Word: gronchi
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Italy's Presidents, like other European Presidents, are expected to deliver harmless inaugural speeches in favor of orderly government and sober living. But last week newly elected President Giovanni Gronchi, Catholic advocate of the "opening to the Left," startled Italy's assembled legislators by delivering a rousing political inaugural that plainly pleased the Communists more than his own party, the Christian Democrats...
...year cycle has been closed," cried President Gronchi, "and a new phase is about to open." By the new phase, he meant himself. "I don't think I am being blinded by vanity, but I believe that never before has the Italian Republic been so near the soul of its people as in this moment...
Time and again, the Communists and their Socialist allies leaped to their feet to applaud and cheer. Premier Scelba sat dourly throughout. Afterwards, new President Gronchi received the Christian Democrats' party boss Amintore Fanfani and told him: "Let's hope my election will bring about a distensione in this country, which I, as chief of state, will do my best to promote." "Distensione" is Italian for easing of tension, and its advocates mean by it not only coexisting with Russia as a nation, but coexisting at home with sweet-talking fellow travelers in an old-style popular front...
...Gronchi bitterly resents the frequent charge that he is neutralist and antiNATO. Says he: "For eight years my name in Italy has been synonymous with Kerensky. For eight years they depicted me as an enemy of the Atlantic way, thus insulting and offending me in three ways: first as a sensible person, second as a good Italian, third as a politician. To call me a Kerensky is to insult...
...good friend Pietro Nenni, winner of the Stalin Peace Prize, who has been pushing hard to infiltrate the government, was openly delighted to have Gronchi as President. In all probability, Gronchi's victory means that the days of Premier Scelba are numbered. And faced with such a personal rebuff, it was hard to see how Amintore Fanfani could long continue as party secretary. Whatever Gronchi might or might not do as President until 1962, his election in an atmosphere of doubt, ambiguity and faction, proved that there is nothing resembling strong leadership in Italian politics generally...