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

Luce files, lot 64 F 26, “Correspondence & Miscellaneous 1954”

No. 788
The Ambassador in Italy (Luce) to C. D. Jackson

[Rome,] September 29, 1954.

[Dear C. D.:] Thanks for shepherding Vanoni. Let’s hope there will be some payoff for the U.S. in your noble efforts.

Thanks entirely to the Prexy’s letter to Tito,¹ we are in sight of a Trieste settlement. If it does come off (and I’m a pretzel in every joint from crossing myself), it will be just “in the nick.” If it doesn’t, I won’t even have a popgun left to go bear hunting with in the Via Botteghe Oscure.

If (a) the London Conference² throws up a “solution”—just for the sake of throwing up something—that postpones and delays German sovereignty and rearmament, and if (b) the British Labor Party votes against German rearmament, and if (c) a clean determined new American policy line does not quickly follow a failure to solve German rearmament question, then our Italian friends will begin to jump onto the Communist bandwagon. The Italian politicos who have been so deeply committed to us in the past that they cannot possibly scramble aboard, will begin to search for any other vehicle in which to join the parade, since otherwise (they will figure) they’ll be following involuntarily anyway—in tumbrils.

. . . . . . .

An important Cabinet Minister said to me a few days ago, in a moment of Italian agonizing reappraising, “Our nation acts only out of physical fear, or with the hope of material gain. The U.S. must now do one of two things: bind us to its side with the hope of material gain, or terrify us with the consequences if we leave you. It’s all very well to say, ‘Europe must make up its own mind,’ but in order for us to make it up intelligently, you must say what you will do if we finally make it up in favor of Russia.”

For the moment, however, the Government is not addressing itself to these problems vigorously. The Wilma Montesi case³ absorbs the attention of the whole nation to the exclusion of such minor matters as the collapse of the European Defense System. It is, however, not a minor matter that this scandal may well collapse the Government.

Over here, every report we get is that Ike has staked his whole prestige on the election of a Republican Congress, in terms of domestic issues. I fear that, accordingly, he is going to lose both Congress and prestige. I still think he could pull the independent voter back into camp with a foreign policy speech directed to the U.S. voter, somewhat along the lines my Italian friends say must be made to them. “My friends … follow me to the promised land, or else—it will be the hell of war for all of us.”

In any event, no matter what he does, or how it all comes out, I’m for him to the end. Because he’s a man, and because he is a very good man. And in the kind of world we live in today, this makes him a sort of genius. It also suggests the possibility of martyrdom.

. . . . . . .

Clare Boothe Luce

1. President Eisenhower’s letter of Sept. 10, 1954, to Tito is scheduled for publication in volume viii.
2. Reference is to the London Nine-Power Conference described in footnote 2, supra.
3. Background on the Montesi case is provided in footnote 2, Document 774. On Sept. 18 Prime Minister Scelba announced the resignation of Foreign Minister Attilio Piccioni, whose son had been implicated in the Montesi case, and the appointment of Gaetano Martino as his successor. Martino had served as Minister of Public Education in the Scelba cabinet. The Embassy’s preliminary comments on the cabinet changes are in despatch 1103 from Rome, Sept. 20. (765.00/9–2054)