The Eisenhower Administration and Italy's

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Ike and Italy: The Eisenhower Administration and Italy’s “Neo-Atlanticist” Agenda

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ecent scholarship has conªrmed that the major West European countriesR played a vital role in shaping the international system after World War II. Even the diplomacy of the much berated French Fourth Republic has now been redeemed.1 This article examines the extent to which Italy sought to improve its international position during a crucial phase of the Cold War. It also considers how the United States exploited Italy’s international political ambitions. Conventional wisdom holds that Italian leaders after World War II sur- rendered almost all of their leeway in foreign policy to Italy’s European and Atlantic partners. Italy’s humiliating defeat in the war, the task of economic reconstruction, the country’s deep political divisions, and the long record of Italy’s subordination to the great powers in Europe all posed formidable ob- stacles to any dream of diplomatic prominence. Even after an economic recovery took hold in the 1950s, Italy’s inºuence in world politics was less than its demographic and economic size would have implied. Italy’s faction-ridden political elites, the traditional argument goes, ensured that the country always subordinated its foreign policy to domestic concerns. As an American political analyst, Norman Kogan, put it in 1957, “the key objective of Italian For- eign Policy is to protect the domestic social structure from internal dangers.” This tendency allegedly induced Italian leaders to defer to the United States, which they regarded as the best guardian of their country’s internal stability and perhaps even of their own political ambitions. In short, traditional accounts portray Italy as the quintessential client state.2

1. See William I. Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Eu- rope, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). 2. Norman Kogan, The Politics of Italian Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1963), p. 136. The book originated from a study conducted in coordination with the State Department in 1957. See also Frederic Spotts and Theodore Wieser, Italy, A Difªcult Democracy: A Survey of Italian Politics (Cam- Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 4, No. 3, Summer 2002, pp. 5–35 © 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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A historical lack of self-assertion or initiative does not mean, however, that the Italian people and their leaders have not cared about their country’s international position. As Frederic Spotts and Theodor Wieser have observed, “Italians have a keen sense of national pride and are extremely sensitive about the status accorded their country by others.” But the gap between this obses- sion with rank and the capacity or willingness to assume a commensurate role has been wider in Italy than in other West European countries. Rome’s pursuit of prestige has thus appeared an end in itself, a hollow claim to be present at great-power summits, without having to make any relevant contributions to those summits. Former U.S. national security adviser and secretary of state Henry Kissinger has described this phenomenon with biting sarcasm in his memoirs. Each ofªcial visit to Italy, he wrote, left me with the impression that its primary purpose was fulªlled by our arrival at the airport. This symbolized that the United States took Italy seriously; it produced photographic evidence that Italian leaders were being consulted. ...One sometimes could not avoid the impression that to discuss international affairs with their foreign minister was to risk boring him.3 This anecdote reºects only a half-truth. Despite the Italian government’s care for appearances, its preoccupation with domestic concerns, and its staunch loyalty to American leadership, Italy has not been as fatalistically sub- missive as often portrayed. At crucial times during the Cold War, Rome set its own agenda in international affairs, and its manipulation of American leadership sometimes bordered on dissent. Recent scholarship has indeed begun to restore Italy to the narrative of Cold War history. The country’s success in achieving—and, as some would say, in actively pursuing—strategic and economic interests through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European integration has been reevaluated. Yet most accounts continue to privilege the “hard power” dimension of that narrative, leaving the impression that Italy’s inºuence at the great-power level remained quite negligible.4

bridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986), ch. 13; Primo Vannicelli, Italy, NATO and the Euro- pean Community: The Interplay of Foreign and Domestic Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Center for International Affairs, 1974); and Robert V. Fisher, Foreign Policy as Function of Party Politics: Italy, the Atlantic Alliance and the Opening to the Left, 1953–1962 (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1995). 3. Spotts and Wieser, Italy, A Difªcult Democracy, pp. 263–268. For the distinction between rank and role, see Carlo Maria Santoro, La politica estera di una media potenza: L’Italia dall’Unitá ad oggi (Bolo- gna: Il Mulino, 1991), pp. 73–95; and Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1979), pp. 101–102. 4. See esp. Ennio Di Nolfo, “Italia e Stati Uniti: Un’alleanza diseguale,” Storia delle relazioni internazionali, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1990), pp. 3–28; Pietro Pastorelli, La politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987); Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare, 1943–91 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991); David W. Ellwood “Italy, Europe and the Cold War: The Politics and Economics of Limited Sovereignty,” in Christopher Duggan and Christopher Wagstaff, eds., Italy in the Cold War:

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It remains to be determined how much the elements of “soft power” helped improve Italy’s international position. A country’s “soft power,” as Jo- seph Nye characterizes it, is “the ability to achieve goals through attraction rather than coercion.” Soft power, Nye adds, “rests on the appeal of one’s ideas or culture or the ability to set the agenda through standards and institutions that shape the preferences of others.”5 Italian leaders sought to rely on those qualities by invoking Italy’s intellectual traditions and whatever diplomatic re- sources they could muster as substitutes for military and economic strength, or “hard power.” Even their craving for image, or bella ªgura, was not always casual and hollow. Appearances did matter and helped to increase Italy’s international leverage. One is tempted to say that Rome achieved this result despite the tendency of its leaders to use their few diplomatic initiatives largely for domestic purposes. The same diplomacy that was motivated by petty political squabbles sometimes evolved into a signiªcant, if not always coherent, foreign policy. Italy conducted its most determined efforts in international affairs during the late 1950s. Rome’s foreign policy of that era, known as “Neo- Atlanticism,” revolved around a few clear objectives that remained at the heart of contemporary Italy’s international conduct: détente in the Mediterranean region, which could produce commercial opportunities for trade with the Near East and for a stronger position within the emerging European Eco- nomic Community (EEC); increased economic cooperation within NATO; and parity of status with the other major NATO European allies—Great Brit- ain, France, and Germany. The pursuit of rank was a prerequisite for the other goals. Gaining acceptance and respect from the other powers, Italian leaders believed, would allow Italy to advance its international agenda. In this regard the Italians’ idea of prestige resembled that of the French, especially af-

Politics, Culture and Society 1948–58 (Oxford: Berg, 1995), pp. 25–46; Antonio Varsori, “Italy’s Policy towards European Integration, 1947–58,” in Duggan and Wagstaff, eds., Italy in the Cold War, 47–66; Timothy E. Smith, The United States, Italy and NATO, 1947–1952 (London: Macmillan, 1991); Mario Del Pero, L’alleato scomodo: Gli USA e la Dc negli anni del centrismo (1948–1955) (Rome: Carocci, 2001); Leopoldo Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a sinistra: Importanza e limiti della presenza americana in Italia (Bari: Laterza, 1999); Alessandro Brogi, L’Italia e l’egemonia americana nel Mediterraneo (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1996); several articles on Italy in Joseph Becker and Franz Knipping, eds., Power in Europe? Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy in a Postwar World, 1945–1950 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986); and Ennio Di Nolfo, ed., Power in Europe? Great Brit- ain, France, Germany and Italy, and the Origins of the EEC, 1952–1957 (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992). See also Leopoldo Nuti, “Commitment to NATO and Domestic Politics: The Italian Case and Some Comparative Remarks,” Contemporary European History, Vol. 7, No. 3 (November 1998), pp. 361–377. 5. Quoted in Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Power and Interdependence in the Informa- tion Age,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 5 (September–October 1998), p. 86. The best treatment of this thesis is in Joseph S. Nye Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990).

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ter Charles de Gaulle’s return to leadership in 1958. The appearance of power was supposed to precede and even expedite the full accumulation of it. It is also important to verify how reciprocal the manipulation of status was between Italy and the United States. The Eisenhower administration cali- brated its concessions of rank or role to Italy in order to affect Italian domestic politics and to stabilize NATO. It is worth considering whether the U.S. focus on Rome’s international ambitions in itself signaled Italy’s passage from client state to international partner, or even whether, from an Italian perspective, “clientelism” and partnership were mutually exclusive.

The Neo-Atlanticist Perspective

During the Eisenhower years, U.S. power in Europe was at its peak. With the inºuxof nuclear weapons to NATO under American leadership, the bipolar international order seemed destined to continue. The United States already enjoyed prosperity in the early postwar years, whereas the West Europeans were savoring only the ªrst taste of their own economic “miracles.” Under these circumstances, the notion of an Italian presence on the international scene might have seemed far-fetched. Instead, Italy, like other U.S. allies, became restless and more demanding on NATO. After all, the Eisenhower administration had dispelled Europe’s lingering fears that the United States might retrench into isolationism or adopt a “peripheral strategy” instead of a forward defense of Western Europe. Having obtained Washington’s ªrm commitment to the protection of their countries, West European leaders felt more conªdent about reasserting their autonomy and even contesting American leadership. Economic progress, with all its limits and false starts, also revived their self-conªdence and expectations.6 In Italy the curious combination of reliance on U.S. hegemony and the desire to pursue independent action within that hegemony was best repre- sented by some leading left-wing Christian Democrats, who, after the death of the party’s conservative leader, Alcide De Gasperi, in 1954, began to dominate the Italian political scene. The party’s new general secretary, Amintore Fanfani, and the president of the republic, Giovanni Gronchi, disagreed on several issues, but both men were dedicated to an expansion of Italy’s initiative in foreign policy. Thanks to the ascendancy of these two leaders, even erst-

6. See esp. Marc Trachtenberg, History and Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 160–168; Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); and Geir Lundestad, The American “Empire” and Other Studies of US Foreign Policy in a Comparative Perspective (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1990), pp. 79–81.

