God's Banker

by Rupert Cornwell

  But Calvi gained little peace of mind, only time. On sober review his position must have appeared increasingly hopeless. His mood would oscillate erratically between brief moments of euphoria when he could convince himself that salvation was possible, and longer periods of disillusion and gloom.

  For some while yet, the foreboding would only very rarely show through. Mostly he succeeded, as always in the past, in masking his feelings behind the distant, impassive facade. The inability to make a point clearly, the capacity to erect pyramids of lies in the face of hostile questioning, were unchanged. Some did claim that the tic on the left side of his mouth, beneath the thin moustache, would become more pronounced under pressure. But until the end, his self-control was remarkable.

  The safety valve became his family, especially his wife and daugh­ter in Milan to whom he would confide his darkest fears and suspi­cions. To them, Calvi would remain a victim of the jealousy and spite of others, blackmailed and exploited as no other in Italy. And they were largely correct. For if Calvi's troubles were self-inflicted, they were now so numerous that he could no longer hope to control events.

  In that autumn of 1981 the aura of power and mystery which so long had protected him was dissolving. He had been sentenced to four years in prison, he had no passport. The discovery of the P-2 had contributed to a plethora of judicial investigations, frequently involv­ing himself. The Bank of Italy was on his heels, so was a newly aggressive stock market authority. Now that Gelli was a fugitive in Latin America, Calvi was having to handle directly the politicians. And for all his faith in the powers they offered, Calvi never learnt to deal easily with them. New intermediaries stepped in like Pazienza and Carboni, whom Calvi believed was a substitute to Gelli as a duct to the hidden powers of freemasonry. There was also Giuseppe Ciarrapico, a publisher connected with Andreotti of the Christian Democrats. Even the once sacred weekends in the country at Drezzo were made over to meetings and consultations.

  Everyone wanted money, in return for an advantageous word here, an intercession with a threatening magistrate there. Calvi would pay scandal sheets thousands of pounds monthly to keep silent. Gelli, whose enforced absence from Italy had made him no less importun­ing, was a particularly unwelcome caller. He would ring the villa at Drezzo, on a private line whose number was known only to himself, Ortolani and a few others, identifying himself as "Luciani".

  Now the Vatican could no longer be regarded as an ally. The letters of comfort were almost the last indulgence dispensed. On October 26, 1981 the Vatican sent more letters to Lima and Managua, providing new figures and confirming that it would not dispose of the little Panamanian companies "without your prior written approval". In other words, Calvi was being told that he, and not the IOR, should unscramble the mess that he had created. Ambrosiano's "Vatican connection" had turned from blessing into curse.

  Then there was the pressure upon him to resolve the relationship between La Centrale and Rizzoli. After the Bank of Italy's strong words of August, Calvi had no option but to sell his interest in the publishing group. But any solution would require political backing as well. And so jealously watched was the Corriere that any settlement risked winning him as many enemies as friends among the parties and their factions. In the meantime the entire 176 billion lire investment in Rizzoli was becoming an unimagined burden. The Bank of Italy was also pulling the bureaucratic levers to prevent La Centrale winning approval for a long-requested capital increase, to offset the cost of buying 40 per cent of Rizzoli. As a result additional debts were steadily accumulating.

  His dilemma was only underlined by the waspish discussions taking place over the future of the Corriere. Now that Calvi's shareholding had been neutralized by the Bank oi Italy's removal of its voting rights, Angelo Rizzoli and above all Tassan Din had a freer hand to do as they pleased. Their plan was to sell the newspaper to a group of Northern businessmen not noted for any special sympathies with the parties in Rome. One of them was Carlo De Benedetti, the chief executive of the Olivetti office equipment company; another was Bruno Visentini, a pillar of Italy's "lay" establishment, and anxious to replace the prevailing warfare between the political clans by a form of non-party Government.

