Word: nenni
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...these days of precariously narrow majorities in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, the 75 Socialist votes controlled by Italy's fellow-traveling Stalin Prize winner Pietro Nenni have always been regarded as forbidden fruit, something to be enviously eyed but eventually rejected. The price always looked too high. Last week Fellow Traveler Pietro Nenni, one of Italy's shrewdest politicians, embarrassed the Christian Democratic government of Antonio Segni by offering his votes free...
...Signor Nenni, fresh from talks with Comrade Khrushchev in the Crimea and a noisy welcome in Communist China (TIME, Oct. 31), was at the top of his parliamentary form. Before the Italian Chamber was an uninspired piece of legislation aimed at modifying an old Fascist law which gave extensive authority to military courts. For support of the mild proposed modification, the Christian Democrats depended on the votes of Italy's Monarchist and neo-Fascist right...
When the bill came to a vote, the right was primed to claim that its support of the government had created a new kind of de facto Italian coalition. But at this moment, Nenni demonstrated his masterful grasp of parliamentary maneuver. Before a surprised Chamber of Deputies, a Nenni Lieutenant announced: "We cannot allow the good parts of this law to appear approved through the collusion of the right with the center. We shall consequently reverse ourselves and vote for this bill." The bill passed 377 to 97. Nenni invoked his master in justifying his action: "We had already lost...
Twice more on successive days, Red Socialist strategy saved the government from serious embarrassment. A government budget bill was about to be defeated because about 40 government supporters were absent. A Nenni henchman, while publicly opposing the budget, sent 30 or 40 Communist and Socialist members out of the hall to match the missing Christian Democrats. The Segni government was saved from a defeat. Philosophizing on his new strategy (which Italians are calling the Strategy of the Smile), Nenni said: "The slow disintegration of the majority is turning the Houses of Parliament into a sort of jungle...
Embarrassed Christian Democrats insisted, in the words of Party Secretary Amintore Fanfani: "We look at their votes without gratitude and we are determined not to pay for them in any way." But it was a compromised government that had to count on Nenni's favors, even if it would not say thank you. Said Nenni cockily to a Milan audience: "I am glad to be able to say that things have considerably improved...