The memorandum may prepare you for some delicate, if not slippery
angles on Trieste and EDC that
are likely to develop in your meeting with
Piccioni.
It seems to me that if a Trieste solution can soon be got, there
is no good reason why EDC should
not be ratified in Italy before winter.
As I know you are fully aware, regardless of what the Italians
may say, they will not pass EDC
until the Trieste question is at least within sight of
settlement. But it is also well to bear in mind that there is
absolutely no sense of urgency about EDC in the Government, as most Italians firmly
believe that the USA has no
alternative to waiting for it. This gives force to the point
raised by the attached memorandum: quite apart from the Trieste
question, the Government is capable of postponing EDC ratification, if by so doing it
can in any way better its own party position.
I am also sad to report that the brief moment when it looked to
me and to Bedell Smith as
though the Scelba
Government really intended to act vigorously all along the line
on Western policy, using the debate on EDC in Italy as the signal for an all out political
attack on the Communist problem,2 is past. Unless you can offer a
solid Trieste carrot, or raise some more vigorous stick to
secure EDC ratification than any
we have at hand here, I very much fear that the Scelba pro-EDC and anti-Communist drives will
both proceed at the speed of cold molasses.
But I have watched—as the whole world has watched—with increasing
astonishment and boundless admiration the extraordinary and
inspired way you have handled the difficult personalities and
the portentous questions that have faced you in this crowded and
crucial year. I suspect that Signor
Piccioni and EDC and the Trieste question will not present you
with too difficult a problem.
[Enclosure]
Memorandum of Conversation, by the
Ambassador in Italy
(Luce)
secret
[
Rome
,] April 17,
1954.
Count Magistrati of the Foreign Office called to see me at
Villa Taverna at his request. He held forth at considerable
length on the following subjects:
- (a)
- The ratification of EDC
- (b)
- The Trieste question
(a) The Ratification of
EDC
Magistrati said that the President’s message on U.S.
Assurances to the EDC
Countries3 had greatly
strengthened the chances of EDC ratification in Italy, but that the real
danger EDC faced in Italy
rose (a) from the internal political situation, and (b) from
the status of the Trieste question.
He then described the internal political situation. There is
every reason to believe that both the MSI (neo-Fascists) and the PNM
(Monarchists) would vote for EDC (if only as an anti-Communist measure) if
the issue is presented as an international and national
issue, transcending all purely party considerations and
polemics—i.e., provided the Scelba Government does
not tie up the vote on EDC to a vote of confidence in the
Government. Thus, the ratification of EDC by a large majority was a
very real possibility, unless the Government itself
deliberately used EDC as a
political device to force its opposition on the Right
(MSI–PNM) into a
position where to vote for ratification would also be to
vote for maintaining the present Coalition in power. He was
plainly worried that Scelba, under the guidance of De Gasperi, intended to do
just this. Moreover, [Page 411] there is increasing evidence that Scelba is playing with the
idea of winning some Nenni-Socialists support for EDC. I then told him that in my
conversation with the Prime Minister on April 16,4
Scelba had clearly indicated as much.
Magistrati said this “confirmed his suspicions,” and that in
his opinion this was a dangerous and certainly in the end
futile game. The Christian Democrats should know this from
their experience in trying to woo the Nenni-Socialists to
their side on the electoral law issue in 1951–52. There was
nothing to be hoped from the Nenni-Socialists on support for
pro-West policies.
Magistrati clearly believed that if EDC failed to pass, the fault would be the CD
party-leadership’s, for making EDC a partisan rather than a national issue.
Moreover, if the government continued to insist on making
EDC ratification
contingent on a vote of confidence in the Government, EDC would certainly not pass, and the Government would
probably fall, as this tactic would make it mandatory for
the MSI–PNM right and even
for some CD’s to vote against it. It would then be terribly
difficult to form a new government, and EDC ratification would not come
to pass this year.
I told Magistrati that I had been increasingly aware of this
disturbing situation and that my concern about the serious
intentions of the Scelba Government re EDC dated from the failure of the Government to
introduce EDC as urgency
legislation which it could easily have done at the time. I
said we were now also convinced that the votes for
ratification were there—either by a slim majority with the
MSI and PNM opposing, or
a large majority with the PNM and even MSI voting for it if the
Government was willing to pose the issue without linking it
to a vote of confidence. I pointed out that the “excuse” we
have been given until very recently was that the absence of
a Trieste solution would, in itself, give the MSI, the Monarchists and even
some CD’s a plausible if not real reason to vote against it.
Magistrati replied that while there certainly was a definite
relation between the solution of the Trieste question and
the ratification of EDC,
Trieste was not as decisive a factor as many in and out of
the Government pretended.
He then went on to discuss the Trieste question, beginning
with the Secretary’s letter to Scelba.5
(b) The Trieste
Question
Two years ago, Magistrati said, it would have been easier for
Italy to accept a compromise Trieste solution than now.
Then, De Gasperi’s
government was strong enough to accept it, and public [Page 412] feeling (in the
era of large U.S. aid programs and a relatively weaker
Yugoslavia) was not running so high on the issue. The
climate for a compromise is much worse now because the
Government is much weaker, U.S. aid has dwindled, Yugoslavia
has grown stronger and more menacing, and above all, the
long delay on the October 8th decision combined with the
build up of tension because of Italy’s self-restraint in
this period have all made the situation much more difficult.
