ABSTRACT: Deploring the fact that the Parliamentary Commission has been often distracted in doing its job because of sterile conflicts between the representatives of the so-called "humanitarian" position and those of the "intransigent" position, Sciascia points out that the essential question which ought to be answered is why Moro was not saved by the forces entrusted with safeguarding the citizens during the 55 days of his detention.

By reconstructing the most significant events that marked the inconclusive and culpable activities of the government, the judiciary and the police, while also emphasising the responsibility of the press, Sciascia affirms that there were serious shortcomings in the measures taken to protect Aldo Moro's person; that those who directed the investigations for finding and freeing Moro were responsible for serious omissions and inefficiency. But the reasons for such slowness in the investigations, for the waste of so many means and resources with the sole purpose of putting on a good show, and for so many professional errors cannot be sought only in the lack of preparation for fighting terrorism and the influence of the "media". The greatest obstacle to strong and effective action to save the head of the DC (Christian Democrats) was due to the decision not to recognise in Moro the prisoner of the BR (Red

Brigades) the same Moro to whom everyone had attributed great political sagacity and lucidity up to the moment of the kidnapping. The Moro of the letters accusing the DC and the "front of intransigents" of settling for clinical rather than political arguments, was in fact trying to gain time, also by proposing negotiations, so that the police could find him; sought in the contorted language so congenial to him to send messages that would help the investigators to discover his place of imprisonment; even sought to indicate the international connections whose protection the BR were enjoying. But the political class of the "constitutional range" (3) decided that the "pre-kidnapping" Moro was as good as dead, and that to find "the other" Moro alive was almost the same as finding his corpse in the luggage compartment of a Renault.

(THE MINORITY REPORT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY INVESTIGATING COMMISSION ON THE VIA FANI MASSACRE, THE KIDNAPPING AND ASSASSINATION OF ALDO MORO AND TERRORISM IN ITALY (Law 23, November 1979, no.597) - THE SENATE OF THE REPUBLIC - THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES - THE EIGHTH LEGISLATURE - DOC. XXIII No.5 VOLUME TWO - 1983)

Numbering forty members plus the chairman, in a series of three chairmen, the last of whom - Senator Valiante - was nominated when the amount of data gathered on the case was already enormous, and who was thus obliged to inform himself about it all, the Parliamentary Investigating Commission on the Via Fani massacre, the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, and the strategy and objectives pursued by the terrorists, suffered inevitable delays, worked slowly and wasted much time in this first part of its work devoted primarily to the Moro case. The fact that on the average the members present were as few as half or two-thirds, was of little help in holding the hearings which were always too long and in part repetitive. Added to this was the latent and sometimes explicit conflict among the members of the Commission which reflected that among the parties of the so-called "constitutional range" - and especially between the Communists and the Christian Democrats on the one hand and the Socialists on the

other - during the days of the Moro kidnapping and afterwards until the kidnapping and release of Judge D'Urso. This conflict was, to be precise, the so-called "humanitarian" position of the Socialists, who affirmed the need of negotiating with the terrorists, even while keeping in mind the limits of possible concessions, and the so-called absolute and unwavering "intransigent" position maintained by the Communists, Christian Democrats and others.

These positions were maintained in the Commission with one side trying to demonstrate that a minimum concession made in negotiations with the Red Brigades could have saved the life of Aldo Moro (just as later the shutting-down of the Asinara prison and the intercession of members of Parliament for the BR prisoners it was considered - but not by all, and not by us - would have saved Judge D'Urso's life); while the other side affirmed that the Socialist Party's disposition for negotiating aside from damaging the so-called "national solidarity" founded on firmness, not only would not lead to saving Moro, but was tantamount to a real transgression in seeking special and reserved contacts with the Red Brigades and encounters between Socialist representatives and those of Autonomia romana (4) who it was thought could act as go-betweens (and as it turned out they could), since the examining judges had not been informed of it. This conflict, which is unmistakable in the Commission's records, even if never expre

ssed in the clear terms we use to summarise it, was - in our opinion - a serious impediment and incalculable waste of time for the Commission's work. It is the reason, for example, for the useless hearings devoted to the Rossellini - Radio "Città Futura" (5) case: if Rossellini did or did not give notice of the Via Fani events at least half an hour before it happened (and if one were able to prove this it would mean that Rossellini had been "in on it" and his contacts with the Socialists therefore would automatically become serious - for the Socialists, of course). But Rossellini could not have given this news. Inasmuch as he had thoroughly studied the goals and behaviour of the Red Brigades, one has the impression, he could at best have hazarded a guess. However, the question of whether Moro could or could not have been saved through negotiations ends by appearing gratuitous and irrelevant after so many hours of hearings and thousands of pages of records. Gratuitous and irrelevant, one should say, for the p

urposes of a Parliamentary commission's inquiry; but neither gratuitous nor irrelevant in an inquiry conducted in, among, and by the Red Brigades, since they had the possibility of releasing Moro rather than killing him. And the decision to kill him, the dissension that arose among them concerning it, was the beginning of the crisis that is leading them to disintegration, to annihilation. The first and most essential question which the Commission has the duty to answer, seems to us to be this: "Why, during the fifty five days of his imprisonment, was Moro not saved by the forces of the state entrusted with safeguarding and securing the individual citizen, the collectivity and the institutions from harm?

