Trouble Spot

From the floor of the new Italian Parliament last week, the United States' undeviating friend in Europe uttered a strong warning to Washington. "May it be clear to our allies," said Premier Alcide de Gasperi, that there can be "repercussions on the solidity of the common alliance itself." He was talking about the West's five-year-old unfulfilled promise to give the Free Territory of Trieste to Italy.

Italians, said the Premier, fully expect the promise to be kept. If it is not, he hinted, Italy may refuse to join EDC, and may even withdraw from NATO--a step that would knock the foundations from under U.S. strategy for a united, anti-Communist Western Europe.

Change in Plans. The Western powers could pretend no longer that the simmering problem of Trieste would simply blow away if no one looked. Trieste (pop. 270,000), once a commercial rival of Venice, was for centuries a semi-autonomous city, giving the landlocked Austro-Hungarian empire an outlet to the sea. The Allies promised it to Italy in World War I as a reward for joining their side. Italy held Trieste until World War II; ethnically, 80% of the city itself is Italian. Since World War II, the port city and 280 square miles of surrounding countryside, coveted by both Italy and Yugoslavia, have been divided into one Western zone (U.S. and British) and one Yugoslav zone of occupation. Their population: roughly 286,000 Italians, 93,000 Slovenes.

The big powers, in a decision written into the Italian peace treaty, agreed to internationalize the territory under a U.N.-selected governor. But Russia blocked more than a dozen Western nominations for a governor, and with agreement plainly impossible, the West's Big Three dramatically renounced the plan on March 20, 1948. Instead, the U.S., Britain, and France flatly came out for "the return of the Free Territory of Trieste to Italian sovereignty as the best solution." That pledge helped De Gasperi beat the Communists in the crucial 1948 elections.

A few months later, when Tito broke with Moscow, the West reneged on its promise. It decided that it would be impolitic to force Tito out of Trieste at a time when he might be won over to the West; it chose the easier course of forgetting its promise to Italy, explaining it away, as a Foreign Office diplomat did only last week: "If a solution were possible, we'd propose it straightaway . . . But ... I honestly don't see a solution in view. They've just got to compromise, the pair of them."

Too weak to face down Marshal Tito by themselves, the embittered Italians have come to regard the West's unredeemed pledge as no more than a cynical campaign trick. That feeling hurt De Gasperi in last month's election. Trieste is a symbol as compelling as reunification to Germans, or 54-40 to Americans of the 1840s. To Italians the word packs an emotional wallop out of all proportion to its economic importance.

Hard to Budge. Last week trying to get a new cabinet approved without even a majority in Parliament, De Gasperi was distressed by the announcement that the U.S. and Britain are about to sit down with Tito's men to discuss more military aid for Yugoslavia--aid that would make Tito stronger and even harder to budge. Incredibly bad timing, cried De Gasperi's supporters. De Gasperi was in trouble. The Monarchists, on whom he counted for some support, decided not to back him. One of their prime reasons: though De Gasperi had pledged himself heart & soul to the West, he had in return won no Western help on Trieste.

Trieste was only one of the many issues contributing to De Gasperi's shaky position, but a favorable solution there could be enough to forestall De Gasperi's fall, and Italy's drift from the West.

Communist Tito, who plays on Western fears that he might get friendly with Russia again now that Stalin is dead, considers himself in a strong bargaining position. In a recent speech he declared: "If Trieste depends on me, I can give De Gasperi the answer. He will not get it." He rejects a formula proposed by the Italians, for an "ethnic division" which would give Italy Trieste and the predominantly Italian string of coastal towns to the south. He insists on a corridor to Trieste and use of the port. But Tito needs more economic and military aid. Even the Yugoslavs concede that Trieste itself is and should remain an Italian city. Cooler-headed Italians, in turn, recognize that Trieste depends on Yugoslav and Austrian trade. Beneath the intransigent talk on both sides, then, are ingredients of a settlement if Western diplomats find the will and the imagination.

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