One hundred years after his birth, Umberto Minopoli as president of the Italian Nuclear Association and the Third Republic association have recently organized a round table in Rome to commemorate the extraordinary figure of Happy Hippolytus, scientist, manager and politician, one of the architects of Italy's post-war recovery.
It clearly emerged that in those years a management group had a clear strategy in mind based on trinomial research-innovation, energy, industrial policy. A vision whose implementation was then interrupted by a conspiracy whose contours have not yet been fully clarified and which in any case is at the origin of the progressive fall in the rate of development of our country.
On the figure of Hippolytus and on the "miracle" of Italy in those years, we publish a reflection by Salvatore Toriello who as a former manager of Finmeccanica had the opportunity to meet and discuss with Ippolito about those hopes and the cause of their decline.
"There was a time, between the 50s and 70s of the past century, in which Italy was present in cutting-edge technologies to a much more than proportional extent with respect to the size of its economy. It was a time of great achievements, of scientific achievements, of social progress. It was the time of a boom which was not limited to substantial economic growth, but invested entrepreneurial impetus and a commitment to building the future which, seen from today, appear as a sort of golden age experienced by our country.
Felice Ippolito was one of the protagonists of that time. He was an exponent of that entrepreneurial elite who, operating in the public and private fields, made Italy one of the industrial powers of the world which was then defined as Western. In remembering him one hundred years after his birth, we intend to remember his ability to formulate a tall, challenging project, and to pursue it by aggregating the most disparate professionals for its realization in the belief that innovation can only be born from their integration in times of advanced and increasingly complex technologies.
Since the world is changing with progressively increasing speed, the circumstance that he found himself applying his method to nuclear energy today can be considered secondary. It is secondary because the technologies available today, first and foremost renewable energies, offer other paths along which Hippolytus' project of energy self-sufficiency can be pursued. It is also secondary because in its time the design of nuclearization collided with the very powerful interests of the oil companies in a conflict which it then had to pay for with heavy and specious legal consequences. But it is by no means secondary as an example of the ability to formulate a horizon of great value for the entire country and pursue it effectively, making it a powerful driver for the growth of skills in the most diverse fields.
In few years Italy, which in many respects was still an "Italietta", became the third world power in civilian nuclear power by acquiring first-rate technical and scientific capabilities. After all, it was the time in which Italy excelled in many other fields: from highways to iron and steel, from telecommunications to chemistry. Vision, great planning ability, openness to innovation and research, decision-making efficiency, interdisciplinarity were characteristics of Italy at that time fueled by the stimulus and commitment of a generation of great entrepreneurs well represented by Felice Ippolito. Remembering him one hundred years after his birth, we also recall a time from which we can draw examples and lessons that would have a lot to say for overcoming the difficulties that Italy is going through in the years we are now experiencing".
