hello and welcome to the history hour
podcast from the BBC World Service with
me max Pearson the past brought to life
by those who are there this week we've
got the commander of the first American
mission to go round the moon all of a
sudden here in this total darkness was
color the earth was basically a blue
marble with white clouds and sort of
pinkish Brown continents you could see
also we remember two towering figures
from the world of art the film director
Derek Jarman he would say I know nothing
about acting I'm not sure what I know
about films of course you see he had
such an engaging personality it was just
wonderful to meet a real rebel and the
Irish writer Samuel Beckett Beckett was
one of the few people I've ever met who
just really knew then as long as he was
alive his purpose was to write we'll get
to that later but first we're going back
to Italy in the late 1960s when the
country was riven by political violence
from both left and right, economic
tensions and increasingly militant trade
unions were tearing apart the fabric of
Italian society, acts of terror would be
routinely blamed on extremists from
either political wing Anarchists or
neo-fascists the government was also
accused of running a `Strategy of Tension`
indirectly carrying out attacks on its
own people through proxy right-wing
activists Anna O'Neil has been to Milan
to hear about the true story behind one
incident which inspired one of the
playwright Dario Fo's most popular
works `Accidental Death of an Anarchist`
the incident in question was the tragic
death of an Italian railway worker and
anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli who fell to
his death while in police custody "now
superintendent think carefully the
report quotes you as having said they're
heavy suspicions are pointing in his
direction did you say that?" yes in the
beginning thanks the beginning a good
place to start don't you agree thank you
now towards midnight the anarchists
seized by a rapturous -your words- threw
himself out of the window thus ending
his life on the pavement below what
exactly right correct to the last detail
the play may have been a comedy at least
on the face of it but it was based on a
tragedy the arrest and death of an
innocent
for a crime he didn't commit in Italy
the time between the 1960s in the 1980s
was a period of social and political
turmoil marked by a wave of both
left-wing and right-wing political
violence the Berlin bank bomb of 1969 a
typical act of random terror sixteen
people were killed and dozens injured
responsibility was immediately pinned
upon an extreme left-wing group but
after years of judicial wrangling it
became clear that neo-fascists were
really to blame it was on the 12th of
December 1969 that a bomb went off in a
bank in Milan's Piazza Fontana a local
member of the black cross anarchist
group Giuseppe Pinelli known as Pino was
one of a number of suspects rounded up
and taken for questioning to the city's
police headquarters his daughter's
Claudia and Silvia remember the evening
their father was arrested when a Sara
Lee noe that night we came back me and
Claudia the door was completely wide
open the police were there and they were
searching the apartment there were
papers all over the floor the cupboards
were open the Christmas presents were
open and on the floor Claudia ran right
in I wanted to chat to them because it
was so normal that people were round at
the house but my mum stopped her saying
no they are policemen that was when my
mother told us daddy had been stopped
but that he would be home soon that we
never saw him again
Silvia and Claudia were 9 and 8 years
old in 1969 the only children of Licia
and Pino we had a house a little
council house in a San Siro area but
because Licia worked from home typing up
letters for students on her typewriter
there were lots of people coming and
going my father was always ready to talk
to anyone he'd actually bought a wooden
sign on which I'm an Anarchist was
written so that he could bring it up in
conversation with people who came round
there weren't many other anarchists who
came to our house friends of my father
these were university professors or
students also dissenting Catholics who
my father met because he was a
conscientious objector to military
service
and in those days only anarchists were
conscientious objectives and then
Catholics also started objecting
They got together over
common themes such as non-violence being
anti military being conscientious
objectors to military service consider
that being a conscientious objector
carried a prison sentence, it was illegal
it was a battle because those were the
people at the time who organized hunger
strikes or peace marches with Pino. War
had been over for 20 years and there was
a real hope that a different kind of
society was possible but what does being
an anarchist mean? I asked the Pinelli
sisters what it meant to their father
Anarchy for our
Father
Anarchy was a sort of responsibility
towards other people my father before he
was brought into the police station for
questioning on the 12th of December he
wrote a letter where he says "Anarchy isn't
violence we reject it and we don't want
to be subjected to it anarchy is reason
and responsibility."
when it all
happened
that was what I asked my mother she said
to us your father has been stopped by
the police why did they stop him because
he's an Anarchist it was the first time
we'd ever heard this word and we asked
her what does being an anarchist mean?
