ABSTRACT: The Radical Party's action to obtain the release of Judge Giovanni D'Urso, kidnapped by the "Red Brigades" on 12 December 1980, and to oppose that group of political and press officials who advocate his death to justify the imposition in Italy of an "emergency" government composed of "technicians". On 15 February 1981, Judge D'Urso was released: "The camp that advocates inflexibility was organizing and is still organizing a coup d'état: for this as for the fascism of 1921, it needs victims, but this time, unlike what happened with Moro, it has been temporarily defeated: for once, the Red Brigades have not served the purpose. The campaign conducted by Radio Radicale successfully interrupts the blackout on information ordered by the press.

("The life of Judge D'Urso", Who needed it, who sold it, how it was saved - edited by Lino Jannuzzi, Ennio Capelcelatro, Franco Roccella, Valter Vecellio - Supplement to Radical News n.3 - March 1981)

(part two - continues from text n. 1768)

Is dialogue possible?

The regime press is confused. It understands the downright refusal to negotiate, but is has difficulties grasping the expression "comrades assassins" and the appeal to dialogue.

Thus, it comments on the event generically speaking about "a new initiative by Marco Pannella", or, in the case of the Communist press, a "bewildering proposal". The intellectual milieu has a different reaction, and despite a number of reservations, it finds that Pannella's solution is feasible and senses its great appeal. During a call-in show broadcast by Radio Radicale and conducted in the studio by Lino Jannuzzi and Roberto Cicciomessere, an all-round debate takes place, which reveals above all a unanimous consent on the diagnosis contained in Pannella's letter, and secondarily a few doubts concerning not the clarity of the proposal, but the real possibility of attracting the terrorists into it.

According to Ernesto Galli Della Loggia, the obstacle to dialogue lies in the very nature of the Red Brigades' political organization, of its whole, not of its single militants: "in its anthropological-ideological features, the organization closely resembles a Nazi organization. The elements in common with Nazism are glaring, and the whole of the terrorists' activity is a demonstration of such correspondence". As an armed organization, the Red Brigades have being "deliberating operating for five years to destroy democracy and civil rights. Thus, on what basis could there be dialogue?". Pannella proposes a dialogue based on the respect of certain principles, but the Red Brigades, states Galli Della Loggia, "act in open defiance precisely of such principles".

The philosopher Norberto Bobbio is less pessimistic. "If by dialogue with the Red Brigades we mean the statement of rational arguments to prove that their acts are not only crimes condemned by morals, but also political mistakes, as they should be considered, in that to this moment the effects have been the contrary of the aims pursued, then this is an old solution, already proposed in the past and unsuccessfully. Despite this, a sound democrat should never fail to entertain an open dialogue with everyone, and in Pannella's words, to convince rather than to win".

The scientist Adriano Buzzati-Traverso is far more uncompromising. According to him, the problem is that of saving D'Urso at all costs, and "if dialogue can lead to his release, then Pannella is perfectly right in taking the position he has taken". The historian Salvatore Sechi agrees with Pannella and delivers an articulate analysis. In his opinion, Pannella's letter "is an absolutely unambiguous document, it rejects negotiation, it rejects capitulation, it exorcises the market of human lives, it requests the pure and simple release of Judge D'Urso and raises a problem which had already been raised at the time of the Moro kidnapping, that is, to make parliamentary debates transparent, and thus more publicity to dialogue between people and institutions, and, among the armed organizations, citizens and institutions". Moreover, according to Sechi, Pannella's letter raises a key problem: "D'Urso appears to be alone, he is backed by no organization, nor is his prestige such as to act as a veto power. From this p

oint of view, the reactions of the lay and Catholic milieus seem to be characterized by indifference. It seems to me that there is an attempt to entrust everything to the State, to its operative capacity. I believe the State cannot negotiate with yesterday's executioners who then repented, possibly driven by guaranties of leniency, and in the meanwhile not worry about those who did not repent, perhaps to avoid their own repentance from corresponding with the sentence to life or death of their companions". "The problem", Sechi adds, "is complicated, but it is necessary to tackle it, and the right direction is certainly the one of dialogue, which is an attempt to understand these people and know who they are. Nevertheless it seems that the document confirms that terrorism aims, albeit with aberrant methods, at the production of reformatory decisions. "But my personal impression is that terrorism is trying to block any renewal and transformation of democracy. I believe the terrorists' policy, which consists in

operating in such a way as to cause an authoritarian bend of the State, and the power system of the DC, which thrives on the deadlock of the decisional system, that is, on non-government and non-reforms, complete each other, albeit without any concrete plan".

According to Gianni Baget Bozzo on the contrary, Pannella's proposal is not clear. What does dialogue mean, if not finding a position of common respect between the two persons that are dialoguing? If such is the case, says Baget Bozzo, "then dialogue and negotiation are the same thing, because in a negotiation two positions are also confronted. Therefore, I cannot understand what there is of specific in a proposal of dialogue, nor how it can occur, nor when. It seems to me that it is a statement of principle, of method, but I cannot grasp the specific meaning of the proposal, because dialogue means recognizing something in common with the counterpart, and in this sense it means going beyond negotiation, which after all has no point in common".

Maurizio Costanzo, the editor of "L'Occhio", finds precisely the difference which Pannella traces between dialogue and negotiation extremely important; dialogue "can be harsh, to the bitter end, even with the worst of enemies, with whom there can be no negotiation. Negotiation is ambiguous, it is wrong". According to Lanfranco Pace, Pannella's initiative is important in any case, because if anything "it stirs things up in the political and institutional swamp, in which, it seems, there prevails the resolve not to take any decisions". However, the proposal's feasibility needs to be closely investigated, it needs to be understood in its meaning, in the context of a reformist attitude and resolve toward the phenomenon of terrorism. "From this point of view I perceive it more as an appeal to goodness than an effective political proposal. There is an element of weakness, because it is not altogether clear which channels could represent a bridge between the reasons of nonviolence and the reasons of violence".

Pannella himself indirectly answers this last point, intervening incidentally in the debate. According to Pannella, there is not just one form of dialogue, but countless ones, and any form is good. But be careful - he tells the terrorists - "none of those forms will lead me to connivances or complicities with you". Dialogue is the ultimate weapon, but not only against terrorism, against the Red Leviathan. "As a member of the European Parliament, I have often repeated that we are conducting a policy in the style of Chamberlain". To destroy the Red Leviathan, we don't need exterminating wars; all we need is "a technological weapon enabling us to carpet bomb the Russian people with information, so as to destabilize it". And this is in fact also a form of dialogue.