  But as the agreement neared conclusion, the Socialists in Rome— among the most ruthless of the clans—stepped in to veto it, threat­ening to bring down the Government and put the tax police on to De Benedetti and Visentini if the deal was completed. Mindful perhaps of the fate of the Bank of Italy in 1979, they withdrew. Shortly afterwards a Socialist-inspired attempt to buy the newspaper also failed. Calvi, as he had to, remained on the sidelines all the while. "The Corriere was the root of all my difficulties," he would confess later, forgetting for a moment the huge debts on the other side of the world. But in autumn 1981, it was easy to understand his feelings.

  The jousting over the Corriere was, however, to prove only the opening skirmish of that period. For within a few weeks, financial and political Italy was to be astounded by a separate announcement—that De Benedetti was paying 50 billion lire for two per cent of Banco Ambrosiano, and would become vice-chairman himself.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Man from Olivetti

  Measured in terms of days, the union between Roberto Calvi and Carlo De Benedetti was brief. It lasted precisely 65 days, from November 19, 1981 to break-up and De Benedetti's complete with­drawal the following January 22. Nonetheless it is peculiarly reveal­ing, a single snapshot embracing opposite shores of Italian life, and illuminating Calvi at a vital moment. For the deal with De Benedetti marked the banker's last serious effort to win back respect and respectability.

  Onlookers had every reason to be surprised by the marriage, for the two partners could hardly have been less compatible. Calvi was more secretive and suspicious than ever, hateful of publicity and frequently ill at ease on social occasions, the most private of Catholic financiers. De Benedetti epitomized the modern, aggressive face of Italian industry, known and admired abroad, and with a natural gift of self-projection. He is glossy and charming; and certainly not "Catholic", coming from an old Piedmontese Jewish family. In 1978, the year Calvi was subjected to the Bank of Italy inspection, De Benedetti was voted Italy's manager of the year for his success in revitalizing the staid and slumbering Olivetti.

  So what on earth were they doing together? Enrico Cuccia, the wise old man of Mediobanca, observed to De Benedetti: "I don't think you'll last six months with Calvi. Either you'll have him out in a week, or you'll withdraw. One of you has made a great mistake." In the first aftermath it seemed as if the man from Olivetti had erred; in fact those two tumultuous months probably harmed Calvi much more.

  The first contacts occurred in October. De Benedetti wanted to place some bonds of Olivetti and CIR, a holding company he controlled, with Ambrosiano. His representative, Francesco De Micheli, went to see Calvi about the proposal, but came back with intriguing news. Yes, there would be no problem about placing the bonds, but Calvi wished to see De Benedetti personally, about something else. An appointment was made, and the two met in Calvi's office at Ambrosiano. The banker as usual spoke around the issue, crafty and evasive. First he offered a seat on La Centrale's board, but De Benedetti demurred. Then, suddenly, he came to the point.

  Despite the conviction, Calvi insisted he was innocent. But he was tired: "I've had enough; there's no point my staying if the politicians, the Bank of Italy and the press are all against me," Calvi said. He wanted to hand over a healthy Ambrosiano, one which he had built into the biggest private bank in Italy. Would De Benedetti buy into Ambrosiano and become deputy chairman, with the understanding that he would take full charge after six months, once the appeal had been upheld?

  De Benedetti went away to mull over the proposal. The challenge and the potential rewards were tempting; many believed that he was losing interest in Olivetti, and superficially Ambrosiano still seemed a sound investment. The drawback lay in having to work alongside Calvi for a certain period, for the two instinctively were rivals, temperame
ntally as different as could be. Eventually De Benedetti concluded that the prize was worth the risk, and terms were agreed. He would pay 50 billion lire for a million shares in the bank. With two per cent of its capital, he would be Ambrosiano's largest single declared Italian shareholder.

  Andreatta, the Treasury Minister, upon learning with no small surprise of the deal, remarked laconically that "the ways of capitalism are strange". Ciampi at the Bank of Italy was more enthusiastic. De Benedetti with his entrepreneurial drive and above-board methods might succeed where the central bank had long failed, in throwing light on the hidden foreign parts of Ambrosiano. Ciampi still felt the bank was safe—as the success of that summer's 240 billion lire capital-raising operation seemed to confirm. If De Benedetti wanted to empire-build, then the central bank would not stand in his way.

