ABSTRACT: Following the publication of documents in the U.S., a scandal has broken out concerning bribes paid by the Lockheed company for the purchase of C-130 Hercules transport aircraft on the part of the Italian Air Force. The committee of inquiry, which the Radicals have been excluded from, stops short when it comes to investigating the responsibilities of the President of the Republic, Giovanni Leone, omitting a whole series of investigations and inspections. In a few day's time, the Radical members of parliament reconstruct a month-long preliminary investigation. Inquiries that have been interrupted, letters in English that have never been translated into Italian, connections that have been disregarded. The result is a Radical counterinvestigation and a parliamentary offensive that leads to the resumption of investigations before the committee of inquiry. The Lockheed affair is not just a matter of frauds and bribes, or the story of two corrupt ministers. It is much more.

(Radical News No.10, March 12, 1977)

Twenty-two thousand pages of statements of charges, examinations, letters, documents, clues, evidence. Whole boxes full of material. This is the "dossier" of the Lockheed trial. The Radical members of Parliament ask the Presidency of the Chamber to view the material as soon as the reports of the prosecution are deposited. The terms to appeal against the acquittal of Rumor (1) start to elapse. There follow days of frenzy negotiations between the PCI, the PRI and the PSI, and of violent discussions and decisions on the part of the Socialist members of Parliament. The Radical members of Parliament have already deposited the request for the indictment of Rumor for the collection of the 477 necessary signatures.

Five days should elapse, but the Socialist and Republican decision blocks the initiative. However, from that moment on, the Radical parliamentary group undertakes a new, breathless battle against time. The Radicals have been excluded from the Committee of Inquiry.

First defendant: the committee of inquiry

The subject is totally unknown. The problem is to go through and reconstruct years of preliminary investigations, carried out by Judge Martella first and then by the Committee of Inquiry. The problem is also that of trying to understand the line of thought followed by the Committee in this odd and contradictory penal procedure. Lastly, the difficulty is also that of pondering constitutional, legislative and precedural problems, for which there are no precedents, except an alarming and aberrant precedent, the "Trobucchi case". There follow twenty days of uninterrupted, frenzy work. Day and night, Marco Pannella, Franco De Cataldo, Emma Bonino, Roberto Cicciomessere, Mauro Mellini and Marisa Galli, assisted by Antonio Taramelli, by a number of journalists and a handful of companions who translate from English, work on those documents. As a group, they achieve something which no other political group had ever achieved. Surrounded by the disapproval of the other parties, by a dishonest polemic and by the attempt

s to lynch them morally carried out by the Communist press, some Socialists and the group of Il Manifesto (2), the Radicals assume the role which should belong to the entire Parliament, that of the true Public Prosecution of this political trial. And they discover that in addition to Gui (3), Tanassi (4) and Rumor (the latter has already been acquitted thanks to the decision of the Socialists and the Republicans), there are other defendants in this trial. The first defendant is the Committee of Inquiry itself, for the way in which it conducted the preliminary investigation.

The inquiry does not investigate the responsibilities of the President of the Republic

The Committee of Inquiry is a defendant as a consequence of an unconstitutional law passed by Parliament in 1962 and because of the parliamentary regulation on proceedings which, arbitrarily transforming it into a "court of ministers", has given it the power of assumption, dismissal and even acquittal, a power which on the basis of the Constitution it must and cannot have. But the Committee of Inquiry is even more guilty for the political equilibriums which it is the expression of, for the way in which all the parties, united despite the conflicts in the single trials and the occasional differences, have accepted to manage parliamentary institutions and the delicate mechanisms of penal proceedings.

