, postcards honesty 
Sandro Pertini when I knew in the '70s, we called "magistrates of assault." I met him for the first time when he was Speaker of the House. Pertini was, for us young people, history, the connection between the suffering of the past war and conquest of freedom, hopes for progress and development of our democracy. In the winter of 1974, Italy was in the middle of the oil crisis. The houses, hospitals, schools had no heating. Shortness of diesel and petrol. I was praetor in Genoa. Following investigations, wiretaps and the seizure of documents, made sure that the oil companies paid bribes amounting to 5% of their earnings are granted by laws passed by Parliament. The oil companies were corrupt and the corrupt ministers and parliamentarians. At the time the investigative body of Ministers, the Commission was investigating, made up of deputies and senators and the acts of the process needed to be delivered to the President of the Chamber.
Pertini received me, read some documents in my presence. He wept with rage and the next day stated: "The moral is a dead science policy if not conspire with her and does not reign in the nation. Democracy is defended, have been upheld and strengthened by a great tension moral corruption is the enemy democracy, corruption offends the conscience of the honest citizen, the sample must be in the ruling class in the first place that you speak to me. You hit the perpetrators of corruption without pietism, without the solidarity of friendship or party. This solidarity would be real complicity, policy needs to be done with clean hands. "
Pianosa. When, in April 1932, the prison was transferred to the sanatorium Pianosa judiciary, in poor health, the mother presented request for clemency to the authorities. Pertini so he wrote: "Why mom, why? Hidden here in my cell, I cried tears of bitterness and shame. What has surprised you lost because you have been able to make such an act of weakness? And I feel humbled at the thought that you, even for a moment, could have assumed that I would renounce my faith even to regain political freedoms. You who I have always understood that you went so proud of me, could you think of this? But then, you suddenly so away from me, not to be understood as the love that I feel for my idea? ". He was accused of" incitement to hatred between the social classes "in addition to the crimes of illegal printing , contempt of the Senate and the prerogative of the injured irresponsibility of the king for the acts of government. Pertini, both in the interrogation after his arrest, and in that conducted by the public prosecutor and public hearing before the Court of Savona, claimed the taking all responsibility for their actions and saying he was willing to continue the fight for freedom, whatever sentence they faced.
Quirinale. In the period of his stay at the Hill helped to make the figure of the President of the Republic the symbol of the unity of the Italian people. His moral stature helped bring people to the institutions, in a difficult and full of criminal events such as the early lead. Following the earthquake in Irpinia, 23 November 1980, after a few days, publicly denounced the helplessness and inefficiency in state aid in a famous televised speech to unified networks, in which he denounced those areas of the state that have speculated on misfortunes such as If the earthquake of Belice. In February 1983, to general amazement at the hospital he visited the young Paolo Di Nella, militant of the Youth Front, in a coma for being shot in the head by a stone and attach them to the posters, and in the days after he died. In 1988, he went to visit the funeral of Almirante, the political secretary of the MSI. The controversy of the Socialists, she says: "Faced with the death of a former political opponent who has always taken with respect to my person and the institution which I represented, I felt compelled to this act of farewell, which certainly does not erase our different political histories. I remember you, buddy ... that unlike you that the attacks died, I fascists, first in prison and then I have fought in the resistance to live openly, risking my skin. Now I greet you, with all due respect, my colleague, the Parliamentary deceased, is the high political commitment and consistency of ideals. To each his own, in dutiful silence in the face of death. "
Pertini considered freedom and social justice inseparable. During an interview he said:" If I were to offer the socialist construction of more radical reform of social but without the freedom, I refuse, I could not accept. But freedom without social justice can also be an achievement in vain. It can be considered truly free a man who is hungry, who is in poverty, who do not have a job, because that is humiliated does not know how to keep her children and educate them? This is not a free man. " His personality was imbued with the principles that inspired the parliamentary democracy and republican, born from the partisan resistance, used to support its policy respecting the faith of others as well as its firm rejection of all ideologies rinneghino freedom of expression . There was always
. His constant presence in the crucial moments of Italian public life, in pleasant situations as in difficult times, was probably one of the reasons for its popularity. It has often been described as the "president most beloved by Italians, remembered for love to Italy, for his charisma, for his way of making sincere and ironic, for honesty and for having opened a new way to interact with citizens, with a direct style and friendly. The frankness and pragmatism of Pertini is also well reflected in its policy and institutional framework, making it look like a president that pointed to the reality, rejecting compromise and making its mark with its moral rigor. The praise of
Indro. The journalist Indro Montanelli, in an article published in the Corriere della Sera on 27 October 1963, wrote: "You do not need to love and be socialists estimate Pertini. Whatever he says or does, it smells like cleaning, loyalty and sincerity." Pertini was among the presidents who chose not to live in the Palazzo del Quirinale, maintaining his residence in his apartment in Rome, according to the same Pertini express wish of his wife. In fact, for many years lived in a penthouse that overlooks the Trevi Fountain. The inhabitants of the district met him often in the morning when the car was going to get it to go "office" at Quirinal without large security apparatus, for those who recognized him and greeted him, especially children, the president always had a smile and a salute. In the spring of 1981
Pertini un'infuocata chaired the CSM meeting of which I was a member. Investigations were in progress on the P2 and the vice of the time, successor Vittorio Bachelet, who was killed by the Red Brigades, he had been involved. I was the youngest of the Council and I was given for the resignation of the vice president. At the end of the session, it went: "I apologize if I'm allowed to have the claim heard from my modest words." "No, no ... well ... did you know I prefer to listen to the words of young people ... you young people have not yet learned to make the attempt to balance ... you never learn ... you know, every now and those suffering from dizziness and sometimes falling, those who instead rests his feet on the street in which he believes at least goes on with his peaceful mind. "
And then he added: "I wonder if one day you will be rewarded our sacrifices of the resistance ... without law there can be neither freedom nor democracy ... courage, courage ... times change ... the story must go on .... "
was the last time I spoke with Sandro Pertini, but still I think of that phrase, "I wonder if one day ...." "Everything dies with us - he used to say - but we remain in the hearts of those who love us. There never dies, and so we can talk to our loved ones, and they speak to us in silence. " How I wish today that Sandro Pertini not just talk to those who loved him and love him still.
from the daily March 7
Mario Almeida
