Once the Tour started, it fell to the publicity caravan to carry on the spirit of excess. In all, there were some forty-five sponsors who had each paid several thousand francs to promote their wares to the public in the parade that preceded the racers in each stage. On some trucks, like the one promoting “Royal Mint Bubble Gum Américain,” smiling attendants showered spectators with small packages of gum. On others, new machines were outfitted to run ongoing displays. A laundry detergent manufacturer equipped a truck with a special washing machine that allowed the public to watch as it cleaned the racers’ muddy jerseys. Another sponsor, O.C.B. Rolling Papers, paraded a machine that could cut and fold cigarette rolling papers before everyone’s very eyes. Inevitably, the most popular advertisers were the liquor companies, which hosted spirited parties featuring popular French singers in the evenings after various stages.
Advertisements in the newspapers and magazines jumped on the festive bandwagon, too, showcasing the heady new era of postwar prosperity that was just a purchase away. A food company heralded a modern world where vegetables could be stored and enjoyed year-round as frozen foods. A cologne company advertised a new offering called Après le Match (“After the Match”), which claimed to eliminate the need for a shower when applied after a sweaty sports competition. And a chemical company advertised a new miracle household insect repellent called DDT; its novel aerosol can promised to turn killing bugs into a “game for children.”
The bill for mounting the Tour would be footed by the cities and towns where the stages were raced—each municipality would pay dearly for the privilege of playing host, at a moment when many municipalities were still struggling to rebuild after the war. When the caravan did roll in, however, there were few signs that anyone begrudged the expenditure. In fact, the only vocal critic to get any press coverage at all was the American film starlet Hedy Lamarr. She was angry that all the activities surrounding the Tour had diminished the coverage of her own arrival in Paris. The rest of the country appeared happy just to have a distraction and a chance to enjoy the impromptu local holidays that were so often declared to celebrate the Tour’s arrival.
A few individuals would attempt to exploit all of this enthusiasm for less than noble purposes. In Toulouse, a defendant on trial for collaborating with the Vichy regime offered one of the more shameless examples of opportunism. Having learned that the judge, plaintiff, and lawyers had all postponed his trial so they could enjoy the Tour’s arrival in their city, he asked to be released from jail for the same reason, and promised to return to his cell as soon as the race had finished. In Marseille, it was reported that a serial killer nicknamed Pierrot le Fou—“Pierrot the Madman”—was planning to sneak out of France by taking advantage of the Tour’s first visit ever to Italy. One theory posited that Pierrot might don the attire of a cyclist and then hide in the scrum of the peloton as it crossed the border leaving France. The difference between fear and excitement has always been a question of relative distance, and so this storyline, too, became fodder for endless titillation and speculation around France, even if the actual Tour participants might have been a little unnerved at the possibility of having France’s number one public enemy riding in their midst.
For all the excitement, the first half of the 1948 Tour unfolded largely as might have been expected. Robic, whom the press had nicknamed Biquet—“Little Goat”—for his agility in the mountains, took the lead in the climbing competition in the first series, the Pyrenees. Ronconi raced consistently and was viewed by his competitors as one of the strongest cyclists in the competition.
Gino also fared well enough in the beginning, even winning three stages. But by the time the Tour had embarked on its second half, it was obvious that he was starting to suffer. Part of it could be chalked up to a few unlucky breaks, the kind of mishaps that befall every rider. Still, some wondered whether the wear and tear of several consecutive days of racing would put greater distance between him and the leaders. One Belgian writer, who felt Gino had already lost his place among the top contenders, described him as “a very normal, second-class rider.” A French reporter was more targeted in his diagnosis of why he was failing. He speculated that Gino had lost le jump, that critical capacity for a final strong push that defines a great climber.
Everyone else was more interested in talking about another rider entirely, a young Frenchman named Louis Bobet, who, one reporter joked, could pass for Gino’s nephew. Twenty-three years old, with movie-star cheekbones that could have been carved from marble, he was “Le Pin-Up Boy,” as one French newspaper called him, and a Tour director’s dream come true. He combined an unexpectedly strong performance on the bike with a confident gait off of it—the unlikely fusion that brings new fans to the sport and sells newspapers by the hundreds of thousands. His fellow racers, and initially a few journalists, however, were jealous and skeptical. Many took to calling him Louison, or “Little Louis,” a pet name coined by his mother, in a less than subtle suggestion that he was not yet seasoned enough to come out from behind her apron strings. Others, who grew more numerous as his days with the yellow jersey extended, saw something more substantive in his rise from a lesser-known supporting rider to the de facto leader of the French team.
The final judgment about Bobet would be rendered in the Alps, the second series of mountains in the 1948 Tour. To get there, he and the other racers would have to summit the Col de Turini, a 5,272-foot mountain pass along the route from San Remo to Cannes. The press referred to the Turini as the first Alpine mountain ascent, even if technically it fell during a section that wasn’t considered a mountain stage. This was the first year it would be raced, and therefore few journalists knew what to expect from it. With a narrow, twisting road to the top that had asphalt only in parts, it was certain to be grueling. A younger rider who wasn’t used to racing on such poor road conditions could easily buckle. Add a bout of fatigue or dehydration, and the possibility of an accident or an injury grew exponentially. It was not surprising, then, that the press was highly skeptical about Bobet’s chances. “We doubt that Bobet can cross the Turini properly. This mountain pass is such a difficult challenge that a real catastrophe could ensue if Bobet is not supported [by his teammates].”
