Giulio Andreotti

 

Giulio Andreotti (Italian: [ˈʤuːljo andreˈɔtti]; January 14, 1919 – May 6, 2013) was an Italian politician of the now dissolved centristChristian Democracy party. He served as the 41st 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 (1954 and 1978), Defense Minister (1959–1966 and 1974) and Foreign Minister (1983–1989) and he has been a senator for life since 1991. He was also a journalist and author. He died in Rome on 6 May 2013.

He is sometimes called Divo Giulio (from Latin Divus Iulius, "Divine Julius", an epithet of Julius Caesar). The movie Il Divo tells about Andreotti's links with the Mafia and won the Prix du Jury at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. During the 16th term of the Senate in 2008-2013, he opted to join the parliamentary group UDC - independence.

 

Early years

Andreotti was born in Rome into a family from Segni. He studied law in Rome, during which time he was member of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI, or Italian Catholic University Federation), which was then the only Catholic university association allowed by the Fascist government. Its members included many of the future leaders of the Italian Democrazia Cristiana (or DC, the Christian Democracy party). In July 1939, while Aldo Moro was president of FUCI,[3] Andreotti became director of its magazine Azione Fucina. In 1942, when Moro was enrolled in the Italian Army, Andreotti succeeded him as president of FUCI, a position he held until 1944.

During World War II, Andreotti wrote for the Rivista del Lavoro, a Fascist propaganda publication, but was also a member of the then clandestine newspaper Il Popolo. In 1944 he became member of the National Council of DC. After the end of the conflict, he became responsible for the youth organization of the party.

In 1946, Andreotti was elected to the Assemblea Costituente, the provisional parliament which had the task of writing the new Italian constitution. His election was supported by Alcide De Gasperi, founder of the modern DC, whose assistant Andreotti became. In 1948, he was elected to the newly formed Chamber of Deputies to represent the constituency of Rome-Latina-Viterbo-Frosinone, which remained his stronghold until the 1990s.

 

First government positions (1950s and 1960s)

Andreotti began his government career in 1947, when he became undersecretary to the President of the Council of Ministers in the fourth De Gasperi cabinet, a position he held until January 1954, covering all subsequent cabinets led by De Gasperi and the following one led by Giuseppe Pella. Among his actions was the signing of the act establishing the Canto degli Italiani as Italy's national anthem.

In 1954, Andreotti became Minister of the Interior. Later he was Finance Minister, and was involved in the so-called scandalo Giuffrè (a banking fraud) of 1958, due to his lack of vigilance as minister. The Chamber of Deputies rejected all accusations against him in December of the following year. In 1961-1962 he was officially censured by the Chamber for irregularities in the construction of Rome'sFiumicino Airport.

In the same period, Andreotti started to form a corrente (unofficial political association) within DC, which was then the largest party in Italy. His corrente was supported by the Roman Catholic right wing. It started its activity with a press campaign accusing the Deputy National Secretary of the DC, Piero Piccioni, of the murder of fashion model Wilma Montesi at Torvaianica. After eliminating De Gasperi's old followers in the DC National Council, Andreotti helped another newly formed corrente, the Dorotei, to oust Amintore Fanfani, who was on the left of the party, as Prime Minister of Italy and National Secretary of the DC.

On November 20, 1958 Andreotti, then Minister of the Treasury, was appointed President of the Organizing Committee of the 1960 Summer Olympics to be held in Rome. In the early 1960s Andreotti was Minister of Defence. This was the period of the SIFAR dossiers scandal and of the Piano Solo, a coup planned by the neo-fascist general Giovanni De Lorenzo. Andreotti, as minister, was entrusted with the destruction of the dossiers. It has been ascertained that the dossiers, before being destroyed, had been copied and given to Licio Gelli, the leader of the secret masonic lodge Propaganda 2, which was involved in numerous scandals during the 1980s, and with which Andreotti was frequently associated.

In 1968, Andreotti was named speaker of the parliamentary group of the DC, a position he held until 1972.

 

Prime Minister

In 1972, Andreotti began his first term as Prime Minister of Italy. He held the post in two consecutive centre-right cabinets in 1972–1973. He also held important positions in subsequent governments.

Giulio Andreotti (left), with US President Richard Nixon and singerFrank Sinatra at the White House, 1973.

