Word: colombo
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After six months on the job, Colombo, who flies off this week for a five-day U.S. visit that will include a White House conference with President Nixon, has done more than merely hang on. Some Italians are already saying, perhaps prematurely, that he may be the best man in the job since the late Alcide de Gasperi, Italy's premier Premier. Others say that the ascetic, soft-spoken Christian Democrat, whom leftists call "the lay cardinal" for his piety and political skill, has accomplished a political miracle by not only surviving but actually making some progress...
...Boom. Colombo came to the job with a reputation of being an "uomo preparata" (competent man), a graceful but serious no-nonsense bachelor of 50. His first achievement was to settle, at least temporarily, the bickering over patronage among the four center-left coalition partners-Socialists, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and Republicans. Next, he kept parliamentary peace by allowing a free vote on Italy's controversial divorce bill. Colombo throttled filibusters by his own right-wingers; in return, Communist Leader Enrico Berlinguer shut off anti-Vatican outbursts from the far left...
...Colombo, who is credited with executing the plans charted by Bank of Italy Governor Guido Carli for il Boom, also drew up legislation to get the country moving again after a slowdown caused by a wave of strikes. He moved to improve conditions in overcrowded universities and secondary schools. Two weeks ago, he won trade union backing for additional bills improving housing and medical care...
...living through a crisis of growth and development in Italy today," Colombo told TIME Correspondent James Bell during an interview in Rome's Chigi Palace last week. "Many structures of the state have not kept pace with these transformations and today appear to be insufficient." The Premier blamed the lethargic structures of government, which he is trying to change, for allowing bloody street battles to erupt all over Italy in recent months between right-and left-wing extremists. Colombo called out the army as well as the police to quell what he called "these infantile and dangerous attempts...
...Opening. Despite the help he has received from Italy's large and powerful Communist Party. Colombo vowed that he would never let the party into the government. "We are separated by deep and substantial differences in the conception of the state and the individual," he said. "The center-left is very far from having exercised its entire potential. There is therefore not even a small opening for Communist entry into the government...