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Jeremy Paxman explores the career of banker Roberto Calvi, his relations with the Holy See and secret Italian society, and the mystery of his June 1982 death.
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00:00and other public television stations nationwide and by the Chubb group of insurance companies
00:06for over 100 years providing worldwide business and personal insurance through independent agents
00:12and brokers. Tonight on Frontline, the story of an Italian banker. For a while he had the Midas
00:24touch, he masterminded a financial empire. It enriched fascists and priests, bankers and
00:32swindlers. When it finally all crashed, the scandal reached even to the inner sanctum of the Catholic
00:39Church. Tonight, the story of the man called God's Banker.
00:54From the network of public television stations, a presentation of KCTS Seattle, WNET New York,
01:03WPBT Miami, WTVS Detroit, and WGBH Boston. This is Frontline with Jessica Savage.
01:17Last June, articles appeared in newspapers here and abroad reporting the death of an Italian
01:23banker by the name of Roberto Calvi. He was found hanged in London. The official report
01:29called it suicide, and it seemed a plausible explanation. Calvi's Italian bank was in big
01:35trouble. It had made hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bank.
01:39He was an international banking, an underground right-wing political group, and finally, the Vatican.
02:09Tonight's program is a co-production of Frontline and the BBC.
02:14An investigative team spent six months on the trail of this story, tracing the movements
02:19of money in the Calvary connection and retracing the last weeks of his life.
02:23It's a puzzle.
02:25It's a puzzle to which we have some of the pieces.
02:28What we have is what you're going to see.
02:30Watch.
02:31It's just like a mystery drama.
02:34This is no dramatization, however.
02:36This is a true story.
02:38It involves power, politics, and the Catholic Church.
02:43The principal investigator for the BBC is reporter Jeremy Paxman.
02:47The producers are people of the BBC.
02:55Our story, Magistrate, is trying to unravel the most perplexing mystery in Europe.
03:05But who is implicated in this investigation?
03:08It's probably too soon to say, even on a merely journalistic level.
03:15The investigation was triggered by the death of Roberto Calvi.
03:24This wealthy Italian banker was found hanging under a bridge in London early one morning,
03:29last summer.
03:30His death was not mourned by everyone who knew him.
03:37So when Calvi died, I think several bottles of champagne have been drank all over Italy.
03:46Roberto Calvi was no ordinary banker.
03:49His influence was such that his death was national news in Italy.
03:53For he was also a close advisor to the Vatican, and Italians called him God's banker.
04:01Calvi's body was found under Blackfriars' bridge at 7.45 a.m. last June 18th.
04:06He died sometime after midnight.
04:09The British coroner's jury ruled that he had committed suicide while the balance of his
04:13mind was disturbed.
04:18On Calvi's body, police found five chunks of brick, a forged Italian passport, and some
04:24interesting pieces of paper.
04:26Some seemed to be numbered codes.
04:32But a sheet torn from Calvi's address book names men at the top of the Italian power structure.
04:38Roberto Ferrari, a director of one of Italy's largest banks and Calvi's partner, when Calvi
04:44was inducted into an illegal cell of Italian Freemasons.
04:48Salvatore Formica, minister of finance in the Italian government.
04:54Another of Calvi's private entries is a senior figure in the Vatican, Monsignor Franco.
04:58He lives here in the American clerical residence in Rome.
05:01But he simply refused to talk about Roberto Calvi either on the telephone or when confronted
05:06in person by Jeremy Paxman.
05:08About your relationship with Roberto Calvi.
05:16Calvi's Banco Ambrosiano was named after St. Ambrose.
05:20When Calvi began working with the bank as a teller in the 1940s, it was a modest local
05:25bank.
05:26To become a director or even a shareholder, you had to show a baptismal certificate to prove
05:30you were a good Catholic.
05:33By the early 1970s, Calvi had risen to the top of the bank, modernizing it and expanding
05:39it all over the world.
05:41When he died, his good Catholic bank was short almost one and a half billion dollars.
05:46But Calvi's progress up through the ranks at Banco Ambrosiano was something of a mystery
05:53to his colleagues.
05:55No one else seemed to know how or why the bank was growing so fast.
06:00But it was making a great deal of money.
06:03Calvi seemed to have the Midas touch.
06:05His loyalty to his family was strong.
06:08But even his closest business colleagues considered him extraordinarily cold.
06:13Chile man, cold, absolutely cold, with no reaction, no emotion, and when it's true, when I read
06:23after that there was the banker with the eyes of ice, it was true.
06:31Calvi indulged his passion for secrecy by retreating on weekends to this secluded villa in the hills
06:37of Lombardy.
06:38In the last years, he'd become fearful for his life, evidenced by a passion for security
06:43guard dogs, fences.
06:46Behind these barriers, he laid plans and entertained the powerful contacts which led first to enormous
06:52wealth and power and ended in violent death.
06:59Roberto Calvi seemed to have confided in anyone, not to his wife, not to his son, not even to
07:06the men who were his closest business associates.
07:08He could, at one point in time, look right in the eye and not answer a direct question which
07:17was asked to him, not once but even twice, and not feeling no embarrassment at all.
07:24Did he lie?