Nor, obviously, could it have been avoided and more time was lost in pursuing an answer to the question posed in article 1, par. a) of the law establishing the Commission ("if there was information that could in any way be connected with the massacre in Via Fani concerning possible terrorist action in the period preceding the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, and how such information was checked on and possibly used"). Around this question there have accrued unfathomable lies, memory lapses, unverifiable time spans (including the Rossellini - Radio Città Futura case too). Neither was the work of the Commission any more useful in answering par. b) of the law: "whether Aldo Moro had received, in the months preceding kidnapping, any threats or warnings aimed at making him abandon his political activities". Because it is to be imagined that any prominent statesman receives them, but anonymously and not as advice or threats. And Aldo Moro in particular will have - indeed, did - receive them, he whose intentions, not

always clear, could easily give rise to misunderstandings. But even the warning (or threat) that he received while presumably present in a "friendly" country, and from an authoritative figure in that country, we do not think it possible to connect to his elimination - and for the simple reason that it happened. Things of this sort - even proverbs say so - are done without giving notice. Even more, not giving notice is a necessary condition for doing it.

On the other hand it was strictly predictable that the Red Brigades - given their rigorous seeking to strike at the ganglia and the prominent figures of the "multi-national state", the democratic and capitalist system - would aim at capturing and eliminating a man like Moro, at the head of the Christian Democrats and at the point - it was believed - of broadening the consensus and at least making it more flexible, giving it a stronger grip, more durably secure (but also to the degree that the opposition was more flexible, its grip and security became weaker).

But according to their rather rigid and elementary schemes, the organs that had the duty to foresee that the Red Brigades had made a diagnosis of the situation which would lead to the capture and/or elimination of Aldo Moro, were far from seeing this, let alone preventing it. Thus with regard to the question put in par. c) of the law ("the possibility of inadequate measures to foresee and protect the person of Aldo Moro"), one can distinctly reply that not only were there inadequacies indeed, but that the Commission's attempts to verify them were met with denials so absolute as to seem incredible. What makes them incredible is the personality of the police sergeant Leonardi, the head of Moro's bodyguard, as it has been consistently described to us from various points of view.

In judging Moro's bodyguards in the university, the ex Red Brigadier Savista says: "Three men were visible, this elderly one among them, who was the best of the lot because he moved among the crowd... Yes, it was Sergeant Leonardi who move best of all, because there was a very large crowd to hear Aldo Moro's lectures. Despite it all, he managed to keep the situation under control. This particular fact struck me also in order to discover what kind of bodyguard there was, I mean if it was just a formality or a real bodyguard... Sergeant Leonardi's attitude was that of a serious bodyguard, very well prepared. It was that type of bodyguard which we were not used to seeing. There is a way of behaving that you understand at once: first, the fact that they were always ready to draw their pistols; and then second, the way they moved through the crowd. I mean, it was a different way. If the bodyguard is only a formality they don't look around very much. When it's for real you see it at once, I mean the way they

look at the people, the way they watch the other people's movements. It seemed like a real bodyguard..."

From their observations, therefore, the brigadiers came to the conclusion that all the bodyguards were formalities, and so their surprise to find that Moro's was for real, even if in a specific location. But the credit was all due to that "very good" elderly man who "managed to keep the situation under control". This judgement of undeniable competence was shared by that of Gen. Ferrara: "Leonardi was an excellent sergeant from every point of view: austere, serious, distinguished, physically imposing, always sure of himself; he was a brave guy and always on the ready, a top marksman, a black belt...". These judgements lead us to consider truthful all the testimony regarding Sergeant Leonardi's worries about Moro's security (and his own) - and in particular the testimony of his wife. Leonardi had asked the Ministry of the Interior for other men, perhaps as reinforcements, or perhaps to substitute the ones he already had and whom he did not think "well prepared for the work they had to do". This request, w

hich Mrs. Leonardi says was made between the end of '77 and the beginning of '78 has left no trace in either the documents or the memory of those who ought to have received them. And yet it is not possible that it was not made. Precisely in that period the habits and behaviour of Moro and his bodyguard were being studied - as we know - by the Red Brigades, and this did not escape Leonardi's notice. His concern grew along with the signs that showed him the danger was approaching. He also noticed that he was being followed. He mentioned it to his wife and to others he precisely spoke of a white 128 (a FIAT automobile, ed.) that was following him. During the last period he was so worried, tense - he had lost weight - and felt so insecure as to make him say to his wife that "he was not the same person". And almost every afternoon when he was free, his wife says, he went "to confer with Gen. Ferrara, always about his work". But Gen. Ferrara denies this emphatically, backing up his denial with the precise memory

of a single encounter with Leonardi on January 26, 1978 and not concerning his job. But to whom then did Leonardi speak, and to whom make his reports? Mrs. Leonardi is "100% sure" that he did so. But Gen. Ferrara, even while admitting that Leonardi "had contacts with the whole hierarchy", affirms: "Sergeant Leonardi never sent reports to anyone whomsoever... we held an inquiry involving all of the headquarters of the hierarchy in the capital to check if Leonardi had hinted even verbally at anything. Nothing has turned up... no request for personnel nor reinforcements of either men or materials was ever submitted". Which, we repeat, is not credible. Leonardi may not have spoken to Gen. Ferrara, but he certainly spoke with someone "in the capital's military hierarchy". It is an extraordinarily perturbing fact that all traces of it have disappeared and that everyone denies it.

The Lance-Corporal Ricci appears equally worried, nervous and fearful in the description given by his widow. He did not speak much about his job at home, but since he was the driver, he spoke of the troubles with the 130 (a FIAT model, ed.) which he had been given ("it broke down continually") and was sighing for the arrival of an armoured 130. At the end of '77 he told his wife that it was finally arriving - which meant that it had been asked for and that they had promised it to him. But it did not arrive. This may have been the reason for greater nervousness on his part about February ("he appeared nervous and behaved strangely"). Which, since it corresponds to the behaviour of Sergeant Leonardi, means that they shared the same worries, that they noticed the same signs. But just as in the case of Leonardi, no one knows anything about a request for an armoured car. On the contrary, the Commission was told that if it had been requested it would have been supplied without the slightest difficulty. But h

ow is it that without having asked for it one expected it and at a certain point one didn't expect it any more?

