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(b. Arezzo, 6 Feb. 1908; d. 1999) Italian; Prime Minister six times between 1958 and 1987 A leading member of Catholic Action during the Fascist period, in the 1930s Fanfani was professor of economic history at the Catholic University in Milan and wrote two well-received works on the relationship of Catholicism to industrialization. He was a founder member of the Christian Democrat Party after 1943, and was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1946. He quickly established himself as a leading proponent of the left within the DC, and was Minister of Labour in the fourth De Gasperi government (June 1947). Periods of office in the Ministries of Agriculture and of the Interior followed, and after De Gasperi's retirement in 1953 Fanfani emerged as the expected successor, a role confirmed by his appointment as party secretary. It was an early indication of the problems that were to beset his career that his first prime ministership in January 1954 lasted little more than a month. Though he returned several times as Prime Minister and as party secretary he was never again able to combine the two roles. His activist and sometimes authoritarian style, together with his reputation as an economic reformer, ensured he was always regarded with suspicion by the moderates within the DC, and he was rarely able to exploit fully the opportunities which he created. He was largely responsible for setting up the national organization of the Christian Democrats after the dependence on the church and on the government which had characterized the De Gasperi period. Though he established his own party faction in this way, the dominant faction which inherited the party machine was the dorotei, representing the conservative wing of the party. In government, he was a leading proponent of opening to the centre-left, which included the Socialists in the governing coalition from 1963, but he was too powerful to be allowed to be the Prime Minister of the first such government. In the later part of his career his ambition was to be elected President of the Republic, but despite the formal nomination of his own party he never secured the wide base of support required in the electoral college. He led the Christian Democrats to narrow defeat in the divorce referendum (1974), which he fought in typically combative style, alienating the pro-divorce groups to a perhaps unnecessary extent, without achieving the victory which would have given him predominance in his own party. Thereafter, he had to content himself with the status of Speaker of the Senate, formally the second office of the state, and with occasional periods as caretaker Prime Minister, the last of which was in 1987.
Amintore Fanfani was one of the dominant figures of the Italian Christian Democrats for over three decades. He represented a particular ideological position, that of socially conservative Catholics who favoured economic interventionism, which was very influential in the 1950s but which gradually lost its appeal. With this decline, his energetic personal style and forceful opinions became more obviously anomalous in an increasingly grey and pluralistic DC.
| Biography: Amintore Fanfani |
The Italian statesman Amintore Fanfani (born 1908) was a major leader of influence on the post-World War II Christian Democratic Party and held many important political offices, including that of prime minister.
Amintore Fanfani was born in Pieve Santo Stefano (Arezzo Province) February 6, 1908, the son of an attorney and supporter of the Partito Popolare, the forerunner of the postwar Christian Democrats. His mother was very religious. At the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan he excelled in mathematics and physics, but later chose to study political economy and earned his doctorate in 1932.
Professor and Politician
Fanfani pursued a dual career of university professor and politician. As a student of economic history he was the author of a number of important works dealing with religion and the development of capitalism in Renaissance and Reformation Europe. His thesis was published in Italian and then in English as Catholicism, Capitalism and Protestantism in 1935. Fanfani accepted a chair at the Catholic University of Milan in 1936. During this period he joined a group known as the "little professors" who lived ascetically in monastery cells and walked barefoot. These men formed the nucleus of Democratic Initiative, the liberal wing of the postwar Christian Democratic Party. From 1938 to 1943 he taught at the University of Venice. Called up for military service in 1943, Fanfani took refuge in Switzerland where during the remainder of the war he taught interned Italians at the universities of Geneva and Lausanne. After 1955 he served on the faculty at the University of Rome.
His political career began with his participation in Catholic youth groups during the Fascist period, especially the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI) (University Federation of Italian Catholics) and the Laureati (Catholic university graduates.) With the end of the war, Fanfani emerged as one of the youngest leaders of the Christian Democrats and a protege of Alcide De Gasperi, the party's leader.
Balancing Capitalism and Christianity
An able administrator and organizer, Fanfani represented the socially more progressive left-wing of the Christian Democratic Party. In his politics, as in his academic interests, Fanfani always struggled to resolve the tensions between capitalism and Christianity. In line with his devoutly Christian beliefs, his goal was to mitigate the less charitable aspects of free enterprise and to infuse capitalism with a more socially conscious spirit.
In June 1946 Fanfani was elected to represent the Arezzo-Siena-Grosseto area in the constituent assembly which drafted a new constitution effective January 1, 1948. The very first article of the constitution reflects Fanfani's work and philosophy. Staunchly anti-Communist, but socially progressive, Fanfani proposed an article which read: "Italy is a democratic republic founded on work." His proposal, which was eventually accepted, countered the Communist version: "Italy is a democratic republic of workers." By a seemingly harmless change in the wording he avoided the class implication inherent in the Communist formula.
