Italy After de Gasperi

...At the time of his death, even his enemies lauded the strength of character and persistence which had raised the nation from defeat and humiliation to a position of respect and equality within the span of a few years...

...All others, including the rest of the non-Communist press and the Government, have avoided the issue...

...But de Gasperi, for all his 73 years, was not resigned to a quiet old age...

...Deputies eager to be off on their vacations were likely to be less critical of the terms and reluctant to embark on a lengthy debate...

...When the Communists seized the Case del Fascio, they transformed them into "Case del Popolo," and the new management continued doing business in much the same fashion...

...And so the argument drags on...

...But, if his example serves to inspire other statesmen with the urgency of European unity, he will not have died in vain...

...Following the failure of direct action, the party has concentrated on legal means, seeking court injunctions and appealing each case to the Council of State, Italy's highest tribunal...

...But these moves have notably failed to arouse much interest or seriously impede the Government...

...Should one be reached before Parliament reassembles next September 15, Premier Mario Scelba might well have to call a special session...

...In Rome, for example, they continue to operate the former printing plant of the Fascist Labor Front, where Unita and other Communist publications are printed on presses that legally belong to the state...

...At the same time, the Government has taken the first positive steps to divest the Communists of some of the privileges they usurped at the end of the war...

...His problem is choosing the proper moment to present it to the public and Parliament, since the Communists and ultra-nationalists are ready to snatch at any pretext to inflame public opinion, which is highly volatile on the subject of Trieste...

...But at the end of the first week in August, when the Chamber adjourned, there was still no agreement on Trieste...

...The problems that confronted the Western mediators in their dealings with the two disputants were largely emotional and psychological...

...The Italian press periodically forecasts an imminent settlement and then declares that new complications have arisen and an agreement has again been postponed...

...The Italians have seized upon the status of their fellow nationals in Zone B of the Free Territory, which remains under Yugoslavia...

...A serious start has apparently been made toward implementing such long-promised measures as tightening up the tax-collection system...

...Recently, the Christian Democratic Mayor of Florence, Giorgio La Pira...

...Scelba has personally assured me of his desire to reach an agreement as soon as possible...

...The various minor territorial rectifications enabled each side to claim it had forced the other to yield...

...They have demanded that Italians in Zone B be accorded full freedom of the press and religion, as well as freedom of movement back and forth from Zone A. This would obviously place the Italians in a privileged position as compared with their Croat and Slovene neighbors, and Tito could hardly agree unless he were prepared to alter the entire character of his one-party state...

...The Yugoslavs were in a more receptive mood toward Italian counter-proposals so long as they feared that Trieste would interfere with the Pact...

...In July, Rome diplomatic observers were predicting that the Trieste agreement would be announced before the scheduled signature of the Balkan Pact by the Foreign Ministers of Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey...

...So far, 150 buildings have been repossessed...

...Paradoxically, this very fragility has helped it survive, for the various coalition partners have, for once, carefully refrained from rocking the boat...

...Death foiled de Gasperi's hopes of a political comeback...

...Yugoslavia, in effect, agreed to return Zone A of the Free Territory to Italy, as contemplated in the Anglo-American decision of October 8, 1953...

...In his own country, the posthumous tribute has demonstrated how de Gasperi had come to personify the postwar democratic order for Italians no less than Mussolini had symbolized the Fascist era...

...Mainly involved are the former "Case del Fascio" in small towns and villages, where the Fascist-party offices were housed...

...After this disappointment, Western diplomats continued to hope Trieste could still be disposed of before the Italian Parliament began its summer recess...

...In that event, the Deputies would probably be in a far less tractable frame of mind...

...He was, by comparison, colorless in speech and personality...

...At this point, the issue of prestige intervened...

...Yet, he won the general respect of his countrymen in a country accustomed to a heady dose of drama in its politics...

...This tradition gave the Communists a considerable legacy of popular support...

...The lesson that the fight against Communism cannot be won by half-measures has apparently vet to be learned...

...The party leaders have seemed quite perplexed and hesitant in meeting this challenge...

...He had already spent far too much of his life in enforced retirement from politics...

...Meanwhile, through the summer doldrums, the long-heralded Trieste solution nears at a pace that recalls the old mathematics problem of the traveler who always progresses yet never reaches his destination...

...The traditions of diplomacy required that they advance counterproposals of their own...

...Thereafter, the Christian Democratic party, which is largely his handiwork, began to slip away from him...

...Ambassador to Rome, whose initiative and drive broke the ice, and Llewelyn Thompson, American High Commissioner to Austria, who was released from his regular duties to stew the negotiations in London...

...It was a blow to Italian prestige when the Balkan states eventually signed their pact without waiting for a Trieste settlement...

...Moreover, the prevailing impression that Greece and Turkey, Italy's NATO allies, were insisting on a Trieste agreement as a prerequisite to signing the Pact tended to enhance Italy's diplomatic standing...

...He rightly regarded EDC as the first major step toward a time when European states would merge their political differences and sovereignties in a single federated state, and his greatest ambition was to be the first President of the United States of Europe...

