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Enrico Berlinguer (Italian pronunciation: [berliŋˈɡwɛr]) (25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician; he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano or PCI) from 1972 until his death.

Biography[link]

Early career[link]

The son of Mario Berlinguer and Maria Loriga, Enrico Berlinguer was born in Sassari, Italy to a noble and important Sardinian family, in a notable cultural context, with family ties and political contacts that would heavily influence his life and career. His surname 'Berlinguer' is of Catalan origin,^[1] a reminder of the period when Sardinia was part of the dominions of the Crown of Aragon.

He was a cousin of Francesco Cossiga (who was a leader of the Italian Christian Democrats and later became a President of the Italian Republic), and both were relatives of Antonio Segni, another Christian Democrat leader and President of the Republic. Enrico's grandfather, Enrico Berlinguer Sr., was the founder of La Nuova Sardegna, an important Sardinian newspaper, and a personal friend of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, whom he had helped in his attempts through his parliamentary work to improve the sad conditions on the island.

In 1937 Berlinguer had his first contacts with Sardinian anti-Fascists, and in 1943 formally entered the Italian Communist Party, soon becoming the secretary of the Sassari section. The following year a riot exploded in the town; he was involved in the disorders and was arrested, but was discharged after three months of prison.

Immediately after his detention ended, his father brought him to Salerno, the town in which the Royal family and the government had taken refuge after the armistice between Italy and the Allies. In Salerno his father introduced him to Palmiro Togliatti, the most important leader of the Communist Party.

Togliatti sent Berlinguer back to Sardinia to prepare for his political career. At the end of 1944, Togliatti appointed him to the national secretariat of the Communist Organisation for Youth (FGCI); as a secretary of the FGCI, Berlinguer at one point presented Maria Goretti as an example for activists;^[2] he was soon sent to Milan, and in 1945 he was appointed to the Central Committee as a member.

In 1946 Togliatti became the national secretary (the highest political role) of the Party, and called Berlinguer to Rome, where his talents let him enter the national leadership only two years after (at the age of 26, one of the youngest members ever admitted); in 1949 he was named national secretary of the FGCI, a post he held until 1956. The year after he was named president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, an international Communist front organisation. In 1957 Berlinguer, as a member of the central school of the PCI, abolished the obligatory visit to the Soviet Union, which included political training, that was until then necessary for admission to the highest positions in the PCI.

Party leader[link]

Berlinguer's career was obviously carrying him towards the highest positions in the party. After having held many responsible posts, in 1968 he was elected a deputy for the first time for the electoral district of Rome. The following year he was elected deputy national secretary of the party (the secretary being Luigi Longo). In this role he took part in the 1969 international conference of the Communist parties in Moscow, where his delegation disagreed with the "official" political line, and refused to support the final report.

Berlinguer's unexpected stance made waves: he gave the strongest speech by a major Communist leader ever heard in Moscow. He refused to "excommunicate" the Chinese communists, and directly told Leonid Brezhnev that the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact countries (which he termed the "tragedy in Prague") had made clear the considerable differences within the Communist movement on fundamental questions such as national sovereignty, socialist democracy, and the freedom of culture.

Secretary of the PCI[link]

Already a prominent leader in the party, Berlinguer was elected to the position of national secretary in 1972 when Luigi Longo resigned on grounds of ill health.

In 1973, having been hospitalized after a car accident during a visit to Bulgaria (now widely considered an attempt on his life on orders from Moscow: [1]), Berlinguer wrote three famous articles ("Reflections on Italy", "After the facts of Chile" and "After the Coup [in Chile]") for the intellectual weekly magazine of the party, Rinascita. In these he presented the strategy of the so-called Historic Compromise, a proposed coalition between the Italian Communist Party and the Christian Democrats to grant Italy a period of political stability, at a time of severe economic crisis and in a context in which some forces were allegedly manoeuvering for a coup d'état in Italy.

International relations[link]

The following year in Belgrade Berlinguer met with Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, towards the ends of further developing his relationships with the major Communist parties of Europe, Asia and Africa.

In 1976, in Moscow again, Berlinguer confirmed the autonomous position of the PCI vis-à-vis the Soviet Communist Party. Before 5,000 Communist delegates he spoke of a "pluralistic system" (translated by the interpreter as "multiform"), referring to the PCI's intentions to build "a socialism that we believe necessary and possible only in Italy."