Therefore Moro's bodyguard, "real" within the precincts of the university, became a "formality" outside, deficient and insecure - which certainly did not escape the notice of the Red Brigades. To say today that an armoured car for Moro, and one that functioned better, along with another with good brakes for the escort that followed him and distinctly efficient arms in the hands of men trained to use them promptly, would not have been things to dissuade the intent of the Red Brigades or to frustrate it, is as senseless as to maintain that they would have done so. In an action such as the one mounted for the capture of Moro, something small only needs to function or to go wrong in order to decide success or failure. And in any case, the things that go wrong presuppose someone's responsibility. But in seeking the responsibility - which is always individual even if it extends and is connected to others - the Commission always stopped just a little short, on the edge of discovery, of ascertainment - and thi

s because of formalities, because of internal and external difficulties.

Par. d) of the law establishing the Investigating Commission requires that light be shed on that attempted to find and liberate Aldo Moro as well as those following his assassination and in the co-ordinating of all the organs and apparatuses which directed them". But the material gathered by the Commission for that purpose is so vast that it would be well to extract from it the essential or indicative facts by giving importance to a few that would not seem to have any and overturning the value of certain others to which importance had tried to be given. For

example: the operations conducted by the police during the fifty five days from Moro's kidnapping until his assassination seem important and they are spoken of as an "imposing effort" to be recognised and praised. In fact, it truly was an "imposing effort", and I shall transcribe the list: 72,460 road-blocks of which 6,296 were in the city of Rome; 37,702 houses searched, 6,933 of which were in Rome; 6,413,713 people investigated, 167,409 of whom were in Rome; 3,383,123 vehicles checked on, 96,572 of which were in Rome; 150 people arrested and 400 taken into custody. These operations employed 13,000 men every day, 4,300 of them in the city of Rome. An imposing effort, but by no means to be praised. Conducted in a prevailingly blanket fashion (and, however, as we will see, with rash exceptions) the operations in those days were either useless or mistaken. At the time one had the impression of wanting to impress the public with a great quantity of spectacular operations, and no concern at all for quality. And

it is a matter of a decision made immediately, of a criterion (paradoxically consisting in the lack of a true criterion) immediately assumed. We are referring to that order sent out to the various police headquarters by the head of the UCIGOS (6) immediately after Moro's kidnapping, to actuate "plan zero". "Plan zero" existed only for the Province of Sassari; but the head of UCIGOS, who had been the police chief in Sassari, thought it existed in all the provinces of Italy. This gave rise to a convulsive chain of telephone calls among police chiefs before arriving at the conclusion that the plan did not exist. But the point is not in the error and the comical effects of it; the point is how in the world anyone imagined that the actuation of a "plan zero" in all Italian provinces could have any effect. What was the sense of putting up road-blocks, make checks on vehicles and persons on the morning of March 16 in Trapani or Aosta? None - unless to put on that show of an "imposing effort". Thus one aimed - consc

iously or by instinct - at spectacular effects and perhaps trusting to the law of probabilities (which did not function). And it is understandable that in order to pursue such effects they neglected to employ less impressive but more sagacious forces to give the investigation a less showy but more productive direction - to such a degree that the Commission heard the Rome police chief of the time reply that he lacked the men for the job of tailing someone which would not have taken more than a dozen at the very moment when 4,300 policemen were floundering in showy but vain efforts. But we shall return to this point. Meanwhile let us add that our opinion of the vacuity of the police operations is shared by Dr. Pascalino, the Rome Attorney General at the time: "During those days rather than investigating they were putting on military parades". And incontrovertible is the fact that whoever wanted the course of things to go no better, whoever consented to this, whoever did nothing to improve it, should be consid

ered fully responsible - to the degree of responsibility that lies in his position.

Curiously there corresponds to these parade-like operations a contradictory sign of preparation and efficiency on the part of the police which has not been sufficiently appreciated: it regards the identification of wanted men who were presumed to be brigadiers. These identifications were made only a few days after the Via Fani massacre by photographs shown in the press and on television. Twenty two individuals were identified, but it was immediately discovered that two of them were already in prison, a third well known to be residing in France and another legally registered in the hotel where he lodged. These mistakes - which we believe can be explained by the endemic lack of communication in our country among its institutions - kept the public from seeing the positive side of these identifications: that is, that the police were correct in eighteen of the cases. A police official (Dr. Improta) quite rightly defended to the Commission the preparation and quick action shown by the Rome police headquarters

in this case, which public opinion evaluated negatively and almost with mockery.

The state was not unprepared if after only three days the Rome police headquarters was able to identify eighteen Red Brigade members - having previously acquired more certain, proven facts and confessions - a few of whom had been part of the Via Fani group, and if they knew very well the most active elements of the extra-parliamentarian sphere (even in their ideological and strategic differences, their practices and temperaments). The unison chorus of officials and politicians bewailing the state's lack of preparation for confronting the terrorist attack is thus only to be accepted after a thorough stock-taking. The fact that the preceding "resolutions" of the Red Brigades and the writings of their theoreticians and supporters had not been duly studied by the police and the secret services, did not necessarily bring about the ensuing confusion, wrong tacks, omissions and futile operations that took place during the fifty five days of Moro's kidnapping. A normal and ordinary professionalism in investigat

ing would have been enough. Even without a study of the texts (which, furthermore, would have been more useful in preventing the events than after them) they had the advantage of knowing approximately the nature and objectives of a criminal association called the Red Brigades. They had already succeeded in identifying a fair number of its associates. They had sufficient information on the "protective tissue" that the association had at is disposal. If the Via Fani operation had been merely a robbery perpetrated by a criminal association making its debut, obscure and improvised, the disadvantage would have been undoubtedly greater. But the point is precisely that no one was capable of making any use of the advantages.

