up at 06:00 AM with the excuse that he had to be moved to another secret base. In contradiction to this Bonisoli said that Moro was told that he had been "pardoned" and was going to be freed. The terrorists put him into a wicker basket and brought him to the car box of their base in via Montalcini. They put him into the trunk of a red Renault and, after covering him with a red sheet, Moretti shot Moro with a 9 mm Walther PPK

Walther PPK

The Walther PP series pistols are blowback-operated semi-automatic pistols.They feature an exposed hammer, a double-action trigger mechanism, a single-column magazine, and a fixed barrel which also acts as the guide rod for the recoil spring...

and after the weapon jammed, a 7.65 mm Škorpion vz. 61. The bullets perforated Moro's lungs and killed him.

The car with his corpse was taken to via Caetani where it was parked about one hour after the murder. The common interpretation was that the location was midway between the national seats of DC and of the Italian Communist Party

Italian Communist Party

(PCI) in Rome to symbolize the end of the Historic Compromise

Historic Compromise

In Italian history, the Historic Compromise was an accommodation between the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party in the 1970s, after the latter embraced eurocommunism under Enrico Berlinguer. The 1978 assassination of DC leader Aldo Moro put an end to the Compromesso storico...

, the alliance between DC and PCI which Moro had sought. In fact the car was found more towards the Tiber River, near the Ghetto

Ghetto

A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

. At 12:30 a phone call was made to Francesco Tritto, assistant of Aldo Moro in order to let him announce the location of the body. This fulfilled an exliciti will communicated by Aldo Moro to his kidnappers. At 13:30 a phone call, attributed to Valerio Morucci, notified the Prefecture of Police

Prefecture of Police

The Prefecture of Police , headed by the Prefect of Police , is an agency of the Government of France which provides the police force for the city of Paris and the surrounding three suburban départements of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne...

that the politician's corpse was in a car in via Caetani. Autoptic examinations

Autopsy

An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...

made after the discovery assigned the death to around 09:00 and 10:00 of the same day, in contradiction to the terrorist's declarations. Witnesses declared that the car was in the street as early as 08:00 AM, while some witnesses declared that they did not see it before 12:30 AM.

Moro was wearing the same grey clothes he had during the kidnapping. The cravat had several blood stains, traces of sand were found in the pockets and socks, and traces of vegetables were also found. Eventually the terrorists declared that they had intentionally added those traces in order to sidetrack the investigators. In the trunk there were also some of Moro's personal effects, a bracelet and his watch, and some spent cartridges. Moro had also a wound at the thigh, likely suffered during the initial assault in via Fani.

Subsequent hypotheses, investigations and trials

Despite the long investigations and trials, the exact details of the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro are not known.

Crisis committees

Francesco Cossiga

Francesco Cossiga was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari....

, minister of the interior at the time, formed two "crisis committees" on the very day of the kidnapping of Moro. These were:

a technical-operational-political committee, chaired by Cossiga himself and, in his absence, by undersecretary Nicola Lettieri. Other members included the supreme commanders of the Italian Police Forces, of the Carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza
Guardia di Finanza
The Guardia di Finanza is a Italian law enforcement agency under the authority of the Minister of Economy and Finance. Like the Carabinieri, it is part of the Italian Armed Forces. The Guard is essentially responsible for dealing with financial crime and smuggling; it has also evolved into Italy's...

, the recently named directors of SISMI
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

and SISDE
SISDE
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica , was the domestic intelligence agency of Italy.With the reform of the Italian Intelligence Services approved on 1 August 2007, SISDE was replaced by AISI....

(respectively, Italy's military and civil intelligence services), the national secretary of CESIS
CESIS
Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza was an Italian government committee whose mission was the coordination of all the intelligence sector, and specifically between the two civilian and military intelligence agencies , with the aim to report all the relevant information...

(a secret informations agency), the director of UCIGOS and the police prefect of Rome.
an information committee, including members of CESIS, SISDE, SISMI and SIOS
SIOS
Servizio Informazioni Operative e Situazione , was an Italian military intelligence and security service. Its main duty was safeguarding the internal security of military bases and its personnel and military intelligence activities against enemy and foreign forces, especially through SIGINT...

, another military intelligence office.

A third unofficial committee was created which never met officially, called the comitato di esperti ("committee of experts"). Its existence was not disclosed until 1981, by Cossiga himself, in his interrogation by the Italian Parliament's Commission about the Moro affair. He omitted to reveal the decisions and the activities of the committee however. This committee included: Steve Pieczenik

Steve Pieczenik

Steve Pieczenik, MD, PhD is an American psychiatrist, former State Department official, author and publisher.-Early Life and Education:...

, a psychologist of the anti-terrorism section of the US State Department, a criminologist Franco Ferracuti, Stefano Silvestri, Vincenzo Cappelletti (director of the Istituto per l'Enciclopedia Italiana) and Giulia Conte Micheli.

Several members of the committees were later revealed to be members of the secret masonic lodge P2 (see Involvement of P2, Gladio and of the Italian intelligence services).

Terrorists involved in the kidnapping

Name	Date of capture	Outcome
Corrado Alunni	1978
Marina Zoni	1978
Valerio Morucci Valerio Morucci Valerio Morucci is an Italian former terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades and who took part in the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978.-Biography:...	1979	Life imprisonments. Freed in 1994, he works in the computer field
Barbara Balzerani Barbara Balzerani -Biography:Balzerani was born at Colleferro, in the province of Frosinone.In the 1970s she became a leader of the Red Brigades in Rome. She took part in several killings, such as that of Girolamo Minervini and the assassination of Aldo Moro's escort in Via Fani...	1985	Life imprisonment; paroled in 2006
Mario Moretti Mario Moretti Mario Moretti is an Italian former terrorist. A leading member of the Red Brigades in the late 1970s, he was one of the kidnappers of Aldo Moro, president of Italy's largest party, Democrazia Cristiana, and several times premier, in 1978; he later confessed to have been the one who killed the...	1981	6 life imprisonments. Semi-freed in 1994, worked for the Lombardy Lombardy Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe... regional council
Alvaro Lojacono Alvaro Lojacono Alvaro Lojacono is an Italian terrorist, currently a Swiss citizen.-Biography:Lojacono was born in Rome, the son of a member of the Italian Communist Party....	Never	Fled to Switzerland
Alessio Casimirri Alessio Casimirri Alessio Casimirri is an Italian terrorist and member of the Red Brigades , currently fugitive.Casimirri was born in Rome. His mother was a Vatican City citizen, and his father had worked for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and as the public relations man for three Popes.After a...	Never	Fled to Nicaragua Nicaragua Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean... , where he currently owns a restaurant
Rita Algranati	2004	Captured at Cairo Cairo Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life... ; life imprisonment
Adriana Faranda Adriana Faranda Adriana Faranda is an Italian former terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades during the kidnapping of Aldo Moro.-Biography:Faranda was born at Tortorici, in eastern Sicily....	1979	Freed in 1994 due to her collaboration
Prospero Gallinari Prospero Gallinari Prospero Gallinari is an Italian terrorist, a member of the Red Brigades in the 1970s and 1980s.-Biography:Gallinari was born at Reggio Emilia, into a family of Communist tradition...	1979	Released in 1994 for health reasons