The radical members of Parliament, the temporary members of Parliament, their companions, investigate facts that others have refused to investigate. And in the process, they discover further, serious evidence, converging clues, obvious concessions, other offences, other charges, important witnesses who have never been questioned, arrest warrants and extradition requests processed with bureaucratic sluggishness or dropped altogether, current accounts that have never been examined, a refusal to cooperate on the part of the Swiss authorities to which no reaction has been opposed, a whole dossier of letters containing delicate and extremely important information that has never even been translated. What appears to be evident to our members of Parliament is that the real protagonist of this trial is neither Gui nor Tanassi, and not even Rumor. The true protagonist of the trial is the lawyer Ovidio D'Ovidio Lefebvre, who followed all the steps of the debate from far-away Mexico, safe from any extradition requests.

Ovidio D'Ovidio Lefebvre is not just the intermediary between corruptors and corrupt, he is not just the mastermind of the bribing operation for the purchase of the C-130s, he is much more: he is the representative of the U.S. multinationals for all transactions concerning the aeronautical and the U.S. space industry. His name even appears on a document as the representative of the U.S. Government. He cannot be mistaken with the score of meddlers, speculators and extortioners who crowd the political shadow world of the currents, the parties, the ministers. He cannot be downgraded to a petty con man or a braggart, as Tanassi claims. He has public and business relations with the political milieu, not friendships. With the sole exception of one close, important, constant friendship: the friendship with the former Prime Minister and now President of the Republic, Giovanni Leone. The two exert the same profession. They belong to the same milieu, the upper-class Neapolitan bourgeoisie, they are family friends, th

ey are together at dinner parties, trips, fancy occasions. But the trial documents reveal that there are other aspects to their friendship, and not just political aspects.

The Radical objective: to reopen the investigation

The Lockheed inquiry carefully examines all the relations which the Lefebvre brothers have had with Gui, Tanassi and Rumor. But the relations with Gui and Tanassi depend exclusively on the conclusion of the C-130 Hercules deal. The encounter with Rumor is occasional, and of a strictly business-like nature. On the other hand, Lefebvre's relation with Leone, its nature, the circumstances that characterize it, its continuity in time, make it clear that it is of a completely different kind. The documentary evidence punctually converges in that direction, from different moments, occasions, circumstances act and even proceedings. And each time, one has the impression that the inquiries of the investigators stop short of this direction, that they isolate the Lockheed affair from the other affairs, from the logical and historical precedents of the Lockheed investigation, to avoid facing the evidence of the connections and of the continuity. Thus, one has the impression that little has been done to ensure the presenc

e in Italy of Ovidio D'Ovidio Lefebvre, to have him testify on his function and his role, on his acquaintances and relations, on these State affairs of which he was the protagonist and of which the co-protagonist is possibly the current President of the Republic. We are on the eve of opening the parliamentary debate. By referring to art. 26 of the regulation, the Radical members of Parliament announce, during a press conference, that they will ask the other groups and the single members of Parliament to promote a supplement of preliminary investigation enabling to carry out the investigations that have not been carried out. In order to avoid any doubts, and any possibilities of using this investigations for dubious manoeuvres, the Radicals suggest that the "congruous deadline" laid down by the regulation be 60 days. However, they do not hope in the acceptance of this proposal. This is the first stage of the Radical party's political battle to obtain the extension of the inquiry.

The lynching of the regime press

Pannella intends to promote the request authorized by art. 26 of the regulation, not in the preliminary stage but during the debate, if and when there will be the political opportunity. The Lockheed inquiry has been reduced: it is part of a much vaster affair, far more extended in time, whose precedents are the affair concerning the P3 airplanes, and whose latest evidence dates back to '74 and '75. The untranslated letters that lead to the Quirinale (5) date back to these two years, whereas the C-130 episode stops in 1971. The indictment request of Gui and Tanassi is only the tip of this vaster affair. Pannella and the companions of the parliamentary group know it will be difficult to convince parties, parliamentary groups, men who are co-responsible for this formulation of the inquiry, to change their minds. In fact, the following day marks the beginning of the campaign conducted by the party and regime press, which we will quote significant excerpts of. The masterminds of this operation are Falaschi from "

L'Unità" (6), Matteuzzi from "Il Manifesto", Guido Paglia from "Il Resto del Carlino", as well as Trovati and Scardocchia from "La Stampa". But the bulk of work carried out in a handful of days and a few nights, and the further researches convince us that the direction is the right one. The trial against Gui and Tanassi must not become the trial against two scapegoats, but the beginning of a vaster process in which truth, if not justice, will emerge.

