DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

At the invitation of President Eisenhower, Italy's President Giovanni Gronchi (pronounced Gron-key) will arrive in the U.S. next week for a 13-day visit.

Early Career: Born Sept. 10, 1887, near Pisa, to a family of modest means. His father was an accountant and a salami salesman. Forced to work to put himself through college, Gronchi joined the Catholic workers' movement while still a student, beginning a lifelong passion for politics; fought and was decorated three times for bravery in World War 1.

Political Career: After the war, he became a teacher of Italian at a technical school, helped found Don Luigi Sturzo's Popular Party (forerunner of the Christian Democrats). Elected to Parliament in 1919, he served briefly in Mussolini's first government, but when Mussolini began to show his iron hand, Gronchi resigned. Barred from teaching because he refused to take the Fascist oath of allegiance, he became a salesman, first of neckties, then of American-made paints, worked his way up and ended as owner of a prosperous synthetic-varnish factory.

During World War II he became a leader of the resistance, and with De Gasperi founded the new Christian Democratic Party. Elected President of the Chamber of Deputies in 1948, an office he held until 1955, when he was elected Italy's President over the opposition of his own party's leadership, and with the help of votes from Pietro Nenni's fellow-traveling Socialists. His term is seven years.

Personality & Family: Short and stocky, he is 68 but looks younger, has greying blond hair and pale blue eyes behind heavy spectacles, is a lively conversationalist and good orator, with the fine Tuscan accent that is highly respected in Italy. To give his children a normal family life, he has declined to move into the sumptuous Quirinal Palace, instead lives modestly in a four-room apartment in Rome with his second wife (his first wife died before the war) and their two children (aged 12 and 11), often walks to work. His hobby: model trains, which take up half of his small apartment.

As President: Succeeding the first President of the Italian Republic, old (81), mild Luigi Einaudi, who contented himself with cornerstone laying and self-effacement, Gronchi has attempted to build up the prestige and power of the presidency. He has stepped up pomp and circumstance of the Quirinal Palace itself, which is guarded by 120 of the most imposing soldiers in Italy, the 6-ft.-6-in. cuirassiers. Has made more speeches and covered more miles in his first nine months than Einaudi did in seven years. In contrast to Einaudi, he accepts petitions, receives delegations, summons government ministers to discuss their actions. "I firmly believe that the head of state must stimulate and encourage the actions of government," he says, and intends to sit as "custodian of the constitution." He believes it is his duty as President to have convictions and to express them.

Opinions & Views: Long a leader of the left wing of the Christian Democrats, Gronchi was a leading and early advocate of the "opening to the left." But he has vigorously disowned a Christian Science Monitor story by Correspondent Edmund Stevens (TIME, Feb. 13), which quoted him as in effect favoring a popular front with Nenni's Socialists. (Correspondent Stevens, now in Moscow for Look, stands by his story.) Gronchi has had occasion before to address himself colorfully to suspicions of his commitment to the West. Said he last year: "For eight years they depicted me as an enemy of the Atlantic way, thus insulting and offending me in three ways: first as a sensible person, second as a good Italian, third as a politician."

One of his top advisers describes Gronchi's politics as New Dealism with a strong admixture of Roman Catholic liberal thought. He believes that to fight Communism, the Christian Democrats must get nearer the working class and present a progressive program which Nenni's fellow travelers would be compelled to support. He has never urged, say his advisers, that Nenni's Socialists be brought into government.

As President of the Republic but not President of the Council (Premier), he will not be empowered to transact any business between Italy and the U.S. while here. But he can act as spokesman for his country. As for his own social and political ideas, and especially his ideas of foreign policy, he will be in a good position in Washington to speak for himself. He can be expected to do so with clarity and force.

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