Divine Julius – An Italian Politician

This past week for me has been a strange experience of ushering in the new, and ushering  out the old in Italian politics.  Last week I did a post on Cecile Kyenge, Italy’s first black Minister, who represents a clear break from the old ways of getting things done in Italian politics (See Post “Call me Black“).  This week I am writing a post on the mysterious figure who represents Italy’s political post-war history, Giulio Andreotti.  They call him “Il Divo Giulio” an Italian play on the latin “Divus Iulius” (Divine Julius)– referring to Julius Caesar.

Andreotti died this week at age 94.  He was no doubt the most powerful, controversial and enigmatic figure in the last 60 years of Italian politics.  His style of politics was considered Machiavellian and realistic.  He served as Prime Minister seven times and on 33 other occasions held ministerial posts, among them frequent turns at the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and Interior Ministry.  He entered into parliament at age 24, and when he died this week, he was still officially a member of the Italian parliament holding the title “Senator-for-life”

In addition to the title “Il Divo Giulio” his critics also call him Beezlebub, the Prince of Darkness.  Although he was never convicted of any crimes, many questions remain about Andreotti’s relationship with the Italian Mafia.  According to several Mafia turncoats,  Andreotti was known by the Mafia as “Zio Giulio” (Uncle Giulio), the Mafia’s protector in Rome, and in exchange for protection, the Mafia delivered Sicily to Andreotti’s Christian Democratic party.

Andreotti is still so controversial that when the Senate tried to hold a minute of silence following his death last Monday, a small group of new members of Parliament from the Five Star Movement began yelling “booo”, and “shame”. A prominent anti-Mafia writer Roberto Saviano (Quoting Indro Montanelli, one of Italy’s most prominent journalists who died in 2001) tweeted “Andreotti: the biggest criminal because he got out of it, or the most persecuted?”, and anti-Mafia prosecutor Gian Carlo Caselli was quoted in various Italian dailies saying that the only reason that Andreotti was not convicted for Mafia association before 1980 was because the trial went beyond the statute of limitations.  Italy’s current President Giorgio Napolitano simply said “History will judge him.”

Andreotti was known for his phenomenal memory, his political acumen, and his ever-ready one-liners.  Italian papers were filled this week with historic Andreotti zingers. He seemed to have one for every occasion.  His most famous was, “Power wears down only those who don’t have it.”  Clearly, his tight grip on power never wore him down.

Over the years he had many legal difficulties for Mafia related crimes and corruption, but he never questioned the judicial system.  Unlike former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who has fought with everything in his power against judges, to change trial locations, to switching hearing dates and manipulate the system, with typical Andreottian calm, following his 2002 conviction (later-overturned) in a mafia-linked murder, Andreotti issued a simple statement, “I still believe in the justice system.”

Andreotti worked with a group of Christian Democrats -led by Italy’s first post-war Prime Minister Alicide di Gasperi – to pull Italy out of its post-war depression to become one of the world’s biggest economies.  In the early years of his political life Andreotti helped draft the post-World War II constitution, and in the later years he pushed for Italy’s strong participation in the European Union. Unfortunately, the economic system created during the years of dominance by the Christian Democratic party was characterized by a massive state presence, and widespread patronage and corruption.

Andreotti was a devout Catholic, attending mass every day.  He maintained close ties with the Vatican, and was friends with Pope’s and Cardinals — for decades he was the Vatican’s point man in Italian politics.  An Italian paper this week showed photos of Andreotti with 7 Popes going all the way back to Pius XII (the WWII Pope) and up to Cardinal Bergoglio in 2009, now Pope Francis.

In addition to “Il Divo” and Beezlebub, Andreotti has yet another nickname “il gobbo” — the hunchback. Although once a fairly tall man, over the years he became very hunched.  He had a distinctive appearance with a shock of hair brushed back from his large head, large ears, and thick glasses hiding watery blue eyes. His unusual looks made him a prime target for cartoonists, which he always took in stride.

He was not a vain man, and had two famous one liners on that: “being mediocre men, the middle path, for us, is the best one” and “Humility is a stupendous virtue, but not when it is used when declaring one’s income”

Throughout the Cold War, Andreotti maintained close ties to the US which used the Christian Democratic party to try to push back any communist party influence in Italian politics.   Photos in Italian papers this week showed him with Nixon, Kissinger and Reagan as well as other world leaders – Thatcher, and Gorbachov.