Involvement of P2, Gladio and of the Italian intelligence services

Several authorities have suggested that Propaganda 2 (P2) was involved in the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. Propaganda Due was a secret masonic lodge involved in numerous financial and political scandals in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s and which featured as its members entrepreneurs, journalists, numerous high exponents of right-wing parties, the Italian police and military forces. Another theory supposes that the Red Brigades

Red Brigades

had been infiltrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

(CIA) or by the Organizzazione Gladio, a paramilitary clandestine network headed by NATO whose main alleged task was to oppose Soviet influence in western Europe.

It was suggested that Moro, at the time, had two escorts: an official one, sent as a bait to via Fani where it was massacred, and another composed of Gladio members chosen by him. This would also explain the fact that the "official" escort in via Fani was not wearing weapons as they were instead keeping them in the trunks of their cars. According to several sources, some of the agents were armed. This theory would also explain why the assaulted cars were not bulletproof. See also Theory of the alternative kidnapping

During the days of Moro's imprisonment journalist Carmine Pecorelli

Carmine Pecorelli

Carmine Pecorelli known as Mino, was an Italian journalist, shot dead in Rome a year after former prime minister Aldo Moro's 1978 kidnapping and subsequent killing...

(see also below) wrote, in his magazine Osservatorio politico, an article entitled "Vergogna, buffoni!" ("Shame on you, clowns!"): in it he wrote that Giulio Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti

had met general Dalla Chiesa who told the politician that he knew the location where Moro was kept, but did not obtain the authorization to proceed to free him due to (in Pecorelli's words) a certain "Christ's lodge in paradise". The likely allusion to P2 became clear only after the discovery of a list of the lodge members on 17 March 1981. Members of the lodge occupied important institutional positions and included: Giuseppe Santovito, director of SISMI; prefect Walter Pelosi, director of CESIS

CESIS

Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza was an Italian government committee whose mission was the coordination of all the intelligence sector, and specifically between the two civilian and military intelligence agencies , with the aim to report all the relevant information...

; general Giulio Grassini of SISDE; admiral Antonino Geraci, commander of SIOS; Federico Umberto d'Amato

Federico Umberto D'Amato

Federico Umberto d'Amato was an Italian secret agent, who led the Office for Reserved Affairs of the Italian of the Minister of Interior from the 1950s till the 1970s, when the activity of the intelligence service was undercover and not publicly known.-Biography:D'Amato was born in Marseille, and...

, director of the Office of Reserved Affairs of the Ministry of the Interiors; generals Raffaele Giudice and Donato Lo Prete, respectively commander and chief-of-staff of the Guardia di Finanza

Guardia di Finanza

The Guardia di Finanza is a Italian law enforcement agency under the authority of the Minister of Economy and Finance. Like the Carabinieri, it is part of the Italian Armed Forces. The Guard is essentially responsible for dealing with financial crime and smuggling; it has also evolved into Italy's...

; and Carabinieri general Giuseppe Siracusano, responsible for road blocks in the capital during the investigations of the Moro affair.

According to Vincenzo Cappelletti (a professor who took part in the crisis committees) Franco Ferracuti, later discovered to be a member of P2 and who declared that Moro was suffering of the Stockholm syndrome

Stockholm syndrome

In psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them...

towards his kidnappers, was close to the lodge during the kidnapping days, having been introduced by general Grassini. Licio Gelli declared that the presence of numerous members of P2 in the committees was casual, since numerous personalities were members at the time, and this was simply a statistic reflected by the composition of the committees. According to Gelli, some members of the committees did not know that some of their colleagues were also part of P2.

On 16 April 1978, the day of Moro's kidnapping, the most important members of P2 met in the Hotel Excelsior in Rome—a few hundred meters from the United States Embassy. While exiting the hotel Gelli declared "the most difficult part is done". It was supposed that his words referred to the abduction of Moro.

Another debated case was regarding the presence of Camillo Guglielmi, a colonel of SISMI

SISMI

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

's 7th Division which controlled Operation Gladio

Operation Gladio

Operation Gladio is the codename for a clandestine NATO "stay-behind" operation in Italy after World War II. Its purpose was to continue anti-communist actions in the event of a shift to a Communist party led government...

, in via Stresa near the location of the ambush, and in thos exact minutes when the BR kidnapped Moro. His presence was kept secret and was only disclosed 1991 during the investigation of the Italian Parliament commission on State Massacres. Guglielmi admitted that he was in via Stresa, but only because he had been invited to lunch by a colleague. According to several sources the colleague confirmed that Guglielmi came to his house, but had not been invited. Furthermore, Italians normally have lunch at around 12:30 and Guglielmi's presence at around 09:00 AM would be not justified. Other sources list Guglielmi as a true member of Gladio, but the officer always firmly denied this accusation. His direct superior, general Pietro Musumeci

Pietro Musumeci

Pietro Musumeci is a former general and deputy director of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI.A member of Propaganda Due, Musumeci was convicted in 1985, alongside with other SISMI officers Francesco Pazienza and Giuseppe Belmonte, for embezzlement and criminal association. Musumeci and...

