Pushing Past the Night
Coming to Terms With Italy's Terrorist Past
December 15, 1969, was the most important day of Mario Calabresi's life, although he would not be born for another year. On that date, the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli fell to his death from a window at the Milan police headquarters, where he was being questioned about his role in the Piazza Fontana massacre, the most infamous episode of domestic terrorism in Italy.
Police Inspector Luigi Calabresi, Mario's father, was in the building, though not in the room, at the time of the accident. This didn't stop the rumors that Pinelli had been killed by Calabresi. These suspicions kicked off "a ferocious lynching, albeit in slow motion"—as the Italian paper La Repubblica characterized it—that culminated in the murder of Luigi Calabresi outside…
Mario Calabresi has worked for the Italian news agency ANSA and for the Roman daily La Stampa. He has served as managing editor of the Italian daily La Repubblica and currently works as their New York correspondent.