Aldo Moro

Aldo Moro was born on September 23, 1916, in Maglie, Italy. A professor of law at the University of Bari and Rome, he entered politics through the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) and served five times as Prime Minister of Italy between 1963 and 1976, more times than any other postwar leader. He was kidnapped on March 16, 1978, and murdered on May 9, 1978, by the Red Brigades.¹

Political Career

Moro was the preeminent figure of the DC's left wing, known for patient consensus-building and an unusual willingness to engage with Italy's substantial left-wing political forces. He led the DC's "opening to the left" in the early 1960s that incorporated the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) into government coalition, an approach that was then controversial but proved politically productive.

By the mid-1970s, with the Italian Communist Party (PCI) under Enrico Berlinguer representing approximately 34% of the electorate - the largest communist vote in any Western democracy - Moro developed what became known as the "historic compromise": a proposed collaboration between the DC and the PCI to stabilize Italian governance. Berlinguer, for his part, was moving the PCI toward Eurocommunism, distancing the party from Moscow and embracing parliamentary democracy. Their potential collaboration represented a fundamental realignment of Italian politics.¹

Kidnapping

On the morning of March 16, 1978, Moro was traveling by car through central Rome to Parliament, where he was scheduled to present the new Andreotti government, which would include Communist Party support for the first time. His motorcade was ambushed at the intersection of Via Fani by a Red Brigades unit; all five of his bodyguards were killed in an operation involving at least twelve attackers who had trained with military precision. Moro was taken prisoner.

The simultaneous timing - the kidnapping occurred on the precise morning of the historic compromise government's presentation - was noted immediately as either extraordinary coincidence or evidence of political intelligence about DC-PCI negotiations. Both the Red Brigades (who opposed the historic compromise as a bourgeois accommodation) and the right-wing Gladio-linked networks (who feared communist participation in government) had reason to prevent it.¹

Captivity and the State's Refusal to Negotiate

During 55 days of captivity, Moro wrote a series of letters - to his family, to DC colleagues including Secretary General Benigno Zaccagnini, to his friend Interior Minister Francesco Cossiga, and to Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. The letters became increasingly urgent, then anguished. He challenged the DC's refusal to negotiate, argued that his life should not be sacrificed to political principle, and pleaded for prisoner exchanges or other arrangements.

The government position, maintained by Giulio Andreotti and supported by the DC leadership after internal debate, was that the state could not negotiate with terrorists without fundamentally undermining Italian institutions. The PCI, in a painful position, supported the government's refusal to negotiate. The Socialist Party under Bettino Craxi advocated negotiation; this minority position did not prevail.

Moro's letters, which revealed his bitter disappointment in colleagues he had served for decades, created an acute political crisis of their own. The DC leadership initially suggested the letters had been written under duress or psychological manipulation; Moro's family rejected this characterization.¹

Murder and Aftermath

On May 9, 1978, Moro's body was found in the trunk of a Renault 4 at Via Caetani in Rome - equidistant between DC headquarters and PCI headquarters, a placement interpreted as a deliberate symbolic message. He had been shot multiple times. The location's symbolism - midway between the DC and the party it had contemplated governing with - was widely noted.

The murder ended the historic compromise. The coalition government formed without the support arrangement that Moro had been presenting when kidnapped. The political project he had dedicated years to building did not survive his death.²

Gladio Dimension

The parliamentary and judicial investigations into the Moro kidnapping, which continued for decades, repeatedly intersected with evidence of intelligence service penetration, deliberate obstruction of rescue efforts, and the possibility that state actors had allowed or facilitated the killing.

The investigation uncovered that the apartment at Via Gradoli in Rome where the Red Brigades had used a safe house - which police had specifically been asked to search - was not searched until after a medium at a seance session provided the address, by which time the kidnappers had vacated. The identity of who provided false information during the search, and why the Via Gradoli address was not searched through normal investigation, was never definitively established.

Subsequent investigations also raised questions about what role, if any, foreign intelligence services (including the CIA, which opposed the historic compromise as a destabilizing communist entry into Western European government) played in the lack of rescue. The Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism produced extensive documentation without reaching definitive conclusions on outside involvement.³