But let us work in an orderly way, keeping strictly to the facts in which malfunctioning and neglect (and, always, those "consequently responsible") are most unmistakably evident. In the afternoon of that very day, the 16th (of March, ed.), when the massacre of Moro's bodyguard and his kidnapping took place, the Fiat 132 in which had been riding was found in Via Licinio Calvo: this means that the Red Brigades were able to swagger with impunity around the very neighbourhood in which the event had taken place a few hours earlier, and aboard a notorious automobile. This derisive return of the vehicle, a sign of the Red Brigades ability to move safely around that part of town, should have aroused the suspicion that they lived there and so bring about greater surveillance. But this was not the case, and two other automobiles used in the operation were found in the same street on the 17th and 19th. That the Red Brigades should take this risk would seem to have been a foolish thing. But evidently they knew wha

t they were doing and that they would be in no danger. Meanwhile on March 17 Franco Moreno was taken into custody because there seemed to be convincing evidence of his participation in the affair. This action would not have been entirely comprehensible even if the inquiry had been limited to the killings alone, but it was entirely incomprehensible given the fact of the kidnapping. Since in the opinion of the investigators Moreno was at the time the only known member of the group, by holding him they were not merely blocking a possible lead to the others and the place where Moro was being imprisoned, but the move might also be fatal for the prisoner. But perhaps in this case too the show was the criterion that prevailed over the one of professionalism, of a well thought-out investigation. But the evidence that seemed (and on re-reading the list of it, still seems) serious, was dissipated, we don't know how, in the magistrate's inquiry, and three days later Moreno was released. Meanwhile, on March 18, - the th

ird of the fifty five days - the police, during their blanket search, arrived at the apartment of of Via Gradoli rented to a supposed engineer named Borghi, later identified as Mario Moretti. They arrived there - but they were stopped by a closed door. And here one must remark that as much as they wanted the operations to be in parade ground style, this is how they were done; and that both professional reason and instinct would seem to find a closed door, a door which no one opened, much more interesting than a door that opened at a knock. And all the more since Dr.Infelisi, the magistrate conducting the inquiry, had ordered that in the case of closed apartments one was either to break the door down or wait for the tenants to arrive. This order was carried out innumerable times to the great discomfort of innocent citizens; but precisely on this single occasion (single as far as we know) on which it might have had incalculable consequences, it was not done. It seems that the assurances of the neighbours that

the apartment's tenants were quiet people, was enough to make the police officer give up any idea of looking at it, whereas such a declaration ought to have made him suspicious. Was it thinkable that the Red Brigades would not behave quietly - even more quietly than most other people - when they inhabited small apartments in populous quarters?

Exactly one month later - on April 18 - the apartment in Via Gradoli, which the police had noted was leased to quiet people, fortuitously revealed itself to be a Red Brigades hide-out. But the name Gradoli had already circulated in the investigations, and uselessly, thanks to a seance held in the Bologna countryside on April 2. And it is not surprising that in the acts of a parliamentary commission, as in a dialect comedy, mention is made of a seance: but twelve people who as the saying goes are trustworthy, and furthermore who belong to learned circles in learned Bologna, were heard by the Commission one by one, and all of them testified to the seance they had held in which the name Gradoli had come up. Not one of them claimed to be either an expert or a believer in such phenomena. All of them did speak of a "playful" atmosphere that had formed around a "little board" and the other objects necessary to an evocation of spirits on a tedious afternoon: hence, a game, a pastime. And not only did they all

seem in their reports to the Commission to believe in the "little board" moving by itself; in fact, they certainly believed it if on the next day they reported it to the Bologna DIGOS (7), and subsequently to Dr. Cavina, head of the Hon. Benigno Zaccagnini's (8) press office. Among the mutterings of the "little board", one name came out clearly: Gradoli. Since in the province of Viterbo there is a town of this name, the police arrived there in force and presumably made the usual blanket search. And without the slightest result, it goes without saying. Mrs. Moro's suggestion to look for a Via Gradoli in Rome was not taken into consideration. On the contrary she was told that no such street existed in the yellow pages of the telephone book. Which means that they did not take the trouble to look for that street, not even in the yellow pages, because it was there.

The Via Gradoli apartment where the so-called engineer Borghi lives is finally discovered by accident at 9:47 a.m. on April 18, and it is not entered in order to take the Red Brigades by surprise but in order to fix a water leak. One must note here that a kind of hydric doom seems to hang over the Red Brigades: Via Gradoli is not the only case in which one of their hide-outs is discovered because of a leaking pipe. Furthermore, since we have spoken of spirits and might also speak of seers who played a certain role in the story, why not speak of destiny? The first to arrive, naturally, where the fire brigade, who realised and reported that the place was a hide-out. At this point there is more confusion and mystery: newspaper reporters arrive before the police; the Carabinieri knew of the discovery only because they managed to intercept a police radio report; the investigating magistrate got the news two hours later - not from the police but from the Carabinieri. And judge Infelisi was obliged to order th

