Giulio Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti accepted his first ministerial post in 1947, in the first Italian government after the fall of fascism. For the next 45 years, he dominated his country’s politics and embodied many of its dysfunctions. The devout Catholic went by nicknames including Beelzebub and “the permanent Secretary of State of the Vatican,” for his close ties to the church hierarchy. In all, Andreotti, who died May 6 at 94, served as Prime Minister seven times, including once in the late 1970s, when leftist terrorists kidnapped and murdered former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. His last term ended in 1992 as his Christian Democratic Party dissolved in a massive corruption scandal. Andreotti spent many of the years after that deflecting accusations of collaboration with the Mafia. In 2003 he was absolved of conspiring in the murder of an investigative journalist. In 2005 a court found that he had “friendly and even direct ties” with the Mob, but only before 1980, a period beyond the statute of limitations. “Apart from the Punic Wars, for which I was too young, I have been blamed for everything,” was Andreotti’s reply.