Thirty years after

The thirtieth anniversary of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro (16 March) provoked widespread re-evocation of those tough times; of which the facts and agents are by now known, the theories having been clarified, and those long claimed, such as foreign interference behind what happened, reappearing

Giulio Andreotti

Via Mario Fani immediately after the kidnapping of Aldo Moro and the massacre of his escort, 16 March 1978

That a country that had suffered more than twenty years of dictatorship should pay rigorous attention to any danger of regression, is more than logical. The criticism – advanced in relation to the rise of cruel assassinations and “kneecapping” – that suitable precautions had not been taken was therefore unjust.
The thirtieth anniversary of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro (16 March) provoked widespread re-evocation of those tough times; of which the facts and agents are by now known, the theories having been clarified, and those long claimed, such as foreign interference behind what happened, reappearing.
Why Moro? Some say that because he was living on the outskirts of Rome it was less difficult to perpetrate the kidnapping. But I think that, whether that lesser difficulty was real or not, there was the objective conviction that for no other politician (obviously including me) would there have been such an emotional reaction and publicity as there was for him.
In a speech – that became historical – given two weeks earlier at a meeting of the parliamentary Group, he had replied as follows to those who accused us of weakness towards the Communists: “We have our idealism and our unity: let us not dissipate them; we are speaking about a liberal democrat electorate, of course because we are truly able to represent these conceptual forces at the level of the large masses, but let us remember our Christian character and our popular spirit. Let us remember therefore what we are”.
The “letters from prison” were made public in a treacherously emotive fashion, and some people, mistakenly, tried to claim them forged.
The most famous of the letters was addressed to Paul VI, with the plea for a purposeful initiative to get him set free.
They are certainly authentic letters (perhaps in order not to make him appear weak some friends uselessly cast doubt on them) but it is unjust to want to draw from it a judgment of lack of manhood.
The Pope had great affection for Moro and lived through his “imprisonment” with particular trepidation (every evening his confidential secretary Don Pasquale Macchi came to my home to pinpoint the situation). He never however asked for the release of political prisoners, as some people made out.
The most intense and moving moment in the anguished participation of Paul VI came in his sermon during mass for the repose of Moro’s soul in Saint John Lateran. It was a literal reproach to God because He had not prevented the misdeed.

Aldo Moro as a prisoner of the Red Brigades

For what the investigations can produce, there were and are those who still wonder whether the Red Brigade ultimatum should not have been (or pretended to be) obeyed. Personally I have no doubts not only about the ineluctability of the resistance, but about the practical futility of the hypothetical idea of negotiation.
In hindsight, the phenomenon was perhaps quantitatively overestimated by us, seeing also a non-existent single mould.
What however the subversives did not take account of was that the violence would not provoke fear, encouraging instead a highly articulated reactive determination.
The change in the picture certainly leads today to considerable diffidence about the diagnosis and treatment. But in the background always remains the social and moral duty to oppose all forms – even only in their remote stirrings – of intolerance and abuse.
In the television program devoted to the thirtieth anniversary of that 1978 I was particularly moved by the musical participation of the now grown little Luca for whom Aldo expressed great concern in his dramatic appeal.
Politics often stands aside from the common feelings of people. This was a touching exception.
And there is no rhetorical point here in quoting the tag: “defunctus tamen loquitur”.
Thirty years after Aldo’s voice resounds and admonishes.
I often go back to wondering what would have happened if in the secret vote for the candidacy to the presidency the two Christian Democrat Groups had chosen not Leone, but Moro. But what is the point, by now!