Nikita Roncalli - Hutton Gibson

situation and avert the advent to power of the left in that
traditionally Catholic region would thus be of the essence.
We met in the evening stillness of “L'Osservatore
Romano’s” deserted editorial office, to debate and hammer
out our plans. But of all the plans that accumulated on the
ancient nineteenth century desk of the “pallid king,” and
which were thoroughly examined and studied one after the
other, none appeared to the little big mustached man as
clamorous as to be able to resolve in less than no time the
compromised situation of the Valle d’Aosta. In the end, one
fine night, the “pallid king” welcomed us opening the
heavy door of the editorial office, in an unusual good
mood, and smiling. His fancy, limitless at the time, had
thought out a plan worthy of the most shrewd, scornful,
Machiavellian mind of the Italian Renaissance. He
explained to us, sitting behind his old desk and
continuously passing his hand on his big, gray-speckled
mustache, that he wanted to replicate in the Valle d'Aosta, a
few days before the vote, nothing less than a Communist
coup, with all the bric-a-brac of the most orthodox
Bolshevik revolutionary tradition. Obviously, it was to be
but an act, without the tiniest harm, for the love of God! to
the people, but one that would have such a psychological
effect as to shake the public opinion abruptly and violently,
in order to divert at the last moment the majority of the
votes from the Communist to the Christian Democrat
party.
We all found the idea remarkable, and the details of a
Salgarian (Emilio Salgari, adventure writer) plan were
readied in a few weeks. “Chinese communists” commandos