07:26Yes.
07:27Yes.
07:28He lie me very often.
07:31When you are on the top of power, financial and bank situation, I think that the sense of honesty
07:41that the normal, the men of the street have is completely different.
07:46Would so controlled a man kill himself?
07:49No, no.
07:50No, I didn't for a minute believe that he did commit suicide.
07:58He is not the character to do so, and I think the various elements that surrounded him make
08:09believe that he was probably creating problems.
08:14So, if he did commit suicide, somebody did convince him to commit suicide.
08:27By what tortured chain of circumstances did a wealthy, powerful Italian businessman, head
08:33of the largest private bank in Italy, end up hanged under a London bridge?
08:39We begin by looking at his ties to the heart of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican.
08:46This independent city-state is, in theory, one of the wealthiest institutions in the world.
08:52Concentrated here, in a few acres, are some of the most priceless art treasures and real
08:57estate on earth.
08:58But these are not liquid assets.
09:00They can't be used to run the church.
09:03Before World War II, the Italian government under Mussolini paid the Vatican 80 million dollars
09:09in compensation for lands once controlled by the church.
09:13This cash payment formed the basis of the Vatican's modern business empire.
09:18Since 1945, especially in the 50s and the early 60s, the Vatican did expand terrifically.
09:28There was an expansion there of participation in the creation of money, which is unparalleled
09:37in the history of the Roman Catholic Church.
09:39And it consisted of very careful investment of monies originally received from the previous
09:51government, the pre-war government, plus windfalls of one kind or another coming out of the war.
10:02And they created an association of trusted men,
10:06uomini di fiducia.
10:08It's a Vatican phrase, uomini di fiducia, somebody you can trust,
10:11who sits on the board of a bank in Lugano, or sits on the board of a potash factory in Upper Silesia,
10:19or on IBM, or wherever, and takes care of Vatican affairs.
10:25Calvi was introduced to the Vatican as a homo di fiducia, a man of trust.
10:32President of Ambrosiano, a good Catholic banker, absolutely discreet.
10:39He was soon a regular visitor.
10:45It was the Vatican's cash assets which Calvi helped manage.
10:49Hidden away at the top of this tower is the Vatican's own bank,
10:54known as the Institute for Religious Works.
10:57In Italian, the initials are IOR.
11:04Among the clients is the Pope himself, account number 1616.
11:10The IOR was founded in 1942 to serve what must be the most spiritual clientele in the banking world.
11:17It's supposed to exist only to further the sacred works of the church,
11:22but its current head has taken it heavily into the secular world of international high finance.
11:35The head of the IOR is one of the Vatican's most colorful archbishops.
11:39Until recently, he was also personal bodyguard and advance man for papal visits.
11:45He is Archbishop Paul Marchinkus, affectionately known in the Vatican as the Gorilla.
11:52He seems to enjoy a close personal relationship with the Pope.
11:55But Marchinkus comes from another world, Chicago, from the industrial suburb of Cicero.
12:13Paul Casimir Marchinkus was born the son of an immigrant Lithuanian window washer in 1922.
12:18He grew up in this house, in the shadow of the Roman Catholic Church.
12:23By the age of 12, he was playing at being a priest.
12:27By 25, he'd been ordained.
12:30He went to Rome, and in 1971, was made head of the Vatican Bank.
12:34He began to make major changes.
12:36He's bought all kinds of IBM equipment and brought it over to the Vatican,
12:43and has upgraded, you might say, from the corner grocery store to an idea of a supermarket in banking efforts.
12:53So that today, if you go into the Vatican Bank, you'll see a very efficient operation.
12:58Every afternoon, by 3 o'clock, they have printouts of all of their figures,
13:05and the amounts of monies they have in lira, Swiss francs, dollars, German marks, various other currencies.
13:14They deal with currencies from all over the world.
13:16And so, he's really put an efficiency and a whole attitude of banking that is really comparable, I think, to a well-run bank here in the United States.
13:31And that's what you can say for most Italian banks.
13:34At the seminary, Marchinkus was known as a tough, if somewhat rough, football player.
13:39In recent years, he spent his free time on the fairways of Rome's holy water golf course.
13:46He's a hearty, friendly, very American archbishop who once remarked,
13:51you can't run the church on Hail Marys.
13:57But Marchinkus had no formal training in economics or banking.
14:01A desire to modernize the IOR and hundreds of millions of dollars at stake forced him to seek outside help from the start.
14:09That led, eight years ago, to another financial loss for the Vatican.
14:14This is the federal prison at Otisville, New York.
14:18Here, a former advisor to Marchinkus is serving 25 years for fraud in the 1974 collapse of Franklin National Bank,
14:26the largest in U.S. history.
14:28Michele, or Michael Sindona, says it was he who first brought Marchinkus and Calvi together.
14:32I introduced Calvi to Mr. Marchinkus in 1972-73.
14:40How did you like Marchinkus?
14:42Marchinkus, I liked him as a man, as a priest, but not as a banker.
14:52Marchinkus was completely no banker.
14:54In the beginning, he understood this. He was always asking for advice.
15:00Sindona's advice to Marchinkus eventually cost the Vatican very dearly.
