Word: fanfani
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Fifteen months ago, when Italian Premier Amintore Fanfani marched his moderate Christian Democratic Party through the apertura a sinistra (opening to the left) into a parliamentary partnership with the left-wing Socialists, he acknowledged the deal as a dangerous gamble. "We shall certainly have some sleepless nights," he said. By now, Fanfani must be a hopeless insomniac...
Last week nearly 33 million Italians went to the polls for national elections and rewarded their experimenting Premier with a jolting setback that cost his party 730,000 votes and may well cost him his job. The apertura might survive, but its future-like Fanfani's-would be riskier than ever. Ashen-faced, the pint-size (5 ft. 1 in.) Premier faced reporters in the Chigi Palace on election night with uncommon shock. "The Christian Democrats,'' he declared, "have been declared as the relative majority party, even if by a narrower margin than before...
Papal Pal. To bed indeed. Fanfani already had news of the massive gains of Palmiro Togliatti's Communists, who improved their position as the country's second largest party (after the Christian Democrats), won 25% of the entire nation's votes, and 26 new seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The Reds now hold a total of 166 of the Chamber's 630 places, compared with the Christian Democrats...
...part, the Communist showing was due to Red defections from Pietro Nenni's sharply divided Socialists, the left-wing crowd that had thrown its lot with Fanfani. And in part it was due to Pope John XXIII, who had given a modicum of approval to the far left with his Pacem in Terris encyclical, and with his warm welcome to the Vatican last March for Nikita Khrushchev's visiting son-in-law, Aleksei Adzhubei...
Useful Visit. Another John who casts his shadow over the campaign is John F. Kennedy. The U.S. has smoothly shifted its support away from Christian Democratic right-wingers who would like to close the apertura, now favors Fanfani's coalition. One group of Fanfani supporters is dubbed the "Kennediani," and the Premier, dashing about the countryside ki a black Lancia, repeatedly recalls for townsfolk his recent visit to Washington as evidence of Italy's high standing with the U.S. For campaign purposes even Fanfani's Socialist allies have been warming to the U.S. Asked a Socialist speaker...