Mariano Rumor ( ;16 June 1915 – 22 January 1990) was an Italian politician and statesman. A member of the Christian Democracy (DC), he served as the 39th prime minister of Italy from December 1968 to August 1970 and again from July 1973 to November 1974.Scheda di attività di Mariano Rumor, Senato della Repubblica As prime minister, he led five different governments, supported by various coalitions.Mariano Rumor, Italian statesman
Rumor served as Italian Minister of Agriculture from 1959 to 1963, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1974 to 1976, and Italian Minister of the Interior in two brief periods, in 1963 and from 1972 to 1973. Rumor was the secretary of the DC from 1964 to 1969.Mariano Rumor – Biografia, Storiologia
Early life and career Mariano Rumor was born in Vicenza, Veneto, on 16 June 1915. His father, Giuseppe Rumor, was the owner of a printing studio and promoter of a local magazine, The Catholic Worker, founded by Rumor's grandfather. His mother, Tina Nardi, came from a liberal family.Mariano Rumor – Dizionario Biografico, Enciclopedia Treccani He attended the classical lyceum Antonio Pigafetta in Vicenza, then he earned a degree from the University of Padua in literature in 1939.Mariano Rumor – Biografia, Cinquantamila
After his graduation, Rumor became a teacher at an Italian lyceum until his mobilization as a lieutenant in the Italian Army during the Second World War. Subsequent to the Armistice of Cassibile in 1943 between Italy and the Allied powers, Rumor joined the Italian resistance movement.Mariano Rumor, Patrimonio dell'Archivio Storico del Senato della Repubblica After the end of the war, he was among the founders of the Christian Associations of Italian Workers (ACLI),Mariano Rumor e le ACLI vicentine, Franco Angeli the widespread lay Catholic associations, and joined the Christian Democracy (DC) party, of which he became one of the main leaders in Veneto, very close to Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi. In the 1946 Italian general election, Rumor was elected with more than 29,000 votes to the Constituent Assembly, for the constituency of Verona–Padova–Vicenza–Rovigo.Elezioni del 1946: Circoscrizione Verona–Padova–Vicenza–Rovigo, Ministero dell'InternoEinaudi, Mario The Constitution of the Italian Republic The American Political Science Review vol. 42 no. 4 (pp. 661–676), August 1948
He became a member of the new-born Chamber of Deputies in 1948. The 1948 Italian general election was heavily influenced by the Cold War confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, and is best known for the covert political warfare waged by the US State Department and Central Intelligence Agency on behalf of the DC. The elections were eventually won with a comfortable margin by De Gasperi's DC that defeated the left-wing coalition of the Popular Democratic Front, which comprised the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).Ministry of the Interior – 1948 Election Results As a deputy, he became very close to Giuseppe Dossetti, becoming a member of his Christian leftist wing.Mariano Rumor, Memorie (1943–1970), p. 12
Political career First roles in government
In 1950, Guido Gonella succeeded Paolo Emilio Taviani as National Secretary of the DC; the target of the new secretariat was to build a unitary management of the party in support of the government led by Alcide De Gasperi. In this context, Rumor was nominated for the first time as National Deputy Secretary, together with Dossetti.Guido Gonella – Dizionario Biografico, Enciclopedia Treccani
The withdrawal from politics of Giuseppe Dossetti, left his faction without a charismatic leader; however, Mariano Rumor played a decisive role in the birth of the new faction, called "Democratic Initiative", which brought together not only Dossetti's followers, such as Giorgio La Pira, Amintore Fanfani and Aldo Moro, but also members of the centrist pro-De Gasperi majority, as Paolo Emilio Taviani and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.La stagione del centrismo, Francesco Malgeri, page 114 Rumor himself presented the manifesto of Democratic Initiative, published on a magazine with the same name.Il prezzo della democrazia In this text, alongside the declaration of support for De Gasperi and the Atlantic Pact, Dossetti's principles of a Christian reformist party were reaffirmed, with the aim of moving the country towards a "democratic evolution".La stagione del centrismo, Francesco Malgeri, page 100
Rumor immediately played a leading role in the faction. This position, led him to hold the first government posts, becoming Undersecretary for Agriculture in De Gasperi's seventh government, a position he also maintained in De Gasperi VIII Cabinet and, after De Gasperi's retirement in 1954, in the short-lived government led by Giuseppe Pella.Governo De Gasperi VII, governo.it In the brief first Fanfani government, from January to February 1954, Rumor was appointed to Secretary of the Council of Ministers.Composizione del Governo Fanfani I, Senato della Repubblica