  The public announcement of the deal came as a bombshell. Calvi's motives were obvious enough: the arrival of De Benedetti, after the Agnellis of Fiat, Italy's best-known businessman, would give sorely needed lustre to Ambrosiano's image at home and abroad. It might even encourage foreign banks to resume lending to the bank—and thus permit the still secret overseas edifice to be shored up. But De Benedetti? What was he about? Was he planning to abandon Olivetti, or was he seeking backdoor control of the Corriere? Some of Milan's wiser bankers and brokers were privately dismayed. Too much smoke had swirled around Ambrosiano for there to be no fire; De Benedetti was risking his reputation, they felt—perhaps more besides. One thing was certain: that he would be no sleeping partner and sooner more probably than later the two would be at logger­heads. After just three days that judgement was to be vindicated.

  On Saturday, November 21, De Benedetti arrived at Calvi's Drezzo home for a pre-arranged working lunch. He saw at once that his host had been transformed. Calvi seemed to him like a frightened animal, searching to escape the light. Clearly someone or something had warned him off the association with De Benedetti. Calvi nervously told his new deputy chairman that he would have to wait before becoming operational, international reaction would have to be gauged. "What international reaction?" enquired De Benedetti, somewhat mystified. "International financial reaction," Calvi answered.

  "But there's no problem there," De Benedetti assured him, refer­ring to an article in the Financial Times which pointed out that his entry could only improve Ambrosiano's reputation. No, it wasn't just financial reaction, Calvi said guardedly. Were there political prob­lems then? No, came the reply, there were other reasons, "factors of international consensus".

  At that stage De Benedetti thought the Mafia, or the P-2, were involved. In any case there was little point continuing there and then, so a new meeting was arranged for the following week. In the meantime De Benedetti asked for an office at Ambrosiano, a secret­ary, together with annual reports and balance sheets of the bank and its various affiliates. None of these requests was granted: indeed, an Italian journalist who rang Ambrosiano asking for De Benedetti was told that no-one of that name was employed by the bank.

  As De Benedetti was to put it in a seven-page letter to Calvi on

  December 13 setting out his complaints, he encountered "a wall of rubber" everywhere he turned. Every demand for information was either fobbed off or ignored. The initial understanding was not being maintained, and Calvi seemed personally to be doing his utmost to minimize the importance of the deal. Particularly objectionable, De Benedetti wrote, had been an "incredible" public statement by Pazienza, speaking in the name of the bank itself, and intimating that the secret services could be useful in clinching business deals.

  Quite clearly the P-2 and whatever other forces were manipulating Calvi (again, he told De Benedetti hispolitical patrons were Andreotti, Piccoli and Craxi) were signalling that De Benedetti's presence within Ambrosiano was intolerable. As the events of November 21 showed, Calvi too had been told unequivocally that he had made a mistake, and a grave one.

  De Benedetti once asked Calvi about his relations with Gelli. The reply was that the two had not seen each other for ages, although Calvi understood that in hiding the P-2 grandmaster had undergone facial plastic surgery, to avoid identification and enable him to return to Italy. In fact Gelli was in frequent contact with the banker, directly and through the intermediary of Tassan Din at Rizzoli.

  But De Benedetti too was made quickly aware of the shadowy presence of the lodge. Just before his first Ambrosiano board meeting on December 6, Calvi took him on one side in the corridor. "You be careful," he said, "the P-2 is preparing a dossier on you." But there was no material, De Benedetti protested, he had never had anything to do with the lodge (indeed established private industry in Northern Italy was one of the few areas of national life uncontaminated by the P-2). But Calvi insisted: "I just advise you to take care, because I know."

  As the new deputy chairman persisted in his efforts to do his job properly, the warnings became cruder. Someone giving the name of "Ortolani" made several vaguely menacing calls to De Benedetti's home in Geneva, where his family lived. Then at Olivetti's headquar­ters at Ivrea he received a letter postmarked in Geneva setting out physical threats against himself and his children. In the style of the Mafia, the latter were referred to as "little jewels".

