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Italy is sunnily tolerant of sexual peccadilloes; in a land without divorce, why should an unhappily married man of wealth and influence not be allowed a mistress? What an Italian politician must guard against is making a brutta figura —roughly, a fool of himself. The late Communist Party boss, Palmiro Togliatti, left his wife to live with a woman 27 years younger than he; yet his standing in politics was unaffected. By contrast, Foreign Minister Amintore Fanfani was forced to resign from office in 1965 simply because his wife made a mistake. The right-wing magazine Il Borghese published a politically embarrassing interview with Fanfani's old friend Giorgio La Pira, the former mayor of Florence. When La Pira tried to deny some of the remarks attributed to him, Il Borghese then revealed that the interview had been arranged by Fanfani's wife— and had taken place in his own house. Che brutta figura.
France, too, is tolerant of misbehavior by its leaders, but they must take place within the proper social milieu. During the recent French election, Presidential Candidate Georges Pompidou had to combat rumors that his lively wife had taken part in several wild parties tossed by the rich-hip pie jet setters of Saint-Tropez. Whether or not the charges were true, many Frenchmen were displeased, partly because Madame Pompidou had consorted with people who were not her kind — a social rather than a moral misstep. In Japan, where women are emerging from second-class citizenship, politicians are accustomed to entertaining guests with bar girls hired for the occasion. Last winter, Premier Eisaku Sato's wife admitted in an interview that her husband used to run around with other women and even beat her up occasionally. The public was not outraged but amused.
America Asked Less
Americans once demanded a lot less of their national public figures than they do now. In the frontier days, a politician often proved himself by demonstrating his capacity for drink, women and duels. Alexander Hamilton was able to continue his career in politics even after publicly acknowledging that he had paid blackmail to a woman. The fact that Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel, defending the honor of his wife, probably helped him get elected President. During his four years in the White House, Franklin Pierce often drank himself into a stupor, but, says Historian John Roche: "In those days it really didn't make much difference. The President didn't do anything anyway." Nor did Pierce ever mend his ways. "After the White House, what is there to do but drink?" he complained.
Gradually, frontier lustiness was replaced by a Victorian sense of decorum and a growing belief at least in the surface dignity of politics. Politicians had to be more careful. Shortly after Grover Cleveland received the Democratic presidential nomination in 1884, a newspaper revealed that he had been supporting an illegitimate child for several years. Distraught party leaders asked him what to do. "Tell the truth," he doughtily replied. The truth scarcely satisfied Republicans, who improvised several more scandals about Cleveland and made the most of a campaign ditty: "Ma, ma, where's our pa? Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!" Cleveland narrowly won because of his public probity and also because women did not have the vote.