Giulio Andreotti

Giulio Andreotti (US: AHN-dray-OT-ee, Italian: [ˈdʒuːljo andreˈɔtti]; 14 January 1919 – 6 May 2013) was an Italian politician and statesman who served as the 41st Prime Minister of Italy (1972–1973, 1976–79 and 1989–92) and leader of the Christian Democracy party; he was the sixth longest-serving Prime Minister since the Italian Unification and the second longest-serving post-war Prime Minister, after Silvio Berlusconi. Andreotti is widely considered the most powerful and prominent politician of the so-called First Republic. Beginning as a protégé of Alcide De Gasperi, Andreotti achieved cabinet rank at a young age and occupied all the major offices of state over the course of a forty-year political career, being seen as a reassuring figure by the civil service, business community, and Vatican. In foreign policy, he guided Italy's European Union integration and established closer relations with the Arab world. Admirers of Andreotti saw him as having mediated political and social contradictions, enabling the transformation of a substantially rural country into the world's fifth-biggest economy. Critics said he had done nothing to challenge a system of patronage that had led to pervasive corruption. Andreotti staunchly supported the Vatican and a capitalist structure, while opposing the Italian Communist Party. Following the popular Italian sentiment of the time, Andreotti also supported the development of a strong European community playing host to neo-liberal economics. Though Andreotti belonged to the right-wing, he was not averse to the implementation of the European Social Fund and Regional Fund in building the European economy.At the height of his prestige as a statesman, Andreotti was subjected to damaging criminal prosecutions. Charged with colluding with Cosa Nostra, courts could not prove that he had maintained his links with them after 1980, and ruled the case out of time. The most sensational allegation came from prosecutors in Perugia, who charged him wit