When Berlinguer finally got to the PCI's condemnation of any kind of "interference", the rupture with the Soviets was complete (nonetheless, the party still for some years received money from Moscow). Since Italy was suffering the "interference" of NATO, the Soviets said, it seemed that the only interference that the Italian Communists could not suffer was the Soviet one. In an interview with Corriere della Sera Berlinguer declared that he felt "safer under NATO's umbrella."^{[citation needed]}

In 1977, at a meeting in Madrid between Berlinguer, Santiago Carrillo of the Spanish Communist Party and Georges Marchais of the French Communist Party, the fundamental lines of Eurocommunism were laid out. A few months later Berlinguer was again in Moscow, where he gave another speech which was poorly received by his hosts, and published by Pravda only in a censored version.

Domestic politics[link]

Berlinguer, moving step by step, was building a consensus in the PCI towards a rapprochement with other components of society. After the surprising opening of 1970 toward conservatives, and the still discussed proposal of the Historic Compromise, he published a correspondence with Monsignor Luigi Bettazzi, the Bishop of Ivrea; it was an astonishing event, since Pope Pius XII had excommunicated the Communists soon after World War II, and the possibility of any relationship between communists and Catholics seemed very unlikely.

This act also served to counteract the allegation, commonly and popularly expressed, that the PCI was protecting leftist terrorists, in the harshest years of terrorism in Italy. In this context the PCI opened its doors to many Catholics, and a debate started about the possibility of contact. Notably, Berlinguer's strictly Catholic family was not brought out of its strictly respected privacy. In the general election of June 1976, the PCI gained 34.4% of the vote.

In Italy a so-called "government of national solidarity" was ruling, but Berlinguer claimed that in an emergency government, a strong and powerful cabinet to solve a crisis of exceptional gravity was needed. On 16 March 1978, Aldo Moro, President of the Christian Democratic Party, was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, an ultra-left terrorist group, on the day that the new government was going to be sworn in before parliament.

During this crisis, Berlinguer adhered to the so-called "Front of Firmness," refusing to negotiate with terrorists. (The Red Brigades had proposed to liberate Moro in exchange for the release of some imprisoned terrorists.) Despite the PCI's firm stand against terrorism, the Moro incident left the party more isolated.

In June the PCI gave its approval, and ultimately active support, to a campaign against President Giovanni Leone, accused of being involved in the Lockheed bribery scandal. This resulted in the President's resignation. Berlinguer also supported the election of the veteran Socialist Sandro Pertini as President of Italy, but his presidency did not produce the effects that the PCI had hoped for.

In Italy, after a new president is elected, the government resigns. The PCI expected Pertini to use his influence in their favour. But the President was influenced by other political leaders like Giovanni Spadolini of the Italian Republican Party and Bettino Craxi of the Italian Socialist Party, and the PCI remained out of the government.

During these years the PCI governed many Italian regions, sometimes more than half of them. Notably, the regional government of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany was concrete proof of PCI's governmental capabilities. In this period, Berlinguer turned his attention to the exercise of local power, to show that "the trains could run on time" under the PCI. He personally took part in electoral campaigns in the provinces and local councils. While other parties sent only local leaders, this helped the party to win many elections at these levels.

The break with the Soviet Union[link]

In 1980 the PCI publicly condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Moscow then immediately sent Marchais to Rome, to try to bring Berlinguer into line, but Marchais was received with a notable coldness. The break with the Soviets and other Communist parties became clear when the PCI did not participate in the 1980 international conference of Communist parties held in Paris. Instead Berlinguer made an official visit to China. In November in Salerno, Berlinguer declared that the idea of a possible Historic Compromise had been put aside; it would be replaced with the idea of the "democratic alternative."

In 1981 Berlinguer said that, in his personal opinion, "the progressive force of the October Revolution had been exhausted." The PCI criticised the "normalisation" of Poland and very soon the PCI's split with the Soviet Communist Party became definitive and official, followed by a long polemic between Pravda and L'Unità (the official newspaper of PCI), not made any milder after the meeting with Fidel Castro in Havana.

On an internal side, Berlinguer's last major statement was a call for the solidarity among the leftist parties. In June 1984 Berlinguer suddenly left the stage during a speech at public meeting in Padua: he had suffered a brain haemorrhage, and died three days later. More than a million citizens attended his funeral, one of the biggest in Italy's history.

