The diaries (1961-1964) of Ettore Bernabei, general director of Rai

01 June 2026

by Gabriele Nicolò History certainly did not remain dormant, from 1961 to 1965: from the Second Vatican Council to the pontificate of John XXIII, from the Kennedy presidency to the Soviet de-Stalinization, up to the first center-left governments in Italy. In this crucial sentence Ettore Bernabei, appointed general director of Rai, represented a figure of strong importance in Italian culture and informal diplomacy. A diplomacy nourished by crucial contacts – from John XXIII to Paul VI, from Amintore Fanfani to Giorgio La Pira, from Soviet ambassadors to high-ranking US officials – which led Bernabei to play an intermediary role between the Holy See and the Soviet Union, along the delicate process of rapprochement between the Catholic Church and the communist world. The story of those events …