ROME (AP) – Veteran politician Francesco Cossiga, who led Italy's fight against domestic terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s but resigned after failing to save the life of a politician kidnapped by the Red Brigades, died on Tuesday. He was 82.

Cossiga had been hospitalized for over a week with heart and respiratory problems. His health took a ""drastic"" turn for the worse Monday night, and early Tuesday he was put back on life support, Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic said.
Cossiga declared himself ""politically dead"" in 1978 after the Red Brigades leftist terrorist group assassinated his mentor and friend Aldo Moro, the leader of the Christian Democrats and a former premier, two months after kidnapping him.
But Cossiga went on to lead a vigorous political life for several more years, including as prime minister and president of the republic, Italy's highest office.
As president in the mid-1980s, he used the largely ceremonial, head-of-state role to publicly lambast parliament and the judiciary in what some saw as an effort to spur reform in an increasingly inefficient, moribund postwar system of revolving door coalition governments.
Often accused of harboring political secrets, Cossiga, a staunch U.S. supporter, eventually admitted involvement in a shady Cold War-era, anti-Communist network known as Gladio.
In another murky, never resolved Italian case, Cossiga was premier in 1980 when an Italian domestic jetliner exploded in flight and crashed near the island of Ustica. Among theories for the jet's demise was a bomb planted by domestic terrorists, or an errant U.S. or French missile allegedly fired at a Libyan MiG streaking over the Mediterranean.
Various nicknames marked the stages of Cossiga's political career.