ITALY: Bomb

For the third time in a twelvemonth Death darted a sable claw last week at Benito Mussolini. He had just returned to Rome from attending military maneuvers in Umbria with King Vittorio Emanuele. Having spent the night at his sumptuous suburban residence, a villa lent by Count Torlonia, Signor Mussolini breakfasted frugally, set off for his office at 10 a. m.

One Gino Lucetti, a pale young man dressed in a neat brown suit, awaited the Premier’s car at the Porta Pia. His slightly bulging coat pockets held four hand grenades which he had saved from the days when he fought for Italy in the World War. One trouser pocket was full of dumdum bullets. The other held a dumdum-loaded revolver and 60 lire ($22) in small bills.

As Signor Mussolini’s limousine swept through the city gate, Signor Lucetti hurled a hand grenade. Well aimed, it struck the glass behind which sat Il Duce. The glass splintered, tinkled, held just sufficiently so that the bomb glanced to the roadway, exploded, hurtled stones and splinters which wounded eight bystanders and deeply scarred the back of the Premier’s limousine, by then 30 feet away.*

Both Calm. Dictator Mussolini and his would-be assassin both retained a glacial calm. The Premier sat quietly in his car and received an ovation with immobile features while his chauffeur changed a tire punctured by a splinter from the bomb.

Would-be-Assassin Lucetti, dragged by the police from a mob which was trying to lynch him, said quietly: “I am an anarchist. I came from Paris to kill Mussolini. I was born in Italy. I have no accomplices.”

The Premier, continuing to his office in the Palazzo Chigi, sat down unemotionally at a typewriter and personally typed off his deposition of facts concerning the attempted crime for the police. To newsgatherers who sought him he said: “Ha! For once you gentlemen have ‘copy’ enough? Tell foreigners who take an interest in me and all Italians abroad, that bombs explode, but Mussolini tranquilly remains at his post, facing any danger, because this is his precise duty.”

Signor Lucetti, jailed, said to the police: “Don’t ask me so many questions at once. I am tired. Wait a bit. Give me a glass of water and a cigaret and I will answer all your questions.” One hundred percent white Nordics who had supposed that Latins are perpetually emotional were puzzled.

Pronouncements. The Pope, informed of Premier Mussolini’s escape by Monsignor Pizzarde, acting secretary of State, was quoted as having exclaimed with emotion “Thank God!”

From the Directorate of the Fascist Party came a proclamation which was posted upon billboards throughout the nation:

“Again God has saved Italy! Mussolini is unhurt. From his post of command, to which he returned immediately with the superb calm which no event can change, he has given us the order: No reprisals.

“Black Shirts, you must obey the orders of the chief, who alone has the right to judge and to indicate the line of conduct. We offer to him who resists intrepidly this new proof of our unlimited devotion:

” ‘Long live Italy! Long live Mussolini!’ ”

Wrathful Aftermath. Not until evening, when 100,000 Fascists thronged cheering into the great Piazza Colonna, did Signor Mussolini betray his feelings. Rising to address the crowd, jaw set, eyes luminous, he shouted: “This kind of thing must end! As I have abolished strikes, I intend absolutely to stop periodical attempts against my life.”

Then, with a glowing menace which was taken by his hearers to refer to France, the safe meeting ground of Italian antiFascists, he cried: “Excessive and culpable tolerance of plotters beyond our frontiers cannot any longer be endured. . . . I say this not on account of myself, because I truly love to live in danger, but on account of the Italian people, who work and produce and have a right not to be disturbed by such recurrent happenings. You know that I do not utter words in vain. When I speak it is to announce my policies, which will be pushed through with characteristic Fascist determination and method. I shall make it increasingly difficult for a handful of madmen and criminals to disturb the life of the nation.”

Though reports of attacks on Premier Mussolini have been numerous, only two besides that of last week are admitted officially: 1) the frustrated attempt of onetime Socialist Deputy Tito Zaniboni to aim at him with a rifle (TIME, Nov. 16, 1925); 2) the insane Miss Violet Gibson’s attack upon him with a pistol (TIME, April 19), in which the bullet shot off the extreme tip of his nose.

At Rome a rumor has long circulated that, in April, 1923, when Signor Mussolini was driving his own car near Rome with his chauffeur by his side an assassin shot and killed the chauffeur, mistaking him for Premier Mussolini.

* In defiance of this accepted and official version the United Press correspondent who claimed to have been an eye witness cabled: “The bomb struck glancingly on the top of the limousine, then fell to the street.” Other correspondents enlivened their stories by reporting that the Premier “craned his neck through the broken window and looked back.”