Italian Newspapers and the Moro Affair

ITALIAN NEWSPAPERS__ AND THE MORO AFFAIR John L. Harper O'n the morning of March 16, 1978, Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democratic party (DC), and his plain-clothes escort were ambushed at the corner of via Mario Fani and via Stresa, near Moro's home in northwest Rome. In less than five minutes, a nine-member "commando" team blocked the Moro party's two automobiles, seized the party president, and sped him off to a secret "people's prison." The gunmen (and one woman) were members of the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse or BR), a clandestine organization whose aim was to overthrow the Italian state. Moro's five bodyguards were killed or mortally wounded on the spot. Only one managed to escape from his car and return a few shots before falling backward onto via Fani under pistol and submachine gun fire. So began the extraordinary "Moro affair," a drama that consumed the world's attention until, after fifty-five days of soul-searching, pathos, and suspense, it ended, as it began, in violent death. Moro's body, containing eleven bullets, was found on May 9 in the rear compartment of a red Renault-4. The Renault was parked in via Caetani, a small street in central Rome, near both Christian Democratic and Communist party headquarters. Aldo Moro was Italy's most important political leader. Today, ten years after his kidnapping and murder, these events can be seen as a turning point in Italian postwar history. Moro's disappearance marked the beginning of the end of collaboration between the DC and the Italian Communist party (PCI) that Moro himself had promoted. It also provided the shock that led the political system to mobilize its resources decisively against a left-wing terrorist assault. Finally, the Moro affair sparked an John L. Harper is associate professor of European studies and U.S. foreign policy at The Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, Bologna Center in Italy. 247 248 SAIS REVIEW inconclusive but fascinating and instructive debate about the behavior of the Italian information media during a serious terrorist incident. The Italian printed press played an active role during what was both a major national emergency and a compelling news event. Moro's importance arose from his ability to design alliances for a party that had long since lost its absolute majority but was determined to keep its preeminent political role. In the early 1960s Moro had coopted and domesticated the Italian Socialist party (PSI). In the mid-1970s he turned his attention to the Communists, whose own strategy after 1973 called for a "historic compromise," or coalition with the DC. Co-opting the Communists, however, was a riskier operation, as many feared that the powerful PCI, under its charismatic leader Enrico Berlinguer, would gain the upper hand in a power-sharing arrangement. Still, after the PCIs advance in the 1976 elections, even such conservative DC leaders as Giulio Andreotti realized that temporary cooperation with the Communists was unavoidable in order to guarantee a stable government majority and deal with a serious economic crisis. Arrangements including indirect PCI support for a government headed by Andreotti had broken down in late 1977, leading to a twomonth political crisis. On the morning of his kidnapping Moro was on his way to parliament for the vote of confidence that was to end the crisis on the basis of a compromise that Moro himself had designed. According to Moro's plan, the PCI would convert its abstention into active membership in the majority (along with the Christian Democrats, the Socialists, the Republicans, and the Social Democrats), something that had been strongly opposed by most Christian Democrats, as well as Italy's major allies. In return, the Communists were to receive far less (a greater voice in the government program) than they had initially demanded (several ministerial posts). Moro was the only man with sufficient persuasive power and political authority to arrange a deal that would avoid new elections and a breakdown in "national solidarity," as budding DC-PCI cooperation was called. It was only natural that the BR saw Moro as a master architect and manipulator of the Italian political system. By seizing him, they hoped to...