EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is from the Watchdog’s journal entry of over half a life time ago. It has not been altered, despite the embarrasing vanity of a young man. I am told that the next day the New York Times carried a front page photograph from which I was recognizable, presumably one that June Vance had taken and had been handed over to the Vatican authorities. It was an inestimable honor to have been of service.
Sunday May 20. 1972 was our first day in Rome. I had unintentionally but carelessly affronted my mother-in-law June at the hotel breakfast table and my wife Terry and mother Hannah offered me condescending sympathy for my faux pas.
We had been traveling through France, Switzerland and now Italy together and until that morning I had evaded Mother’s suggestion that I take a bus tour with them. The tour races us through the streets of Rome stopping only briefly for others to take snapshots, and we all are happy when the bus parked before some relic shops on the fringe of the square before St. Peter’s Cathedral so that we could escape to wander through the Basilica and see what we could of the Vatican City. Though my mother and I are Jewish, June a Christian Scientist, and Terry a Unitarian, we all looked forward to the prospect of seeing the Pope give his blessing at noon.
At my suggestion we first walked the length of St. Peters by the middle aisle so that we could get an overall concept and then returned to the front in preparation for viewing the chapels and art works that line the side aisles. June wandered over to the first chapel on the right which housed Michael Angelo’s famous Pietà, while I distracted myself, Terry and Mother by standing on the red circle near the front entrance on which Charlemagne was crowned by the Pope in 800 AD before the construction of the present St. Peters. Thirty five years old, the head of construction and management companies, owner of six apartment complexes in Central Pennsylvania, and father of three, my well-developed ego whispered in my ear that I was not unworthy to stand in Charlemagne’s place!
As I started to saunter toward the right aisle my attention was arrested by a flash followed by a man’s guttural cries and loud thuds. The spectators let out a moan as they stepped back in shock from in front of the first chapel.
I took a couple of steps to see through the crowd and saw a bearded man standing behind a large statue and swinging a sledge-type hand hammer while yelling to viewers. I turned to hand off my guide book to Mother or Terry, did not wish to waste the precious seconds to reach them and simply threw the book in their direction. No one in the throng had moved to stop this atrocious act and, as I ran up and swung my long legs and body over the banister that separated the viewers from the chapel, I studied the mad man, making sure that neither he nor any visible confederate had a gun (in which case I might well have changed the direction of my charge.) I ran up to the right side of the statue in preparation to grab his arm when he would aim his next blow. Since he was standing slightly to the right and behind the statue, he was in an impossible position to swing downward without having to risk being thrown by me from his higher perch. (Though never very athletic, I do stand six foot four inches tall, weigh 185 pounds, and jog a mile several days a week on our “farm.”)
But the assailant was not looking for a fight. Rather I was simply being used by him to turn to the second part of his pre-conceived drama as he quickly retreated upon my approach first to a thirty inch high pilaster to the right rear of the statue and then stepping up to the adjoining five foot pilaster which stood in the far right corner of the chapel. From there he shouted his rationalizations to the horrified crowd as I placed myself between the statue and him. As he was exhorting the crowd I felt the need to symbolically express my protest and, seeing a little plastic candy basket on the floor nearby, I stepped down momentarily, picked it up and futilely threw it up at him, harmlessly hitting him on the chest. By now several men had arrived and clawed at the madman’s ankles from below his perch. I had regained my elevated position between the madman and the Pieta. Several men yelled in Italian for the police who did not come. (We learned later that they had gone out into the square to prepare for the protection of the Pope at noon.) I thought it would be much better to allow the assailant to continue his speech making from his isolated and innocuous position until the police came rather than to pull him down and risk the crowd harming him. Nevertheless as others pulled at his ankles, I was caught up by the action and also helped pull him down but managed to catch him as he fell in my direction, absorbing most of his weight as his chest was caught between my left shoulder and my face, leaving me with the feeling of a bloody nose and an abrasion on the top of my nose which lasted several days. The crowd dragged him off as I ineffectively protested in loud English that they should not harm him.
As I surveyed the situation I saw the left hand of the Madonna lying intact as thought pleading from the floor. Scattered across the chapel were marble chips which several other men and I carefully collected and placed on the base of the statue. I carefully surveyed the area to make sure that everything appeared in order and that no one was pocketing souvenirs and then climbed out from the chapel. Men stood in front of the banister weeping as thought their children had been mangled before their eyes.
