Volume 34, Number 11 · June 25, 1987
Murder in Rome
By Adrian Lyttelton
The Moro Affair and The Mystery of Majorana
by Leonardo Sciascia, translated by Sacha Rabinovitch
Carcanet, 175 pp., $16.95
On March 16, 1978, a group of terrorists ambushed the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro on the via Fani in Rome. Within three minutes they killed all five members of his escort and bundled Moro into one of three getaway cars. People living nearby tried to give the alarm, but found that their telephone wires had been cut. Half an hour later the police issued a general alert, but by that time the kidnappers and their victim had disappeared. Within an hour the Red Brigades announced that Moro was in their hands; on March 18, they said he would be tried in a 'people's court of justice.' Nine weeks later, after the tangled events Leonardo Sciascia recounts in The Moro Affair had taken place, the Red Brigades announced that Moro's body would be found in the luggage compartment of a Renault parked on the via Caetani in the crowded center of Rome. They chose this street for symbolic reasons: it is halfway between the headquarters of the Christian Democratic and the Communist parties.
Review, 3585 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |