Mariano Rumor; Ex-Leader of Italy’s Christian Democrats

Mariano Rumor, 74, who was Italy’s prime minister five times between 1968 and 1974. Rumor, a former leader of the Christian Democrat Party, was accused and later cleared of involvement in one of Italy’s biggest scandals in 1976. The scandal concerned about $2 million in bribes paid by Lockheed, the U.S. airplane manufacturer, to Italian officials for the sale of Hercules transport aircraft. Son of a printing shop owner, Rumor fought in an artillery unit in World War II, then helped organize an anti-Nazi resistance movement in the Venice area after the fall of dictator Benito Mussolini in 1943. He was secretary of the Christian Democrats, Italy’s biggest party, from 1964 to 1969 and served in several postwar governments as agriculture, interior and foreign minister. In Vicenza, Italy, on Jan. 23 of a heart attack.