A fatal blow for the hard-liners:

L'Asinara is closed

With the progression of Pannella's and the radicals' action, who aim at involving conscience and intelligence and push in the direction of a concrete enactment of the commitment taken by Rognoni at the Chamber on 16 December for the safety of D'Urso, there is an escalation in the addresses of the fanatic hard-liners. Once again Pecchioli, in an interview with "Rinascita", severely criticizes those who believe it possible to do something to save the judge's life, without this representing a negotiation or a capitulation. "Neither the problem of prisons nor those of security nor any other problem - he says - should be tackled under the pressure of a blackmail; in this moment, none of the terrorists' requests can be taken into consideration. If we let them know that there is even the slightest intention of listening to them, this would have terrible consequences".

This appeal to support the hard-line comes at a moment in which the humanitarian front is becoming increasingly consistent. Pecchioli's address is promptly countered by an appeal signed by several intellectuals, among whom Sabino Acquaviva, Gianni Baget Bozzo, Marco Boato, Cesare Cases, Oreste Del Buono and Franco Fortini, aimed at asking "to proceed at once by closing L'Asinara, in the awareness not of yielding to a blackmail, but of implementing something that had been judged fair and timely when D'Urso was free".

The respect of this "fair and timely" decision, as an act of loyalty to democracy and a demonstration of the force of legality, had been incessantly repeated during that period by Radio Radicale on the subject of the suppression of L'Asinara.

Subsequently, on Christmas Day, a release from the staff of the Socialist Party explicitly requests the immediate suppression of L'Asinara, because "the decision of closing special prisons such as Favignana and Termini Imerese had been decided long ago, and the same should have been done or should be done now for L'Asinara...The fact that the terrorist organization which keeps Judge D'Urso imprisoned now asks for the suppression of L'Asinara as a blackmail does not change the problem's fundamental nature; if anything, it only adds other motivations to the ones that already exist. The prison of L'Asinara should have been closed long ago and must be closed now, and this can be done without damaging security requirements which can be fulfilled in other ways".

If such decisions "can, in the present circumstances, appear to be a concession to the terrorists in exchange for the release of Judge D'Urso", in actual fact "it coincides with a fulfilment which is completely justified and endorsed by several parts, including governmental and administrative sources"; thus, the decision "does not involve any capitulation or renounce", and the PSI is convinced that it is "necessary to immediately offer the kidnappers of Judge D'Urso the occasion to avoid another barbaric crime".

The first reactions of the "hard-liners" are extremely harsh and at the same time confused. First of all, they suggest that Craxi was influenced in this position by a desperate appeal of the prisoner sent to him and to Pannella, or by a similar letter sent to him by the judge's family. Thus, the Socialist release is allegedly the result of secret negotiations between Craxi and Pannella or between Socialists and Radicals. Next they put out fire with gasoline, stating that in any case, the Socialists' move could shatter the majority and cause a government crisis which could be solved only by resorting to anticipated elections.

It must be said that judging from the statements of parliamentary exponents of the government parties, the hypothesis of a split in the majority is not altogether misplaced. "We did not surrender for Moro, therefore to close L'Asinara would mean surrendering to a blackmail", states the Christian Democrat Maria Eletta Martini; the Republican Mammì echoes back, peremptorily stating that "L'Asinara must not be closed". Lastly, the Social Democrat Puletti adds that "negotiating today for D'Urso would mean casting a shadow over the policy of inflexibility which contributed to save the institutions at the time of the kidnapping of Moro".

24 hours later, the day after Christmas, a release of the Ministry of Justice, prepared - it seems - during a meeting between Forlani, Rognoni and Sarti at Palazzo Chigi, announces that the program for the suppression of the special section of the prison of L'Asinara "had been decided long ago, and is being progressively implemented, so that the prisoners of the Fornelli section ("the special section"), already considerably inferior in number compared to the real possibilities, are now 25, and will be reduced to 18 within this week...the plan for the evacuation of the prison will be completed very soon".

Ugo Sisti, the Director of the Prisons had previously informed, with a press release forwarded to the "Ansa" agency, that "the prison of L'Asinara will be transformed into an agricultural penal settlement, as it was before", and this not to surrender to the Red Brigades' blackmail, but to implement "a program which had been developed well before the kidnapping, and which D'Urso himself had contributed to develop"; at any rate, he added, if the terrorists "were to advance blackmails and conditions to conclude this kidnapping which is void of any logic, then the decision will belong to the Government, and not to the general direction".

The subsequent release of the Ministry of Justice makes this decision official, thus completely contradicting the exponents of the majority parties, who are also disavowed by their own secretariats. The Christian Democrat Piccoli, contradicting Maria Eletta Martini, endorses Forlani's position, calling it "firm and balanced", on the basis of which, he advocates, it will be possible to re-create unity and cohesion among the parties. Longo and Saragat, contradicting their fellow party member Puletti, divulge a joint statement: "the Government's decision to go on with the implementation of the prison program is a wise and responsible move, and confers credibility and force to democratic institutions". The Republican Party is more cautious, and continues to express reservations, especially toward Craxi, whom they accuse of having broken "a commitment in the sense of reserve and consultation", and declares its negative attitude as regards any "direct or indirect" negotiation. Nevertheless it guaranties that it w

ill not insist on the matter of closing L'Asinara, in that "the responsibility of the issue belongs to the Ministry of Justice and thus to the Government".

The Radicals, who have no doubt played a leading role in this direction, and have moreover always advocated the suppression of special prisons and especially advocated a general reorganization of the prison system, also for that which concerns the position of prison guards, cannot but approve of the Government's decision taken after the PSI's release. They also summon a meeting of the party's federate council for the following Sunday, with the purpose of developing "a further and vaster package of requests for the humanization and civilization of the prison system". At the same time, Marco Pannella, continuing his action to induce the Red Brigades to dialogue, during a TV broadcast on the first independent TV station asks to know "how I can be of use to these people, and if it is more useful for us and them to convince ourselves of the choice of life, and for someone else to replace D'Urso".

Apart from the MSI, whose positions are predictable, only the Communists remain irremovable in their intransigent positions, convinced, among other things, that the decision to close L'Asinara, despite the evidence, confirms the existence of a split within the majority. "However one looks at it, the episode continues to propose on the one hand the true aims of the terrorists, and on the other hand the existence of a division, of a confusion, perhaps even of political manoeuvres within the Government coalition. Is it too much to ask for a clarifying statement capable of reassuring Italians and removing all hopes to the terrorists?"