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while conservatives felt compelled to propose some amendments to the Atlan- tic Pact. By 1957 Foreign Minister Giuseppe Pella embraced the cause of the left wing of the Christian Democrats (DC), despite his conservative views, and took credit for coining the term “Neo-Atlanticism,” which he announced as the core of the government’s international platform. The “new” slogan merely clariªed an agenda that several DC representatives and their center-left allies had been trying to advance with increasing determination since the early 1950s.7 The Neo-Atlanticists were not a homogeneous group, but they all agreed on the need for extended consultations among allies (a goal that would re- quire Italy’s participation at great-power summits), intensiªed economic cooperation within NATO, and a chance for Rome to become a source of new diplomatic initiatives toward the Middle East. This last claim invoked the Italians’ alleged special competence, or “vocation,” in dealing with Mediterra- nean affairs. Italy had a long-standing tradition of cultural and commercial exchange with the Islamic world, and it had lost any imperial aspirations after its forced exclusion from the ranks of the colonial powers. Hence, the Neo-Atlanticists insisted that Rome was in an ideal position to mediate between the West and the newly emancipated Arab states and to thwart Soviet inºuence in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Third World.8 Ideally, Neo-Atlanticism would establish a clear link between Italy’s policy in the Middle East and its participation in NATO. Representatives from Italian center-left parties believed that building a diplomatic bridge between the West and the Arab world would help them promote the implementation of NATO’s Article 2, which called, albeit vaguely, for increased economic collaboration among the allies.9 Less concerned than most other Western allies about the military threat posed by the Soviet Union, and always reluctant to increase its military spending, Italy consistently stressed the importance of economic cooperation over the Atlantic Pact. Economic reconstruction

7. Historian Brunello Vigezzi traces the origins of Neo-Atlanticism back to the failure of the European Defense Community project in the summer of 1954. See his “L’Italiaeiproblemi della ‘politica di potenza’ dalla crisi della CED alla crisi di Suez,” in Ennio Di Nolfo, Romain H. Rainero, and Brunello Vigezzi, eds., L’Italia e la politica di potenza in Europa, 1950–60 (Florence: Marzorati, 1992), pp. 18–22. Italy had tried to reform NATO since 1951, but that agenda became a consistent strategy only after Italy’s admission into the United Nations at the end of 1955. See Brogi, L’Italia e l’egemonia americana. See also Ofªce of Intelligence (OIR), Report No. 7641, “‘Neo-Atlanticism’ as an Element in Italy’s Foreign Policy,” 10 January 1958, U.S. National Archives (hereinafter NA), OIR Files; and Telegram 4035, Zellerbach to Dulles, 5 April 1957, NA, 765.00, Record Group (hereinafter RG) 59. 8. For an extended analysis of the Mediterranean “vocation,” see Brogi, L’Italia e l’egemonia americana. On the ªrst claims of Italy’s Mediterranean “vocation,” see especially Bruna Bagnato, Vincoli europei, echi mediterrane: L’Italia e la crisi francese in Marocco e Tunisia (Florence: Ponte alle Grazie, 1991), pp. 27–38. 9. The last portion of that article reads: “[the Parties] will seek to eliminate conºict in their economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration between any or all of them.”

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within a multilateral framework, Italian leaders argued, was the best weapon against the risk of internal (Communist) subversion; and multilateralism would also secure for Italy the quickest route to economic modernization. Above all, by proposing multilateral aid schemes for the Middle East in the late 1950s, the Italian government wanted to emphasize the growing economic interdependence within NATO itself and to narrow the economic gap between Northern and Southern Europe.10 Conservative critics of this policy argued that activism—or, in their words, “adventurism”—in the Mediterra- nean, would divert the country’s energy from the more vital pursuit of Euro- pean integration. But by the mid-1950s the left-wing Christian Democrats wanted to seize the opportunity to shift the balance of power within NATO, taking advantage of the dissolution of the French and British colonial em- pires. Fanfani emphasized that a closer partnership with the United States would improve Italy’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the other members of the emerging EEC.

American Concerns about Italy’s Approach

The interplay between international and domestic objectives remained prominent in Italy. From Washington’s point of view the most important issue was the relationship between Rome’s new approach to the Arab countries and the “opening to the left,” as some leading Christian Democrats called their plan for a center-left coalition that would include the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). The establishment of a dialogue with Arab governments that were part of the nonaligned movement was likely to improve the centrist parties’ chances for cooperation with the Socialists, who favored a policy of neutrality. No doubt, several left-wing Christian Democrats decided to pursue their Mediterranean “vocation” solely as a pretext to encourage an opening to the Nenni-Socialists. U.S. ofªcials viewed the PSI leader, Pietro Nenni, as a close ally of the leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), Palmiro Togliatti. This assessment was accurate at least until 1956, when the combination of Nikita Khrushchev’s “secret speech” at the Twentieth Soviet Party Congress and the

10. See Brogi, L’Italia e l’egemonia americana; and Bagnato, Vincoli europei, echi mediterranei. See also the candid analysis by the then Italian ambassador to Paris, Pietro Quaroni. Quaroni to Martino, 6 April 1956, Direzione Generale Affari Politici (hereinafter DGAP), 1951–1957, Box1093, Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Roma (hereinafter ASMAE); and Intelligence Report No. 7641, DGAP,1951–1957, Box1093, ASMAE. On Italy’s emphasis on NATO’s Article 2, see also An - tonio Varsori, “Italy and Western Defence 1948–1955: The Elusive Ally,” in Beatrice Heuser and Robert O’Neill, eds., Securing Peace in Europe, 1945–1962: Thoughts for the Post Cold War Era (Lon- don: Macmillan, 1991); and Lorenza Sebesta, L’Europa indifesa: Sistema di sicurezza atlantico e caso italiano (Florence: Ponte alle Grazie, 1991).

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Soviet invasion of Hungary eight months later induced the PSI to reconsider its allegiance to Moscow. Even after those events, however, the U.S. State De- partment continued to believe that Nenni would threaten NATO’s cohesion with his undying Marxist faith, his mistrust of Washington, and his campaign for a neutral, European “third force.” What was even more alarming for U.S. ofªcials was the sympathy that Nenni and the main Italian government representatives had for Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the foremost Arab neutral. Nasser was deeply hostile to British imperialism and was dismayed to re- ceive only lukewarm support from Washington. In response, he turned to the Soviet Union.11 The Eisenhower administration remained deeply concerned about any step in Italy that might lead to a center-left coalition with Nenni’s Socialists. The U.S. embassy in Rome and the State Department kept searching for a leader from the moderate left who could supplant Nenni. Even the ultracon- servative Clare Boothe Luce, during her tenure as U.S. ambassador to Rome from 1953 to 1956, gradually shifted from advocacy of center-right solutions to ªrmer support for the Social Democratic Party (PSDI) of Giuseppe Saragat as the antidote to Nenni. In October 1956 she pleaded with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to “do anything to strengthen Saragat.” For years Luce had supervised a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program of secret funding to Italy’s center parties. This “Civic Action” program, as the director of the program, William Colby, nicknamed it, was a logical follow-up to the massive CIA operation that favored the Christian Democrats’ campaign for the 1948 national elections. But the difference was that Colby wanted to extend funds to the moderate left.12 Some U.S. ofªcials welcomed the attempts at Socialist

11. See, for example, Ortona to Martino, 29 August 1956, DGAP,Box 469, ASMAE; Luce to Depart- ment of State, 13 September 1956, NA, 765.00, RG 59; Despatch 315, Meeting between Martino and Luce, 30 August 1956, NA, 765.00, RG 59; Meeting between Eisenhower and Fanfani, 10 Au- gust 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (hereinafter DDE Library), Ann Whitman ªles (hereinafter AW), International Series, Box30,; OIR Report, “Western European Socialism: Italy,” 6 May 1957,NA, OIR Files; Zellerbach to Dulles, 9 May 1957, NA, 765.00, RG 59; and Gianni Baget-Bozzo, Il partito cristiano e l’apertura a sinistra: La DC di Fanfani e Moro, 1954–1962 (Florence: Vallecchi, 1978), pp. 99 ff. See also Fisher, Foreign Policy as Function of Party Politics. 12. Luce to Dulles, 10 October 1956, NA, 611.65, RG 59. See also Meeting between Luce and Segni (prime minister), 24 August 1956, NA, 765.00, RG 59; and James E. Miller, “Roughhouse Diplo- macy: The United States Confronts Italian Communism, 1945–1958,” in Storia delle relazioni internazionali, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1989), pp. 304–309. On Luce’s earlier favor for the center and right parties, see Memorandum from Luce to Eisenhower, 11 April 1955, DDE Library, AW, International Se- ries, Box30, Folder 7; and Leo J. Wollenborg, Stars, Stripes, and Italian Tricolor: The United States and Italy, 1946–1989 (New York: Praeger, 1990), p. 19. On U.S. psychological strategies in Italy in the early 1950s, see especially Maria Eleonora Guasconi, L’altra faccia della medaglia: Guerra psicologica e diplomazia sindacale nelle relazioni Italia-Stati Uniti durante la prima fase della guerra fredda, 1947–1955 (Catanzaro: Rubettino, 1999); and Mario Del Pero, “The United States and Psychological Warfare in Italy, 1948–1955,” The Journal of American History, Vol. 87, No. 4 (Spring 2001), pp. 1304–1334.

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reuniªcation that Nenni and Saragat had begun in 1956. Even CIA Director Allen Dulles immediately noted that the entry of a reuniªed Socialist party into the government could isolate the Communists. The Americans would have preferred to see Saragat dominate the process, but the PSI was by far the stronger party, and Nenni enjoyed greater inºuence over Italian politics than Saragat did. Worse still, by 1957 the assertive, almost “nationalist” mood of most left-wing Christian Democrats favored Nenni, the champion of a more independent foreign policy, over Saragat, who appeared too “subservient” to U.S. interests.13 Almost all U.S. ofªcials understood that even the most audacious and disgruntled DC leaders would not deliberately set Italy on a neutralist path. But the prevalent American view throughout the Eisenhower years was that those leaders might inadvertently allow their country to drift from the alliance if they adopted a casual approach to Nenni.14 In January 1958 an intelligence report of the U.S. State Department concluded that neutralist tendencies among Italy’s “Neo-Atlanticists” were, at most, embryonic, but it warned that these sentiments could become more pronounced if an economic recession occurred or if the United States failed to keep up with the Soviet military ma- chine (the debate on the “missile-gap” was at this point raging in Washing- ton), or above all “if the U.S. were to rebuff Italy,” particularly its “interests in the Near East.”15 This last remark illustrated the second reason for American concern about Italy’s international initiatives. The Eisenhower administration treated the issue of Neo-Atlanticism not only as a domestic Italian phenomenon, but also as an international problem. Even the president and the secretary of state worried that Italy’s “mild” assertiveness might be a symptom of a “virus” ailing all of Western Europe. If even the loyal Italians showed signs of dissatisfaction

13. A. Dulles, in Memorandum of 289th NSC Meeting, 28 June 1956, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereinafter FRUS), 1955–1957, Vol. XXIV, pp. 118–123; OIR Report, “Western European So- cialism: Italy”; 298th NSC Meeting, 27 September 1956, Declassiªed Documents Reference System (hereinafter DDRS), 1980, Doc. 382C; Meeting between Saragat and J. F. Dulles, 10 September 1957, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XXVII, pp. 425–427; Zellerbach to State Department, 30 April and 9 May 1957, NA, 765.00, RG 59; and meeting between Malagodi and Zellerbach, 29 May 1957, NA, 765.00, RG 59. Cf. Baget-Bozzo, Il partito cristiano e l’apertura a sinistra, pp. 100, 104–108; and Nuti, Gli Stati Unit: e l’apertura a sinistra, pp. 124–128. 14. The PSI might even have taken advantage of the cultural resentment some Christian Democrats harbored against the United States. Signiªcantly, Fanfani’s faction of Iniziativa Democratica included several fervent Catholics inspired by the teachings of Giuseppe Dossetti, who, in the immediate postwar period had denounced the materialistic and hedonistic aspects of American culture. For more on this subject, see Elisabetta Vezzosi, “La sinistra democristiana tra neutralismo e Patto Atlantico (1947–1949),” in Di Nolfo, Rainero, and Vigezzi, eds., L’Italia, pp. 195–221; Giorgio Rumi, “Opportunismo e profezia: Cultura cattolica e politica estera italiana, 1949–1963,” Storia Contemporanea, Vol. 12, No. 4 (October 1981), pp. 4–5; and Guido Formigoni, La Democrazia Cristiana e l’alleanza occidentale, 1943–1953 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996). 15. OIR, Report No. 7641, p. 13.

