A statesman dies, while his troubled republic survives—and grieves
"Aldo Moro has been pitilessly and horrifyingly slain. The beast who tried to cover the kidnaping with a political and ideological cloak failed to listen to the cry from the whole of mankind that this man be spared. With his death, barbarity seems to want to kill not a man, but thinking and intelligence and liberty. Yet while this death appalls and disturbs, it will never succeed in defeating us. In that way, a tragic error has been committed by these wretched heirs of the most barbarous assassins that mankind has known. " —Giovanni Leone, President of Italy, on television last week
The end seemed almost inevitable, but still it came as a sickening shock. Two months after he had been kidnaped on his way to parliament and his five bodyguards slain, Aldo Moro, 61, president of the Christian Democratic Party and Italy's most eminent statesman, was brutally assassinated, his body left in the back of a stolen car parked in the historic center of Rome. The cruel ordeal was over, but the grief and anger over his murder had only begun.
A spontaneous outpouring of sorrow suddenly supplanted the cynicism with which many Italians had come to regard the kidnaping. Flags fell to half-staff. Both chambers of parliament closed to hold memorial sessions. Crowds poured into the piazzas of the cities to vent their anguish and their frustration. Most supported the government's refusal to negotiate with the Red Brigades terrorists for Moro's life. Some did not. One small band of protesters marched outside the headquarters of the Christian Democrats, shouting: "It is you who have killed him!"
The next day Moro was buried, following a private funeral attended by only his family and friends, in a cemetery at the village of Torrita Tiberina, 30 miles north of Rome, where the Moros had a country home. On Saturday the government held a televised state funeral in Rome's Cathedral of St. John Lateran to honor the man who had been Italy's Premier five times. While hundreds of Italian leaders, including Communist Party Boss Enrico Berlinguer, and representatives of 100 countries stood in hushed silence, Pope Paul VI devoted a special prayer to his personal friend, Aldo Moro. The Pontiff asked "that our heart may be able to forgive the unjust and moral outrage inflicted on this dearest man."
Across the continent, revulsion over Moro's assassination was mingled with relief that Italy had withstood such a tragic test. But at the same time, it became clear that Italy's long bout with political violence was far from over. Gunmen from the Red Brigades and members of other groups in Italy's crowded arena of militant radical factions shot and wounded seven victims in as many days.