On Saturday 27, during a press conference, Forlani wipes away any polemic, repeating that the suppression of L'Asinara, having been decided long before the kidnapping, does not jeopardize the Government's firm behaviour; in reply to those who express doubts on the choice of the moment, he says: "I believe none of us should contribute to reducing the possibilities to save the life of a human being". It is self-evident that it is not possible to exclude "different opinions concerning the timing and the conditions of certain statements, however I wish to underline the autonomous nature of the Government's decision: the provisions were already being implemented and now continue as scheduled. There is no link between the decisions that have been confirmed yesterday and the global strategy against terrorism". Nor does the socialist initiative weaken the Government's cohesion, as many Communists hypothesize: "the secretary of the PSI simply expressed concerns that are common to everyone. In the specific circumstan

ce, the socialist initiative does not contradict the commitments assumed by the Government".

The revolt in the prison of Trani

But the Government's statements denying any contrasts in the majority cannot restrain the polemic for a long time. The communist opposition takes advantage of the uncertainties of the Republicans in the hope of making them explode. The course of the events, which quicken its pace as days go by, does the rest.

The leader of the Communist parliamentary group, Di Giulio, returns to the charge and judges the Government's behaviour to be a "concession to blackmail"; Pecchioli adds that "the Government's statement, that the decision to close L'Asinara was taken autonomously, is far from convincing". The secretary of the Republican Party, Spadolini, is in an extremely embarrassing position, and attempts to find a way out: he repeats the accusation against the Socialists of having "broken the policy of reserve", because now "everything is more difficult"; however he denies any link between the Government's initiatives and the terrorists' requests.

The Christian Democrat Piccoli supports the Government with much more energy compared to the previous day, and asks the Communists the following question: "for what reason do they want to attribute to the terrorists a statement they never made, thus weakening the reasons of the Government?"; he answers the question himself: "if the Government had not declared what it was doing, those who are critical today would have accused it of neglecting a fundamental duty". Piccoli is backed by Longo and Lagorio, the former stating that "a democratic State is strong inasmuch as it implements its programs without letting itself be intimidated by the terrorists", and the latter stating that "the democratic State must have a humane aspect, and must do all that which it considers rightful and dutiful to do. The fact that the terrorists are raising the same issue should not prevent the State from taking a decision which the State itself considers an act of justice".

But more than by polemics, on 28 December the atmosphere is disturbed by a sequel of events that also give the impression of not being episodic, but of being the prelude of increasingly dramatic events. In the super-prison of Trani, the prisoners revolt, taking 19 prison guards as hostages; at the same time D'Urso's kidnappers release a fifth statement, with attached a letter by D'Urso to the director of prison institutions.

With the fifth statement, a link - albeit an indirect one - begins to emerge between the fate of D'Urso and the terrorists' requests.

The concession with the revolt of Trani, which some see in the statement, is the result of the interpretation of certain expressions which are in any case part of the context and of the whole of the Red Brigades' attitude, regardless of that reference.

Having repeated the need to close L'Asinara "immediately and for ever", the statement says that "the program of the proletarian prisoners has been so incisive thanks to the birth of the bodies which guided it", and adds that "the initiative of the party" is linked to the program of the proletarian prisoners, whom the terrorists address an appeal, urging "the movement in prisons and its organized expressions to manifest the conditions of their program". This is the sentence that sparks the suspicion of a link between the terrorists' external action, culminating in the kidnapping of D'Urso, and the revolt exploded in Trani. However, it is more convincing to interpret it as an involvement in the D'Urso affair, in terms of political protagonists, of the detained terrorists and as an indication of the Red Brigades' intention to organize the prison party; such elements are among other things all but new. In fact, the important parts of that statement are two: the letter by D'Urso, attached to it, and which explici

tly points to the suppression of L'Asinara as the condition for his survival, and the references to the Government's decision to dismantle that prison. They are expressions of mistrust, that sound not like a depreciation of the object of the governmental provision, but as a request for guaranties: the "promises of the imperialist State" cannot be trusted; "in the centres of power there are some who believe it is possible to play cynically with ambiguous statements" (a reference to the apocryphal statement).

On the basis of D'Urso's letter to the director of prison institutes, Sisti, (his direct superior), it seems that the judge has not yet been informed of the Government's decision concerning L'Asinara, or that he wants to appear uninformed to urge the person who has the operative responsibility to implement the decision. The addressee is urged to move quickly: "as he certainly knows that my life depends on the final suppression of the special section, I am sure he will do that is in his power to see that such measure is implemented in the shortest possible time. I am also told that there have been numerous and insistent requests to close the special sections".

There are - D'Urso says - "feasible ways to achieve this objective in the context of the current regulations". Also, it is well known that the maintenance of the structures of that prison "represented an object of concern for the administration, and this owing both to the excessive alienation from their family denounced by the prisoners and to the detachment from all that concerns their trial, and to the major difficulties for their relatives to have frequent contacts with them, and, lastly because, owing to the extremely peripheral position of the prison, constant, timely controls have been made difficult, and may have favoured deviant enforcements of prison regulations". "I Therefore believe" - D'Urso concludes - "that a rapid suppression of the section can be considered timely in the light of technical-prison criteria". Expressing a claim of the terrorists, according to whom it is necessary to create "spaces for expressions and struggle for prisoners, and more frequent contacts between the prisoners and t

he outside world", D'Urso adds that "frequent visits on the part of journalists should be encouraged, in order to enable the prisoners to divulge releases provided they have no penal consequence and they do not jeopardize security".

According to the communists, the whole communiqué means that the terrorists are not satisfied with the Government's decision, and given that there has been a first "surrender", now they are "raising the price". However, D'Urso's letter to Sisti, granted it has not been revised by the terrorists, confirms neither of the hypotheses.

But the attention of the press organs is concentrated on the revolt in Trani more than on these two documents. The information concerning the dynamic, the conditions and the motivations of the revolt are scarce, and perhaps deliberately so. The acquired data are only two: 19 prison guards are kept hostages by the prisoners, who ask to talk or, according to some, "negotiate" with the direction of the penitentiary and with the Assistant Public Prosecutor of Trani; and that one of the guards is wounded. Coverage of the event is rather concise and general, unanimously tending to suggest, explicitly or not, the resort to a hard-line. The possibility of a painless solution, in other words a peaceful negotiation in the respect of security requirements, also considering that the prisoners have access to rudimentary means only, is not even taken into consideration. It is instead the occasion to make amends for the so-called "surrender" represented by the decision of closing the Fornelli section of L'Asinara.