, was a member of P2 and condemned for sidetracking the investigations on the 1980 Bologna Station bombing.

The discovery of the BR refuge in via Gradoli (see also below) saw the participation of members of both P2 and the police forces of Italy. Lucia Mokbel, an informer of SISDE, had communicated that she had heard MORSE

Morse code

Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...

messages coming from the flat next to her. She informed police commissar Elio Coppa, enlisted in the Propaganda Due, but the information was not taken into consideration. SISDE had been also informed that a car box in via Gradoli had an antenna, allegedly used by the terrorist to communicate with the area of Lake Duchessa. However Giulio Grassini, head of SISDE and member of P2, did not take any investigative measures.

Investigations made by DIGOS

DIGOS

The General Investigations and Special Operations Division , mainly known with its acronym DIGOS, is an Italian law enforcement agency, charged with investigating sensitive cases relating to terrorism, organized crime and serious offences such as kidnapping and extortion.It is a special operative...

discovered that several machines used by the terrorists to print their communications from one year before the kidnapping of Moro, which was financed by Moretti, had been previously owned by the Italian state. These included a printer owned by the Raggruppamento Unità Speciali dell'Esercito (part of SISMI, the office which trained Gladio agents) and, despite its relatively young age and its high value, had been sold out as a scrap. A photocopier was previously owned by the Ministry of Transportation, acquired in 1969 and later sold to Enrico Triaca, a member of BR.

The apartment in via Gradoli (see below) had been rented by Mario Moretti under the pseudonym of Mario Borghi since 1978. The same building housed several apartments owned by SISDE men and one inhabited by a police confidant. During the days of the kidnapping the palace was inspected by Carabinieri under colonel Varisco, with the exclusion of Moretti's apartment—the official justification was that the Carabinieri were not authorized to enter the apartments if no one was inside. The owner of the apartment, Luciana Bozzi, was later discovered to be a friend of Giuliana Conforto, whose father was named in the Mitrokhin list of the KGB

KGB

The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

. Morucci and Faranda were eventually arrested in her flat. Pecorelli wrote a postcard to Moretti in 1977 from Ascoli Piceno

Ascoli Piceno

Ascoli Piceno is a town and comune in the Marche region of Italy, capital of the province of the same name. Its population is c. 51,400.-Geography:...

(Moretti was born in the province of Ascoli), addressing it to one "Borghi at via Gradoli", with the message "Greetings, brrrr".

In June 2008 the Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, best known as "Carlos the Jackal", spoke in an interview released to the Italian press agency ANSA declaring that several men of the SISMI, led by colonel Stefano Giovannone (considered near to Moro) negotiated at the airport in Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

for the liberation of the politician during the night of 8 to 9 May 1978: the agreement would endorse the liberation of several imprisoned members of the BR to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist organisation founded in 1967. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization , the largest being Fatah...

in the territory of an Arabic country. According to Carlos the agreement, which found the opposition of the SISMI leading figures, failed because news about it leaked to other western secret services who, in turn, informed SISMI. Moro was killed the following day. Carlos stated that the officers involved in the attempt were all expelled from the services, being forced to resign or to go into compulsory retirement on a pension.

Involvement of foreign powers

In 2005 Giovanni Galloni, former national vice-secretary of Christian Democracy, said that during a discussion with Moro about the difficulty to find the Red Brigades' bases Moro told him that he knew of the presence of US and Israeli intelligence agents infiltrated within the BR. However the information obtained was not given to the Italian investigators. He also declared that the reason of the assassination of journalist Carmine Pecorelli was the same information, perhaps coming from the United States.

During an interview in front of the Italian parliament commission on terrorism Galloni also stated that, during his trip to the United States in 1976, he had been told that a government like that envisaged by Moro, which would include the Communist presence, would be opposed at "any cost" by the American Republicans.

During the 1983 trial against the BR Moro's widow, Noretta Chiavarelli, declared that her husband was unpopular in the United States due to the Historic compromise

Historic Compromise

matter, and that he had been repeatedly warned by American politicians to stop disrupting the political situation which had been established in the Yalta conference

Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D...

(in reference to the possible executive role of the Italian Communist Party). According to her Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

was one of the American personalities who menaced Moro in 1974 and 1976. She said that the words to Moro which he repeated to her were:
Kissinger denied these accusations.

The Italian RAI TV show La notte della Repubblica mentioned the possibility that the Red Brigades had been infiltrated by Israeli agents as early as 1974. Alberto Franceschini

Alberto Franceschini

Alberto Franceschini was a founder and leading member of the Italian left-wing militant organization, the Red Brigades , along with Renato Curcio, Margherita Cagol and Mario Moretti....

, one of the founders of BR, reported a confidence told to him by co-founder Renato Curcio

Renato Curcio

Renato Curcio is the former leader of the Italian left-wing militant organization, the Red Brigades .-Background:...

, according to whom Mario Moretti would be an infiltrated agent. Moretti took the reins of the Red Brigades after Franceschini and Curcio were arrested in the mid-1970s, introducing a far stronger militarization of the organization's activities.

The false Communication No. 7 and the discovery of the base of via Gradoli

Another controversial event occurred on April 18, 1978 when a false BR's "Communication No. 7" announced the death of Moro and that he had been buried near Lake Duchessa, in the province of Rieti

Province of Rieti

The Province of Rieti is a province in the Lazio region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Rieti.It has an area of 2,749 km², and a total population of 153,258 . There are 73 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Rieti.It was founded in 1927.-External links:*...

(north of Rome). In response the Italian police looked in vain for Moro under the iced surface of the lake.

The authors of the false communication included Antonio Chichiarelli, a notorious forger from Rome who was connected to the Banda della Magliana

Banda della Magliana

The Banda della Magliana was an Italian criminal organization based in Rome, particularly active throughout the late 1970s until the early 1990s. Given by the media, the name refers to the original neighborhood, the Magliana, of most of its members....

gang of the city. Chichiarelli would later issue further false communications from the Red Brigades. He was killed in uncertain circumstances in September 1984 when his connection with the false communiqué had been yet entirely clarified. Chichiarelli spoke of the communication to several people, including Luciano Dal Bello, a confidant of the Carabinieri and of SISDE. Del Bello reported the facts but no investigation on Chichiarelli followed.

