Beachhead in Livorno

Livorno (or, as the stiff-tongued British rechristened it, Leghorn) was once a busy port and a first-class naval base. Then, in World War II, Allied bombers smashed its port facilities and the retreating Germans blew up its sea wall. A year ago, the U.S. Army decided to make Livorno a big supply base, and sent a white-thatched colonel named Norman Vissering to do it. He found the port operating at 25% of capacity, the townspeople dispirited and 14,000 unemployed in a city of 150,000.

Three Hats. Vissering also discovered that much of the trouble could be traced to one man. The man was hard to corner, because he wore three hats. As president of Livorno's only stevedoring company, he controlled all shiploading. As president of Livorno's Communist-line General Labor Federation, he bossed all union members. As a Communist deputy, he represented Livorno--and Joe Stalin--in the Chamber of Deputies at Rome. Under his potent trident, only card-carrying Commies and their friends could get jobs on the waterfront. His name: Vasco Jaccoponi.

When Jaccoponi heard that the Yanks were coming, his union announced that it would not unload "warmongers' ships"; his Communist paper warned non-Communist workers to keep off the docks.

Colonel Vissering, while on Eisenhower's wartime staff, had picked up a trick or two about military diplomacy. So, in his first move, instead of bringing in U.S. service troops to repair the sea wall, Vissering hired local labor. Soon Livorno's people began to suspect that the Americans had come not to requisition and rape --as the Communist press proclaimed--but to spend cash and offer jobs.

Face Saved. Next, Vissering went into direct competition with his rival, Jaccoponi. He set up his own stevedoring company. The nub was 25 resolute anti-Jaccoponi dockers, all of them fast men with a fist or a bale-hook. Under protection of Italian--not American--soldiers, they unloaded two ships. Restless rank & filers in the Red union, with nothing to do but 'watch, began nudging their leaders. Thereupon Jaccoponi, to save his face, put on his businessman's hat, made a deal with Vissering: Jaccoponi would set up a subsidiary to his monopoly to handle the U.S. Army shipping, but would let Vissering control all hiring and operations.

By this time, Vissering had studied his who's who of the Livorno waterfront. The man he picked to hire the stevedores was Dino Mariani, a stocky character who had once boxed on the Italian Olympic team and had run Genoa's waterfront until the Communists took it over and put him out of action (after a brutal thrashing by a Red goon squad).

By last week, Vissering seemed to have established his beachhead. Two hundred non-Communist dockers, at regular union rates, had cleared 40 ships. The first U.S. troops had disembarked without even a catcall. Livorno's streets were now lively; restaurant menus had added hamburger and ham & eggs all' americano. Always the realists, the Communists said: "Of course we still disapprove of the U.S. warmongers . . . but we cannot stand between our union members and paying jobs."

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