The blitz

In conformity with this general atmosphere, the advocates of the "hard-line" exert a strong pressure for an immediate intervention. The Republicans forward a release to Palazzo Chigi, stating that "a common thread links the revolt in Trani to the kidnapping of Judge D'Urso. No surrender can be conceived in such conditions. The limit reached with the statement of the Minister of Justice cannot be overcome in any case and for any reason". Tina Anselmi emphatically repeats that "if we legitimate the principle according to which we can negotiate for one person, then we must negotiate for anyone else. But at that point we have to accept the fact that the State will be subjected every day to the blackmail of the terrorists". Forlani summons an emergency meeting with the ministers in charge of the State's security, Rognoni, Sarti and Lagorio, and after a brief consultation decides for an immediate intervention in Trani with a special Corps of the Carabinieri. Clearly, the decision is protected by the uttermost rese

rve.

It is now Monday 29 December. Italy has lost the world soccer championship, and the national supporters aren't willing to bet a cent on the country's efficiency. At 2 p.m. the summit of the security ministers ends, and a few minutes later Minister Sarti dictates the statement whereby he invites the director of the prison of Trani to request "the necessary intervention of the police forces". The confirmatory reply arrives in less than an hour. Following a resolute "no" to the possible solutions with normal methods, which the talks between the rebellious prisoners, the supervisory judge Noviello and the Socialist Senator Gaetano Scamarcio could lead to, the operation is launched. The delegates of the rebellious prisoners, among whom Toni Negri, have presented two documents; the first one, divulged Sunday evening, containing the programmatic request to close special prisons and abolish provisional arrests, and another one containing requests which are more or less provided by the prison law, such as the re-intr

oduction of electric power in the occupied sector, the possibility to buy food and newspapers at the prison's shop, and the possibility for the prisoners to hold press conferences. It should be remarked upon that some of these requests implied legitimate services and concessions; thus, they highlighted the omissions and inefficiency of the counterpart.

At this stage, the prison is under siege. Senator Scamarcio and the Radical MP Mimmo Pinto can be nothing but impotent spectators from the outside.

At about 4:15 p.m. three helicopters land on the prison's roof unloading the renowned carabinieri of the special intervention group (GIS), who enter the prison using explosive, machine-guns and guns. Less than two hours are enough to conclude the operation, dubbed "blitz" to underline its rapidity and objective efficiency.

In a resumé of the operation, "Il Corriere della Sera" literally writes: "the whole operation was concluded without damage: 27 injured". Clearly, being prisoners, these injured do not represent a damage. In any case, the figures concerning the wounded are contradictory; only later will it be ascertained that there are many more injured, and also that the damages were suffered after the blitz and not during the operation carried out by the Carabinieri.

The correctness with which the Carabinieri carried out the operation, with skill and efficiency aimed at restoring normal conditions in the prison in the name and in the respect of legality, is praised by most newspapers as a demonstration of pure force and the representation of "inflexibility". The articles scrupulously describe the special skills and technological super-equipment of the Carabinieri of the special intervention group (GIS). As a result, from the picture given, the Carabinieri are represented like artificial products issued from a crazy laboratory for genetic perfection. The balance and the efficiency of the operation are highlighted by a release of the Radical parliamentary group.

In this sort of climate, the press gives great importance to the statements of Pertini, who, while making no comment on the suppression of L'Asinara in that it is an administrative provision that belongs to the Government, underlines the difference in the behaviour held for the Moro case: "with Moro we acted differently", And he adds that "the State must not surrender; because the terrorists will not be satisfied with this victory alone. They will ask for more". Significantly, he launches a warning: "if I were to be kidnapped, my wife and the Secretary General of the Quirinale will divulge a letter in which I firmly express my will; no one will negotiate with the terrorists, it will be a matter between me and them".

A few hours before the beginning of the blitz the terrorist' sixth statement had been divulged, bearing the date 29 December, with enclosed statement No.1 of the "Fighting Committee of proletarian prisoners in Trani", bearing the date of the previous day and somehow forwarded to the Red Brigades. There are no doubts that there is a link between clandestine terrorism and detained terrorists; what appears to be unclear is whether such link implies an operative and decisional cooperation, even if the kidnappers of D'Urso themselves contribute to endorsing this hypothesis, in that they cherish the myth of force and efficiency, and are quick at taking any occasion that can divulge a similar picture of them.

As a matter of fact, statement No.6, written a few hours before the blitz, states that the revolt in Trani "is a demonstration of the great unity and mobilization achieved by the movement of proletarian prisoners", "unconditionally supported by the Red Brigades", who, "in the evaluation of the pursuance of the battle started with the capture of the bastard D'Urso, will base themselves strictly on the political terms with which the proletarian prisoners express their needs".

The intervention of the task forces is nonetheless envisaged, and even hypothesized in terms of a challenge: "anything the Government is planning to repress the battles of the imprisoned proletarians in Trani, it had better know that there will be an immediate reaction of the Red Brigades. Until this moment, the Government has responded to the legitimate requests of the fighting committees with the threat of using the personnel of the special Corps. You will not be allowed to do this without being punished". There follows a threat that could sound as a threat for D'Urso, supporting a specific request: "the statements issued in Trani and Palmi must be published at once and unabridged. The proletarian prisoners must be allowed to speak out for themselves. If these requirements are not fulfilled, we will draw the conclusion that your homicidal policy allows for no hesitation on the part of the revolutionary forces: we will act accordingly".

The Red brigades divulge D'Urso interrogation.

Something in the atmosphere points to the fact that there is not much time left. The yearning to see the thing over prepares people to a tragic outcome. On the morning of 31 December the news of a sensational scoop of the Rome-based newsweekly "L'Espresso" is announced: the publication, in the following issue to be distributed on Saturday 3 January 1981, of the proceedings of the interrogation of the imprisoned judge, and an interview with the Red Brigades in the form of 54 questions, which will then be significantly reduced and above all will appear to be suggested by the interviewed subjects than by the interviewers. They are extraordinary documents, which the Assistant Public Prosecutor Nicolò Amato has already seen; he has then seized the documents and decided to carry out further investigations to ascertain at which conditions and through which channels the newsweekly has acquired such precious material.

According to the first informations, at about 10:30 p.m. of 19 December an unidentified "delegate" of the terrorists, after having settled an appointment by telephone, allegedly called the senior editor Giampaolo Bultrini at home, to offer himself to be the intermediary with the Red Brigades in order to obtain the text of D'Urso's interrogation and an interview. Bultrini, who does not handle matters related to terrorism, calls Mario Scialoja to inform him of the offer; the three thus make an appointment for the following day in Piazza del Popolo, at the café Canova. Scialoja is not impressed by the meeting, therefore another one is decided, this time in Saint Peter's Square; here, the unknown emissary is given 54 questions which will have to be given back complete with the answers of the terrorists and with the proceedings of D'Urso's interrogation.

