When Gianni de Michelis, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Italy, attended a semi-official Nato anniversary conference organised by Washington's Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and held with some formality at the Palais d'Enghien in Brussels, he was accompanied by a handsome blonde with unspecified duties on the state-owned ENI or possibly the Socialist Party of Italy payroll; a brunette with unspecified duties on the state-owned ENI or possibly the Socialist Party of Italy payroll; several personal political aides (he had added some three hundred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs payroll as opposed to the usual dozen); and a larger train of both diplomats and seconded military officers than any other attending Nato minister or uniformed potentate, including the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe - even though that exalted rank is much noted for the imperial magnitude of its escorting staff.

LRB 19 August 1993 | PDF Download