15:05But even bankers not directly involved won't say publicly how much was lost.
15:09There's a general discretion. I remember well when we had over here the results of the famous ill-crack Sindona,
15:18the collapse of the financial empire of Michael Sindona.
15:21Banking friends of mine on Wall Street, who were jolly atheists, really,
15:26who had no allegiance to anything supernatural,
15:29though quite discreet about the amount of money the Vatican supposedly lost.
15:36I remember one who's now dead said to me, he said,
15:39how could they lose a billion dollars and survive?
15:42He said to me.
15:44And then he shut up.
15:46He said it over a drink, and I don't think he meant even to talk about it.
15:50A general discretion.
15:52But the damage from these scandals goes beyond financial laws to personal reputations.
15:56An Italian magistrate claimed that in one transaction,
16:00Sindona had paid six and a half million dollars to an American archbishop and a Milan banker.
16:06Days later, the magistrate, Giorgio Ambrosoli, was shot dead.
16:10But before his murder, he'd given the names of the two men to a journalist in Milan.
16:17Mr. Ambrosoli, before being killed here in Milan, told me, and I can swear on it,
16:22told me that the two men were Roberto Calvi and Paul Marcinkus.
16:31Marcinkus has denied this allegation vehemently.
16:34He says his work is only for the good of the church.
16:37I think that Archbishop Marcinkus is a very hard working, honest American, a typical son of immigrants.
16:48I think his ambition in the church was built on a cornerstone of wanting to help other people.
16:55And the basic component of most people in the church is a trust in other people.
17:00There is a kind of an openness to them. Along with that got a certain measure of naivete.
17:06And I believe that he had that in full measure.
17:09Of course. Ideologically, you consider him honest and honest. He's up to you because, of course, he did all these things in Iowa, in my opinion,
17:19because he wanted to become a cardinal, he wanted to give to the Pope a lot of money. And he found all systems to make money.
17:28This, okay, this is wrong, completely wrong. I don't want to say it is honest or not, but it is extremely wrong.
17:35Three independent bankers appointed by the Vatican judge that Marcinkus was a victim. He was conned.
17:44But now, he's a virtual prisoner inside the Vatican walls. Since it's a sovereign state, he is out of reach of Italian investigators.
17:52The question of how much Marcinkus knew of Calvi's operation is central to the rest of our story.
18:02Certainly, even after being burned by Sindona eight years ago, Marcinkus stayed in his job and kept on doing business with Calvi.
18:10Now, look at the worldwide financial structure Calvi set up. Listen carefully. He deliberately made this complicated.
18:16From the home bank in Milan, he set up a financial company in Luxembourg called Banco Ambrosiano Holdings.
18:25This allowed him to move money outside Italian laws. From Luxembourg, he established a bank in Switzerland, the Bank of Gortaro.
18:33He then expanded operations across the Atlantic to the Bahamas, Banco Ambrosiano Overseas Limited.
18:39Then in Nicaragua, Banco Comercial, to Peru, Banco Andino. And at his death, he had just completed a multi-million dollar building in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
18:52In the midst of all of this, he went to Panama and set up a dozen shell or paper companies with names like Manic, Incorporated, Bellatrix, Worldwide Trading.
19:01They were at the heart of Calvi's scheme. We'll see how in a minute. They were essentially mailboxes.
19:08One of their directors was really the switchboard operator at Calvi's bank in Nassau, the Bahamas.
19:16And it is in the Bahamas that we begin to learn how intimately tied Marcinkus was to Calvi.
19:22This is the headquarters of Calvi's bank in Nassau. Marcinkus was a director of the bank, very unusual for an archbishop.
19:32In addition, Calvi kept a home here at Lyford Key, one of the world's most exclusive resort compounds. Admission is by invitation only.
19:42It was very convenient for annual meetings of the bank's board of directors.
19:47In Washington, we asked Mrs. Calvi and her son, Carlo, how well they knew Marcinkus.
19:57I knew him in the Bahamas, Nassau, because he went to us in our house.
20:04And he stayed two or three days. He came singing, Arrivederci Roma.
20:14He was always very happy and very friendly. He wanted to kiss me.
20:19But after he went to Nassau for work with my husband, it was a very nice gentleman.
20:35At that time, it seemed that the business relationship was particularly satisfactory for both sides because my father and the bishop Marcinkus appeared rather pleased of their activities there in other parts of the world for what we could tell.
21:04Why was Marcinkus made director of the bank in Nassau?
21:09Two reasons. One, Calvi and myself thought that the name of Marcinkus in the board would help us to create good prestige in the international community.
21:26A second, because Marcinkus won't show himself involved in international banking.
21:34So, the connection between Marcinkus at the Vatican and Calvi at the bank was very public.
21:41Now, that's important, understanding how and where so much money went astray.
21:46Calvi arranged huge loans to his Panamanian companies, several hundred million dollars at a time, from his banks in Luxembourg, Milan, Nassau, and Lima.
21:56When the loans came due, Calvi stalled repayment with what are called letters of patronage, like a banker's character reference.
22:03They said the Panamanian companies were credit-worthy, and it worked, because the letters were signed by Paul Marcinkus.
