Aldo Moro (; 23 September 1916 – 9 May 1978) was an Italian statesman and prominent member of Christian Democracy (DC) and its centre-left wing. He served as prime minister of Italy for five terms from December 1963 to June 1968 and from November 1974 to July 1976.
Moro served as Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs from May 1969 to July 1972 and again from July 1973 to November 1974. During his ministry, he implemented a pro-Arab policy. He was Italy's Minister of Justice and of Public Education during the 1950s. From March 1959 until January 1964, he served as secretary of the DC. On 16 March 1978, he was kidnapped by the far-left terrorist group Red Brigades; he was killed after 55 days of captivity.
Moro was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war prime ministers, leading the country for more than six years. Moro implemented a series of social and economic reforms that modernized the country. Due to his accommodation with the Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer, known as the Historic Compromise, Moro is widely considered to be one of the most prominent fathers of the modern Italian centre-left.
Early life Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro was born on 23 September 1916 in Maglie, near Lecce, into a family from Ugento in the Apulia region of the Kingdom of Italy. His father, Renato Moro, was a school inspector, while his mother, Fida Sticchi, was a teacher. At the age of 4, he moved with his family to Milan; they soon moved back to Apulia, where he gained a classical high school degree at Archita lyceum in Taranto. In 1934, his family moved to Bari. There, he studied law at the University of Bari and graduated in 1939. After graduation, he became a professor of philosophy of law and colonial policy (1941) and of criminal law (1942) at the University of Bari.
In 1935, Moro joined the Italian Catholic Federation of University Students (FUCI) of Bari. In 1939, under the approval of Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, whom he had befriended, Moro was chosen as president of the association. He kept the post until 1942 when he was forced to fight in World War II and was succeeded by Giulio Andreotti, who at the time was a law student from Rome. During his university years, Italy was ruled by the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, and Moro took part in student competitions known as Lictors of Culture and Art organized by the local fascist students' organization, the University Fascist Groups. In 1943, along with other Catholic students, he founded the periodical La Rassegna, which was published until 1945.
In July 1943, Moro contributed, along with Andreotti, Mario Ferrari Aggradi, Paolo Emilio Taviani, Guido Gonella, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Ferruccio Pergolesi, Vittore Branca, Giorgio La Pira, and Giuseppe Medici, to the creation of the Code of Camaldoli, an economic policy plan drawn up by members of the Italian Catholic forces. It served as inspiration and guideline for the economic policy of the future Christian democrats. In 1945, he married Eleonora Chiavarelli (1915–2010), with whom he had four children: Maria Fida (born 1946), Anna (born 1949), Agnese (born 1952), and Giovanni (born 1958). In 1963, Moro was transferred to La Sapienza University of Rome as a professor of the institutions of law and criminal procedure.
Early political career Moro developed his interest in politics between 1943 and 1945. Initially, he seemed to be very interested in the social-democratic component of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) but then started cooperating with other Christian-democratic politicians in opposition to the Italian fascist regime. During these years, he met Alcide De Gasperi, Mario Scelba, Giovanni Gronchi, and Amintore Fanfani. On 19 March 1943, the group reunited in the house of Giuseppe Spataro and officially formed the Christian Democracy (DC) party. In the DC, he joined the left-wing faction led by Giuseppe Dossetti, of whom he became a close ally.La "santità" di Aldo Moro secondo Dossetti , Avvenire In 1945, he became director of the magazine Studium and president of the Graduated Movement of Catholic Action (Azione Cattolica, AC), a widespread Catholic lay association.Aldo Moro: autentico innovatore , Azione Cattolica
After being appointed vice-president of the DC, Moro was elected in the 1946 Italian general election a member of the Constituent Assembly of Italy, where he took part in the work to redact the Italian Constitution. It was during this period that his relations with the Italian Socialist Democratic Party (PSDI) and Italian social-democrats began. In 1946, Moro ran for the Bari–Foggia constituency, where he received nearly 28,000 votes.Elezioni 1946: Circoscrizione Bari–Foggia , Ministero dell'Interno In the 1948 Italian general election, he was elected with 63,000 votes to the newly formed Chamber of Deputies,Elezioni 1948: Circoscrizione Bari–Foggia , Ministero dell'Interno] and was appointed Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs in the fifth De Gasperi government from 23 May 1948 to 27 January 1950.Governo De Gasperi V , www.governo.it After Dossetti's retirement in 1952, Moro founded, along with Antonio Segni, Emilio Colombo, and Mariano Rumor, the Democratic Initiative faction, which was led by his old friend Fanfani.Storia della Democrazia Cristiana. Le correnti , Storia DC
In government
In the 1953 Italian general election, Moro was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies, where he held the position of chairman of the DC parliamentary group.Elezioni del 1953: Circoscrizione Bari–Foggia, Ministero dell'Interno In 1955, was appointed as Italian Minister of Grace and Justice in the first Segni government led by Segni as Prime Minister of Italy.Governo Segni I , governo.it In 1956, he was among the most popular candidates, receiving the most votes during the party's congress. In May 1957, the PSDI withdrew its support to the government and Segni resigned on 6 May 1957.I Governo Segni , camera.it