At midday on July 13, with the temperature inching over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the riders faced destiny. Gino felt strong: “On that stage, I realized that I had achieved my best physical shape, and maximum ease in my pedaling. My muscles worked like the gears of a clock.”
Halfway up the Turini, Gino found himself side by side with Bobet, ahead of everyone else. A rumor had been circulating that something was wrong with Bobet, but no one knew for sure what it was. Gino considered breaking away, but hesitated. “Everyone would say that yes, I had done well,” Gino reasoned, “but that I had kicked in a half-open door, given that Bobet was sick and had not been able to compete on equal footing.” Besides, as far as Gino was concerned, Bobet was too green to be a real threat. “I thought he was a wild card, a young man of great potential who had wanted to draw attention to himself.” Gino was confident he could bide his time.
It took but a few moments for his optimism to disappear. Rolling over a nail on the road, Gino’s tire popped. Bobet took full advantage of the situation and sped off. “Bobet didn’t have anything but a little boil on his foot,” Gino later discovered, “and as soon as he realized that a nail had pierced my tire, he spurted ahead like an elf.” With a support car nowhere to be found and his teammates far behind, Gino bent over and began to change the tire himself. In the time that it took to replace the tire and inflate a new one, a small group of riders from France and Luxembourg rode past him. Gino was livid.
“I was in a black mood,” he said. “I had let myself get played like a novice.” What was most infuriating was that Gino had grossly underestimated his young rival, a tactical error that a cyclist of his experience should have never made. “Of course, if I had known that Bobet was strong on climbs too, I wouldn’t have let him take all of that advantage.�
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When he was finally able to ride again, Gino chased after the group of riders who had passed him. Desperately pumping his pedals, he raced forward with all the energy he possessed.
And then he stalled.
Maybe it was the heat or maybe it was the thought that Bobet had outwitted him. Or maybe it was the realization that even at a moment when he felt as strong as he had felt in recent years, his body was no longer responding under pressure. The French reporter was right.
He was losing le jump.
Ahead, Bobet was a model of strength and intelligence. He reached the summit of the Turini mountain pass first and claimed the time bonus. By and by, he prudently eased up and allowed the small group of riders behind him to join him. Riding with the group, he would be able to draft off the other men and preserve himself for the stages that followed.
Those waiting for some auspicious sign to memorialize the importance of the moment were not to be disappointed. Just past Cagnes, the conductor of an express train to Paris riding on the tracks beside the cyclists spotted them. Within a moment, he had slowed down the train so that the passengers, and even the mechanic, could rush to the doors and windows to gaze at Bobet, riding confidently toward the glittering coast of the Riviera.
The end of the race was little more than a formality. In Cannes, Bobet glided past the beaches, palm trees, and grand hotels that lined the main boulevard, La Croisette, and won. The press was euphoric, and the reporters who had once doubted him got religion. “Le Pin-Up Boy” became the “Uncontested Hero.”
Several agonizing minutes later, after the victor had been kissed, photographed, and paraded, Gino crossed the line, surrounded by a phalanx of anonymous riders. He had lost ground instead of gaining it, which meant he had ridden himself right out of contention. In total, he was now twenty-one minutes and twenty-eight seconds behind Bobet in the general classification.
But there was something greater than just the loss at work—the stage had revealed a different racer from the one who won the 1938 Tour. When exposed to the Tour’s hardest challenges during the eighty hours the cyclists had raced thus far, some fundamental cracks in Gino’s strength were beginning to show. Jacques Goddet, the Tour’s director and éminence grise, offered the verdict rendered by many in the press corps. “For those of us who rode beside the racer in our cars and our motorcycles, we believe we can discern his true pain. Bartali will not win the ’48 Tour. It was the Turini that affirmed it.”
12
Four Bullets
A mass protest in Milan, one of many that erupted across Italy on July 14, 1948.
(photo credit 12.1)
JULY 14, 1948, WAS a sweltering day in Rome, with the kind of searing sun that melts asphalt and forces people to scurry to the shade. In the Chamber of Deputies, the Italian equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives, politicians were debating a proposed law to round up many of the firearms still lingering in private homes around Italy after the war. The ruling coalition of the Christian Democrats was advocating the measure as an important step to increase public safety. The Communist Party, however, was more skeptical. They were less than eager to confiscate the very weapons with which the Italian partisans had helped wrest their country’s independence from the Germans during the war.
