Foreign News: The Unforgiving Lion

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The Vanquished. Back to Africa went Graziani when Italy entered World War II. At the head of a force of more than 250,000 men he advanced from Libya 70 miles into Egypt without much opposition; suddenly he halted his columns and began flagging Mussolini for reinforcements. Said Mussolini: "One should not give jobs to people who are not looking for at least one promotion. Graziani's only anxiety is to remain a marshal." In a two-month battle at the end of 1940 General Wavell's British force, a fifth the size of the Italian, destroyed Graziani's army, captured 130,000 prisoners, and 400 tanks. Retreating to Tripoli, Graziani wrote a letter of recrimination to Mussolini, who said to his son-in-law Ciano: "I cannot get angry because I despise him."

But in 1943 when King Victor Emmanuel and Marshal Badoglio joined the Allies, the retreating Mussolini made Graziani Minister of War in his new Fascist government. Said. Graziani, who had never forgiven Badoglio for beating him to Addis Ababa: "Treachery and unfaithfulness have stained the flag of Italy." His Blackshirt army became the chief Nazi agent for dealing with Italian partisans. In 1945 the partisans caught Graziani.

The Simple Soldier. For five years Graziani languished in Italian jails and military hospitals, and in 1950 he was brought to trial before a military tribunal, a tall, gaunt, white-maned old man still wearing his grey-green army uniform with three rows of military decorations. He told a civilian court that he had been a "Fascist from birth." Now his main line was that he was a "simple soldier," who had to march where he was ordered: "Today I'd march at the order of even a Communist government, provided it was in a good cause." He was sentenced to 19 years; with amnesty remissions and time served, the sentence worked out to four months.

Released in 1950, he was immediately taken up by the Neo-Fascist M.S.I. Party as the leading symbol of Fascist glory. Twice he resigned from it; though the party publicly venerated him, its leaders regarded him at best an embarrassment, at worst an imbecile. Last week their embarrassment was ended. At 72, the Desert Lion, after undergoing an abdominal operation, died of a heart attack.