On 20 May 1957, Adone Zoli was sworn in as the new head of government and Moro was appointed Italian Minister of Education.Governo Zoli , camera.it After the 1958 Italian general election, Zoli resigned. On 1 July 1958, Fanfani was sworn in as the new prime minister at the head of a coalition government with the PSDI and case-by-case support by the Italian Republican Party (PRI).Governo Fanfani II , senato.it Moro was confirmed as the head of Italian education and remained in office until February 1959. During his tenure, he introduced the study of civic education in schools.L'ora mancante di Educazione Civica , Corriere della SeraRitorno a scuola, educazione civica in 33 ore , Il Sole 24 OreScuola, il Parlamento prepara il ritorno in grande stile dell'educazione civica , Adnkronos
In March 1959, after Fanfani's resignation as prime minister, a new congress was called. The leaders of the Democratic Initiative faction reunited themselves in the Convent of Dorothea of Caesarea, where they abandoned the leftist policies promoted by Fanfani and founded the Dorotei (Dorotheans) faction.Il Doroteismo , In Storia In the party's national council, Moro was elected secretary of the DC and was then confirmed in the October's congress held in Florence.VII Congresso Nazionale della Democrazia Cristiana , Storia DC After the brief right-wing government led by Fernando Tambroni in 1960, supported by the decisive votes of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), the renovated alliance between Moro as secretary and Fanfani as prime minister led the subsequent National Congress, held in Naples in 1962, to approve with a large majority a line of collaboration with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).VIII Congresso di Napoli , Della Repubblica
The 1963 Italian general election was characterized by a lack of consensus for the DC;Elezioni del 1963 , Ministero dell'Interno in fact, the election was held after the launch of the centre-left formula by the DC, a coalition based upon the alliance with the PSI, which had left their alignment with the Soviet Union. Some rightist electors abandoned the DC for the Italian Liberal Party (PLI), which was asking for a centre-right government and received votes also from the quarrelsome monarchist area. Moro refused the office of prime minister, preferring to provisionally maintain his more influential post at the head of the party. Initially, the DC decided to replace Fanfani with a provisional administration led by an impartial president of the Chamber of Deputies, Giovanni Leone.I Governo Leone , camera.it When the congress of the PSI in autumn authorized a full engagement of the party into the government, Leone resigned and Moro became the new prime minister.I Governo Moro , governo.it
First term as prime minister, 1963–1968
Moro's first government was unevenly supported by the DC but also by the PSI, along with the PSDI and the Italian Republican Party (PRI). The coalition, which replaced the previous Centrism system, was known as the Organic centre-left and was characterized by consociationalist and social corporatist tendencies.
Social reforms During Moro's premiership, a wide range of social reforms was carried out. This included the 1967 Bridge Law (Legge Ponte).Legge "Ponte" n. 765/1967 del 6 agosto 1967 (GU n. 218 del 31-8-1967) , Studio Tecnico Pagliai A bill approved on 21 July 1965 extended the program of social security.
Despite mistrust and opposition, particularly when the Italian economic miracle came to an end and the government had to control the rise of inflation, the reforms continued. There was an increase in minimum wage. Two 1966 laws provided traders with insurance.La svolta di Aldo Moro: i governi di centrosinistra , Il GiornaleGrowth to Limits: The Western European Welfare States Since World War II. Vol. 4, edited by Peter Flora.
Vajont Dam disaster
During his premiership, Moro had to face the outcome of one of the most tragic events in Italian republican history, the Vajont Dam disaster.Il 9 settembre 1963 il disastro del Vajont: commemorazioni in tutta la regione , Friuli Venezia Giulia On 9 October 1963, a few weeks before his oath as prime minister, a landslide occurred on Monte Toc, in the province of Pordenone. The landslide caused a megatsunami in the artificial lake in which 50 million cubic metres of water overtopped the dam in a wave of , leading to the complete destruction of several villages and towns, and 1,917 deaths. In the previous months, the Adriatic Society of Electricity (SADE) and the Italian government, which both owned the dam, dismissed evidence and concealed reports describing the geological instability of Monte Toc on the southern side of the basin and other early warning signs reported prior to the disaster.
Immediately after the disaster, government and local authorities insisted on attributing the tragedy to an unexpected and unavoidable natural event. Numerous warnings, signs of danger, and negative appraisals had been disregarded in the previous months and the eventual attempt to safely control the landslide into the lake by lowering its level came when the landslide was almost imminent and was too late to prevent it. The PCI newspaper L'Unità was the first to denounce the actions of management and government. The DC accused the PCI of political profiteering from the tragedy, promising to bring justice to the people killed in the disaster.
Differently from Leone, who was his predecessor and became the head of SADE's team of lawyers, Moro acted strongly to condemn the managers of the society. He immediately dismissed the administrative officials who had supervised the construction of the dam.Un banco di prova. La legislazione sul Vajont dalle carte di Giovanni Pieraccini (1963–1964)
Coalition crisis and presidential election