The reaction of the other parties do not differ from those of their newspapers and of the official press: Socialist Felisetti, the one who first voted against and then in favour of Rumor, accuses us of being secret agents of the DC. In Parliament, our members of Parliament are surrounded by the irony and the contempt of the Communists. During the following days, this attitude will change, and the reactions of the communists themselves will become more cautious and responsible. Only Falaschi on "L'Unità" will continue his work to lynch us.

The parliamentary debate begins. The radical members of Parliament assume another aspect of this battle: the regulation, the interpretation of the Constitution, the quorum necessary to incriminate the ministers.

A trial polluted by unconstitutionality

At the opening of the parliamentary proceedings, with both Chambers united, Pannella proposes a ten-day suspension to enable the two Chambers to pass a law which truly interprets the legislative text that establishes that the quorum for the incrimination of the ministers is represented by the absolute majority of the voters, and not by the absolute majority of the members of Parliament. This latter quorum is explicitly provided in the Constitution to impeach the President of the Republic. "We were not so much concerned about lowering the quorum", says Emma Bonino intervening in the debate, "to incriminate Gui and Tanassi, even if the current quorum will enable the DC to hope, until the very end, to acquire or to obtain the vote blackmailing some of its accomplices; we were concerned about eliminating at least the most evident exceptions of nullity and unconstitutionality which intersperse this indictment and which could subsequently cause the trial to stop before the Constitutional Court to prevent it to rea

ch its conclusion". This is exactly the contrary, therefore, of that which the others accuse us to want: we are asking to suspend the debate today to prevent the trial from being postponed or dismissed tomorrow. The proposal is rejected on the basis of a questionable interpretation of the regulations. Ingrao (7) appeals to a norm which prevents a debate from being suspended. But we are in the preliminary stage. He maintains that the stage of the debate at the united Chambers has no jurisdictional character, as before the Committee of Inquiry and the Constitutional Court (but the idea of a jurisdictional proceeding is absurd and abnormal) to maintain the unacceptability of the matters of constitutionality.

Thus, the proposal to hear the lay defendants and their lawyers is rejected. The proceeding before Parliament is therefore aggravated by all the defects of the 1962 law. It will continue to be aggravated by such defects until, faced to the choice between voting or not voting on the postponement before the Constitutional Court of the lay defendants, an absurd hybrid solution is chosen: that of a single cumulative vote.

Adele Faccio asks Leone to resign

On the same afternoon, the debate begins, with the reports of D'Angelosante and Pontello. With this last report, obviously and predictably, the DC changes the strategy followed in the Committee of Inquiry. On that occasion, it had tried to get rid of Tanassi to save Gui, now it supports Tanassi once again to ensure Gui with the few Social-democratic votes. But the limits of the bill of indictment of D'Angelosante have by now been unveiled by the Radical initiative.

In Parliament everyone speaks about Gui and Tanassi. Outside of Parliament, the subjects for conversation are Leone, D'Ovidio Lefebvre, Ambassador Messeri, the dodging of the U.S. embargo on the sale of Lockheed aircraft to Turkey, Lefebvre's mission in Saudi Arabia on the occasion of the State visit of President Leone, of Morocco, and of Pakistan. The conversation concentrates on the P 3 planes, on the pressures exerted by the then Premier, Leone, to reopen and question a sales transaction which had been deliberated and in which the Lockheed company had lost. Also, the code message in which the Lockheed agent in Italy asks his bosses not to wonder at the amount of the bribes asked by the Italian political milieu, because the Italian deal is "tremendously" important. Clearly, it is important for completely different operations.

