"If You Give Up, They Win"

Like many fashionable Italians, Alessandro De Tomaso, owner of the Maserati car company, carries an elegant man's handbag dangling from a shoulder strap. But his bag is unusual in one respect. By slipping his hand through an open flap on the side, De Tomaso can quickly grab a .38 revolver that he keeps cradled inside. Says he: "It is just a normal hazard of business life in Italy today."

Nowhere in the world are such defensive tactics so pervasive--or extreme. Although American executives would be appalled by the kind of precautions that Italians must take, the Italians themselves shrug off personal danger as just one more situation requiring the ancient art of arrangiarsi (literally, to make shift) --getting the upper hand on life's many minor irritations. Since the country's wave of kidnapings developed in the early 1970s, 241 Italians have been snatched for ransom. Top executives remain prime victims. Two weeks ago, Movie Producer Niccolo De Nora was released after a record 524 days in captivity; his ordeal went on so long because his family reportedly had to raise the ransom ($4 million or more) in installments. The rich and powerful have been joined by middle managers and even plant foremen as targets for terror. So most Italian businessmen now take defensive measures.

Personal bodyguards are banned under Italian law (to prevent a return of the kind of private armies that were common in 19th century Italy), but guards legally can be hired to protect the cash an individual carries in his wallet, and many take advantage of this loophole. The number of security firms has soared, as have sales of watchdogs, bulletproof vests, armored sedans and kidnap insurance policies--forbidden in Italy but available elsewhere.

Like some other Italians, Carlo De Benedetti, Olivetti's managing director and deputy chairman, has moved his family out of the country; his wife and three children have lived in Switzerland for the past three years. But few businessmen themselves have been prompted to leave, and most would regard such a move with distaste. Says Alfa Romeo Chairman Gaetano Cortesi of the kidnaping threat: "If it happens, it happens. But if you give up, they win." Cortesire-Ruoi FREY fuses to hire bodyguards, yet he tries to keep his movements unpredictable. He never buys his newspaper from the same stand, never makes airline or hotel reservations in advance and uses taxis rather than a company car.

Having recovered from a terrorist ambush two years ago, when he was shot eight times while driving to work, Chevron Boss Giovanni Theodoli, the president of the Italian association of petroleum companies, also practices unpredictability. When the time comes for the association's bimonthly meeting, only Theodoli knows in advance where the gathering will be, and members call him an hour beforehand to get a code number for the site.

Nearly all companies have taken steps to protect their officers. Fiat is reported to have prepared a highly confidential booklet for some 3,000 executives, "advising standard precautions such as varying daily travel, watching for suspicious strangers and carefully checking one's car. A group of 50 heads of small-and medium-size businesses in northern Italy have organized themselves into a modern version of the tontine, a primitive 17th century insurance company. They have put together a mutual-benefit ransom society so that if any member is held hostage, all participants will put up cash to buy his freedom.

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