(6 of 8)
The I.O.R. supplied Calvi with "letters of patronage" (called comfort letters by bankers), documents stating that the shell companies were controlled, either directly or indirectly, by the I.O.R. By issuing such letters, the Vatican bank was in effect vouching for Calvi's creditworthiness. The letters do not legally obligate the Vatican bank to pay off debts of the companies in question. But the letters do, according to some banking officials, imply a moral obligation. Marcinkus did not sign the letters, but he has taken full responsibility for them.
Even more troublesome for the I.O.R., investigators have discovered what has been dubbed a "liberating letter," written by Calvi to the I.O.R. five days before the letters of patronage were issued. The liberating letter in effect negates the letters of patronage and relieves the Vatican bank of any responsibility for the companies in question. Yet this letter was never made known to the Ambrosiano Latin American banks that lent money to Calvi's shell firms. The liberating letter thus gives the arrangement between Calvi and the I.O.R. the appearance of a conspiracy to withhold essential information from the lending banks. The various letters suggest that Marcinkus allowed the Vatican's name to be used in a questionable way in order to influence the bankers. The letters were written after loans had been made to the shell companies, and, according to Vatican officials, Marcinkus claimed the letters were for "internal use." Calvi needed them to appease the directors of Ambrosiano's Peruvian bank, who questioned the value of the shell companies.
The I.O.R.'s letters of patronage seemed to help Calvi, at least temporarily. But in the end even this ploy failed. When Calvi asked the I.O.R. to renew the letters, which expired in June 1982, Marcinkus turned him down. Another setback soon followed. After the Bank of Italy demanded that Ambrosiano account for its huge foreign lending, the bank's directors overruled Calvi and agreed to cooperate.
His world collapsing about him, Calvi fled Italy with a false passport, flying first to Austria, then to England. There, according to the two confidants who were with him, a traveling companion and a longtime business partner, he remained in seclusion in a rented apartment in London's Chelsea section. On June 17, Banco Ambrosiano's board of directors voted to strip Calvi of his powers, and the Bank of Italy appointed a commission to run Ambrosiano. That same day, Graziella Corrocher, 55, Calvi's longtime secretary—who, says Sindona, also kept the books for P2—plunged to her death from the fourth floor of the bank's Milan headquarters. She left behind an apparent suicide note saying, "May Calvi be double-cursed for the damage he has caused to the bank and its employees."