The four Radical members of parliament all intervene in the debate. Emma Bonino is the first one to speak, attacking all the political forces for the way in which they claim to run the trial, limiting its scope, and biasing the subject of the investigation and of the sentence also before the Constitutional Court. Then it is the turn of Adele Faccio, who remembers the more serious way in which similar crises determined by the same Lockheed scandal have been faced and solved throughout the world, from Japan to the Netherlands. "President Leone", says Faccio, "should have felt the patriotic and republican compulsion to resign. For much less, Brandt resigned in Germany".

On the same day, speaking in Turin, Gianfranco Spadaccia further specifies: "If President Leone has no responsibilities, it is in everyone's interest to obtain a serious preliminary investigation, eliminating any doubts. But if the elements of guilt ascertained by our companions members of Parliament should be ascertained by facts, to omit the inquiry would mean to have a President of the republic exposed to all sorts of blackmails: from foreign powers, secret services, multinational companies, their accomplices and the Christian Democratic currents themselves.

Pannella: Ovidio Lefebvre was right

On the morning of 7 March, it is Marco Pannella's turn. From an oratory point of view, this is not the best of his speeches. He has moments of great effectiveness and moments of weariness, difficulty, even confusion. On the table, beside the microphone, there are 30 pages. Each of them contains the classified findings of the work carried out by the Radical parliamentary group. He will use only part of them, concentrating on the central points of the reconstruction of the Lockheed affair made by the Radicals. If the tone is not perfect, the economy of the speech is perfect, connected to a logic which it is difficult to rebuke. He opens his speech stating that Ovidio D'Ovidio Lefebvre was right when he asked to be judged by the Investigatory Committee, an expert in coverage and avocations, instead of his natural judge. As a matter of fact, it was Lefebvre who caused the trial to be shifted, after the arrest of his brother Antonio, revealing that he had given bribes to Tanassi. He lists the offences for which h

e could have been convicted together with his brother, had the inquiry been entrusted to an ordinary judge: unfaithfulness in State affairs (at least five years); corruption on the part of a foreign country (from three to ten years); political and military espionage (15 years); espionage of news which cannot be divulged (10 years); unveiling of a State secret (5 years); utilization of State secrets; collection of information concerning the State's security. And especially, criminal association. Offences that are far more serious compared to the charge of collaborating in corruption formulated by the Committee of Inquiry. Ovidio D'Ovidio Lefebvre would be in prison if someone else had taken care of the trial.

Pannella briefly outlines the "Neapolitan-speaking" milieu of the Lefebvre brothers, their relations with Leone. He examines their role of professionals of international relations. He quotes documents which testify the absolute trust which the powerful U.S. company has toward the two brothers. He uses the rest of the documents and the other possible clues for a complete and coherent preliminary investigation only very marginally. He simply illustrates some key episodes, emblematic of how the Committee of Inquiry strangely interrupted its investigation when it found itself faced to the possible effects that could have ensued of these investigations. Some of the episodes: the Committee of Inquiry does not deem it necessary to question a witness such as the Christian Democrat Messeri, then Ambassador, despite the fact that Antonio D'Ovidio Lefebvre stated that Messeri had first established the contact with the Lockheed company; despite the fact that Messeri himself confirmed the defendant's statements, albeit w

ith an incredible version of the events; despite, lastly, the fact that Messeri was present as ambassador in the Lockheed affair in Turkey as the key-element of the dodging operation of the U.S. embargo (the Lockheed company used him to dodge the embargo from the Aeritalia, thanks to Ovidio's political connections, and managed to sell the planes to Turkey thanks to the good offices of Messeri). He barely mentions the other reserved phonograms, the other messages, that something which was "tremendously" more important than the amount of the bribes which he refers to in one of those messages. He talks about the Committee's odd behaviour when it comes to investigating some "terminal points", the recipients of the bribes or of part of the bribes, and this even when the names correspond to physical people complete with address and telephone number. He recalls and documents the unexplainable sluggishness in urging and requesting Ovidio's extradition from Mexico; the non-reaction faced to the Swiss authorities' ref

usal to cooperate with the Committee of Inquiry, on the absurd grounds that they do not acknowledge this body as an official juridical body. What are the reasons for this sluggishness? Why this lack of curiosity? Are they not the demonstration that the intention is to halt everything on the eve of more sensational and revealing inquiries?

