1963 - 1967

In 1963, the then Deputy Director General of Personnel, Girolamo Pignatti Morano di Custoza, proposed that Luigi Vittorio follow him to Caracas as his deputy. Luigi Vittorio arrived in Caracas at a historical-political moment when crime, urban guerrilla warfare, and bombings were the order of the day.

 

Luigi Vittorio fitted very well into the Venezuelan context, not only professionally but also personally. Many travels, from the Orinoco to the Amacuro Delta to the Andes-Merida; Luigi Vittorio attended the Universitad Central in anonymity and collected documentation on guerrilla warfare, which in 1968 he would collect in a publication brought out with the collaboration of prof. Emilio Peruzzi: “Guerrilla Warfare and Politics: The Example of Venezuela (1962-1969)” (ed Valmartina, Florence - under the pseudonym Luigi Valsalice), a volume that would be translated into Spanish and that would be highly praised by President Betancourt, Rangel and Petkov (“the best book on the guerrilla period”).

 

As a diplomat, Luigi Vittorio was highly regarded in Caracas where he was called the “best connoisseur of Venezuelan politics.” On June 17, 1967,he was transferred to Warsaw, where he intensified his diplomatic network partly due to the familiarity he obtained in the Polish language, which he would maintain throughout his life, so much so that even in old age he loved to read newspapers in the original language.