From Neo-Fascist to Foreign Minister

The political cartoonists were having a field day.

President Bush had just named the first black woman to become secretary of State. And for Italy’s equivalent of the post, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi named the first “black shirt.”

Gianfranco Fini, who this week made his debut as Italian foreign minister at two international conferences, is a former neo-fascist whose political party, the National Alliance, was formed as an heir to the fascists of Benito Mussolini -- the Black Shirts, so named because of their uniforms.

But, as his appointment as Italy’s top diplomat suggests, Fini has worked hard in recent years to move his party to the mainstream and shed his own extremist views.

A decade ago, he proclaimed Mussolini as the greatest statesman of the 20th century. In 2002, Fini recanted the comment, and last year he made a much-photographed trip to Israel where he condemned the “absolute evil” of fascism.

“We have to condemn the shameful chapters in the history of our people and to try to understand why complacency, collaboration and fear caused no reaction from many Italians in 1938 to the disgraceful, fascist race laws,” he said after donning a yarmulke and lighting the eternal flame at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Fini’s transformation is part of his steady march to what he hopes will be a seat at the head of government, possibly succeeding Berlusconi as prime minister. A dapper dresser with a professorial mien, Fini already serves as deputy prime minister, a post he will retain.

Whether motivated by a change of heart or opportunistic ambition, Fini’s transition to the right-wing mainstream seems genuine, analysts say.

“What he says and what he does show that he doesn’t have a black shirt under his double-breasted suit,” said James Walston, a specialist in Italian politics at the American University in Rome.

Fini received support from one unlikely quarter: Israel, where his apology for the fascist past apparently had resonance. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot credited Fini with Italy’s increasingly pro-Israel policies and praised him as the friendliest foreign minister Israel could hope to find in Europe.

The National Alliance, which succeeded the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, is Berlusconi’s largest partner in a coalition government that has stayed in office since 2001, longer than any Italian administration since World War II.

Besides renaming the party the National Alliance, Fini also managed to double its support in national elections.

Berlusconi rewarded Fini for coalition loyalty by naming him to the Foreign Ministry post, seen as a bid by the prime minister to elicit the National Alliance’s support in a bruising battle to cut taxes. Berlusconi won elections in May 2001 by promising drastically reduced taxes, but he has met with wide opposition in Parliament from those who don’t believe Italy can afford the nearly $8 billion in cuts.

Immediately after his appointment, Fini announced that his party would consider the prime minister’s tax proposals and would work to ensure that the government lasts until mid-2006, when its term is scheduled to end. The government announced an agreement Thursday on the tax cuts that Fini said was “well balanced.”

Efforts by Fini, 52, to appear more mainstream have been helped by the government’s shift to the right. Berlusconi has been a supporter of the Bush administration and its war in Iraq, contrary to Italian public opinion, and has pointed Rome toward Washington and away from its traditional European allies. The prime minister also shifted Italian support more to Israel and away from the Palestinians, a departure from previous Italian and European stances.

Fini eagerly embraces all of these positions. He was among the few European ministers to denounce Yasser Arafat after the Palestinian leader’s death this month, and has defended the West Bank wall that Israel is building to separate itself from Palestinian areas.

Walston and other analysts note that Fini can retain a number of neo-fascist social policies, such as measures to assure job security, that appeal to his base. And other conservative policies that he advocates -- such as a tough law that restricts immigration -- are part of a movement gaining acceptance in much of Europe.

The Italian right is generally not as vitriolic and xenophobic as followers of right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen of France or Joerg Haider of Austria, Walston said. Consequently, Fini will not face the same kind of pariah status that they do.