On 16 March 1978, on via Fani, in Rome, a unit of the militant far-left organization known as
Red Brigades (BR) blocked the two-car convoy that was carrying Moro and kidnapped him, murdering his five bodyguards. On the day of his kidnapping, Moro was on his way to a session of the Chamber of Deputies, where a discussion was to take place regarding a vote of confidence for a new government led by Andreotti, that would for the first time have the support of the PCI. It was to be the first implementation of Moro's strategic political vision. Additionally, he was considered to be the frontrunner for the
1978 Italian presidential election. In the following days, trade unions called for a
general strike, while security forces made hundreds of raids in Rome, Milan,
Turin, and other cities searching for Moro's location, as places linked to Moro and the kidnapping became centres of minor pilgrimage. An estimated 16 million Italians took part in the mass public demonstrations. After a few days, even
Pope Paul VI, a close friend of Moro's, intervened, offering himself in exchange for Moro. Despite the 13,000 police officers mobilized, 40,000 house searches, and 72,000 roadblocks, the police did not carry out any arrests. The event has been compared to the
assassination of John F. Kennedy, and referred to as Italy's
9/11. Although Italy was not the sole European country to experience terrorism, the list including France, Germany, Ireland, and Spain, the murder of Moro was the apogee of Italy's
Years of Lead. This has led to the promotion of a number of alternative theories about the events, which remain popular in Italy, where the judicial truth, which attributes responsibility for the operation exclusively to the Red Brigades, has failed to take root in the collective memory of Italians. Alternative theories gained traction with the institution of a special inquiring committee by the Italian Parliament in 2014 that concluded its operations in 2018. The committee concluded that the judicial truth was produced on the basis of the confession of the terrorist Valerio Morucci and that other evidence which contradicted his version was downplayed. Among these, other witness testimonies indicated that more than four people fired at Moro's convoy, multiple sources report that Moro was held captive in the apartment of Via Massimi 91 in Rome (a property of IOR), and then in Villa Odescalchi on the coast of Palo Laziale, and not in Via Camillo Montalcini 8. In August 2020, about sixty individuals from the world of historical research and political inquiry signed a document denouncing the growing weight that the conspiratorial view on the kidnapping and killing of Moro has in public discourse.
Negotiations and captivity letters The Red Brigades proposed exchanging Moro's life for the freedom of several prisoners. Italian politicians were divided into two factions: one favourable to negotiation (
linea del negoziato) and the other totally opposing the idea of a negotiated settlement (
linea della fermezza). The government immediately took a hardline position, namely that the state must not bend to terrorist demands. This position was openly criticized by prominent DC party members, such as
Amintore Fanfani and
Giovanni Leone, who at the time was serving as president of Italy. All major political forces followed this hardline stance. This included the PCI, which supported democracy and was part of the Italian Parliament; the PCI was accused by the Red Brigades of being a pawn of the bourgeoisie. Exceptions were the
Italian Socialist Party led by
Bettino Craxi and the extra-parliamentary left. and Alberto Clò, three professors of the
University of Bologna, passed on a tip about a safe-house where the Red Brigades might be holding Moro. Prodi stated he had been given the tip by the DC founders from beyond the grave in a
séance through the use of a
Ouija board, which gave the names of
Viterbo,
Bolsena, and
Gradoli. During the investigation of Moro's kidnapping, some members of
law enforcement in Italy and of the secret services advocated for the use of torture against terrorists; prominent military members and generals, such as
Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, were against this. Dalla Chiesa once stated: "Italy is a democratic country that could allow itself the luxury of losing Moro, [but] not of the introduction of torture." During his kidnapping, Moro wrote several letters to the DC leaders and to Pope Paul VI. Some of those letters, including one that was very critical of Andreotti, were kept secret for more than a decade and published only in the early 1990s. The specified "without conditions" is controversial; according to some sources, it was added to Paul VI's letter against his will, and that the Pope wanted to negotiate with the kidnappers to secure the safety of Moro. According to
Antonio Mennini, Pope Paul VI had saved
₤10 billion to pay a ransom in order to save Moro.
Murder When it became clear that the government would continue to refuse to negotiate, the Red Brigades held a summary trial, known as "the people's trial", in which Moro was found guilty and sentenced to death. They then sent a last demand to the Italian authorities, stating that if 16 Red Brigades prisoners were not released, Moro would be killed. The Italian authorities responded with a large-scale manhunt, which was unsuccessful. On 7 May 1978, Moro sent a farewell letter to his wife. He wrote: "They have told me that they are going to kill me in a little while, I kiss you for the last time." On 9 May 1978, after 55 days of captivity, the terrorists placed Moro in a car and told him to cover himself with a blanket, saying that they were going to transport him to another location. After Moro was covered, they shot him ten times. According to the official reconstruction after a series of trials, the killer was
Mario Moretti. Moro's body was left in the trunk of a red
Renault 4 on Via Michelangelo Caetani towards the
Tiber River near the
Roman Ghetto. After the recovery of Moro's body, Cossiga resigned as interior minister. Pope Paul VI personally officiated at Moro's funeral
mass.
New theories, revelations, and controversies On 23 January 1983, an Italian court sentenced 32 members of the BR to life imprisonment for their role in the kidnapping and murder of Moro, among other crimes. Many elements and facts have never been fully cleared up, despite a series of trials, Andreotti underwent a trial for his role in the assassination of Pecorelli. He was acquitted in the first instance trial (1999), convicted in the second (2002), and acquitted by Italy's
Supreme Court of Cassation (2003). In a 2012 interview with Ulisse Spinnato Vega of Agenzia Clorofilla, the BR co-founders
Alberto Franceschini and
Renato Curcio remembered Pecorelli. Franceschini stated: "Pecorelli, before dying, said that both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted Moro's death." Additionally, that Moro was suffering from Stockholm syndrome was questioned by the two reports of the Italian Parliament's inquiry about the Moro affair. According to this view, Moro was at the height of his faculties, he was very recognizable, and at some point it was he who was leading the negotiation for his own liberation and salvation. This position was supported by
Leonardo Sciascia, who discussed it in the minority report he signed as a member of the first parliamentary commission and in his book ''L'affaire Moro''. In 2005,
Sergio Flamigni, a leftist politician and writer who had served on a parliamentary inquiry on the Moro case, suggested the involvement of the
Operation Gladio network directed by
NATO. He asserted that Gladio had manipulated Moretti as a way to take over the Red Brigades to effect a
strategy of tension aimed at creating popular demand for a new, right-wing law-and-order regime. In 2006,
Steve Pieczenik was interviewed by Emmanuel Amara in his documentary film ''Les derniers jours d'Aldo Moro'' ("The Last Days of Aldo Moro"). In the interview, Pieczenik, a conspiracy theorist, and expert on international terrorism and negotiating strategies who had been brought to Italy as a consultant to Cossiga's Crisis Committee, stated: "We had to sacrifice Aldo Moro to maintain the stability of Italy." Pieczenik maintained that the United States had to "instrumentalize the Red Brigades". According to him, the decision to have Moro killed was taken during the fourth week of his detention, when Moro was thought to be revealing state secrets in his letters, namely the existence of Gladio. == Legacy ==