Successful Squeeze

At a secluded cliffside villa near Naples early last week, scarcely an hour passed without the insistent jangle of the telephone or the arrival of a score of pleading telegrams, the arrival or departure of a pezzo grosso (big shot). Finally the white-haired old gentleman in the villa gave in --as he probably intended to do all along. And so, five days after his resignation as president of Italy's Constitutional Court (TIME, Oct. 1), shrewd Enrico de Nicola, 78, went back to his job.

From the moment De Nicola quit as Chief Justice in protest at the government's failure to carry out his court's decisions, Italy's Premier Antonio Segni knew full well that he was caught in a squeeze play: unless he purchased De Nicola's return to the court by promising government compliance with its rulings, Premier Segni's Cabinet would stand condemned in the public mind for defiance of constitutional processes. As gracefully as possible, the Premier resigned himself to paying the price--a new set of laws to replace the Fascist statutes thrown out by the court. On Segni's promise, the revered Chief Justice fired off a letter to President Giovanni Gronchi withdrawing his resignation. "It is my duty," De Nicola wrote blandly, "to bow to your will with profound devotion . . ."

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