Enrico Mattei
Enrico Mattei | |
---|---|
Chairman of Eni | |
In office 10 February 1953 – 27 October 1962 | |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Marcello Boldrini |
Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
In office 8 May 1948 – 24 June 1953 | |
Constituency | Milan |
Personal details | |
Born | 29 April 1906 Aircrash, Bomb |
Political party | Christian Democracy |
Occupation | Public administrator |
Known for | Development of oil industry in Italy |
Enrico Mattei (Italian pronunciation:
Mattei, who became a powerful figure in Italy, was a member of Christian Democracy and of the Italian Parliament from 1948 to 1953. Mattei made ENI a powerful company, so much so that Italians called it "the state within the state".[2] He died in a plane crash in 1962, likely caused by a bomb in the plane, although it has never been established which group might have been responsible for his death.[3] The unsolved death of Mattei was the subject of an award-winning film The Mattei Affair by Francesco Rosi in 1972, with Mattei portrayed by Gian Maria Volonté. Along with Vittorio Valletta of Fiat S.p.A., he is regarded among the best Italian managers of the 20th century.[4]
Early life
Enrico Mattei was born in
Mattei moved to Milan where he worked as a sales representative for foreign companies in tanning dyes and solvents. In 1931, he became a member of the National Fascist Party (Italian: Partito Nazionale Fascista) created by Benito Mussolini but was not active in politics. Subsequently, he set up a factory producing oil-based emulsifiers for the tanning and textile industries with his brother and sister. In 1934, he founded Industria Chimica Lombarda and two years later, in 1936, he married Greta Paulas, in Vienna. After acquiring an accountancy qualification, he enrolled at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.
In May 1943, he met the
Impressed by his organisational and military skills, Christian Democrats put him in command of their partisan forces. On 26 October 1944, he was captured in Milan, along with others, at the Christian Democrats' secret headquarters in Milan. Detained at the military barracks in Como, he was able to escape on 3 December 1944, taking advantage of a confusion caused by a short circuit which he himself may have engineered. Mattei participated in the North Italian military command of the National Liberation Committee (Italian: Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale – CLN) on behalf of the Christian Democrats.[6] He was decorated by the United States with the Silver Star.[5]
Agip and ENI
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2018) |
In 1945, the National Liberation Committee appointed him to the leadership of Agip (Azienda Generale Italiana Petrolio – General Italian Oil Company), the national oil company created by the Fascists, with instructions to close it as soon as possible. Mattei instead worked hard to restructure the company and transform it into one of the nation's most important economic assets.[7]
In 1949 Mattei made an astonishing public announcement: the soil of the Po Valley in Northern Italy was rich in oil and
Mattei's strategy was to use natural gas to support the development of a national industry in Northern Italy, sustaining the postwar boom known as the Italian economic miracle.[1][8] The gas was not a mere substitute for imported oil but rather a cheaper and more functional substitute for imported coal which the growing industrial activities relied on. High profits from natural gas sales were plowed back into exploration, production, the expansion of pipelines, and the acquisition of new customers.[8]
Agip obtained an exclusive concession for gas and
In 1953, a law created the ENI, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, into which Agip was merged. Mattei was initially its president, then also the administrator and the general director. In practice, ENI was Mattei and Mattei was ENI.[citation needed]
International influence
When it became apparent that the domestic resource base would not be sufficient to meet Italy's growing energy demand, Mattei recognized the need to secure foreign supplies. Driven by his ambition to make ENI a player on par with the Exxons and Totals of the world, Mattei expanded abroad and turned his attention to the international oil markets.[8] He invented, or at least used to tell very often, the story of the little cat: "A little cat arrives where a few big dogs are eating in a pot. The dogs attack him and toss him away. We Italians are like that little cat: in that pot there is oil for everybody, but someone does not want to let us get close to it."[This quote needs a citation]
