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 fascism 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)

The hard line

by Gianfranco Spadaccia

A month after the release of D'Urso, the "hard line" refuses to give up. It has not obtained the victim it was seeking, and thanks to which it was trying to build obscure, but at the same time clearly comprehensible plans. Nonetheless, it makes an attempt to relaunch its strategy, even if it is forced to drastically modify its objectives. The top priority is no longer to bring the Forlani government down and replace it with a Visentini government. The main objective now is blackmailing the Socialist Party and criminalizing the Radical Party.

A month after the release of D'Urso, "Il Corriere della Sera" unleashes a new criminalization campaign, organized by its editor, Di Bella, and by the senator for life Leo Valiani. The specific occasion is given by the distribution of issue n. 3 of the magazine "Metropoli". On Monday 9 February, with block letters on its front page, "Il Corriere" announces that a new penal inquiry has been opened concerning Autonomia, the magazine "Metropoli", and its financial sources. The "reports" published by "Il Corriere" contain nothing new. They are nothing but a "mixture" of old statements delivered by "repented" members of Autonomia, old judicial news and clips of interrogations collected by the Moro committee. The logic which holds this "collage" together is the same as the "7 April" judicial inquiry. "Metropoli" is the only legal expression of an armed party whose military wing is represented by the Red Brigades and by other communist armed organizations, but which gathers all the sectors of Autonomia. All this is

nothing new. As Radicals, we have always expressed our belief that certain parts of Autonomia, in certain moments of their complex and varied story, have committed serious, specific offences, which include terrorist acts. And we constantly maintained that the authors of these offences, like the authors of all offences (including the ones committed by the thieves and the peculators of the regime or by the terrorists of the State) should have been prosecuted. Nonetheless, we always resisted the attempt to use such offences to create a political and judicial bluff which not only makes the ascertainment and the judicial punishment of such offences and of those who committed them more difficult, but also makes it more difficult to understand the real phenomenon of terrorism, hindering the effectiveness of the struggle against it.

All the facts, judicial and non-judicial, starting with the confessions of Peci, have confirmed the accuracy of our analysis and evaluation. Those who think they can put their hands on the terrorists by striking at Autonomia have got it all wrong. Not only that, but many exponents of Autonomia might be tempted to take refuge in the contingent but distinct organization of the Red Brigades. Ultimately, such policy would only favour the Red Brigades' recruitment of terrorists. The "reports" published by "Il Corriere" therefore are a a flick of the tail of the "7 April" judicial inquiry, a dangerous and misleading inquiry. But there is more to it. By means of a research centre set up by members of Autonomia, and through the personal friendships of these with the socialist senator Antonio Landolfi, someone is trying to frame the former secretary of the Socialist Party, Giacomo Mancini, and accuse him of being the financer, the supporter and - why not? - the "mastermind" of terrorism. Two days previously, "Il Corr

iere della Sera" had published an interview with the secretary of the Republican Party, Giovanni Spadolini. The latter referred to objective links between parliamentary forces and terrorism, and of the referendum policy as the connection between the Radicals and terrorism. Moreover, the article rather openly hypothesized the possibility of subjective as well as objective connections between parliamentary forces and the armed party.

The purpose of the hard line and of the Rizzoli editorial group, supported and politically sponsored by Spadolini and Leo Valiani, is patent: to attack Mancini and Landolfi in order to bring an indirect attack (and in order to blackmail) to the Socialist Party, and thus attack the Radical Party and the referendum policy, even if indirectly and on grounds of objective connections.

The hard-liners are therefore resuming their unsuccessful attempt during and after the D'Urso case, when they tried to present the Radicals (and the Socialists as well) as the parliamentary expression of the Red Brigades and of the party of violence and terror, and the Forlani government as a weak government, the expression, in Valiani's words, of a "wishy-washy State".

