While stumbling around checking sources on the Lockheed bribery trap and Aldo Mora’s demise (he was told by Kissinger not to bring in the political left faction into the Christian Democratic Party in Italy as way to stabilize the country’s economy) back in the 1970’s by supposedly communist leftists, I found this quote. The Wikipedia article was posted only in Italian so I used the highlight and translation feature to read it….quite a story. Here’s one summation of what the bribery meant overall to all the countries in on the take…
In 1976 Anthony Sampson anticipates the considerations of Felisetti, in the year of the Lockheed elections, and goes in a more controversial direction on Italian democracy:
"In European societies the nuances of moderate and traditional forms of corruption are part of a more delicate balance, a low price to be paid for the continuation of Christian Democracy in Italy, the Monarchy in the Netherlands, and the Atlantic Alliance itself. Clearly the first results of the scandals will be painful for both the American government and the European governments… Italian communists are already showing gains in the polls and NATO’s prestige is greatly clouded. But the reasons that support the cover-in of corruption for the security of the common defense are very dangerous… Italian communists rejoice that their conservative opponents have been disguised as scammers in Italy, although they cannot pretend to ignore that the tool of the discovery of bribes was not the Italian opposition, but the American democratic system[46]»
Full entry at Wikipedia in Italian…