Word: italian
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last week the U.S. landed with both feet in the Italian election campaign-a contest which will decide the political future of Europe and, perhaps, the issue of war or peace. The most brilliant U.S. move to date concerned Trieste...
...Communist Flight. U.S. Intelligence had discovered that Russia intended to come out for the return of Trieste to Italy; the State Department beat the Russians to it. France's Foreign Minister, Georges Bidault, in Turin to sign a Franco-Italian trade agreement, announced that the U.S., Great Britain and France had decided that the Free Territory of Trieste should be returned to Italian sovereignty. He also promised a drive to help Italy regain some of her war-lost colonies...
...Italian reaction was electric. In Trieste, 30,000 cheering Italians paraded for three miles, ended up on the waterfront to salute the U.S. cruiser Dayton (see cut). In the Red stronghold of Milan, ten truckloads of Communists demonstrated in the cathedral square; Milanese swarmed out against them with boos and catcalls. The Communists needed police protection to get safely away. It was probably the first Communist retreat Milan had seen in months...
...Communists were in a tight spot. Comrade Tito's government fumed; a formal Yugoslav note denounced the Western proposal as serving only "chauvinist hatred." Next day Yugoslav Foreign Minister Stanoje Simitch announced more calmly that, as far as he was concerned, the Italians could have Trieste-but only in exchange for Italian Gorizia. It was not much of an offer...
...Italian crisis will come some time between April 18, when the polling takes place, and early May, when the new government will be formed. Western observers believe that the Communists will poll between 37% and 45% of the votes. A small margin might make a terrible difference...