...De Gasperi's last year was marked by disappointments, beginning with the June 1953 national elections, when, by denying him a majority, the electorate ungratefully turned its back on his policies...

...The final agreement had to be framed so that both the Yugoslav and Italian Governments could present it at home as a diplomatic victory...

...Last June, at the Naples party congress, his own followers revolted against his leadership and forced his virtual retirement to private life...

...At the same time, it is hard to escape the feeling that on Trieste as on EDC—and in the Italian mind the two are closely linked—Scelba has flubbed several golden opportunities through overcaution...

...And so began the wearisome round of haggling over trivia and non-essentials that is still going on...

...The new agreement was far more viable and conducive to stability, since it not only covered the territorial question but settled a long list of tangential questions, such as minority rights, trade relations and frontier demarcation...

...The chief move has been directed toward repossessing buildings which the Communists seized during the Liberation period...

...The Italians felt that it would be incompatible with their national dignity simply to accept a tailor-made package deal previously agreed to by the Yugoslavs...

...And, when this ceremony was postponed for several weeks, the general explanation was that failure to reach agreement on Trieste had caused the delay...

...This is particularly true of the Social Democrats, whose leader, Giuseppe Saragat, has been on his best behavior for six whole months...

...Nor is any attempt contemplated to repossess the former headquarters of the Fascist Labor Front, now the headquarters of the Communist-controlled CGIL trade-union center...

...But de Gasperi's ultimate place in history will be determined by the fact that, more than any other Italian leader or statesman, he was a citizen of the world, one of the chief pioneers of European unity...

...granted the Communists permission to take over the city's largest public park for a week running to hold the "Festival of Unita," a money-raising and propaganda pow-wow...

...Today, however, they could not control Parliament without the votes of the minor parties and, hence, can no longer treat them as poor relations...

...No move has yet been made to deprive the Communists of printing plants and headquarters in the larger cities...

...He has replied that the Italian residents would enjoy the very same rights and status as other citizens of Yugoslavia, but this does not satisfy the Italian Government...

...As President of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and of the European Iron and Steel Community, he was the logical candidate...

...Amid nationwide mourning for the great postwar leader, the Government is wrestling with the Trieste issue and increasing its pressure on the Communists Italy After de Gasperi By Edmund Stevens ROME THE DEATH of Alcide de Gasperi, Italy's foremost postwar statesman, has left a gaping void in the Italian and European political scene...

...De Gasperi was an entirely different sort of symbol, lacking Mussolini's flamboyance and grandiloquence...

...In the past, when they commanded a Parliamentary majority by themselves, the Christian Democrats looked upon their minor allies, the secular Center parties, as expendable...

...For the time will never come when he can expect to tackle either issue without being challenged by the Opposition...

...Actually, these exchanges tended to cancel each other out...

...In some localities, mass resistance has been tried, but this policy has been abandoned since, even in those areas where the Communists had a substantial majority, as in the small villages of Emilia, their own members failed to rally...

...Moreover, he was impelled by a sense of historic urgency, by the realization that the projects dearest to his heart were still far from fulfilment and, without his guidance, might fall by the wayside...

...Rut it also applies to the dominant Christian Democratic party...

...The Florentine Liberal daily La Nazione protested, but it has been a voice in the wilderness...

...Private citizens with a complaint or a petition would go to the Casa, where a party functionary would receive them and, like as not, promise satisfaction...

...The advantages to Italy of wrapping up the Trieste agreement before the signing of the Balkan Pact were obvious...

...However, the mere fact that the Western mediators had reached a satisfactory agreement with the Yugoslavs did not insure its acceptance by the Italians...

...When the agreement is finally signed, it will stand as a monument to the tact and perseverance of Clare Booth Luce, U.S...

...This was a rather ticklish task for even the most skilled diplomatists, but the agreement which Thompson and his team-mates worked out filled the bill...

...Back in May, a team of American and British negotiators, meeting in London with Yugoslav representatives, completed the basic terms of a Trieste settlement which the Western diplomats considered eminently fair to both sides...

...Premier Scelba has announced that a general land-reform bill will be drafted during the Parliamentary recess for presentation this fall...

...Politically, Scelba is in a far stronger position than he was last February when his makeshift coalition cabinet was born, a puny child for whom no one predicted a long life...

...Fascism had forced him to seek sanctuary among the book stacks of the Vatican Library...

...The agreement, as negotiated, provides guarantees for Italian schools and other cultural institutions...

...A considerable measure of real teamwork has been achieved among the coalition parties...

...Voices from within his own coalition camp have complained that, had the Government given EDC higher priority, Italy could have ratified the treaty by now and thus favorably influenced France...

...His end was hastened by anxiety over the fate of the European Defense Community on the eve of the ill-starred Brussels conference...

...At the same time, so-called "Committees for the Defense of the Case del Popolo" have been set up in all towns and villages for the purpose of denouncing the "illegality" of the Government's action...

...But this, the Italians feel, is far from adequate...

...Quite often, the Casa del Fascio was the most imposing building on the main piazza, eclipsing the town hall...