Willing Umberto

The leaders of Italy's anti-Fascist parties last week made a compromise. They had been confused by Anglo-U.S. dithering, chivvied by Russian pressure, adamant in demanding the abdication of little King Vittorio Emanuele III. Into this deadlock stepped the King's heir, six-foot Umberto, Prince of Piedmont, with an offer to become his father's keeper while the old King kept the crown. By no means fond of Umberto but for want of anything better, anti-Fascist leaders were in a mood to accept.

The offer was made in the best tradition of royal intrigue. Through the Neapolitan night the Prince's own car whisked A. P. Correspondent Dick Massock to a royal hideaway. During a half-hour "audience" Umberto said: "The King is old and ready to retire. He has had a full life." Massock was to tell the world, and did, that Umberto was ready to take over his father's duties, become the King's lieutenant. At one point Massock observed: "You talk as though you expect to be king some day." Solemnly replied Umberto: "Yes, that's my job. That is what I have been trained for."

Playboy Prince. Umberto's kingly education was a gaudy business. As a playboy princeling, he had some un-engaging ways: he was known to spit on the floors of houses where he was guest, grind his heels into priceless tables, organize treasure-hunt games and insist that every prize be a princely bauble. In Rome in 1930 he married Marie-Jose, only daughter of Belgium's beloved King Albert. Umberto's subsequent infidelities were on a royal scale. Marie-Jose wept, but did not go home.

He had a certain reputation as an antiFascist. He did have trouble with Mussolini, but their fights were due more to delinquency than to politics. When he went to Brussels to claim his bride, an exiled anti-Fascist took a badly aimed shot at him. Ever after he raised his hand in the Fascist salute and, like his father, gave the Duce no trouble. Lately, ordinary Italians have dubbed him lo stupido nazionale and il buffone (clown).

What Says the King? When Marshal Pietro Badoglio heard of Umberto's interview he denied that it had occurred: Umberto's move threatened to precipitate a shakeup which the old Marshal has tried to avoid. Anti-Fascists, including outspoken Democrat Count Carlo Sforza and compromising Communist Palmiro Togliatti soon justified Badoglio's concern. They and other members of a six-party executive junta met at the Sorrento villa of Philosopher Benedetto Croce. They had been more inclined toward a regency around Umberto's six-year-old son, the Prince of Naples. Now they embraced Umberto as an expedient to bring a "complete and quick solution to the present Italian crisis." That much was progress toward an effective Italian political coalition. But Umberto may have jumped the gun. Unless Allied pressure pushes him out, the little King alone retains the power to say if, & when, he will retire. Last week he said nothing.

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