God's Banker (25 page)

That summer Carboni was the gay, self-indulgent host with a pronounced taste for the obvious trappings of success, like pretty girls and Lamborghini cars. The Calvis met him on his enormous yacht, teeming with well-connected guests—a junior Government Minister, an ambassador, and other assorted dignitaries. As Calvi would learn, Carboni's acquaintances ranged across the entire spectrum of Roman society, from eminent politicians to underworld gangsters. But that day in Sardinia, the two just chatted a little and then parted. The banker had to return to Milan and to Rome—for even in August his problems had not lain still.

That month saw the start of the endless nagging by the Bank of Italy which ultimately provoked his ruin. If the Bank could not mount a frontal assault, it would kill him with a thousand bureaucratic cuts. First it demanded full figures about Ambrosiano's overseas affiliates, and a list of all shareholders owning 10,000 shares or more. In August also it threw a huge spoke in his wheel by removing the voting rights of the shares in Rizzoli and the
Corriere
, which Calvi had bought the previous spring. He was forced at once to promise that he would sell the holding quickly, to comply with the new regulations.

Even more pressing was incipient rebellion in Peru. If most people at Ambrosiano's headquarters still retained their faith in Calvi, those who manned the telex machines across the Atlantic and in Latin America were under far fewer illusions by now. No-one was more anxious than the successor of Leoni at Banco Andino, Giorgio Nassano. His job consisted primarily of following coded instructions by telex to credit the resources of his bank to the likes of Astolfine, Belrosa and Bellatrix in Panama. That August Nassano flew to Italy to demand guarantees from Calvi that these companies were credit­worthy, for the $900 million they were borrowing to no obvious purpose.

The meeting was heated, but Calvi was hardly in a position to bargain. He was forced not only to lift the veil on the Vatican's secret ownership of the front companies in Panama who were consuming Banco Andino's substance, but to promise that the affair would be straightened out by mid-1982. At the end of August he went to the IOR. The time had come for the favours extended by Ambrosiano in the past to be returned.

As a half-empty city basked in the summer heat, and John Paul II convalesced at his summer residence of Castelgandoifo in the nearby Alban hills, Calvi worked out his arrangement with the IOR. And after what de Stroebel had discovered a few weeks earlier in Lugano, the Vatican bank had little choice in the matter, if it were to preserve what chance remained of averting another disaster, worse even than Sindona.

By the end of August an understanding was reached. The IOR would issue "letters of comfort" admitting ownership of the nominee companies in Panama and Luxembourg to which the money had been lent, but on two conditions. First, the admission would entail no liabilities for itself, and that the whole tangle would be resolved by June 1982. On August 27 Calvi wrote the formal letter to the IOR, requesting the letters of comfort. Its text then set out the wording of the letters of comfort, ending with a paragraph confirming that what­ever happened, the Vatican bank would suffer "no future damage or loss". His letter was on notepaper of Ambrosiano Overseas in Nassau.

In return, the IOR provided two "letters of comfort". One was addressed to Banco Andino, the other to Ambrosiano Group Banco Commercial in Nicaragua, which had retained a small portion of the loans on its own books. The texts were identical. The IOR stated that it "directly or indirectly controls the following entries". Then came a list of the debtor companies. "We also confirm our awareness," the letters ended, "of their indebtedness towards yourselves as of June 10, 1981, as per the attached statements of accounts."

These accounts were simply bald lists of the assets and liabilities, but they were comprehensive proof of the straits in which Calvi now found himself. The accounts of the borrowers from Banco Andino, for instance, showed debts of $907 million, of which $852 million had been provided by the Peru bank, and $55 million directly from Milan. To secure those debts, there was the ten per cent shareholding in Banco Ambrosiano itself, plus smaller interests in other companies controlled by Ambrosiano and the IOR. All were said to be worth no less than $1,200 million, compared with a real value of perhaps $350 million at best. The difference was the measure of Calvi's fraud, and the extent to which the value of the shares used as collateral had been pumped up to keep the demented system going.

The deed was done. It mattered little that letters of comfort notoriously have no legal value throughout the banking world, least of all ones which speak merely of "awareness" of debts. The directors in Nicaragua and Peru, and at the Luxembourg Services company where the letters were stored, could breathe more easily, half com­forted at least that the Universal Church, in the fullness of its wisdom and authority, was the guarantor of their loans; in any case, they also had Calvi's assurance that within a few months the debts would be much reduced, if not repaid.

But Calvi gained little peace of mind, only time. On sober review his position must have appeared increasingly hopeless. His mood would oscillate erratically between brief moments of euphoria when he could convince himself that salvation was possible, and longer periods of disillusion and gloom.

For some while yet, the foreboding would only very rarely show through. Mostly he succeeded, as always in the past, in masking his feelings behind the distant, impassive facade. The inability to make a point clearly, the capacity to erect pyramids of lies in the face of hostile questioning, were unchanged. Some did claim that the tic on the left side of his mouth, beneath the thin moustache, would become more pronounced under pressure. But until the end, his self-control was remarkable.

The safety valve became his family, especially his wife and daugh­ter in Milan to whom he would confide his darkest fears and suspi­cions. To them, Calvi would remain a victim of the jealousy and spite of others, blackmailed and exploited as no other in Italy. And they were largely correct. For if Calvi's troubles were self-inflicted, they were now so numerous that he could no longer hope to control events.

