Randolfo Pacciardi
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Randolfo Pacciardi | |
---|---|
Minister of Defence | |
In office 23 May 1948 – 16 July 1953 | |
Prime Minister | Alcide De Gasperi |
Preceded by | Cipriano Facchinetti |
Succeeded by | Giuseppe Codacci Pisanelli |
Deputy Prime Minister | |
In office 1 June 1947 – 12 May 1948 | |
Prime Minister | Alcide De Gasperi |
Preceded by | Paolo Cappa Vincenzo Moscatelli |
Succeeded by | Attilio Piccioni Giovanni Porzio Giuseppe Saragat |
Member of the Italian Chamber for Pisa | |
In office 8 May 1948 – 4 June 1968 | |
Member of the Constituent Assembly for Pisa | |
In office 25 June 1946 – 8 May 1948 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Gavorrano, Italy | 1 January 1899
Died | 14 April 1991 Rome, Italy | (aged 92)
Political party | PRI (1915–64; 1980–91) UDNR (1964–80) |
Relations | Giovanni Pacciardi (father) Elvira Guidoni (mother) |
Alma mater | University of Siena |
Profession | Politician, journalist |
Military service | |
Allegiance | Kingdom of Italy Spanish Republic |
Branch/service | Royal Italian Army International Brigades |
Years of service | 1917–1919; 1936–1939 |
Rank | Lieutenant colonel |
Unit | 11th Bersaglieri Regiment 8th Bersaglieri Regiment XII International Brigade |
Battles/wars | World War I (1914–1918)
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
|
Randolfo Pacciardi (1 January 1899 – 14 April 1991) was an Italian politician, a member of the Italian Republican Party (PRI). He was also an officer who fought during World War I and in the Spanish Civil War.
Biography[edit]
Pacciardi was born at Giuncarico, in the province of Grosseto (southern Tuscany). In 1915 he became a member of the Italian Republican Party, and, despite being underage, was enlisted in the Italian Army's officers school. As a Bersaglieri lieutenant, he fought during World War I, and was awarded two silver and one bronze medals, as well as a British Military Cross.
In 1921 Pacciardi graduated in jurisprudence from the University of Siena. Later, he collaborated with the newspaper L'Etruria Nuova, denouncing the increasing violence of the Fascist squads. In 1922 he moved to Rome, where he founded the anti-fascist movement "L'Italia libera", which was suppressed in 1925. After the Fascists outlawed all the other parties, he was condemned to five years confinement, but was able to escape to Austria and then to Switzerland.
After moving to France, in 1936 Pacciardi founded an Italian Antifascist Legion to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He subsequently fought at the head of the Garibaldi Brigade, part of the International Brigades in the Siege of Madrid, after which he was promoted as lieutenant colonel. Pacciardi fought against the National faction in Spain until 1937. Opposed to communist persecution of the anarchist and POUM members within the republican camp, he later left Spain and returned to France, where he founded the weekly La Giovine Italia (a homage to the ideologist of the unification of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini). In 1938 he held a series of lectures in the United States about anti-fascism in Europe. When the Italian-American antifascist Mazzini Society was founded in 1939, Pacciardi joined that too. He returned to Italy only after the liberation of Rome in 1944. In 1945 he was again confirmed national secretary of the now re-established PRI, and the following year he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Italy.
Pacciardi's line of collaboration with the other left parties led to the entrance of the PRI in the first Republic government cabinets of Italy (1947). Pacciardi resigned as PRI's secretary and became vice-Prime Minister. He was Minister of Defense from 1948 to 1953, and supported Italian membership of NATO. In the 1950s the PRI followed Ugo La Malfa's line of not participating in the centrist governments led by Democrazia Cristiana; when in 1963 a first centre-left government, led by DC leader Aldo Moro, was created, Pacciardi and his followers within the PRI voted against supporting it. In the wake of a scandal which had involved his previous tenure as Minister of Defense (despite being later acquitted from any accuse), Pacciardi was expelled from the PRI.
In 1964 Pacciardi founded a new party, the Democratic Union for the New Republic (Unione Democratica per la Nuova Repubblica; UDNR), and a newspaper, La Folla. The platform of Nuova Repubblica was similar to that of Charles de Gaulle. However, the 1968 Italian election proved to be a failure for the new party, which received just 100,000 votes. Pacciardi himself was not re-elected to the Italian Parliament, and was later accused of having coup- and neofascist-oriented friendships. In 1974 he was investigated for participation in the so-called Golpe bianco of Edgardo Sogno.[1]
In 1979 he asked to be admitted back to the PRI, which happened a year later. In 1981 he founded a new magazine, L'Italia del popolo, which he directed for ten years. He died in Rome in 1991 and was buried in the communal cemetery of Grosseto.
Personal life[edit]
Known for his jovial nature and passion for travel, Randolfo Pacciardi met and befriended people like Ernest Hemingway and his lover Martha Gellhorn,[2][3] David Ben-Gurion, Michael Curtiz (who asked Pacciardi for advice in the making of Casablanca)[4][5] and Fabrizio De André, to whose first wedding Pacciardi was witness due to his friendship with De André's father, Giuseppe.
In 1918, he was initiated into freemasonry. Randolfo Pacciardi joined the lodge "Ombrone" of Grosseto, becoming "Companion" the following year.[6] In 1937 he joined the Parisian lodge "Eugenio Chiesa",[7] as "master" and in 1938 was elevated to 30° degree of the Scottish Rite.
Medals and decorations[edit]
Military Cross | |
Silver Medal of Military Valor | |
Silver Medal of Military Valor | |
Bronze Medal of Military Valor |
References[edit]
- ^ Panorama. XII (140): 44–46. 26 September 1974.
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(help) - ^ Randolfo Pacciardi, Protagonisti grandi e piccoli: studi, incontri, ricordi , Barulli, Roma, 1972, p. 644.
- ^ Ennio Caretto, Corriere della Sera, 4 ottobre 2006.
- ^ Randolfo Pacciardi, Cuore da battaglia: Pacciardi racconta a Loteta, Roma, Nuova edizioni del Gallo, 1990.
- ^ Cfr. Il Messaggero, 28 agosto 1995.
- ^ Aldo A. Mola, Pacciardi massone: iniziazione all'antitotalitarismo, in: Annali del Centro Pannunzio, Torino, 2001, pagg. 139–150
- ^ Santi Fedele, La massoneria italiana nell'esilio e nella clandestinità. 1927–1939, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2005, pagg. 162-63 e 183
Sources[edit]
- Spinelli, Alessandro (1998). I repubblicani nel secondo dopoguerra (1943–1953) (in Italian). Ravenna, IT: Longo.
External links[edit]
- Pacciardi (biography) (in Italian), PRI, archived from the original on 17 June 2011
- 1899 births
- 1991 deaths
- People from Gavorrano
- Italian Republican Party politicians
- Government ministers of Italy
- Deputy Prime Ministers of Italy
- Italian Ministers of Defence
- Members of the Constituent Assembly of Italy
- Deputies of Legislature I of Italy
- Deputies of Legislature II of Italy
- Deputies of Legislature III of Italy
- Deputies of Legislature IV of Italy
- Politicians of Tuscany
- Italian Freemasons
- Italian military personnel of World War I
- Italian anti-fascists
- International Brigades personnel
- Recipients of the Silver Medal of Military Valor
- Recipients of the Bronze Medal of Military Valor
- Italian exiles