In the same day that the police force found an apartment used as a base by the Red Brigades in Rome, on via Gradoli 96. The discovery was allegedly due to a water leak for which a neighbour had called the firemen. The leak was caused by a tap left open in the apartment's shower in an unusual fashion, i.e. with water directed against the wall. The base was normally used by Mario Moretti but the Italian media reported the discovery immediately and he avoided returning there. As previously mentioned, the palace had been inspected by Carabinieri under colonel Varisco, with the exclusion of Moretti's apartment: the official justification was that the Carabinieri were not authorized to enter the apartments if no one was inside. The owner of the apartment, Luciana Bozzi, was later discovered to be a friend of Giuliana Conforto, whose father was named in the Mitrokhin list of the KGB

KGB

, and in whose apartments Morucci and Faranda were later arrested.

The commissar who had led Rome's police forces in the inspection of the building on via Gradoli, Elio Coppa, was eventually promoted to vice-director of SISDE—he later turned out to be a member of P2. The neighbor whose call had led to the inspection, Lucia Mokbel, was officially a university student of Egyptian descent and was later identified as a confidant of SISDE or of the police. Furthermore the report of the inspection, which was presented at the trial on the Moro affair, was written on a type of paper distributed to the Italian police only in 1981, three years after the events.

Before, and after 1978, numerous apartments in the street had been used by Italian secret agents, including a Carabinieri NCO enrolled by SISMI who resided in the building facing that of Moretti and who was from the same birthplace. In the street there were also firms used by SISMI for its affairs. Moretti's apartment itself had been under observation by UCIGOS for several years previously as it had been frequented also by members of the far-left organizations Potere Operaio

Potere Operaio

Potere Operaio was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1968 and 1973. Among the group's leaders were Antonio Negri, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone and Valerio Morucci, who led its clandestine...

and Autonomia Operaia

Autonomia Operaia

Autonomia Operaia was an Italian extra-parliamentary leftist movement particularly active from 1976 to 1978. It emerged in 1972 not as a party but rather as a place of encounter among various extra-parliamentary and revolutionary left-wing tendencies opposed to reformism...

. Later it was revealed that the Christian Democracy parliament member Benito Cazora, during the contact he had with the 'ndrangheta (the Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

n mafia) in the attempt to find Moro's prison, had been warned that the area of via Gradoli was a "hot zone". Cazora had reported this warning to the DC and to the police.

Mino Pecorelli, already mentioned for his likely knowledge of the presence of Moretti in via Gradoli, was one of the few journalists to immediately deny the authenticity of "Communication No.7", whereas most authorities had considered it true.

Some 30 years after the events Steve Pieczenik, an expert on terrorism of the US State Department, declared in an interview that the decision to issue the false communication was taken during a meeting of the crisis committee, present at which were Francesco Cossiga, members of the Italian intelligence agencies and Franco Ferracuti (as previously mentioned, a member of P2). The alleged goal was to prepare the Italian and European audience for the likely death of Moro in the kidnapping. He however stated that it would be ignored if the communication had been actually issued. See also below

It was also supposed that Moro had told his kidnappers of the existence of Operation Gladio

Operation Gladio

, many years before its public revelation in 1991. From this point of view the false "Communication No.7" was a code message from sectors of the Italian secret agencies that Moro should not return alive from his imprisonment.

On 20 April 1978 the Red Brigades issued the true Communication No.7: they attached a photo of Aldo Moro holding a copy of La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...

, dated 19 April, showing that the politician was still alive.

The séance

Also connected to via Gradoli is an event which involved Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi

Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...

, Mario Baldassarri

Mario Baldassarri

Mario Baldassarri is an Italian economist and politician, and a member of Alleanza Nazionale. He was elected as a senator during the 2006 general election....

and Alberto Clò. During an alleged séance

Séance

A séance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat," "session" or "sitting," from the Old French "seoir," "to sit." In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma"...

in which they participated on 2 April 1978, after asking the "soul" of Giorgio La Pira

Giorgio La Pira

Giorgio La Pira was an Italian politician who served as mayor of Florence twice . He also served as deputy of the Christian Democratic Party and participated in the assembly that wrote the Constitution of Italy after World War II...

about the location of Moro, a Ouija table

Ouija

The Ouija board also known as a spirit/fire key board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, the words "yes", "no", "hello" and "goodbye", and other symbols and words are sometimes also added to help personalize the board...

they were using registered the words Viterbo

Viterbo

See also Viterbo, Texas and Viterbo UniversityViterbo is an ancient city and comune in the Lazio region of central Italy, the capital of the province of Viterbo. It is approximately 80 driving / 80 walking kilometers north of GRA on the Via Cassia, and it is surrounded by the Monti Cimini and...

, Bolsena

Bolsena

Bolsena is a town and comune of Italy, in the province of Viterbo in northern Lazio on the eastern shore of Lake Bolsena. It is 10 km north-north west of Montefiascone and 36 km north-west of Viterbo...

and Gradoli

Gradoli

Gradoli is a comune in the Province of Viterbo in the Italian region Latium, located about 100 km northwest of Rome and about 35 km northwest of Viterbo....

, three towns north of Rome. The information was trusted and a police group made an armed blitz in the town of Gradoli, 80 km from Rome

Rome

, on the following day, 6 April though Moro was not found. Prodi spoke to the Italian parliament's commission about the case in 1981. In the notes of the Italian parliament commission on terrorism the séance is described as a fake, used to hide the true source of the information. In 1997 Giulio Andreotti declared that the information came from the Bologna section of Autonomia Operaia

Autonomia Operaia

, a far-left organization with some ties with the BR, and that Cossiga also know the true source. Judge Ferdinando Imposimato

Ferdinando Imposimato

Ferdinando Imposimato - an Italian important prosecutor, in charge of investigation of Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, for the kidnapping of Aldo Moro and for some Mafia trial.-External links:* in Accuracy in Media...

considered Andreotti's theory as "possible", but accused him of having kept information that could have been valuable in a trial about Moro's murder.

