Ortolani, the financial brains of the P2 organization. ‘Ortolani claimed to have friends in all sorts of circles, even on an international level, in particular in London freemasonry,’ Calvi said. Calvi gradually came to realize that Ortolani also had high-level contacts in the church and that he and Licio Gelli could provide Calvi with the kinds of political, financial and bureaucratic protection that he needed. ‘In this context he led me to understand that there could be advantages to be derived from financial interventions on behalf of the political parties,’ he said. He went on to describe how he had provided the PSI with a discreet payment of $21 million via a Montevideo bank, Bafisud, owned by Ortolani. The money was intended to enable the party to reduce its official debt to the Banco Ambrosiano.
Calvi’s revelations and his suicide attempt had several immediate effects. Socialist politicians sprang to his defence in parliament, accusing the Milan magistrates of damaging the economy and mounting a ‘judicial persecution’ of Calvi. At the same time Calvi was privately warned by Giuseppe Prisco, a lawyer on the Banco Ambrosiano board, to stop talking if he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison. Prisco’s message, relayed to him by his wife, said the Socialists had already destroyed all the evidence of what he was alleging. Most importantly for the longer term, Calvi had shown the politicians they could no longer rely on him for his silence. Calvi rapidly withdrew his cooperation with the magistrates and retracted his initial statement.
As an insider with access to information on the secret funding of political parties, a full confession by the BancoAmbrosiano chief could have launched what came to be known as the
Mani Pulite
(Clean Hands) corruption investigation a decade ahead of time. Between 1992 and 1994 prosecutors in 70 cities ordered the arrest of 5,000 people and began legal proceedings against 12,000 suspects in a traumatic national corruption inquiry also known as
Tangentopoli
(Bribesville). The name was apt because in many sectors of business life the payment of bribes to politicians was the norm, rather than the exception. One economist estimated that bribes were costing the Italian economy 10 trillion lire (more than £3 billion) a year. Michele Sindona certainly considered that Calvi had opened a delicate chapter when he had started to talk about his payments to the PSI. Blackmailing the political parties was like signing his own death warrant, Sindona told his biographer Nick Tosches. ‘Those documents had to be destroyed, and Calvi with them.’ 4
The experience of prison also put a strain on Calvi’s relations with the Vatican. During his currency trial Calvi maintained to his friends and family that the operations that had got him into trouble had not been undertaken on his own account but on behalf of the Vatican. If the Vatican would only own up to it and publicly acknowledge its responsibilities his judicial troubles would be over.
Matters came to a head when Calvi’s family, accompanied by Alessandro Mennini, a Banco Ambrosiano employee whose father Luigi was managing director of the IOR, went to visit him in prison. The episode has been described by Calvi’s widow, Clara, in her unpublished memoir: ‘They allowed us in after searching us and we found Roberto at the end of a corridor, in a corner; he almost didn’t have the courage to look at us for the humiliation, and was crying.’ Calvi explained his dilemma to his daughter, who took notes on loose leaves of paper. He had been beseeching the IOR to recognize its responsibilities since February, he said. It was true that he could speak out publicly during the trial, but that would be aviolation of professional secrecy and he would be finished as a banker if he did.
Anna wrote the words ‘This trial is called IOR’ on a sheet of paper and showed it to Alessandro Mennini outside the prison, as her father had
Calvi’s revelations and his suicide attempt had several immediate effects. Socialist politicians sprang to his defence in parliament, accusing the Milan magistrates of damaging the economy and mounting a ‘judicial persecution’ of Calvi. At the same time Calvi was privately warned by Giuseppe Prisco, a lawyer on the Banco Ambrosiano board, to stop talking if he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison. Prisco’s message, relayed to him by his wife, said the Socialists had already destroyed all the evidence of what he was alleging. Most importantly for the longer term, Calvi had shown the politicians they could no longer rely on him for his silence. Calvi rapidly withdrew his cooperation with the magistrates and retracted his initial statement.
As an insider with access to information on the secret funding of political parties, a full confession by the BancoAmbrosiano chief could have launched what came to be known as the
Mani Pulite
(Clean Hands) corruption investigation a decade ahead of time. Between 1992 and 1994 prosecutors in 70 cities ordered the arrest of 5,000 people and began legal proceedings against 12,000 suspects in a traumatic national corruption inquiry also known as
Tangentopoli
(Bribesville). The name was apt because in many sectors of business life the payment of bribes to politicians was the norm, rather than the exception. One economist estimated that bribes were costing the Italian economy 10 trillion lire (more than £3 billion) a year. Michele Sindona certainly considered that Calvi had opened a delicate chapter when he had started to talk about his payments to the PSI. Blackmailing the political parties was like signing his own death warrant, Sindona told his biographer Nick Tosches. ‘Those documents had to be destroyed, and Calvi with them.’ 4
The experience of prison also put a strain on Calvi’s relations with the Vatican. During his currency trial Calvi maintained to his friends and family that the operations that had got him into trouble had not been undertaken on his own account but on behalf of the Vatican. If the Vatican would only own up to it and publicly acknowledge its responsibilities his judicial troubles would be over.
Matters came to a head when Calvi’s family, accompanied by Alessandro Mennini, a Banco Ambrosiano employee whose father Luigi was managing director of the IOR, went to visit him in prison. The episode has been described by Calvi’s widow, Clara, in her unpublished memoir: ‘They allowed us in after searching us and we found Roberto at the end of a corridor, in a corner; he almost didn’t have the courage to look at us for the humiliation, and was crying.’ Calvi explained his dilemma to his daughter, who took notes on loose leaves of paper. He had been beseeching the IOR to recognize its responsibilities since February, he said. It was true that he could speak out publicly during the trial, but that would be aviolation of professional secrecy and he would be finished as a banker if he did.
Anna wrote the words ‘This trial is called IOR’ on a sheet of paper and showed it to Alessandro Mennini outside the prison, as her father had
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