Marco also tackles the P3 affair. This was the argument that had removed any suspicion from Leone for one and a half years. The public opinion wondered how it could be possible for a Prime Minister to be suspected of being the Antelope Cobbler (8) of the Lockheed company at a moment in which precisely during his presidency, French companies had been preferred to the U.S. company? Pannella demolishes this argument once and for all. It is not an argument in defence of Leone, but if ever an element for prosecution. There is the document of Gui, the then Minister of Defence, who specifies that the prime Minister urges a re-examination of a deliberation passed by Government. In favour of whom? Of the Lockheed company. The Radicals knew nothing about this document. Nor did the public opinion. But the Committee of Inquiry knew. D'Angelosante knew.

The Lockheed affair is a NATO affair

These are the brief, scanty but punctual trial references to the hidden documents of this political trial. Then the speech takes on a political tone. The Lockheed affair is more than an affair concerning the sales transaction of a few aircraft, it is more than just a story of a few bribes, it is matter of international security, it is a NATO affair, concerning international relations and influences. Pannella examines the mysteries, the hidden corridors of the Italian secret services, those of the State-ordered massacres, and recalls the murder-suicide of Colonel Rocca, head of the SIFAR's (9) REI office, the office charged with the regime's great economic corporations, executive arm of their meddles, of their blackmails, of their interests; a body which institutionally had to do with arms supplies and trafficking. And he gives a brief outline of the incidents of post-Watergate America. Why, Pannella asks, has the U.S. Congress not hesitated in causing an institutional crisis in some allied countries, impeach

ing some of its corrupt friends, faced to the imperative to shed light on the Lockheed affair? Because the first victim of the Vietnam War had been precisely the U.S. Congress, deprived by the executive even of the power to declare war, and then deprived of the other powers by the centres of military power, by the centres of economic power, by the military-industrial complex of the multinationals and by the Pentagon. The Lockheed scandal therefore arises from the State's need to recover all these powers, to bring them back in the context of the Constitution, and of the normal mechanisms of democratic control on the part of the institutions charged with popular sovereignty, even at the cost of undermining the focal centres of the U.S. national security. And in Italy? In Italy the political forces shun the need to discover the truth. And the truth, or fragments of truth, are left in the hands of the press agencies of the currents of the secret services, which are in competition with one another, who use them t

o attack the head of the State with a blackmailing tone. Pannella mentions one of these agencies, the O.P. agency.

A last attack directed at the Committee of Inquiry's behaviour.

Does the SID exist?

The Lockheed affair is a matter of armaments. It is a NATO affair. There are connection with a foreign power. There are direct relations, meetings, talks with the Minister of Defence, with the Prime Minister. Can it be that the Committee of Inquiry has not even asked itself the question of requesting the dossiers of the SID, of the secret services, concerning this affair? The story of the Lockheed affair, the truth on this scandal, is probably all written in those dossiers.

Lastly, Pannella addresses himself directly to the political forces, to the communists, to the socialists, and personally to La Malfa. So far, the communists had defended the work of the Committee of Inquiry completely, rejecting any hypothesis of extending the inquiry.

The Socialists had even deliberated not to associate with the Radical initiative for a supplementary preliminary investigation, on the absurd grounds that it was necessary to avoid postponements and coverages. The attitude of the republicans is the same. Pannella says he understands the concerns of the communists faced to the difficulty of the political situation, faced to the perspective of an institutional crisis at the summit of the State. But precisely faced to such difficulties and dangers, Pannella maintains, the only possibility to avoid the crisis is to laicize truth, to let it be known by the people, to be fully democratic, to trust people's judgment and common sense. "We must become priests of truth, together with the "priests" of the secret services and of the separate bodies".