On the morning of 30 December, Bultrini triumphantly calls Scialoja at the newspaper to announce he has "mail" for him; shortly after he goes there and hands in a thick bulk of papers; the staff is nonplussed. The material consists of: 1) 13 pages containing the promised interview (the questions have been reduced and adapted, Bultrini says, but in fact the whole text seems to have been re-written, thus appearing more like a self-interview than a real interview; 2) 33 pages containing "passages" taken from the first interrogations of D'Urso (as the senders claim in a side-note); 3) a copy of the Red Brigades' strategic resolution dated "October 1980" (a historical date, in that it indicates the priority objective of the new stage of their struggle, which the judge's kidnapping represents the climax of); 4) cyclostyled copies of the first five statements; 5) a new colour picture of D'Urso. The newsweekly has no doubts as to the authenticity of the material.

This is the first version given to the public opinion as regards the channels and the conditions at which "L'Espresso" acquired the material. It is likely that the same version was given to the judge who immediately went to the newspaper to check the material before printing it.

The text of D'Urso's interrogation forwarded to "L'Espresso" confirms the information previously divulged through the terrorists' statements, according to which the prisoner is "cooperating": the judge answered the questions asked by the well-informed interrogators without offering any resistance - which would apart from anything have been pointless and vain - illustrating the bureaucratic mechanisms which regulate "maximum-security" measures, and even giving names, whenever possible, of the different officials who tend to the administration of prison life. Except for the references to specific incidents, the interview is a compendium of the Red brigades'strategy and ideology; nonetheless it offers no new elements, except for a more or less systematic organization of the concepts, compared to the fragmented theorization amid the multitude of statements and messages that had previously been divulged.

The assassination of Galvaligi

But this "sensational story" (which will soon be dealt with owing to the course it takes from a judicial point of view) is still fresh when another major event sweeps the country: the assassination of the General of the Carabinieri Enrico Galvaligi. The responsibility for the assassination is claimed 50 minutes later with a phone call to "Il Messaggero": "Red Brigades speaking. We have executed General Enrico Galvaligi of the coordination of security services in prisons". Later there is another call on the part of an alleged "communist fighting nucleus", but it is immediately discarded as fake, as confirmed by the arrival after a few hours of statement No. 7 of the commando that kidnapped D'Urso.

The crime is conducted in an incredibly simple manner; nonetheless it reveals an extraordinary self-possession and executive assurance, no doubt the fruit of a scrupulous plan. The two killers operate without any hesitation, a demonstration that they have no fears of running into the general's escort, which Galvaligi had always refused. They use a very simple trick: disguised as messengers, they go to the block of apartments where Galvaligi lives, in Via Gerolamo Segato 13 in the Ardeatino area, to deliver a Christmas parcel. It is just after 3 p.m. The doorkeeper stops them, telling them that the general is not at home, and that he will be back at about 6:30 p.m. "It doesn't matter" - they reply - "we will deliver other parcels first and then come back".

At 6:30 p.m. sharp they are back, with the same nonchalance and the same parcel, containing bottles of champagne and brightly coloured Christmas wrappings. The concierge tells them the general isn't back yet; the killers answer they can wait. The killers ignore that the General is in the church of Santa Francesca Romana attending mass with his wife. The couple is back at 7:15. While the husband parks the car, the wife walks toward the block of apartments and walks up the stairs. A few seconds later the general follows her up. The younger messenger blocks him and asks him: "General Galvaligi?"; "this is a parcel for you". Surprised but pleased, the general is about to take a coin out of his pocket when a gunshot coming from the pocket of the messenger's parka hits him in the legs. By now he has realized everything, but too late. The killer fires several more shots in rapid sequence; General Galvaligi collapses on the ground. The killer comes closer and fires a finishing shot at the heart.

The whole operation lasted about two minutes. It is now 7:18 p.m. When the police, the carabinieri, the ambulance and the judges arrive a few minutes later, the killers are nowhere to be seen; at once, the police forces organize roadblocks, controls, patrols and scrupulous searches, but in vain. All that remains is statement No.7 of the Red Brigades, which explicitly states that the assassination of General Galvaligi is the reaction to the blitz in the prison of Trani. The terrorists concede that "the authority has dealt a strong blow against class movements; but that precisely for this reason "it is necessary to deal blows ten times greater and more terrifying". The battle started with the capture of the torturer D'Urso", "concludes the statement, "continues".

A series of conjectures starts: were the killers just two, or was there a third member waiting for them? Did they shoot with a large-calibre revolver or did they have make use of the terrible Magnum? How could they know that General Galvaligi, who was never mentioned in the press and almost in clandestinity despite the importance of his tasks, was a key figure of prison security services?

Scialoja arrested

While the messengers wander about Galvaligi's condominium with their deadly Christmas parcel, the judges of the Attorney's Office of Rome search the offices of "L'Espresso" and thoroughly question the editor, Livio Zanetti, and the reporter Giampaolo Bultrini. During the night, Mario Scialoja is reached by an arrest warrant in Siusi near Ortisei, where he had arrived a few hours earlier to spend a few days' holiday; the charges against him are: personal aiding and abetting, and perjury. It is 4 o'clock in the morning when the police arrest him. He is then transferred to Bolzano and thence immediately taken to Rome. Judging from the motivations of the arrest, the judge ascertained the non-truthfulness of the reconstruction given by the journalist especially concerning the way in which he acquired the material and the identity of the person who gave it to him, thus putting the investigations off the track and in any case hindering them and somehow covering the intermediary with his perjury. Having at first con

firmed the version of his colleague, and thus committing the same offence, Bultrini is also arrested a few days after.

The "Espresso" case raises major polemics and poses serious doubts concerning the exertion of freedom of press, the duty to inform people enabling them to take part in the country's democratic life on the basis of autonomous opinions, and the behaviour of the press faced to terrorism. In the aftermath of such debate, the hypothesis of a press black-out begins to take shape, that is, of a refusal to publish beyond the limits of the indispensable information provided by the terrorists, as a consequence of an ethical-professional code that should induce journalists not to inform or not to consider themselves the judges of the opportunity of the information. The questions becomes intensely dramatic when the information is divulged that the life or the death of judge D'Urso will depend on the publication of two of the terrorists' statements; the question will be to decide whether the newspapers can deny the life of a man much less than "L'Espresso" granted the ambition of a journalistic "scoop" and the interest o

f raising its prestige on the market and the consequent profits for its shareholders (among whom the editor of "La Repubblica", Eugenio Scalfari). The Republicans' philosophy of "inflexibility" or rather of emphasizing "inflexibility", in parallel with the communists or rather anticipating the PCI's strategy, now emerges with sufficient clarity: from a juridical point of view, the reinstatement of fascist laws, noticeably toughened, and the setting aside of the Constitution; from an administrative point of view, the concession of ample discretionary powers to the police, setting aside the preeminence of the judge's functions; from a political point of view, the instauration of the logic of a police-terrorism clash and the projection of the exceptional quality of the circumstance in terms of "national unity", setting aside democratic dialectic and political initiative. In such context, D'Urso's tragedy assumes a subordinated value and the role of a pretext; the responsibility with respect to the judge's survi

val limits itself to a marginal concession of compassion; D'Urso possible death, as already Moro's, takes the shape of a holocaust on the altar of the inflexibility of a State jeopardized by thirty-five years of mismanagement, a State incapable of facing terrorism with the force of democracy. D'Urso's possible death, as Moro's, becomes the signal of inflexibility, the obvious cost of the "non-surrender" to a terrorism idealized as a myth and scarcely known except for the theory of its assassins and its violences.

