Correspondents' Correspondence Italy and Democracy

...Similarly, Washington's refusal to grant a tourist visa to prominent Communist party (PCI) deputy and foreign affairs expert Sergio Segre —who got one a few weeks later anyway when he joined a parliamentary junket to America—accomplished nothing in the way of strengthening this country's democratic forces...

...Italian Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer's by now famous offer of a "historic compromise" between Christian Democrats and Communists, leading to Communist participation in the national government, is still a long-range project...

...Quite the contrary, it left the U.S...

...That is not to suggest the U.S...

...But they lack the strength, the determination and the belief that they can prevail...

...The "sick man" of Western Europe, plagued by political anarchy, widespread labor unrest and industrial stagnation, desperately needs closer contact with its allies if it is to regain stability and national confidence...

...For whatever the extent of their own responsibility for the ills besetting the country, Italy's harassed democratic leaders must be able to demonstrate that international solidarity in the West is not an empty phrase even among the so-called second echelon bureaucrats who are too young to remember the Marshall Plan days that followed World War II...

...A major problem, many Italian observers feel, is the effect that detente—which is turning into a series of unilateral concessions to the Kremlin—has had on the struggle against Communism...

...It is hoped that this spurt of interest will be neither fleeting nor superficial...

...Italy and Democracy Rome—Washington may be starting to pay some attention to Italy's possibly hopeless but certainly dramatic political situation...

...would take a dim view of Communist participation in the Rome government because of the inevitable repercussions within the Atlantic alliance are bound to be counterproductive...

...should once again provide Italy with massive financial assistance...

...open to the criticism usually leveled at the USSR for curtailing the free movement of men and ideas...

...officials and the number of Italian politicians being entertained and quizzed by American legislators and diplomats...

...While Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev bluntly told French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing that ideological conflict can exist along with detente, in Italy the Kissinger policy is generally interpreted as the green light to cooperation with the PCI on all national levels...

...At least that is the impression gathered by observers here from the recent statements of high-placed U.S...

...Those Italians who do not believe in the PCI's sudden conversion to democratic pluralism, not to mention defense of individual liberties, are deeply worried and look to the United States for help and guidance...

...The Italian democratic leaders, who are all too familiar with the postwar history of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries, are not overjoyed at the prospect of sharing power with the Communists either...

...On the other hand, mere warnings that the U.S...

...They would simply like the United States to pursue a foreign policy designed to stimulate cooperation among the Western countries, to protect and assist allies in need, and to stimulate confidence in the ultimate success of the democratic cause.?Silvio F. Senigallia Wishington-USA...

...Joint Christian Democratic-Communist support of the new regional governments of Calabria, Lombardy and Marche, however, suggests that the Communist Hannibal is not very far from the gate—even if la dolce vita has made the old terror bourgeois...

...The decision to invite Italy to participate in the six-nation economic summit meeting held last month at Rambouillet, France, was regarded as an important step in the right direction...

...They do not expect large loans or saber-rattling statements...