This recent chapter enables us to view the behaviour and the complex, heterogeneous composition of the "hard line" during the 35 days of the "D'Urso case" with greater distance. The "hard line" gathered extreme reactionaries of the Left within the DC and the expression of a lay Right, which has traditionally supported authoritarian choices ("Il Tempo" and "Il Giornale" among the press organs, the neo- and post Stalinists of the PCI, the Republicans, who represent the continuity of the party of Crispi (Italian history is full of ex-Republicans and ex-followers of Garibaldi who become monarchists, and of socialists, anarchist-unionists, and extreme Left extremists who become fascists), the orphans of Moro who quite rightly felt guilty for having abandoned him and betrayed him during the 55 days of his imprisonment, and who could not accept the fact of doing for D'Urso what was not done for Moro, the "friends of Senzani", that is, those who, like Scalfari and the editor of "L'Espresso", sought to be forgiven fo

r having always published everything, even if no one had asked them to, and who for this very reason chose the most hypocritical of "blackouts", and lastly the torbid mixture of interests which revolves around the Rizzoli editorial empire, and obviously the MSI and the paleofascists headed by Almirante.

From a certain point of view, if we look at it now, there were some ridiculous and even funny aspects about the situation. On the benches of the Senate or of the Chamber, we could see the mutual consent of the MSI and the PCI to their respective theses, after we had been accused for years of being Radical-fascists. We could hear the screams with which Trombadori maintained that the MSI was acting as "the defender of the Republic" when it talked about proclaiming the state of war. The interruptions, equal in tone and contents, of the member of the MSI Marchio and of the editor of "Paese Sera", Fiori. Those who had accused us on the eve of the elections of 1979 of supporting Montanelli now supported the same opinions as Montanelli. Were they communists-fascists too? They certainly were, if we used their parameters of judgement and their methods of carrying out political battles.

But who was the leader on this vast and heterogeneous group, and how did he mean to use his leadership?

Clearly, the main part of the troops of this army was represented, at least from the point of view of the parliamentary relations of force, by the PCI, by its newspapers, by its groups of deputies and senators. From the very first moment, the PCI's leading class supported the "hard line" with absolute and rigid continuity as compared to the attitude it held during the "Moro case". But the group headed by Berlinguer did more than this. It used the "D'Urso case" to rekindle the polemic with the socialists and with Craxi, and thus deepen the gap that divides the Communist Party and the Socialist Party. Its purpose was to resume the operation of criminalization of the Radical Party, to try to downsize and give a limited interpretation of the so-called "turnabout of Salerno n.2", that is, reduce it to a long-term perspective, and strain the political situation in order to cause a rapid crisis of the Forlani government. In order to achieve such objectives, which, if achieved, could be used to "strain" certain deba

tes under way within the Communist Party, the Berlinguer group concentrated on the Republicans.

However the Republicans were not the leading force. Rather, they were used. If we exclude the reactionary Right, which lacked both the force and the authority, if we exclude those newspapers which had reasons to support the "blackout" because they had to some extent practised it in the past, and if we exclude the Republican Party itself, which alone played a secondary role, who played the leading role?

The leading role was played by Eugenio Scalfari on the one hand and by the trio Rizzoli-Valiani-Di Bella on the other.

Why Scalfari? Because he is a person who believes in the power and in the influence which the press organs and the interests they represent can use on the authority. With "L'Espresso" first and "La Repubblica" then, Scalfari's motto has always been that of publishing not "a" but "the" 'newspaper of the leading class'. His frustrations depend on the fact that he hasn't realized that there is no homogeneous leading class in Italy, like there is in other modern industrialized countries. In Italy there are only political classes unified by the administration and the division of power and sub-power. By focusing on this leading class, Scalfari has assumed all its defects. This is why he has managed to accumulate a professional, editorial and even financial fortune, but his initiatives have never had any political success. This is also the reason why he has often played a torbid role, fishing in the meddled waters of the powers and sub-powers of this regime. In the early sixties, this demiurge, constantly deceived

by his misplaced ambitions, aimed at the Socialist Party and at the Centre-Left, trying to destroy the Radical Party first. In the seventies, on the other hand, he aimed at the Communist Party and at the 'historical compromise', trying to wipe away the Radical Party and crush the Socialist Party. Today as then, he wanted to represent the interests not only of a modern journalism, capable of financing itself with the sales market and with advertisement (this is true for "L'Espresso", which he is a major shareholder of, while it is not true for "La Repubblica"), but also of an unspecified "productive bourgeoisie", schematically and improbably opposed to a "parasitical bourgeoisie" which allegedly lives on income instead of on profit.

