democratic avowals. Their unwavering support of
Moscow in international affairs had a similar
effect: they defended the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in February 1948, opposed Italy’s
membership of NATO and military links with the
US, were against Italy’s membership of the
European Economic Community and failed to
denounce the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.
Not until nearly two decades later did Italian
communism openly take a lead in the formation of
what became known as Eurocommunism, a policy
of independence from Moscow and the US, and
the declared pursuit of national interests. In fact,
Togliatti had been critical of Moscow long before
this, and a change of attitude had been evident,
for example, with the acceptance by the commu-
nists of membership of the European Economic
Community in 1962. But it was the Soviet inva-
sion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the brutal asser-
tion of Soviet dominance over a supposedly
sovereign country, albeit a Soviet ally, that pro-
voked the broad Eurocommunist movement of
Western Europe. By the mid-1970s, the Italian
communists were even sanctioning NATO.
The acceptable face of communism, with its
enhanced appeal to the electorate, caused even
more apprehension in Washington than did tra-
ditional communism. In this respect little had
changed in Washington’s assessment over forty
years. In the immediate post-war years, commu-
nism was believed to be deriving its support
mainly from conditions of poverty and misery,
and there were plenty of those in Italy and
Europe. Opponents of communism were given
financial aid and sustained by whatever means
were possible. But, since former enemies were
being taught the arts of democracy, interference
could not be too obvious. To safeguard the
Western alliance from a communist takeover in
Italy, a very secret organisation called Operation
Gladio, named after the double-edged Roman
sword, was set up. It was to play a sinister and
corrupt role in Italian politics, though its exis-
tence was not uncovered until a judicial investi-
gation in 1990.
The threat of communism had a beneficial
effect for Western Europe and Italy too. Extensive,
predominantly American, aid was sent to Italy
through the United Nations Relief and Rehabili-
tation Administration (UNRRA), then the US
provided direct economic aid, because (in the som-
bre words of a State Department Policy Planning
Staff report) the margin of safety politically and
economically in Western Europe had become
extremely thin. These stop-gap forms of aid were
followed after 1948 by the planned approach of
Marshall Aid.
Between 1948 and 1952, Italy received more
than $1,400 million in US grants and loans. So
once the Italian economy had taken off in the
1950s, state, private and foreign capital ensured
an investment rate in industry that fuelled rapid
expansion. The millions of Italian immigrants
who lived in the US made this largesse easier to
justify. But in general it was appeals to America’s
own self-interest and above all the need to
contain communism that persuaded Congress and
the American public to provide such a huge trans-
fer of resources to Italy and Western Europe.
One of the more important objectives of the
Marshall Plan was to bring the non-communist
European nations into closer collaboration. The
means was the European recovery programme,
which was to be planned jointly by the European
participants. In April 1948, sixteen countries
signed a treaty which, for this purpose, set up
the Organisation for European Economic Co-
operation (OEEC) with headquarters in Paris.
The sixteen countries were Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, France, Britain, Greece, Iceland, the
Irish Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, the Nether-
lands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland
and Turkey, together with the three Western
zones of Germany. Italy was one of the full mem-
bers, but its adherence to this block of non-
communist nations still seemed problematical to
Washington, even after the resounding victory of
the Christian Democratic Party in the elections of
- Contrary to the experience in the Western
zones of Germany, the Cold War had not discred-
ited the Italian Communist Party in the eyes of the
Italian electorate. American hopes that Marshall
Aid would weaken the communist left remained
unfulfilled.
In its relations with other countries, Italy has
not sought a leading role. In the aftermath of the
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