Word: claretta
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...still mum on Beinto Mussulinis whereabouts. But now it urged the controlled Italian press to talk volubly on Benito Mussolini's love life. Practically every paper added details to a tale familiar to gossips: Quite by chance in a Roman swimming pool, Benito Mussonlini met voluptuous curly haired Claretta Petacci, daughter of an obscure but ambitious Roman family...
...Latin fancy was fired. Swiftly he put aside his other mistresses,* enthroned Claretta ina resident villa linked by private phone to the Palazzo Venezia. The new favorite flaunted her power. She managed the Duce's fan mail, dragged him on shopping tours, hired & fired officeholders in what Corriere della Sera called the manner of a "second-rate Maintenon," responsible for the "intellectual degradation of her passionate friend...
Infatuated Benito Mussolini often followed Claretta's counsel on foreign policy. During the Spanish Civil War General Francisco Franco petitioned Rome for two more divisions. "What shall I do?" the Duce asked his paramour. "Bimbo," she replied, "do send the divisions. General Franco is so simpatico." When the time came to attack Greece, Claretta approved because the Greek Ambassador had snubbed her at diplomatic receptions...
...Petacci family prospered, moved to a palace on Monte Mario. Claretta's physician brother became well-to-do. Claretta's mother became unofficial autocrat of Italian movies. Her sister Maria pleased the Duce, too. She became a radio and film star...
...Among other women in his life: Revolutionist Angelica Balabanoff; Barmaid Rachele Guidi, his common-law wife (later legal) for ten years; the brilliant exiled Jewess, Margherita Sarfatti; the sisters Maria and Francesca Ferroni; and slim, brown-eyed Claretta Petacci, daughter of a former Vatican surgeon...