When I married my Italian husband and moved to Rome, my mother-in-law wanted my husband to present his new wife to her friend, Giulio Andreotti.  I resisted.  We were married in 1993 a year after Andreotti finished his last term as Prime Minister.  He was preparing a defense against various legal attacks.  I knew I would have to cover his upcoming trial on charges of Mafia association in Palermo and I didn’t want to mix my marriage up with my job, so I dragged my heels.  In the end I went, and we had a fascinating conversation about US policy in the Middle-East.  The Middle-east was one of his passions and his knowledge of US policy was formidable.  I was impressed.

Shortly thereafter I would return with a camera crew to interview him about his upcoming trial in Palermo on charges of Mafia Association.   I asked him about one turncoat’s accusation that he had met with Toto Riina, the Mafia’s “Capo di tutti Capi” — Boss of all Bosses, and exchanged a kiss on each cheek.  I can’t remember if it was in the interview with me or in a public statement, but Andreotti frequently said “Everyone knows who I am.  If I had really gone to Sicily and met Toto’ Riina in broad daylight, you should send me to a lunatic asylum, not to jail.”

As with many journalists who interviewed Andreotti, I discovered he had a capacity to talk anyone under the table.  He calmly, effortlessly spilled forth facts, figures, information that were sometimes related and sometimes irrelevant.  One went away with plenty of video-tape but few clear answers.

I remember clearly the chaos the day the trial opened at the bunker-courthouse in Palermo’s Ucciardone Prison, built for the Maxi-Trial of nearly 500 mafiosi in 1986.  It was a media circus outside the with crowds of curious on-lookers, journalists from all over the world pushing and shoving about and satellite trucks lining the streets around the prison.  Little old ladies dressed in black peered out from windows of nearby buildings at the confusion below. Just before the trial was to start at 9am, Andreotti was whisked through the gates in an unmarked car.

TV cameras were not allowed inside, so I left my cameraman (AP Television’s Gianfranco Stara) outside and slipped inside to sit high above and stare down at Giulio Andreotti’s “gobbo”.   In retrospect, his manner was in such sharp contrast with Silvio Berlusconi.  In the courtroom, Berlusconi is active always giving interviews on the side to reporters and busily talking with his lawyers and showing his disdain from the judges and prosecutors.  The unflappable Andreotti sat calmly and listened.

He was accompanied by a young woman laywer, Giulia Bongiorno, who made her reputation for her brilliant defense of Andreotti.  (She also defended Raffaele Sollecito, the boyfriend of Amanda Knox in that murder trial).  She later described how Andreotti remained unperturbed by the media attention.  She described watching him take full advantage of being in Palermo to eat Parmigiana Melanzane (Eggplant Parmesan) and Sicilian Cannoli.

The trial went on for six and a half years and eventually Andreotti was acquitted.

One of the prosecutors on the team, Gian Carlo Caselli told Italy’s Daily Corriere Della Sera” this week: “His acquittal was only for actions that occurred after 1980.  For those that were committed up until that date, Andreotti was recognized as guilty of association for the delinquency with the Mafia, it is just that it fell under the statute of limitations.”

Andreotti’s lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno told reporters this week, “He was fully acquitted, and I say that because I know the documents.  All the accusations were overturned, even in the famous “statue of limitations” there was never a guilty judgment.”

Giulio Andreotti is such an enigmatic figure that he was a magnet for books and movies.  In “The Godfather III”, which came out in 1990, Franics Ford Coppola created the character Don Lucchesi who was was clearly based on Andreotti, then nearly 20 years later, in 2008, Italian movie director Paolo Sorrentino made the film “Il divo” about Andreotti which won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

The day after he died, Massimo Franco, a prominent Italian journalist who wrote the comprehensive biography “Andreotti: The Life of a Political Man, the History of an Era”, went to pay his respects — as Italians do — to the deceased before the funeral. He described “Divo Giulio” appearing as calm as always, laid out in his blue double-breasted suit in his bed in his elegant Roman apartment, as the friends and powerful acquaintances moved in and out of the room.  In his hands was a black rosary, a white porcelain cross fixed to the wall above the bed.

There are many secrets that Giulio Andreotti has taken with him to the grave.  He was an extraordinary man who did much to shape Italy in a complicated era. The debate in Italy continues over whether he was good or evil or somewhere in between, but no one questions that he was the most powerful politician of the post-war period and his death marks the end of that era.