36 Facts About Aldo Moro

Aldo Moro served as prime minister of Italy in five terms from December 1963 to June 1968 and from November 1974 to July 1976.

Aldo Moro was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war prime ministers, leading the country for more than six years.

Aldo Moro implemented a series of social and economic reforms that modernized the country.

Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro was born on 23 September 1916 in Maglie, near Lecce, into a family from Ugento in the Apulia region of the Kingdom of Italy.

Aldo Moro's father, Renato Moro, was a school inspector, while his mother, Fida Sticchi, was a teacher.

In 1935, Aldo Moro joined the Italian Catholic Federation of University Students of Bari.

In 1939, under the approval of Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, whom he had befriended, Aldo Moro was chosen as president of the association.

Aldo Moro kept the post until 1942 when he was forced to fight in World War II and was succeeded by Giulio Andreotti, who at the time was a law student from Rome.

In July 1943, Moro contributed, along with Andreotti, Mario Ferrari Aggradi, Paolo Emilio Taviani, Guido Gonella, Giuseppe Capograssi, Ferruccio Pergolesi, Vittore Branca, Giorgio La Pira, and Giuseppe Medici, to the creation of the Code of Camaldoli, a document planning of economic policy drawn up by members of the Italian Catholic forces.

In 1963, Aldo Moro was transferred to La Sapienza University of Rome as a professor of the institutions of law and criminal procedure.

Aldo Moro developed his interest in politics between 1943 and 1945.

On 20 May 1957, Adone Zoli was sworn in as the new head of government and Aldo Moro was appointed Italian Minister of Education.

Aldo Moro was confirmed as the head of Italian education and remained in office until February 1959.

Aldo Moro refused the office of prime minister, preferring to provisionally maintain his more influential post at the head of the party.

Differently from Leone, who was his predecessor and became the head of SADE's team of lawyers, Aldo Moro acted strongly to condemn the managers of the society.

Aldo Moro immediately dismissed the administrative officials who had supervised the construction of the dam.

On 17 July 1964, Aldo Moro went to the Quirinal Palace, with the acceptance of the assignment and the list of ministers of his second government.

Aldo Moro forced Yasser Arafat to promise not to carry out terrorist attacks in Italian territory, with a commitment that was known as the Moro pact.

Aldo Moro was a great man, a true patriot, who wanted to save Italy some headaches, but I never met him.

Aldo Moro's candidacy was weakened by the divisions within his own party and the candidacy of the PSI member Francesco De Martino, who received votes from PCI, PSI, and some PSDI members.

Fanfani retired after several unsuccessful ballots and Aldo Moro was then proposed as a candidate by the left-wing faction.

In 1976, the PSI secretary Francesco De Martino withdrew the external support to the government and Aldo Moro was forced to resign.

Aldo Moro strongly defended Rumor during the parliamentary debate on the Lockheed scandal, and some journalists reported that Moro himself might have been involved in the bribery.

The early 1978 proposal by Aldo Moro of starting a cabinet composed of DC and PSI members, externally supported by the PCI was strongly opposed by both superpowers of the Cold War era.

On 16 March 1978, on via Fani, in Rome, a unit of the militant far-left organization known as Red Brigades blocked the two-car convoy that was carrying Aldo Moro and kidnapped him, murdering his five bodyguards.

Many details of Aldo Moro's kidnapping remain heavily disputed and unknown.

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 Aldo Moro was found guilty and sentenced to death.

On 7 May 1978, Aldo Moro sent a farewell letter to his wife.

Aldo 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.

Aldo Moro was acquitted in the first instance trial, convicted in the second, and acquitted by Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation.

In 2005, Sergio Flamigni, a leftist politician and writer who had served on a parliamentary inquiry on the Aldo Moro case, suggested the involvement of the Operation Gladio network directed by NATO.

Aldo Moro 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.

Aldo Moro was the leading figure of the left wing of the DC, which he steered towards the left as the party's secretary-general from 1959 to 1964.

Economically, Aldo Moro's policies are seen as a response to socialist influence.

The halting of proceedings was due to Mennini, the priest who heard his last confession, being allowed to provide a statement to a tribunal in regards to Aldo Moro's kidnapping and confession.

In January 2022, a note claiming responsibility for the abduction of Aldo Moro was auctioned despite widespread condemnation.