  Thereafter, his relations with Calvi steadily worsened. De Be­nedetti sent Calvi letter after letter complaining of his treatment, and took to insisting that his objections be recorded in the official minutes of executive committee meetings. And as information was withheld, De Benedetti's suspicions about Ambrosiano grew. For if Calvi was behaving so strangely, then he must have something serious to hide, quite distinct from the P-2.

  Two other worrying signals reached De Benedetti. First, he read the 1978 Bank of Italy report which had foreseen the causes of Ambrosiano's future downfall. It was three years old, but the com­plaints of Padalino and his fellow inspectors about Calvi's refusal to supply information might have been his own. Second, the first real word was emerging about massive problems at Banco Andino.

  That Christmas Angelo Rizzoli told De Benedetti that the Peru bank could be facing potential losses of $600 million. Later Rizzoli was to say that he had first got wind of the danger from Rosone, who since Calvi's imprisonment the previous May had been thrust into contact with the bank's most delicate affairs. But long before that Gelli himself had told Rizzoli that Banco Andino was engaged in some "extremely risky" ventures. Almost certainly, knowledge of the Achilles heel of Calvi in Latin America was one of Gelli's most potent weapons to blackmail the banker.

  In any case De Benedetti was alarmed enough to send Olivetti's chief representative in Venezuela, Paolo Venturini, down to Lima to take a first hand look. His telex back flatly contradicted the bland assurances of Calvi that Andino was a thriving and active bank. Rather, reported Venturini, it wasn't a bank at all, but a specially authorized financial company dealing exclusively in foreign business. The offices were the top four floors of a new office block, but none of its employees seemed to be doing anything.

  De Benedetti became genuinely scared. He finally secured a balance sheet of Banco Andino, showing that its loan portfolio had jumped from nothing to $800 million in just twelve months—but with no explanation of how so remarkable an increase had been achieved in the unremarkable Latin American economy of the time, or of what the money was being used for. De Benedetti raised the matter with Calvi. But the chairman gave the familiar assurance: "Don't worry, it's all in the hands of the sottane nere." ("The black cassocks", i.e. the Vatican.) "The guarantees are fine."

  There was to be no more time for De Benedetti to discover that these "guarantees" were merely the worthless letters of comfort, grudgingly issued by the IOR a few months earlier. For Calvi had decided that this inquisitive, forceful deputy chairman, who seemed the incarnation of both the Consob and the Bank of Italy inside his very boardroom, had to be ejected, and fast.

  On January 12, De Benedetti sought to penetrate the ultimate sanctuary, by demanding immediate details of just how the "approv­al"
required for the foreign shareholders was granted, and a copy of the register of shareholders as well as the 1978 report by the Bank of Italy. Three days later he was brusquely informed that he would not be approved as deputy chairman that spring at the annual meeting (further proof, incidentally, of how Calvi controlled Ambrosiano).

  After some hasty haggling, terms were agreed. De Benedetti would sell back his shares for the price he paid for them, plus interest and the placement of 27 billion lire of shares in the portfolio of one of his companies. On January 22 the formal announcement of his departure was made, to no-one's great surprise; rumours of profound divisions between them had been rife for a fortnight. Four days later the long-aspiring Orazio Bagnasco was co-opted on to Ambrosiano's board as the new deputy chairman alongside Rosone, after paying an identical price to De Benedetti for a similar two per cent sharehold­ing.

  So what can one make of this brief, tumultuous marriage between "lay" and Catholic finance? De Benedetti was criticized subsequently for his behaviour, chiefly on the grounds that he managed to leave with a profit a ship that was to sink with all hands only five months later. To which he retorted that the circumstances of his departure should have been warning, clear enough for those with eyes to see, of the perilous state of Ambrosiano. His own feeling that January 22 was of disaster narrowly avoided. His mistake, he later admitted, was to have been tempted by Calvi in the first place. The same day De Benedetti wrote at length to Ciampi at the Bank of Italy, explaining his decision and the way in which he had been prevented from doing his job at all.