Benvenuto

The friendly-looking man behind the thick-lensed glasses peered around him at the triumphal archway, the red, white, and green Italian flags, the guards of honor, the crowds, the bands, the bannered words of welcome: BENVENUTO AL PRESIDENTE GRONCHI. Along Pennsylvania Avenue he rode at a stately pace, surrounded by the trappings accorded only to the nation's most distinguished visitors, amid the resounding music of military bands. At the White House President Eisenhower was waiting on the steps. "So good to see you," Eisenhower greeted his visitor. "It is the first time an Italian President has visited this country. I am very delighted to have you here. It is a very great privilege." President Giovanni Gronchi of Italy thanked President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the U.S. and then inclined, in courtly fashion, to kiss Mamie Eisenhower's hand.

The Discus Thrower. For four days last week the leaders of the U.S. greeted Giovanni Gronchi with unusual warmth and attention. Gronchi had consultations with Eisenhower, dined and wined with Dulles and Nixon, talked international labor with the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s George Meany. Guards of honor presented arms when Gronchi laid a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the National Gallery of Art stayed open after closing time to accommodate Gronchi's handsome signora. At the gallery Gronchi told his guides how much he admired its selections from the work of his countryman, Fra Angelico, and then he made a comment about the U.S. that was calculated to echo in Italy: "One visit like this is more than enough to dispel the erroneous idea prevalent in Europe that the American idea is to use money to get money. I find that, on the contrary, money is used to create and display beauty."

In the rose garden of the White House, Gronchi presented to Eisenhower a bronze reproduction of The Discus Thrower and a grey granite pillar surmounted by a white marble capital. In thanks, Eisenhower said: "As you know, we have millions of citizens of Italian derivation.

They will be, I think, extremely proud that you brought this gift to our people. All the rest of us will take a tremendous satisfaction that it has been handed over in the hands of one who is a militant leader for democracy and human values in the world today."

The Leaning Tower. Gronchi's visit to the U.S., like Gronchi's conception of the presidency of Italy, was something much more than an exercise in ceremonial. In company with Italy's Foreign Minister Gaetano Martino, he twice reviewed current Italian and international problems with Eisenhower and his staff, as the State Department put it, "on a high plane." Gronchi assured his U.S. hosts that he warmly supported the Western alliance, that he deeply detested Communism, that his widely reported policy of "the opening to the left" connoted not neutralism but social reform.

Although he felt that NATO should now be remeshed with more emphasis on economic objectives, Gronchi issued a joint communique with Eisenhower to the effect that Western defenses should be maintained at present levels. Eisenhower found himself pleased by Gronchi's open way of expressing himself. Eisenhower was also impressed by Gronchi's fervent advocacy of a pet Eisenhower project--the unification of Europe--by Gronchi's grasp of the temper of the U.S. Congress on matters of aid and Communism, and by Gronchi's enthusiastic approval of President Eisenhower's statement that Ambassador Luce would go on working indefinitely on her present job in Rome.

Gronchi moved on to Capitol Hill to address a joint session of Congress. He proudly told how Italy had managed to rise with U.S. help "out of the ashes of a painful past." He went on to define the cold war as he saw it today: "I am convinced that in the new competition of ideologies and economic assistance we cannot hope for the success of our democratic conception unless this gives concrete and factual evidence of its superiority [by removing] injustice and positions of inferiority within each national structure, and internationally . . ." At the National Press Club, President Frank Holeman remarked of Gronchi that he was born in Pisa, the city of the Leaning Tower, and "he leans to the left but hasn't fallen over." Gronchi acknowledged the introduction: "I would like to be considered as a man who stands on his own two feet and doesn't lean to the right or the left. And if there is any significance, the Leaning Tower leans to the northwest."

At week's end Giovanni Gronchi headed off for a NATO briefing (by an Italian-speaking U.S. officer) at Norfolk, Va., en route for a look at Rocky Mountain landscapes, California seascapes and Manhattan skyscrapers. He left in Washington the impression of a man who did indeed stand on his own feet. Since the U.S. hope for Italy is the continuing development of a strong, self-respecting nation, President Gronchi's visit has been a warming sign of his country's resurgence toward its place among the powers.

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