In the Back Door

Italy last week braced itself for yet another government, a new Premier--and a political experiment that made some Italians and their Western democratic friends a little nervous. The government was a monocolore, or one-party Christian Democratic Cabinet, led by Giulio Andreotti, 57, a cool and analytical Roman who in two previous tours has been one of Italy's more effective Premiers. In order to form a minority government in the face of increased Communist strength following the June elections, Andreotti agreed to a parliamentary coalition in which Communists will be able to wield considerable veto power while remaining outside the government. "Andreotti believes collaboration in Parliament with the Communists is an experiment," explained a none too eager colleague. "It's never worked anywhere else in the world."

On Warning. Whether the experiment would work in Italy was also uncertain; but like an untested drug on a moribund patient, it seemed no worse than the alternative. The election was another Italian standoff. The Christian Democrats, with 39% of the vote, did not emerge with sufficient strength to govern alone; the Communists, with 34%, fell short of what they needed to command a formal role in the government. The Christian Democrats were unwilling to share power formally with the Communists. They were also on warning not to by Western allies, who at an economic summit in Puerto Rico in June agreed to withhold aid to Italy if Communists entered the government. Scratching for alternatives, the Christian Democrats considered another center-left coalition, but that was dashed when the Socialists, who got a poor 10% of the June vote, refused to join.

Stymied, Andreotti and Christian Democratic Party Secretary Benigno Zaccagnini decided to acknowledge shifts of power in Parliament, where Communist strength after the election nearly equalled the Christian Democrats'. Veteran Communist Deputy Pietro Ingrao, 61, in an agreement between parties, was named president of the Chamber of Deputies. And last week the Communists for the first time were awarded seven of 26 parliamentary committee chairmanships, including key posts in economic and fiscal areas. In return, the Communists were expected to allow Andreotti to install his government by abstaining rather than voting against him when he submitted his monocolore Cabinet to the Senate this week for a vote of confidence.

The Communists have already indicated that they will seek legislation to crack down on tax evaders. They also want better pay for police, more schools and hospitals and a cutback on the sottogoverno, the maze of inefficient governmental agencies. Andreotti can accept most of the Communist proposals, although Zaccagnini warned Christian Democratic leaders last week "to avoid the danger that the parliamentary vote will constitute in fact that majority which we excluded on a political plane." Bluntly, that meant they had to watch against the Communists grabbing command of the lawmaking process and slipping into the government via the parliamentary back door, a danger that Washington observers pessimistically considered very real.

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