Moro's widow later declared that she had repeatedly informed the police that a via Gradoli existed in Rome, but the investigators did not consider it — some replied to her that the street did not appear in Rome's maps. This is confirmed by other Moro relatives, but strongly denied by Francesco Cossiga.

In the 1990s the séance matter was reopened by the Italian parliament's commission on terrorism. While Prodi (then prime minister) declared that he had no time for an interview, both Baldassarri (senator and vice-minister in two Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...

cabinets) and Clò (minister of Industry in Lamberto Dini's cabinet and owner of the house where the séance was performed) responded to the call: they confirmed the circumstances of the séance, and that the word "Gradoli" had appeared in several sessions, even if the participants had changed.

Involvement of the Mafia

In the years following Moro's murder there have been numerous references to the presence of Calabrian 'ndrangheta at via Fani. In an intercepted phone call between Sereno Freato, then Moro's personal secretary, and Benito Cazora, a DC parliament member who had been given the task to keep contacts with the Calabrian gangs, Freato asks for news about the prison of Moro. The 'ndrangheta was in possession of several photos of the events in via Fani, some of which allegedly portrayed a "man known by them". According to what was reported by Cazora in 1991 some members of the 'ndrangheta, who had been expelled from Calabria, had offered their assistance to the Christian Democracy to discover the location of Moro, in exchange for the possibility to return to their homeland. However this collaboration never materialized.

According to the Sicilian Mafia pentito Tommaso Buscetta

Tommaso Buscetta

Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...

, several Italian state organizations tried to obtain information about Moro's location from the Mafia, but later Giuseppe Calò

Giuseppe Calò

Giuseppe 'Pippo' Calò is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was referred to as the "Mafia's Cashier" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering....

asked boss Stefano Bontate to stop the search, since the highest members of DC no longer desired the liberation of their fellow politician. The decision to abandon the search was taken between 9 and 10 April after Moro had revealed to his captors a series of very compromising information about the American CIA and Giulio Andreotti. Other sources report that the Sicilian Mafia changed its mind due to Moro's will to associate the Communist Party with the government.

In a deposition made at trial Raffaele Cutolo

Raffaele Cutolo

Raffaele Cutolo is an Italian crime boss and the charismatic leader of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata , an organisation he built to renew the Camorra. Cutolo has a variety of nicknames including "'o Vangelo" , "'o Principe" , "'o Professore" and "'o Monaco"...

, then leader of the Neapolitan camorra

Camorra

The Camorra is a Mafia-type criminal organization, or secret society, originating in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating to the 18th century.-Background:...

, declared that the Banda della Magliana

Banda della Magliana

asked him if he was interested in the liberation of Moro. He contacted the Italian secret service who replied to him to stay away from the matter.

On 15 October 1993 a 'Ndrangheta pentito, Saverio Morabito, declared that Antonio Nirta, another Calabrian gangster who had been infiltrated in the Red Brigades, took part in the assault in via Fani. Sergio Flamigni, a communist senator and member of the Italian Parliament commission on the Moro affair, wrote that when he learnt about Morabito's words he remembered about the testimony of Benito Cazora, who had declared that he had been approached by a Calabrian asking him about photos shot in via Fani.

According to the 'Ndrangheta pentito

Pentito

Francesco Fonti

Francesco Fonti is an Italian criminal and a member of the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-type organisation in Calabria, who became a turncoat collaborating with the authorities.-Early criminal career:...

, his boss Sebastiano Romeo

Sebastiano Romeo

Sebastiano Romeo , also known as U Staccu, was a historical 'Ndrangheta boss from San Luca in Calabria...

was involved in attempts to locate the place where Moro was held. Romeo had been asked by unnamed national and Calabrian Christian Democrats such as Riccardo Misasi and Vito Napoli to help out. With the help of SISMI

SISMI

Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

and the Banda della Magliana

Banda della Magliana

, Fonti was able to locate the house where Moro was kept. When he reported back, Romeo said that he had done a good job but that important politicians in Rome had changed their minds.

Role of Carmine Pecorelli

Journalist Carmine "Mino" Pecorelli

Carmine Pecorelli

Carmine Pecorelli known as Mino, was an Italian journalist, shot dead in Rome a year after former prime minister Aldo Moro's 1978 kidnapping and subsequent killing...

, who apparently had several informers in the Italian secret services, spoke repeatedly about the kidnapping of Moro in his magazine Osservatorio Politico (or simply OP). Before the events of via Fani, Pecorelli had already written about the possibility that Moro would be blocked in his attempt to admit the Italian Communist Party into the government. On 15 March 1978, one day before Moro was abducted, Osservatorio Politico published an article which, citing the anniversary of the killing of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

in relation with the upcoming formation of Andreotti's cabinet, mentioned a possible new Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus

Marcus Junius Brutus , often referred to as Brutus, was a politician of the late Roman Republic. After being adopted by his uncle he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, but eventually returned to using his original name...

(one of the assassins of Caesar, and a member of his family).

Articles written during the politician's imprisonment show that he already knew of the existence of a memorial (the documents written by Moro in his detention) and of some of the unpublished letters. Pecorelli stated that there were two groups within the Red Brigades, one favourable to the negotiations, and one who wanted to kill Moro in any case. He hinted that the group that had captured Moro in via Fani was not the same that was detaining him, and which had planned the whole move. He wrote:
When the terrorist base in via Gradoli was discovered Pecorelli stressed how in the apartment, different to what could be expected, all the proofs of the BR's presence were clearly displayed. Regarding the kidnapping he wrote that Moro's opening to the Communist Party was not welcome, both by the United States as it would change the political balance of southern Europe, nor by the Soviet Union since this would prove that Communists could reach power democratically, and without being a direct offshot of any Communist party

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

.

On 20 March 1979 Pecorelli was murdered in front of his house. In 1992 the Mafia pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...

