Evening star., 1961-10-22

NAilAld IAlC SOiloplI dJCT IL al z
is too often the business Of
the writer in wartime to ex-
cite to action rather than to
inform. ...
1t is remarkable, therefore,
that in many Of his essentials
the man MusSolini who
emerges from the pages of
Laura Fermi'S dispassionate
biography is recognizable as
the figure we remember from
the rape Of AbysSinia in
1855 through the war years
to his ignominious death in
1945-first the blusterer and
and professional strong man,
and then Hitler's laughable
lackey ornamented with the
black court-plaSter cross of
the newspaper cartoonist's
fall guy. Arrogant, an in
CRATE, bombaStic, deeply inse-
cure, with a sense of timing
either fantastically precise or
incredibly wrong. and for the
last IL years of his life COM
pletely overshadowed by Hit
Ter, who was at first his pu-
pill and then his mentor
MusSolini was in these par
ticularS as an American
remembers him. But Mrs.
Fermi widow of the great
nuclear physicist) is able to
show us a more complex, con-
Trajectory and elusive man,
and If her portrait is not en-
tirely successful in the mist
of the early years it is bril-
liant in the time of fame.
Mrs. Fermi, who before
coming to this country lived
in Italy until 1898, saw Mus
solini, as she says, from a
state of mild political apa-
thy" He was to her a man
who had committed, to be
sure, errors and sins, but
who had been all of one piece,
monolithic. to use a word
popular in Fascist times,
strong. self assured, tntelli-
gent to the point of being al
most a genius" After the die
tator's death, however, when
with "cool objectivity" she
could study the man from
material formerly unavail-
able. she changed her mind.
Born in 1888, son of a
blacksmith, atheist and mill
tant revolutionary. and of a
devoutly Catholic mother,
MuSsolini was educated in
a parochial school. The uni
versity degree he claimed was
in fact apocryphal, but ON
nivorouS reading was a self
education that continued
throughout his life.
An excellent speaker and
a dynamic personality (al-
though a cold and friendless
one) he became a Socialist
organizer and q really ac-
compliShed journalist. Editor
of the leading Socialist news
paper Avanti!, he quit in dis
gust at the party's non-in-
tervention policy during the
First World War. He found
ed the Fascist Party which
first ran a ticket for the Ital-
ian Parliament in 1919. 1t
polled few votes. but perhaps
the most astonishing single
revelation in Mrs. Fermi's
book is that a co-candidate
on that first slate was-Ar-
turo ToScanini, later to be-
come the most famous, vio-
lent and articulate Of all
anti-FascistS. MusSolini ex-,
tolled action at the expense
Of thought, but throughout
his life he was singularly CIV
en- to procrastination and in
decision. The big moment Of
his career came in 1922
when, to break an impaSse
in the formation of a new
cabinet, the king asked him
to come to Rome to forestall
what might be a disastrous
stalemate. MuSsolini'S last act
before boarding the Rome
train IN Milan was to make
difficult the organization of
a Socialist protest strike by
having his Blackshirt thugs
burn to the ground the
Avanti! newspaper plant.
AS in Germany 10 years
later, the people lost their
liberty legally, not to regain
it for nearly a quarter cen