Silvio Milazzo
Encyclopedia
Politics of Sicily
The Politics of Sicily, Italy takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democracy, whereby the President of Regional Government is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the Regional Government...
from 1958-1960.
Sicilian deputy
Milazzo was a landowner from CaltagironeCaltagirone
Caltagirone is a town and comune in the province of Catania, on the island of Sicily, about 70 km southwest of Catania. It is bounded by the comuni of Acate, Gela, Grammichele, Licodia Eubea, Mazzarino, Mazzarrone, Mineo, Mirabella Imbaccari, Niscemi, Piazza Armerina, San Michele di...
and sat in the Sicilian regional parliament since 1947 for the Christian Democrat Party (DC) in the political current of Mario Scelba
Mario Scelba
Mario Scelba was an Italian Christian Democratic politician who served as the 34th Prime Minister of Italy from February 1954 to July 1955...
. He was the Regional Minister for Public Works and for Agriculture in the regional governments of Franco Restivo
Franco Restivo
Francesco Restivo was an Italian politician for the Christian Democrat Party and Minister of the Republic. He was President of the Regional Council of Sicily from 1949-1955 and Minister of the Interior from 1968 to 1972....
(1949-1955), Giuseppe Alessi
Giuseppe Alessi
Giuseppe Alessi is an Italian footballer who currently plays midfielder in Lega Pro Prima Divisione for Reggiana.Alessi started his career at Torino. Then he played for S.S.C. Napoli, before joining Spezia Calcio.-External links:...
(1955-1956) and Giuseppe La Loggia (1956-1958). He was a reliable party loyalist up to the time former Italian Premier Amintore Fanfani
Amintore Fanfani
Amintore Fanfani was an Italian career politician and the 33rd man to serve the office of Prime Minister of the State. He was one of the well-known Italian politicians after the Second World War, and a historical figure of the Christian Democracy .Fanfani and Giovanni Giolitti are still actually...
began to bring in bright young men from Rome into Sicily's Christian Democratic organization. Outraged by this infringement on Sicilian autonomy and threat to Sicilian patronage, Milazzo became the gullible protagonist of Sicilian autonomy.
After the regional elections of 1955, Milazzo, supported by the left and dissident Christian democrats, surprisingly had won the vote for head of the regional government against the outgoing president Restivo. However, the DC did not give its consent and after 37 minutes Milazzo was forced to renounce the appointment. He became vice-president under Giuseppe Alessi. It would be a prelude for the years to come.
Regional president
In October 1958, Milazzo formed an atypical coalition government that was supported by CommunistsItalian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
, Monarchists
Monarchist National Party
The Monarchist National Party was a political party in Italy founded in 1946, uniting conservatives, liberal conservatives, conservative liberals and nationalists...
, Neo-Fascists
Italian Social Movement
The Italian Social Movement , and later the Italian Social Movement–National Right , was a neo-fascist and post-fascist political party in Italy. Formed in 1946 by supporters of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the party became the fourth largest party in Italy by the early 1960s...
and dissident Christian Democrats, breaking the power monopoly of the DC, that had ruled Sicily since 1947. Despite the expulsion of Milazzo and his followers from the party, he continued to head the Sicilian regional government. The expelled members formed a new party, the Social Christian Sicilian Union
Social Christian Sicilian Union
The Social Christian Sicialian Union was a Christian-leftist Italian political party active in Sicily. Its best electoral result was in 1959, when it won 10.6% of the votes and got elected nine regional deputies....
(Unione Siciliana Cristiano Sociale, USCS), in December 1958. He competed in the regional elections in June 1959 under the slogan "Sicily for the Sicilians. Down with the mainland."
The Christian Democrat party establishment appealed to the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
to counter Milazzo. Armed with a papal decree banning Catholics to vote for any candidate allied with Communists, Sicily's Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini
Ernesto Ruffini
Ernesto Ruffini was an Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Palermo from 1945 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.-Biography:...
sent Catholic Action
Catholic Action
Catholic Action was the name of many groups of lay Catholics who were attempting to encourage a Catholic influence on society.They were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic countries that fell under anti-clerical regimes such as Spain, Italy, Bavaria, France, and...
groups from door to door to campaign against Milazzo. In the US, the Hearst press
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
implored its Italian-American readers to sent anti-Milazzo letters and telegrams to Sicily; advising the use of night-rate cables. The New York Journal American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
pleaded: "Even $2.75 is a small price for preserving democracy."
