On the eve of the Olympic games, a former U.S. ambassador to Italy, Richard N. Gardner, discussed with Newsweek Italian politics and Italy's ties to the United States.
The interview is the usual blah-blah, except when the ambassador comes to the argument of the Red Brigades group and the 'revolutionary' left-wing terrorism that plagued Italy during the seventies.

What was the reaction when the group kidnapped and murdered former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978?
Moro was certianly going to be the next president of the republic. That was such a horrofic event that all the political parties closed ranks, including the Communist Party. It was the doctrine of communists that animated these people, but the Communist Party quickly saw that this kind of violence was leading nowhere and stood firmly with other parties in opposing it. And they stood firmly in support of the police. I give credit to a number of courageous members of government and courageous police work and the people who ran the antiterror efforts in those days. There are still some people who call themselves Red Brigades, and they killed a leading member of the government recently who was advocating for labor reform. But the Red Brigades as a threat to the state doesn’t exist today as it did at the time when I was there.

Right mr. Richard N. Gardner. The time when you were there. Too bad many political analysts and historians, who wanted to see the truth behind the masquerade, found many, too many hints that the Red Brigades were left unharmed by the italian police during those years. They let them grow stronger. They infiltrated them up to the highest level but never crushed the organization as they could. They arrested or killed the less aggressive hystorical leaders of the organization and let the rest of the Red Brigades develop into a way more bloodthirsty, more hierarchic militarized organization¹.

After that and only after that came the Moro case. Moro, who wanted the communist party to enter into the government after thirty years of loyalty to italian democratic principles. And when Moro corpse was found, following 55 days of imprisionment in the city of Rome where thousands of policemen and investigators were supposed to go around searching for him, it was pretty clear to everybody that the Communist Party was out of the games and far from getting into the government as Moro had wanted.
Plus, because of the shock for the murder of Moro, the political experience of many Italian idealists, that believed in democracy and fought to make Italy a better place during the sixties & seventies, ended that day. Too bad for the country.

It's not that I really care for the Italian Communist Party or its legacy, but... Why the whole thing happened, mr. former Ambassador? I think you give the best explanation yourself, in the same interview:

There were fears at the time you were ambassador to Italy that the Communist Party could take control of the Italian government. How would the course of history been changed had they taken power?
When I arrived in Italy, the expectation was that they would enter into the government in a historic compromise with the Christian Democrats. That would have changed Italy’s foreign policy. We would never have been able to deploy the cruise missiles in Italy [to maintain a counterweight against the Soviet missiles that had been targeted at Western Europe]. I have quotes from several members of the Communist Party who said, categorically, we are against this and would never have permitted it if we were in government. Deploying those cruise missiles in Italy was the precursor to having them in Germany. And according to [former Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, that was a factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union—though not the only one, of course … The cruise-missile decision in Italy turned out to be a turning point though.

As the journalist Pecorelli, misteriously murdered after the death of Moro, wrote: Yalta decided via Fani [via Fani is the street of Rome where the Red Brigades ambushed and kidnapped Moro]. Meaning that someone was firmly against a possible change of italian foreign policy, by the hands of the communists. And it was this someone, determined to keep the Yalta order, who decided to stop Moro. The Red Brigades, in this case, being just the right, obtuse, well-prepared tool at hand.

I have only one more curiosity about this interview. Why saying this things now? It doesn't seem to be in tune with the eve of the Olympics 2006 in Turin. It's definitely more in tune with the eve of the next general elections, to be held in spring 2006 in Italy, when some of the heirs of that communist tradition, united with some of the heirs of Moro tradition, will likely come into power in Italy after the friendly Berlusconi disaster.

I think this was all just a little, polite, warning to them. Nobody's better than a former Ambassador to bring a friendly warning notice.

1. It is all too well documented, unfortunately. If you can read italian and are interested in this old stories, you want to read by Sergio Flamigni: La tela del ragno, Trame atlantiche and Convergenze Parallele; by Leonardo Sciascia: L'affaire Moro; by Girogio Galli, Il partito Armato

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Recently, there's been a little more talking about the (supposedly imminent) construction of the bridge over the strait of Messina. Ignoring the fact that magistrates are already investigating on contracts bids, and that the construction has not even started yet, Berlusconi declared that the bridge is going to make Sicily "100% italian" (whatever that means).

Dismissing fears of Mafia infiltration and environmental damage, the premier highlighted that the bridge would greatly boost the island's economy.

He said construction site alone would bring thousands of tourists to the island, drawn by the prospect of seeing the world's longest suspension bridge going up .

"It'll be like a huge cinema set," the premier told local journalists .

Tourists will come all the way to Sicily to see, however long it might be, a suspension bridge? Sure, Mr. Berlusconi, sure. Someone hand me the straitjacket, please.

This story made me remember a short note I read on one of the most beautiful books about literature and Italy I ever bumped into, Nero su Nero ("Black on Black") by the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia¹ (finally resumed by the cardboards where my books were in).
Nero su Nero is a book, in fact, all made of sometimes dramatic, some other witty and ironic notes, records and observations. Like the following.

The commendatore G., man of wit despite being a commendatore, is used to punctuate the tale of his troubles with two quips accompanied by irresistible mimic. The first one: "When God the Father wants to cheat someone?" (and he mimics God the Father in the Highest scanning below, shielding his eyes to pick on the earth the place were the fraud is certain). "Dang: he makes it to be born in Sicily"² (the gesture of someone who lets a thing drop by, the satisfied look that watches a fall that will explode in a firework full of joy). The second: "The remedy to Sicily's troubles?". A pause that presses the anxious attention of the listeners. "It does exists". Another, longer pause. "The airplane".
I am not getting on the plane. But I have to confess, these days I feel that I have been awfully and irreparably cheated. (Leonardo Sciascia, Nero su Nero, 1979. Translation by Italy is Falling)

Tomorrow, I may add, the one-hundred-percent-italian, cheated-as-always sicilians will have another remedy for their troubles: the bridge.

<sub>1. I am not linking Wikipedia in english here, because the article about Sciascia is so completely wrong I don't even feel like editing it (lawyer?! For chrissake he was a schoolteacher!).
2. Later Sciascia coined this expression: Sicily as a metaphor. Metaphor for the whole Italy, of course.</sub>