Aldo Moro Murdered: Italy's Terror War Intensifies

Aldo Moro's bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of a red Renault 4, parked on Via Caetani in Rome, equidistant between the headquarters of the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Communist Party. The symbolism was deliberate. The Red Brigades, Italy's most feared left-wing terrorist organization, had murdered the former prime minister on May 9, 1978, after 55 days of captivity that paralyzed the Italian state and exposed the limits of Western democracies' ability to confront political terrorism. The kidnapping on March 16 was a military-grade operation. A twelve-person Red Brigades commando ambushed Moro's motorcade on Via Fani, killing all five bodyguards in 90 seconds of automatic weapons fire. Moro was pulled from his car and driven to a hidden apartment in Rome, where he was held in a small, soundproofed room and subjected to a "people's trial" by his captors. During his captivity, Moro wrote dozens of letters to political colleagues, family members, and Pope Paul VI, pleading for negotiations. The Italian government, led by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and backed by a broad political consensus including the Communist Party, adopted a hard line: no negotiation with terrorists. The decision was agonizing. Moro's letters grew increasingly desperate and bitter toward colleagues he felt had abandoned him. The Red Brigades demanded the release of imprisoned comrades. When the government refused, they voted to execute Moro. He was shot ten times with a silenced pistol in the back of the Renault on the morning of May 9. The car's location between the two party headquarters was a final statement about the political system the Brigades sought to destroy. Moro's murder was the climax of Italy's "Years of Lead," a period of political violence from both left and right that killed over 400 people between 1969 and 1988. Rather than destabilizing Italian democracy as the Red Brigades intended, the killing provoked a massive security crackdown. Most Brigade leaders were arrested within five years. But the questions Moro's letters raised about political loyalty and the state's duty to protect its citizens have never been fully resolved.