He was an atheist.^[3]

Analysis[link]

Enrico Berlinguer has been defined in many ways, but he was generally recognised for political coherence and a certain courage, together with a rare personal and political intelligence. A serious man, he was sincerely respected even by his opponents, and his three days' agony was followed with great attention by the general population. His funeral was followed by a large number of people, perhaps among the highest ever seen in Rome.

The most important political act of his career in the PCI was undoubtedly the dramatic break with Soviet Communism, the so-called strappo, together with the creation of Eurocommunism, and his substantial work towards contact with the moderate (and particularly the catholic) half of the country.

Berlinguer nevertheless had many enemies. An internal opposition in the PCI claimed that he had turned a workers' party into a sort of bourgeois revisionist club. External opposition figures noted that strappo took several years to be completed; this was seen as evidence that there had been no definitive decision on the point. The acceptance of NATO is however generally seen as evidence of the genuine autonomy of the PCI's position.

All the work of Berlinguer, however, even if supported by a notably successful Communist local governments, was unable to bring the PCI into the government. Berlinguer's final platform, the "democratic alternative," was never translated into reality. Within a decade of his death the Soviet Union, the Christian Democrats and the PCI all disappeared, transforming Italian politics beyond recognition.

Impact on Italian society[link]

Italian singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti posthumously dedicated a song, Dolce Enrico ("Sweet Enrico"), to Berlinguer.

Italian actor and director Roberto Benigni declared publicly his admiration and personal love for Enrico Berlinguer. Beside having been protagonist of the movie Berlinguer ti voglio bene ("Berlinguer I love you"), Benigni appeared during a public political demonstration of the Italian Communist Party (of which he was a sympathiser), taking in his arms and dandling Berlinguer.^[4]

Italian folk music band Modena City Ramblers wrote a song about Berlinguer's funeral, "I Funerali di Berlinguer", which was published on their first full-length album, Riportando Tutto a Casa.

Writings[link]

• Enrico Berlinguer, Antonio Bronda, Stephen Bodington, After Poland, Spokesman, 1982, ISBN 0-85124-344-4

See also[link]

• Eurocommunism

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Enrico Berlinguer

Bruno Vespa
Born	(1944-05-27)May 27, 1944 L'Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy
Occupation	Journalist
Title	LL. B.
Spouse	Augusta Iannini

Bruno Vespa (born 27 May 1944) is an Italian television and newspaper journalist.

A former director of Italian state-owned TV channel Rai Uno's news program TG1, Vespa is the founding host of the program Porta a Porta (English:"Door to door"), which has been broadcast without interruption on RAI channels since 1996.

Vespa was born in L'Aquila, Abruzzo. He is married to Augusta Iannini, who is a judge.

Biography[link]

Journalism[link]

Vespa began working with the local press in his native Abruzzo at a relatively young age, authoring sports articles for the L'Aquila branch of the newspaper Il Tempo when he was sixteen years old.

In 1962 he became a radio announcer on RAI broadcasts and, after obtaining his LL.B. in 1968, began hosting the daily newscast Telegiornale RAI (afterwards renamed TG1).

During the 1970s and 1980s, he undertook several controversial and ground-breaking projects, mainly as a foreign correspondent for RAI, interviewing many soon-to-be-influential personalities of the decades (for example, Vespa interviewed then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyła in 1977, a full year before his election to the pontificate).

In 1977 he co-hosted, with Arrigo Petacco, the news program Tam Tam, moving the following year to a different format, precursor to that of Porta a Porta, where up-and-coming personalities and current events were discussed in front of a live studio audience, which participated to the exchange through Q&A sessions (hence, the program was called Ping Pong).

In June 1984 he was named "official commentator" for the live, televised broadcast of the State funeral for Enrico Berlinguer, who had been the leader of the Italian Communist Party. During the broadcast, he erroneously announced that Pietro Valpreda had been found guilty of the Piazza Fontana bombing, whereas he was a mere suspect, at the time—a mistake for which he publicly apologised on several occasions.

Between 1989 and 1992, while he was the head newscaster for the RAI news program TG1, he came under attack for publicly declaring that he considered the ruling party Democrazia Cristiana his "editorial sounding board"; because RAI stations are state-owned and publicly funded, they are expected to be unbiased, which Vespa's words indicated not to be the case.
In August 1990, when the Gulf War erupted, he supported the armed intervention in a much-criticised editorial that concluded that "War has been brought forth by the international community. And if we want to be members of that club, we must pay our dues", which some found too close to the words that Benito Mussolini had employed to justify Italy's participation to World War II: "I will need a thousand deaths to seat at the table where peace and land will be distributed".

