Enrico Mattei and Aldo Moro: Shaping the Mediterranean Détente in the Cold War
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DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE Master’s Degree in International Relations - Global Studies Chair in History of International Relations Enrico Mattei and Aldo Moro: Shaping the Mediterranean Détente in the Cold War SUPERVISOR CANDIDATE Prof. Maria Elena Cavallaro Sara Onofri COSUPERVISOR 635762 Prof. Christian Blasberg ACADEMIC YEAR 2018/2019 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 6 FIRST CHAPTER BUILDING A MEDITERRANEAN DIALOGUE: THE ITALIAN APPROACH TO THE POST-WAR OIL ORDER 11 1.1 Oil market evolution in a period of energy transition 12 1.1.1 Building petroleum empires 12 1.1.2 British Affairs in Mesopotamia 13 1.1.3 Putting to an end the competition: the establishment of the oil cartel 14 1.1.4 Paving the way for a Mediterranean Détente 16 1.2 ENI: the new public holding in the capitalist sphere 18 1.2.1 Italy’s Mediterranean vocation 18 1.2.2 Moving into the post-war oil order: Enrico Mattei and the ENI establishment 19 1.2.3 Collecting enemies 22 1.3 Decolonization and the scramble for Oil: starting Italian dialogue with the Middle East 24 1.3.1 The revolutionary Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran 24 1.3.2 The age of Nasser and the Arab nationalism 26 1.3.3 Mattei deals with Egypt 27 1.3.4 Mattei’s political consensus in Italy and the introduction of the 75-25 Formula 28 1 1.4 The Suez Crisis as a watershed: reshaping the Mediterranean context 31 1.4.1 Challenging Western Imperialism in the Middle East: the nationalization of the Suez Canal 31 1.4.2 Assessing the Suez Crisis’ effects 33 1.5 1957: Mattei formula and the ENI’s autonomous policy in the Middle East and North Africa 36 1.5.1 Engaging in an energy dialogue with the Middle East 36 1.5.2 North Africa turning to ENI 38 1.6 OPEC irruption in the Petroleum Era 41 1.6.1 A new actor in the post-war oil order 41 1.6.2 ENI looking at the OPEC 43 1.7 Boosting the US alarm: Italy in the Cold War 45 1.7.1 Neo-Atlantism on the stage: Fanfani’s foreign policy 45 1.7.2 ENI’s autonomous policies clashing with the US 46 1.7.3 Mattei’s legacy 48 2 SECOND CHAPTER ITALY SHAPING DÉTENTE IN THE MANGLED MEDITERRANEAN FRAMEWORK 51 2.1 Encountering the Arab-Israeli conflict 52 2.1.1 The feeble peace settlement: the Middle East after the end of the Ottoman Empire 52 2.1.2 Establishing a Jewish National Home in Palestine 54 2.1.3 The Aliyah and the Arabs of Palestine 56 2.1.4 The ever- increasing hostility in the interwar years 57 2.1.5 Building the State of Israel: wartime and its aftermath 62 2.1.6 The first Arab Israeli War 64 2.1.7 The Arab-Israeli conflict in the Cold War 66 2.2 Diplomacy and the Mediterranean: Italy and the Six Day War 70 2.2.1 The Six Day War 70 2.2.2 After a new geography: the overall June War effects 71 2.2.3 The Palestinian refugee issue and the PLO 75 2.2.4 Italian diplomacy into the June War 77 2.2.5 ENI without Mattei: Italy’s foreign policy in an energy perspective 80 2.2.6 Italy, the US, and the Mediterranean in the late Sixties 81 2.2.7 1969 Italy and the US foreign policy between continuity and discontinuity 83 3 2.3 Riding Détente: the Mediterranean and the Italian diplomacy in the early Seventies 85 2.3.1 The US foreign policy evolution to assess Détente 85 2.3.2 On the other shore: USSR and the International Détente building 86 2.3.3 Why the European détente 88 2.3.4 Extending Détente: Italy and the Mediterranean in the late Sixties 90 2.3.5 Italy challenging the bipolar system in 1970: early stages for a lasting dialogue with the Middle East and North Africa 91 2.3.6 Italy between pro-Arabism and the Atlantic dimension 95 2.3.7 Moro and the Mediterranean in the CSCE dimension 98 2.3.8 Before the oil shock: Italy, ENI, and the end of the Thirty Glorious Years 99 4 THIRD CHAPTER MEDITERRANEAN DÉTENTE BETWEEN THE OIL SHOCK AND ITS LEGACY 102 3.1 Italy and the oil decade: limits and ambitions of a pro-Arab policy 103 3.1.1 The Yom Kippur War and the Oil Embargo of 1973 103 3.1.2 Wielding the oil weapon 105 3.1.3 Between autonomous policy and the US constrains: Italy and the 1973 turmoil 106 3.1.4 1973 oil shock and terrorism: Aldo Moro and the collapsing equidistance 107 3.1.5 The year of Europe and the Euro-Arab dialogue: American ambitions and Italy’s Mediterranean illusions 111 3.1.6 Not without the US: reshaping transatlantic relations after the oil shock 113 3.1.7 From the Shuttle Diplomacy to Camp David: not a new Middle East 115 3.2 Which legacy? 