Aldo Moro Murdered: Italy's Terror War Intensifies
The Red Brigades, Italy's most feared left-wing terrorist group, murdered former Prime Minister Aldo Moro on May 9, 1978, after holding him captive for 55 days. Moro had been kidnapped on March 16 in Rome when his five bodyguards were killed in an ambush. During his captivity, Moro wrote dozens of letters pleading for the government to negotiate. Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti and the Christian Democrats refused, following a "no negotiation" policy supported by both the Communist Party and the United States. Moro's bullet-riddled body was found in the trunk of a red Renault 4 parked on Via Caetani, symbolically equidistant between the DC and Communist Party headquarters. The murder ended any possibility of the "Historic Compromise" between the two parties that Moro had championed.
May 9, 1978
48 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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