22:10Calvi was seen to have a Vatican blessing.
22:13Now, for the banks involved, it proved to be a very mixed blessing indeed.
22:17For Marcinkus got from Calvi in return a secret written agreement that the Vatican would bear no responsibility for the loans,
22:24a position the Vatican maintains today.
22:27How much is involved?
22:29Altogether, 1.4 billion dollars.
22:34Where'd all that money go?
22:36Well, those who really know just won't talk about it, a general discretion.
22:40But some of the money has been traced.
22:43Calvi used about a third of the money to buy shares back in Banco Ambrosiano, Milan,
22:49in the names of his now familiar Panamanian companies.
22:54This was a gamble, to gain him control of the bank, as well as of management.
22:59Now we turn to look at a different sort of use for the money, political use,
23:04by two organizations which have historically been enemies, the Vatican and the Freemasons.
23:11Worshipful Master, I present to you, Mr. John Smith, a candidate properly prepared to be made a Mason.
23:18A British drama shows the initiation ritual for a Freemason, where a noose is placed around the candidate's neck.
23:25Heel to heel is betrothed.
23:28Freemasons say that despite their bizarre rituals, they exist to help each other.
23:34Are you willing to take a solemn obligation, founded on the principles I have stated,
23:41to keep inviolate the secrets and mysteries of the Order?
23:46I am.
23:47I am.
23:48I am.
23:49Freemasonry has thousands of members in every profession, all sworn to strictest secrecy,
23:55and acknowledging dramatic penalties for breaking that oath.
23:58Done that. Done that. Of having my throat cut across. Of having my throat cut across.
24:07Usually, Freemasons are a respectable, civic-minded organization, but Calvi was a member of a very different sort.
24:19Last September 13th, Swiss police surrounded this branch of the Union Banquet Suisse in Geneva.
24:25A man carrying a Chilean passport in the name of Luciano Gori showed up and tried to withdraw $60 million from numbered accounts.
24:34The police believe all the money had come from Banco Ambrosiano branches overseas.
24:39The man's real name is Vicio Gelli, a former Italian fascist who had dodged arrest for 18 months.
24:47Gelli was also the grand master of an illegal, ultra-secret political society of Italian Freemasons.
24:54In the 1970s, he inducted almost a thousand of Italy's most powerful men in clandestine rituals here, in Rome's Excelsior Hotel.
25:04Gelli created an organization of the radical right, a state within a state, taking in government ministers, generals, heads of corporations, and major banks, like Calvi.
25:14Even the head of the Italian secret services.
25:17They called themselves Propaganda Due, P2.
25:20And when they were uncovered in March of 1981, the scandal brought down the Italian government.
25:26It was written that P2 was aiming to a coup d'etat here in Italy.
25:31I don't think it's true.
25:34They already did the coup d'etat because the P2 members, or brothers, as they used to be called,
25:43they occupied the most important ranks and places in the Italian administration.
25:52I mean, in the army, in the navy, in the secret services, in the state-owned oil and iron groups.
26:02I mean, in two or three banks, in the newspapers, in the magistrates.
26:11I mean, they didn't need any violent or bloody coup.
26:17They already got it in a very smooth and silent but effective way.
26:23That silent, effective influence was strengthened when Gelli persuaded Calvi to buy 40% of Italy's largest and most prestigious newspaper.
26:37With Corriere della Sera, Propaganda Due had access to a very influential voice in the Italian media.
26:44But Italy was not a large enough political stage for the ambitions and influence of the men of P2.
26:51On the fashionable Via Condotti in Rome, on the third floor, over some luxury shops,
26:56is an office registered to a South American bank based in Uruguay and also linked to P2.
27:03In Geneva, there's another very unlikely office for the bank on the sixth floor of this apartment building.
27:15The name of the man on the bank's mail drop provides another piece of the puzzle in linking Calvi, Gelli, P2 and South America.
27:26Humberto Ortolani is a fellow member of P2 with Calvi and Gelli.
27:30He is also a director of the Uruguayan Banco Financiero Sudamericano.
27:35Its headquarters are here on Matri Square in Montevideo.
27:40In front of the bank is a column honoring Uruguayan Freemasonry.
27:44This house at 1538 Costa Rica Street in Montevideo is Ortolani's residence in Uruguay.
27:51Four blocks away is a house belonging to Licio Gelli.
27:55The bank's records indicate that Calvi's Nassau operation became a partner of the Banco Financiero.
28:02Under Gelli's and Ortolani's guidance, Calvi invested heavily in extreme right-wing anti-communist newspapers in Uruguay and Argentina.
28:11Gelli's closest contact in South America was the Argentinian dictator Juan Perón.
28:17Witnesses say they have actually seen Perón kneel at Gelli's feet.
28:22Certainly, when Perón returned to Argentina from political exile in 1973, Gelli was among the honored guests.
28:31To Calvi, Gelli's contacts in South America were critical.
28:37He got for Ambrosiano some special authorization, special things, not only that, but with easy contact, he could put Ambrosiano in contact with the best establishment, the sound establishment, economical ones in South America, not only policy.
28:55But they were right-wing governments.
28:58Oh, normally were right-wing, or so-called democratic South American style.