119 3.2.1 The last phase of Moro’s Mediterranean Détente: an overview 119 3.2.2 1979: the changing Middle East and the collapsing Détente 121 3.2.3 Italy in the Eighties: realigning to the US? 125 3.2.4 Italy between shapes of Mediterranean Détente and American Globalism 127 3.2.5 What is left? 130 CONCLUSION 132 Bibliography 134 5 Introduction On 27th October 1962, Enrico Mattei died in a plane crash. His death is still a mystery. The man, who turned ENI into a world force, led Italy to play a pivotal and autonomous role in the Middle East and North Africa, challenging not only the oil Companies, but also the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Enrico Mattei figured out the importance of engaging in constructive dialogues with several Middle Eastern and North African countries, making the dialogue across the Mediterranean a purely Italian initiative. Mattei, alongside with several Christian Democrat leaders, aimed at ensuring Italy a place into the post-war oil order and endeavored to pursue bilateral relations with producer countries. That Mediterranean dialogue would turn out to be the embryonal stage of a longer path which will take the shapes of a Mediterranean Détente in the late Sixties. This thesis will focus on the Italian foreign policy which aimed at having a voice in the changing and mangled Mediterranean context during the Cold War. Two men, Enrico Mattei and Aldo Moro, will devise the Italian approach to the Mediterranean area: they laid the groundwork for a special relationship with the Arab countries, by assuring Italy room for an autonomous role in the Middle East and North Africa. By taking into account the choices of these two actors in dealing with the Mediterranean dimension, the analysis will center around three key issues: the Italian approach to the post-war oil order in the Mediterranean area during the Fifties and the Sixties; the Italian role in dealing with the escalating Arab-Israeli conflict after the 1967 June War; and the Italian ambitions and limits in the decade of the oil shock and during the Eighties. Each topic contributes to better explain the path towards the Mediterranean Détente process-building. Mediterranean Détente means referring to a deeply rooted strategy whose evolution will be analysed beginning with the embryonic steps in creating a dialogue between Italy on the one hand and the Middle East and North Africa on the other hand. The first chapter will investigate the early stages of the Mediterranean Détente and the figure and choices of Enrico Mattei in order to better explain how Italy behaved in finding its place in the oil market. A deepening of the oil market will explain the context in which Mattei acted. As it will be specified later, the oil market evolution and the increasing relevance of oil in all industrialized countries paved the way for a new era based on a race to monopolize natural resources so that, in the early Twentieth century, Middle Eastern and North African countries, as oil-rich zones, turned out to be the centre of attraction for world Powers and mighty Companies. Western Powers and the so-called Seven Sisters endeavoured to take control of oil business, by exerting vigorous imperialism on producer countries. The Seven Sisters were as a State within a State. They have established a monopolistic cartel so as to handle their business with no limits. In that context, Enrico Mattei was presented with the occasion to play a lead role in the Mediterranean by encouraging colonies toward national independence, 6 giving them economic support. In the early Fifties, Mattei was able to take advantage from the spreading Arab nationalism and the increasing decolonization process that undermined Western imperialism to which Italy was strongly opposed. ENI was the key instrument allowing Mattei to engage in energy and trade relations with Middle Eastern and North African countries: ENI, that was established in 1953, provided producer countries with technical and training assistance, by challenging the Seven Sisters affairs and Western imperialism. In the first chapter, the Suez Crisis will be considered as a watershed in the history of ENI in the Middle East and North Africa, since it will allow Italy to gain a favoured channel of communication with several Mediterranean countries, especially Egypt. Western imperialism was seriously affected after the October 1956 Suez Crisis that produced the Anglo-French retreat in the Middle East, by giving Italy the chance to fill that vacuum.