ITALY: The Montesi Affair

Before Italy's Chamber of Deputies, Premier Mario Scelba spoke solemnly of affairs of state—taxes and governmental reform, his government's support of EDC, the dangers of Communism and neo-Fascism. But the immediate threat to his new regime involved none of these, nor did it lie within the walls of the chamber. It came from a courtroom a few blocks away, where, as Scelba urged the Deputies to confirm his Cabinet, there unfolded an unsavory story of corruption in high places, of playgirls and midnight orgies and expensive decadence revolving around the figure of...