Tommaso Buscetta revealed that the journalist had been eliminated as "a favor to Andreotti", who was preoccupied about some information about Moro's kidnapping in the possession of Pecorelli. The latter had allegedly received from general Dalla Chiesa (they were both affiliated or near to P2) a copy of a letter by Moro which contained dangerous accusations against Andreotti; the journalist had hinted about them in some previous articles. The unabridged letters were published only in 1991 when, together with others, it was discovered during renovation works in via Nevoso (only a resume of them, the so-called Memoriale Moro, had been previously issued). The fact that Moro's letters were circulating before 1991 is proven by a speech held by Bettino Craxi

Bettino Craxi

, leader of the Italian Socialist Party

Italian Socialist Party

(PSI), in which he mentioned a letter which had not been officially published at the time. The fact was considered a subtle menace against Andreotti in the war for the supreme political power waged between PSI and DC at the time.

Andreotti underwent a trial for his role in the assassination of Pecorelli. He was acquitted in the first grade trial, condemned in the second (2002), and finally acquitted by the Italian Supreme Court.

Pecorelli, in an article written the very day of his assassination, hinted to the role of opera composer Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch was a Ukrainian, Italian, and French composer and conductor.- Origin :Igor Markevich was born in Kiev, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century...

(see below) in the kidnapping.

Role of Steve Pieczenik

Steve Pieczenik

Steve Pieczenik, MD, PhD is an American psychiatrist, former State Department official, author and publisher.-Early Life and Education:...

was an American negotiatior and expert in terrorism who was sent by the US State Department, at the request of Cossiga, and remained in Italy for three weeks during Moro's detention. He later collaborated with Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...

as a novel and cinematic writer. His presence in Italy as a member of one of the previously mentioned "crisis committees" was revealed only in the early 1990s. Pieczenik had written to a relation in which he spoke about the possible effects of Moro's abduction, the possibility that the Red Brigades had been infiltrated by Italian agents, and also gave advice about how to find the terrorists. Eventually however, Pieczenik declared that this relation was false, since the ideas included were similar to those of the P2-affiliated criminologist Francesco Ferracuti, another member of the secret committee. Pieczenik also stated that he did not release any written document.

According to what was revealed by Cossiga and by Pieczenik himself, his initial idea was to show the will to negotiate, with the goal of gaining time and in the hope that the terrorists would make some error from which they could be detected. During later interviews, Pieczenik declared that there were numerous leaks about the discussions made at the committee:
Pieczenik also declared that, once returned to the United States, he met an alleged Argentinian secret agent who knew everything that had happened at the Italian crisis committee. Pieczenik explained the leak to Argentina with the presence in the committee of numerous members of the P2 lodge, which had strong ties with the South American country (its founder Licio Gelli had lived for a period there).

In a later interview to French journalist Emmanuel Amara, Pieczenik declared:
At his arrival in Italy Pieczenik had been informed by Cossiga and the Vatican

Vatican City

Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

intelligence services that there had been a coup attempt in Italy in previous months, led by right-winged personalities of the intelligence services and of P2. Pieczenik was astonished by the presence of so many fascists in the Italian intelligence services. The Red Brigades had also infiltrated the Italian institutions and obtained information from the children of politicians who were members of left and far-left organizations. With the help of the Vatican intelligence, which he considered superior to the Italian one, he investigated such infiltrations, but no measures were taken.

Pieczenik also declared that he participated in the decision to issue the false "Communication No.7", stating that he pushed the BR to kill Moro in order to de-legitimise them, once it was clear that the Italian politicians were not interested in his liberation. According to Pieczenik, the United States did not have a clear image of the situation in Italy, especially for the left and right-wing terrorist groups; he also said that he received no help from CIA or the US embassy in Italy.

Pieczenik explained his premature return to the US with the desire to avoid the accusations of American pressure behind the now likely death of Moro. Previously he had instead declared that he had left in order to deprive the decisions taken by the Italian institutions, which he considered inefficient and corrupted, of any US legitimisation.

Role of Igor Markevitch

Russian opera director Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch

Igor Markevitch was a Ukrainian, Italian, and French composer and conductor.- Origin :Igor Markevich was born in Kiev, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century...

has also been purported to have helped the kidnappers, housing them in his villa at Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

and perhaps preparing the questions made to Moro. His residence in Rome faced via Michelangelo Caetani (Markevitch had married the daughter of the nobleman after whom the street was named), where Moro's body was found after he was killed.

A report issued by SISMI in 1980 mentions one "Igor, of the dukes Caetani family", who had a prominent role in the Red Brigades organization. Two agents of SISMI were investigating near Paleazzo Caetani in the early May 1978 when Moro had not yet been murdered. They were stopped by an unspecified "superior intervention" (allegedly coming from the agency's director, Giuseppe Santovito, a member of P2). Markevitch has been also identified as the "mysterious intermediary" mentioned by the Red Brigades in their Communication No.4.

In the article written the very day in which he was killed, Mino Pecorelli, speaking of the "prison of the people" where Moro was kept, mentioned a palace having a frieze with lions and located in the centre of Rome; and described a duchess who could see the corpse of Moro from her balcony. The Caetani palace in which Markevitch and his wife lived had a bas-relief of two lions biting two horses.

Alleged presence of a marksman

In the course of Moro's capture the terrorists fired 93 bullets. These killed all the five members of the escort but left Moro with only a light wound in his thigh. Despite this apparent precision, members of the BR such as Valerio Morucci

Valerio Morucci

Valerio Morucci is an Italian former terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades and who took part in the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978.-Biography:...

declared that they had only a rough shooting training, obtained by firing their weapons in grottoes at night. The position of the bodyguards (two sitting in the front seats of Moro's car, and three in the following one), separated from the politician, likely made it easier for the ambush squad to direct their fire against them and avoid hitting Moro.

However several writers and observers suggested that the ambushers of via Fani included a marksman Sources such as the magazine l'espresso
L'Espresso
l'Espresso is an Italian newsmagazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies, the other being Panorama. Since the latter has been acquired by right-wing tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi, l'Espresso enjoys the reputation of being the main politically independent newsmagazine...

further suppose that he could have been a member of the Italian intelligence service and identify him as Giustino De Vuono, a marksman once part of the Foreign Legion

Foreign legion

Foreign legion or Foreign Legion is a title which has been used by a small number of military units composed of foreign volunteers.It usually refers to the French Foreign Legion, part of the French Army established in 1831.It can also refer to:...