In 1948 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He joined Alcide De Gasperi's fourth, fifth, and sixth cabinets and served from 1947 to 1950 as minister of labor and social welfare. During this period he put into operation a seven year plan to build workers' houses financed jointly by workers, the government, and employers. Fanfani also played a significant role in the creation of non-Communist labor unions which broke the monopoly of the Communist-controlled General Federation of Labor. In 1951 he held cabinet rank as minister of agriculture and forestry and expedited land reforms. In 1953 he was appointed minister of the interior under Giuseppe Pella, and subsequently he became secretary-general of the Christian Democrats in 1954-1959 and in 1973-1975.
Political Apex
From 1954 to the mid-1960s Fanfani's influence both in the party and in national politics was at its height. Fanfani served as premier in a series of governments, some of them short-lived. His first government in 1954 lasted only 21 days. Later he headed governments from July 1958 to January 1959, from July 1960 to February 1962, from February 1962 to May 1963. From 1965 to 1966 Fanfani served as president of the United National General Assembly. In 1972 he was elected as Life Senator of the Italian Senate. He was chosen as the president of the Senate from 1968-1973, 1976-1982, and 1985-1987.
Together with Aldo Moro, in the early 1960s Fanfani became the architect of the Center-Left Coalition. De Gasperi's coalition governments during the immediate postwar period had been staunchly anti-Communist and based on collaboration with the Right - Social Democrats, Liberals, and Republicans. However, during the 1950s clerical influence on the Christian Democrats diminished; a liberal Pope, John XXIII, was elected in 1958; and the Socialists loosened their ties with the Communists. Coalitions on the Left now became possible, and Fanfani led his party in this direction. At the Christian Democratic congress of January 1962 in Naples an overwhelming majority voted for the "opening to the left." The Center-Left Coalition program called for increased participation by the masses in the exercise of political power, the nationalization of the electrical industry, the democratization of the educational system, the expansion of regional governments, and improvements in agriculture. In foreign affairs, the program reaffirmed Italy's alignment with the West, but pledged to work for an easing of East-West tensions.
In 1986 when the Italian government was in crisis, President Francesco Cossiga turned to Fanfani for help. He first served as a mediator between the Socialist and Christian Democratic parties. However, when these efforts failed, President Cossiga asked Fanfani to form a new Parliament in 1987. Fanfani was once again Prime Mnister of Italy, but this position lasted only ten days as his government lost a vote of confidence on April 28, 1987.
Further Reading
Sources on Fanfani in English are scarce. See "Fanfani" in Frank J. Coppa, ed., Dictionary of Modern Italian History (1985). Italian sources are Piero Ottone, Fanfani (Milan, 1966); and Giorgio Galli, Fanfani (Milan, 1975).
"Amintore Fanfani." The International Who's Who, 57th Edition. England: Europa Publications Limited, 1993.
"Fanfani Forms Cabinet in Italy; June Vote Seen." New York Times, 17 April 1987.
"Italy Turns to Fanfani to Form Government." New York Times, 16 April 1987. Suro, Roberto.
"Mediator Named to Untangle Italy's Cabinet Crisis." New York Times, 5 July 1986.
- "Italy's Government Falls and a June Election is Called." New York Times, 29 April 1987.