This kind of fable made Mattei extremely popular in the economically poor Italy of the time, and he gained the popular support that was needed to gain political support. To break the oligopoly of the "
Mattei forged agreements with
In 1960, after concluding the agreement with the Soviet Union and while negotiating with China, Mattei publicly declared that the American monopoly was over. The reaction was initially mild, and he was invited to take part in the partition of the prospecting map in the Sahara. Mattei made the independence of Algeria a condition of his acceptance, and no agreement would be subscribed until that event. As a consequence of his stance, Mattei was considered to have become a target of the French far-right terrorist organization Organisation armée secrète (OAS), opposed to Algeria's independence, which began sending him explicit threats.[citation needed]
Death
On a 27 October 1962 flight from
During his controversial tenure of ENI, Mattei had made many enemies. The
According to a 2001 TV documentary by
Not trusting the Armed Forces Information Service (Servizio informazioni forze armate, SIFAR), Italy's secret service, even though it was full of his loyal supporters, Mattei constituted a sort of personal security guard made of former partisans, ENI staff by whom he felt protected.[citation needed]
Theories about his death
According to
When preparing the film
Tommaso Buscetta, an important Mafia turncoat (pentito), declared that the Sicilian Mafia had been involved in the murder of Mattei. According to Buscetta, Mattei was killed at the request of Angelo Bruno of the American Mafia because his policies had damaged important American interests in the Middle East.[14][15] Journalist De Mauro was subsequently killed in 1970 because his investigation of Mattei's death was getting close to the truth.[14] Gaetano Iannì, another pentito, declared that a special agreement had been achieved between the Sicilian Mafia and some foreigners for the elimination of Mattei, which was organized by Giuseppe Di Cristina.[16] These statements triggered new inquiries, including the exhumation of Mattei's corpse.[3]
Admiral Fulvio Martini, later chief of SISMI (Italy's military secret service), declared that Mattei's plane had been shot down.[citation needed] In 1986, former Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani described the accident as a shooting, perhaps the first act of terrorism in Italy.[citation needed]
Legacy
Mattei is a controversial figure in Italian 20th-century history. Mattei made ENI a powerful company, so much so that Italians dub it "the state within the state".[2] Some describe him as a sort of paladin, a nationalist, while others point to his hunger for power, and his cold calculating nature.[citation needed]
Mattei coined the term "
References
- ^ a b c d "Italy: Powerful Man". Time. 2 November 1962.
- ^ a b "Oil: State Within a State". Time. 21 July 1961.
- ^ a b c d e "Autopsy may solve deadly mystery of the Mattei Affair". The Independent. 29 August 1997.
- ^ Pace, Lanfranco (16 November 2016). "L'operaio di successo". Il Foglio (in Italian). Retrieved 11 February 2023.
- ^ a b "Italian Oil Chief Dies In Air Crash". The New York Times. 28 October 1962.
- ^ a b c d "Biography of Enrico Mattei". Archived 15 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine. ENI. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
- ^ "State v. Private Capital". Time. 29 November 1954.
- ^ a b c d Hayes, Mark H. (May 2004). "Algerian Gas to Europe: The Transmed Pipeline and Early Spanish Gas Import Projects". Prepared for the Geopolitics of Natural Gas Study, a joint project of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University. Archived 4 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b "The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals". Financial Times. 11 March 2007.
- Aviation Safety Network.
- ^ Firrao, Donato & Ubertalli, Graziano (24–26 June 2009). "Was there a bomb on Mattei's aircraft?". Atti del XX Convegno Nazionale del Gruppo Italiano Frattura.
- . Originally published in Danish as Smukke Serge og Heroien, Bogan, 1976.
- The Independent on Sunday. 19 June 2005.
- ^ a b "Buscetta: 'Cosa nostra uccise Enrico Mattei'". La Repubblica. 23 May 1994. (in Italian)
- ^ Arlacchi, Addio Cosa Nostra, pp. 79-83.
- ^ "Fu Di Cristina a sabotare l'aereo di Enrico Mattei". La Repubblica. 21 June 1994 (in Italian).
- ^ "The Founder, Eni". Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei. Archived from the original on 16 August 2011. Retrieved 20 May 2012.
- ^ Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- Enrico Mattei: The Man who Looked to the Future by Giorgio Capitani. Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Rai Fiction. 2009.