GIOVANNI DE LORENZO
The Backstabber
Prior to 1948, Giovanni de Lorenzo was a decorated colonel, well known for coordinating espionage and sabotage activities in Romagna against the fascist government during WW2.
For this reason, in 1947 Scelba had entrusted him with the task of spying on Pietro Nenni, Aldo Moro, and other "subversives" who were considered a threat to the stability of the First Republic.
Just over four years after that promotion, a smiling de Lorenzo sat next to Giusepppe Di Vittorio, celebrating the defeat of Scelba and the birth of the Second Republic.
To justify his betrayal of Scelba, Giovanni de Lorenzo liked to tell how in 1943 Ivano Carpenteri, a young communist, had died protecting him from some fascist soldiers. With tears in his eyes, de Lorenzo always compared the boy's sacrifice to the divine illumination that had thunderstruck St. Paul on the road to Damascus.
That single sacrifice had prompted de Lorenzo to abandon his old prejudices against the Communists/Socialists and take up their cause.
According to this version of the story, de Lorenzo had secretly collaborated with the PCI and PSI in both civil wars, as he hoped to honor the memory of his savior.
Of course, it would have been hard to believe this melodramatic story even under normal circumstances. It was even harder to believe it in De Lorenzo's case, as the man was a textbook example of a sociopath.
Indeed, it is very likely that the mysterious Carpenteri never existed at all. In reality, de Lorenzo had betrayed Scelba's government for the same reason he had sided with the anti-Mussolini front in 1943: de Lorenzo had no intention of being on the losing side.
Between 1947 and 1948, de Lorenzo had not only realized that Scelba's paranoia was partially justified, but also that the Italian army was decidedly less united and more disorganized than Rome had thought.
Had war really broken out, it was more than likely that the National Popular Front would have emerged victorious.
Thus, de Lorenzo secretly got in touch with Togliatti and began passing valuable information to the PCI. However, it seems that de Giuliano decided to fully side with the PCI only in 1949, after the fall of Milan.
After that date, the amount of information passed to the government in Bologna definitely increased. It has also been speculated that it was de Lorenzo who informed Bologna of Scelba's decision to abandon Rome, explaining the speed with which its troops arrived in the former capital.
At the end of the conflict, de Lorenzo was promoted to general, and he was given the task of creating the new intelligence services of the Second Republic.
The new intelligence chief's first visit was to the Soviet consulate. In exchange for information and other resources useful for his political career, de Lorenzo promised to inform the Soviets about what was happening in the Quirinal.
After the Abruzzo earthquake and the beginning of the Italian Troubles, de Lorenzo was appointed as the new Minister of Internal Security. Although Longo distrusted de Lorenzo, he was convinced the Minister of Internal Security posed no danger to his government, given his unpopularity and lack of allies within the Politburo.
Unfortunately, Longo had no way of foreseeing his abduction and eventual execution.
Ironically, de Lorenzo was the only member of the Politburo who benefited from Longo's death.
In 1969, Vittorio Vitali, Minister of Ideological Integrity and de Lorenzo's main ally, persuaded Parliament that Longo's death was caused by the Politburo's indifference, and its interference in the investigation.
Hypocritically, the same parliamentarians, who a few weeks earlier had praised their refusal to negotiate, forced most of Longo's ministers to resign, allowing de Lorenzo to become the new Prime Minister.
The rise of de Lorenzo ended the relative liberalism initiated by Longo. The new Politburo was controlled by the most radical wing of the PCI, which repealed many of the previous economic and political reforms. For the first time since 1948, the PSI was excluded from the government.
Citing Longo's assassination, the new Prime Minister ordered numerous arrests (including Aldo Moro and most of the DP leaders), while increasing the funds and resources available to the ACPN. By the end of 1969 every telephone on the peninsula was under surveillance.
Under de Lorenzo, the Second Republic abandoned its traditional neutrality, and began to side more and more with the Soviet Union.
In the first six months of his government, de Lorenzo made a total of four diplomatic trips to Moscow, and the Soviet ambassador became a regular guest at the Quirinal.
According to Soviet defector Yuri Andropov, de Lorenzo was almost forced to take these measures.
Apparently Secretary General Pantelejmon Ponomarenko had threatened de Lorenzo with the reveal of his previous espionage activities on behalf of the Soviets, if the new Prime Minister had not followed Moscow's instructions to the letter.
In any case, his pro-Soviet positions were only the least of de Lorenzo's problems. While the previous twelve years had shown that de Lorenzo had an innate talent for scheming, the next two showed that he was not as adept at governing.
