Articles by: Judith Harris

ROME - For over three decades Gore Vidal, who died Tuesday of pneumonia at age 86 in Los Angeles, spent six months a year in Italy. He and his partner, jazz singer Howard Auster, spent the colder Italian months in a roomy penthouse apartment whose terrace overlooked the ancient temple ruins at Largo Argentina in Rome. "And what better place to watch the end of the world?" Gore would say, in the world-weary voice he adopted, but which did not quite conceal the fact that he was, ever and always, an idealist.

Summer months were spent at his sprawling villa "La Rondinaia" - the Swallow's Nest -  in the magnificent southern village of Ravello, at cliffside high above the sea. In Ravello, he said in 1977, four years after buying the villa, the locals "still speak of us as the 'two English sculptors.'" But most of the time he was already "a local icon, pointed out to tourists just like the thousand-year-old castle. Everybody comes to say hello to the Maestro, and I talk to the Monsignore in the piazza." With a Ravello priest he served on the Ravello booster council. And among his other Ravello friends was a retired English clergyman whose large family was so attractive that, as Vidal admitted, they made him long, "just once," to have a couple of sturdy sons of his own.  

Every morning in Ravello Vidal walked down the cliff road to Amalfi to buy a half dozen Italian daily newspapers and an espresso in a cafe, before taking the bus back up to Ravello. Back at home Vidal became lord of all he surveyed - the distant sea, Paestum on its peninsula, the lemon trees, the shimmering light, the swallows that gave their name to the villa. Life at Ravello was "creatively boring," the day ending with a pre-dinner game of backgammon with Howard on the evenings (rare) when they were not entertaining guests, who, at different times, included Britain's Princess Margaret and Jackie Onassis, to whom Vidal was related by his mother's marriage to her father, Hugh D. Auchincloss.

Vidal already knew Italy when he came to live here in 1973. Indeed his family had an Italian connection, and he twice visited Forni a Voltri in Friuli, home of his ancestors from about 1586 to 1779. Originally a Romanischer family, they came to Friuli from Feldkirch, in Austria. "A Vidal then left Friuli to return to Feldkirch, where he bought back Vidalhaus; it was his son, my great-grandfather, who came to the United States in 1848. We were apothecaries for more than five hundred years, and I suppose that the Vidals in the Veneto who make the soap are remnants of the family who stayed on in Italy. I love Friuli...."

For that matter, he loved all of Italy, even though he never spoke Italian well. But then, as he said, "I write in English, after all. I read Italian easily, but I speak it with difficulty because I think in English and to translate swiftly what I am - I hope - swiftly thinking is hard work. Mind you, I have trouble reading Gadda, but Paese Sera, l'Unità, Messaggero, Repubblica, Corriere della Sera are the papers that I generally read, and are not difficult. But then I am old school: I was brought up in Latin."

He was proud that Federico Fellini had given him a role in his film Roma, where he played himself. He had already written most of the film Ben Hur, "happily without credit," around 1957 at Cinecitta'. And although saying that he admired the works ("some of them") of Marco Bellocchio and Michelangelo Antonioni, as well as those of Fellini, he said he preferred not to work with anyone other than Fellini because "the cultural differences are... how to be tactful? too great."

"The Italian character [his underscoring] has a good deal of strength of a sort that the American character lacks. The Italian means to survive, at any cost. The American survives, but there is often too high a cost," he once told me. "Left to themselves, the Italians work out a fine balance between anarchy and order. When times are bad—or good—the balance shifts this way or that. But the nice balance, sooner or later, is restored. Fundamentally, Italians hate both anarchy and order. This is very human."

He could be disenchanted over relations between the two nations, as he wrote me in 1980 from his home in California. "After the war a good deal of American money was given to rebuild Italy, and that was a good thing even if the Mafia and/or the politicians got too large a commission. Since then, I can't think of any American institution that contributes much of anything to Italy. I suppose that the fleet at Gaeta, and the air force at Vicenza, serve as a deterrent to Soviet ambition." And then he softened, recalling the wonders of the American Academy, where he had done research for his novel Julian, adding: "And I suspect that even those Italians who do not love America sometimes have nightmares of Tito dead and Soviet troops staring hungrily at Trieste and points south."

Wherever he was, Gore Vidal loved being Gore Vidal - a guerrilla fighter who used words like a bazooka. Or at least he loved himself most of the time. "I get so monstrously bored with myself," he once remarked to me. "Once I pretended to be this famous orchestra conductor. For weeks I went around being him. Later I met him. I didn't like him."