Clearly, the assassination of General Galvaligi is an excellent pretext for the "hard-liners". The first to speak is the Social-Democrat Longo, who immediately asks to "put a remedy with new laws to the insufficiency of those voted by the free Parliament" (the "free Parliament" has, among others, voted provisional arrests on the basis of pure hypotheses of suspicion, twelve years of preventive imprisonment, capacity to carry out dragnets, etc). The republican Spadolini warns that democracy might not survive if it adopts a line of surrender.

Three days have gone by since the assassination of General Galvaligi, and three days, in the present circumstances, could be enough for a "parce sepulto".

Was the blitz "neat"?

In the meanwhile, signals point to the fact that the blitz in Trani was all but painless. The first denunciation occurs during a call-in show of 4 January on Radio Radicale, conducted by Franco Roccella. A woman calls on behalf of the committee of relatives of the prisoners of Trani; she says her name is Daniela, that she lives with a prisoner named Vaccher, but refuses to give her family name. She asks for the permission to read the following appeal and obtains it: "the relatives of the prisoners of Trani launch an appeal to urge the immediate intervention of the external medical committee in order to verify the current physical conditions of the prisoners after the revolt of Sunday 28 December". On the basis of the information available to this moment, Daniela continues, "all prisoners indistinctly have suffered tortures and heavy beatings. We know that many of our relatives have been tortured, and that many are suffering from concussion. Maria, for example, has ten stitches in her head; another prisoner h

as fractured fingers, prisoner Mastropasqua has fractured hands and wrists, Baumgartner has a broken nasal septum. They are not the only ones, because all prisoners have been beaten up. I have made a few examples of cases which we know about, but there are others. Can you tell me who is responsible for this?" Daniela advances the hypothesis that it could have been both the carabinieri of the storm troops and the prison guards as a retaliation, but she specifies that she has no information on the matter. Nevertheless, she adds, the appeal she is launching must serve the sole purpose of reassuring her relatives. Some of these, relatively to three prisoners, have been authorized to visit their relatives, but were able to see them for a total of five minutes across a glass panel, nor could they communicate through an intercom. In any case, these three prisoners too had wounds in their head and bashed eyes, and they hinted that all the others were in the same conditions.

Daniela's story casts a new light on the blitz in Trani. Marco Pannella and Franco Roccella underline that this aspect must be verified at once. The Radical parliamentarians had already scheduled a visit to the prison of Trani; in the aftermath of such information they will go there at once, it is their "duty", all the more so since the Radical Parliamentary Group had praised the behaviour of the carabinieri in the blitz in a statement, underlining its value as a rare example of efficiency of the democratic State. Now it is necessary to ascertain not only if the violences were really carried out, as it seems (it is out of the question that Daniela's story is the result of pure imagination), but also who carried out such violences, when and how.

"Clearly", states Pannella, "the statements of the committee of relatives of the prisoners of Trani cannot be invented, and would be even more preoccupying if it turned out that the carabinieri who carried out the blitz did not use these violences, because this would mean that the violences were carried out in cold blood, and thus were punitive and retaliatory. A hypothesis which is unacceptable, because it is not fair to beat up people, no matter who they are: it would be stupid and apart from anything else a political blunder. At any rate, we will carry out a verification by going to Trani: I repeat, it is our duty".

D'Urso is sentenced to death

It is at this point of the program that an "ANSA" dispatch arrives with this tragical and terrible piece of news: with statement n. 8, the Red brigades announce that they have sentenced the judge kidnapped on 12 December to death, adding that the execution could be suspended "in the event that the committee of prisoners of Trani and the committee of prisoners of Palmi were allowed to express their political evaluations and their opinions freely, without any form of censorship, without altering a comma of what they have to say. We want to hear their opinion on your radio and television broadcasting stations, on the most important Italian newspapers, as requested by the proletarians of Trani". The terrorists explain that "the sentence to death of the torturer D'Urso is a necessary act of proletarian justice, and it is also the highest act of humanity which this regime allows us". However, they add, if "D'Urso death sentence is fair, the opportunity of carrying it out or suspending it must be judged politically

. This is the task of the revolutionary movements inside the prisons as well as of the Red Brigades". Significantly, after expressing the hypothesis of a suspension of the penalty, they address an appeal "to those in the bourgeoisie who still have an ounce of sensibility". Neither the State nor the government are called into cause, because the publication of the documents of the committee of prisoners of Trani and Palmi depends on the press organs, which are officially or theoretically non-governmental despite the fact that they get the billions necessary to cover the liabilities which they irresponsibly accumulate thanks to their homogeneity with the regime.

Statement No.8 modifies the "motivation" of the sentence of the judge: D'Urso "has confirmed his infamous role of torturer of proletarians. Faced to the physical and political annihilation of proletarian prisoners which D'Urso cynically pursued during these years, and to the full responsibility he had in his role, the sentence cannot be other than a death sentence".

The alibi of the "deliriums"

It is normal, for all press organs and even for the majority of parliamentarians and exponents of the parties of the Government, or of the Communist opposition, to dismiss the terrorists' statements calling them "delirious" and "hallucinatory"; and in fact they are, but the delirium of those words and argumentations cannot be an easy and comfortable expedient to wash one's hands of the political commitment toward terrorism, taking refuge in indignation, nor can it be an alibi to cover the moral and political flaws which contributed and still contribute in this country to the birth of terrorism, and to cover both the responsibilities which these flaws imply and the responsibility of perpetrating them.

This delirium cannot represent the pretext to cover the omission of democracy or even anti-democratic regulations, behaviours and myths, to compensate the incapacity to give real force to democracy. Using it in such way is a blackmail which is the equivalent of the blackmail of the terrorists.

