The spare, stooped leader of postwar Italian democracy stepped down last week out of active politics. Before a meeting of his party's National Council, Alcide de Gasperi, 73, for eight crucial years his country's Premier, relinquished the powerful key job of secretary general of the Christian Democrats and took the purely honorary post of president of the party council.
Youth was knocking at the door, politely but firmly. In as party secretary general stepped brisk, bright, 46-year-old Amintore Fanfani, an economist with a flair for politics and an eye for power. Fanfani...
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