Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Western Europe and Canada, Volume VI, Part 2

Italian-Austrian Desk files, lot 58 D 243, “103 NSC 1954”

No. 771
The Counselor of Embassy in Italy (Williamson) to William E. Knight of the Office of Western European Affairs

top secret
official–informal

Rome, March 15, 1954.

Dear Bill: Ever since the draft NSC paper and the Staff Study were received last month,¹ we have discussed them at length. On the whole, we all agree here that the paper is excellent and we hope that it goes through the NSC without material change.

There are, however, two major considerations which I hope have been taken into account in the final draft. In the first place, in the political field, the paper does not bring out the point that an important objective of the De Gasperi Government in the period 1950 to 1953 was to bring about a reduction in both Social-communist and Neo-Fascist influence by means of discriminatory electoral legislation. With respect to provincial and municipal administrations throughout Italy, this policy was successful. It failed on a national scale. This policy could have kept Social-communist parliamentary opposition within bounds and would have guaranteed the Government’s ability to push ratification of EDC through Parliament. The latter, in turn, would have made Italy’s communist problem, as well as that of France, a charge on the entire European Defense Community. The Italian Government is now faced both with the task of putting EDC through at all costs under less favorable circumstances and with challenging the communist growth and influence directly with narrower parliamentary support behind it.

Also, Point 54 of the Staff Study tends, in our view, to exaggerate the potential implications of a rightist authoritarian regime. It is true that such a regime would be wholly undesirable from our point of view except as an unavoidable alternative to communism. However, the correspondence of Italy’s foreign policies with those of our own under such circumstances would depend not so much on the type of regime as defined but on its character and our own policies. As to character, if such a regime could give a sense of unity and direction to Italy, it would make her utility to United States foreign policy greater—provided this was not outweighed by repercussions on democratic processes in other countries.

On the other hand, the United States has been able to make mutually desirable defense arrangements with countries under such regimes elsewhere. For example, those with other American states as well as the agreements with Yugoslavia and Spain. None of this is intended to dispute the basic contention that favorable attitudes can be expected to continue while Italy remains under a moderate democratic regime.

Finally, since the paper indicates that some possibility exists of a communist advent to power through legal means, we believe that it should contain a discussion of the problem of determining the point at which our continued delivery of military items to Italy might be damaging to our interests. Clearly that point has not yet been reached. In fact, any indication that we were slowing down military assistance to Italy under present circumstances would contribute gratuitously to a potential communist encroachment on political power here.

If the Social-communists again advance in future elections and irresistible pressure for their participation in government develops, we should be ready the moment either the Nenni Socialist Party or the communists themselves are brought into the government (assuming in the former case that the Nenni Socialists are still tied directly or indirectly with the communists) to announce the cessation of all United States governmental assistance to Italy. This alone should have the effect of seriously shaking such a government and affording those forces favorable to our interests the opportunity of preventing its survival.²

Secondly, in the economic field, Tasca’s office has had a great number of comments to make, largely in the field of general orientation rather than in specific detail. His section has re-drafted the part on “Economic and Social Problems”, which may contain useful material and hints concerning the Embassy’s view of this question. I enclose, therefore, for your information, two papers: (1) a draft letter to Livvy Merchant prepared originally for the Ambassador’s signature, and (2) a re-draft of the “Economic and Social Problems”.³

Knowing how NSC papers are prepared in Washington, we here deeply appreciate your sending us the drafts for our consideration. Again recognizing the way in which these papers are prepared, both Durby and I believe that the best way to make known our views is in the manner presented above rather than sending a formal communication to Livvy Merchant. I hope that these suggestions may be helpful to you.⁴

Sincerely yours,

Francis

1. Knight enclosed copies of the drafts of the NSC policy statement on Italy and the staff study, as they were originally submitted to the NSC Planning Board on Feb. 4 (see Document 768), with his letter to Williamson of Feb. 2. (Italian-Austrian Desk files, lot 58 D 243, “103 NSC 1954”)
2. The following notation is written in the margin here: “Good thought but might be better to let it be known when such possibility arose that we would do this.”
3. Neither printed; the source text bears the handwritten notation, “I think the rewrite of economic and social problems is excellent. Too bad arrived too late.”
4. For Knight’s reply to Williamson, see Document 779.