He had no objection to praise. Once he showed me an article he was writing about Italy. "May I make an observation?" I asked hesitantly. No, he said, and that was that. Later I pointed out to him that at least three of his books ended in acts of violence: the rape in The City and the Pillar, another rape in Myra Breckinridge and the bomb blast in Kalki. "Oh?" he said, as if he had not noticed this. "Well, then, I had better not stop writing."

He was proud as a peacock when the city of Ravello made him an honorary citizen. All Vidal's guests attending the citizenship ceremony, performed by the Ravello mayor, received a basket of lemons harvested from Vidal's own trees. The previous evening was celebrated with a trattoria dinner where, seated around the long table under the stars, were Italo Calvino, Luigi Barzini and Vidal's other close friends. The conversation was so rapid-fire that, seated in my corner, I could not keep up enough to make notes, as I often did when I was with Vidal. Still, I recall Calvino agreeing with me that Vidal's Duluth, written in 1983 and snubbed by U.S. critics, such as the New York Times' Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (the novel has the "usual apocalyptic indictment of the human race," he wrote), was in its way a masterpiece.

And so was Gore Vidal.

ROME - The seriously overweight gentleman in a bathing suit was sprawled in a chair at the edge of the beach and dozing this morning on Lake Bracciano, when a friend approached and asked, "Are you sleeping life away?" The reply, in Roman dialect: "Whadda ya want? I've got the spread."

So does a lot of Italy. The upward surge of the spread to today's 506.48 for 10-year bonds (but 519 at the opening of the markets) has reignited interest in holding elections this November, six months ahead of schedule. The emergency premier Mario Monti reportedly told President Giorgio Napolitano Wednesday that, "My government has done what it could." (A cautionary note: in citing this in quotes the Italian press used the ambiguous words "avrebbe detto," or "seems to have said.")

Whether or not these were Monti's precise words, they definitely express a darkening mood. Although the Monti government enjoys international prestige, including from the U.S., at home Monti has lost some of the popularity his government had when it came to power last November. The same happens to politicians everywhere when reality challenges the early political glow, but here the sense of disillusionment is aggravated, both by falling unemployment (at 10.1%, down 2% over just a year ago) and by the realization that the fiscal pressure on Italians already stands at 53% or  more.

"The global scenario has turned worse," according to a new report by Confindustria, the national association of manufacturers, which predicts that the GDP will continue to decline. "As the second trimester comes to an end the negative indexes annul the probability of a relaunch within the year." Furthermore, the report continued, Europe itself is in a downward spiral due to the collapse of the real estate bubble, a reduction in bank liquidity and a drop in consumer spending by families.

A drop in income has hit local administrations in particular, whose incomes shrank by 7% in 2011 over 2010, putting cities like Rome and Naples at risk of being unable to pay full wages to their employees in August. Regions, provinces and townships have suffered, altogether, a drop in income of circa 20% in the two years 2010-2011. In protest, earlier this week mayors from townships throughout Italy came into Rome to demonstrate.

"The central government administrations have been hit less than the local by the efforts to contain spending," Luigi Giampaolino, president of the Corte dei Conti, told the Budget Commission of the Chamber of Deputies yesterday. According to this public spending oversight body, local administrations are, more than the national government, "very exposed to restrictions and limitations" upon actions to defend their incomes through investments. As a result, the national budget decreased by only 6% because income from state investments rose by 12.3%, helping to offset the 18% drop from other income sources over the same period.

Not surprisingly, former Premier Silvio Berlusconi's entourage is not losing the opportunity to point out that, if the spread is up again, this proves that Berlusconi took the blame unfairly for its earlier high tide level. Moreover, in an interview with the German tabloid Bild, Berlusconi boasted that, "If Italy's public accounts are now back under control, it is largely thanks to my government." Berlusconi also took credit for acting in the national interest in leaving the premiership. "I wanted to enable constitutional and other reforms to be approved."

And indeed the remnants of his Partito della Liberta' (PdL) are themselves surging into the piazza in Milan Wednesday afternoon, for an event entitled "Sognando Forza Italia," or "Dreaming of Forza Italia." Berlusconi's pre-PdL political organization is just being reawakened as a potential successor to the flagging PdL, and with good reason; the PdL, which peaked at 38% in public opinion polls just a few years ago, has now sunk to about 20%.