29:04Both Licio Gelli, who we now know was the head of P2, and Archbishop Marchinkus, the head of the Vatican Bank, supported what you and Calvi were trying to do in Latin America.
29:18Of course.
29:19Complete support?
29:20Complete support.
29:21Complete support.
29:26So, Sindona links the Vatican to P2's political work in South America.
29:31We have traced it farther.
29:33Pope John Paul II has a unique and passionate rapport with the people of his native Poland.
29:39His visit there drew crowds of unparalleled size and enthusiasm.
29:45That papal visit was only the most visible part of Vatican's support for the Poles against their government.
29:52The Vatican has pressed hard for financial support to solidernos, solidarity, and Frontline has learned that, at least in part, the Vatican's financial activities have been used to help convey those funds directly, or from Banco Ambrosiano.
30:17The channel of the financing by Banco Ambrosiano to Solidarnoche was the German bank, Bank für Gemeinwirtschaft, which is the bank of the German trade unions.
30:33But the money definitely went to solidarity.
30:36I mean, that's what sources from the Vatican and from other international financial circles told to the press.
30:47How much money are we talking about?
30:49They are talking about 40 million dollars.
30:5140 million dollars.
30:5440 million dollars.
30:55Both these organizations, the outlaw, highly secret P2, and the ultimately respectable, but also secretive Vatican, were using Calvi's bank to move money for political purposes.
31:06P2 was exposed in March of 1981, when Calvi's fear of jelly began.
31:12The Vatican's public ties to Calvi seemed perfectly legitimate.
31:17Until late that year, Calvi's carefully built empire began to crack.
31:24The problems began when Italian authorities became suspicious of Calvi's deals on the Milan Stock Exchange.
31:31They discovered that he had moved Italian currency out of the country illegally by purchasing shares in companies through foreign banks.
31:39He was arrested and put in jail.
31:42There, Calvi slashed his wrists and took barbiturates, but failed to kill himself.
31:47In court, he was fined 13 and a half million dollars and sentenced to four years in prison, then released, pending appeal.
31:54And then he was hit with another bombshell.
31:58Italian police discovered this document listing business deals between Jelly and Calvi.
32:04Too much was becoming public, and Calvi began to fear for his life.
32:09He was rather nervous whenever Mr. Jelly was mentioned, and in particular Mr. Jelly tried to call the house a number of times, and my father wouldn't talk to him.
32:28So we have direct and indirect confirmation on the fact that he was frightened.
32:34Frightened?
32:35He told me that.
32:36He was frightened, so frightened.
32:39And before me leaving the day, the night, the evening before, he was lying in his bed, and I went to go near him.
32:53And he cried and he said, if they kill me, maybe I will not see you anymore.
33:03So I escaped because I had just, I didn't want to cry myself, to cry, I didn't want to cry.
33:18Calvi began to take obsessive security measures.
33:22He installed more alarms, more barriers.
33:26He hired bodyguards.
33:28His car was bulletproof.
33:30Associates say he even sent them in private planes on his announced routes, while he took another plane, secretly.
33:41Total cost of Calvi's security? A million dollars a year.
33:48By spring of 1982, with his appeal against prison due to begin in June, Calvi became convinced that his entire family was in danger.
33:57I was protected by ten bodyguards, and we had bodyguards in Rome, when I was with my husband in Rome, with armored cars too, a lot of armored cars for us, for bodyguards too.
34:16By late spring, as the date of his appeal drew nearer, Calvi became even more frightened.
34:23He sent his wife out of the country altogether.
34:25And he told his family that the illegal stock deals were done with the knowledge, and for the benefit of, the Vatican, and that he might have to say so publicly.
34:34The Vatican honors its obligations.
34:47That's correct.
34:48Then I will have to reveal the details of their involvement in the bank.
34:51That's right.
34:52Do you recall approximately when it was that he said that?
34:55Yes, it was in the month of May.
34:57The month before he was killed?
34:59Yes.
35:00But Calvi was caught in a double bind.
35:04If he revealed the details of his deals with the Vatican and P2, he might stay out of jail.
35:10But he also would destroy his position as a discreet, reliable, woman de fiducia, a man of trust.
35:16And he might bring down the rest of his empire.
35:19Because the huge hole in the bank's books was getting larger, but as yet, nobody realized it.
35:25Just about a year ago, early in 1982, a confidential report on Ambrosiano said of Calvi that the problems around his person have in no way affected the bank.
35:38The financial investigators went on to say that this is high profitability from a fast-growing, aggressive private bank.
35:48There was no suspicion at all.
35:55The man who commissioned this report has an office in New York.
35:58He told us something which could have solved all Calvi's problems in a stroke.
36:02That he was planning to buy over a billion dollars worth of Banco Ambrosiano from the Panamanian companies.
36:08End of February, I announced to Calvi that I was ready just to take around the table people able to put 1.2 billion dollars for this transaction.
36:23So, your consortium was prepared to pay 1.2 billion for 12% of Ambrosiano.
36:29Yeah, exactly.
36:30Who was behind your consortium?
36:33Behind this operation were two banks, a group of Iranian investors, two American investors,
36:50and three Saudi Arabians and three Saudi Arabian people.