The reactions of the parties

The Radical members of parliament have no illusions concerning the possibility of finding the 50 signatures to activate the supplement of inquiry. Nonetheless, Pannella's speech leaves a mark on the political and parliamentary behaviours in this affair. Republicans and socialists hold a long meeting. The line that emerges and which the radicals will support is that of concluding the debate on the indictment of Gui and Tanassi by voting, but of resuming the inquiries if there are the necessary elements. The Republicans suggest the creation of a Committee of Inquiry on military supplies. Here and there, in statements, editorials on L'Avanti!, the Socialists ask for all the truth to come out. The Communists instead insist on their positions: the ordinary judge will investigate, the Committee of Inquiry can continue investigating, the Constitutional Court can continue investigating (which is not true).

Gui and Tanassi are indicted, the preliminary investigation is re-opened

The radical group then uses another article of the regulation: the one that gives each member of parliament the possibility of presenting denunciations to the President of the Chamber. They give Ingrao a long and detailed denunciation, the one we are quoting unabridged. The first name that appears is that of Giovanni Leone. The first charge is that of criminal association. The day after Pannella's address, Mellini announces the presentation of the denunciation, opening his speech.

On the same afternoon, Ingrao announces he has forwarded the denunciation to the President of the Committee of Inquiry. There are now the premises, also the formal ones, to re-open that preliminary investigation which has been the only real goal of the Radical initiative, in order to discover the truth. Martinazzoli predicts a "long process". But even from the Quirinale, who has spoken about "vulgarity" and "mess" raised by the Radicals only the day before, thus being attacked by the "Voce Repubblicana" (a republican intervention in defence of the radicals hadn't occurred in years), is forced to urge a rapid ascertainment of the truth.

The DC defends itself. The real head of this regime, Aldo Moro, the President of the "omissis" and of the "De Lorenzo affair", invites the whole of the party to protect Gui and Tanassi. In Saragat's address, Tanassi, the "homunculus", as the former President of the Republic sarcastically called him, becomes a political victim. These are the last moments of the debate. Then comes the vote on Gui and Tanassi. Their prosecution to the High Court of Justice. This vote might have been the final epilogue of the proceeding. Instead, it can be the premise for a complete action. For the Radicals this battle is not finished. Those who think that short periods of time must serve the purpose of closing everything once again, with half-truths, should be aware of this.

Translator's notes

(1) Mariano Rumor (1915):Secretary of the Christian

Democrat Party (1964-69), Prime Minister (68-69);

(2) Il Manifesto: Political movement born parallel to the

publication of the homonymous monthly established in

1969 by exponents of the Italian Communist Party who

were later expelled from the party.

(3) Luigi Gui: Christian Democrat politician. Defence

Minister at the time of the Lockheed scandal.

(4) Mario Tanassi (1916): secretary of the Social-

Democrat Party (PSDI) (1963) and co-secretary of

the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) (66-69); minister of

Defence (68-69; 70; 70-72; 73-74), convicted by the

Constitutional Court for corruption in the Lockheed

affair (79).

(5) Il Quirinale: One of the seven hills of Rome; Residence

of the President of the Italian Republic.

(6) "L'Unità": daily newspaper belong to the PCI. "Il Resto

del Carlino": Bologna-based daily; "La Stampa": Turin-

based daily.

(7) Pietro Ingrao (1915): Communist member of Parliament,

President of the Chamber of deputies (1976-79).

(8) Antelope Cobbler: the alleged code name of

President Leone in the U.S. document concerning the

Lockheed scandal.

(9) SIFAR: Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces.

Established in 1949, the service depends on the

Chief of Defence Staff. In 1966 it was replaced by

the SID which was then replaced, in 1977, by the

SISMI.