William Mattioli

William Mattioli, usually called Bill, is a veteran Democratic senator and the father of Gloria Mattioli, Saul Burnstein’s wife. His most consequential role is as Saul’s political and familial opponent: he presses Saul to stop campaigning against Franco, arguing that the campaign could strengthen Soviet interests in Europe. Saul refuses to subordinate the issue to Cold War strategy, and Mattioli’s warning becomes the last thing he says to his son-in-law.

Identity and family position

Mattioli is an established figure in the Democratic Party and Saul’s father-in-law. When Saul is left alone in Washington in late July, Mattioli has taken Gloria and the children to Europe to show them the Tuscany of their ancestors. The family trip places him within a political and personal world Saul is beginning to leave behind: Saul has quit politics, broken with his wife, and become increasingly isolated from former allies.

Conflict with Saul Burnstein

As Saul campaigns against Franco, Mattioli is the veteran Democrat most determined to make him desist. He repeatedly invokes realism, pragmatism, prudence, threat, communism, peace, and security. His case is strategic: in an international climate shaped by Soviet military power, well-intentioned action against Franco might produce unjust consequences by advancing Russian interests in Europe.

Saul frames the matter in plainer moral terms: crime, dictator, victim, and murderer. He insists that Franco’s protection of Nazi war criminals and the impunity it affords cannot be excused by geopolitical calculations. Mattioli counters by suggesting that Saul’s intentions may not be as innocent as the family photograph he carries. He tells Saul that overthrowing Franco would serve Russian interests in Europe. These are the last words he directs to his son-in-law; Saul rises and leaves the senator’s office without saying goodbye.

Consequences and narrative significance

Mattioli’s political intervention becomes a rupture within Saul’s family as well as within his party. The narrator identifies him as the person who most persistently tried to dissuade Saul, giving the confrontation the weight of a long-running disagreement rather than a passing exchange. The scene also clarifies the cost of Saul’s position: in Mattioli’s view, a campaign grounded in opposition to Franco risks aiding the Soviet Union; for Saul, yielding would make political calculation an excuse for tolerating mass murder and a regime that shelters its perpetrators.

The conflict helps explain Saul’s isolation after leaving politics. Michael Morrison acknowledges both that Franco is a tyrant and that Spain’s democrats deserve support, but Saul rejects the qualification that follows. His insistence that the issue concerns conscience, not merely Russian or Spanish interests, stands in direct opposition to Mattioli’s strategic pragmatism. Bill remains a consequential presence in the story through that disagreement, even though the evidence gives no account of a reconciliation.