But when the correspondents probed further, particularly about his friendship with Gianfranco Fini, the leader of the National Alliance, a descendant of the neofascist Italian Social Movement, he accused them all of being "communists" - the ultimate insult, from those on the right in Italy against anyone with leftwing leanings.
Just a few months later, Berlusconi won his first election as part of a coalition that included National Alliance.
"He presented as a businessman, knowing full well he was going to enter politics and this was a way of getting exposure in the world's press," said Chris Warde-Jones, a photographer who was at the press conference. "But he resented being questioned." The three-time Italian prime minister never returned to speak at the association, refusing invitations on the grounds that he found foreign newspapers "offensive".
All of which makes the association's move into the first floor of the Rome building in which Berlusconi lived for 25 years all the more strange. Correspondents who for the best part of a century were able to work from a headquarters provided by the Italian state are now based in a 16th-century palazzo where the politician, who died last year, held his most important political meetings - and some of his notorious "bunga bunga" sex parties.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 19, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 19, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian.
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