118. Letter From the Ambassador in Italy (Luce) to the Secretary of State1
Dear Mr. Secretary: As you know, in the course of the past three years the Italian Foreign Office has frequently, if gently, reminded us of its desire to be consulted before major decisions affecting Italy were taken by the so-called Big Three, and whenever we have failed to consult them, complained, if not in anger certainly in sorrow, to us.
The matter of the Suez Crisis has been a notable instance in which the Foreign Office feels that it ought properly to have been consulted.
[Page 379]Italy, a major user of the Suez Canal, properly thinks of herself as a Mediterranean power, and has on several occasions offered to be a “bridge” to the Arab world. Since she has no colonies and her prestige in the Middle East, where she has many Italians living, is now high again, her claims are not without some value.
I know that Foreign Minister Martino mentioned this to you in your meeting on August 15 in London.2 And I know you can appreciate that his position in Italy had been rendered unnecessarily difficult by the suddenness with which the London Suez Conference was summoned under what the Italians thought were final terms of reference without any prior consultation with them. This was especially hard for Martino, since one of the “Three Wise Men”, even while he was supposed to be studying methods of making NATO’s political and economic collaboration more effective, was left out in the cold at the hottest moment of the crisis.
To begin with, the Italians increasingly resent the idea of a “Big Three” with its wartime victor implications. [5 lines of source text not declassified]
Secondly, apart from any psychological or emotional reaction to being considered a bit of a spare wheel for the Big Three barrow, their wish to be consulted rests on practical political grounds. The Communists and the Nenni Socialists in Italy always attack the Government on the ground that it is a lackey or puppet of the Americans and British Imperialists, insisting that Italy’s participation in NATO is a fraudulent “Big Three” scheme to put Italy in a position where she must take orders and accept decisions which have already been made in Washington or London without real consideration of Italian interests. The point is that any failure to consult Italy prior to “Big Three” decisions makes the Left’s propaganda that much more effective on non-Left public opinion. Certainly, if Italy were consulted with some degree of regularity and rapidity in major “Big Three Questions”, Italian public opinion would line up far more solidly behind the Italian Government’s subsequent pro-West decisions and rob the pro-Communist Left of one of its best nationalistic arguments.
Thirdly, the Italians feel, with some justification, that their recovery has been sufficient and their influence in the world sufficiently restored so that they can really help in preparing policy for major European and Middle East decisions.
I am sure you have no idea how effective your visit to Rome before going to Geneva last fall was. That was the first time Italy had been consulted openly and equally before a major decision of European importance.
[Page 380]I hope that the forthcoming meeting of the “Three Wise Men” will produce procedures or mechanisms which can be used effectively in NATO to secure the consultation they feel to be both necessary and desirable. Even so, I wonder if there is not room also for a study in the Department to see whether administratively in the Department some machinery cannot be set up to establish some wider measure of consultation automatically. I am sure such a system would pay good dividends to us because it would definitely assist the present U.S.-oriented government of Italy in securing the maximum support of its own electorate.
Most sincerely,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers. Secret; Official–Informal; Personal and Private.↩
- See vol. XVI, p. 210.↩