36:54This was the group.
36:56How were you going to acquire this 12% of Banco Ambrosiano?
37:00How?
37:02Well, the 12% of Banco Ambrosiano had to be bought from the Panamanian companies
37:18who controlled this part of shares of the bank.
37:22So, no question but that 12% of Banco Ambrosiano, this is according to Mr. Calvi, was controlled by Panamanian companies?
37:28Absolutely, yes. Absolutely, yes.
37:31So, in June 1982, Calvi knew that you had 1.2 billion dollars that you were prepared to put in the Banco Ambrosiano.
37:40Absolutely.
37:41And with what we know now about the hole that there was in the Banco Ambrosiano, that would have completely solved Calvi's problems, wouldn't it?
37:48Absolutely, 100%.
37:50The deal and Francisco Pacienza, the man behind it, are to play a critical role in Calvi's disappearance.
37:59Pacienza introduced Calvi to Flavio Carboni, a Sardinian property developer, while Calvi and his wife were vacationing in Sardinia after the trial.
38:08Carboni, in turn, introduced Calvi to Hans Kuntz, a Swiss businessman, who was to prove instrumental in getting Calvi to London.
38:17And he introduced him to Silvano Vitor, a suspected smuggler, who was to act as Calvi's bodyguard, and who would later become the last man to see Calvi alive.
38:34Thursday, June the 10th last year, Roberto Calvi vanished from his apartment in Rome.
38:40He told no one where he was going.
38:47What follows is a reconstruction of his last journey.
38:51When Calvi left Rome, he traveled first to Trieste, arriving Friday, June the 11th.
38:57From Trieste, he continued to the Austrian town of Klagenfurt, where he stayed two days.
39:04Then he moved toward the Swiss border.
39:06Calvi was traveling in this car, crossing international borders on a false passport in the name of Calvini.
39:16Here, in Austria, he appears to have been headed for Zurich, Switzerland.
39:24His driver and bodyguard was Silvano Vitor.
39:30Early in the journey, Calvi telephoned the bank, telling them that although he couldn't say where he was, they should expect him back.
39:37It was Friday, around lunchtime, I think.
39:45I told him that the Rome office was worried, because they hadn't been able to contact him.
39:51They didn't know where he was.
39:53He told me to tell them to stay calm, not to worry, because he was heavily involved in secret negotiations.
40:09During this stage of the journey across Europe, there is nothing to suggest that Calvi planned to commit suicide.
40:16Once we got to Austria, he really opened up.
40:21He seemed quite happy.
40:24He told jokes.
40:26He told me what he did in Russia during the war.
40:30He was relaxed, really quite funny.
40:36He told me the last call we had together.
40:41He said, this job is going with some troubles, but it goes.
40:50And we had, we had troubles.
40:55But it is going to, to blow up.
41:00So, a crazy, crazy thing, wonderful thing for us, that will change all our life.
41:14As they approached the Swiss border, Calvi told Vitor to stop at the town of Begins, just inside Austria.
41:20They arrived on the evening of June the 14th.
41:25They'd be staying the night at this hotel.
41:28Vitor was surprised by Calvi's change of plans, he says, but he didn't question it.
41:35He went to bed while Calvi went to a meeting he'd arranged by telephone earlier in the day.
41:40Vitor says he did see who Calvi met in Bregenz.
41:44Calvi said he had come to Bregenz because he had to meet certain people.
41:52Who did he meet here?
41:56He said he had to meet Senor Carboni and Hans Kunz from Zurich.
42:02Whatever it was that these two men, Flavio Carboni, the millionaire developer, and Hans Kunz, the Swiss entrepreneur, told Calvi,
42:15was enough to make him completely change his plans.
42:20The next morning, instead of continuing the journey to Zurich, Vitor drove Calvi to the nearest airport,
42:26which was at Injbruck, back inside Austria.
42:28Kunz arranged for a private jet to collect Calvi and Vitor from Injbruck Airport.
42:35The pilot was told they were directors of the Fiat Motor Company.
42:39The plane's destination was London.
42:42Calvi was calm, even cheerful, on the last leg.
42:45The journey would end in his death.
42:49The plane touched down at Gatwick Airport at dusk on June the 15th.
42:54We don't know why Calvi was taken to London.
42:56The only clue is a phone call to his family in Washington.
43:00Up to now, they did not know he was missing.
43:01We received a phone call from Mr. Pazienza, that was calling from London, as a matter of fact, and called my mother and then called me at the office and said that my father had disappeared from his Rome apartment.
43:19But the first you heard of your father's disappearance was a phone call from Mr. Pazienza.
43:25That's correct.
43:27And at that stage, Mr. Pazienza was in London.
43:29Yes.
43:30Hans Kuntz, the man indirectly introduced by Pazienza, had arranged a hotel for Calvi in London, but not the standard he was used to.
43:41When Calvi made one of his frequent visits to London in the past, he'd often stayed at Claridge's, or this exclusive club in St. James.
43:53But to Calvi's disgust, Kuntz had put him instead into the Chelsea Cloisters, a shabby apartment building partly used as a student's hostel.
44:04A week stay here cost less than Calvi usually spent in a night.