Tagliabul, John. "Fanfani is Sworn in as Head of Italy's 46th Postwar Cabinet." New York Times, 19 April 1987.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Amintore Fanfani |
| Wikipedia: Amintore Fanfani |
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Amintore Fanfani
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| In office June 15, 1978 – July 9, 1978 |
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| Preceded by | Giovanni Leone |
| Succeeded by | Alessandro Pertini |
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67th, 65th, 52nd, 49th and 45th
President of the Council of Ministers of Italy |
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| In office 17 April 1987 – 28 July 1987 |
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| President | Francesco Cossiga |
| Preceded by | Bettino Craxi |
| Succeeded by | Giovanni Goria |
| In office 1 December 1982 – 4 August 1983 |
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| President | Francesco Cossiga |
| Preceded by | Giovanni Spadolini |
| Succeeded by | Bettino Craxi |
| In office 26 July 1960 – 21 June 1963 |
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| President | Giovanni Gronchi Antonio Segni |
| Deputy | Attilio Piccioni |
| Preceded by | Fernando Tambroni |
| Succeeded by | Giovanni Leone |
| In office 1 July 1958 – 15 February 1959 |
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| President | Giovanni Gronchi |
| Deputy | Antonio Segni |
| Preceded by | Adone Zoli |
| Succeeded by | Antonio Segni |
| In office 18 January 1954 – 8 February 1954 |
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| President | Luigi Einaudi |
| Preceded by | Giuseppe Pella |
| Succeeded by | Mario Scelba |
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| In office July 28, 1987 – April 13, 1988 |
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| Prime Minister | Giovanni Goria |
| Preceded by | Oscar Luigi Scalfaro |
| Succeeded by | Antonio Gava |
| In office July 16, 1953 – January 12, 1954 |
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| Prime Minister | Alcide De Gasperi Giuseppe Pella |
| Preceded by | Mario Scelba |
| Succeeded by | Giulio Andreotti |
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| In office February 23, 1966 – June 24, 1968 |
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| Prime Minister | Aldo Moro |
| Preceded by | Aldo Moro |
| Succeeded by | Giuseppe Medici |
| In office May 7, 1962 – May 29, 1962 |
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| Prime Minister | Himself |
| Preceded by | Antonio Segni |
| Succeeded by | Attilio Piccioni |
| In office July 1, 1958 – February 15, 1959 |
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| Prime Minister | Himself |
| Preceded by | Giuseppe Pella |
| Succeeded by | Giuseppe Pella |
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| In office 5 June 1968 – 26 June 1973 |
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| Preceded by | Ennio Zelioli-Lanzini |
| Succeeded by | Giovanni Spagnolli |
| In office 5 July 1976 – 1 December 1982 |
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| Preceded by | Giovanni Spagnolli |
| Succeeded by | Tommaso Morlino |
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| Born | 6 February 1908 Pieve Santo Stefano, Italy |
| Died | 20 November 1999 (aged 91) Rome, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Political party | Christian Democracy |
Amintore Fanfani (February 6, 1908 - November 20, 1999) was an Italian career politician and five times Prime Minister of the Republic. He was one of the well-known Italian politicians after the Second World War, and a historical figure of the Christian Democracy (Italian: Democrazia Cristiana – DC). Fanfani was one of the dominant figures of the Italian Christian Democrats for over three decades.
Fanfani and Giovanni Giolitti are still the only five-time prime ministers of Italy. However, the sum of the days of Fanfani's five terms are 1571 (four years, 110 days), while Silvio Berlusconi spent 1801 days (four years, 340 days) at office in his second term only (2001-2006).
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Fanfani was born in Pieve Santo Stefano, in the province of Arezzo in Tuscany, to a large and humble family. He graduated in economics and business in 1932 from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. He was the author of a number of important works on economic history dealing with religion and the development of capitalism in the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe. His thesis was published in Italian and then in English as Catholicism, Capitalism and Protestantism in 1935.
He joined the Italian fascist party supporting the corporatist ideas of the regime promoting collaboration between the classes, which he defended in many articles. "Some day," he once wrote, "the European continent will be organized into a vast supranational area guided by Italy and Germany. Those areas will take authoritarian governments and synchronize their constitutions with Fascist principles."[1]
He also wrote for the official magazine of racism in Fascist Italy, The Defence of the Race (Italian: La difesa della razza). In 1938, he was among the 330 that signed the antisemitic Manifesto of Race (Italian: Manifesto della razza)[2] – culminating in laws that stripped the Italian Jews of Italian citizenship and with it any position in the government or professions which many previous had.
During the years he spent in Milan, he knew Giuseppe Dossetti and Giorgio La Pira. They formed a group known as the "little professors" who lived ascetically in monastery cells and walked barefoot. They formed the nucleus of Democratic Initiative, an intensely Catholic but economically reformist wing of the post-war Christian Democratic Party,[3][4] holding meetings to discuss Catholicism and society. After the surrender of Italy with the Allied armed forces on September 8, 1943, the group disbanded. Until the Liberation in April 1945, Fanfani fled to Switzerland dodging military service, and organized university courses for refugee Italians.
Upon his return to Italy, he was elected vice-secretary of the newly founded Christian Democratic Party. He was as one of the youngest party leaders and a protégé of Alcide De Gasperi, the undisputed leader of the party for the following decade. Fanfani represented a particular ideological position, that of conservative Catholics who favoured socio-economic interventionism, which was very influential in the 1950s and 1960s but which gradually lost its appeal. "Capitalism requires such a dread of loss," he once wrote, "such a forgetfulness of human brotherhood, such a certainty that a man's neighbour is merely a customer to be gained or a rival to be overthrown, and all these are inconceivable in the Catholic conception ... There is an unbridgeable gulf between the Catholic and the capitalist conception of life."[1] Private economic initiative, in his view, was justifiable only if harnessed to the common good.[5]
He was elected to the Constituent Assembly, and was a member of the Commission that drafted the text of the new Republican Constitution. The first article of the new constitution reflected Fanfani's philosophy. He proposed an article, which read: "Italy is a democratic republic founded on work." In 1948 he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
Under de Gasperi, Fanfani took on a succession of ministries. He was Minister of Labour from 1947-1948 and again from 1948-1950; Minister of Agriculture from 1951-1953; as well as Minister of the Interior in 1953 in the caretaker government of Giuseppe Pella. As Minister of Labour, he developed the "Fanfani house" program for government-built workers' homes and put 200,000 of Italy's many unemployed to work on a reforestation program. As Minister of Agriculture, he set in motion much of the Christian Democrats' land reform program.