In the D'Urso case, to all this we must add the fact that Scalfari needed to be forgiven for the "scoops" of "L'Espresso", the interviews with the Red Brigades, the "collaborations" of Senzani, which "La Repubblica" immediately placed on the front page.

Thus, a newspaper who had published everything until a week before, suddenly becomes the most dogged supporter of the "news blackout", a strange blackout, which was aimed at striking not so much the Red Brigades, but those who operated in those days to save D'Urso's life. Faced to these choices, we can understand Scalfari's anger, after our decision to divulge the statement of the prisoners of Trani and then that of Palmi, because this decision involved the direct responsibility of the press and therefore also his own responsibility. Such anger was destined to increase, after the decision of "L'Avanti!", "Il Messaggero" and "Il Secolo XIX" to publish the statements. This anger blends the old anti-radical and anti-socialist hate with the political plan of toppling the Forlani government, destroying the Socialist Party, and relaunching the Communist Party with the failure of the Radical initiative and the death of D'Urso. Scalfari himself aims at the Republican Party and plays another card, that of causing an

open conflict between Pertini and the Forlani government. With a clever use of indiscretions, he manages to present his newspaper as the mouthpiece of the opinions, the alleged dissents, and even the moods of the President of the Republic. In the last days of D'Urso's imprisonment, Scalfari goes so far as urging, directly and repeatedly, a direct intervention, an "appeal" by the President to the Government, the Parliament and the country.

But this time too Scalfari has no political luck. At the end of these tragic events, D'Urso is still alive, and Scalfari is deprived of the victim he was waiting for.

The role of the Rizzoli editorial empire is apparently more obscure. The pride of this editorial group - the renowned "Corriere della Sera", once directed by Albertini and now managed bu the former news editor Di Bella - has long since chosen the antifascist Leo Valiani as the spokesman of the "hard line". Unlike Scalfari, in his fiery editorials, Valiani does not summon the President of the Republic. Pertini himself elected him senator for life for special merits during the Resistance and for cultural merits. Is it not logical to think that he did it also for "merits of inflexibility"? Valiani is in favour of preventive custody, of a "toughening up" of the treatment of terrorists in prison, of an inflexibility of the State, which should, in his opinion, replace governmental attitudes which are worthy of a "wishy-washy State" (the anti-fascist, former communist, former member of the Partito d'Azione, former member of the popular front, former radical and now republican Valiani brushes up the D'Annunzio-like

language of his youth). Is it not legitimate to think that these positions are also Pertini's? It isn't. Or at least, it isn't that automatic.

Today, after Pertini had a long meeting with Adelaide Aglietta and Francesco Rutelli, to explain our polemics with the Quirinale and the suspicions we were forced to express in those days concerning some of the President's collaborators, I can say that many of the opinions attributed to the President by "La Repubblica" were "inventions" of Scalfari, and that Pertini's inflexibility does not include the special laws, anti-constitutional measures and Special Courts of Justice advocated by Valiani.

In the meantime however, the entire political milieu of Rome was induced to believe that Scalfari and Valiani were the people most listened by the President, and that they had non-stop access to the Quirinale in those days. The thesis which was hinted was that the articles of Scalfari and Valiani were supported by Pertini's authority.

