ROME Giulio Andreotti, a seven-time prime minister who over six decades helped guide Italy out of the wreckage of World War II and into a period of economic prosperity, died Monday.
Drier works on the Mafia ranging from those of a criminologist, Pino Arlacchi, to the memoirs of a former prime minister, GiulioAndreotti, who faces trial for allegedly getting rather too close to his topic have also been best-sellers.
Parliament elected him to the presidency in the spring of 1992, hours after the killing of a top Mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Falcone, had smashed the chances of the favourite, GiulioAndreotti (now on trial on charges of links with the Mafia).