e seizure of the documents found in the hide-out in order to let the Carabinieri get a look at them too (although Police Chief De Francesco denies having vetoed letting the Carabinieri see the documents and says he knew nothing about the seizure ordered by the judge: a contradiction which has remained unsolved). Furthermore no one orders fingerprints to be taken in the hide-out nor, it seems, was there a prompt and thorough sifting and inventory of the material that came to light there. In the opinion of Judge Infelisi, this material threw no light on the place in which Moro was being held. But the judge feels obliged to add this disquieting comment: "At least not the material I knew about". This opens up the possibility that some material may have been kept from him. In short, everything that happens between March 18 and April 18 regarding the Via Gradoli hide-out is surrounded by the unlikely, by the incredible: spirits, (which, according to a letter sent by the Hon. Tina Anselmi to the Commission, seem to

be much better informed than the participants in the seance reported), a providential water leak (but with providence helped, either distractedly or wilfully, by a human hand), the absence of the most fundamental professional behaviour, the most elementary co-ordination or the most basic intelligence. And we still have other episodes to discuss. Let us pass over the Duchessa Lake episode - in which, since credence was not given to the communique, and time was wasted in establishing its unauthentic authenticity or its authentic unauthenticity, one acted as if one had given it credence with an ensuing distraction and dispersion of efforts. Instead, let us dwell for a moment on the episode of the Triaca printing-office.

On March 28, UCIGOS got its first wind of people gravitating around this printing-office or, in any case, of persons suspected of being involved with the Red Brigades. But exactly a month passed - April 29 - before they were able to make a report on it to the DIGOS. Such slowness we believe to be due mainly to what Dr. Fariello (of the UCIGOS) calls "tailing done at intervals": which is the shadowing of suspects now and then so that they do not notice they are being shadowed. This is tantamount to not tailing them at all, since vigilance of this kind can only give chance results. As if going to secret meeting places, clandestine encounters, and all that goes with secret conspiring and criminal activities were regulated by habits and time schedules. Then too, the possibility of a person noticing that he is being tailed does not depend on how assiduously he is being followed but on how adroitly the operation is executed.

So a month passes - and Moro is still closed up in his "people's prison" - before the report, made more substantial by the good luck that finally smiles on the "tailing at intervals", reaches the UCIGOS and the DIGOS. On the first of May one learns of the printing-office Triaca in Via Pio Foà. On the same day the DIGOS asks for permission to listen in on their telephone calls, and eight days later the authorisation to carry out a search. The search was to be made on the 9th, the same day that the Red Brigades delivered Moro's body, and so it was postponed to the 17th. And here one can also agree with Dr. Fariello: that at this point it would have been better to wait a while longer. Since Moro was already assassinated, a watch kept on the printing-office, not at intervals but constantly and cunningly, would even have allowed for the capture of Moretti. But both the director of the UCIGOS and the police chief De Francesco admit that they had to rush the operation because of the "pressure of public opinio

n".

From the operation, too late and too soon at once, made on the Triaca printing-office, a revelation comes out that once again obliges us to speak of the incredible: in the printing-office are found a press coming from the Special Army Unit Group and a photocopy machine belonging to the Ministry of Transportation. With regard to the photocopy machine it was not possible to acquire any clue as to how it got from the Ministry of Transportation to the Red Brigades printing-office. This in

itself can give the Parliament and the public a sufficient idea of the difficulties the Commission encountered. With regard to the press, a few answers were in fact found, but they are of no use in formulating anything certain on the route by which the machine belonging to the Special Unit Group (RUS) - which is part of the SISMI, meaning the secret services with that acronym, founded on the remains of the disbanded SID - to the Triaca printing-office. In the general disorder of the state administration one might even be able to admit of the habit of getting rid of machines reduced to "old junk", which sold at ridiculous prices to private parties, miraculously begin to work again; but that they should end up precisely in the hands of the Red Brigades is a little too much. And it merits a rigorous investigation.

Another fact to be noted, still with regard to "the malfunctioning, the omissions and the ensuing responsibility ascertained in the directing and carrying-out of the investigations" is that of having neglected what would have been a true lead to identifying and capturing a certain number of Red Brigades and, in all probability, the place in which Aldo Moro was being held captive. We reach this conclusion with hindsight, but the police could and should at the time reached it with foresight. The erstwhile Rome police chief De Francesco (and his conviction is entirely shared by Dr. Improta who was at the head of the political section) says: "The »Autonomia (9) sphere was perhaps given priority in the investigations even before the kidnapping of the Hon. Mr. Moro because I was convinced, and still am, that it was the most perilous sphere in the capital... I hammered away at the »Autonomia problem from the first day - that is March 16 - because in my opinion that was the sphere in which some Red Brigades u

nits would have been able to find essential support". But one does not manage to see how he gave it priority, as he insists, if there was no surveillance at all of the heads of the movement whose identity was perfectly well known to him. Today we know what the police chief was able to suspect and verify as a consequence of his convictions: that there were relations between at least two of the Red Brigades and the "big wheels" of »Autonomia romana , and these relations were maintained for the fifty five days and after. And they were realised in concrete meetings. An intelligent surveillance - above all without intervals - of Piperno and Pace would have allowed for the identification of Morucci and Faranda, the two Red Brigades men who took part in the Via Fani action, and who in all probability continued to visit the place were Moro was held, and most certainly had contact with those who were holding him prisoner. But to those on the Commission who were startled to know that the police had not taken such an e

lementary measure as keeping the heads of »Autonomia under surveillance, Police Chief De Francesco replied that he did not have the men. Whereas he employed 4,000 for parade-ground operations!