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with the restrictions imposed by the Atlantic alliance, other countries—perhaps led by France—might seek to revive the idea of a European “third force” that would be truly independent of both superpowers. The fact that Nenni by 1957 had linked his campaign for neutralism to that of Aneurin Bevan, the inºuential representative of the British Labour Party and foreign secretary of Britain’s shadow cabinet, caused no small concern in Washington.16 But the Eisenhower administration also acknowledged the beneªts of the Neo-Atlanticist agenda: its promotion of a greater U.S. presence in the Medi- terranean, its new ideas on how to preserve NATO cohesion, and the potential it offered for genuine burden sharing within the alliance. The Italians cer- tainly had no intention of increasing their share of the burden in the near term, but their insistence on consultation and cooperation suggested that they might eventually be steered in that direction. Washington carefully weighed the pros and cons of Neo-Atlanticism. To understand the effect of this process on U.S.-Italian relations in 1957–1958, it is essential to look ªrst at how the unbalanced relationship between the hegemon and the small ally evolved in the period from 1953 to 1956, when Italy increasingly tried to upgrade its international presenza.

Ups and Downs in U.S.

Ambassador Luce managed to increase the Eisenhower administration’s involvement in Italian affairs. At ªrst sight, her impact on U.S.-Italian relations seems to have been deleterious. Luce undertook her new profession with an amateurish approach that was further hindered by her uncompromising attitude and relentless efforts to sway Italian politics. As a recent convert to Ca- tholicism with all the fervor of a “reborn” devotee, and as someone who was also strongly sympathetic to McCarthyism, she waged her own “witch-hunt” against atheistic Communism in Italy. There is no denying that Luce caused considerable trouble during her four years in Rome: She hindered reform plans, which she regarded as harbingers of either Bolshevism or Fascist corporatism; she stirred Communist protests; and she caused an anti-Ameri-

16. Pietro Nenni and D. Luzzato, eds., I nodi della politica estera italiana (Milan: SugarCo, 1974), pp. 146–147; Progress Report on NSC 5411/2, 13 February 1957, NA, RG 273, p. 2; Zellerbach to Dulles, 21 February 1957, NA, 765.00, RG 59; and OIR Report, “Western European Socialism: It- aly.” The European-American debate for a European “third force” is analyzed in John L. Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), ch. 3; and Geir Lundestad, “Empire” by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Frank Ninkovich argues that the Eisenhower administration made a greater effort than its predecessor at dealing with the European allies’ demoralization stemming from fear, lethargy, and inaction. See Ninkovich, Modernity and Power: A History of the Domino Theory in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 203–240.

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can backlash even among moderate left leaders and the public with her insis- tent pressure on the government.17 Nevertheless, there is another, less well-known aspect of Luce. At a time when Italian leaders feared being ignored by Washington, they found in her an asset. Because she was close to the president and to several other members of the administration and was married to media tycoon Henry Luce, she helped draw the attention of U.S. leaders and public opinion to Italy’s prob- lems and ambitions.18 The very devotion she showed toward her new position and toward Italian affairs increased the president’s interest in Rome. Luce was oblivious to the subtle maneuvers of politics, and her impulsiveness could have been even more damaging on both sides of the Atlantic. But, fortunately for Rome, Luce was primarily a catalyst for action by Washington, where wiser minds frequently turned her advice into more carefully considered decisions. Luce championed Italy’s struggle for greater prominence in NATO. As early as the summer of 1953, she alerted Eisenhower that although “Italy [did] not wish to abandon NATO,” it did “wish it to be . . . less of an ‘Ameri- can Show.’” During the last phase of the ratiªcation debate on the treaty for a European Defense Community (EDC) in the summer of 1954, Luce described Europe’s—and Italy’s—”neutralist” temptations primarily as an attempt “to make it impossible for America to go it alone and equally possible for [Europe] to make America go along with her.” “Neutralism,” she argued, had a narrow connotation for the governments of Western Europe: It simply meant that, stimulated by resurgent nationalist feelings, they were more determined to question or manipulate American leadership. But Luce believed that the ultimate consequence of such nationalism in countries with a strong left like France and Italy would be the “adoption of pro-Russian policies.” The

17. On the famous speech Luce gave in Milan to affect the 1953 Italian elections and how it backªred, see Luce to C. D. Jackson, 18 June 1953, in FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. VI, pp. 1612–1613; Letter from Luce to J. F. Dulles, 19 June 1953, Library of Congress, (hereinafter LC), C. B. Luce papers, Box602, Folder 1; and Miller, “Roughhouse Diplomacy,” pp. 303–304. For discussion of other issues, see Memorandum from OCB, 3 May 1955, DDE Library, OCB Central File, Box111; Luce to Eisen - hower, 11 April 1955; Luce to Department of State, 15 December 1954, in FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. VI, p. 1714; Egidio Ortona, Anni d’America, Vol. 2, La diplomazia, 1953–1961 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), pp. 124–127, 130; Alfredo Canavero, “La politica estera di un ministro degli interni: Scelba, Piccioni, Martino e la politica estera italiana,” Storia delle relazioni internazionali, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1990), pp. 93–96; and Anna Bedeschi-Magrini, “Spunti revisionistici nella politica estera di Giovanni Gronchi, Presidente della Repubblica,” in Di Nolfo, Rainero, Vigezzi, eds., l’Italia, pp. 60–61. 18. See Memorandum of Conversation (hereinafter MemCon) between Ellsworth Bunker and J. F. Dulles, 31 January 1953, DDE Library, JFD, General Correspondence Series, Box5; Luce to Eisen - hower, 25 August 1956, DDE Library, AW, Administration Series, Box25; De Ferraris (New York) to Tarchiani (Washington), 6 January 1953, and Telegram 3238, Rossi Longhi to Ministero Affari Esteri (MAE), 23 March 1954, both in Fondo Cassaforte (hereinafter FC), Box4 (C. B. Luce), ASMAE; and Ortona, Anni d’America, Vol. 2, pp. 72–73.

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ambassador’s own sympathy for right-wing and monarchist groups in Italy made her keenly aware that Fascism had discredited right-wing nationalism. She was particularly alarmed by several Christian Democrats’ fascination with the “Nenni brand” of nationalism. She insisted that besides helping the Ital- ians to regain the disputed border area of Trieste,19 the United States should ªnd “diplomatic mechanisms to permit the smaller nations (especially Italy) to be more ‘in’ on major military planning and political decisions affecting Europe.”20 President Eisenhower did not ignore these arguments. He was frustrated with Europe’s manipulative conduct, particularly what he saw as Italy’s black- mail tactics during the 1954 negotiations on U.S. access to military bases. The Italian government refused to grant military facilities to the United States until the Trieste issue was favorably resolved. Speaking to Secretary of State Dulles in July, Eisenhower recommended that Ambassador Luce tell the Ital- ians that “we are losing interest in the thing [gaining access to the facilities]”; but he then acknowledged that the Italians’ impertinence reºected a tendency common to all European allies: “[I]n selling the United States the idea that ‘we cannot live alone,’ we have also sold the Europeans the idea that we are completely dependent on their cooperative attitude.”21 Even the European allies that, like Italy, were economically feeble and po- litically divided, they could turn their weakness into an instrument of pressure

19. Luce to J. F. Dulles, 15 June 1956 (summarizes issues concerning Italy and Yugoslavia), DDE Li- brary, JFD papers, General Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Strictly Conªdential Subseries (hereinafter Subs.), Box2; Gruenther to C. B. Luce, 3 March 1953, DDE Library, A. Gruenther Pa - pers, General Correspondence Series, Box11; MemCon between Eisenhower and Dulles, 6 October 1953, DDE Library, JFD, Chronological Series, Telephone Conversations Subs., Box1; Luce to Emmet J. Hughes, 15 July 1953, LC, Luce Papers, Box604, Folder 6; Dulles to State Department, 24 April 1954, in FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. VIII, pp. 416–422; Luce to State Department, 4 May 1954, in FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. VIII, pp. 416–422; Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953–1956 (Garden City: NJ: Doubleday, 1963), pp. 409, 416; Beatrice Heuser, Western Containment Policies of the Cold War: The Yugoslav Case, 1948–1953 (New York: Routledge, 1989); and Massimo de Leonardio, La “Diplomazia Atlantica” e la soluzione del problema di Trieste (1952–1954) (Naples: ESI, 1992). For a different thesis, see Giampaolo Valdevit, “Italia, Jugoslavia, sicurezza europea: La visione americana (1948–1956),” in Marco Galeazzi, ed., Roma-Belgrado: Gli anni della guerra fredda (Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1995), esp. p. 55. 20. Memorandum from Luce to Eisenhower, 20 August 1954, DDE Library, JFD papers, General Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Strictly Conªdential Subs., Box2, pp. 22–23; Memoran - dum from Luce to Eisenhower, 31 August 1954, 31 August 1954” in DDE Library, AW, Adm. Series, Box25; and Luce to State Department, 7 August 1953, in FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. VI, p. 1626. 21. See “Notes to discuss with John Foster Dulles,” 10 July 1954, DDE Library, AW, Dulles-Herter Series, Box3. Upon taking ofªce in January 1953, Eisenhower had complained: “I get weary of the European habit of taking our money, resenting any slight hint as to what they should do, and then as- suming, in addition, full right to criticize us as bitterly as they may desire. In fact, it sometimes appears that their indulgence in this kind of criticism varies in direct ratio to the amount of help we give them.” Quoted in Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower, The President (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 143–144.