44:08Vitor signed the register for both men.
44:15They were assigned room 881.
44:21Calvi hated the place.
44:23He called it Squalit.
44:25At this point, he began to get very nervous, and for no apparent reason.
44:31He told Vitor to telephone every 20 minutes if he went out.
44:35Calvi himself stayed in the room, a virtual prisoner who would only talk on the telephone.
44:44On the morning of June the 16th, the day before Calvi's death, Flavio Carboni arrived in London.
44:57Carboni is a multimillionaire.
44:59Yet this trip, he chooses to stay in a crowded public housing compound near Heathrow Airport as a guest of one, William Morris, whom a reporter confronted in the lobby.
45:10What was Mr. Carboni staying with you at the time that Mr. Calvi was found dead?
45:16Oh, you know, we're not going to discuss any more of this problem.
45:19Why not?
45:21Is it true you're a Freemason, Mr. Morris?
45:23Oh, heck. Believe me, please, come on.
45:26Can you tell us why it was that Mr. Carboni came to see you in London?
45:30He's a friend of mine as well.
45:31But why did he come here rather than anywhere else?
45:36Mustn't worry, he asked Mr. Carboni.
45:39But how, how well did you know Mr. Carboni?
45:42Quite as well as I know you.
45:44How many times have you met him then?
45:46Twice.
45:48You met Mr. Carboni only twice?
45:50Only twice.
45:51And yet when he came to London, he chose to stay with you.
45:54Ah, no, please.
45:55Morris' refusal to talk prevents our knowing fully what Carboni did in London.
46:00Meanwhile, here in Zurich, Calvi's daughter is staying at her father's request,
46:04waiting to join the family in Washington.
46:06Calvi telephones and tells her to be absolutely sure to take the flight.
46:11He says he'll call again.
46:13He doesn't.
46:15Later, at this hotel, a woman who introduces herself as Mrs. Kuntz
46:19approaches Calvi's daughter and hands her 50,000 Swiss francs with no explanation.
46:23My father had indicated in a phone call that this Mrs. Kuntz was going to call my sister in Zurich.
46:34And then this Mrs. Kuntz appeared at my sister's hotel.
46:40And what did she say?
46:42She said that my father was in London, he was in a place where he was staying,
46:47that he wanted to stay in a family, and that her husband was going to meet with him the following day.
46:56She told Mrs. Kuntz, or the alleged Mrs. Kuntz, told your sister?
47:01Yes.
47:02That Mr. Kuntz was going to meet your father in London?
47:04Yes.
47:06On the day that he died?
47:07Yes.
47:08That same evening, Calvi meets Carboni in Hyde Park.
47:14It is a stormy session, with Calvi apparently complaining about his hotel.
47:19Carboni asks Calvi to accompany him to the Hilton Hotel.
47:24Calvi refuses.
47:26He does not leave the Chelsea Cloisters for another 24 hours, until his death.
47:31Milan, Friday, June the 17th.
47:37Calvi's last day alive.
47:39He's been missing for over a week.
47:42A crisis meeting is summoned at the bank.
47:45The directors don't know where Calvi is, and are informed by their auditors
47:50that 1.4 billion is missing from the accounts.
47:54They decide to fire Calvi from the presidency, and call in the Bank of Italy.
47:58But in London, even before the directors meeting, Calvi was beginning to act strangely.
48:08Certainly, that day, Calvi seemed depressed.
48:12He got dressed, undressed, took off his jacket and trousers, got in and out of bed.
48:17And whereas he'd usually have a rest every afternoon, that day, he didn't.
48:21He was in prison during the holidays.
48:25Later that day, at the bank headquarters, just as the crisis meeting is finishing,
48:30Calvi's personal secretary leaps to her death from a fourth-floor window, leaving a note cursing Calvi.
48:35We don't know whether anyone telephoned Calvi in Chelsea Cloisters to tell him either about his being fired, or the apparent suicide.
48:44That day, for the first time in his adult life, Calvi shaves off his mustache.
48:49But still, he has not acted like a man about to kill himself.
48:52Sometime between 11.30 and 1 a.m. that night, Calvi leaves Chelsea Cloisters.
49:00To believe that he committed suicide, we must accept that he traveled over four miles to Blackfriars Bridge,
49:07and once there, found some scaffolding, which he could not see from the road.
49:11We must accept, too, that he happened to find several stray bricks, which he then put into his pants and in his pockets.
49:18We have to believe that somehow, past midnight, he found some convenient rope.
49:24And all this time, back in his room, he had enough sleeping pills to kill himself easily and painlessly.
49:31But perhaps that wouldn't have been as traumatic.
49:34How did you come to be out of the room at the time that Mr. Calvi disappeared?
49:38I remember that Carboni came to see me and Calvi.
49:53Calvi was very depressed, very agitated, and he refused to go downstairs to meet Carboni.
49:59So you went to meet Mr. Carboni?
50:03Yes, I went on my own.
50:06Calvi wouldn't even consider the idea of leaving the apartment.
50:09And it was while you were with Mr. Carboni that Mr. Calvi left the flat?
50:13Yes, yes. During the time I was with Mr. Carboni was when I lost sight of Calvi.
