The Artful Dodger

Just across the French border, in the alpine resort town of Pralognian, two old enemies (and older friends) faced each other affably. They were Italy's two best-known Socialists, but men of radically different views. One was wrinkled, leathery Pietro Nenni, 65, Stalin Prizewinner, whose "unity of action" pact with the Italian Communists provides Moscow with 35% of the Italian vote.

His companion across the lunch table was Giuseppe Saragat, 57. Once Nenni's top lieutenant, Saragat had shared exile with Nenni from Mussolini's Fascism.

But he broke with Nenni's fellow traveling in 1947 to set up his own party, crying that "the atmosphere of liberty has been smothered." Saragat's splinter Socialists have 19 seats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies--but Nenni has 75.

The gulf that separated the two men was immense; for the past nine years Saragat's party has been supporting the pro-Western Christian Democratic coalition; for the past nine years the Nenni Socialists have never voted contrary to Moscow on any major issue.

But the forces seeking to unite Italy's divided Socialists are also considerable and involve more than just Socialists. So long as one-third of the Chamber of Deputies votes with Moscow, no true two-party system is possible in Italy, and there can be no effective alternative to the Christian Democratic Party. The Socialist split has frustrated all Italian political life, and the tempting visions of the power that could be exercised by a single, strong Socialist Party has become almost an obsession with Italian Social ists, whether loyal to Nenni or Saragat.

"Positive Results." Two months ago French Socialist Senator Pierre Commin, who had known both Nenni and Saragat and shared a Pyrenean shelter with Nenni during the Nazi occupation, slipped inconspicuously into Rome. He came shortly after Nenni, in a windy polemic, had expressed horror at Moscow's revelations about Stalin, and implied that Khrushchev was not really much better. At the behest of the Socialist International (which is disturbed by the Nenni Socialists' loyalty to Moscow, the only such partnership in Western Europe), suave, strongly anti-Communist Pierre Commin did his best to persuade his two old friends to merge their parties.

Two weeks ago, thanks to Commin's efforts, Nenni invited Saragat to his French vacation retreat at Pralognan. The 3 1/2 hours of conversation that followed were, Saragat later declared, "extremely cordial and weighty, and ended on a positive note." In an astounding shift of position, Nenni for the first time agreed to Saragat's two crucial conditions for reunification: 1) a break with the Communists, and 2) support of a pro-Western foreign policy for Italy.

Verbal Smoke Screen. When news of the Nenni-Saragat conversation broke in the Italian press, optimism surged through Italian Socialist ranks. Turin's La Stampa (which got the story first) called the meeting "an important and possibly decisive step along the road toward Socialist unification." Next day, however, fast-talking' Pietro Nenni characteristically began to throw an impenetrable verbal smoke screen around his intentions. Though he was careful to keep hope of unification alive, he emphasized that "the processes cannot be brief"--he hinted that they might last for two years--and would not involve any "noisy breaks or tearful reconciliations." Just what would be involved he left adroitly obscure: "Under present circumstances a popular front is impossible . . . but there is no break with the Communists. Look at my recent declarations to the Central Committee of the Socialist Party and you will see that I indicated that establishment of a new unity-of-action pact with [Communist Boss] Togliatti was useless."

"Completely Absurd." It was noteworthy, however, that Nenni's artful dodging left Giuseppe Saragat (who is sometimes known as "the Hamlet of Italian politics") surprisingly unworried. Also apparently unworried was Mediator Commin. Though he found Nenni's timetable for reunification too slow, he insisted that "in effect, Nenni has broken with the Communists already," and that fears that the wily Nenni is simply trying to pull Saragat's Social Democrats into the Communist embrace are "completely absurd."

Insisted Commin: "Communism is a losing cause caught in a profound ideological crisis."

In support of Commin's optimism, some Italians argued that the mere fact that the suspicious Saragat had agreed to enter negotiations in the first place suggested that Nenni was indeed ready to break with the Communists. The reason for Nenni's subsequent backing and filling, they theorized, was partly that he wanted to avoid the premature battle with the Reds (who supply much of his financing), partly that he was trying to hang onto his biggest bargaining counter until he had won from the Saragat Socialists concessions that would assure his complete dominance of a unified Socialist Party.

While Socialists glowed with cautious optimism, the reactions of other Italian parties ranged from polite skepticism to outright dismay. The Communists, though publicly approving, were privately worried. "Nenni is a sheer opportunist," snapped one bitter Red leader. "A unified, anti-Communist Socialist Party would isolate us politically forever," said another Communist boss unhappily. No less worried were conservative Italians, who could not believe Nenni would really break with the Communists and saw in the Socialist-merger negotiation only a story as old as the Trojan horse.

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