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on the United States. They could simply argue that their own collapse would affect vital U.S. interests. Italian leaders maintained that without a favorable resolution on Trieste the parliament would refuse to endorse any agree- ment on bases and that the government would be likely to crumble, with grave consequences for American strategy in Europe. The Italians had used this “tyrannical weakness” argument with Washington before,22 and they continued to use it, though it often contradicted their aspirations for great-power status. John Foster Dulles repeatedly grumbled about the Italians’ elusiveness and manipulation, especially after Rome failed to ratify the EDC treaty in 1954. He was particularly irritated by the Italian campaign for the implementation of NATO’s Article 2, a campaign spearheaded from 1955 to 1957 by Italian Foreign Minister Gaetano Martino. After a special committee com- posed of Martino, Canada’s Lester Pearson, and Norway’s Halvard Lange presented its report on this issue at the Atlantic Council in May 1956, Dulles commented bitterly: “All of our Allies are willing to follow the Italian lead and have NATO turned into an economic organization which can probably extract a little more money from the United States.” Dulles stressed the willingness of most of NATO to “follow” the ally that had been the most elusive on military burden sharing. Although Martino’s efforts to manipulate the United States were subtle and ingratiating, other Italian leaders were more assertive or even deªant. This deªance drew the attention of the State Department and the American embassy in Rome. U.S. ofªcials claimed that nationalist sentiment was reemerging in Italy, only a few years after the Italians had renounced their dreams of grandeur. This sentiment, they argued, was more a “nationalism of resentment” than a “nationalism of pride.”23 Although the nationalist resurgence did not reºect any major growth of Italian power, it could not be un- derestimated. After all, Italian Fascism, even at its peak, had drawn less on a sense of empowerment than on the nation’s historical sense of inferiority. As State Department analyst Lloyd Free observed in 1955, “the very fact that the Italians feel subservient renders them acutely sensitive on the subject of national dignity.” Ambassador Luce reiterated that with the “true” nationalists

22. For a ªrst deªnition of the allies’ “tyrannical weakness,” see Churchill as quoted in Lundestad, The American “Empire,” p. 80. See also Ottavio Barié, “Gli Stati Uniti, l’Unione Occidentale e l’inserimento dell’Italia nell’Alleanza Atlantica,” in Ottavio Barié, ed., L’alleanza occidentale: Nascita e sviluppi di un sistema di sicurezza collettivo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1988), p. 141; and Brogi, L’Italia e l’egemonia americana, pp. 36–44. 23. Alfred Grosser drew this distinction with regard to the French Fourth Republic. See Alfred Grosser, The Western Alliance: European-American Relations Since 1945, trans. by Michael Shaw (NewYork: Continuum, 1980).

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from the right so discredited, any Italian campaign for national reassertion, particularly if meant to dispel feelings of subservience to the United States, could only beneªt the “pro-Cominform” parties.24 The Italians’ resentment against an overbearing America had a lot to do with Italy’s improved economic and diplomatic conditions and the conse- quent rising expectations of its leaders. The ªrst signs of the country’s “economic miracle” were already visible by the mid-1950s. By 1954–1955, Italy’s diplomacy was free of its two postwar “ªxations”: the territorial dispute with Yugoslavia; and the campaign for United Nations (UN) membership, both of which had been resolved in its favor. It is no accident that the two foremost advocates of “Neo-Atlanticism,” President Gronchi and the director of the State Oil Industry (ENI), Enrico Mattei, both expressed this mixture of frustration and ambition. The two leaders persistently tried to establish a special arrangement with the United States, but did not want to appear obsequious. They even threatened to break with Washington should their demands go unheeded. Gronchi made his position clear during his much trumpeted visit to the United States in Febru- ary–March 1956. He proposed a special entente that would provide Italy the rank it deserved, as a power of “50 million people [in] such a geographic and strategic position.” This cooperation, he suggested, would be particularly fruitful in the Near East. But while proposing greater Italian-American collaboration in the Mediterranean, Gronchi also argued that Italy should be free to establish commercial relations with China and the Soviet Union.25 Mattei was legendary for his “crusades” against the oil monopoly of the “Seven Sisters” in the Middle East. But new evidence shows that, far from being staunchly opposed to U.S. “imperialism,” the ENI director struggled to forge a relationship with the American oil companies as privileged as that enjoyed by the British. Mattei decided to rebel against American arrogance only after being repeatedly snubbed by those companies. Still, his ultimate goal was to return to the negotiating table, albeit from a stronger position. From

24. Lloyd A. Free and Renzo Sereno, Italy: Dependent Ally or Independent Partner? (Princeton, NJ: In- stitute for International Social Research, 1956), p. 60. See also Memorandum, Free for the State De- partment, “Italian Political Behavior and Psychological Diagnosis,” April 1955, DDE Library, JFD Papers, White House Memoranda Series, Meetings with the President Subs., Box3; Luce to Eisen - hower, 31 August 1954, DDE Library, JFD Papers, White House Memoranda Series, Meetings with the President Subs., Box3; and Luce to Dulles, 15 June 1956, DDE Library, JFD Papers, White House Memoranda Series, Meetings with the President Subs., Box 3. 25. See Meeting between Eisenhower and Gronchi, 28 February 1956, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XXVII, pp. 337–339; Herbert Hoover to Embassy in Rome, 6 March 1956, NA, 765.11, RG 59; Brosio to MAE, 4 March 1956, DGAP, 1951–1957, Box440, ASMAE; Giovanni Gronchi, Discorsi d’America (Milan: Garzanti, 1956), pp. 15–27; Ortona, Anni d’America, Vol. 2, pp. 151–176; and Wollemborg, Stars, Stripes, and Italian Tricolor, pp. 22–24.

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the mid-1950s on, Mattei’s idea of a Mediterranean “vocation” combined op- portunism and sincere faith in the virtues of nationalism for Italy as well as for the “underdogs” of the Middle East.26 Gronchi’s and Mattei’s nationalism was undoubtedly heightened by their resentment of America’s preponderance. Their main objective was to bolster Italy’s standing in the world. They consistently stressed that the recovery of “self-esteem” was a central element of “Neo-Atlanticism.” Many in Washing- ton soon concluded that the only way to prevent Italy from loosening its ties with NATO was by offering concessions to Rome on the question of Italy’s diplomatic status. In the midst of the Suez crisis Eisenhower decided to give tacit consent to Fanfani’s attempts to mediate between Egypt and the West (the DC secretary’s probe with Cairo failed, however).27 John Foster Dulles also tried to gratify It- aly’s need for status, particularly in Mediterranean affairs. In November 1955 he invited Manlio Brosio to join the Committee of Ambassadors, an out- growth of the Near East Arms Coordinating Committee (NEACC), the organization created ªve years earlier by the United States, Great Britain, and France to oversee the sale of arms to Israel and the Arab countries. The secretary of state recognized that Italy was “emerging as [a] prominent supplier of arms to the Middle East.” But primarily he wanted to acknowledge the Ital- ians’ desire for a presence at Mediterranean great-power summit meetings. During the Suez crisis both Dulles and Luce publicly praised Rome’s diplomatic “maturity” and, more speciªcally, Foreign Minister Martino’s activism at the London Conferences that were convened to settle the Canal dispute. Finally, in the aftermath of the Suez crisis Eisenhower instructed Dulles to ªnd ways to “give the Italians an additional dose of prestige within NATO.”28 From Washington’s standpoint, these concessions of rank were likely to have a stabilizing effect not only on Italy, but on NATO as well. By com- mending the initiatives of moderates such as Fanfani and Martino, U.S. lead-

26. On Mattei’s search for cooperation with the United States, see esp. Leonardo Maugeri, L’arma del petrolio: Questione petrolifera, guerra fredda e politica italiana nella vicenda di Enrico Mattei (Florence: Loggia dei Lanzi, 1994). The best accounts upholding the old thesis on Mattei as the staunch enemy of the “Seven Sisters” are Paul H. Frankel, Mattei, Oil, Power and Politics (New York: Praeger, 1966); and Marcello Colitti, Energia e sviluppo in Italia: La vicenda di Enrico Mattei (Bari: De Donato, 1979). 27. See MemCon between Eisenhower and Dulles, 6 October 1953; Fanfani to Eisenhower, 27 Sep- tember 1956, DDE Library, AW, International Series, Box30; Manzini to Ellsworth Bunker, 10 Octo - ber 1956, Seeley G. Mudd Library (hereinafter SGM Library), JFD Papers, Box118,; and Meeting between Eisenhower and Dulles, 2 October 1956, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XVI, pp. 625–626. 28. Dulles to State Department, 15 November 1956; MemCon at the State Department, 20 Novem- ber 1955, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XIV, pp. 790–792; MemCon with the President, 19 October 1955, DDE Library, JFD, Memoranda Series, Meetings with the President Subs., Box3; Luce to Ei - senhower, 25 August 1956; Telephone Conversations Subs., Dulles-Ellsworth Bunker, 3 October 1956, DDE Library, JFD, General Correspondence Series, Box5; Luce to Dulles, 10 October 1956; and Meeting between Eisenhower and Dulles, 5 February 1957, DDRS, 1989, Doc. 3426.

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ers hoped to limit the inºuence of the more “extremist” Gronchi and Mattei. More important, by endorsing Italy’s impulse for mediation, Washington tried to encourage the Italians to embrace international cooperation rather than individual action. The Eisenhower administration exhorted the Italian leaders to promote international arbitration and to enhance Italy’s prestige by spearheading the drive for European and Atlantic integration. The Italians’ renewed jingoist leanings should be banished, Washington insisted; their desire to resume the diplomacy of the old European Concert of Powers was simply unrealistic. The Americans, in sum, recommended a new idea of prestige, based on international diplomacy, not chauvinism. Signiªcantly, Washington had been conveying the same notion to the French since the early 1950s, repeatedly inviting them to continue their “long tradition of bold and imagina- tive leadership” vis-à-vis European integration.29 U.S. ofªcials believed that a cohesive West European bloc sharing responsibilities with Washington even from a relatively autonomous position would clearly beneªt the United States. The Eisenhower administration ardently supported the European Economic Community project, and welcomed any move in the direction of integration, especially after the collapse of the EDC. France and Italy, which bore central responsibility for that failure, regained their standing in Washington after the success at the Messina Conference in 1955. But, even better for Italy, Martino’s mediating efforts during the Suez crisis stood in contrast to the deªant, anachronistic imperialism of France and Britain.30 Although the Eisenhower administration was trying to prod Italian leaders to pursue an integrationist foreign policy, U.S. ofªcials recognized the potential beneªts for NATO of a somewhat independent Italian role in foreign affairs. Autonomous initiatives would dispel the sense of dependency and demoralization among the Italians. The restoration or sustenance of the allies’ self-conªdence would improve the chances for a more self-reliant Europe. Furthermore, independent actions within NATO would demonstrate the alliance’s remarkable pluralism. This, Washington believed, was a vital message to send across the Iron Curtain and especially to the Arab countries, which

29. See especially Brosio to Martino, 29 November 1955; Quaroni to Martino, 6 April 1956. See also the last quote from Meeting between De Gaulle and Eisenhower, 20 April 1952, in FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. VI, pp. 1200–1203. For more on this theme and in general on the impact of status policies in France and Italy, see Alessandro Brogi, A Question of Self-Esteem: The United States and the Cold War Choices in France and Italy, 1944–1958 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001). 30. On Eisenhower’s support for the relaunching of Europe, see especially Pascaline Winand, Eisen- hower, Kennedy, and the United States of Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), pp. 72–80; and Lundestad, “Empire” by Integration, pp. 49–57. On Italy during Suez, see esp. Meeting between Brosio, Rountree, et al., 30 October 1956, NA, 611.65, RG 59; and Appunto Ufªcio III, DGAP, 4 December 1956, SG, G. Martino (1956), Box 117, ASMAE.

