Brosio, Manlio

(1897–1980)

   Born in Turin, Brosio was a wartime partisan and, during the latter stages of the war, became leader of the Partito Liberale Italiano/Italian Liberal Party (PLI), taking part in the second Ivanoe Bonomiadministration as minister without portfolio and as vice premier under Ferruccio Parriafter the end of the conflict. The PLI bore substantial responsibility for the crisis that brought down Parri’s short-lived administration in November 1945, but any hopes Brosio might have had of acceding to the premiership were dashed by the emergence of Alcide De Gasperi. Brosio was minister for defense in the first postwar cabinet to be headed by the leader of the Democrazia Cristiana/Christian Democracy (DC).

   An antimonarchist in a largely royalist party, Brosio joined the Partito Repubblicano Italiano/Italian Republican Party (PRI) in 1946, but gave up active politics for diplomacy in 1947. He was successively Italian ambassador to Moscow, London, Washington, and Paris. In 1964, he became secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the first Italian to hold this post (the only other Italian so honored is Sergio Balzanino, in 1994–1995). In 1972, he returned to politics, being elected to the Senate for the PLI. He died in his native Turin in 1980.