June had stood next to the assailant before he jumped over the banister into the chapel and had regained sufficient composure after the initial horror to take pictures on her simple camera which later that afternoon we turned over to Francesco Vacchini, a Vatican official and which, to date, have not yet been returned.
Terry had a shocked look on her face and tears running from her eyes and walked towards me clutching the arm of my diminutive mother. My wife had feared for my safety in that the flash and thuds had suggested a bombing and assassins.
I had no desire to await the reporters since I have shunned publicity all my business career, questioning the desirability of being readily recognized and fearing other’s envy and the exposure of the children to kidnapping. Those persons with whom I interact usually know who I am and treat me in a manner of commensurate with my achievements. Besides I am highly skilled in projecting to strangers the manner in which I expect to be treated.
As the significance of what had occurred sunk in as we attempted to resume our tour of the cathedral, I joked to my family- “If Catholics have been right all the time, while the rest of you are burning in hell I may will get a free pass into heaven.” The joke so caught my imagination that moments later, as I watched others dabbing their heads with holy water close to the scene of the recent disorder, I could not resist the urge- yes, me a confirmed agnostic with a Jewish background- to dab my forehead with the holy water lying in the fount of Bernini’s cherubs!
Every man must question his basic courage and decisiveness and I suspect that I have had reason to question my bravery and to consequently fantasize great acts more than most persons. It is gratifying beyond description to look back upon one’s cool and decisive response to an emergency and to subsequently bask in the adoration of one’s family. It also gave me an insight into what constitutes bravery.
A revelation to me from my experience is that most acts of perilous social service are probably performed by persons used to resolving problems, directing others and with a strong sense of self importance rather than by people who have less than normal fear.
As an example, I met a couple the following day who had been viewing the Pieta and they described to me how the assailant had jumped over the banister, ran up behind the statue, thrown off his cloak which knocked over the candelabra and, exposing the mallet, had commence his terrible attack on the Madonna. The gentleman who was apparently in his late forties and who came from Brooklyn said that his first thought was that it was “a demonstration to show that the statue was unbreakable”. Incredible? I think not.
Doubts and fears concerning whether he should act distorted the obvious reality. On the other hand, the years of being boss, of taking charge, of the gradual building of right to lead and decide caused me to unemotionally and calculatedly take the entire situation, evaluate the amount of risk (minimal risk for maximum results), and take proper action on four priorities as they became apparent: 1) Stop the damage to the statue; 2) Contain the madman until the police could arrive; 3) Try to protect the assailant from harm once he was neutralized; and 4) Pick up and protect the pieces from the statue so that it could be restored. I suspect that he men who lead the charges from the beaches into the enemy infested hills are those who are acting more from their habit of taking charge and their impatience with lack of decisive action rather than from motivations in common with individuals who perform dangerous acts to their persons such as tight rope walkers and test pilots.
After the Italian press (to the extent that my wife could glean from her limited Italian) seemed to indicate that the “foreign” tourists had stood immobile and that a woman had tried to sell her film to the highest bidder (June had given her film to the authorities), I finally went to talk to the Vatican representative of Il Tempo, a Roman newspaper. A former report from the London Times, Guglielmo Rospigliosi was gracious to make reference to my impressions in a follow up article the next day. According to Mr. Rospigliosi the assailant, Laszlo Toth, was a religious fanatic who thought it sacrilegious to portray God as having a mother and was only aiming his blows at the Madonna. Toth was a Hungarian who had most recently resided in Australia and repeatedly sought interviews with the Pope and apparently attacked the Pieta to publicize his beliefs.
In passing I mentioned that I had mistakenly assumed that the statue was made of plaster and that fine chips had flown in all directions and that the wrist and hand had appeared hollow. Mr. Rospigliosi excitedly related how two fingers had carelessly been broken from the hand a hundred years ago and that it had been drilled in order to make appropriate repairs which led to my momentary confusion of marble for plaster.
A favorite movie of mine is the western, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.” At the end Jimmy Stewart portrays an elderly statesmen in a moment of personal satisfaction with himself and enjoy great courtesies from a railroad conductor, as well he was entitled to having been a Congressman, Ambassador to England, and earlier and presently a Senator. His smugness is crushed when he realizes that the honors being rendered were strictly based upon the mistaken legend that Stewart had killed a desperado years before. As we had lunch after the Pieta episode in a neighborhood Italian restaurant not far from St. Peters, my Mother urged that I contact the papers and I resisted the strong impulse with the observation that after all of my building and business accomplishments and my aspirations for future successes, I would hate to be known by my acquaintances simply as the “man who saved the Pieta.”