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tended to perceive the Western alliance as an anti-Communist monolith inspired by British imperialism. For all these reasons, at the end of 1955 CIA and State Department ofªcials went so far as to encourage the Italian government to show some “audacity, publicly disagreeing on something with the Anglo-Americans” on Mediterranean affairs. This was also a way of testing whether Italian leaders were content with simply appearing to be consulted, or whether they had new and substantial ideas to offer. Some U.S. diplomats, however, argued that the mere fact that Italy was willing to initiate contacts with the Arabs would be sufªcient to improve the image of the United States in the Near East. The U.S. consul in Florence, William Fisher, described the series of “Mediterra- nean Conferences on Peace and Christianity” organized by Mayor Giorgio La Pira (one of the foremost Neo-Atlanticists) from the spring of 1957 as a “stage [on which] to explain U.S. policy [through Italy’s voice] in [the] Near East to an audience of mainly Afro-Asian nations.”31 Washington was gaining conªdence in Italy’s capacity to improve Western relations with the Arab countries. What was even more crucial for Italy’s ambitions was the American re- evaluation of earlier methods of intervention in Italian politics. In May 1956, on the eve of Italy’s municipal elections, the chargé d’affaires at the Rome embassy, John D. Jernegan, urged Washington to refrain from any “direct action” to inºuence the vote. The United States, he claimed, had lost the power to “affect directly [Italy’s] internal affairs.” But he believed that the interplay between Italy’s domestic politics and foreign policy could still be manipulated. To “keep the Italians in line,” Jernegan concluded, the United States simply had to offer token recognition of Italy’s growing role in the Mediterranean or propose a partial application of NATO’s Article 2.32 This call for indirect inºuence shows the progressive transformation of Italy from a “client” (the ªrst testing ground for the CIA) into a “partner.” A partner could still be har- nessed, but through subtle co-optation of its international conduct, not through heavy-handed intervention in its internal affairs. By the end of 1956, however, Rome was still far from obtaining the international recognition it craved. As the Italian government complained, there was little prestige to gain from an organ as secretive as the NEACC’s Commit- tee of Ambassadors.33 Moreover, most Italian leaders, while welcoming

31. Brosio to Martino, 29 November 1955, SG, G. Martino (1956), Box117, ASMAE; Brosio to Martino, 1 December 1955, DGAP, Box1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE, DGAP; W. D. Fisher to State Department, 8 January 1957, 765.00, RG 59, NA; and Fisher to State Department, 7 May 1957. 32. Jernegan to J. W. Jones (WEA), 17 May 1956, NA, 765.00, RG 59. On Jernegan, see Leopoldo Nuti’s article in this issue of the Journal of Cold War Studies. 33. See esp. remarks by Egidio Ortona in Ortona, Anni d’America, Vol. 2, p. 149. See also Martino to Brosio, 4 February 1956, DGAP, Box 1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE.

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the homage and ºattery they received from the “hegemon” during the Suez crisis, hoped that more substantial results would follow. But after the Anglo- American reconciliation at the Bermuda summit of March 1957 and an apparent rapprochement between Paris and Washington the following May, Italy again felt excluded from the Mediterranean power game.

The Shortcomings of Italian Diplomacy

The Italians, for the most part, could blame only themselves for their limited achievements. Throughout the 1951–1956 period they had failed to present a clear policy on Mediterranean affairs. This failure was rooted primarily in two shortcomings of Italian diplomacy: ªrst, the government’s obstinate drive for prestige frequently obscured practical goals, leading to inconsistent actions; second, Italy lacked the resolve to convert an improvement of rank into an ap- preciable international role. Italy’s efforts to acquire greater prestige were not always consistent. Italy did not forgo any chance to become a great power, even if that required participation in military alliances and the very expansion of NATO’s military dimension that Rome had hoped to avoid. For example, in 1951, while launch- ing Italy’s campaign for the implementation of Article 2, Alcide De Gasperi broached to Washington the prospect of Italian participation in the Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO), which at the time was being negotiated by the United States, Great Britain, Turkey, and Egypt.34 Four years later Prime Minister Mario Scelba inquired about a possible Italian association with the Baghdad Pact, the alliance system that had replaced the failed MEDO.35 To be sure, there was more coherence between these requests for a military presenza and the promotion of Article 2 than may be apparent. Italy wanted to become the economic and strategic linchpin between the Mediter- ranean and the Western allies. It thus went to considerable lengths to prevent any military agreements in the Near East that would turn the Mediterranean into a defensive perimeter around British imperial interests. Such alliances would have kept Italy at the periphery of the Western defense system and would have reduced its share of U.S. aid; and conceivably, they would have

34. See Sebesta, L’Europa indifesa, pp. 137–139; and Nicoletta Bombardiere, “L’Italia e Nasser” (“tesi di laurea,” University of Florence, 1986–1987), ch. 2. 35. Summary of Scelba Visit, Brieªng papers by J. Stewart Cottman, 24 March 1955, Italian Desk Files 1947–1956, NA, RG 59; Memorandum from Dixon (NEA), 24 March 1955, Italian Desk Files 1947–1956, NA, RG 59; MemCons at State Department, 24 June 1955, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XII, p. 115; and MemCons at State Department, 11 August 1955, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XII, p. 141.

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undermined Italy’s prospects of full participation in European integration. In- deed, Rome had consistently vetoed projects for separate Mediterranean and Balkan Pacts since 1948, when British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin proposed one as an alternative to Italian participation in the Atlantic alliance. Nevertheless, Italy’s bid for membership in the MEDO or the Baghdad Pact, which would have legitimized the appearance of being associated with British colonialism, ran directly contrary to the bid for a Mediterranean “vocation.” Perhaps more damaging to Italy’s main goals, neither De Gasperi nor Scelba could explain to the United States the logic of Italy’s apparently di- vergent proposals regarding military arrangements in the Mediterranean. To do so, they would have had to admit that they were trying to “extract more money” from Washington, as Dulles argued later. The Americans simply concluded that Italy wished to participate in every organization “only for reasons of prestige” without being able to offer a vital contribution or new ideas in return, as the State Department director of Near Eastern Affairs, Ben Dixon, contemptuously put it in 1955.36 Dixon’s remarks suggested the second major problem with Italian foreign policy. Even when given an opportunity, Italy failed to assert itself. It carefully avoided taking on burdensome responsibilities and compulsively avoided any open confrontation with the allies or the Arab countries. Italy’s participation in the NEACC offers the clearest example of this lack of resolve. Italian leaders naturally complained about the ºimsiness of the Ambassadors Commit- tee, which was only an “interim” branch of the NEACC. But full-ºedged membership in the NEACC, and hence the recognition that Italy demanded, would have required a pledge of military intervention if the armistice lines drawn after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war were challenged. Neither Foreign Min- ister Martino nor Ambassador Brosio was ready to shoulder that responsibility. They feared alienating the Arabs; and they especially dreaded the prospect of Italian involvement in a peacekeeping operation in the absence of sufªcient funds or public support. Italian ofªcials may have wanted an international presenza, but they were all too aware of their country’s limits.37 Hence, they displayed a repeated tendency, typical of a “weak” power, to compromise, and they continued to take cover behind their still vaguely deªned campaign for a multilateral economic approach to Near Eastern affairs.

36. Memorandum from Dixon (NEA), 24 March 1955. See also Brosio to Martino, 29 November 1955, DGAP, Box1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE. In 1950 Dean Acheson had similarly criticized Italy’s prestige policy. See Smith, The United States, Italy and NATO, p. 132. 37. Ortona, Anni d’America, Vol. 2, pp. 149–154; Martino to Brosio, 4 February 1956; Brosio to Martino, 7 February 1956, DGAP,Box1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE.; Rossi Longhi to Brosio, 16 Feb - ruary 1956, DGAP, Box 1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE.

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During the Egyptian crisis of 1955–1956 Italy’s most inºuential diplomats tried to make sense of Rome’s hesitations and frustrations. Since the end of World War II, they suggested, Italy had striven to demonstrate its superior adaptability to a changing world. Following its “moral” catharsis after the end of Fascist rule, Italy wished to prove its institutional capacity to encourage in- novation both at home and abroad. This meant that the Italians were in a favorable position to understand all new international developments, such as continental integration in Europe, emergent Third World nationalism, and Arab nonalignment. But Rome wanted a Franco-Italian entente while making simultaneous use of its recently acquired U.N. membership to curry favor in the Third World. Eager to please both Europe and the developing world, Italy was frequently paralyzed by its indecision. In April 1956 the Italian ambassador to Paris, Pietro Quaroni, lashed out at Martino’s ambition to gain international clout through organizations such as the NEACC. As participants in those summits, Quaroni explained, “we would be a little pro-Arab, since our public opinion is pro-Arab—and since the Vatican is anti-Israel—and we would also be a little procolonial out of respect for our allies, France and Britain”; the result, he concluded, would be that “within a short time, everyone would be punching us on the nose.” Such pessimism about Italy’s prospects was based on a sober assessment of the country’s power. No matter what special competence in Mediterranean affairs Rome may have claimed, Italy would always lag behind the other participants in great power summits, as the Italian ambassador to London, Vittorio Zoppi, observed. A few years earlier Quaroni had expressed deep skepticism about the distinction between power politics (or, as we would say today, “hard power”) and Rome’s emphasis on its spiritual/historical values and diplomatic ªnesse (or “soft power”)—the arguments supporting the Mediterranean vocation. “We brag about being born-diplomats,” the ambassador wrote, “and claim that diplomatic skills can do anything; but diplomacy cannot replace the realities of power.”38 Those realities became apparent to most Italian leaders during the Suez crisis. In the aftermath of the second London Conference, French leaders ac- cused Italy of compromising on the issue of toll collection and of “appeasing” Egypt’s audacity. They did not criticize Washington, though Dulles had ap- proved a plan for toll collection that resembled the Italian proposal. France, as Quaroni reported, was wise enough not to reproach the Americans directly,

38. Quaroni to Martino, 6 April 1956; Zoppi to Martino, 2 April 1956, DGAP, Box1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE; Quaroni (Paris) to MAE, 3 August 1951, FC, Box7, 1950–1957, ASMAE. On this debate, see also Ennio Di Nolfo, “La ‘politica di potenza’ e le formule della politica di potenza: Il caso italiano (1952–1956),” in Di Nolfo, Rainero, Vigezzi, eds., L’Italia, pp. 718–723.