50:30You see, if Mr. Calvi was murdered, it was very convenient that you, the man who was supposed to be looking after him,
50:45happened to be out of the room at the time he disappeared in the company of Mr. Carboni.
50:50I can't reply to this question because whatever answer I give, it would be the wrong one.
51:04Before Calvi's body had even been identified, Vitor had left Britain.
51:12That evening, a private plane flew out of Geneva Airport for London.
51:17Calvi carried an attache case with him everywhere.
51:23It was found neither at Chelsea Cloisters nor on his body.
51:27The case is believed to contain documents which prove his relationship with the Vatican, with P2, and with Italian politicians.
51:35We understand that when the aircraft left Yakwick Airport for Geneva, only 90 minutes later, it was carrying an attache case.
51:53The day after Calvi's death, Flavio Carboni left Mr. Morris' apartment, saying he was returning to Rome.
52:08The apartment is four and one half miles from Heathrow Airport, from which there were seven flights that day.
52:17Instead, Carboni traveled over 30 miles to Gatwick Airport, from where there were no flights to Rome.
52:24He waited a while, then, inexplicably, flew to Edinburgh, and on the next day, to rejoin Vitor in Austria.
52:32Mr. Sindona, do you believe that Roberto Calvi committed suicide?
52:40I don't believe at all that. I knew very well Calvi had a strong nervousness.
52:46In my opinion, there's no reason to commit suicide.
52:50If he did commit suicide, somebody did convince him to commit suicide.
53:01Well, really, what can I do? There's nothing I can say about that.
53:07Mr. Sindona, do you want to respond?
53:09And do you want to respond to this?
53:12I can't speak.
53:16No.
53:17Whatever the answer, the Calvi affair has tainted the Vatican.
53:26Was it naive and cynically exploited?
53:29Or was it using a lax international banking system for political purposes?
53:34For 750 million Catholics, the Banco and Bruciano scandal is a terrible embarrassment.
53:40For the Catholic Church to be associated with that, even remotely and discreetly and anonymously, is a shame.
53:50Is a shame.
53:52And brings the Church into ill repute.
53:54And it ceases to be a sign of salvation.
53:56And it should be a sign of salvation.
53:58Whereas this just makes the Roman Catholic Church, its clerics, its pope, its cardinals, the entire institution, just some more members of the human race clawing in the jungle.
54:10And that was not the will of Christ.
54:12Some of the questions surrounding the death of Roberto Calvi will be addressed next month in London.
54:19The case has been reopened, and a new inquest has been granted to Calvi's family.
54:24Whatever the outcome, Calvi's death has, however slightly, pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding some powerful institutions.
54:32International banking, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are investigating abuses of the system.
54:40P2, its former head, Lizio Gelli, will soon be eligible for parole in Switzerland.
54:46He's moved his money out of Italy, for he is a wanted man.
54:50And the Church.
54:52Archbishop Paul Marchinkus is still head of the Vatican Bank, and as such, he is off limits to Italian authorities.
54:59He will not grant interviews.
55:00However, I was able to speak directly with Archbishop Marchinkus on Friday.
55:06He refused comment on allegations of his role or Calvi's in connection with the scandal.
55:12However, he did say that the Church is conducting its own investigation.
55:17And he revealed it may cover, among other things, the circumstances surrounding the death of Roberto Calvi.
55:24And as if to add to Archbishop Marchinkus's troubles, the Wall Street Journal reported just today that his chief deputy, the secretary of the Vatican Bank, is under investigation by Italian authorities, probing a $2.2 billion tax fraud scheme.
55:41The Vatican had no comment.
55:42Pope John Paul II recently asked that the Vatican no longer involve itself with banks engaged in speculative ventures.
55:51And as to politics, you remember that two years ago the Pope forbade clergy in this country to seek or hold political office.
55:58But this is a Pope who cannot forsake politics.
56:03The attempt on his life has now been traced behind the Iron Curtain, raising speculation that he is feared as a political force in his native Poland.
56:11As to charges that his well-known support for solidarity may have included millions of dollars of Church money.
56:20No comment from the Vatican.
56:23Next week, on Frontline, a program about the Pentagon.
56:28We call it Pentagon Incorporated.
56:30The biggest build-up since World War II is underway.
56:34The Pentagon gravy train is coming.
56:36Two hundred million dollars will go directly into Indiana in just the aircraft carrier program.
56:49But how is the Pentagon shaping the nation's industrial future?
56:54And what is the price we're paying for rearming America?
57:00Pentagon Incorporated.
57:02It is next week, on Frontline.
57:05Join us.
57:07I'm Jessica Savage.
57:32We should expect to do that.
57:33It's a lock that comes up.
57:34What are we doing?
57:35We've got to come up.
57:37Within Bye
57:38We'll be looking for the Define mainself-けれmbre event for our men.
57:42Let's go play!
57:44We're checking...
57:46...if we're checking戲 and Birkis for our Men media.
57:49...wec.
57:53The man OUR team in our technology.
57:54As we began on a nhiều cosa...
57:58For a transcript of this program, please send $4
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58:26Frontline is produced for the Documentary Consortium by WGBH Boston, which is solely responsible
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