failed to order an inspection or pass on the information to the magistrates. ‘If my appeal remains unheard once again, I will present a complaint against you for dereliction of duty,’ he wrote. On 17 April 1978 a team of 50 officials from the Bank of Italy’s inspectorate arrived at the headquarters of the Banco Ambrosiano to examine the bank’s books.
A cultured and intelligent man, Cavallo was a remarkable protagonist of the Cold War in Italy. A communist resistance fighter during the Second World War – although he also spent part of the war studying philosophy in Berlin – he later broke with the PCI and devoted himself to anti-communist propaganda, operating between West Germany, Italy and France. Dubbed
il provocatore
by the media, he was employed by Fiat, the Turin-based car manufacturer, and by the Italian secret services to try to intimidate and demoralize the left-wing trade unions. In 1974 he was involved in an abortive coup plot mounted by another resistance hero, the right-wing aristocrat Count Edgardo Sogno, whose efforts were closely monitored and encouraged by the CIA.
Cavallo spelled out his blackmailing message to Calvi in an undated letter written in late 1977. ‘Among the tribes of Uganda the fable of the two scorpions in a bottle is well known,’ he began. ‘If they begin an all-out struggle this invariably haslethal consequences for both contenders’ – meaning, in this case, Sindona and Calvi. Cavallo advised Calvi to give up the struggle and keep the promises he had previously made. If not, he warned, the propaganda campaign against him would continue, inciting police, magistrates, trade unions, political parties and public opinion against him and leading to his removal from the Ambrosiano board. And if that didn’t happen, extremist extra-parliamentary groups – longhand for terrorists – ‘will make your private and social life impossible. You will have to choose: either to flee abroad or be locked up in San Vittore [jail]. A civil suicide or life on the run.
‘And don’t make the mistake of counting on the survival instinct or the mercy of the first scorpion. His mind is made up: either agreement and respect for the undertakings or a fight to the finish . . . Re-finding a friend and normality is certainly more pleasant than the fate of the second scorpion in the bottle.’ Cavallo’s letter was among the documents in Calvi’s briefcase when it re-emerged in public in 1986. The briefcase contained the banker’s most sensitive documents and was a crucial instrument of his own blackmail plans. It is highly significant, then, that Calvi kept this threatening letter among his most closely guarded possessions. And that he continued to pay Sindona’s emissary until the end of his life. 3 Indeed, he may have recruited Cavallo to his own side by this stage, judging from another letter found in the briefcase. Dated 9 July 1980, and written from Paris, it appears to amount to an offer by Cavallo to switch sides. The initiatives he had conducted against Calvi were not the fruit of personal rancour but had been carried out on commission, Cavallo wrote. The Agnelli brothers were behind the latest political and judicial moves against him, Cavallo assured Calvi, but he was available to mount a counter-offensive that would stop them in their tracks: ‘I guarantee an excellent result from the operations within a short lapse of time,’ he concluded.
Cavallo’s original blackmail – for which he would be convicted by a court in Milan in March 1986 – was destined to have grave consequences for Calvi. On 17 November 1978 the Bank of Italy inspectors delivered their report on Calvi’s financial dealings. ‘Not entirely favourable,’ was the verdict, and the substance of their findings was passed on to the Milan prosecutor’s office for further investigation. In July 1980 Milan magistrates withdrew Calvi’s passport, returning it to him temporarily on 26 September. Early on the morning
A cultured and intelligent man, Cavallo was a remarkable protagonist of the Cold War in Italy. A communist resistance fighter during the Second World War – although he also spent part of the war studying philosophy in Berlin – he later broke with the PCI and devoted himself to anti-communist propaganda, operating between West Germany, Italy and France. Dubbed
il provocatore
by the media, he was employed by Fiat, the Turin-based car manufacturer, and by the Italian secret services to try to intimidate and demoralize the left-wing trade unions. In 1974 he was involved in an abortive coup plot mounted by another resistance hero, the right-wing aristocrat Count Edgardo Sogno, whose efforts were closely monitored and encouraged by the CIA.
Cavallo spelled out his blackmailing message to Calvi in an undated letter written in late 1977. ‘Among the tribes of Uganda the fable of the two scorpions in a bottle is well known,’ he began. ‘If they begin an all-out struggle this invariably haslethal consequences for both contenders’ – meaning, in this case, Sindona and Calvi. Cavallo advised Calvi to give up the struggle and keep the promises he had previously made. If not, he warned, the propaganda campaign against him would continue, inciting police, magistrates, trade unions, political parties and public opinion against him and leading to his removal from the Ambrosiano board. And if that didn’t happen, extremist extra-parliamentary groups – longhand for terrorists – ‘will make your private and social life impossible. You will have to choose: either to flee abroad or be locked up in San Vittore [jail]. A civil suicide or life on the run.
‘And don’t make the mistake of counting on the survival instinct or the mercy of the first scorpion. His mind is made up: either agreement and respect for the undertakings or a fight to the finish . . . Re-finding a friend and normality is certainly more pleasant than the fate of the second scorpion in the bottle.’ Cavallo’s letter was among the documents in Calvi’s briefcase when it re-emerged in public in 1986. The briefcase contained the banker’s most sensitive documents and was a crucial instrument of his own blackmail plans. It is highly significant, then, that Calvi kept this threatening letter among his most closely guarded possessions. And that he continued to pay Sindona’s emissary until the end of his life. 3 Indeed, he may have recruited Cavallo to his own side by this stage, judging from another letter found in the briefcase. Dated 9 July 1980, and written from Paris, it appears to amount to an offer by Cavallo to switch sides. The initiatives he had conducted against Calvi were not the fruit of personal rancour but had been carried out on commission, Cavallo wrote. The Agnelli brothers were behind the latest political and judicial moves against him, Cavallo assured Calvi, but he was available to mount a counter-offensive that would stop them in their tracks: ‘I guarantee an excellent result from the operations within a short lapse of time,’ he concluded.
Cavallo’s original blackmail – for which he would be convicted by a court in Milan in March 1986 – was destined to have grave consequences for Calvi. On 17 November 1978 the Bank of Italy inspectors delivered their report on Calvi’s financial dealings. ‘Not entirely favourable,’ was the verdict, and the substance of their findings was passed on to the Milan prosecutor’s office for further investigation. In July 1980 Milan magistrates withdrew Calvi’s passport, returning it to him temporarily on 26 September. Early on the morning
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