We all know who Di Bella and Valiani are. It is more difficult to understand what the Rizzoli empire is, and especially whose it is. Exactly like the Rovelli empire, it is an empire built on debts, that is, on the financial exposure of the banks, of the IMI, of the ICIPU and of the CREDIOP. In order to keep this fragile editorial concentration of newspapers on its feet (the most important ever in Italy), those who manage it and control it have no other choice but increasing the quantity of debts, to make it become a political problem of such huge proportions that only the State can solve it. This hope was first placed in the law on the editorial activity, and, in the context of this law, in the famous amendment which annulled debts (in other words, debts were meant to be "killed", or zeroed, by gracious contributions of the State). Owing to the radicals' careful action in Parliament, this hope has become improbable.

But who is it who controls the Rizzoli empire? Certainly not Rizzoli. It is not an exaggeration to say that Rizzoli is but the cover for other interests which control if not the ownership at least the debts, in the sense that they have assumed the burden of being responsible for such debts or at least for part of them. The most probable thing is that there is more than one part which contributes to supporting this debt. In such context, in such difficult and torbid equilibrium, the powerful managing director Tassan Din plays a more important role than Angelo Rizzoli himself. The financial operations, and the attempts to carry out financial operations and to keep this fragile empire on its feet, are countless. They go from the announcement of substantial German financing many years ago to the bribes of the ENI-Petrophin-Saudi Arabia affair, which, according to reliable sources, Andreotti meant to destine to the Rizzoli empire and to the payment of part of its debts. But to keep to facts and not to sheer hypot

heses, the new fact of these last years is the appearance of Umberto Ortolani at the steer of the empire. Ortolani was in the past an ambiguous personality of the para-political, para-financial and para-editorial world. In the name of whom, and representing whom? According to rumours, he represented Calvi and the Banco Ambrosiano, and with it, parts of the financial and banking world of Lombady and Switzerland, of which Michele Sindona was the "magna pars" in the past with his banks. But these banking channels are nothing but vehicles, the link with the financial sources. In the past, with Sindona, they were channels of financial resources of the Vatican, the mafia and the Masonry.

On the subject, people talk about Licio Gelli, head of the P2 Masonic lodge, who represented, together with Salvini, a powerful masonry involved in revolutionary attempts and in dubious financial manoeuvres, keeping relations with De Lorenzo and Miceli, bankers such as Giudice and Lo Prete, general attorneys such as Spagnuolo. Gelli is involved in the import and export of meat, a scandal, which, unlike the oil scandal, has not yet exploded in Italy. Meat from Argentina. Banks from Argentina. Interests that operate in Argentina and belong to North American multinationals.

An ascertained fact is that with the entry of Ortolani, "Il Corriere" increases its interest toward Argentina and the relations between Argentina and Italy. At a certain point, when the polemic on the P2 seems to be subdued, "Il Corriere della Sera" provokingly publishes an interview with Gelli on its famous third page. The interview contains Gelli's "opinions" on the Italian political situation. This seems to be one of the "hands" which operate in the Rizzoli empire. The trio Rizzoli-Tassan Din-Ortolani counted on the PSI for a long time, and namely on Martelli. It expected the rapid passage of the law on the editorial sector, with the amendment for the cancellation of debts and the solution of other complicated and obscure operations based on the paper industry. Clearly, none of the initiatives seems to have succeeded. It is at this point that the Rizzoli groups begins to have relations with the powerful lay finance, that of the Italian public banks, with the support of Valiani, who has always been an expo

nent of this milieu. The group starts relations with new exponents, because without these banks, Rizzoli, like Rovelli, Caltagirone and Sindona himself, would not have made much progress. But now these relations no longer concern the request of new funds, the making of new debts, the increase of the already huge financial exposure of the banks. This time the ownership of the editorial empire itself is at stake, because the latter has long exceeded the limits of fraudulent bankruptcy.

It is the first time that the front of the public and lay finance, which, with Carli, seeks to be considered as "clean" joins hands with the front of the private finance, it too Masonic but also "dirty".