In that autumn of 1981 the aura of power and mystery which so long had protected him was dissolving. He had been sentenced to four years in prison, he had no passport. The discovery of the P-2 had contributed to a plethora of judicial investigations, frequently involv­ing himself. The Bank of Italy was on his heels, so was a newly aggressive stock market authority. Now that Gelli was a fugitive in Latin America, Calvi was having to handle directly the politicians. And for all his faith in the powers they offered, Calvi never learnt to deal easily with them. New intermediaries stepped in like Pazienza and Carboni, whom Calvi believed was a substitute to Gelli as a duct to the hidden powers of freemasonry. There was also Giuseppe Ciarrapico, a publisher connected with Andreotti of the Christian
Democrats. Even the once sacred weekends in the country at Drezzo were made over to meetings and consultations.

Everyone wanted money, in return for an advantageous word here, an intercession with a threatening magistrate there. Calvi would pay scandal sheets thousands of pounds monthly to keep silent. Gelli, whose enforced absence from Italy had made him no less importun­ing, was a particularly unwelcome caller. He would ring the villa at Drezzo, on a private line whose number was known only to himself, Ortolani and a few others, identifying himself as "Luciani".

Now the Vatican could no longer be regarded as an ally. The letters of comfort were almost the last indulgence dispensed. On October 26, 1981 the Vatican sent more letters to Lima and Managua, providing new figures and confirming that it would not dispose of the little Panamanian companies "without your prior written approval". In other words, Calvi was being told that he, and not the IOR, should unscramble the mess that he had created. Ambrosiano's "Vatican connection" had turned from blessing into curse.

Then there was the pressure upon him to resolve the relationship between La Centrale and Rizzoli. After the Bank of Italy's strong words of August, Calvi had no option but to sell his interest in the publishing group. But any solution would require political backing as well. And so jealously watched was the
Corriere
that any settlement risked winning him as many enemies as friends among the parties and their factions. In the meantime the entire 176 billion lire investment in Rizzoli was becoming an unimagined burden. The Bank of Italy was also pulling the bureaucratic levers to prevent La Centrale winning approval for a long-requested capital increase, to offset the cost of buying 40 per cent of Rizzoli. As a result additional debts were steadily accumulating.

His dilemma was only underlined by the waspish discussions taking place over the future of the
Corriere.
Now that Calvi's shareholding had been neutralized by the Bank oi Italy's removal of its voting rights, Angelo Rizzoli and above all Tassan Din had a freer hand to do as they pleased. Their plan was to sell the newspaper to a group of Northern businessmen not noted for any special sympathies with the parties in Rome. One of them was Carlo De Benedetti, the chief executive of the Olivetti office equipment company; another was Bruno Visentini, a pillar of Italy's "lay" establishment, and anxious to replace the prevailing warfare between the political clans by a form of non-party Government.

But as the agreement neared conclusion, the Socialists in Rome— among the most ruthless of the clans—stepped in to veto it, threat­ening to bring down the Government and put the tax police on to De Benedetti and Visentini if the deal was completed. Mindful perhaps of the fate of the Bank of Italy in 1979, they withdrew. Shortly afterwards a Socialist-inspired attempt to buy the newspaper also failed. Calvi, as he had to, remained on the sidelines all the while. "The
Corriere
was the root of all my difficulties," he would confess later, forgetting for a moment the huge debts on the other side of the world. But in autumn 1981, it was easy to understand his feelings.

The jousting over the
Corriere
was, however, to prove only the opening skirmish of that period. For within a few weeks, financial and political Italy was to be astounded by a separate announcement—that De Benedetti was paying 50 billion lire for two per cent of Banco Ambrosiano, and would become vice-chairman himself.

Measured in terms
of days, the union between Roberto Calvi and Carlo De Benedetti was brief. It lasted precisely 65 days, from November 19, 1981 to break-up and De Benedetti's complete with­drawal the following January 22. Nonetheless it is peculiarly reveal­ing, a single snapshot embracing opposite shores of Italian life, and illuminating Calvi at a vital moment. For the deal with De Benedetti marked the banker's last serious effort to win back respect and respectability.

Onlookers had every reason to be surprised by the marriage, for the two partners could hardly have been less compatible. Calvi was more secretive and suspicious than ever, hateful of publicity and frequently ill at ease on social occasions, the most private of Catholic financiers. De Benedetti epitomized the modern, aggressive face of Italian industry, known and admired abroad, and with a natural gift of self-projection. He is glossy and charming; and certainly not "Catholic", coming from an old Piedmontese Jewish family. In 1978, the year Calvi was subjected to the Bank of Italy inspection, De Benedetti was voted Italy's manager of the year for his success in revitalizing the staid and slumbering Olivetti.

So what on earth were they doing together? Enrico Cuccia, the wise old man of Mediobanca, observed to De Benedetti: "I don't think you'll last six months with Calvi. Either you'll have him out in a week, or you'll withdraw. One of you has made a great mistake." In the first aftermath it seemed as if the man from Olivetti had erred; in fact those two tumultuous months probably harmed Calvi much more.

The first contacts occurred in October. De Benedetti wanted to place some bonds of Olivetti and CIR, a holding company he controlled, with Ambrosiano. His representative, Francesco De Micheli, went to see Calvi about the proposal, but came back with intriguing news. Yes, there would be no problem about placing the bonds, but Calvi wished to see De Benedetti personally, about something else. An appointment was made, and the two met in Calvi's office at Ambrosiano. The banker as usual spoke around the issue, crafty and evasive. First he offered a seat on La Centrale's board, but De Benedetti demurred. Then, suddenly, he came to the point.

Despite the conviction, Calvi insisted he was innocent. But he was tired: "I've had enough; there's no point my staying if the politicians, the Bank of Italy and the press are all against me," Calvi said. He wanted to hand over a healthy Ambrosiano, one which he had built into the biggest private bank in Italy. Would De Benedetti buy into Ambrosiano and become deputy chairman, with the understanding that he would take full charge after six months, once the appeal had been upheld?