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but did so indirectly by targeting the more vulnerable Italians, who throughout the Conference had been America’s most faithful allies and, as the French saw it, Europe’s main defectors. Ambassador Zoppi bitterly commented that the United States, as a world power, could at times “afford to disappoint its European partners,” but if weak Italy dared the same, it would “attract on itself all the blame that . . . could not be placed on America.”39 Compounding Italy’s fear of antagonizing its European partners was its concern about needlessly irritating the United States with an unduly accommodating approach to Arab neutrality. The Americans did wish to underscore the plurality of opinions that existed within NATO and had even begun to show some understanding of Arab nationalism, with its corollary of nonalignment. But they did not intend European “autonomy” to be a license to ºirt with the neutralist policies of the Arab League. Especially in times of emergency, as during the Suez crisis, Washington demanded “absolute loyalty, without perplexity” from its European partners, as Egidio Ortona, the closest adviser to Ambassador Brosio, noted soon after the nationalization of the Canal. Quite apart from the tension that this policy caused with the United States, many Italian diplomats and leaders seriously questioned the wisdom of dealing with such a capricious tyrant as Nasser. It was in Italy’s interest, Zoppi observed in April 1956, to prevent a “nationalist dictator from...controlling an Islamic bloc from the Euphrates to the Atlantic” and posing a threat to the main oil supplies to Europe. Only if the moderates came to power in the Arab League, Quaroni added, would the Mediterranean “vocation” have some meaning.40 In the ªnal analysis, Rome’s eagerness to please all sides tended to backªre during a crisis in which each ally (France, Britain, the United States) or potential partner (Egypt) expected nothing short of unconditional support.

Post-Suez Accomplishments and Disappointments

In the aftermath of the Suez crisis Italy showed unprecedented dynamism and initiative, using its desire for mediation and compromise to formulate original

39. Report by Executive Secretariat of the Department of State, 5 October 1956, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XVI, pp. 645–648; Quaroni to Martino, 3 and 5 October 1956, DGAP, Box1062, ASMAE; and Zoppi to Martino, 30 October 1956, DGAP, Box1062, ASMAE. For background, see Mattea-Paola Battaglia, “Français, Italiens et Anglo-Americains en Méditerranée Occidentale (1949– 1954),” Revue Historique des Armées, No. 2 (1999), pp. 37–50. 40. Ortona to Martino, 29 August 1956, DGAP, Box439 ASMAE; Zoppi to MAE, 2 April 1956; Quaroni to Martino, 17 August 1956, DGAP,Box1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE; and Quaroni to Stato Maggiore della Difesa, 18 August 1956, 1951–1957, Box1062, ASMAE. See also similar opinions in Pietromarchi (Ankara) to MAE, 8 March 1956, DGAP, Box1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE; and Rossi Longhi (Rome) to Brosio, 28 April 1956, DGAP, Box 1093, 1951–1957, ASMAE.

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proposals. A general desire to win more attention and respect from the United States was not the only motivation for this new posture. In 1956–1957 two additional developments in the Near East threatened Italy’s chances to improve its status within NATO: Germany’s activism among Arab states and Turkey’s mounting tension with Syria. As early as March 1956 Bonn had drafted its own proposal for economic assistance to the Middle East, a multilateral enterprise involving the United Nations and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC).41 The West German proposal was based on the model of the Co- lombo Plan organized by the British Commonwealth and the United States for the development of Southeast Asia. Proªting from its “neat hands” record in the Near East, Germany, like Italy, presented itself as the ideal agent for the paciªcation and development of the region, in cooperation with the United States. The Germans aimed to consolidate NATO’s Bonn-Washington “link” at the expense of the British, the French, and, indirectly, the Italians. If Italy failed to take control of multilateral aid programs to the Arab world, it risked becoming the neglected ºank of the Atlantic alliance. For this reason, the Ital- ian Foreign Ministry’s Political Affairs Bureau and the ambassador to Bonn, Umberto Grazzi, immediately called for a plan similar to the German one so that “tomorrow we would not end up merely endorsing [new international cooperation plans] without having expressed our viewpoint and shown initiative.”42 Although Bonn eventually decided to shelve its project for the Middle East, the United States continued to solicit a German initiative.43 Afraid of being preempted by the German proposal, the Italians scrambled to draft a counterpart. Equally alarming for Rome during the spring and summer of 1957 was the prospect of border clashes between Turkey and Syria. Communism and Pan-Arabism were clearly making strides in Damascus, but the Italians disagreed with Turkey’s determination to subdue the threat by military means. By September the Turks had managed to persuade Washington to intervene

41. The OEEC was set up in April 1948 to coordinate assistance under the Marshall Plan, initially with a membership of sixteen countries. It should not be confused with the EEC (European Economic Community) created by the Treaties of Rome in 1957, the organization that later became the Euro- pean Community (EC) and then the European Union (EU). 42. Grazzi to MAE, 10 April 1956, DGAP, Box1096, ASMAE. See also Memorandum from Ofªce III, DGAP,March 1956, DGAP,Box1092, 1951–1957, ASMAE; and Ernst O. Czempiel, “Germany and the Third World: The Politics of Free Trade and the Free Hand,” in Wolfram F. Hanrieder, ed., West German Foreign Policy: 1949–1979 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1980), pp. 181–182. 43. During the ªrst half of 1956 Washington explored the possibility of joint U.S.–Anglo-German ªnancing of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. See MemCon between Bailey (British Embassy) and Rountree (NEA), 14 February 1956, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XV, pp. 170–171; and Byroade to Dulles, 26 May 1956, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XV, pp. 680–681. See also Pietromarchi to MAE, 18 April 1956, DGAP, 1951–1957, Box 1096, ASMAE.

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on their behalf and had obtained military supplies under the auspices of the Eisenhower Doctrine—the aid program the president had announced earlier that year to counter the threat of Communist subversion in the Middle East. The American move, compounded by an awkward CIA attempt to overthrow Syria’s president, Shukri Quwatli, caused an anti-Western backlash in the region, prompting Syria to merge with Egypt and create the United Arab Re- public in February 1958. From Rome’s standpoint, the pursuit of military solutions in the Middle East was dangerous in itself; but what was even more troubling was how that policy could thwart efforts to expand NATO’s psychological and economic scope.44 A multilateral development plan, Italian diplomats maintained, might eliminate such a risk. By late 1957 almost all Italian ofªcials concurred on the need to imple- ment NATO’s Article 2. Many agreed that this could best be achieved by rely- ing on Italy’s presumed ability to serve as a diplomatic intermediary between Europe and the Middle East. For a realist like Pietro Quaroni, the pursuit of economic cooperation was essential “to fulªll our plan of internal economic growth and social stabilization.” Unless Italy strengthened its economic power, it could not credibly seek to participate in great-power summits. In other words, Quaroni was convinced that power preceded status. This view was at odds with the beliefs of image-conscious leaders such as Gronchi, Mattei, Fanfani, and, to some extent, Pella, all of whom conceived of Neo-Atlanticism as a chance to gain international prominence ªrst, with the economic and strategic advantages following suit. Power, they continued to believe, would follow prestige.45 In September 1957 the Italian foreign minister offered Washington his own alternative to the German multilateral aid plan. The “Pella plan” envi- sioned a common fund managed by the OEEC member states to grant low-interest loans to Middle Eastern countries. Most of the ªnancing would come through the recycling of money owed by the Marshall Plan recipients to the United States. As insurance for reimbursement, the lending countries were to obtain oil rights on Middle Eastern territory. The majority of the burden would clearly fall on the U.S. Treasury (which expected returns from the

44. Pietromarchi (Ankara) to MAE, 26 September 1957, Segreteria di Gabinetto (hereinafter SG), Gab. A/52, Box129, ASMAE; Pietromarchi (Ankara) to MAE, 3 October 1957, SG, Gab. A/52, Box 129, ASMAE; Telegram 787, Ortona to MAE, 5 September 1957, Serie Telegrammi Ordinari (hereinafter TO), Ambasciata Washington, Vol. 1957. See also Douglas Little, “Cold War and Covert Ac- tion: The United States and Syria, 1945–1958,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Winter 1990), esp. pp. 70–72; and Ray Takeyh, The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The U.S., Britain, and Nasser’s Egypt, 1953–57 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). 45. Quaroni’s quote is from his letter to Martino of 6 April 1956. See also Quaroni to Martino, 3 Oc- tober 1956, DGAP, Box1062, ASMAE; Meeting between Brosio, Rountree, et al., 30 October 1956; Meeting between Luce, Segni, and Gronchi, 15 November 1956, NA, 611.65, RG 59; and OIR, Re- port No. 7641.

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Marshall Plan) and offered Washington no special administrative authority in return, since all the OEEC members were to serve as the central managers. The Eisenhower administration, however, was unwilling to cede its newly acquired inºuence in the Middle East. After some hesitation, Dulles rejected the Italian plan as yet another ill-disguised attempt to “pull more money” out of the United States. Pella’s argument that the Eisenhower Doctrine’s bilateral, piecemeal approach was more expensive than his own plan was not convinc- ing. Moreover, the Italian plan openly criticized the military implications of that doctrine—criticism that conºicted with Eisenhower’s own view, despite the events in Syria. Dulles catered to the Italians’ desire for public recognition, paying formal tribute to Italy’s new initiative and parading the plan through allied and Arab capitals. Then he let the other OEEC members discard Pella’s proposal in early 1958 (France in particular was reluctant to abandon its own bilateralism in North Africa).46 In addition to mistrusting Italy’s diplomatic scheming, U.S. ofªcials regarded Enrico Mattei as a crucial obstacle to greater cooperation with Rome. The oil tycoon triumphantly breached the Seven Sisters’ oligopoly with his famous 75/25 proªt-share deal with Iran in September 1957, a deal that caused the American oil companies to bear a grudge against the Italians for their in- terference. In Washington, however, the main preoccupation was not with the economic implications, but with the political impact of Mattei’s activities. The Italian presence in the Middle Eastern oil market remained modest, but the tense atmosphere already prevailing in the region meant that a con- tract with terms overwhelmingly favorable to a producer country posed the risk of rekindling fervent Arab nationalism. The Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, was no revolutionary, but Mattei had successfully exploited the resentment that the Iranian monarch harbored against the United States for not making him the privileged recipient of American aid and for not granting him more authority in the Baghdad Pact. Galvanized by the oil deal, Pahlavi became more demanding, at times even threatening to join the nonaligned countries. Thus, Mattei was disrupting Dulles’s Northern Tier project of anti-Soviet containment. Worse still for U.S. interests, the oil tycoon did not hesitate to shore up the extremists of the National Liberation Front of Algeria in an ef-

46. Annex1 on Giuseppe Pella’s September 1957 visit to the United States, drafted in December 1957, SG, Gab. A/52, Box119, Folder 2, ASMAE; Elbrick to Dulles, 27 November 1957, NA, 611.65, RG 59; Telegram 1072, Brosio to MAE, 8 and December 1957, TO, Ambasciata Washing- ton, ASMAE; Telegram 1082, Brosio to MAE, 10 December 1957, TO, Ambasciata Washington, ASMAE; Dulles to Embassy Italy, 22 November 1957, MemCon between Pella and Dulles, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XII, pp. 661–668; Dulles to Embassy Italy, 22 November 1957, MemCon between Cattani and Dillon, 6 December 1957, in FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. XII, pp. 661–668; MemCon between Fawzi (foreign minister of Egypt) and Dulles, 9 November 1957, NA, 611.74, RG 59; and Ortona, Anni d’America, Vol. 2, pp. 256–259, 427–430.

