Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Western Europe, Volume VII, Part 2

207. Memorandum of Conversation⁰

Rome, March 6, 1958.

PARTICIPANTS

• On. Amintore Fanfani, DC Party Secretary
• Dott. Raimondo Manzini, Italian Foreign Service
• Dott. Girolamo Messeri, Italian Foreign Service
• Ambassador Zellerbach
• Minister Jernegan
• Mr. Bond

SUBJECT

• Italian Political Situation

By pre-arrangement, Mr. Fanfani received the Ambassador at his home for a discussion of the current political situation in Italy.

Dissolution of Parliament and Timing of Elections: Mr. Fanfani opened the substantive portion of the conversation by saying that he expected both houses of Parliament to be dissolved by the President on either March 11 or March 17, with elections to be held on either May 18 or May 25.¹ He said that the later dates would apply if President Gronchi should go through with his projected State visit to London. Should Gronchi desire an excuse to get out of the trip, he would undoubtedly act on the basis of the earlier dates. Mr. Fanfani said that he himself hoped the elections can be held as soon as possible since at the present moment the economic situation is an asset to the DC party, [1–1/2 lines of source text not declassified].

Prato Trial: His latter remark led Mr. Fanfani to a discussion of the recent trial and conviction of the Bishop of Prato on grounds of libel.² He said that on balance he believed the whole episode, while it had for a while created a highly dangerous situation for his Party, would in the end help the DC more than it would hurt it. [1–1/2 lines of source text not declassified] This verdict had among other things served to improve relations between the DC and the lay Center parties, and had also aided the DC with its Catholic voters by producing a reaffirmation of Vatican support for the Party. [7 lines of source text not declassified] In connection with anti-clerical feeling in the country, Mr. Fanfani cited a recent Doxa poll in which nearly 60% of those polled had expressed themselves as in favor of the clergy’s expressing judgment on political questions, particularly when these touched on moral and religious issues, as against 40% who felt that the clergy should not express judgment in political matters. He remarked also that the relations between the DC and various Catholic organizations such as Catholic Action, ACLI, etc. are very good at the present time.

Relative Party Strengths: In a rundown of the relative strengths of the political parties, Mr. Fanfani said that the MSI will undoubtedly lose strength, while the PNM should gain at the expense of both the MSI and Lauro’s PMP, which has been badly hurt, at least outside the Naples area, by the Government’s dissolution of the Naples Municipal Council on grounds of financial irregularities.

He said that he expected the PCI to lose a little strength but largely to retain its present parliamentary position, a prediction which he said was shared by PCI Deputy Amendola. He did not anticipate gains for the PSI but added that this would depend largely on what happens within the PSDI.

He stated that the PSDI was in a position to make real gains because of Nenni’s obvious subservience to the PCI and Togliatti’s weakened personal position within the PCI. He regretted, however, that the PSDI seemed to be doing nothing to capitalize on this favorable terrain and had so far been merely sitting on its hands. He expressed the opinion that the PSDI had been hurt by Saragat’s “neutral belt” thesis, and also by his advocacy of the nationalization of certain Italian industries. He said that the PSDI is essentially a bourgeois party, even more than Saragat realizes, and cited as an example the fact that the PSDI and the PLI have in some cases in the past run joint electoral lists. He went on to say that the big question so far as the PSDI is concerned (and also the big secret) was who will select the PSDI candidates and whether Saragat or the Left wing of the party will end up in control of the PSDI parliamentary delegation.

He thought the PLI should make gains in the election and perhaps get as many as 30 seats. With respect to the PRI, he said that here again there was a question as to whether La Malfa or Pacciardi would control the party, but in any event he thought the PRI would probably lose part of what little strength it now has.

Turning to his own Party, Mr. Fanfani said that things were going well for the DC and that its prospects had improved since his last conversation with the Ambassador. The recent Doxa public opinion poll, which had been taken especially for the Party, showed a slight rise in the standing of the DC as compared with the results of a similar poll taken on November 15. It indicated that the DC stood today only a little below its level at the time of the 1948 elections (when it had won a narrow majority in the Chamber of Deputies). He said the Party had almost reached its quota of 120,000 activists, having passed the 100,000 mark in February. It was his own opinion that the DC might gain an absolute majority in the Senate (where they now have 110 seats and need 13 more to reach a majority). This possibility existed because the electoral law for the Senate was relatively more favorable to the DC. Furthermore, the parties of the Right would be running separately this time which reduced their chances of getting enough votes in the individual electoral colleges to elect senators. The Nenni socialists would have the same disadvantage, to some extent, as Nenni would not want to run in alliance with the PCI all over Italy. If the DC did get a Senate majority, Mr. Fanfani thought this would strengthen his Party’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the other Center parties after the elections. He added he was not talking publicly about the prospect of such a success in the Senate, but was emphasizing rather the need for a million additional votes in order for the Party to retain its present representation in the Chamber.

He said that he had been encouraged by a statement made to him recently by the publisher of the Bologna newspaper Il Resto Del Carlino and La Nazione of Florence, to the effect that these two papers had been obliged by pressure from their readers to adopt an editorial position more sympathetic to the DC Party. He added that another encouraging development had been the doubling of the circulation of the DC Party newspaper in Florence.

Mr. Fanfani devoted some time to describing the techniques of electoral propaganda being employed by the Party. These included: (1) One hundred specially equipped trucks, for showing motion pictures in country towns, especially in central and southern Italy; (2) The book Cinque Anni Difficili of which 150,000 copies had been distributed; (3) A popular “political encyclopedia” of 200 pages would also be distributed in 150,000 copies; (4) A rotogravure “newspaper” which would appear in four issues of one million copies each.