In 1954, after the National Congress of Naples, which saw the affirmation of Democratic Initiative and the subsequent election of Fanfani as party's Secretary, Rumor was elected again deputy secretary.VIII Congresso di Napoli, Della Repubblica He held this office for the next five years, until Democratic Initiative split up. In fact, many members of the faction, started criticizing the political line of Fanfani's secretariat, who cautiously began to open to the prospect of a collaboration with Italian Socialist Party (PSI).III Legislatura, Della Repubblica Prominent members of the faction, including Rumor himself, put the Secretary in minority during the National Congress of March 1959. In this way, Democratic Initiative split up between the followers of Fanfani and the dissident group, now renamed by all Dorotei ("Dorotheans"), from the place where they had gathered before the congress, the convent of the sisters of Santa Dorotea in Rome. The new faction was built around Antonio Segni, Mariano Rumor and Aldo Moro, who was elected new Secretary.I Dorotei, Archivio 900
In the same year, as one of the faction's leaders, Rumor was appointed Minister of Agriculture, in the second Segni's government, a position he would keep in the governments of Fernando Tambroni, and Fanfani.II Governo Segni, Della Repubblica In this role, Rumor contributed to the definition of one of the first plans for the development and innovation of the national agricultural sector, the so-called "Green Plan".Le "mie carte". Inventario dell'archivio di Mariano Rumor
In 1963 Italian general election, the DC suffered a sharp decline of consensus.Elezioni del 1963, Ministero dell'Interno Rumor was appointed Minister of the Interior in the short-lived government chaired by Giovanni Leone.I Governo Leone, camera.it As minister, he had to face 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 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.La cronaca del disastro e il processo, ANSA
Immediately after the disaster, government and local authorities insisted on attributing the tragedy to an unexpected and unavoidable natural event. However, 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.La tragedia del Vajont , Rai Scuola The communist newspaper L'Unità was the first to denounce the actions of management and government.
Secretary of Christian Democracy
In January 1964, Rumor was elected the DC secretary, holding the office until January 1969 and leading the party in a complex phase of government cooperation with the socialists.Mariano Rumor, Enciclopedia Treccani In the five years leading the DC, Rumor tried to reassure the moderate electorate in an attempt to recover the consensus lost in the previous elections.I socialisti e la svolta politica del 1962, Mondoperaio
Rumor embodied the typical characteristics of the Dorotheans: caution, moderation, the propensity for mediation rather than for decision, attention to practical and concrete topics, rather than to major strategies, the representation of the interests of the provincial middle class, the privileged link with the public administration, with the Catholic world and with direct farmers.Rumor, quando la politica era capace di includere, Avvenire In the 1968 Italian general election, the DC managed to increase its votes, albeit slightly, gaining 39% of votes.Elezioni del 1968, Ministero dell'Interno This result was experienced as a success by the Rumor secretariat and he became a natural candidate for the leadership of the government.
First term as prime minister On 13 December 1968, Mariano Rumor was sworn in as prime minister for the first time, leading a government composed of Christian Democrats, Socialists and Republicans.Governo Rumor I During his first term as prime minister, a number of progressive reforms were carried out.La DC ricorda Mariano Rumor, Imola Oggi
In foreign policy, Rumor signed on 28 January 1969 the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; however, his first term as prime minister was deeply marked by the Piazza Fontana massacre, a terrorist attack that occurred on 12 December 1969 when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of National Agrarian Bank in Piazza Fontana, Milan, killing 17 people and wounding 88. In the same afternoon, three more bombs were detonated in Rome and Milan, and another was found unexploded.Bull, Anna Cento and Cooke, Philip. Ending Terrorism in Italy, Routledge, 2013 The attack was planned by a neo-fascist group, Ordine Nuovo (New Order), whose aim was to prevent the country falling into the hands of the left-wing by duping the public into believing the bombings were part of a communist insurgency.
During his first term, Rumor led three different governments. From December 1968 to July 1969, the DC joined with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) as well as the Italian Republican Party (PRI). From August 1969 to February 1970 he led a DC-only government; its collapse led to a 45-day long period without government, with issues such as Italian divorce law and the status of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) generating instability. After this period, which included an attempt by former Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani to form a government, Rumor led a new coalition with the Socialist, Republican, and Democratic Socialist parties from March until July 1970.
Interior Minister and assassination attempt
In 1972, Rumor was appointed Minister of the Interior, in the government of Giulio Andreotti.Governo Andreotti, governo.it In 1973, Rumor was the target of an assassination attempt, planned by Gianfranco Bertoli, a self-described anarchist. Four were killed during the bombing, and 45 injured, while Rumor escaped alive from it. Bertoli was given a life-term in 1975. Bertoli was an informant of SISMI, the "Military Intelligence and Security Service", at the time. Court proceedings later showed that this connection was one of mistaken identity.
Second term as prime minister