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fort to expand his clout among the Arabs. Although Mattei intended all this as a means of regaining leverage for future cooperation with Washington, the consequence was to turn most American ofªcials against him.47 The implications of Mattei’s actions appeared even more ominous for Italian politics. His desire to be in the international limelight fed the general impression that control of Italian foreign policy resided with him and with his strongest supporter, President Gronchi, who had celebrated the oil deal during a state visit to Teheran. The two men were the most vocal advocates of an “opening to the left.” Even worse, their actions reºected an institutional aber- ration: a weak government’s award of the instruments of its foreign policy to the director of the state’s oil enterprise and to a president whose role was supposed to be purely ceremonial. The proneutralist left, Americans feared, might further proªt from the government’s diminished authority. As Washington had repeatedly warned since early 1956, all the assistance that Rome could offer to NATO’s Near East policy would be “counterbal- anced by the damage” an increasingly powerful Mattei could cause at home and abroad.48 Fanfani’s rise to the premiership in June 1958 dispelled many of the Americans’ worst misgivings. During the previous two years Fanfani had managed to persuade the Eisenhower administration that his moderate re- formism and his desire for an active foreign policy—Neo-Atlanticist yet op- portunistically very pro-American—would be the perfect alternative to either a stagnant Italy or a proneutralist solution.49 Still wary of Nenni, the DC leader welcomed only the Social Democrats into his governing coalition. Fanfani’s drive and ambition also helped him earn America’s sympathy. He had a knack for leadership that was absent in all his predecessors since the

47. Memorandum from Elbrick to Dulles, 25 September 1957 (enclosed OCB Report “Mattei- Iranian Oil Deal,” 3 September), NA, 765.13, RG 59. Cf. Frankel, Mattei, pp. 116–117. Eisenhower commented that Mattei simply followed the inexorable law of competition. See Minutes of 337th NSC Meeting, 22 September 1957, DDE Library, AW, NSC. On Mattei’s wish to cooperate with the United States, see esp. Meeting between Perrone, M. W. Williams, and G. Mouser (GTI), 21 January 1958, NA, 865.00, RG 59; and Maugeri, L’arma del petrolio, pp. 142–143. Cf. J. W. Jones to Under Secretary of State Christian Herter, 29 August 1957, on Progress Report 5411/2, section “Mattei’s threat,” NA, Records of the State Department participation in OCB and NSC, Box21. On Pahlavi’s behavior, see especially Note on Gronchi’s and Pella’s trip to Iran, DGAP, 13 September 1957, SG, Gab. A/52, 1951–1957 Box129, ASMAE; and Dulles (Teheran) to Eisenhower, 28 January 1958, DDE Library, AW, Dulles-Herter Series, Box7. On Mattei’s deals in North Africa, see Sohm (Rome) to State Department, 12 August 1958, NA, 651.65, RG 59. 48. Note on Gronchi’s and Pella’s trip to Iran, DGAP,13 September 1957; and Jones to Herter, 29 Au- gust 1957, NA, 651.65, RG 59; and Zellerbach to Dulles, 7 August 1957, NA, 865.2553, RG 59. The last quotation is from Elbrick to Dulles, 29 February 1956, NA, 865.00, RG 59. 49. As prime minister, Fanfani immediately demonstrated his pro-American credentials by carrying on negotiations that the Zoli government had undertaken for the installation of medium-range ballistic missiles on Italian territory and by lending the airport of Capodichino as a staging base for U.S. military operations in Lebanon on 14 July.

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death of De Gasperi. Besides retaining his post as party secretary, he assumed the ofªce of foreign minister as well as the ofªce of premier. The DC leader was prone to Machiavellian maneuvering, but his maneuvers seemed to preserve stability within his increasingly factionalized and ªckle party. Fanfani himself had capitalized on those divisions. Most American ofªcials concluded that Fanfani’s status as a shrewd “insider” of the Italian party system made it more likely that he would try to rejuvenate the system. American expectations were buoyed when Fanfani reclaimed the prerogatives that Mattei and Presi- dent Gronchi had informally usurped from the government. His closeness to their political positions enabled him to check their initiatives and to tame their neutralist impulses.50 While lacking the charisma of De Gasperi, the prime minister still possessed the qualities of determination, astuteness, and wile that were essential for an Italian leader to govern effectively. In September 1958 Allen Dulles spent three weeks in France and Italy assessing the similari- ties between French President Charles de Gaulle’s “revolution” and Fanfani’s rise to power. Reporting to the NSC in October, the CIA director gloated that Italy had “the best government since de Gasperi” and that Fanfani appeared to be as much in charge in Rome as de Gaulle was in Paris.51 Complementing this perception was Washington’s growing awareness of the interplay between “Neo-Atlanticism” and Italy’s domestic politics. The State Department had heeded the advice of John Jernegan, who repeatedly called for a “greater show of informing and consulting the Italians on all mat- ters affecting the Middle East.” Such an approach, the chargé d’affaires had argued in September 1957, would appease the “natural resurgence of Italian national pride” and would “remove [any] pretext for uncoordinated actions and give the Fo[reign] Off[ice] and other realistic elements ammunition to defend themselves against [the] free wheeling [of] Gronchi [and others].” This reasoning applied even better to Fanfani. “Gronchi’s inºuence,” another embassy ofªcial observed in August 1958, “may well decline at the same time the [foreign] policy [of the government] is becoming more acceptable to him.” It seemed wise, therefore, to be “tolerant, considerate, and sympathetic” toward Fanfani’s international activism even when the premier ºaunted his overtures to Arab nationalism.52

50. Cf. OIR, Report 7870, “The Outlook for Italy,” 10 December 1958, NA, OIR ªles, pp. 40–41; Sohm to State Department, 27 August 1958, NA, 665.00, RG 59; and Zellerbach to Dulles, 9 Sep- tember 1958, NA, 665.00, RG 59. See also Baget-Bozzo, Il partito cristiano e l’apertura a sinistra, pp. 124–136. 51. A. Dulles at 381st NSC Meeting, 2 October 1958, DDE Library, AW, NSC, Box10. Compare Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jandrey, “Biographical Note on Fanfani,” 27 July 1958, NA, 765.13 RG 59; and OIR, Report 7870, pp. 26–28. 52. Jernegan to Dulles, 11 September 1957, NA, 665.80, RG 59; and Sohm to State Department, 27 August 1958, NA, 665.00, RG 59.

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Fanfani himself understood these maneuvers, but he tried to add sub- stance to the “show” of consultation, most notably during his visit to Wash- ington in July shortly after the conclusion of another crisis in the Middle East that had prompted the dispatch of British and U.S. troops to Jordan and Leb- anon. Formal recognition seemed necessary for the Italian prime minister to thwart the proposal for an Anglo-French-American tripartite leadership of NATO that many expected from de Gaulle. Fanfani also sought to establish a more genuine partnership with Washington by offering an amended version of the Pella Plan. The new proposal omitted all the ªnancial and political pro- visions that had caused so much consternation in Washington. Stressing U.N. control instead of European guidance, and envisioning a nonaggression pact involving all the Arab countries and Israel as a precondition for the loan, the new plan, Fanfani pointed out, would hinge on the good ofªces of “impar- tial” countries such as Italy.53 Fanfani even proved his willingness to share the ªnancial burden, offering an Italian contribution of $100 million as the ªrst disbursement under the plan. But the proposal, no matter how inventive, would have had a negligible impact without a favorable attitude from the U.S. president. Eisenhower’s re- evaluation of his Middle Eastern policy was another circumstance that played to the Italian leader’s advantage. The intervention in Lebanon in 1958 was an immediate success, but its long-term consequences were likely to be negative. Pan-Arab propaganda was escalating, and Eisenhower concluded that it was time to downplay military means and to relaunch economic- development projects as a stabilizing measure in the region. His closest advisers even suggested normalizing relations with Nasser in Egypt. Fanfani’s strategy amounted to a revitalized economic aid package coupled with an attempt to reach an understanding with the Egyptian leader. Furthermore, the Eisen- hower administration, facing an economic slump, was ªnally opting for a multilateral approach to development managed jointly by the World Bank and the United Nations but also involving more signiªcant European participation.54 On 13 August 1958 the president announced plans to form an organization known as the “Development Authority.” The proposal contained several of Fanfani’s suggestions, and Eisenhower sent the prime minister a pre-

53. Fanfani’s Meetings with Dulles and Eisenhower, 29 and 30 July 1958, in FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. VII, pp. 466–473; Jernegan to Dulles, 14 June 1958, NA, 651.65, RG 59; Brieªng on Fanfani’s Con- versations, 31 July 1958, NA 611.65, RG 59; Meeting between Eisenhower, Dulles, and Fanfani, 30 July 1958, DDE Library, AW, International Series, Box30 (this meeting is not in FRUS); and Ortona, Anni d’America, Vol. 2, pp. 310–314. 54. See Eisenhower, Waging Peace, pp. 266 ff.; Eisenhower to Macmillan, 18 July 1958, in FRUS, 1958–1960, Vol. XI, pp. 330–331; NSC 5820/1, 1 November 1958, NA, NSC Records, Box75, RG 273; and Burton I. Kaufman, Trade and Aid: Eisenhower’s Foreign Policy, 1953–1961 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 49–50, 159–161.