: according to their reconstruction, the 49 bullets found in the bodies of the bodyguards would come from his weapon. A witness reporting on 19 April 1978 at Rome's Prefecture declared that he had recognized De Vuono driving a green Austin Mini or Autobianchi A112

Autobianchi A112

The Autobianchi A112 is a supermini produced by the Italian automaker Autobianchi. It was developed using the mechanicals which subsequently underpinned the Fiat 127. It was introduced in 1969, as a replacement for the Bianchina and Primula, and was built until 1986, when it made way for the more...

on the location of the massacre. De Vuono, who was affiliated to the 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia), on that day was not in his usual residence in southern Paraguay

Paraguay

Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...

(at the time under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner

Alfredo Stroessner

Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda, whose name is also spelled Strössner or Strößner , was a Paraguayan military officer and dictator from 1954 to 1989...

). Several members of the Red Brigades declared that their weapons were acquired from the Calabrian gangland, amongst others; further, it has been proved that members of DC got in touch with Calabrian gangsters to obtain a help in the liberation of Moro.

The identity of the alleged marksman has been also associated to the German terrorist group RAF. Another witness of the events in via Fani declared that some thirty minutes before the ambush a foreigner with German accent had addressed him, ordering to go away from the area.

Since some of the ammunition used for the massacre had been treated with a special preserving paint (which was also found in some secret depots related to the Gladio undercover organization), it has been suggested that these would come from some Italian military or paramilitary corps.

Theory of the alternative kidnapping

Journalist Rita di Giovacchino suggests that Moro was not in via Fani during the massacre, but had been taken prisoner by another organization and that the Red Brigades acted only as "front men". This would explain their reticence and the incongruity of their declarations about the whole kidnapping (from the ambush, to the presence of sand on Moro's corpse). According to her, this would also explain the sibylline remark pronounced by Sereno Freato, first secretary of Aldo Moro, when Carmine Pecorelli (see above) was also found dead: "Investigate on the instigators of Pecorelli's murder, and would find the instigators of Moro's murder". She thus lists as part of the same plot the deaths of Pecorelli, Chichiarelli (who would have been punished for his blackmailing attempts) and of Carabinieri colonel Antonio Varisco. Allegedly killed by the Red Brigades in 1979, although in circumstances never clear, Varisco had been at the helm of the investigation on the BR base in via Gradoli; he was also a friend of general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa (also murdered for never completely understood reasons), as well as of Pecorelli. The use made by BR of printing machines once owned by the Italian intelligence, according to di Giovacchino, shows that the latter were likely the organization behind all these bloody acts.

Mario Moretti declared that he was studying Moro's daily moves since 1976. Every morning the politician went with his grandson to a church near his house, after which he had a short walk with only one member of the escort. This looked like a more favourable moment to kidnap him, since most of the bodyguards were not present, but was not chosen by the terrorists. On the morning of his abduction Moro did not bring his grandson with him.

After the ambush in via Fani the terrorists took only the most interesting for them of the five bags that Moro carried with him. Those containing the politician's medicines and his reserved documents. Further, the necessity of inflicting a coup de grâce to any of the bodyguards is in contrast with a hurried attack typical of such acts, and is motivated only by the necessity to eliminate any possible witness that would reveal that Moro was not there. In a letter to his wife Moro wrote during captivity he asked her to take care of his bags. Since Moro was surely aware that if his bags had been found in the massacre location, they had been taken by the investigators. Also the absence from his letter of any word about the victims of via Fani has been taken as an element in favour of the theory that Moro was captured while in his Gladio escort (see Involvement of P2, Gladio and of the Italian intelligence services) and not in via Fani and so did not know anything about their assassination.

Doubts about the kidnapping

There are other numerous matters which have not been cleared and concern the events of Moro's capture in via Fani:

members of Moro's escort, who were not in service on the day of the kidnap, declared in September 1978 that Moro was a habitual person, and that every day he got out from his house exactly at 09:00 AM. However, Moro's widow denied this circumstance during her interview in front of the investigative judges on 23 September 1978.
Moro's widow also noted that in the politician's letters sent by the terrorists there is no trace of the destiny of his bodyguards: due to the character of Aldo Moro, she considered it improbable that he did not write a single word about the victims.
On 1 October 1993, in the course of the fourth trial on the Moro affair, ballistic experts released a report different to what wa declared by Valerio Morucci. According to their new report there was another member of the ambush squad who fired from the Fiat 130.
The number of the ambushers (the terrorists initially spoke of nine, later of eleven people) is considered small by other terrorists, such as Red Brigades co-founder Alberto Franceschini. He declared: "For the capture of Mario Sossi, in 1974, we were twelve. I think that managing a kidnapping such as that of via Fani in eleven is quite a hazard".
Alessandro Marini, an engineer who passed by via Fani the day of the assault, declared that two people on a Honda
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...

motorbike shot at him with a firearm. The motorbike preceded Mario Moretti's car. However, members of the Red Brigades always denied the presence of the Honda and did not explain the origin of the shooting against Marini.
An unexplained element is how the terrorists could have set the ambush in via Fani, since Moro's escort changed their routes daily. However, the terrorists for the occasion had taken measures, such as cutting the tyres of the lorry of a florist who worked in via Fani (in order to remove a dangerous witness during the ambush), which can be explained only by the exact knowledge of Moro's route that morning.
SIP
Telecom Italia
Telecom Italia is the largest Italian telecommunications company, also active in the media and manufacturing industries. Now a private concern listed on the Borsa Italiana, it was founded in 1994 by the merger of several state-owned telecommunications companies, the most important of which was...

, then Italy's national telephone company, was exceedingly inefficient on numerous occasions related with Moro's detainment. In particular, after the assault at via Fani, all the phone communications in the area were inoperative. Other cases included when, on 14 April, journalists of Rome's newspaper Il Messaggero
Il Messaggero
Il Messaggero is an Italian newspaper based in Rome, Italy, founded in 1878.It is owned by the Italian publishing company Caltagirone Editore, and its leaders include Azzurra Caltagirone, the partner of the political leader Pierferdinando Casini, on its board...

were waiting for a phone call from the terrorists. The six phone lines in the newspaper's office had been connected to police central but, when the call arrived, DIGOS
DIGOS
The General Investigations and Special Operations Division , mainly known with its acronym DIGOS, is an Italian law enforcement agency, charged with investigating sensitive cases relating to terrorism, organized crime and serious offences such as kidnapping and extortion.It is a special operative...

reported that all of them had been cut, with the result that the caller could not be identified. On 15 March 1978, the day before the capture of Moro, SIP had been alerted. However after Moro had been kidnapped, an inspection of the telephone lines in the area of via Fani showed that they were all out of order. This prevented any possible witness contact with the police before the ambush. The commander of DIGOS during the kidnapping days described SIP as "totally un-cooperative", and stated that "in no occasion did they find the origin of the kidnappers' calls", concluding by noting that Michele Principe, then general director of STET, the company owning SIP, was a member of P2.

