Coldwar Essay
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Relations Between the US and Italy Between 1952-1954
“The Communist Problem”
The “cold war” loss of Italy to Communist control would result in profound political, psychological and military damage to the free world (p.1567)
Draft Statement of Policy by The Planning Board
of The National Security Council
After the end of World War II the United States embarked on years of an uneasy alliance with Italy. The recovering Italian Fascist government was highly unstable and looked as though it could fall into Communist hands at any moment. The United States through mostly financial means chose to support the Christian Democratic Party in hopes of squelching public support for the fairly popular Communist factions within the country. I believe that the United States governments involvement in Italy was a result of US fears that a Communist government could succeed in Italy and the USs refusal to allow that happen. “The rancor and irritation against the US expressed by many Italian sources spring from an Italian awareness that noncommunist leaders are caught in a tough political dilemma, created by consistent American vis a vis Russia, and Italys growing desire to coexist with the USSR”(P.1627)as stated in a memo from Ambassador in Italy Luce to the Department of State in August of 1953. Through an incredible balancing act it would seem as though Italy was a country that sought, and succeeded to an extent, to carry out relations with both The United States and The Soviet Union at the same time walking a delicate tight rope between the two rival superpowers. What follows is a general survey of the foreign relations of the United States and Italy between the years of 1952 and 1954, as Italy attempted to to juggle support from its two largest allies and the US attempted to put an end to the “Red Menace” within the Italian political system.
In order to gain a better understanding of the political climate in Italy from 1952 to 1954 one must be equipped with at least a small amount of background information on Italian history in the first years following the conclusion of World War II. As a former enemy of the victorious Allied Forces Italy was heartily punished by a restrictive peace treaty. Amazingly rapidly, Italy was converted into a fully contributing member of the Atlantic anti-Communist community. An Anti-Communist stance became the crucial issue that defined inclusion and exclusion within the international alliance of which Italy was now a member. This created an extremely volatile political environment Italy which consisted of a virtual plethora of viable political parties including the dominant United States backed and funded Christian Democrats and the Partitio Communista Italiano also known as the PCI. There was a strong conflict of interest that arose between the formal antifascist constitution and the material one imposed being imposed on them by the escalating international situation. On one side there was the pro-Western stance of the main Italian governing party, the Christian Democrats and on the other side they were faced with the PCIs dependency on the Soviet Union, these issues were soon to become the major boiling points of the Italian republic. The PCIs alliance with the Soviet Union provided them with resources much need by the PCI and much maligned by the United States as stated in this dispatch from the Director of Western European Affairs in Feb. of 1952, “The Communist Party apparently has unlimited funds to finance its activities and is becoming increasingly active in the South. (p.1572)” In a way Italy was attempting to be seen as a country bridging the ever widening gap between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Italian government in 1952 was under the rule of Christian Democrat premier, Alcide De Gasperi. The US had seemed faithful at first that the Christian Democrats would gradually stomp out the PCI, however by 1952 they began to grow tired of waiting for the Italians to take care of matters for themselves and began to attempt to exert a more powerful controlling presence in Italy. The United States as well as much of western Europe viewed the existence of a viable Communist party in Italy as a black eye to the anti-Communist collation they had formed and in direct contradiction with the statements laid out in NSC 1968.
“Background of course is unremitting activity of whole Communist party apparatus in complicating difficult enough political, social, moral, and economic reconstruction of Italy after twenty years of destruction and demoralization of war” (p.1565), thus reads a document sent from the Ambassador in Italy (Dunn) to the Department of State. As previously stated, the main issue the United States was interested in addressing in Italy was the prevalence and continued existence of the Italian Communist Party. After the United States entry into the Korean War, the US magnified its pressures on the Allied Western European countries, trying to gain more active involvement in the common effort against the Soviet Union and the threat of Communism as a whole. This new pressure was paired with a request that the local governments assume a tougher stance toward potentially domestic “subversive” trade unions and political groups. The United States requested that Italy also take part in these new anti Communist measures, a delicate issue due to the strength of some large Communist controlled trade unions within the country.
The Prime Minister of Italy, US backed Christian Democrat De Gasperi refused to oblige American requests to remove Communist organizations from public properties, because of the organizations long running contracts that they held with the government. The United States was met with the same refusal to Bunkers (US Ambassador to Italy) request to prevent the Italian Communist Party from gaining large-scale financial support through the payments that Italian industrialists were forced to pay in order to trade with the Soviet Union and other Soviet Bloc nations. According to the De Gasperi there was little the government could do, and even if they had wanted to comply the trade provided was too important for Italian textile industry. Finally, the United Statess intention to use offshore military procurements (OSP) to attempt to persuade Italian entrepreneurs and politicians to adopt a stronger stance against Communist labor met opposition from the omnipresent political factions (because of which Italians would be sent to the polls to to vote three times between 1951 and 1953). In the months leading up to the pivotal 1953 general elections Italians saw