25 Facts About Mariano Rumor

Mariano Rumor was the secretary of the DC from 1964 to 1969.

Mariano Rumor was born in Vicenza, Veneto, on 16 June 1915.

Mariano Rumor attended the classical lyceum Antonio Pigafetta in Vicenza, then he earned a degree from the University of Padua in literature in 1939.

Subsequent to the Armistice of Cassibile in 1943 between Italy and the Allied powers, Mariano Rumor joined the Italian resistance movement.

Mariano Rumor became a member of the new-born Chamber of Deputies in 1948.

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 members of the centrist pro-De Gasperi majority, as Paolo Emilio Taviani and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.

Mariano Rumor himself presented the manifesto of Democratic Initiative, published on a magazine with the same name.

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, Mariano Rumor was elected again deputy secretary.

Mariano Rumor held this office for the next five years, until Democratic Initiative split up.

Prominent members of the faction, including Mariano Rumor himself, put the Secretary in minority during the National Congress of March 1959.

Mariano Rumor was appointed Minister of the Interior in the short-lived government chaired by Giovanni Leone.

In January 1964, Mariano 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 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.

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.

In foreign policy, Mariano Rumor signed, on 28 January 1969, of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In 1972, Mariano Rumor was appointed Minister of the Interior, in the government of Giulio Andreotti.

In 1973, Mariano 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 Mariano Rumor escaped alive from it.

In November 1974, Mariano Rumor was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in Aldo Moro's fourth cabinet.

Mariano Rumor was proposed by Moro as the new party secretary, but he was vetoed by some members of his own faction.

In 1979, Mariano Rumor was elected in the European Parliament, where he later became Chair of the Political Affairs Committee in 1980, serving in that post until he left the European Parliament in 1984.

Mariano Rumor died of a heart attack in Vicenza on 22 January 1990 at the age of 74.

The Lockheed bribery scandals, of which Mariano Rumor was exonerated by the Italian Parliament, took place under his government and culminated in the trials of two former Defense ministers, Luigi Gui and Mario Tanassi.

Mariano Rumor was implicated in the scandal after a Lockheed codebook referenced "Antelope Cobbler" as "Prime Minister", which could have been any of Mariano Rumor, Aldo Moro, or then-President Giovanni Leone during the relevant time period.

However, Mariano Rumor had always denied these speculations, which would have ruined his career in a social conservative party like the DC.