Today marks 61 years of the death of Enrico Mattei, a disappearance still shrouded in mystery. It was the 27 October 1962, when the Italian entrepreneur and politician died in a plane crash near Bascape airport, near Pavia, together with his pilot Irnerio Bertuzzi and to the American journalist William L. McHale of the Time–Life magazine, commissioned to write an article about him.
Mystery, to this day, still unsolved as the investigations have never completely clarified the events surrounding his death.
A few years before his death, Enrico Mattei, however, had completed the masterpiece that Italy still recognizes in him: the foundation, in 1953, of Eni, originally an acronym for Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, a multinational company created by the Italian State as a public body and of which Mattei himself was president until his death, for almost a decade.
The plane crash
Enrico Mattei was at on board the Morane-Saulnier MS.760 Paris I-SNAP, directed from Catania to Milan, when crashed in the countryside of Bascapè during the approach to Linate airport probably due to an attack by unknown persons.
According to some witnesses, the main one was the farmer Mario Ronchi (who later recanted his testimony), lThe plane would have exploded in flight.
His death in a plane crash gave birth to many conspiracy theories. The investigations into the incident lasted years and were also hampered by serious misdirections.
The challenge to the Seven Sisters and the possible attack
Given Mattei's fundamental role in the foundation and management of Eni, as well as his independent policies in the energy sector and his challenge to predominance of “Seven Sisters”, a term created by the entrepreneur himself to indicate the main international oil companies, his death has raised suspicions of a possible involvement of foreign interests or industrial groups that could have benefited from its disappearance.
It was, in fact, precisely his strategy undermine the position dominant gods strong powers of black gold which, according to some reconstructions, cost him his death. Although there was never any certainty, it immediately seemed clear that the plane crash was in fact an attack. Attack that prevented Mattei from perfecting one historic production agreement with Algeria, which conflicted with the interests of the "Seven Sisters".
Today, however, some theories suggest that men linked to the mafia they may have sabotaged his personal plane. According to this theory, the journalist's fate is also linked to Mattei's death Mauro De Mauro, kidnapped by Cosa Nostra and never found again. De Mauro, in fact, was killed by the mafia as he was about to disclose what he had discovered about Mattei's death.
Some theories on Mattei's death
To date, Mattei's death is still the subject of speculation and it is not possible to give a certain answer as to what happened.
Here are some of the main theories regarding his death:
- Plane sabotage: A theory supported in a 1970 investigative book put forward the hypothesis that Mattei's plane had been sabotaged by an individual disguised as a policeman known as "Captain Grillo." This person was seen near the plane before departure to Catania.
- Involvement of the French secret services: In 1971, former French secret service agent Thyraud De Vosjoli published a memoir in which he claimed that the sabotage of Mattei's plane may have been the work of a Corsican French secret service agent called Laurent.
- Prevent the planned coup d'état in Libya: According to a 1972 investigative book, Mattei was killed to prevent him from carrying out an alleged coup d'état plan in Libya, which was being prepared in those days.
- Mafia involvement: A scholar, Michele Pantaleone, claimed that Carlos Marcello, an Italian-American boss, was secretly in Catania in the days of the crash of Mattei's plane on behalf of some US oil companies.
- Involvement of the Gladio organization: In 1990, the then Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti made public the lists of members of the secret organization Gladio, and some names were linked to people linked to Mattei.
- Political motives: In a book published in 2019, historian Egidio Ceccato presented the idea that Mattei may have become a victim of the bitter politics of the Cold War and the interests of multinational oil companies. His policy of giving oil-producing countries in North Africa and the Near East 75% instead of 50% of royalties had caused friction with the Seven Sisters and with the balance of power of the Cold War.
The figure of Mattei
Enrico Mattei, born in Acqualagna in 1906, was a politician, partisan, public manager and key entrepreneur in the post-war Italian economic miracle. It was the founder of Eni, the largest Italian company by turnover.
Mattei became famous for his vision in the energy sector and for playing a key role in ensuring that Italy had greater control of its oil resources. During his tenure as president of Eni, he worked to ensure that Italy developed its oil and natural gas production, reducing its dependence on imports.
Mattei was commissioned by the Italian State to dismantle Agip after World War II, but instead of doing so, he had the intuition to reorganize the company, founding Eni, with Agip as its backbone. This led to a great development, with initiatives such as the promotion of oil drilling in the Po Valley, the construction of methane pipelines and oil agreements in the Middle East and with the Soviet Union.
These initiatives contributed to breaking the 'Seven Sisters' oligopoly, which then dominated the world oil industry, namely Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Standard oil of California (Socal), Gulf oil, the Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell and the British British petroleum. Mattei also introduced the principle according to which the countries owning the reserves had to receive the 75% of the profits resulting from the exploitation of the deposits.
Enrico Mattei is buried in Matelica, the city where he spent most of his life, and where part of his family currently lives.