Since 1996, Vespa as been at the helm of the news program Porta a Porta, where much of the Italian political debate takes place, so much so that it is sometimes sarcastically referred to as "the third house" (together with the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate) of the Parliament of Italy.

On April 3, 2006 he moderated the second televised debate between then-Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi and the leader of the centre-left coalition Romano Prodi.

In the same year, Vespa found himself at the centre of a political scandal after a telephone conversation he had with Salvatore Sottile, spokesperson for politician Gianfranco Fini, concerning an upcoming episode of Porta a Porta. During the (intercepted) conversation, Vespa indicated that he would "custom-tailor" the program to suit Fini's needs, requesting, in fact, that the politician's aide select the chosen adversary for the scheduled face-to-face. Since the program publicly prided itself on creating an unbiased turf for political confrontations, Vespa's integrity was called into question.^[1]

Vespa is currently credited of having a position of strong allegiance towards Silvio Berlusconi.^[2][3]

Awards[link]

• 1978 - Premio Saint Vincent for television, awarded by President Sandro Pertini
• 1990 - European personality of the year for the category journalism
• 1992 - Premio La Madonnina for journalism
• 1995 - Premio Guidarello for journalism
• 1997 - Telegatto for career achievements
• 1999 - Ischia International Journalism Award, for TV journalism
• 1999 - Telegatto for best culture show
• 2000 - Premio Saint Vincent for television, awarded by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
• 2002 - Telegatto for best talk show
• 2004 - Premio Bancarella
• 2006 - Telegatto (platinum)
• 2008 - Big Brother Awards
• 2008 - Premio Regia Televisiva

Published works[link]

All Vespa's books were published by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

• Uno stadio per Tommaso Fattori (1966)
• Abruzzo aperto (1974)
• A sessant'anni dalla rivoluzione d'ottobre. Speciale TG1 (1977)
• ...E anche Leone votò Pertini. Cronaca di un settennato incompiuto, di una crisi e di una elezione presidenziale (1978)
• Flash 79 (1980)
• Visita di sua santità Giovanni Paolo II al traforo del Gran Sasso (1980)
• Intervista sul socialismo in Europa (1980)
• Flash 1980 (1981)
• Italia/Libano. Storia di una spedizione di pace attraverso le testimonianze di corrispondenti giornalistici (1983)
• Ping pong (1983)
• Marsica 1915 (1984)
• Abruzzo Abruzzi (1986)
• Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Da un secolo all'altro (1988)
• Paesi del Gran Sasso (1989)
• Veneto. La rinascita (1989)
• Telecamera con vista. Da Valpreda a Di Pietro, 25 anni di storia italiana nei retroscena del Telegiornale (1993)
• Il cambio. Uomini e retroscena della nuova repubblica (1994, 1996)
• Il duello. Chi vincerà nello scontro finale (1995)
• Il duello. Storia dello scontro finale (1996)
• La svolta. Il pendolo del potere da destra a sinistra (1996)
• Il Papa eremita. Celestino V e la perdonanza all'Aquila (1996)
• La sfida. Dal patto alla crisi e oltre (1997)
• La corsa. Dopo D'Alema a palazzo Chigi chi salirà al Quirinale? (1998)
• La corsa. La lunga strada del presidente Ciampi (1999)
• Dieci anni che hanno sconvolto l'Italia. 1989-2000 (1999)
• Il superpresidente. Che cosa cambia in Italia con Ciampi al Quirinale (1999)
• Scontro finale. Chi vincerà l'ultimo duello (2000)
• Scontro finale. Ultimo atto (2001)
• Scontro finale. Chi vincera l'ultimo duello (2001)
• Verdi e l'Arena (2001)
• La scossa. Il cambiamento italiano nel mondo che trema (2001)
• L'opera, il mito. 80 anni di spettacoli all'Arena di Verona (2002)
• Rai, la grande guerra. 1962-2002. Quarant'anni di battaglie a Viale Mazzini (2002)
• La Grande Muraglia. L'Italia di Berlusconi, l'Italia dei girotondi (2002)
• Il Cavaliere e il Professore. La scommessa di Berlusconi, il ritorno di Prodi (2003)
• Cinquant'anni. Il miracolo del Friuli. 1953-2003 premio del lavoro e del progresso economico (2003)
• Storia d'Italia da Mussolini a Berlusconi. 1943: l'arresto del duce, 2005: la sfida di Prodi (2004)
• Vincitori e vinti. Le stagioni dell'odio. Dalle leggi razziali a Prodi e Berlusconi (2005)
• La sfida cinese (2005)
• L'Italia spezzata. Un paese a metà tra Prodi e Berlusconi (2006)
• L'amore e il potere. Da Rachele a Veronica, un secolo di storia italiana (2007)
• Viaggio in un'Italia diversa (2008)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website (Italian)
• Articles written on Panorama (Italian)
• Vespa's thoughts on Internet and blogs (Italian)