When he was Minister of Defense, he declared in an interview that the state had provided a cover for the far-right activist Guido Giannettini, investigated for the Piazza Fontana bombing. Andreotti was acquitted of having helped Giannettini.

In 1974–1976, Andreotti was Minister of Foreign Affairs. During his tenure, Italy opened and developed diplomatic and economic relationships with Arab countries of the Mediterranean Basin, a policy previously pursued only at non-government level, such as by Enrico Mattei's ENI. He also supported business and trade between Italy and Soviet Union.

In 1976, the Italian Socialist Party left the centre-left government of Aldo Moro. The ensuing elections saw the growth of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the DC kept only a minimal advantage as the relative majority party in Italy, which was then suffering from an economic crisis and from terrorism. After the success of his party, PCI secretary Enrico Berlinguer approached DC's left-leaning leaders, Moro and Fanfani, with a proposal to bring forward the so-called "historic compromise", a political pact proposed by Moro which would see a government coalition between DC and PCI for the first time. Andreotti was called in to lead the first experiment in that direction: his new cabinet, formed in July 1976, included only DC members but had the indirect support of the other parties, except the post-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano. This support was based on the so-called non-sfiducia ("non-challenge"), meaning that these parties would abstain in any confidence vote. This cabinet fell in January 1978.

Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti (far left) with G7 leaders in Bonn, 1978.

In March 1978, the crisis was overcome by the intervention of Moro, who proposed a new cabinet, again formed only by DC politicians, but this time with positive confidence votes from the other parties, including the PCI. This cabinet was also chaired by Andreotti, and was formed on March 16, 1978, the day on which Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the communist terrorist group the Red Brigades. The dramatic situation which followed brought PCI to vote for Andreotti's cabinet for the sake of what was called "national solidarity", despite its refusal to accept several previous requests.

Andreotti's role during the kidnapping of Moro is controversial. He refused any negotiation with the terrorists, and was sharply criticized for this by Moro's family and by a segment of public opinion. Moro, during his imprisonment, wrote a statement expressing very harsh judgements against Andreotti. Moro was killed by the Red Brigades in May 1978. After his death, Andreotti continued as Prime Minister of the "National Solidarity" government with the support of the PCI. Laws approved during his tenure include the reform of the Italian National Health Service. However, when the PCI asked to participate more directly in the government, Andreotti refused, and the government was dissolved in June 1979. Due also to conflict with Bettino Craxi, Secretary of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), the other main party in Italy at the time, Andreotti did not hold any further government position until 1983.

 

1980s and 1990s

In 1983, Andreotti became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first cabinet of Bettino Craxi. He held this position until 1989, among other things encouraging diplomacy between the USA and the Soviet Union and improving Italian links with Arab countries. In this respect he followed a line similar to that of Craxi, with whom he had an otherwise troubled political relationship.[11] Andreotti supported Craxi's moves during the hijacking of the Achille Lauro ship.

On April 14, 1986, Andreotti revealed to Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgham that the United States would bomb Libya the next day in retaliation for the Berlin disco terrorist attack which had been linked to Libya. As a result of the warning from Italy – a supposed ally of the US – Libya was better prepared for the bombing. Nevertheless, on the following day Libya fired two Scuds at the Italian island of Lampedusa in retaliation. However, the missiles passed over the island, landing in the sea, and caused no damage.

As Craxi's relationship with the then National Secretary of the DC, Ciriaco De Mita, was even worse, Andreotti was instrumental in the creation of the so-called "CAF triangle" (from the initials of the surnames of Craxi, Andreotti and another DC leader, Arnaldo Forlani) opposing De Mita's power. In 1989, when De Mita's government fell, Andreotti was called to succeed him. He remained Prime Minister until 1992.

This last period as Prime Minister was turbulent. Andreotti chose not to dissolve the cabinet after ministers on the left of the DC resigned after the approval of a law strengthening Silvio Berlusconi's monopoly on private television. Tension with Craxi re-emerged after the publication of letters by Moro in which Andreotti saw a role for the leader of the PSI. The Gladioscandal, the violent political declarations by President Francesco Cossiga and the first revelations of the Tangentopoli corruption scandal characterized the last years of his premiership.

 

1990s and 2000s

In 1992, at the end of the legislature, Andreotti resigned as Prime Minister. The previous year, Cossiga had appointed him senator for life.