and she said to love freedom and maybe
for me this as an answer is the one that
stays with me in 1969 the authorities
needed someone to blame for the Piazza
Fontana bombing and they chose Milan's
anarchists eventually in 2001 three
neo-fascists were convicted of the
bombing and Pinelli's name was cleared
but what has never been established is
exactly what happened on the 15th of
December 1969 when Pino Pinelli was seen
to fly out of the fourth-floor window of
the police headquarters and no one has
ever been brought to justice for his
death
our life was never the
same before our house was always full of
people
suddenly it was empty. Our mother who had always
been there was now never there, she was
out working, seeing lawyers and in the
evening she was cutting out articles
from the newspapers
she kept every single article from the
newspapers right up until now even the
letters that arrived both the anonymous
ones and the letters of solidarity even
the threats, when Pino died we were sent
to stay with friends then Licia's
brother our uncle then we came back to
Milan and stayed with Pino's sister we
came back home after a long time away
Christmas had been and gone that outside
our door there were parcels there were
people who had come right up to our door
and left presents for us and letters and
even nasty letters and out of all this I
remember a letter from a girl in primary
school she had sent me a drawing of
Mickey Mouse the fact that Licia saved
everything means that we've got
everything documented and that's
important because we are carrying
forward an historic truth in place of
any legal truth in the play Daria Fo
set out to demolish the official version
that Pinelli had somehow accidentally
thrown himself from the fourth floor
window
the death was recorded as
an accidental death and this rapid
closing of the case was what pushed
Dario Fo to write Accidental Death of an
Anarchist he had collected all the
contradictions all the lies the clerk's
reports the newspaper articles the
official police interviews this is what
made both Dario Fo and his wife Franca
Rame write this play and for the play
they were taken to court themselves more
than 40 times. "I'm here now in Piazza
Fontana just at the back of the Duomo di Milano the Cathedral and this is where
the bomb that killed 17 people went off
and was the event that led to Giuseppe Pinelli
losing his life at the police
station three days later and there are
two memorials here to P nan Lee both of
them look very similar with very similar
wording there's a slight difference one
of them has been laid by the Communo di
Milano the the local council and it
says to Giuseppe Pinelli railway worker
Anarchist and innocent who died
tragically in the grounds of the police
station in Milan on the 15th of December
1969 and the other memorial plaque has
been laid by students and Milanese
Democrats and it says to Giuseppe
Pinelli railway worker anarchist and
innocent killed in the grounds of the
police station in Milan on the 15th of
December 1969 and that difference is
telling because there's still a debate
about how Pinelli died and that's why
Pinelli's daughters are still fighting
for the truth about what happened to
their father Anna O'Neill in Milan and
you can see a photo of the Pinelli
family in happier times before his death
including his daughter's Silvia and
Claudia on our website just search for
BBC witness with me now is Donald
Sassoon professor of comparative history
at Queen Mary University of London let's
go back to Pinelli himself first of all
just describe the atmosphere in Italy
that he found himself in as he became
politically aware and Adi politically
active well the year in which the
terrorist attempt on Piazza Fontana
which killed 16 people and for which he
was arrested occurred in 1969 in 1969
Italians know they says to no caldo or
the hots for the hot autumn because the
wave of strikes was unprecedented and so
it was an extremely difficult period in
which tension was extremely high when
the bomb exploded on Piazza Fontana
which is in Milan just behind the
Cathedral there was a wave as one can
imagine there was a wave of alarm and
the police was under enormous pressure
to arrest someone and so they arrested
poor Giuseppe Pinelli who we now know
had absolutely nothing to do with it was
it a case though of tension for all
Italians in the 1960s the late 1960s or
was it more a case of factions trade
unions extremists on left and right
going after specific people or targets
that represented something that they
opposed I mean was there a palpable
sense of danger for all well it's never
for all the traffic accident killed as
usual more Italians than all the bombs
in the world but certainly there was an
atmosphere of a country which was
worried about where it was it was it was
going one should also say that there
were terrorist attacks on both by both
the left and the right but the main
difference is that attacks from the
right attended to be their generic
terrorists attacked on crowds there was
later one on a train than one on at
Bologna station and this went on these
were right-wing terrorists the left-wing
terrorists targeted specific people
particular people sometimes trade
unionists which they regarded as not
left-wing enough or journalists and
eventually the left-wing terror arrived
at kidnapping one of the most important
politicians in Italy Aldo Moro keeping
him kidnapped for 55 days and then
finally killing him and dropping him in
a car between the headquarters of the
Italian Communist Party and the
Christian Democratic parties which were
left wing terrorists thoughts were the
same sort of ruling class elites
we talk about extreme groups on left and
right but was there a strategy of
tension on the part of the government
did the government actively ferment some
of this I don't think the government had
anything to do with it but obviously
people and try to explain what was going
on by attributing it to the government
complicated so-called strategy of
tension the idea was that by creating
panic the government then would be
entitled to take severe repressive
measures and dragging transforming italy
from a democracy 40 though it may be
into a despotic and authoritarian states
well this did not occur other people
also blame the Americans as they would
often do the secret services and so on
when things like that happen
conspiracy theories abound and the
left-right tension in Italy it didn't
stop at the end of the 1960s after
incidents like those you've described no
on the contrary its developed if you
like yet so Fontana and the Pinelli
thing was the beginning of a wave of
terrorism the unneeded Pombo the years
of lead which lasted throughout the 70s
and for part of the 1980s even professor
Donald Sassoon from Queen Mary
University of London many thanks for
your time