To this brief list of omissions and malfunctioning one ought to add as an exemplary episode the one reported by the then Commander of the Financial Police: On the 16th (of March, ed.) shortly after the Via Fani action "an individual standing in Via Sorella Marchisio noticed two people: one was thinner and about 170 - 175 cm. tall dressed in the uniform of a civilian pilot; the other more robust and sturdily built, shorter, with a thick beard. The former was holding the latter by an arm for support and squeezing it strongly above the elbow. They were coming from Via Pineta Sacchetti and the corner of Via Montiglio. They had walked down a part of Via Sorella Marchisio, reached Via Marconi, turned towards Via Cologeto... in that area there is a clinic". The information was given at once to the DIGOS and the order to search the clinic reached the Financial Police "a few weeks later". And everything led to the suspicion that what this man saw was connected with what had happened in Via Fani a few minutes bef

ore.

One asks oneself what can be the reason for such extravagance, such slowness, such waste of time. One is told: the lack of preparation for terrorism, and particularly for such a spectacular action in the way it was done, in its victim, its purpose as that of Via Fani. But this is not a convincing justification. We have seen how it had been possible to identify immediately a certain number of the Red Brigades members, several of whom we are now certain participated in the action, and what precise convictions there are regarding the possible accomplices or more or less direct supporters. And one can even admit some more general and remote lack of preparation in the case of criminal acts that are triggered by associations protected by the fear and silence of the citizens, on the one hand, or the real or supposed connections with the power-holders, on the other hand. But this is only a partial explanation. For the Moro case one must present others which are together political, psychological and psychoanaly

tical. Certainly what was done wrong - and which kept more just and productive actions from being done - was in part dictated by conditioning from the "media" (we would not say by the pressure of public opinion: whenever public opinion really exists and makes itself felt, it is not so formless, so ready to be satisfied with anything at all: in a word, it has a critical capacity and is able to choose): parade-ground operations, as (Machiavelli would say) from a "high place", Dr. Pascalino judges them to be (but having noticed this, did he do anything to change it?). These operations, which in order to be visible, to put on a good show, had to be very substantial in their employment of men and means, one must emphasise that they impeded the carrying out of other operations necessary, essential, to a well thought-out, continuous and rapid investigation. Not to mention (or rather, saying again) that in the one case in which the parade-ground operations would by chance have had some effect, they were not employed

: in front of the closed door of the apartment in Via Gradoli on March 18.

But we think that the strongest impediment, the truest restraint and the most insidious disturbance came from the decision not to recognise in Moro the Red Brigades' prisoner the politically shrewd Moro, the reflective man with his well pondered judgements and choices, which he had been recognised to be up until 8:55 a.m. on March 16 (a recognition which is by now well neigh unanimous precisely because it is posthumous, as in an obituary). From that moment on Moro was no longer himself, he had become another, and this he certified in the letters in which he asked to be ransomed, and above all because he asked to be ransomed.

We have spoken of a "decision": formally this is imprecise, but in content it is exact. Whether spontaneous or conscious, improvised or formed gradually, whether made by many or a few, it was certainly a decision - and this because of the simple fact that another one could have been made. And we are aware of the impossibility of giving documented proof that such a decision - never officially declared - could have had, to say the least, attenuating effects on the length and methods of the investigation. We can also grant that the effects were not on a conscious level of awareness - and in short, in bad faith; but one cannot fail to recognise - it would be enough to re-read the press during that time - that an atmosphere had been created, a mood, a state of mind, which insinuated into each and all (with meagre exceptions) the hidden persuasion that the earlier Moro was as if dead, and that to find the "other" Moro alive would be tantamount to finding him a corpse in the luggage compartment of a Renault.

At first, in order to justify the content of his letters, one spoke of coercion, mistreatment, drugs. But when Moro began insistently to lay claim to his lucidity and freedom of spirit ("as much lucidity, at least, as a man can have who has been in an exceptional situation for two weeks, who can have no one to console him, who knows what lies in wait for him"), one went over to presenting compassionately the picture of another Moro, a second Moro, of a Moro who was no longer himself - so little himself as to believe that he was lucid and free, whereas he was not so at all. Moro no.2 in effect was asking for the employment of those same mechanisms to save his own life which Moro no.1, in his political and governmental capacities, had used or approved, in non-compliance with the laws of the state, in order to secure the tranquillity of the country: "not once, but several times, Palestinians had been liberated by various means who had been detained and even condemned just in order to ward off reprisals tha

t would have been put into effect if their detention had continued...".

Similar means, of which the public was not aware, had been used - evidently - with silence on the part of the government, the parties of the coalition, and the Parliament; and Moro could have been given the reply that, anything but silence - on the contrary, with certainty of uproar and the loss of prestige and credibility - would ensue if they were to be used in his case. Instead, one preferred to diminish, invalidate and deny his arguments from a clinical rather than a political point of view, relegating them to his delirious condition as a prisoner. Hence the lack of importance given to his letters by the investigators. The Hon. Mr. Cossiga, then Interior Minister, excluded in the most unequivocal way that any attempt had been made to decipher Moro's messages: "No deciphering was attempted during the kidnapping. We proceeded with the methods of our craft. On the other hand, linguistic analyses were done on the Red Brigades' messages..." (what the craft-like methods consisted in and what results obtai

ned by the linguistic analyses, one could manage to glimpse even at the time). But Cossiga himself, after having said that there could be "conflicting and even painful judgements" about Moro's letters, ends by recognising that in them "Moro, with his lucidity, his intelligence and all his arguments, had understood what it was that those who were discoursing with him really wanted: to be recognised as a party that might be outside the state, but which is in society and with whom a dialectical relationship is possible". Precisely: And Moro, without abandoning his firmest convictions, could do nothing but go along with the game to gain time for himself and for the police to find him. One does not see why Moro, a man of great intelligence and perspicacity, should have behaved like an idiot: if he was being allowed to gain time and communicate with the outside world, he could do nothing but take advantage of these two favourable circumstances. And even if the hope he expressed was only that for an exchange [himse

lf for BR prisoners, ed.], it is to be believed - in all obviousness - that he nourished another: that the forces of law and order would find his place of imprisonment. Consequently he must have tried to give some indication of where he was - hiding it, obviously, in a code. Anyone would have tried it. But to Moro, in effect, this capacity and intention were denied from the start. And yet, because of the attention he paid to words, for the tortuous use he knew how to make of them, he was the most suitable of people for hiding things (to say it in Pirandello's manner) in words.