"They have called me a Trojan horse
Trojan Horse (disambiguation)
The Trojan Horse, according to legend, a giant hollow horse in which Greeks hid to gain entrance to Troy, who that night, opened Troy's gates allowing their army to enter and destroy the city.Trojan Horse may also refer to:...
," Milazzo said. "But I am not that. I am a pure-blooded Sicilian horse, a noble animal. I am an anti-Communist leading only a rebellion against the injustices of Rome." After the indecisive regional elections in June 1959 in which the UCSC gained 10 per cent of the votes, Milazzo again succeeded in forming a majority coalition with the aid of Christian Democratic defectors.
Downfall
Milazzo was under constant pressure from the Vatican and the Christian Democratic national government led by Antonio SegniAntonio Segni
Antonio Segni was an Italian politician who was the 35th Prime Minister of Italy , and the fourth President of the Italian Republic from 1962 to 1964...
, and spent most of his time trying to defend his two-vote majority in Sicily's regional Assembly. In February 1960, Milazzo resigned, after a regional deputy revealed that he was approached to change allegiance for a substantial amount of money by one of Milazzo's top aides, the Communist Ludovico Corrao.
The nation's anti-Communist press and politicians seized the occasion to remove the Italian Communists from their one real foothold in Italy. "An unheard-of attempt at corruption," Milan's Corriere della Sera
Corriere della Sera
The Corriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper, published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers. Its main rivals are Rome's La Repubblica and Turin's La Stampa.- History :...
headlined. The Communist maintained a bewildered silence. Rome's pro-Communist newspaper Paese Sera claimed that Milazzo was the victim of a Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
plot.
Mafia backing?
Rumours about Mafia backing of Milazzo’s government were confirmed in the 1980s by several Mafia turncoats (pentitiPentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
), such as Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
and Antonio Calderone. Both the Mafia clan in Catania
Catania
Catania is an Italian city on the east coast of Sicily facing the Ionian Sea, between Messina and Syracuse. It is the capital of the homonymous province, and with 298,957 inhabitants it is the second-largest city in Sicily and the tenth in Italy.Catania is known to have a seismic history and...
and the Cosa Nostra-backed entrepreneur Costanzo campaigned for Milazzo. The Salvo cousins
Antonio Salvo
Antonio Nino Salvo and his cousin Ignazio Salvo were two wealthy businessmen from the town of Salemi in the province of Trapani. They had strong political connections with the Christian Democrat party , in particular with the former mayor of Palermo, Salvo Lima, and Giulio Andreotti...
supported the Milazzo government as well as the old Mafia families of Greco
Greco Mafia family
The Greco Mafia family is a historic and one of the most influential Mafia clans in Sicily, going back to the late 19th century. The extended family ruled both in Ciaculli and Croceverde Giardini, two south-eastern outskirts of Palermo in the citrus growing area. Members of the family were...
and Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade , also known as Don Paolino Bonta, was a legendary and powerful member of the Sicilan Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He hailed from Villagrazia, a rural village before it was absorbed into the city of Palermo in the 1960s...
.
The Operation Milazzo, as it was called, was something of a clientelist “coup”, according to scholar René Seindal. The Christian Democrats lost control of the region’s resources and the various parts of Milazzo’s coalition strengthened their negotiating position towards the Christian Democrats. The Salvos, for instance, gained control over the private concession for collecting taxes in Sicily with extremely favourable conditions. To consolidate the privilege, the Salvos unscrupulously withdrew their support for Milazzo to ally themselves with the mainstream Christian Democrats which tried to regain control of the region to maintain their cliental power base.
From then until the mid-1980s the Salvos were among the most powerful businessmen in the economic, political and social life of Sicily – until they were prosecuted by Palermo’s Antimafia pool that included Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
and Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
. They controlled the Christian Democratic party branch in the Province of Trapani
Province of Trapani
Trapani is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Trapani.It has an area of 2,460 km², and a total population of 425,121...
that guaranteed them great influence over the regional decision making of the DC. After initially supporting Milazzo, the Mafia was not opposed to the fall of his government as well – and Mafia boss Francesco Paolo Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade
Francesco Paolo Bontade , also known as Don Paolino Bonta, was a legendary and powerful member of the Sicilan Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He hailed from Villagrazia, a rural village before it was absorbed into the city of Palermo in the 1960s...
and later his son Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade
Stefano Bontade was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Some sources spell his surname Bontate. He was the capomafia of the Santa Maria di Gesù Family in Palermo...
sustained a close relationship with the Salvo cousins, which allowed them access to regional politics.