If this is the beginning of the end, does this mean the end of Monti himself? Not necessarily, for it is just possible that the politicians--depending upon who is in charge after November--put him back in place but with greater political clout. At the moment the stalemate over a new election law to replace the discredited law in vigor now may be breaking, even though the comic and popular political bad boy Beppe Grillo maintains that the only reason some want it changed is so that his action party, which is running third in the polls behind the Partito Democratico of Pier Luigi Bersani (over and Berlusconi's PdL, will not take benefit from the present law, nicknamed the Porcellum (pigsty law).

And meanwhile, as Rome burns, the summer holiday ritual  of a long vacation is chilling out, if slowly. In interviews with 6,000 Italians the number of those staying at home of necessity rose by 2%, from 11% to 13%. They are burning the home fires, at least; only one of six is traveling abroad.

ROME -  Beginning with the spread, in recent weeks fears that the gap between the earnings deriving from long-term German and Italian bonds will surge further upward has fostered a widespread sense, if not of panic, of angst here.

The customarily cautious Premier Mario Monti, speaking in Brussels July 10, revealed his concern by his attempt to analyze why the spread continues to oscillate despite the European leaders' recent stability agreements. In an interview July 8 with Skytg24 TV, speaking from Aix-en-Provence, Monti was more explicit.

There are unknown factors in the markets and in the mechanisms that support the Eurozone, "and perhaps, in the case of Italy, a degree of uncertainty as to what will happen in managing the economy or, put another way, in the Italian political situation after the elections of 2013," Monti acknowledged.

Monti again revealed his concern over the spread after Giorgio Squinzi, the neo-president of the Italian manufacturers' association Confindustria, declared bluntly that he would flunk the Monti government. To this Monti retorted icily, with barely concealed anger, "Statements of this type made by institutional figures and individuals who are supposedly responsible have very negative effects on the markets and on the assessments made by international organizations."

On the other hand, Italy's credit rating was downgraded this week from A3 to Baa2 by Moody's, just when Monti was landing in Idaho to attend the high-tech conference in Idaho with Bill Gates and other U.S. financial potentates. At that point Italian bank shares, at least, dropped by under 2%, but otherwise the Italian stock market remained firm, allowing the reaction across the board to turn anti-Moody's. The drop, which positioned Italy just two levels above junk status, was taken by many here as an insult, and commentators were angrily saying, "Italy is not junk!"

"The [Moody's] downgrading is unjustified and misleading," protested Minister for Industry Corrado Passera at a press conference Friday. For its part Moody's declared that "Italy's near-term economic outlook has deteriorated," with weaker growth and higher unemployment than in recent months - and warned moreover that further downgrading could be in store.

And so to the Porcellum, as the present incredibly complicated and confusing election law is universally known. It was invented by the Northern League's Roberto Calderoli under the Berlusconi regime, and the named sarcastically coined because its predecessor had been called the Mattarellum, after the old Christian Democrat politician who drafted it in 1993. Under the terms of this "pigsty" law, the political powers-that-be choose the candidates, a procedure that in effect limits candidacies to only those approved by the inner circle. At present Berlusconi - who has just at age 76 let it be known that he will run for office again, after rethinking and reflecting on the situation - approves of the Porcellum, which gives the winning parties enough bonus members of Parliament that the opposition is squeezed. (To hear a five-minute explanation in Italian of the Porcellum and proposed alternative reform bills, check out La Repubblica's Massimo Giannino >>>

The problem has suddenly become serious as the political world has taken on board that national general elections are only nine months away, set for April. Because they will be followed by election of a president to succeed Giorgio Napolitano, the Parliament and Senate elected at that time will also choose Napolitano's successor. Reforms are being proposed, but within the major parties themselves, beginning with Berlusconi's Forza Italia (slated to change its name) and the Partito Democratico of Pier Luigi Bersani, there is disagreement; those opposing change say that a reform would take too long and, besides, some among their numbers may hope that they will be the lucky ones to pick up the bonus MPs and senators.

Finally, details of the spending review continue to emerge. Among the most touching is a complaint by the head of the reputable Italian statistics-gathering agency ISTAT that the cuts mean that, while he will go on paying wages and office space, the agency will be unable to carry out its mission because there will simply be no more money for programs. Another instance of spending cuts being imposed by the Monti government is to drop minor judicial offices run by justices of the peace because most churn out little work. On the other hand there are also those which perform efficiently and handle thousands of cases, and so there is some resentment.