Marco Travaglio
Marco Travaglio in Trento, 2010.
Born	Marco Travaglio (1964-10-13) October 13, 1964 (age 47) Turin, Italy
Years active	1988 – present

Marco Travaglio (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmarko traˈvaʎʎo]; born 13 October 1964) is an Italian investigative journalist, writer and commentator.

Biography[link]

Travaglio was born in Turin and earned a degree in history from the University of Turin. In 1992 he began to pursue journalism as a career. He started out writing for Catholic publications such as Il nostro tempo ("Our time"), then worked under the renowned journalist Indro Montanelli for newspapers such as Il Giornale and La Voce and gained the attention of Montanelli himself who once used to say about him: "No, Travaglio does not kill anyone. With a knife. He uses a more refined and not legally punishable weapon: the archives"

Since 14 September 2006, Marco Travaglio has been a regular guest in the TV program AnnoZero, hosted by Michele Santoro (also mentioned by Berlusconi in the Bulgarian Edict).

Recently, Travaglio has contributed as a columnist to prominent national newspapers and magazines, such as La Repubblica, L'Unità (with his old columns "Bananas", "Uliwood Party" and "Zorro") and Micromega. He still contributes to L'espresso with the column "Signorno'". In September 2009 he contributed to the formation of the independent newspaper, called Il Fatto Quotidiano ("The Daily Fact").

Political and judicial events of national importance, ranging from Mani pulite to the troubles of controversial political figure Silvio Berlusconi, have been Travaglio's main area of interest.

The journalist became well known in 2001, after participating in a TV show on state-owned national channel Raidue called Satyricon and hosted by Daniele Luttazzi. There, He presented his brand-new book, and bestseller, L'odore dei soldi ("The Smell of Money", co-authored by Elio Veltri), which investigates the origin of Mr Berlusconi's early fortunes. Berlusconi started a lawsuit for slander, but since the book reports official facts already known by the judiciary authorities, he was condemned to pay the legal expenses.^[1]

The show, aired during the campaign for the Italian general election, was heavily criticized by Berlusconi and his party and labeled by them as a politically motivated, non-objective personal attack. After Mr Berlusconi's victory at the elections, both Travaglio and Luttazzi (together with other prominent journalists that had criticized Mr Berlusconi's or investigated his history) have never appeared again on state-owned TV shows until September 2006 (shortly after Berlusconi lost the elections and left power), causing a long debate about freedom of information and censorship in Italy.

Awards and Honors[link]

The National Association of German Journalists (DJV Deutscher Journalisten-Verband) honored Marco Travaglio in 2009 bestowing on him the award for "Press Freedom". The decision, taken by the seven members jury of the association, was accompanied by the following statement from Michael Konken, President of the association of german journalists. Konken stated: «We honour in Marco Travaglio a brave and talented colleague, fighting againsts many obstacles to defend freedom of speech and press in Italy». Other recipients of the Award in previous years include the journalist Miroslav Filipović and the Russian reporter Ol'ga Kitova. Filipović received the award for his articles on the atrocities committed against civilians in Kosovo by the Yugoslav Army, while Olga Kitova was honoured for her struggle in denouncing corruption in Russia.

Publications[link]

Books by Marco Travaglio (usually co-authored with other investigative journalists) include:

• Bravi ragazzi (Italian for Good fellas), published in 2003 and reporting on politicians Cesare Previti and Silvio Berlusconi's alleged (and later confirmed by court's sentence ^[2]) corruption of judges
• Lo chiamavano Impunità ("They Call Him Impunity", a humorous reference to the spaghetti western Lo chiamavano Trinità), published in 2003, about the SME-Ariosto inquiry and court trial
• Mani Sporche (Italian for "Dirty Hands") that reports about the years following the national scandal "Mani pulite" (Italian for "Clean Hands")
• Il Bavaglio ("The Gag") mostly about the Italian politicians' plans to limit freedom of speech and the investigative means of Italian Prosecutors investigating political corruption
• Per chi suona la banana ("For Whom the Banana Tolls"; the title is a pun on For Whom the Bell Tolls, with a reference on the banana republic)
• Italia Anno Zero, Chiarelettere, 2009, ISBN 978-88-6190-051-6 (coauthors: Beatrice Borromeo and Vauro Senesi)