He commented that the first 25 of the motion picture trucks were already in service some where in Sardinia, and he had received encouraging reports of their popularity with the people of the island.

DC Party Platform: Mr. Fanfani then embarked on a lengthy and detailed exposition of the draft platform of his Party, which he said would be presented to the National Council for approval after the dissolution of Parliament. He listed the six main planks of the draft platform as follows:

(1) Bureaucratic reforms, in which the Party will advocate measures designed to further the implementation of the constitution and increase the efficiency of the government bureaucracy.

(2) Education, in which the Party will endeavor to avoid the question of Church versus State schools and will emphasize instead the need for greater educational facilities at all levels, from nursery schools to post graduate research.

(3) Labor, in which the Party will advocate the need for better working conditions and greater participation by labor in state and industry, including capital participation in the latter case.

(4) Economic, in which the Party will emphasize the importance of encouraging private enterprise, will advocate neither expansion nor contraction of the present area of government participation in industry, will oppose the use of earnings of State-controlled industries for the purpose of the diversification of such enterprises (as an example of the latter he said that the petroleum monopoly should not be permitted to use its earnings to branch out into other fields of industry such as shoe manufacturing), and will urge improvement of Italy’s balance of payments and trade balance positions.

(5) Foreign policy, in which the Party’s position will be based on loyalty to its allies in the Atlantic community, good relations with its Mediterranean neighbors, and dealings with its non-allies on basis of strict reciprocity (a principle which he said would also apply under point 4 above in regard to Italian foreign economic relations).

(6) Financial, in which the Party will concentrate on rationalization of the tax structure, with particular emphasis on more realistic tax rates and greater vigilance on the part of the government in collecting the taxes assessed.

Mr. Fanfani said that the Party platform would probably be made public about the end of March, and that he assumed that in final form it would be substantially as he had indicated. He said that the release of the platform at that time would be in keeping with the Party’s pre-electoral strategy, according to which the month of January had been devoted to discussion of the difficulties which had confronted the present DC government, February to the DC’s reply to those difficulties, March to a recounting of the accomplishments of the DC during the past 5 years, and April and May to an exposition of the future plans of the DC, based on the proposed Party platform.

Post-Electoral Prospects: Mr. Fanfani said that the alternatives open to the DC after the elections would undoubtedly be as follows, in order of preference: (1) reconstitution of the Quadripartite; (2) coalition with the PSDI and perhaps the PRI; (3) coalition with the PLI; (4) return to a monocolore government³ (which he characterized as a “horrible prospect”).

In response to a question he said that the PNM would not be likely to join a coalition government with DC but would probably prefer a DC monocolore dependent upon PNM support from the outside. Whether or not the PSDI would join a coalition government with the DC he said would depend largely on which current of the PSDI controls the parliamentary delegation. If it is controlled by the Matteotti-Zagari wing of the party he believed there would be virtually no prospect of the PSDI joining with the DC. If controlled by the Saragat wing of the party, he believed it possible that the PSDI might return to the government, although he said that even Saragat might choose to remain out of the government should Nenni resume his siren song of Socialist unification. He expressed the opinion that Saragat would be strongly attracted to the idea of renewed negotiations with Nenni on the unification question, although he believed there was an outside chance that even under these circumstances Saragat might agree to join the government, pending clarification of the prospects of Socialist unification, in the hope of preventing a DC-PLI coalition or a Right-leaning monocolore. Mr. Fanfani said that if it were not possible for the DC to form a government with the PSDI or PLI it would not in any event agree to form a government with PSI. He said also that, should the DC decide to form a Right-oriented government, there would not be enough strength in the Left wing of the DC to prevent such a move.

Public Attitude Toward the U.S. and Soviet Union: Mr. Fanfani cited figures from the recent Doxa poll to show that the favorable attitude of the Italian people toward the U.S. had increased from a figure of approximately 46% after the launching of the Russian satellite to 51% after the launching of the American satellite, during which time the percentage of Italians favoring closer ties with the Soviet Union had dropped from 27% to 26%.

Possible Post-Electoral Moves to Reduce PCI Strength: In response to a question on this point, Mr. Fanfani said he entirely agreed as to the importance of this question and that he also agreed with the suggestion of the Ambassador that two promising points of attack would be the Communist-controlled cooperatives and Communist-dominated labor situations. He stated his belief that it would be entirely possible to bring down the Communist cooperatives through the denial of credit facilities and seemed to share the Ambassador’s view that much could be done through management and the free unions to reduce Communist (especially CGIL) strength in the labor force of the nation. Mr. Fanfani said that he had persuaded former Prime Minister Scelba of the importance of such measures, but Scelba had been blocked by the Governor of the Bank of Italy. Mr. Fanfani had made a similar effort with Segni, who had failed to grasp the idea. The Ambassador commented in closing that the time to initiate such measures was right after the elections, rather than waiting until the next elections were already upon us.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 765.00/3–1458. Confidential. Drafted by Niles W. Bond and John D. Jernegan. Transmitted as an enclosure to despatch 1169 from Rome, March 14.
1. On March 17, President Gronchi signed a decree dissolving both houses of the Italian Parliament. The Cabinet of Prime Minister Adone Zoli set new elections for May 25 and the convening of a new Parliament for June 12.
2. Monsignor Pietro Fiordelli, Bishop of Prato, had publicly denounced a young couple as “public sinners” and “concubines” for marrying in a civil ceremony. The Bishop was tried for libel in a civil court and was convicted on March 1.
3. A minority government composed of members of a single political party, in this case the Christian Democrats.