In the specific circumstances, the terrorists' delirium and their violences have been used to submerge a prison scenario which has always represented a problem, to hide a condition of the penal trial which it has been unanimously recognized necessary to correct with a reform which lies since years and years in the archives of the parliamentary committees, while the problem has been solved by promulgating single laws taken from fascism. If we broaden our perspective we are faced to the so-called "moral issue", and the guilty mystification of considering it solved simply because it has been raised. All this partly explains, but cannot justify, terrorism; but it is nevertheless true that terrorism cannot justify the sluggishness, the errors, the guilts, the omissions of the political class, nor can it be used to justify the terrorist blackmail.

The emphasis on blackmail and the advocation of special laws are the recurring themes in the statements of the political milieu on statement No.8. The Secretary of the Christian Democrat Party Piccoli immediately declares at the "Corriere della Sera" that "we are faced with the most serious and unacceptable of blackmails". The Republican Secretary Spadolini calls it a "monstrous and unacceptable blackmail". The Social-Democrat Longo: "In the new phase of the attack of the Red Brigades, we reconfirm our constant orientation: an all-out struggle against terrorism, with all means, if necessary adopting exceptional measures". The communists: "the aim is the capitulation of the Republic", they write on "L'Unità", with a veiled reference to the Radicals and the Socialists, because they have wanted the "due act", and express an indirect threat: "many things will have to be clarified, as of the coming parliamentary debates. For now we can say that subversion has raised its aim to such a point as to cast a shadow of

betrayal over any uncertainty or sly calculation". The Red Brigades point to a reprise and an extension of the party advocating surrender. Who has given them such hope?".

The press black-out

It is the 5th of January. The debate on terrorism begins at the Senate Justice and Interior Committee, meeting in a joint session. The Minister of Justice Sarti, illustrating on behalf of the Government the official reply to be given to statement No.8 of the Red Brigades, states that "the sinister procedures proposed by the terrorists stand no chance of being accepted, and are nothing but the demonstration of the criminal self-serving character of their scheming"; moreover, the Red brigades, involving the "terrorists" of Trani and Palmi, intend to discharge the responsibility for the contribution in the assassination of judge D'Urso on prisoners detained for horrible crimes".

At the same time, headed by the Rome-based newspaper "Il Tempo", which proudly claims its leadership in this direction, and by the newspaper "Giornale Nuovo" (editor Montanelli), the press organs and even State TV, decide "the complete press black-out on the requests of the terrorists who kidnapped D'Urso": At a moment in which the silence of the press is vital for D'Urso survival, there is a black-out. "Il Corriere della Sera" supports the initiative, using the English expression "black-out" for the first time. There are nevertheless a number of newspapers that do not join the initiative: "Il Messaggero", "L'Avanti!" and later other newspapers as well; but most press organs join in, thus totally neglecting their duty to inform the population. The mastermind of such line of inflexibility which indiscriminately involves the Government, political society and newspapers, and which even transfers the inflexibility asked by the Government to the newspapers, is the Republican Senator for life Leo Valiani. In an ed

itorial published on "Il Corriere della Sera", placed exactly below the statement whereby the newspaper announces its "difficult" decision to carry out a black-out, he states: "I am an admirer of Beccaria's arguments against death penalty and torture. But this does not mean to give up determination in repressing bands of assassins".

This is the "essence" of this "inflexibility": 1) the provisional arrest and questionings on the part of the police, which must be used frequently to spot, search, wiretap, shadow and arrest the hundreds of violents who organize subversive demonstrations; 2) increase the maximum terms of the summary proceedings and of preventive custody; 3) "the proceedings against such people should be concentrated in few judicial courts, enabling the investigating judges to have a global, national vision...".

Whatever the opinion on Valiani and on the press organs, "Il Corriere" first of all, who share his doctrines; but he must be acknowledged the merit of a crude "strip-tease" of the concept of "inflexibility".

The black-out emerges at a moment in which the part advocating "inflexibility" takes an even harder stance, almost assuming a blackmailing position: beyond inflexibility there is only surrender, which is nothing but complicity with terrorism. The motivation which justifies the press silence is entirely borrowed from the motivations advanced by the political protagonists of "inflexibility", who ask to oppose State violence to the terrorists' violence, who assume the refusal to close L'Asinara as the counteroffensive to the terrorists' requests to close it, so that L'Asinara becomes at the same time the Red Brigades' symbol of force and the State's symbol of inflexibility.

On the pages of "Il Corriere della Sera", Leo Valiani advocates a behaviour of the magistracy which, regardless of elements of suspicion and evidence, should not acquit too many "alleged terrorists", should not concede release on bail, should always and in any case pronounce severe sentences, should enforce the law by not opening proceedings rapidly and issuing sentences, but using the longest possible terms of preventive custody, which, at the current state of affairs, can be protracted to twelve years even in cases of hypotheses of a sentence to a short period of detention. What Valiani advocates is a magistracy which should not administer the law, but declare war to terrorism without worrying about justice. As for the police, Valiani advocates a free use of their power of prevention, of provisional arrests, of questionings and controls, outside of any control on the part of the magistracy and with a licence to operate beyond a democratic strategy of public order. Another voice advocating inflexibility is

that of the communist senator Pecchioli: "at this moment, none of the terrorists' requests can be taken into consideration", no act or gesture can be made that could be interpreted as a "form of political acknowledgment of the Red Brigades on the part of the State", whatever the price this "refusal" involves.

The theses advocating firmness are based on an insistent reference to the Moro case: "the DC" - writes Spadolini - cannot waver. It resisted with courage during the 54 terrible days of the detention of Moro...It paid a high price, but such as to enable it to maintain the right to conduct the Government...Lay democracy was equally, exemplarily firm. The communists have not changed their opinion". The reference is eloquent: it does not matter if the exemplary firmness shown today will involve a similar price (the death of D'Urso).

This prejudicial requirement of opposing terrorism with an attitude of "firmness", indifferent to the contents which it assumes, is the same that is the base of the information black-out. It does not matter that the newspapers are betraying their duty to inform with their black-out, leaving the citizens the autonomy and the exclusive responsibilities of a free judgement, which assumes a dialectic relation with the judgements and orientations of the political class, it does not matter that information is the first of the "acts" (closing L'Asinara, releasing Faina) due not to the terrorists but to democracy; what does matter is to give an answer to terrorism in any case. The black-out, in other words, is the fruit of a projection of the line of inflexibility, and not of an anguish on the part of the journalists. The latter in fact never occurred, and the evidence of this lies in the fact that to this point (including the Moro case) the newspapers published news and chronicles concerning terrorisms with extraor

dinary abundance and no limitation whatsoever, and with typical "journalistic" greed; in fact, the publication of Giovanni D'Urso's questioning on "L'Espresso" does not raise immediate negative reactions, which will come only later, mediated, as a consequence of the sentences pronounced by the political exponents of the hard-line; also, faced to the journalistic scoop of "L'Espresso", "La Repubblica" scrupulously analyses the proceedings, showing its appreciation of the documentary value ("the Red Brigades talk for the first time, with such broadness...") and then the publication; the same newspapers"La Repubblica", setting a distance after the arrest of Scialoja, does so expressing pale reservations ("we regret they didn't do it") on the moral opportunity (not duty) - it would have been a good thing if the journalists of "L'Espresso" had set the police on the "tracks" of the Red Brigades), however specifying that Scialoja and Bultrini cannot be "prosecuted" "from a juridical point of view", nor can they "be

criticized from the point of view of the professional deontological code"; Eugenio Scalfari in fact rushes to the offices of "L'Espresso" to celebrate the scoop with champagne.

