L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.com 12 THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2015 L'Italo-Americano Dear Readers, January, being the first month of the New Year, is a good time to say "Grazie" and thank you for supporting our Italian-American press, either by your advertising or via your sub- scription to L'Italo-Americano, especially now when our Heritage is being threatened by those who seek to rewrite history at our expense. I feel very strongly that pre- serving our heritage is the best way to "honor thy father", moth- er or grandparent. And, one of the best ways is to support your Italian-American press enthusi- astically. Encourage friends and family members to subscribe, and give L'Italo-Americano subscriptions often as the gift of choice. Visit www.italoamericano.com for subscription options: print, digi- tal or print + digital, or call (626) 359-7715. *** "Avvocato" Gianni Agnelli, Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of Fiat died in January of 2003 at age 81. It is fitting that as the fallen king of Fiat, he should, the day after his death, lie in state in a room in the North Tower of Lingotto, the former Fiat plant in Turin, which was Agnelli's hometown. The North Tower of Lingotto plant was encircled by an outdoor track where workers used to test new cars, like the glamorous Fiat 509 in the 1920's and the gas saving Topolino in later years, when Fiat was the biggest pri- vate employer in Italy and pro- duced the most popular cars in Europe. It was Fiat and Agnelli who put Italy on wheels after World War II. At the funeral service held in the Turin Cathedral, renowned for housing the famous Shroud of Turin, a young soldier played "Silenzio" on his trumpet, which is how Italians honor their dead officers. Gianni had joined a tank regiment in June 1940 when Italy entered World War II. He fought at the Russian front, being wounded twice. He also served in a Fiat-built armored car division in North Africa. After Italy surrendered, due to his fluency in English, he became a liaison officer with the occupying U.S. Troops. Agnelli was named after his grandfa- ther, Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of the Italian car manu- facturer, Fiat. His mother, Virginia, was American and his father Edoardo Agnelli II was a prominent Italian industrialist. *** At the funeral service in the Turin Cathedral, thousands of mourners, ordinary Fiat workers, many of Sicilian and Southern Italian origin, filed through until five in the morning. No one expected so many. One by one, they made the sign of the cross, then touched the coffin, garland- ed with white roses and peonies. *** Agnelli, whose family fortune one estimated at $3.1 billion, embodied the new post-war "Dolce Vita" Italy, reigned over an empire that included not just Fiat, but also Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia and in 1986, Alfa Romeo. Non-auto holdings included Italian Newspapers, a depart- ment store, a large chunk of Club Med, a robotics firm, Chateau Margaux Vineyards, an aviation plant, a soccer team, several U.S. tractor factories, an insurance company and a slice of the pub- lishing house Rizzoli. During the Cold War, Agnelli was an unabashed lover of America, nonetheless greeted Nikita Khrushchev and made deals with the Soviet Union in the late 1970's and with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. At the Agnelli funeral in Torino, among the wealthy and famous mourners who came to pay their respects was Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire prime minister, who in another exam- ple of his poor judgment, drove up in a German Audi, for which he was roundly booed by the crowd of 100,000 who lined the streets. Gianni Agnelli was an Italian patriot, a great European and a great believer in friend- ship with America. He cared about his Fiat workers and did not want to see them laid off when Fiat finances began going downhill, thereby incurring the wrath of his rich relatives. By the year 2000, Fiat was in a bad way bleeding money, hit by mounting debt and falling sales. Agnelli intimates wanted Fiat auto to be sold off, but to the sorry of some of his rich rela- tions who were becoming less rich, Gianni Agnelli held firm. At the time of his January death in 2003, Fiat shares had dropped 80 percent since 1998, but Gianni did not care that every- one's assets were going down, since they were all a long way from the poor house. He cared that people in Turin kept their jobs. This was an Italian thing. Italians don't fire 10,000 people. Agnelli wanted to be remem- bered as the man who did not sell out. A nephew recalled that his uncle used to say with scorn "Look at those English automo- bile companies, like Rover and Rolls-Royce, they sold out to everyone". Giovanni Agnelli wanted to keep Fiat in the hands of the Italians. But, like everything else, be it matrimony or motors, "death do us part" brings change. Fortunately Fiat still has an Italian connection with nephew John Elkann, son of Agnelli's daughter Margherita, as chairman and Sergio Marchionne CEO of Italo-American automaker, Fiat Chrysler. *** Pope Francis, our Pope with "Italian connections" played a crucial role in the U.S.-Cuba rapprochement announced last month. At first I thought it was only a few phone calls made to our President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro, but it turns out, Pope Francis did a lot more than that. In addition to writing to both Presidents and urging them to resolve their differences over humanitarian issues, the Vatican hosted U.S. and Cuban delega- tions back in October 2014 and provided its "good offices" to facilitate a constructive dialogue on delicate matters, resulting in solutions acceptable to both par- ties. In his announcement, President Obama referred twice to Pope Francis and thanked him for his involvement. Indeed, Francis has shown that he is will- ing to use his popularity and moral authority to do the unthinkable for a good cause. The Pope also stressed the need for cultural engagement and dia- logue. With the Grace of God, let's hope dialogue between the two Presidents will end 53 years of hostility soon, since the block- ade and economic stranglehold on Cuba has not produced any positive results for either the U.S. or Cuba. Pope Francis, who began his Papacy in March of 2013, was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina on December 17, 1936. He was the eldest of five children of Mario José Bergoglio, an Italian immi- grant accountant born in Portacomaro (Province of Asti) in Italy's Piedmont region, and his wife Regina Maria Sivori, a housewife born in Buenos Aires to a family of Northern Italian (Piedmontese-Genoese) origin. His father left Italy in 1929, to escape the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. His sister Maria Elena confirmed that their emigration was not caused by economic reasons. She is the Pope's only living sibling. His brother Alberto died in June 2010. Before joining the Jesuits, he graduated from Escuela Tecnica, with a chemical techni- cian degree. *** Gianni Agnelli Pope Francis

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