The murder of Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro.

On March 16th 1978, Moro was kidnapped on his way to a session of the house of representatives in Italy.  The Communists and Christian Democrats were expected to co‑operate in times of national crisis and Moro had produced a Compromesso storico or ‘historical compromise’’….

But the Red Brigade, a group of fanatical Leninist guerrillas, seized Moro in broad daylight in central Rome, his escort of five being openly murdered.  After 54 days Moro’s corpse was dumped half way between the Christian Democrat and Communist HQs.  This was a symbolical way of rejecting Moro’s plea, made in the course of over 50 letters he had written from the Red Brigade’s ‘peoples prison’, that if freed he would found a party of a ‘middle way’, that is, mid way between the Christian Democrats and the Communists.

America’s Cold War rules were simple but strict ‑ Washington would not allow a party which even allowed a residual allegiance to Moscow to govern a western country.  Conspiracy theories therefore abound implicating the CIA and its secret NATO arm, Gladio, in the affair.