Other suspicions and controversies

Cuchiarelli, the author of the false "Communication No.7", was related to the Banda della Magliana
Banda della Magliana
The Banda della Magliana was an Italian criminal organization based in Rome, particularly active throughout the late 1970s until the early 1990s. Given by the media, the name refers to the original neighborhood, the Magliana, of most of its members....

. Aside from its purely criminal activities this large gang in Rome was related to Sicilian Mafia and has been involved in numerous political and terrorist scandals since the 1970s. Judiciary acts have proved that members of the gang had a role in the assassination of Pecorelli and in the case of Roberto Calvi
Roberto Calvi
Roberto Calvi was an Italian banker dubbed "God's Banker" by the press because of his close association with the Holy See. A native of Milan, Calvi was Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of modern Italy's biggest political scandals...

(both of which saw the incrimination of Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...

), in the financial affairs of the Vatican City
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

(including the kidnapping of Emanuela Orlandi
Emanuela Orlandi
Emanuela Orlandi was a citizen of Vatican City, who mysteriously disappeared on June 22, 1983.-Disappearance:Orlandi, then 15-year-old, vanished on June 22, 1983. She was in her second year at a liceo scientifico in Rome...

), and in the sidetracking of the investigations on massacres such as that of Bologna Station. Judge Ferdinando Imposimato
Ferdinando Imposimato
Ferdinando Imposimato - an Italian important prosecutor, in charge of investigation of Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, for the kidnapping of Aldo Moro and for some Mafia trial.-External links:* in Accuracy in Media...

proved that the "Banda della Magliana" had strong ties with SISMI
SISMI
Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare was the military intelligence agency of Italy from 1977-2007....

(Italy's military intelligence agency), and that the latter inspired the farce of the communication and of the Lago della Duchessa. Finally, the apartment of via Montalcini, in which Moro was allegedly detained by the Red Brigades, was located in the Magliana
Magliana
The Magliana neighborhood or ward is located on the South-West periphery of Rome, Italy along the Tiber River. The neighborhood dates back to the mid 1900's and is home to a diverse group of people of all ages and ethnicities. About 40,000 people reside in Magliana; housing is made up of mostly...

quarter of southern Rome and a member of the gang owned the building facing that apartment.
Francesco Cossiga declared that Moro's confessor, Don Antonello Mennini (later Papal nuncio to Great Britain), was allowed to enter in the politician's cell just before his execution.

Political consequences

The kidnapping and murder of Moro drastically changed the politics of Italy.

The Historic Compromise

Historic Compromise

between DC and PCI, one of Moro's main goals, was not liked by Italy's main international partners. On 23 March 1976 Aldo Moro, during his tenure as prime minister, took part in the G7 conference in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

. When he asked his colleagues' opinions about the matter they replied to him that, if it materialized, the presence of the Communists in the executive would cause the loss of international support (including financial ones) for Italy. At the previous general elections, DC had scored a 38%, followed by PCI with 34%. Moro was considered a natural candidate for the next President of the Italian Republic

President of the Italian Republic

The President of the Italian Republic is the head of state of Italy and, as such, is intended to represent national unity and guarantee that Italian politics comply with the Constitution. The president's term of office lasts for seven years....

, with the ensuing realization of the government alliance between the two parties. His assassination marked the definitive end of the Historic Compromise.

On 16 March 1978, the very day of the kidnapping of Moro, Andreotti's cabinet obtained the vote of confidence: it was voted for by all the Italian parties, with the exception of the Social Movement

Italian Social Movement

The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...

, the Liberal Party

Italian Liberal Party

The Italian Liberal Party was a liberal political party in Italy.-Origins:The origins of liberalism in Italy came from the so-called "Historical Right", a parliamentary group formed by Camillo Benso di Cavour in the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia following the 1848 revolution...

(both on the far right wing), the Radical Party and of Proletarian Democracy

Proletarian Democracy

Proletarian Democracy was a political party in Italy.-1970s:DP was founded in 1975 as a joint electoral front of the Proletarian Unity Party , Workers Vanguard and the Workers Movement for Socialism...

(the latter being left/far left formations). The executive was formed exclusively by members from DC and could govern only with the indirect support of PCI (the so called "non-no confidence"). The party, now under the stronger influence of Andreotti's right wing and increasingly involved in scandals such (as that of P2 and the ties between the Mafia and Andreotti himself), remained a government party until 1992 when it was wiped out by the Mani Pulite

Mani pulite

Mani pulite was a nationwide Italian judicial investigation into political corruption held in the 1990s. Mani pulite led to the demise of the so-called First Republic, resulting in the disappearance of many parties. Some politicians and industry leaders committed suicide after their crimes were...

scandal.

The character of Moro was later stained by the results of some investigations regarding misappropriations related to large oil companies. One of Moro's main collaborators, Sereno Freato, was heavily involved in the so-called "oils scandal" which led to the arrest of the commander of the Guardia di Finanza

Guardia di Finanza

, and in other cases related to building and transport firms in Puglia (the region where Moro came from).

According to the acts of the Italian Parliament commission on terrorism:
In the course of the 1980s however, Italy was able to defeat the Red Brigades and the other terrorist groups, largely thanks to laws reducing the sentences to those who collaborated with the justice, or have dissociated from their groups. The BR replied to waves of arrests caused by the pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...

's revelations with a huge increase in their violence, reaching an apex in the early 1980s. However by 1989 nearly all of its members were jailed or had escaped abroad after the organization had split in two antagonistic factions.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.