Aldo Moro

Killed on 9 May 1978 in Rome by the Red Brigades after fifty-five days of captivity; the former prime minister was murdered in the trunk of a car in the via Caetani.

Overview

Moro, the Christian Democrat statesman who had engineered the historic compromise with the Communist Party, was kidnapped on 16 March 1978 when the BR column wiped out his five bodyguards in the via Fani. His captivity became a national ordeal; letters from the people prison negotiated his fate as the government of Andreotti refused a real exchange, though many concessions were debated. His body was found in the trunk of a red Renault in the city center between the headquarters of his party and the Communist Party, a deliberate geography of the message. The BR strategy of the armed struggle against the state was broken within years; convictions numbered in the dozens. The Moro case remains the most dissected mystery of the Italian years of lead, with persistent theories about missed rescues, negotiations, and secret services.