Luce files, lot 64 F 26, “Correspondence & Miscellaneous 1953”
No. 744
The Ambassador in Italy (Luce) to the Special
Assistant to the President (Jackson)
Dear C. D.: No doubt you remember how I traipsed from big shot to big shot in Washington before I left, pleading for concentrated governmental attention to the then forthcoming Italian elections, and the severe consequences to U.S. policy if they went sour. Well, they didn’t go altogether sour, but they certainly curdled a little. They offered no bright omens at all for our NATO policy.
Attached are some personal thoughts I put down on paper last night and sent to Foster.1 In the billows of reading matter that crash on his desk, all sounding these days the note of crisis and warning, I do not know whether he will have time to read them. But I hope you will. Even more, I hope you will give them (as written—or if that is not possible because of his own schedule, as digested by you) to the President. Much is at stake, and because I am his representative here, I feel it is my duty to inform him why I think so immediately.
And now, a personal matter, for your information, in connection with the election. Our friends here have been a bit disturbed about allegations in the press at home that one of the “principal” reasons why the center coalition did not win over 50% of the vote was a [Page 1613] passage in my speech at Milan on May 28th. In some reports we read from home, these remarks were taken out of context and distorted.
What I actually said was: “But if—and I am required in all honesty to say this …2 but if—though it cannot happen—the Italian people should fall unhappy victim to the wiles of totalitarianism, totalitarianism of the right or the left, there would follow—logically and tragically—grave consequences for this intimate and warm cooperation we now enjoy.” This is of course a fundamental premise of American policy.
The contention by some American commentators that these remarks adversely affected the outcome of the election is certainly not made in Italy. While certain elements of the Monarchist Party did refer to them in derogatory terms, the only party which really “went to town” on this paragraph was the neo-Fascist party. And it, as you will see in this memo, actually was reduced in strength. Oddly enough, the Communists (possibly as part of their “sweetness and light” campaign, possibly because they feared it would lose them votes if reprinted) made only insignificant reference to these remarks in the electoral campaign. And it is noteworthy that the Prime Minister in two of his campaign speeches referred in rather flattering terms to portions of my Milan speech and expressed general “satisfaction” with it.
There has, in short, been no suggestion among reliable pressmen here that what I said “hurt,” and amusingly enough I received today a letter from the Milan Chamber of Commerce to whom the speech was delivered, saying that most of its 600 members approved of it thoroughly, thought it useful to the cause, and hoped I would go on talking.
But so much for that. The outcome of the elections has not made my task any easier. And the deep, deep cut in the foreign service end of my staff here is going to make it even harder to work effectively in this delicate situation with a new government.
Nevertheless, we will win thru here in Italy—because we must.
I know Harry3 has updated you already to this point.
With warm good wishes in your own tough struggle—4
- Luce’s letter to the Secretary of State, dated June 19, is summarized in Document 747.↩
- Ellipsis in the source text.↩
- Henry B. Luce.↩
- The source text is unsigned.↩