Andreotti: The America He Made

Prologue



"What would I like written on my tombstone? Date of birth, date of death. Period. All inscriptions are the same, anyways. If you believe them, everyone sounds like a saint. But then where are the bad guys buried?" -- Giulio Andreotti

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“Giulio Andreotti lived the American dream. He was born into a world he didn’t make — where he didn’t speak the language, he didn’t have the ‘right’ religion, he didn’t have the ‘right’ name. It was a world that created him but was not created *for* him. That was 94 years ago. We bury him today in a different world. A world that has been forever transformed by his vision, his wit, and his actions. We here, all of us, are the sons and daughters of Joe Andreotti. We are products of Andreotti’s America.”
— eulogy by former Senator Mario Cuomo, 2013, at the funeral of Giulio Andreotti


“For most Americans, Joe Andreotti is a figure who embodies a lot of contradictions. For Italian-Americans, he’s something more. He’s a familiar contradiction. When all the allegations about him came out, most Italian-Americans were furious. Some because they believed they couldn’t possibly be true. Others because they knew they had to be.”
— journalist/author Maria Laurino


“The Director has no comment at this time on the passing of the former president.”
— spokesman for FBI Director Robert Mueller

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More to come
 
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What, the evil and much smarter brother of Dick Cheney and Nixon as President? Oh well...that will be very interesting; he survived and thrived in the cuttroath italian political landscape for many decades...him in the american one is basically unleashing a Direwolf among a bunch of puppies
 
"Apart from the French and Indian War, for which I was too young, I have been blamed for everything that's happened in America."

We're reaching hype levels that shouldn't even be possible

Watched.
 
Stalin and Hitler as US presidents have got my curiosity, but Andreotti got my attention. He is just the man who realistically could take the mantle... everywhere.
Also, thinking bad of people is sinful, but often you guess right.
If Lucas thought of Nixon while making Star Wars, how about The Senate himself?
 
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Chapter 1: The Christening

"Of course, nobody knows what would have happened had Filippo Alfonso Andreotti lived to see the birth of his third child, instead of succumbing to the Spanish flu in the fall of 1918. It is difficult to imagine that the familiar and ambitious President Andreotti could have emerged from a more stable home. Instead, while still gestating in his mother's womb, Giulio made the journey across the Atlantic in November 1918, eventually greeting the world from his mother's tenement on 119th Street in the neighborhood called Italian Harlem. A new year and a new world welcomed little Giulio as he was christened in Holy Rosary Church on January 19th, 1919."

-- John A. Farrell, Andreotti: The Life.

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(Holy Rosary Church in Italian Harlem, as it appeared in the 1910s)

***

"Andreotti? He was always a little different. Funny, you know."

"Funny as in humorous?"

"Funny like strange. They weren't quite like the rest of us, the Andreottis. They were lucky, you see. It was hard to immigrate in those days. But they had a little more money than most of us. Better educated too. I think his father was a teacher. I never knew him of course. He never knew him either."

***



"He was a smart one. Couple of the kids from the neighborhood picked on him for that, he always had his nose in a book. But he could fight with the best of them. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't strong, wasn't a tough guy. Some of the guys from the neighborhood did boxing growing up, that was never for him. But he could defend himself. He fought nasty. Eyes, groin, didn't matter to him. He'd punch back with blood running down his nose. He was a fierce little b*****d. Am I allowed to say that?"


***


"Folks in the neighborhood always had each other to count on, but outsiders were another story. I remember we used to have to put money in the meter for Con Edison to get electricity. They really took advantage of us. Guys working for Con Edison used to come and take coins out of the box, and then they'd say 'You owe us more.' If you tried to tell them you put it in, they'd say you were cheating. So when people, people from outside the neighborhood, try to talk about Joe, and say things like, 'he was crooked,' all that nonsense, I just want to tell them: you guys started it."

***

"He started going by 'Joe' in grade school. It was always 'Joe', person to person, 'Giulio' on the dotted line. I think he figured Giulio had a little more dignity, a little more of the Old World. Joe could play both sides when he wanted to."

***

"Politically? It's funny, I don't remember a lot of politics in those days. Of course, there must have been politics. There was a lot of it. I mean, it was the Depression, for crying out loud. I guess we didn't think of it as politics. It was just life. We were high school kids when La Guardia became mayor. That was a big thing. The Democrats, Tammany, that seemed like the only game in town for a long time. I guess La Guardia was a Republican, but he didn't seem like it. I remember Joe coming to me around that time and saying 'He's not a Republican. He's our Republican.' He always had a saying for everything."

***

"Sometimes people act like the neighborhood was all crime, gangs, wiseguys . . . it wasn't like that. Look, I'm not gonna lie and tell you he never knew any of those guys. S**t, we both know he did. But everyone knew those guys. The cops, the priests, the teachers, they knew those guys. Doesn't mean he was one of them. Joe knew a lot of nuns in those days, too. Didn't make him a nun."

***

-- various oral histories taken from the Giulio Andreotti Presidential Library and Museum in New York City

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"One thing I found out while researching this book, is that it's difficult to really learn much about Andreotti's youth. For a politician so well-known for his aphorisms, he was always very cagey about his background. I think the reasons are obvious. In fact, I would say that Andreotti's famous wit was a defense mechanism -- it insulated him, distanced him from the realities of his life, realities that should have been apparent to anybody, but were obscured by the witty sayings, the black humor. He could never claim to be the most charismatic politician, nor the most charming. But he was like a great magician: while you were looking in one direction, his hands were doing something else in the shadows. That's what kept him going through the years. By all accounts his career should never have lasted long as it did. And he knew when people were getting too close. I remember -- and I only got to interview him briefly -- I noticed that a lot of the things that he was telling me did not comport with the facts as I was learning them. He would do all the talking, but when I got a chance to ask him questions, questions about these inconsistencies, he said 'Well, that's enough for today,' and I never got to see him again. Every time after that that I called, the secretary said he was busy."

-- NPR interview of Andreotti biographer Robert Caro

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(The young Joe Andreotti, shortly after enrolling at Fordham University, 1937)
 
Ah, I can see the pieces already begin to fall into place. Something tells me that "fighting nasty" will become quite a hallmark of Andreotti's style, as OTL.
 
Working on the next few chapters. Just as a side note, I realize now that I, in a Harry Turtledove mode, gave my Americanized lead character the name “Joe.” Unintentional I swear.
 
Already desperate for more of this - so many questions about his career in American politics, how he rose to the Presidency, and what exactly it is that good ol' Bobby Mueller felt it necessary to not comment on.
 
Already desperate for more of this - so many questions about his career in American politics, how he rose to the Presidency, and what exactly it is that good ol' Bobby Mueller felt it necessary to not comment on.

Well there is a joke (one among many) about Andreotti:

- one night the Lord, finally answering the pray of the italian decided to make Adreotti leave politics; so he go to his room and told him his decision.
Adreotti quietly agree, after all he was a devout christian and will never ever defy God...naturally he also advised that him leaving the political arena also mean that the proof about jesus involvement in a shady financial scheme will come to light unfortunely. God think about it for a moment and tell Giulio that they will talk about his dimission in another time.
 
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