The political basis for this alliance is offered, perhaps unwillingly at first, by the proposal of Senator Visentini, President of the Republican Party, of the constitution of a government of technicians, belonging to different parties but having a certain independence toward their parties,, capable of breaking the praxis of the strict subordination of the ministries from the party system.

The proposal had been advanced after the earthquake in Irpinia, and had been welcomed with some skepticism and some reservations by the Republican Party itself, not only because of Spadolini's personal envy toward Visentini. The proposal had been echoed by the press, because it seemed to embody in a more precise and defined way the generic and rather vague request voiced by Berlinguer of a "government of honest people". Scalfari extoled the proposal at once, obsessed as he is by the "danger" of a Craxi presidency and by the need to find another "lay" candidate to oppose to Craxi. Even the Communist Senator Colajanni, perhaps out of naivety, supported the proposal in an article on "Panorama", which everyone interpreted as a personal candidature for the future Visentini government.

During the "D'Urso case", the proposal is set aside, but it becomes a political reference point, almost a current and immediately feasible alternative to the Forlani government. If Gelli had hypothesized a Craxi government, in exchange for the Presidency of the Republic to Fanfani, Di Bella, in an interview with "La Repubblica", hypothesized Pecchioli as Minister of the Interior and Pajetta as Minister of Justice. The justification he gave was that they both "had balls". Di Bella obviously leaves Pertini at the Quirinale, but in his scenario, in addition to Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence entrusted to Christian Democrats of assured Western and pro-U.S. faith, he opens the Presidency of the Council to the "doves" Craxi and Fanfani, provided they support the "hard line" and prove they "have balls".

With D'Urso alive, all this can be considered as "phantasies", including this sort of language. But it is less amusing to think at the pressures Scalfari and Di Bella exerted during those days on the Republican Party, even after the survival of D'Urso, to urge it to cause the Forlani government to collapse. The Forlani government, in their opinion, is weak, as any government of this regime. But it was less weak than expected during the D'Urso case, because it did not entirely surrender to the hard line. Let us try imagining what a government like the one advocated by Scalfari and Di Bella (but Scalfari has the common sense if not the taste to let Di Bella say these things) could have paved the way for in Italy, at what it could have unleashed.

As far as Scalfari is concerned, we can attribute his attitude to his intellectual bovarysm. But as far as Rizzoli, Valiani and Di Bella are concerned, their haste can be attributed to the little time they dispose of. The perspective of a bankruptcy is not as far for them as for their masters. Time is short, and this explains the new campaign conducted by "Il Corriere della Sera" together with the Republican Party. A few days before this new terrorist campaign of the "Corriere", Marco Pannella, answering the questions of a journalist during a press conference on the State TV reserved for the Radical Party, specified that when we talk about a publisher "close to Sindona" with reference to Rizzoli, we are not using it as a generic comparison, but also in the literal sense of the expression, that is of a person responsible of bankruptcy. During that press conference, Pannella added that two of the foremost exponents of the Rizzoli empire are involved in the "Sindona affair", and that the groups of the Radical p

arty intend to document this at the most appropriate moment. Perhaps this could also explain the insane and slightly desperate haste of Rizzoli. And it could also be the explanation for the new campaign conducted by "Il Corriere" as a weapon for blackmail.

In the meanwhile, these campaigns have had some effects. With Martelli's trip to the U.S. to witness the crowning of Reagan, with the signatures denied for the incrimination of Gioia, with the police arrests, with the support given to the sentence of the Constitutional Court, with the anti-obstruction initiatives taken against the Radicals not only by the head of the Socialist group at the Chamber, with the rearmament expenses of Lagorio, the PSI - after the D'Urso case - seems to want to compete with the "hard line", this time playing at home.

For the moment, the hard-liners, the advocates of death and inflexibility, have been defeated with D'Urso's life. But the following months might represent the most difficult period which we and the Republic have ever had to face. Italy is once again divided between the party advocating "inflexibility", that is of impotence, and the party of "shame".