DMS files, lot W–1444, “Italy 1954”
No. 797
The Director of the United States
Operations Mission in Italy (Tasca) to the Director of the Foreign
Operations Administration (Stassen)
Dear Governor: The recent decision of the Cabinet to begin to hit the Communist apparatus in Italy1 represents the first big turn in the Italian Government’s attitude towards the Communist problem. As you will recall, fifteen months ago there was no such thought or effort on the part of the Italian political leaders or the Government. It has taken a year of hard effort to persuade the Italians that there was a real Communist danger in Italy.
In my view, this new Italian attitude is the result of a whole series of decisions and attitudes reflected in conversations with Italian leaders by the Embassy, the Mission, yourself and Secretary Dulles. The Ambassador has done an outstanding job of pressing very hard upon the Italians in every possible way the danger of the [Page 1719] Communist apparatus, and has remained steadfast in her determination under difficult conditions. Your conversations with the Italians on several occasions, especially your last visit in Rome,2 were also most helpful. The USOM here, you will be pleased to know, has played an important role in this process in the following ways:
. . . . . . .
- c.
- Our response to Italian Government requests for new assistance from the U.S. has brought out the central U.S. interest in effective Italian action to solve their Communist problem as a sine qua non to make U.S. assistance worthwhile. Discussions of Italian policy regarding foreign investment have also been tied to this theme.
- d.
- Over a period of a year I have talked to all of the important Ministers time and again and to other key Italian leaders, discreetly and appropriately, on the great danger the Communist apparatus poses to Italy.
- e.
- Encouragement has been given to the free trade unions to provide more vigorous and forward-looking policies for the workers. The great wage settlement this past year in part was encouraged behind the scenes by the Mission.
It is most heartening to see these U.S. efforts beginning to bear fruit. The pay-off, of course, will be at forthcoming elections, and it is too early to know how vigorously current Italian anti-Communist initiatives will be pressed to assure this pay-off. However, prospects look much more hopeful now than they did for several months after the June 1953 elections, when we were running rapidly downhill.
Cordially,
- For information regarding this decision, see Document 792.↩
- For Stassen’s report to Dulles on his trip to Italy, Oct. 26–27, see Document 789.↩