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

033.1100 ST/11–154

No. 789
Memorandum by the Director of the Foreign Operations Administration (Stassen) to the Secretary of State¹

top secret

Washington, November 1, 1954.

• Subject: Italy Trip—October 26–27, 1954

I. From my conferences with Ministers of the Government of Italy, reported in Embassy cables,² and with the U.S. country team, I have the following impressions:

a. The Government of Italy is finally convinced of the danger from the internal Communist-led unions and from the internal Communist party and is preparing to move against the danger, but had divided counsel within itself and is inclined to repeatedly postpone.

b. The Ministers look for external policy encouragement from other European countries or from NATO, in moving against the Communist party internally.

c. The Government has repeatedly claimed that the economic problems of Italy, particularly unemployment, had to be solved first before the Communist party can be dealt with effectively.

d. The Ministers seemed to be somewhat impressed by my comment that more jobs could be created only through more investment, that adequate investment must be both private and public, from internal and external sources, that the major bar to such investment was the danger from the Communist-directed CGIL Union, that therefore the CGIL was a major cause of chronic unemployment.

. . . . . . .

1. The memorandum was also addressed to the Secretary of Defense, the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and the Chairman of the Operations Coordinating Board. Stassen also visited Yugoslavia Oct. 24–26 and Spain Oct. 27–29. For a memorandum reporting on his visit to Spain, which Stassen sent to the Secretary of State and other U.S. officials on Nov. 1, see Document 923. A similar memorandum reporting on his visit to Yugoslavia, also dated Nov. 1, is scheduled for publication in volume viii. Stassen summarized the conclusions in each of the three memoranda in a separate memorandum to President Eisenhower, which he personally gave to the President on Nov. 1. (Eisenhower Library, Eisenhower papers, Whitman file)
2. A memorandum of conversation between Stassen and Prime Minister Scelba on Oct. 27 was attached to despatch 916 from Rome, Nov. 8. (765.5 MSP/11–854) A memorandum of Stassen’s conversation with Foreign Minister Martino the same day was attached to despatch 917 from Rome, Nov. 8. (765.00/11–854)