Randolfo Pacciardi
Randolfo Pacciardi (1 January 1899 – 14 April 1991) was an Italian politician, a member of the Italian Republican Party (PRI). He was also an officer who fought during World War I and in the Spanish Civil War. Biography. Pacciardi was born at Giuncarico, in the province of Grosseto (southern Tuscany). In 1915 he became a member of the Italian Republican Party, and, despite being underage, was enlisted in the Italian Army's officers school. As a Bersaglieri lieutenant, he fought during World War I, and was awarded two silver and one bronze medals, as well as a British  Military Cross. In 1921 Pacciardi graduated in jurisprudence from the University of Siena. Later, he collaborated with the newspaper "L'Etruria Nuova", denouncing the increasing violence of the Fascist squads. In 1922 he moved to Rome, where he founded the anti-fascist movement "L'Italia libera", which was suppressed in 1925. After the Fascists outlawed all the other parties, he was condemned to five years confinement, but was able to escape to Austria and then to Switzerland. After moving to France, in 1936 Pacciardi founded an Italian Antifascist Legion to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He subsequently fought at the head  of the Garibaldi Brigade, part of the International Brigades in the Siege of Madrid, after which he was promoted as lieutenant colonel. Pacciardi fought against the National faction in Spain until 1937. Opposed to communist persecution of the anarchist and POUM members within the republican camp, he later left Spain and returned to France, where he founded the weekly "La Giovine Italia" (a homage to the ideologist of the unification of Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini). In 1938 he held a series of lectures in the United States about anti-fascism in Europe. When the Italian-American antifascist Mazzini Society was founded  in 1939, Pacciardi joined that too. He returned to Italy only after the liberation of Rome in 1944. In 1945 he was again confirmed national secretary of the now re-established PRI, and the following year he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Italy. Pacciardi's line of collaboration with the other left parties led to the entrance of the PRI in the first Republic government cabinets of Italy (1947). Pacciardi resigned as PRI's secretary and became vice-Prime Minister. He was Minister of Defense from 1948 to 1953, and supported Italian membership of NATO. In the 1950s  the PRI followed Ugo La Malfa's line of not participating in the centrist governments led by Democrazia Cristiana; when in 1963 a first centre-left government, led by DC leader Aldo Moro, was created, Pacciardi and his followers within the PRI voted against supporting it. In the wake of a scandal which had involved his previous tenure as Minister of Defense (despite being later acquitted from any accuse), Pacciardi was expelled from the PRI. In 1964 Pacciardi founded a new party, the Democratic Union for the New Republic ("Unione Democratica per la Nuova Repubblica"; UDNR), and a newspaper, "La  Folla". The platform of "Nuova Repubblica" was similar to that of Charles de Gaulle. However, the 1968 Italian election proved to be a failure for the new party, which received just 100,000 votes. Pacciardi himself was not re-elected to the Italian Parliament, and was later accused of having coup- and neofascist-oriented friendships. In 1974 he was investigated for participation in the so-called "Golpe bianco" of Edgardo Sogno. In 1979 he asked to be admitted back to the PRI, which happened a year later. In 1981 he founded a new magazine, "L'Italia del popolo", which he directed for  ten years. He died in Rome in 1991 and was buried in the communal cemetery of Grosseto. Personal life. Known for his jovial nature and passion for travel, Randolfo Pacciardi met and befriended people like Ernest Hemingway and his lover Martha Gellhorn, David Ben-Gurion, Michael Curtiz (who asked Pacciardi for advice in the making of Casablanca) and Fabrizio De André, to whose first wedding Pacciardi was witness due to his friendship with De André's father, Giuseppe. In 1918, he was initiated into freemasonry. Randolfo Pacciardi joined the lodge "Ombrone" of Grosseto, becoming "Companion" the following year. In 1937  he joined the Parisian lodge "Eugenio Chiesa", as "master" and in 1938 was elevated to 30° degree of the Scottish Rite.