"He can keep going for 36 hours on catnaps, apples and a few sips of water," according to a news report in Time Magazine. Once, when someone proposed Fanfani for yet another ministry, De Gasperi refused. "If I keep on appointing Fanfani to various ministries, I am sure that one of these days I will open the door to my study and find Fanfani sitting at my desk," he said.[4]
After De Gasperi's retirement in 1953 Fanfani emerged as the anticipated successor, a role confirmed by his appointment as party secretary from 1954-1959.[6] He reorganized and rejuvenated the national party organization of the Christian Democrats after the dependence on the church and the government which had typified the De Gasperi period.[7]
However, his activist and sometimes authoritarian style, as well as his reputation as an economic reformer, ensured that the moderates within the DC, who opposed the state’s intrusion into the country’s economic life, regarded him with distrust. His indefatigable energy and his passion for efficiency carried him far in politics, but he was rarely able to exploit fully the opportunities that he created. "Fanfani has colleagues, associates, acquaintances and subordinates," one politician once remarked. "But I have never heard much about his friends."[1]
After the death of De Gasperi, from 1954 to the mid-1960s Fanfani's weight both in the party and in national politics was at its height. He served as Prime Minister in several of governments, some of them short-lived. His first government in 1954 lasted only 21 days when it failed to win approval in the Parliament.[8] As Minister of the Interior, with orders to step up measures against Communist subversion, Fanfani had named young (35) Giulio Andreotti, another protégé of De Gasperi.[4]
He became head of government again from July 1958 to January 1959, when his steamroller tactics lost him the support of his own Christian Democratic colleagues.[9] He learned from the experience, and became wiser in the ways of cooperating and compromising. From July 1960 to February 1962, from February 1962 to May 1963, he was Prime Minister once more, securing the support of the Italian Socialist Party (Italian: Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI), thus involving the centre-left in Italian politics.
He had been a leading proponent of such an "opening to the centre-left" for years. The opportunity arose when a liberal Pope, John XXIII, was elected in 1958, and the Socialists loosened their ties with the Communists. In February 1962 he reorganised his cabinet and gained the benign abstention of the PSI leader Pietro Nenni.[10] But he was too powerful to be allowed to be the Prime Minister of the first such government which actually included the Socialists in the coalition of the 1963 government that was headed by Aldo Moro.
He failed to become president of the Republic in 1964, and for much of the 1960s he was forced in the background. A strong supporter of the European Economic Community (EEC), Fanfani was foreign minister in 1965 and in 1966-68. He also served (1965-66) as president of the United Nations General Assembly - he is the only Italian to have hold this office. In 1971 he was again his party's candidate for the presidency, but in the secret ballot a sizeable number of his own party colleagues failed to support him. As a consolation, he was made Senator for life in 1972.[5]
He was President of the Senate from 1968 to 1973. Fanfani became secretary of the Christian Democrats for a second time in 1973. As such, he led the campaign for the referendum on repealing the law allowing divorce, which he fought in typically combative style, alienating the pro-divorce groups unnecessarily, without achieving the victory that would have given him predominance in his own party.
The defeat of the divorce referendum provoked his resignation as party secretary in 1975. He had to content himself with the status of President of the Senate, formally the second office of the state. In the later part of his career his aspiration was to be elected President of the Republic, but notwithstanding the formal party nomination he never secured the sufficient support in the electoral college.
From 1982 to 1983, Fanfani was Prime Minister for a fifth time. From 1985 to 1987, he was President of the Senate again. From April to July 1987, he was Prime Minister for the sixth time. Fanfani was elected to the prestigious post of chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate from 1994-1996.
Fanfani died in Rome on November 20, 1999. He saw the corporate state as the ideal, and in what he calls a "temporary aberration" turned to Fascism. He has never tried to hide his Fascist record; but unlike many of his countrymen, he freely admits that he was wrong.[1] He held all positions and offices a politician could possibly aspire to, except the one he craved most: president of the Republic. The factionalism of the DC turned out to be the biggest obstacle to the emergence of Fanfanismo, the pale Italian version of Gaullism, and one by one he lost his offices.[5]
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