Giuseppe Saragat

Giuseppe Saragat (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈsaːraɡat]; 19 September 1898 – 11 June 1988) was an Italian politician who was the fifth President of the Italian Republic from 1964 to 1971.

Giuseppe Saragat with daughter Ernestina and grandchild, Rome, April 1963.

Saragat was born in Turin, from Sardinian parents. He died in Rome on 11 June 1988. He is said to have been an atheist.

Member of the United Socialist Party since 1922, he moved to Vienna in 1926 and to France in 1929 and joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1930. He was a reformist democratic socialist, who split from the Italian Socialist Party in 1947, out of concern over its close (at the time) alliance with the communists, to found the Socialist Party of Italian Workers, which would soon become the Italian Democratic Socialist Party. He was to be the latter's paramount leader for the rest of his life.

He had been Minister without portfolio for the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity in 1944 and ambassador in Paris for two years, from 1945 to 1946, Saragat was appointed as President of the Constituent Assembly of Italy. Subsequently he was nominated as Foreign minister from 1963 to 1964, and chosen as President of the Italian Republic in 1964. His election was the result of one of the rare instances of unity in the Italian left, and followed rumours of a possible neo-fascist coup during Antonio Segni's presidency.