Paolo Guzzanti (born 1 August 1940) is an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

journalist and politician. He was previously a member of the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parties of the country. Founded in Genoa in 189 ...

Biography

Born in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, he is the nephew of Elio Guzzanti and father to actors Corrado, Sabina and Caterina. As a journalist he worked for ''

L'Avanti! ''Avanti!'' is a 1972 American/Italian international co-production comedy film produced and directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills. The screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is based on Samuel A. Taylor's play, ...

'', ''

La Repubblica ''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arno ...

'' (of which he was co-founder) and ''

La Stampa ''La Stampa'' (meaning ''The Press'' in English) is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin, Italy. It is distributed in Italy and other European nations. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. History and profile The paper was fou ...

''. He also hosted the first season of TV show ''

Chi l'ha visto? Chi or CHI may refer to: Greek *Chi (letter), the Greek letter (uppercase Χ, lowercase χ); Chinese * ''Chi'' (length) (尺), a traditional unit of length, about ⅓ meter *Chi (mythology) (螭), a dragon *Chi (surname) (池, pinyin: ''chí'' ...

''. Currently he is an editorialist of

Paolo Berlusconi Paolo Berlusconi (born 6 December 1949) is an Italian businessman. He is the younger brother of the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. He is the publisher of the newspaper ''Il Giornale'' and the head of the investment group Paolo Be ...

's ''

Il Giornale ''il Giornale'' ( en, The Newspaper) is an Italian language daily newspaper published in Milan, Italy. History and profile The newspaper was founded in 1974 by the journalist Indro Montanelli, together with the colleagues Enzo Bettiza, Ferenc ...

'' (he was deputy director before and for ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined i ...

'', also owned by Berlusconi). He was elected to the

Italian Parliament The Italian Parliament ( it, Parlamento italiano) is the national parliament of the Italian Republic. It is the representative body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1943), the transitio ...

for

Forza Italia Forza ItaliaThe name is not usually translated into English: ''forza'' is the second-person singular imperative of ''forzare'', in this case translating to "to compel" or "to press", and so means something like "Forward, Italy", "Come on, Ital ...

. From 2002 to 2006 he was president of the

Mitrokhin Commission The Mitrokhin Commission was an Italian parliamentary commission set up in 2002 to investigate alleged KGB ties of some Italian politicians. Set up by the Italian Parliament, then led by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition, the '' Casa dell ...

, a parliamentary commission which was entrusted with investigating the role of KGB in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. The commission, since the very beginning, received heavy criticism as it was pointed out that its main role seemed only that to discredit the former

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) ...

. According to an interview of former KGB agent Yevgeny Limarev published in ''

'', Italian left-wing politicians to be discredited included

Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...

Massimo D'Alema Massimo D'Alema (; born 20 April 1949) is an Italian politician and journalist who was the 53rd prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000. He was Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. D'Alema also serv ...

and Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. The commission was closed in 2006 without results. On 1 December 2006 Mario Scaramella, a contact of former KGB/FSB officer ''

Alexander Litvinenko Alexander Valterovich "Sasha" Litvinenko (30 August 1962 ( at WebCite) or 4 December 1962 – 23 November 2006) was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised i ...

'', tested positive for Polonium-210. Mr Scaramella was involved in an Italian parliamentary inquiry into KGB activity and was sufficiently worried by the contents of an e-mail to ask for advice from Mr Litvinenko. The e-mail said that he, Mr Litvinenko and an Italian senator, Paolo Guzzanti, were possible targets for assassination. In 2009 Paolo Guzzanti published a book where he stated that Litvinenko told the

about a connection between

and Soviet KGB, post-Soviet FSB. (interview with Paolo Guzzanti) He believed that Litvinenko was killed because of Mitrokhin Commission and that

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

had an interest in ruining the commission. On 2 February 2009 he left People of Freedom and joined

Italian liberal party The Italian Liberal Party ( it, Partito Liberale Italiano, PLI) was a liberal and conservative political party in Italy. The PLI, which is the heir of the liberal currents of both the Historical Right and the Historical Left, was a minor part ...

. He was elected deputy secretary on 20 February.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guzzanti, Paolo 1940 births Living people Politicians from Rome Italian Socialist Party politicians Forza Italia politicians Italian Liberal Party (1997) politicians Senators of Legislature XIV of Italy Senators of Legislature XV of Italy Deputies of Legislature XVI of Italy Italian television journalists Italian magazine editors La Repubblica people