1952 - 1962

He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 16, 1952, and was assigned to the General Directorate (DG) of Personnel, in the Secretariat of then Minister Maurilio Coppini, who had chosen him because he knew Russian. Coppini had been Consul in Kharkov, Ukraine in the 1930s.

 

As was the practice at the Ministry, after a year he was sent for six months “volunteering” at the Consulate General in Munich. He attends the Salzsburg Seminar for American Studies for a month.

 

In August 1953 he returns as scheduled to the Ministry and is assigned again to DG Personnel, and then briefly to the Press Service (during the Trieste crisis) and on March 1, 1954 again to DG Personnel.

 

As the first overseas post he obtains the direction of a Vice Consulate Newark (NJ) in the United States, where he arrives on April 23, 1955. In the fall of 1956 he is seconded for a very short time to the Representation to the United Nations (Suez and Hungary crises).

In May 1957 Luigi Vittorio is transferred to Ankara where he arrives on October 1, 1957. Luigi Vittorio is able to speak and write in Turkish. On July 10, 1959, then Minister Plenipotentiary Roberto Gaja, Head of Mission in Sofia, Bulgaria, offered to go with him to Sofia as number two. And once again the ease of learning languages will enable Luigi Vittorio to read and understand Bulgarian.

 

In March 1962, Luigi Vittorio was called back to the Ministry in Rome, and assigned once again, at his explicit request, to DG Personnel.