Andreotti was one of the most likely candidates to succeed Cossiga as President of the Republic in 1992. He and the members of his corrente had adopted a strategy of launching his candidature only after effectively quenching all the others, including that of Forlani. However, this strategy was thwarted by the assassination of judge Giovanni Falcone in Palermo, which followed that of Salvo Lima, a Sicilian politician strongly linked to Andreotti, two months before. The national emergency which resulted led to the election of Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, a less political figure, supported also by the left.

Andreotti was untouched during the first stages of Tangentopoli, but in April 1993, after being mentioned in the declarations of several pentiti (people abandoning criminal and terrorist organizations), he was investigated for having Mafia connections. In 1994 the Democrazia Cristiana vanished from the political sphere. Andreotti joined the Italian People's Party founded by Mino Martinazzoli, abandoning it in 2001 after the creation of La Margherita.

In 2006, Andreotti stood for the presidency of the Italian Senate, but only obtained 156 votes against the 165 of Franco Marini.

On January 21, 2008 he abstained from a vote in the Senate concerning Minister Massimo D'Alema's report on foreign politics. Together with the abstentions of another life senator,Sergio Pininfarina, and of two communist senators, this caused the government to lose the vote. Consequently, Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned. On previous occasions, Andreotti had always supported Prodi's government with his vote.

 

Mafia trial

Andreotti was investigated for his role in the 1979 murder of Mino Pecorelli, a journalist who had published allegations that Andreotti had links with the Mafia and with the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. A court acquitted him in 1999 after a trial that lasted three years, but he was convicted on appeal in November 2002 and sentenced to twenty-four years' imprisonment. The eighty-three-year-old Andreotti was immediately released pending an appeal. On October 30, 2003 an appeal court overturned the conviction and acquitted Andreotti of the original murder charge. That same year, the court of Palermo acquitted him of ties to the Mafia, but only on grounds of expiry of statutory terms. The court established that Andreotti had indeed had strong ties to the Mafia until 1980, and had used them to further his political career to such an extent as to be considered part of the Mafia itself.

Andreotti defended himself by saying he took harsh measures against the Mafia while in government. Andreotti's seventh government (1991–92) did take a number of decisive steps against the Mafia, thanks to the presence of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone at the Ministry of Justice. "When he says that he took extremely harsh measures against the Mafia, he isn't lying", wrote Eugenio Scalfari, editor of the newspaper La Repubblica. "I think at a certain point in the late Eighties he realised that the Mafia could not be controlled. He awoke from his perennial distraction ... and the Mafia, which realised that it could no longer count on his protection or tolerance, assassinated his man in Sicily."[15] His man in Palermo was Salvo Lima, who was murdered by the Mafia in March 1992. The murder of Lima was a turning point in relations between the Mafia and its political associates. The Mafia felt betrayed by Lima and Andreotti. In their opinion they had failed to block the January 1992 confirmation by the Court of Cassation (court of final appeal) of the sentence in the Maxi Trial of 1986, which had sent scores of Mafiosi to jail.

 

Assassination of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa

In 1982 Andreotti asked Carabinieri General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa to accept the position of Prefect of Palermo. In a note dated April 2, 1982 to Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini, Dalla Chiesa wrote that the Sicilian membership of Democrazia Cristiana linked with Andreotti were the most infiltrated by the Mafia.

According to Mino Pecorelli's sister, Dalla Chiesa met with Pecorelli (they were both members of the secret masonic lodge Propaganda 2) a few days before the latter was assassinated in 1979. Pecorelli gave Dalla Chiesa several documents containing serious accusations against Andreotti. Just before his death in 1993, Andreotti's collaborator Franco Evangelistidescribed to a journalist an alleged secret meeting between Andreotti and Dalla Chiesa, during which Dalla Chiesa had shown Andreotti the complete statement of Aldo Moro (published only in 1990) containing dangerous revelations about Andreotti.

Dalla Chiesa was ambushed in his car and shot dead, together with his wife, in September 1982. The judges' reconstruction has proved that the Mafia had been planning the assassination of Dalla Chiesa since 1979, three years before he became Prefect of Palermo.

 

About Andreotti

• "He seemed to have a positive aversion to principle, even a conviction that a man of principle was doomed to be a figure of fun." Margaret Thatcher.