The code in his messages might, for example, have been sought in the imprecise use of certain words, in apparent lack of attention. When Cossiga and Zaccagnini try to tell of the conditions in which Moro found himself, they quote a phrase from one of his letters (the very one addressed to Interior Minister Cossiga): "I find myself under a complete and uncontrolled dominion". It is curious that they do not notice that just this phrase contains something incongruent and does not precisely define the type of dominion Moro was under. What, in effect, does "uncontrolled" mean? Who could or should have controlled the Red Brigades? And so the secret meaning that has been suggested appears highly credible (especially after the revelations of the ex Red Brigades members): "I find myself in a populous condominium not yet controlled by the police". And probably the word "under" was to be understood as a topographical indication. But not merely is there no decoding, there is no attempt even to be attentive to the e

vidence: as in that "here" which may have escaped the self-censorship that Moro could not have helped but impose on himself, as well, certainly, as the censorship of the Red Brigades, and which is unequivocally to be read as meaning "in Rome" ("one ought to be able to call Ambassador Cottafavi here"). And it was no small indication considering what a waste of effort was being made in looking for him outside Rome. No credit, in short, was given to Moro's intelligence which should have been considered at least greater than that of his captors. One could have, without abandoning the "intransigent" position, continued to hold dialogue with him, both openly - in offering reasons to counter his own, which were reasons and not delirium - as well as secretly seeking in his letters those messages which possibly and probably were hidden there.

Instead, the experts were assigned to the study of the Red Brigades language - and there was no need of experts to find it poor and petrified, composed of slogans, of "ideés reçues" from revolutionary palingenesis, of the detritus of sociological and guerrilla manuals. And whether the Italian of the Red Brigades is translated from other languages is a problem to be set aside. The Italian of the Red Brigades is simply and obviously the Italian of the Red Brigades. One can formulate hypotheses of very different "translations". But at the present moment and perhaps for the near future they do and will remain mere hypotheses. And in formulating them one can start with this phrase from one of Moro's last letters: "With these theses one endorses the worst kind of Communist rigor and in the service of the singleness of Communism"; a phrase which up to now has not been given the importance, the attention and the study that it deserves.

The theses Moro refers to are those of non-negotiation, of intransigence: and it is understandable that he attributes them to the worst kind of Communist rigor supported by the Christian Democrats, a party that he well knows to be not rigorous. But "the singleness of Communism", what can he be trying to say? Is it not possible that he was trying to hint with this expression at the suspicion if not the certainty of some tie between the Red Brigades and international Communism or some country with a Communist regime? To look for such a tie (and not necessarily, of course, with Communism or Communist countries, but with those countries, regimes and governments that could have and do have some interest in "destabilizing" Italy), is one of the tasks that Parliament delegated to the Commission, and specifically in paragraphs g) and h) of the law. The reply, as far as it concerns foreign terrorist groups, can be given without hesitation: they existed, even if their frequency, continuity and relevance are not p

recisely known. But with regard to the schemes, the plots, the international connections, above and beyond the approaches, the communications and the exchanges among the terrorist groups, one cannot give any exact reply. And this is understandable: certain answers regarding this kind of thing only come after many years, from archives studied with the eye of the historian.

We can say that the names of certain countries keep coming up with a certain frequency, a certain insistence. And the most frequent and insistent are those of the Middle East, of Czechoslovakia, of Libya, and - recently - of Bulgaria. But these are, in the words of the government the Commission has interviewed, "rumours". One would be inclined to believe that the Hon. Mr. Andreotti (10), then prime minister, was not basing his words on "rumours" when, in speaking to the Senate in the session of May 18, 1973, he spoke of a country where young Italians had been trained in a certain type of guerrilla warfare, and when, answering the protests of Senator Bufalini who thought he was referring to the Soviet Union, he specified that the country was Czechoslovakia. On the other hand, it was based on "rumours" if, on May 23, 1980, he gave the Commission an extremely reductive version of what he had so peremptorily affirmed seven years earlier as prime minister: "Several terrorists, in fact, who were accused of te

rrorist acts, had also been, as it turned out, in Czechoslovakia. But tens of thousands of people go to Czechoslovakia, nor did it turn out that there could be absolutely any activity other than of a tourist nature." Evidently Mr. Andreotti had not heard the "rumour" that among the ten thousand Italians who go to Czechoslovakia, the secret services had picked out about 600 who could be considered less tourists than the others. And this "rumour" comes from a report of the CESIS (11) which, gathering together other "rumours" of the SISMI, the SISDE (11) and the General Command of the Carabinieri, affirmed: "at least two thousand Italians (according to surveys made by various sources) from 1948 until today have attended courses reserved for activist extremists in Czechoslovakia and other countries. Of these the SISMI is in possession of about 600 names". And with regard to Czechoslovakia, he specified: "In Rome and Milan in particular, Italian elements of the Czech secret services reside who are in contact wit

