40% or Fight

Last week the U.S. landed with both feet in the Italian election campaign--a contest which will decide the political future of Europe and, perhaps, the issue of war or peace. The most brilliant U.S. move to date concerned Trieste.

A Communist Flight. U.S. Intelligence had discovered that Russia intended to come out for the return of Trieste to Italy; the State Department beat the Russians to it. France's Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, in Turin to sign a Franco-Italian trade agreement, announced that the U.S., Great Britain and France had decided that the Free Territory of Trieste should be returned to Italian sovereignty. He also promised a drive to help Italy regain some of her war-lost colonies.

Italian reaction was electric. In Trieste, 30,000 cheering Italians paraded for three miles, ended up on the waterfront to salute the U.S. cruiser Dayton (see cut). In the Red stronghold of Milan, ten truckloads of Communists demonstrated in the cathedral square; Milanese swarmed out against them with boos and catcalls. The Communists needed police protection to get safely away. It was probably the first Communist retreat Milan had seen in months.

The Communists were in a tight spot. Comrade Tito's government fumed; a formal Yugoslav note denounced the Western proposal as serving only "chauvinist hatred." Next day Yugoslav Foreign Minister Stanoje Simitch announced more calmly that, as far as he was concerned, the Italians could have Trieste--but only in exchange for Italian Gorizia. It was not much of an offer.

Is the Roof Leaking? Until the U.S. coup, Italy last week did not look like the scene of a historic battle. The Communists briefly flexed their muscles with a 24-hour typographers' strike against the country's newspapers. Otherwise, the campaign was ominously quiet.

One reason for the quiet was the shift of election emphasis from the heavily Communist cities (where minds seem already made up) to the countryside. Out in the hill villages, living in bleak cottages and scratching a bare living from the thin soil of the peninsula, the poverty-stricken paesano was the man of the hour. His vote might tip the scales.

A priest reported the latest Communist tactics. Peripatetic comrades in impressive, official-looking dress visit the peasants to ask if the roof is leaking or whether they need new farm equipment. Jotting down the peasants' eager answers, the Communists say: "It's up to you now to get these things. All you have to do is vote for us."

A Real Competitor. The people doing the most to counteract this particular Communist campaign are the Catholic

Actionists. By last week they were operating "cells" in all of Italy's 300 dioceses and in 18,000 out of 24,000 parishes. They were specifically organized to meet the left-wingers in the day-to-day village fights over the people's allegiance. Communists admitted, privately, that Catholic Action was a real competitor.

The Italian crisis will come some time between April 18, when the polling takes place, and early May, when the new government will be formed. Western observers believe that the Communists will poll between 37% and 45% of the votes. A small margin might make a terrible difference.

If the Communists get more than 40%,

Premier De Gasperi will be virtually unable to form a government without them. If he takes them in, the Rightist parties may well start fighting. If he tries to keep the Communists out, they may well launch a civil war.

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