Luce files, lot 64 F 26, “Correspondence & Miscellaneous, 1954”
No. 249
The Ambassador in Italy
(Luce) to the President
eyes only
Dear Mr. President: I have just returned from Italy where I attended as your representative, the funeral of Signor De Gasperi.1
No doubt you have already received word from Prime Minister Scelba expressing the thanks of the Government and of De Gasperi’s [Page 509] family.2 All Italians took the mission you gave me as a singular mark of American understanding and friendship.
The day of the funeral was a day of double mourning in Italy. The somber news of Mendes-France’s act of mayhem at Brussels foretold the demise of EDC.3 Italy knew that the noble idea that De Gasperi had labored for so long—the integration of Europe—was being buried with him.
The outcome of the Brussels Conference forced Prime Minister Scelba and his cabinet to make their own “agonizing reappraisal.”
Here it is, in the Prime Minister’s own words to me:
“Except for our fruitless efforts to secure the return of the whole FTT, since the end of the war Italy’s entire foreign policy has been European integration, and solidarity through NATO, with the Western defense system. Today an ‘integrated Europe’ is dead and the strength of NATO may be consequently greatly damaged.
“I will not speak of the months of labor we have lost in bringing EDC to where we would have ratified it by a safe margin of 80 votes. I will not speak of the impossibility now of carrying on the anti-Communist program we had planned to follow upon ratification. I must speak only of one thing: Today the Government’s entire foreign policy is seriously discredited. Read this morning’s headlines in UNITA (the CP paper): ‘Pro-West Policies of Government Total Failure.’ If we do not shortly have a substitute for EDC, or if we cannot soon say that a rearmed Germany will become a welcome and an effective NATO partner, the Government will have no foreign policy to put before the people. Our internal political situation will then deteriorate rapidly, for the Communists will be proven entirely right in their judgment of the European situation. We can then be certain of only one thing: Russian divisions will not invade Italian soil. They will not need to, because our own Communists will ring down the Iron Curtain on Italy in the next election.”
I know you realize, Mr. President, that Italy today does not have the neutralist or nationalistic alternatives open to France, Great Britain, Holland, Belgium.
In France, for example, the nationalistic elements—the reactionary conservatives, industrialists and wartime generals—have political strength and a popular following; and the neutralist and socialist elements are anti-Communist. In Italy, the reactionaries, especially the “militarists” and “nationalists” are identified with Fascism or Monarchism. Mere political remnants, they are despised or [Page 510] disregarded. And Italy’s Nenni–Socialists and neutralists are all pro-Communists.
Italian politics are polarized between the Democratic pro-Western parties and the pro-Cominform parties. Thus, Democratic Italy has only one alternative if its pro-West policies fail: to adopt pro-Russian policies.
But, as to the immediate consequences of all this in Italy:
If no substitute for EDC and the now acute “German question” can be found shortly, the Scelba Government will not last the winter. That is, unless we can produce a settlement of the Trieste question—and immediately.
On October 8, 1953, we agreed to turn Zone A over to the Italians without conditions. Owing to the position taken by Tito, that decision has now been delayed for months. Meanwhile lengthy and exhaustive negotiations to find a solution agreeable to both Tito and Italy have been steadily carried on in London. Nevertheless, the hope of getting back all of Zone A has greatly sustained the Government’s foreign policy positions throughout this whole year. But time is running out: October 8th, which will mark the first anniversary of that decision is rolling around again. In the present climate of disillusionment—even despair—over the failure of the Government’s foreign policies, if that date is reached before a Trieste solution agreeable to the Italian people has been found, it will be a signal for a decisive outburst—national as well as Communist—against the Government’s pro-American positions.
We must then be prepared to see the collapse of the Scelba Government. And then with no Government and no foreign policy around which a new one can be formed in the interests of the West, if Italy does not revert to strong arm methods against the Communists the leadership of Italy may soon after fall to Nenni and Togliatti.
The return of Zone A has now become a matter of greatest urgency to the present Italian Government. I, therefore, Mr. President, recommend that you insist on a firm reply from the Yugoslavs at once, which will permit the Italians to dispose of the Trieste question one way or other, before October 8th.
With a favorable Trieste decision before October 8th, I believe we can “hold the fort” for the West until your new policies towards Europe have been formed.4
[Page 511]Cordially,
P.S. Your American Legion speech5 laid a good big stone in the foundation of a new Eisenhower policy. Cheers!
- Following the funeral of De Gasperi on Aug. 23, Luce had returned to the United States on Aug. 27.↩
- Not further identified.↩
- Reference is to French Prime Minister Mendès-France’s statement at the Brussels Conference on Aug. 23 calling for revisions in the treaty establishing the European Defense Community and the defeat of EDC in the French National Assembly on Aug. 30.↩
- In a letter of Sept. 6, President Eisenhower, then in Denver, Colorado, replied to Luce as follows: “I have studied your secret letter of the 31st. The conclusions you present, as a result of your convictions and study, are not greatly different from my own instinctive feelings, based, however, on much flimsier foundations than are yours. I shall certainly do what I can. Thank you very much for writing me.” (Luce files, lot 64 F 26, “Correspondence & Miscellaneous, 1954”)↩
- For text, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954, p. 779.↩