How are all these linked? At the Idaho high-tech conference Bill Gates, among others, expressed confidence in Monti but at the same time concern at who will be in charge after April. At the moment the Monti government is still popular with a strong majority of Italians and enjoys the support of the international community, such as the IMF. At the same time the traditional political parties (to the extent that they are traditional) are running scared - scared of Beppe Grillo, scared of a predicted avalanche of abstentions, scared of a generalized antagonism to all political parties. And meantime the long hot summer is just beginning, a prelude to a scorching autumn.   

ROME - I met pretty, ever smiling Flavia in a ward at a big teaching hospital in Rome, where we were both recovering from surgery not long ago. In her early thirties, she is married with two children in elementary school. The family live in Calabria, where her husband earns under $1,000 monthly. She suffers from Crohn's disease, and her entire intestine had to be surgically removed. The Roman team is well known, and so she was sent here for the operation.

Attending her during almost two weeks of care were her husband and mother, who stayed with nuns in a hospice while her father took care of the children back home. Despite a situation which can only be described as difficult in every way, Flavia enjoyed the best of care and has a bright future.

Obviously there are darker patches, but, whenever I have the chance, I boast to my fellow Americans about the advantages of Italy's nationalized universal health care system. There is care for expectant mothers and for infants, down to and including inoculations against polio. There is care for the elderly. And care for those in real need, like Flavia - care that does not require their selling their home to pay the hospital bills.  This is thanks to a law that created a national public health service in 1978 with the support of  85% of Parliament. The result in the past three decades as been quite an achievement, with the World Health Organization citing Italy as second in the world for "capacity and quality of care." As Livia Turco, Health Minister during the Romano Prodi government, has remarked, "Perhaps we Italians take it for granted, but in reality very few countries in the world guarantee health care of this type for all citizens, with no discrimination whatsoever."

At the same time, we know that many of the Italian health service doctors suffer from patient overload, and simply lack the time to reflect at due length upon an individual's aches and pains. Instead of thoughtful care, the numerous elderly men and women who crowd into the waiting rooms tend to leave with a handful of prescriptions - more, I suspect, than a more careful examination of their conditions would justify. In this way the doctors trying not to waste their time waste prescription money.

This national health service is one of the areas under attack by the bean-counters of the present emergency government headed by Premier Mario Monti. Under relentless pressure fto cut costs, Health Minister Renato Balduzzi, 57, who is a professor of constitutional law at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, is expected to slash health service expenses, down to and including janitorial and laundry services, by around $1.3 billion before the year is out. About one-third of the cuts will come from a reduction in expenditures for pharmaceutical products, from medicines to gauzes and syringes. The government has prepared a suggested list of prices for acquiring medical products, in effect suggesting that in the past some prices were inflated.

"I'll go with saving on syringes," Pier Luigi Bersani, 62, head of the left-leaning Partito Democratico, commented gruffly Tuesday, "but won't tolerate jobs being cut." Was this flat statement realism or rhetoric? For an example of cost cutting, one way in which US hospitals - and who more spendthrift than they? - are reducing expenditures is by having centralized expert reading of X-rays sent from small local hospitals (those same local hospitals Italy is trying to cut out instead of improve). After the patient has an X-ray in the local hospital, the results are sent via the Internet for reading by experts. Some jobs are cut, but patients benefit from top quality analysis. The same occurs in Italy, but less routinely.

The point is that the national health service is a national treasure and should be preserved, even at the price of reducing employees.

Cutting the costs of hospital care is only one of the goals of Premier Monti's almost complete spending review, of course. On other fronts the government intends to reduce the number of public employees by offering retirement two years ahead of schedule, with 80% of the salary over a two-year period. In practice, this may mean that pension payments will amount to about half the pay received at retirement age. Some 280 local courts and other judiciary offices risk closure. Among the cuts expected in the Defense Ministry, rents being paid for office space will be cancelled and a 5-10% reduction in personnel is expected, but weapons acquisitions will remain untouched. Elsewhere in the bureaucracy a reduction of some 10,000 to 100,000 employees is under consideration.

However harsh all this seems, Monti, still proud of his recent showing at a meeting in Brussels at the EU summit in Germany, continues to ride high in the saddle and was speaking of his government seeing the crisis through until time to vote next Spring. Before the Brussels summit La Repubblica commented that vultures were circling over Palazzo Chigi (the Premier's office). After Brussels all that seemed changed, and on Wednesday afternoon Monti was meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Rome. As the German magazine Der Spiegel commented this week, "For now Monti appears to be safe, and Berlusconi will have to go back to his sulking... Monti [is] a serious actor on the European stage, who must be taken seriously. For the foreseeable future, the European Union will no longer be dominated by Germany ad France."