On 10 May 2008, Marco Travaglio commented on Renato Schifani's election as president of the Senate that one should "simply ask of the second highest office of the state to explain those relationships with those men who have subsequently been condemned for association with the Mafia" on the RAI current affairs talk show television program Che tempo fa.^[3][4][5]

The statement of Travaglio resulted in fierce and almost universally negative reactions including from the centre left, except for Antonio Di Pietro who said that Travaglio was "merely doing his job". Some called for chief executives at RAI to be dismissed.

The popular political commentator Beppe Grillo supported Travaglio, while Schifani announced he would go to Court and sue Travaglio for slander.^[6] Schifani said Travaglio's accusation was based on "inconsistent or manipulated facts, not even worthy of generating suspicions", adding that "someone wants to undermine the dialogue between the government and the opposition."^[5] Mister Schifani himself enjoys immunity as leader of the parliament.

In 2009, the German Association of Journalists awarded Travaglio its yearly prize for Freedom of the Press, describing him as a "brave and critical colleague [...] exposing continually the attempts of Italian politicians, especially Silvio Berlusconi, to influence the media to their advantage and to negate critical reports."^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marco Travaglio

• Il fatto quotidiano Independent journal of which Travaglio is the vice director.
• Voglio scendere Blog by Travaglio and fellow journalists and authors Pino Corrias and Peter Gomez (Italian)
• L'Antefatto Official website of Travaglio's independent newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italian)
• Unofficial Fan site featuring a column and some other contributions by Travaglio not published elsewhere (Italian)
• Interview with Marco Travaglio (Italian)
• La Repubblica newspaper: the controversial interview with Travaglio by Luttazzi (Italian)
• Signornò [1] L'Espresso-Opinioni (Italian)
• V-day 8 September 2007 Bologna Video (Italian)
• V2-day 25 April 2008 Turin Video (Italian)
• No CAV day 8 July 2008 Rome (Italian)

Eugenio Scalfari (born 6 April 1924 in Civitavecchia) is an Italian journalist, editor of the news magazine L'espresso (1963–1968), former member of parliament in the Italian Chamber of Deputies (1968–1972), co-founder of the newspaper La Repubblica and its editor from 1976 to 1996.

Biography[link]

A law graduate with a interest in journalism and politics, Scalfari worked for on the influential postwar magazines Il Mondo and L'Europeo. In 1955 he was among the founders of the Radical Party.^[1]

In October 1955, jointly with Arrigo Benedetti he co-founded one of Italy's foremost newsmagazines L'Espresso with capital from the progressive industrialist Adriano Olivetti, manufacturer of Olivetti typewriters.^[2][3] The experienced Benedetti, who had directed the newsmagazine L'Europeo (1945–54), was the first editor-in-chief until 1963, when he handed over to Scalfari.^[4]

As a journalist he was especially active in investigative reporting, uncovering illegal right-wing activities and major government cover-ups.^[1] With Lino Jannuzzi he uncovered the attempted 1964 coup d'état by General Giovanni Di Lorenzo in May 1967.^[5]

In 1968, Scalfari was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies (1968–1972) as an independent aligned to the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI) and handed over as editor to Gianni Corbi.^[6]

In January 1976 the Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso also launched the centre-left daily newspaper La Repubblica in a joint venture with Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Scalfari became the editor-in-chief and remained so until 1996.^[4] Few believed such a venture could succeed in the already crowded Italian newspaper market, but under Scalfari’s skilful editorship La Repubblica prospered to the point of rivaling the prestigious Corriere della Sera in both sales and status as a national daily.^[1]

He remains active in both La Repubblica and L'Espresso. He has also published a number of books including l’Autunno della Repubblica (Autumn of the Republic) (1969) and the novel Il Labirinto (The Labyrinth) (1998).^[1]

He is an atheist.^[7]

References[link]

Cento Bull, Anna (2007). Italian Neofascism: The Strategy of Tension and the Politics of Nonreconciliation, Oxford: Berghahn Books, ISBN 1-84545-335-2