Thus, the black-out is decided impromptu, contradicting the behaviour which the press has always had and constantly displayed, precisely when the value at stake is the life of a man, and taking into account the possibility of his death. Mrs D'Urso in vain asks the newspapers to publish the two documents requested by the Red Brigades: two columns are worth the life of a man; Franca D'Urso is right, considering that the terrorists are denied space only now, when this refusal means the death of her husband. It is Giovanni D'Urso, and not the Red Brigades, who is paying the price of the black-out, and it is freedom of press and not the Red brigades, to suffer it. (*).

(*) An exhaustive chronicle of the behaviour held by the press is contained in another part of the volume, specifically devoted to this subject.

While a choir of voices praises the "black-out" announced by the newspapers (or by the newspaper of the welfare system), Pannella holds a press conference to illustrate the positions of the Radical Group; at the same time, a delegation of radical parliamentarians leaves for the prisons of Trani, in order to fulfil the following requirements, as agreed during two previous meetings on the evening of 4 January in the offices of Radio Radicale and on the morning of 5 January in the premises of the parliamentary Group: 1) ascertain, in the strict context of art.67 of law No.354 of 26 July 1975, the conditions of the prison and those of the prisoners after the revolt crushed by the intervention of the GIS on 28 December 1980;) 2) be the vehicles for the statements of the prisoners if necessary, in the strict respect of the mentioned regulation.

"Our position is different", states Pannella in his press conference; "as non-violents, we believe no cooperation or support should even be given, in any form, to any type of violence; consequently, we wish to underline that the pro-negotiation positions, as the other so-called hard ones, were the two aspects of the same policy which lead to the assassination of Moro, and which continues to cause the ruin of the State. Democracy is also a question of procedure, and from the first day of the Moro case, but even before that, we said that the problem was first of all of respecting the responsibilities and the constitutional norms to achieve the formation of the political will of the State and of the Governments as well as of the administration of the State in all its stages. Less than ever, therefore, faced to violence and assassins, can the State elude or surrender on its own laws".

Instead, Pannella continues, "a monstrous situation is already under way in our country, especially through the policies of national unity between '76 and '79, which have harshly outlawed the State. We have defended fundamental sectors, such as justice, against the fierce and Jacobin revivals of ruin, which were particularly ensured by the efficiency of the communist party in our Parliament; we have fought against the further barbarization of our laws and of our structures. Faced to the "Realpolitik" of the supporters of the Reale law and of other laws, faced to its supporters, closely united in the common aim of sabotaging the prison reform and any other tardy and inadequate indication issued from the Centre-Left, we maintained and continue to maintain that the State could not have but reaped further violence, and that the authoritarian and efficiency-oriented provisions were in fact causing the collapse of legality and justice".

Pannella then illustrates the sense of the dialogue he proposed ("we dialogue every day, with our life, our profession of non-violents and of parliamentarians, with this State, to see that law and legality are respected; we want to dialogue with the Red Brigades in the same way"), which, with reference to statement No.8 of the Red Brigades, could be the following (also illustrating the reasons of the parliamentarians' visit to Trani): "with this statement, the Red Brigades seem to be voicing a right, as Moro wrote from his prison and as D'Urso recalled, and it is the prisoner's full right, in the context of the respect of the law and of the penal code, to express his opinion, to express his ideas, to inform on prison conditions; and the prisoners must do this, even if they are afraid of doing it, because it is a right they have conquered, and not an authorization they are given. Well, let us tell the Red Brigades, that we have no difficulties in believing what we are saying, and that the radical delegates w

ill voice the rights of the prisoners in Trani and Palmi".

It is meaningful, according to Pannella, that in fact the decision to carry out a control on the prisons of Trani and Palmi was taken before the arrival of statement No.8, corresponding to the telephone call of the young woman, Daniela, who denounced the serious violences carried out against the prisoners in Trani, during or after the blitz. The visit, which is specifically planned immediately after, is part of a programme involving a series of visits to prisons which the Radical Group had already scheduled. After Daniela's phone call, the visit is simply anticipated, and the group specifies the twofold objective, as can be clearly understood from the statement which announces the radical delegation's departure for Trani: to ascertain if the prisoners have really suffered any violences, and to know who is responsible for them, when and how, and if the prisoners have been treated after it; to hear from the prisoners themselves their requests concerning their rights as prisoners, clearly but equally ratified b

y the Constitution, in that they are inalienable human rights. Nor is the red Brigade's insistence on the pervertedness of differentiated treatments in the prisons an obstacle for this formulation; the Radicals, Pannella says, have preceded the Red Brigades' position in this argumentation too, which appears to be their most important one: "we have always been contrary to differentiated treatment, he explains, also because we simply do not understand why the Government should guarantee unity of time and space to terrorist organizations, that is, organize the Red Brigades directly inside prisons".

Among the public listening to the press conference there are Paola Negri, the wife of Toni Negri, and the wife of Baumgartner, the subversive sentenced together with Pifano for the transport of a missile. Paola Negri recalled that her husband had been savagely beaten, and that most of the press deliberately presented him as the head or the organizer of the revolt. Baumgartner's wife instead points out that in prisons there is a mixed milieu, a range of different political orientations, and also for this reason the radicals' visit is extremely significant. The Red Brigades, she says, cannot appropriate themselves of the leadership on behalf of all prisoners.

A similar opinion is expressed by the liberal vice-secretary Biondi, though he maintains formal but not substantial reservations on the peculiarity oand on the radicals'surprising way of reaching decisions and initiatives. "The Radicals", he says, "move on particular positions with particular initiatives, so one cannot be surprised that from their point of view provocation obeys important criteria, such as to unmask the Red Brigades' propaganda with a Radical press counter-propaganda". He recognizes that the current initiative is "a sort of political and institutional counteroffensive in a country in which stagnation and obsolescence are a rule. The radical stimuluses can surprise, but as a liberal I am not part of those who feel indignant at them".

(continued in text No. 17770)