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"Wednesday morning Rossi . . . sought me . . . told me 1) that Dumini notified him he had used my car; 2) that the affair was grave; 3) that President Honorable Mussolini knew everything; 4) that he, Rossi, and Marinelli had given the orders following agreements with the Honorable; 5) that it was necessary at all costs to keep things quiet otherwise Mussolini himself would be overthrown. . . ."
Later Filippelli "learned among other things . . . 1) that the victim of the Dumini assault was the Honorable Matteotti; 2) that the order to suppress him came from the Cheka of the National Fascist party whose material executioners were Dumini and others known—even for this very specific last function—to Mussolini himself; 3) that they [the assassins] spoke with Mussolini during Wednesday; 4) that actually Mussolini had received letters and passport of Honorable Matteotti as proof of his disappearance." He was told, " 'It is a question of state. The regime is in peril' . . . Power and state were endangered for Mussolini. What should I do? Any word or gesture of mine could compromise Mussolini, personally, so momentarily I kept quiet. . . .
"Professor Carlo Bazzi [Republican councillor and journalist close to Mussolini] . . . knows everything. He knows also because he was present at my dramatic conversations at Rossi's house in which I asked the moral liberation of my person, guilty of having believed in Mussolini. . . ."
Open Secret. Weirdest point in Timesman Matthews' story was his assertion that he has "unimpeachable information" that most of Rome's leading politicos, Socialists, Liberals and Communists, knew of Filippelli's confession from the very beginning, but said nothing. Their reasons for silence ranged from the Liberals' desire to keep the aged conservative Giovanni Giolitti from succeeding Mussolini, to the Communists' desire not to endanger Russian-Italian relations. (Mussolini had just recognized the Soviet Government.)
But nothing in the dark report quite matches the moment when Mussolini, knowing that Matteotti had been murdered at his orders, went to Matteotti's wife, protested that he hoped she would soon find her husband. Said Herbert Matthews: "We can see now that of all ignoble things Mussolini did in his career this was the basest."