Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 2

Luce files, lot 64 F 26, “Letters 1953”

No. 753
The Ambassador in Italy (Luce) to the President

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Rome, November 3, 1953.

Dear Mr. President: The attached paper sets forth my own estimate of the Italian political situation, which as you know, is in a state of acute crisis.

It is as briefly presented as this highly complex scene, in which many political forces are operative, will permit.

When you have read it, I think you will agree that it foreshadows events which are bound to have grim and widespread consequences for U.S. Foreign Policy.

I further venture to say that any refutation of this melancholy estimate must be made more on the grounds of faith than political facts.

I am sending, as I think you would want me to, copies of this paper to Foster and Allen Dulles.¹

[Enclosure]

Memorandum by the Ambassador in Italy (Luce)

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eyes only

[Rome, November 3, 1953.]

Estimate of the Italian Situation

(As of November 1, 1953)

I. The Communist Party leads the only well-organized, well-financed, strongly disciplined, dynamic mass movement in Italy. The Cominform Left (including Nenni Socialists) polled 37% of the vote in the June elections. Its strength is growing steadily. If it gains only 4% more from the Center to Right parties by the next elections (which will take place either in the Spring of ’54 or ’55), the President of Italy will be required by the Constitution to call upon a Cominform leader (Nenni or Togliatti) to form the next government.

II. The four Center parties are disorganized, discouraged, and disunited.

(a) The three smaller parties (Republicans, Liberals, Saragat Socialists, 9.1%) are discredited, divided internally, without firm leadership, coherent policies or sufficient funds.

(b) The Christian Democratic Party itself (40.1%) is at present two million four hundred thousand dollars in debt, and cannot find the funds to float it off the rocks, no less to put it back in business. Worst of all, the CD Party lacks any program to present to the people.

(c) The Pella government can fall at any time. It is, by its own definition, a “transition government.” As presently consituted, if it is not dead, it is dormant. Only the pressures converging on it from Left and Right keep it standing on its feet.

III. The Monarchist Party (6.9%) is conservative, if not reactionary. It seeks popularity and power, but its program is essentially constructed to protect the interests of the land holders and industrialists, and has no appeal to the masses apart from its sentimental championship of the exiled monarchy. It is fairly well heeled. Its tendency is towards a more authoritarian government: there are elements in the Party that will go for Dictatorship as well as Monarchy.

IV. The Fascist Party (the MSI, 5.8%) is anti-American, isolationist, nationalisitic, currently ineffectual, but in view of the steady rise of the Left and the slow deterioration of the Democratic Center parties—opportunistically hopeful.

V. All the evidence points to the fact that if rigorous political action is not taken by the non-Communist opposition, within two years Italy will be the first Western Democratic nation, by legal democratic procedures, to get a Communist government.

(a) In this event one of the following conditions will come about:

(1) The “neutralization” of Italy in the struggle between Russia and the West. (The Nenni solution)

(2) A Communist coup d’état (as in Czechoslovakia) putting Italy solidly within the Kremlin orbit. (The Togliatti solution)

(3) The renascence of a Dictatorship of the Right, based on force. And/or

(4) Efforts to retore the Monarchy

(5) Any of the above conditions, encountering organized resistance may result in civil war in Italy.

VI. There are only four possible alternatives to Communism in Italy today:

(a) The successful reconstruction and reorganization of the Center parties and their programs.

(b) The successful restoration of the Monarchy.

(c) A successful Dictatorship of the Right.

(d) A combination of (b) and (c).

VII. I assume that Alternative (a) is the only one compatible with both US political ideology and US foreign policies. It has small chance of success, however, without vigorous American support. And, in my opinion, even with that support its chances are not much more than even.

VIII. American support to Alternative (a) should be envisaged essentially as urgent delaying action to give the Center parties time to reform their ranks, regain prestige, and initiate vote-getting programs.

. . . . . . .

(1) In view of the poor physical resources of Italy and its presently insoluble overpopulation-unemployment problem, no democratic economic measures which the present government could take, short of bankruptcy, can be counted on to stop the growth of the Cominform Left. The Left simply takes (and gets) the political credit for them, and then raises the economic ante beyond the government’s means to meet it.

(2) No overt economic measures which the US Congress can take—unless the sums are vast—can long delay it, either.

Since 1945, more than three billion dollars of US aid have gone to Italy. This overt aid has rehabilitated Italy, but it has not stopped the march of Communism.

(3) Delaying and supporting US political actions which would help most to halt the political appeal of Communism and strengthen the Center parties are, in the order of their importance:

(a) the implementation (partial or complete) of the October 8th decision on Trieste;

(b) US world leadership in worldwide measures to solve the overpopulation problem;

(c) stabilization of world currencies;

(d) opening of US and other markets to Italian trade.

(4) Our proposal to resolve the Trieste question to Italy’s satisfaction was envisaged from the first as the most effective delaying and supporting action we could now take to strengthen pro-Western Italian political elements and to forward US foreign policies. It Was intended to give Pella successful leadership of a nationalistic issue that transcends all other issues in Italy in popularity.

When the October 8th decision was first announced, it promised to achieve these objectives. It united the people behind Pella’s leadership, partially restored the prestige of the CD Party, promised to stabilize Pella’s government for at least a year, greatly improved US–Ital relations and the chances of furthering our EDC, NATO, and Facilities programs.

US–UK delay in implementing the October 8th decision (the transfer, partial or complete, of Zone A to Italy) now threatens to destroy all these calculated effects of this delaying action. The Trieste issue has begun to backfire on Pella. There is a growing suspicion in Italy that the US–UK mean to weasel, or backtrack on the October 8th decision (as they did on the 1948 Declaration) in order to “save the face” of Communist Tito, Dictator of Italy’s historic enemy, Yugoslavia.

conclusions

A. The implementation—partial or complete—of the October 8th decision is the only immediate political act we can effectively take in support of the Democratic Center government in Italy. If the US and UK renege on the October 8th decision, or chisel or stall too long in implementing it, Pella’s government will crumble, the prestige of the CD Party may be damaged beyond repair, and US world leadership in Italy will be repudiated.

B. If the CD government falls on the Trieste issue, the other delaying political acts which America could take (US leadership of a world plan for emigration measures, stabilization of currency, opening of our markets to Italian trade) will come too late (assuming that they come at all) to save Italy from Communism.

C. The successful solution of Trieste is not in itself a cure-all to the Italian political situation. …

. . . . . . .

1. The source text is unsigned. The copy of the letter which Luce sent to John Foster Dulles, along with a brief covering letter, dated Nov. 3, is in file 765.00/11–353.