ITALY: Red Rule in Fiat City

In the baroque council chamber of Turin's city hall—known as the Sala Rossa (Red Room) because of its lavish crimson brocade—Councilman Diego Novelli last week presided over an unusual ceremony. Because he amassed a higher vote total than Turin's 79 other councilmen in recent municipal elections, Novelli won the privilege of supervising the selection of a new mayor from among them for Italy's second largest (after Milan) industrial city. The outcome was preordained. When all 80 votes had been tallied, Novelli, the nervous, chain-smoking Turin editor of the Communist newspaper L'Unita,...