Italy seeks ways to meet wave of terrorist killings

March 21, 1980

Socialist President Sandro Pertini called a high-level meeting Thursday to discuss ways of countering a wave of leftist terrorist killings of judges in a move that came within hours after Christian Democratic Premier Francesco Cossiga's government collapsed.

Formation of a new government will be a formidable task. The Communists, No. 2 party in Parliament, say they will not support any government in which they have no cabinet seats, but the Christian Democrats have refused to include them, and the stand makes the composition of a working majority in Parliament all but impossible.