A solution which is not better than October 8th would now be
all but impossible for the Government to accept. If it did
so, it would fall as a result of it.
Scelba, he said, was
greatly disturbed because the Secretary’s letter had made no
mention either of the March ’48 Declaration or of the
October 8th. He wondered if this meant the October 8th
decision had been scrapped. I pointed out that there was no
need for the Secretary to mention October 8th, which was
viewed even by the Italians as a temporary solution, as the
Trieste question now posed itself in the London talks in
terms of trying to reach a permanent
settlement. Such a solution if found would naturally be
preferable to October 8th, and therefore would obviate it.
It was not necessary then for the Secretary to raise the
question of October 8th in his letter, as he assumed no
doubt that Italy understood we were working for a permanent
solution. Magistrati indicated that the Foreign Office was
greatly afraid that what would come out of the London talks
would be “another diktat” like October 8th, but one less
favorable to Italy. The optimistic “leaks” from Popovic in Belgrade fed this
unhappy suspicion and spread alarm throughout the Foreign
Office. I assured him there was no intention of facing Italy
with a “diktat” solution. I told him very emphatically that
we believed a reasonable solution which Italy would
voluntarily accept was altogether possible as well as
desirable, and that I hoped Italy would agree this was so,
after the projected London meeting. Magistrati then said
that the difficult problem was this: a reasonable solution was not necessarily one that
Italian public opinion (which was unreasonable—i.e.,
“emotional and sentimental” about Trieste) could easily
accept. For example, he, Magistrati, privately felt that it
was a blessing in disguise that Italy had lost its colonies
by the peace treaties. When he thought of France’s problems
in Indo-China and Morocco, he shuddered to think of the
difficulties a poor and weakened postwar Italy might today
be facing in Libya, Abyssinia and Eritrea if she still held
them. Again, very few Italians had ever been to Trieste, and
not one out of a thousand knew where Servola or Zaule were,
and cared even less. Nevertheless, the Italian people
suffered and continue to suffer a deep wound to their
national pride because of the loss of these colonies and the
failure to get the FTT back.
That is why they now are [Page 413] so emotional about Trieste. The
problem, therefore, was not the reasonableness or
unreasonableness per se of a Trieste
solution, but how to get Italians to accept the last severe
wound to their pride that any solution short of the return
of the whole FTT would be
certain to inflict. The long delay on the October 8th
decision had further heightened the emotional tension and
aggravated the sense of injured national dignity. Indeed,
the successful implementation of October 8th (things going
as they have) would be even better from a public opinion
point of view than a reasonable solution of Trieste, since
this could now be construed as a real victory over Yugoslav
diplomacy and intransigence.
Moreover, in the present situation the news out of Ankara
about the Turko-Yugoslav pact nations not only made Italians
very nervous but “very thoughtful.” What for example would
Greece do, or France, if a Yugoslavian-Italian conflict
broke out over their frontiers? Who would support whom in
such a case where the two warring nations were all tied in
criss cross pacts to defend one another within one grand
alliance? It was all very confusing to public opinion.
Italians, however, were on the record inclined to believe
that they would probably get the worst of such a situation
even though they were an EDC–NATO
nation.
Magistrati wondered if, along with a “reasonable Trieste
solution” some other compensation might not be
simultaneously presented to Italian public opinion. He had
no idea of what such compensation might be. For example, if
it were possible (which Magistrati realized it was not) to
assure Italy’s entrance into the UN at the same time, or say, for Italy to be
given some large and significant command in NATO, or some special
important role in the EDC–EPO set up, or some special help to and
recognition of her air force, or any role of world wide
significance—though he could not precisely think what would
“do” it, and believed in the final analysis nothing could
compensate for the loss of Zone B—still it might be
helpful.
The importance of the Trieste question now was that it is
being used by Italians and abused by Communists to gauge the
value the West attaches to the importance of Italy as an
ally. Italian public opinion always saw Italy as thrust into
the lackey’s part of the lowly subordinate, the messenger
boy, or poor relative of the Big Three, forever “taking
orders” from her former conquerers and betters. The
Communists, and perhaps not without reason, made much of the
inferior colonial status the Big Three always assigned to
Italy.
The virtue, Magistrati said, of De Gasperi was that he managed to dramatize
the importance of Italy to the West by his early espousal of
European integration. He managed to put Italy into a
favorable [Page 414]
international spotlight, and made a world figure of himself
precisely because he could do so. But—Mr. Attilio
Piccioni …?6 Magistrati was
“very nervous” about the meeting between Dulles and
Piccioni in Paris.
Piccioni did not have either
De Gasperi’s or
Pella’s commanding
personality, and he certainly did not have De Gasperi’s experience and
shrewdness. …
Nevertheless, Magistrati said the meeting between Dulles and
Piccioni must be treated
importantly, as Italian public opinion would be watching
most attentively to see if the new Italian Foreign Minister
would be given the same attention always accorded Eden, Bidault and Adenauer. The danger
plainly was that Dulles would mistake
Piccioni’s ignorance of foreign
affairs—especially the Trieste question—for acquiescence in
all his (Dulles’)
ideas. The result could be unfortunate for all
concerned.
It was plain that Magistrati (like the entire Foreign Office)
was bitterly regretting the loss of a De Gasperi or Pella, and was facing Paris
in a mood of deep uncertainty and discouragement.