To begin with, the Italian economy, already fragile before de Lorenzo's rise, went into crisis following his decision to sever trade relations with Yugoslavia.
The new trade agreements with Moscow soon proved to be a disaster, as Italian industries ended up paying more for raw materials and selling their products at a much lower price.
No member of the Politburo could, of course, improve the economic situation. The ministers chosen by de Lorenzo were sycophants, appointed more for their political connections than their abilities.
However, it was not the domestic policies of de Lorenzo's government that determined its demise, but his foreign policy.
In the last months of 1969, tension between Moscow and Beijing peaked to the point that both Communist powers began to increase the number of soldiers present along the Sino-Soviet border.
Although the Second Republic had previously tried to remain neutral during the many confrontations between the Soviets and the Chinese, de Lorenzo openly sided with Moscow, accusing Chen Boda of being a warmonger and expelling much of the Chinese embassy.
De Lorenzo had acted in the belief that the crisis was going to be short-lived, and that Beijing and Moscow would reach an agreement. Unfortunately, de Lorenzo could not foresee the coup in North Korea, or how the attempted Chinese invasion of the new Soviet ally would start the Sino-Soviet War.
It did not take long before Moscow began asking members of the Stalingrad Alliance, and its other Communist allies to assist the Soviet war effort by sending assets and "volunteers."
And of course de Lorenzo was one of the first leaders to receive such request.
Upon the news that de Lorenzo was willing to send at least six divisions to China, the streets of the peninsula were rocked by numerous protests for the first time since 1948.
In addition to the normal protests, the Second Republic was hit by a new wave of terrorist attacks.
On May 18, 1970, A Maoist group detonated a bomb at Naples central station, causing the east wing of the building to collapse and killing nearly 100 people in the process.
Rome's failed attempts to cover up what happened, first blaming a gas leak and then inesistent right-wing extremist groups, further damaged de Lorenzo's popularity with the Parliament.
Once again, events in China detemined the fate of de Lorenzo. In late 1970, Taiwanese President Sun Li-jen declared war on the People's Republic of China, followed closely by President Fred Trump and British Prime Minister Julian Amery.
The Soviets and Americans actually had no diplomatic agreement regarding a potential division of mainland China. Rather, Moscow and Washington denounced the other for "violating the sovereignty of the Chinese people" with its declaration of war.
Attempts by the Second Republic media to compare what was happening to the WW2 alliances against Nazi Germany had little success.
On the contrary, mainland Italy was shaken even more by protests and strikes.
On the one hand, many Italian citizens feared that Moscow might also invade the Second Republic by allying with the government of Sicily and Sardinia.
On the other, many were convinced that a nuclear war was imminent, and therefore sought to protest the war, or looted grocery stores.
On March 15, 1971, De Lorenzo's government officially came to an end. After the nuclear destruction of Lop Nur two days earlier, the loyalty of part of the army was the only reason why Parliament had not voted to remove de Lorenzo from office.
However, during the reunion of Parliament of that day, de Lorenzo was informed that a group of protesters (including Longo's widow) was heading towards the Quirinal.
The marchers hoped to to enter Parliament, or at least force de Lorenzo to come out so they could reveal their demands against the war.
De Lorenzo, according to many witnesses under the influence of alcohol, reportedly reacted violently to the news, cursing in front of the Politburo and its deputies, while sending troops to disperse the march by any means.
In his fury, De Lorenzo did not realize that the soldiers sent against the demonstration were the same ones who would shortly be sent to fight in China.
The soldiers, already convinced that they were going to die anyway and not particularly eager to kill in the name of the increasingly unpopular de Lorenzo, decided to side with the demonstrators and accompany them toward Parliament.
De Lorenzo, terrified that this was the beginning of a popular uprising, hurriedly fled to Bologna, where the Secret Service headquarters were located.
In the hour it took De Lorenzo to arrive in Bologna, most of the parliamentarians of the Second Republic voted for his removal as Prime Minister and ordered his arrest.
Upon receiving the news, members of the Secret Service arrested De Lorenzo the very moment his helicopter landed in Bologna.
None of them were particularly eager to die for their former leader and hoped that his arrest would persuade the new government to pardon them.
De Lorenzo managed to avoid capital punishment mainly because the Second Republic government feared setting a dangerous precedent by executing a former head of state.
According to some rumors, the former Prime Minister even revealed the whereabouts of his personal archives, filled with valuable information gathered over decades of espionage, in order to avoid a too severe punishment.
De Lorenzo was then sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison on charges of corruption and espionage.
In his particular case, the sentence ended in 1973 when the former Prime Minister killed himself (or was killed) with a poisoned coffee.