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liminary draft as an acknowledgement of Italy’s contribution. Even more important, Eisenhower pledged to hold regular, albeit informal, consultations between the two countries regarding Mediterranean affairs. A few weeks later Fanfani found the White House unusually receptive, though still cautious, toward his proposal for an Italian diplomatic mission in the Middle East. The Italian government took all these concessions as signs of an emerging special relationship.55 Nonetheless, Italy lost its opportunity to assume a signiªcant role as an intermediary in the Near East and to gain greater prominence on the international stage. Part of the problem was that Fanfani overreached himself, attempting to mediate on all issues affecting the Near East, such as the Arab- Israeli conºict and the Franco-Algerian war, instead of sticking to his original purpose of reconciling Nasser and the United States. Moreover, by late 1958 Washington had again lost conªdence in the Egyptian dictator, who had stepped up his contacts with the Soviet Union. Cairo’s recognition of the East German government in January 1959 conªrmed America’s worst suspicions. But above all, Fanfani found himself under ªre from his critics at home. By the time he ªnally traveled to Cairo in January 1959, he was already regarded as a lame duck. Spearheading the domestic criticism was a group of conservative diplomats who had fallen victim to the prime minister’s maneuvers and arbitrary methods. These ofªcials appealed to the still inºuential political and media circles of Clare and Henry Luce. On 23 November 1958 New York Times col- umnist Cyrus L. Sulzberger wrote an editorial in support of their criticism, denouncing Fanfani’s “purges” and his “pro-Arab” and “pro-neutral” policy. The U.S. ambassador to Rome, James D. Zellerbach, and even Secretary Dulles tried to rescue the Italian prime minister, publicly lauding his international initiatives as signs of Italy’s maturity and renewed self-conªdence and also a reºection of America’s pluralistic approach to NATO and the Middle East. Both these announcements were of no avail. The Fanfani cabinet resigned at the end of January 1959, having been torpedoed by right-wing DC leaders. Washington had overestimated the potential of the “astute” leader, who in fact had behaved more like an American-style party boss. Fanfani’s high-

55. Joint Statement Fanfani-Eisenhower, 30 July 1958, Public Papers of the President of the United States. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1958 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofªce, 1960), pp. 574–575; Memorandum from C. D. Jackson, “A Follow through Eisenhower’s Speech,” (no date) August 1958, DDE Library, AW, Administration Series, “Jackson folder”; and “I tre motivi del successo di Fanfani negli Stati Uniti,” Esteri, No. 15 (1958). On the mediation proposal, see MemCon between Stevenson and Fanfani, 23 August 1958, SGM Library, A. E. Stevenson Papers, Box757; Jernegan to State Department, 30 August 1958, NA, 665.80; MemCon between H. J. Torbert and A. Fanfani, 3 October 1958, NA, 765.13, RG 59; and Notes from Meeting of Council of Ministers, 10 September 1958, Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Rome), Presidenza del Consiglio, Box 58.

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handedness and arrogance worsened the situation, since the public in Italy, more than in France, was averse to anything that even vaguely smacked of au- thoritarianism. Furthermore, by the mid-1950s the very factionalism that initially had worked to Fanfani’s advantage had become so entrenched in the party system that it inhibited the rise of any single individual. Without strong or charismatic leadership, a foreign policy that placed such emphasis on the qualities of soft power and the importance of prestige could not hope to sur- vive. The interplay between domestic politics and foreign policy that had nourished Italy’s “Neo-Atlanticism” also doomed its most ambitious goals. In 1959 the conservative cabinet of Antonio Segni, with Giuseppe Pella now as a more sober foreign minister, resumed a low proªle in international affairs. It- aly continued to encourage the adoption of NATO’s Article 2 and of multilateral aid programs, but without attempting to play a signiªcant role in shaping those policies, and, more speciªcally, without insisting on a special Italian competence in Mediterranean affairs.

Conclusions

Neo-Atlanticism was relatively short-lived, lasting from about 1951 to 1959, but it helped Italy improve its standing within the Western alliance. Although the country’s economic growth was largely responsible for that improvement, economic gains were crucially complemented by diplomatic initiatives. To be sure, this essay illustrates the limits of a small ally’s capacity to manipulate its hegemonic partner, and it thus runs contrary to the tendency of recent Cold War historiography to exaggerate the leverage that European allies, big and small, supposedly enjoyed vis-à-vis the United States. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that even as loyal an ally as Italy did manage to advance some of its own ideas on how to wage the Cold War and that Washington accepted those ideas but also used them to manipulate Rome. Italy’s record of failure was quite evident. Its pursuit of a special relationship with the United States in the Mediterranean proved but a chimera. Con- sequently, the dreams of Italian prominence in the Near East faded, and Italy’s hope of reaching equal status with the other major European powers was stiºed. Italian leaders repeatedly sacriªced foreign policy to their self-serving political maneuvers. They thus compounded the peculiar mixture of government stagnation and instability that characterized Italian politics during the forty years of Christian Democratic rule (and beyond) and that hindered the country’s potential in international affairs. But this failure should not overshadow the successes. While falling short of attaining parity with Great Britain or France, Italy narrowed the gap

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with Europe’s great powers (with the important exception of the other “fast- recovering” state, West Germany) in the 1950s. The practice of “soft-power” did yield some results. For all their shortcomings, Italian statesmen such as Martino, Pella, and especially Fanfani proved—for at least a brief while—that one of their best diplomats, Pietro Quaroni, was wrong. Using the most subtle kinds of power—culture, politics, and inventive diplomacy—they compensated for the weakness of their country and made their voices heard in the international arena. After all, in 1956 Dulles concluded that all European allies were following Italy’s lead in promoting NATO’s Article 2; and in 1958 Eisenhower was inºuenced by Fanfani to adopt a softer approach in the Mid- dle East and devote renewed attention to “spiritual values” as the basis for the “civilizational” battle against international Communism.56 Italy also modiªed its relationship with the United States in a crucial way. Although no special relationship of the Anglo-American kind emerged, Washington became more tactful with its political allies in Rome as a consequence of Neo-Atlanticism. The United States continued to interfere overtly and covertly in Italian politics, but with much less capacity to inºuence the situation than had been the case in the immediate postwar period.57 John Jernegan’s idea of intervening “indirectly,” by using diplomacy more than the CIA and by exploiting Italy’s interplay of domestic and foreign policies, became the norm. Italy had thus attained the status of partner—a subordinated partner, for sure, but no longer a mere client state. Even more tellingly, Rome’s persistent self-promotion compensated for the country’s structural weaknesses. Economic performance often followed, rather than preceded, the claim to be present in international decision making. Mattei’s “prestige policy” spurred his economic achievements; those achievements were modest to be sure, but without Mattei’s nationalism Italy might have had no presence at all in the Middle East oil market. (The Near East remained the privileged area for Italy’s most assertive international actions, as demonstrated by its dissent from America’s strongly pro-Israeli policy during the 1970s and 1980s.)58 The combination of status claims with economic modernization allowed Italy to gain membership in the Group of In- dustrialized Nations, or G-7, created in the late 1970s.

56. Cf. Eisenhower’s comments in Emmet J. Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A Political Memoir of the Eisenhower Years (New York: Atheneum, 1963), pp. 276 and 280. On the power of “inventive diplomacy,” see a similar argument with regard to France in Hitchcock, France Restored passim. 57. On this point, see esp. Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a sinistra. 58. This approach to the Middle East also allowed the main currents of the Christian Democrats to demonstrate their progressive credentials domestically without yielding to the Communist Party’s pro-Sovietism.

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Finally, the Neo-Atlanticists’ appeal to multilateralism began a tradition in Italian foreign policy that has recently produced its most evident results. NATO’s new emphasis on peacekeeping operations has indirectly added signiªcance to Italy’s discourse on its role as a diplomatic bridge builder. Using its membership in NATO and the G-7, Italy has been the ªrst among Western countries to reopen contacts with states on the fringes of the international community, such as North Korea, Iran, and Libya. These moves have cleared the way for greater European leverage vis-à-vis the U.S. economic sanctions against those countries.59 Although Italy still regards cooperation with the United States as essential to its status ambitions, it has found a diplomatic niche for greater assertiveness and prestige within the growing global interdependence of the post–Cold War era. The United States, for its part, went along with some of the Neo- Atlanticists’ suggestions, but it missed no chance to pursue its own agenda. One might argue that the Americans proªted even more than the Italians from “Neo-Atlanticism,” though not necessarily at the expense of Italy. For example, the Eisenhower administration used Italy’s campaign for multilateral aid programs to its own advantage. In 1957–1958 that campaign helped Washington to relaunch the idea of burden sharing with the Europeans. This was the real purpose behind the creation of the Development Authority. It is also noteworthy that in 1961 the United States sponsored the transformation of the OEEC into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Develop- ment (OECD), an institution inspired in part by the Pella Plan, but also one that secured more control for Washington, the liberalization of trade, and greater participation by West Germany.60 The Eisenhower administration rewarded the Italians’ desire for increased prestige with several gestures, including an invitation to participate in the NEACC and Eisenhower’s promise of informal consultations with Fanfani. But it was precisely this “informality” that would prevent Italy from insisting on “formal” consultations through its participation in great power summits. By granting a “dose of [the] prestige” the Italians craved so much, Eisenhower also meant to preempt their most excessive demands. U.S. ofªcials were at their best when they targeted Italy’s domestic squabbles. By endorsing the foreign policy of moderates like Fanfani, and even by accepting their mild objections to U.S. policies, Washington helped tame the

59. Cf. “Italy: Thinking Bigger,” The Economist, 16 October 1999, p. 52. See also “Italy Brings North Korea Out of Isolation,” http://www.stratfor.com, 6 January 2000. 60. See esp. Kaufman, Trade and Aid, pp. 100–101. See also Federico Romero, “Interdependence and Integration in American Eyes: From the Marshall Plan to Currency Convertibility,” in Alan S. Milward et al., eds., The Frontier of National Sovereignty: History and Theory, 1945–1992 (New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 176–178.

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more assertive Gronchi and Mattei. This indirect intervention in Italian politics helped postpone the “opening to the left” until it no longer appeared to threaten the cohesion of the Western alliance. More important in terms of the psychological confrontation with the So- viet Union, by accommodating some of Italy’s ambitions, the United States conªrmed its tolerance of its allies’ autonomous initiatives. It was remarkable that in a bipolar world order a small power like Italy could even afford to have a voice. The advantage was reciprocal for the Americans and the Italians, since this display of pluralism was perhaps the most crucial guarantee of NATO’s stability and a key to its success over the tightly ruled Soviet “empire.”61 Finally, while giving some satisfaction to the Italians’ resurgent national pride, the United States tried to convince them that their contribution to in- ternationalism and to European integration would provide them with an alternative, more fruitful source of prestige. This notion had a notable afªnity with the Italians’ own emphasis on transnational interdependence and multilateral economic cooperation. Italy produced some of the most enthusiastic champions of the European Economic Community, the organization that the United States promoted as the best instrument of its allies’ self-reliance. In the late 1950s the “benevolent” hegemon still ignored the extent to which an in- tegrated Europe, especially under the leadership of the chauvinist Charles de Gaulle, would antagonize U.S. interests.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the Centro di Studi Americani in Rome for helping to ªnance this project. My special acknowledgment also goes to the following colleagues for their suggestions and frank comments: Leopoldo Nuti, Antonio Varsori, Ennio Di Nolfo, Timothy Naftali, John Gaddis, Ernest May, John Harper, and Olav Njølstad.

61. On this point, see Mark Kramer, “Ideology and the Cold War,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 1999), esp. pp. 547–553.

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