Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti (born in
Rome,
14 January 1919) is an
Italian political figure, among the most powerful in post-war Italy. He has been accused of having
Mafia contacts, and was eventually convicted, even though he avoided formal conviction because of statutory limitations. He is often considered to have a strong sense of
irony. He served as the
prime minister of Italy seven times.
He also served as
foreign Minister of Italy between
1983 and
1989. Andreotti has sat in
Parliament without interruption since
1946, when he was elected to the
Constituent Assembly. He was almost continuously re-elected to the
Chamber of Deputies, until
President Francesco Cossiga appointed him
Senator for life in
1991.
During his formative political years, he was tightly connected to the
Christian Democratic Leader
Alcide De Gasperi and served as a Deputy Minister in Italy's Post War governments.
He was the last Christian Democratic prime minister of Italy, serving from
1989 to
1992. His last term was marred by the revelation of the
corruption which ultimately destroyed the party. On October 24,
1990, Giulio Andreotti, acknowledged before the "Camera dei deputati" the existence of "Operazione
Gladio", a NATO secret anti-communist structure involved in Italy's
strategia della tensione. During the first stages of Tangentopoli he was left untouched but in April 1993 he was investigated for having mafia relations. In 1994 the party of which he was a predominant figure vanished from the political sphere.
In November
2002 Andreotti was convicted of ordering the
1979 murder of
Mino Pecorelli, a journalist who had published allegations that Andreotti had ties to the
Mafia. He was sentenced to twenty-four-years imprisonment. But the eighty-three-year-old Andreotti was immediately released pending an appeal. On
October 30,
2003, an appeals court over-turned the conviction and acquitted Andreotti of the original murder charge. That same year, another court acquitted him of ties to the
Mafia, but only on grounds of expiration of statutory terms. The court established that Andreotti had indeed had strong ties to the Mafia until 1980, and had used them to further his political career to such an extent as to be considered a component of the Mafia itself. Most of the evidence in both trials had come from the late Mafia informant
Tommaso Buscetta.
As of
2005, he regularly writes articles on
Corriere della Sera. He also recorded a TV spot for
3 mobile company, which began airing in
November 2005.
After the
April 2006 general election, Andreotti, aged 87, accepted to be the
House of Freedoms candidate for the Presidency of the
Senate opposed to
The Union's
Franco Marini, losing to him 165 votes to 156.
* In response to an opposition politician that had claimed that "power wears," Andreotti responded "Power wears those who don't have it." The sentence became proverbial and is widely recognized in Italy.
* A joke about Andreotti had him receiving a phone call from a fellow party member, who pleaded with him to attend judge
Giovanni Falcone's funeral. His friend supposedly begged: "The state must answer the Mafia, and you are one of the top authorities!". To which Andreotti answered puzzled, "Which one do you mean?."
* On
Gladio: "Gladio had been necessary during the days of the Cold War but, in view of the collapse of the East Block, Italy would suggest to Nato that the organisation was no longer necessary."
* "Thinking bad about people you sin, but often you guess right."
* The fictional character Don Licio Lucchesi from
The Godfather Part III movie, a high-rank italian politician closely bound to the mafia, was modeled on Andreotti.
*
"Les procès Andreotti en Italie" ("The Andreotti trials in Italy") by Philippe Foro, published by University of
Toulouse II,
Groupe de recherche sur l'histoire immédiate (Study group on contemporary history) .