For Palmiro Togliatti, the bespectacled leader of the Communist Party, it was a morning like any other. Clamorous and colorful discussions erupted in the chamber; more hushed and routine meetings were conducted in the offices that surrounded it. At half past eleven, Togliatti decided he wanted to visit a famous local gelateria. Perhaps he wanted to get an ice cream. Or perhaps, like the millions of other Italian cycling fans, he simply wanted to read the newspaper to find out what was happening with Gino Bartali in France. Whatever it was, he decided to set off for Giolitti’s, which had made its name serving up gelato with flavors ranging from hazelnut to watermelon and everything in between. He was accompanied by Nilde Jotti, a female colleague whom Time magazine described as “warm-eyed” and “full-bosomed.” She was also his less-than-secret mistress.
As they walked out the glass doors of the Chamber’s side entrance onto the street, a young man in a blue jacket brushed past them. Within seconds, the young man reached into his jacket for a revolver that was tucked in his belt. The revolver got stuck for a moment, but he quickly jerked it out and started firing. Togliatti instinctively raised his handkerchief to protect his face.
The first bullet grazed Togliatti’s ear. The second hit him on the left side and went straight through his body and out his flank. The third bullet was much more treacherous. It traveled between his ribs and hit his left lung. Togliatti staggered, and a journalist who happened to be nearby rushed to grab him under the arms as he tumbled down to the ground near a parked car. A fourth bullet was fired, but missed its target. Togliatti was still conscious but seriously wounded and bleeding heavily. “Jotti! The bag!” he managed to say, alerting her to check whether his documents were secure. Then he asked whether the gunman had been stopped. Jotti, who was unharmed, threw herself on the body of her lover to shield him from further injury and screamed, “Arrest him! Arrest him!” Togliatti was rushed to the hospital. Within minutes, news of his shooting reached the Chamber of Deputies and spread across Italy, launching a maelstrom of violent chaos. The mysterious would-be assassin who had unleashed it all, however, stood by indifferently and allowed the police to arrest him without protest.
His name was Antonio Pallante, and wild rumors quickly spread through the nation about what had motivated this twenty-four-year-old to shoot the leader of his country’s opposition party. Some voices on the left accused him of being part of a larger government plot to suppress the Communist Party. Voices on the right speculated recklessly about it being an inside job; even more reasoned voices, such as the New York Times, argued that the Communists would exploit the incident to “incite riots and the mobilization of the mob.” Others circulated the rumor that he was a paid assassin, working for an infamous Sicilian bandit. Still others suggested that he was a Nazi sympathizer, a charge Pallante himself would vehemently reject. The most notable possession in his bag, a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, suggested otherwise.
When the first photos of the criminal were published, Italians must have felt a disconnect between the crazed gunman they imagined and the boy they saw in newspapers. With a pale, round face and soft brown eyes, Pallante hardly passed for a cold-blooded killer. One newspaper journalist described him as “dreamy.” Nor did any of the details that emerged about his family offer any clue about his motivations. He had grown up in Sicily, and his mother spoke of his deep religious convictions. He had spent four years in the seminary while he weighed the possibility of becoming a Catholic priest. His father, a forest ranger, described him as a mild and obedient young man who hated weapons. He did note that his son grew angry easily when challenged, but volatile tempers were hardly unique to Sicily, or to Italy for that matter.
There was nothing to suggest that Pallante was visibly disturbed in the days leading up to the attack. A stranger who met Pallante on the train ride to Rome had found nothing abnormal about him. One of the last people to spend any time with him was a friend who had shared a room with him in a boardinghouse. He and Pallante had chatted about several topics, but there was nothing Pallante said that offered any hint of his sinister intentions. In fact, Pallante appeared most interested in discussing a subject that had nothing to do with politics at all—Gino Bartali’s chances at the Tour de France.
In the police interrogations that followed his arrest, however, a different picture of the would-be assassin emerged, a misshapen one of secrets and double lives. For several years he had flitted haphazardly between political parties in Catania, a city on the east coast of Sicily. He was supported by money from his father, who had sold a portion of the family land to fund his education. His father believed that his son was studying law at university.
Pallante was fiercely patriotic, but his political sympathies w
ere confused, shifting, and erratic. There was but one constant—a deep-seated hatred for Togliatti. In Pallante’s twisted logic, Togliatti was not only responsible for some of the reprisal killings carried out by the partisans at the end of the war, but was now plotting to hand Italy over to the Soviet Union.
In early July, Pallante had asked his family for more money so he could return to Catania and finish his undergraduate thesis. With the money in hand, he did return to Catania, but only long enough to purchase five bullets and a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. He then began his long journey north. Once he had arrived in Rome, he tricked a Sicilian deputy into giving him a pass to watch proceedings in the Chamber of Deputies so that he could study Togliatti’s routines and behavior. At first he tried to lure Togliatti into a private meeting by sending him an urgent and mysterious note. When that message went unanswered, Pallante decided instead to try to shoot Togliatti when he was out in the open. On the morning of the fourteenth of July, he waited nearly thirty agonizing minutes by the side entrance to the Chamber of Deputies. Even after he had committed the act and he had begun to understand the enormity of what he had done, Pallante was unrepentant. As he sat in police custody, he spoke calmly about shooting Togliatti. “I have always thought that his suppression would be healthy for Italy, but it was only three or four months ago I came upon the idea for the first time of committing the assassination myself.”
Road to Valour Page 20