h various terrorist groups. They take care of collecting thorough documentation on the candidates, all volunteers, which they give to the Czech embassy which then passes it on to Prague. At this point, the candidates considered to be most promising for fanaticism, aggressivity and military temperament are started out on real and true paramilitary courses in Czechoslovakia or other countries after being furnished with false passports by the host countries. Once having passed the training programme, the terrorists return to Italy with a noteworthy amount of theoretical and practical notions on guerrilla tactics which they can in turn pass on to the other members of their organisations." And if this passage in the report, detailed as it is, can be considered a "rumour", one must say that the CESIS, SISMI, SISDE and the Carabinieri do nothing but collect "rumours" and are nothing but "rumours". This for the Italian tax-payer is a fact anything but reassuring. Or else one must conclude with Dr. Lugaresi, head of

the SISMI that: "Concerning these international connections, I want to say one thing: there is a large arms traffic which is not easy to strike at because it is like drug trafficking: it is not a question so much of a political matrix as it is of commercial advantage. There is an exchange of manpower among those who have common interests in destabilization. There can be a political-strategic orientation. But these deductions made from single pieces of information which we furnish every day can only be handled on a political level...". Precisely.

In this regard it is to be noted that in his first declaration on oath General Dalla Chiesa was also inclined to consider as rumours what was being said about the Red Brigades connections with foreign secret services and the idea that Moretti was the leading figure of the Brigades. But two years later, in his second declaration, when asked if he still believed what he had stated the first time, replied thus: "Very recently I have begun to have some doubts... Today I ask myself (because for some time I have been outside the melee and in a sense am an observer with a certain experience behind him) where the brief cases (12) are, where the original copy (of the so-called Moro memoir) is. There is nothing leading to the brief cases, there is no repentant Red Brigades member or one who has disassociated himself who has spoken of anything of this type, or complained of anything being lost... I think that there must be someone who could have received all this... We must also consider all the trips abroad these

people made. Moretti kept coming and going."

It is heartening that he began to have some doubts; less heartening that they came at the time when he was "outside the melee".

One last detail should be indicated to show how the desire to find Moro began unconsciously to deteriorate and vanish. Immediately after the kidnapping an Inter-Ministerial Committee for Security was formed that met on March 17,19,29 and 31. But what is worse is that the political-technical-operative group, headed by the Minister of the Interior and composed of government figures, the heads of the police and the information and security services, the Rome police chief and other public security authorities, met daily until March 31, but afterwards three times a week. Only that no minutes exist "nor records even of notes" for the meetings after the 31st. And this was the group - established with the right intention - that was to sift through the information, decide on actions, start them going and co-ordinate them.

Rome, June 22, 1982

P.S. Presented in June 1982 (since it had been previously established that the report was to be delivered by the end of that month), this report of mine today has need of two changes made on the proofs which are due to facts belatedly acquired by the Commission.

1) It has finally been discovered how the two machines ended up in the Triaca printing-office, according to what one reads in the majority report. And so it is to be ascribed to mischance that machines which state agencies threw out as old junk ended up working in the hands of the Red Brigades. 2) The report attributed to the CESIS is now considered to have been prepared by the SISMI. In reading it, however, the impression remains that it comes from a body of which the SISMI was a part.

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Moro, Aldo - (Maglie 1916 - Rome 1978) Italian statesman. Christian Democratic Party Secretary (1959-1965), author of the centre-left policy. Held many posts as minister since 1956. Prime Minister (1963-68, 1974-76), president of the Christian Democrats since 1976. Foresaw the nearing of the Italian Communist Party to the government by formulating the idea of a so-called "third phase" (after "centrism" and the "centre-left") in the political system. Kidnapped by the Red Brigades on March 16, 1978, he was found dead on May 9 of the same year.

2) Sciascia, Leonardo - (Racalmuto 1921 - Palermo 1990) Writer, author of famous novels, but also a noted polemic essayist, he participated in Italian civic life for at least twenty years. For one term (1979-1983) he was also a Radical Deputy who fought energetically in civil rights cases (the Tortora case, etc.).

3) The constitutional range - Refers to the parties who participated in drawing up the new Italian Constitution after World War II.

4) Autonomia romana - The Rome branch of a far-left wing political group (Workers' Autonomy) active in the second half of the Seventies. It reached the apex of its activities in 1977, while in 1979 it was denounced for aiding and abetting terrorism and some of its leaders were put on trial. According to its theories the working class ought to be organised into forms independent from the State, its historical adversary.

5) Radio Città Futura - A left wing radio broadcasting station.

6) UCIGOS - Acronym for the Central Office for General Investigations and Special Operations.

7) DIGOS - Acronym for Divisione Informazione Generali Operazione Speciali (Division of General Information and Special Operations), a branch of the police that since 1974 has had the task of repressing and preventing terrorist crimes.

8) Zaccagnini, Benigno - (Faenza 1912) Minister of Labour (1959) and of Public Works (1960-62), President (1969-75) and Secretary (1975-80) of the DC.

9) Autonomia - see note 4.

10) Andreotti, Giulio - (Rome 1919) A prominent Christian Democratic leader. Secretary to A. De Gasperi, he began early, as an under-secretary to the prime minister, an uninterrupted ministerial career: Interior (1954), Finance (1955-58), Treasury (1958-59), Defence (1959-66), Industry (1966-68), Budget (1974-76). Prime minister from 1972-73, then from 1976-79, and from 1990-92.

11) CESIS - Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza (Executive Committee for Information and Security Services).

SISMI - Servizio per l'Informazione e la Sicurezza Militare (Military Information and Security Service).

SISDE - Servizio per l'Informazione e la Sicurezza Democratica (Democratic Information and Security Service).

12) Brief cases - When he was kidnapped Aldo Moro was carrying brief cases filled with important documents.