For Italians living in the 1960s and 1970s, Aldo Moro epitomized the country's Christian Democratic political establishment. He had served in the country's highest political offices, including stints as premier and foreign minister. One of Moro's most controversial political initiatives was his attempt to reach a historic compromise between the Christian Democrats and the Communists, as a means of strengthening the government's democratic base during a time of economic crisis and violent social upheaval. His efforts to achieve an agreement with Enrico Berlinguer's Communist Party intensified in the late winter of 1978, as terrorism of the Left and Right worsened.
To the shock and horror of the Italian public, on 16 March of that year the Marxist-Leninist Red Brigades kidnapped Moro in Rome amid gunfire that killed the five security officers guarding him. The kidnappers disappeared with Moro. Fifty-five days later, his bullet-riddled corpse was found in the back of...