ITALY: The New Marco Polo

The most sought-after politico in Italy today is Pietro Nenni, 64, the yeasty, eloquent leader of Italy’s Red Socialists. Ever since the center-right Christian Democratic coalition proved itself unstable, Italian politicians have been hypnotized by the possibility of an alliance with Nenni’s party. But could Nenni be detached from his warm partnership with Palmiro Togliatti and the Communists? Some said he could be, some said he could not. Nenni simply said: Why don’t you try me and find out?

Last week, still a little breathless, Pietro Nenni returned from a four-week swing through Communist-land. From what he had said to the Marxists and what the Marxists had said to him, it was clear as never before that Nenni was scarcely distinguishable from the genuine Marxist article.

Dove for Love. Heading for Peking, Nenni stopped off in Moscow for some full VIP treatment. At a dinner given for him by the Stalin Peace Prize Committee, onetime (1951) Prizewinner Nenni recalled that another Italian traveler, one Marco Polo, had also traveled to Peking, where the Great Khan had entrusted him with two beautiful maidens he wanted to save from the snares of court life. Said Nenni: “Well, there is no longer a Great Khan at Peking, but rather the head of the people’s government. He will not hand us young girls to be saved, but he will instead give us the dove of peace to take back to Italy as a symbol of the wish for peace of the Chinese people.”

In Peking, Nenni took tea with Mao Tse-tung, addressed the Communists’ Consultative Political Conference (“It is a scandal that this new, vibrant China has not been admitted to the United Nations”), talked mutual trade with Premier Chou Enlai, discussed Roman Catholicism with the self-styled “vicar general of Peking.” Concluded Nenni: “Catholic missionaries in China can leave and return as they like,” provided, of course, that they do not carry out “counterrevolutionary propaganda.”

Two on a Terrace. Returning through Russia, Nenni got the highest compliment of all: the Russians laid on a special plane which flew him down to the “splendid marble villa” of Nikita Khrushchev near Yalta in the Crimea. Nenni sat with Khrushchev on a terrace overlooking the Black Sea, and companionably discovered that he and Nikita were as one in many things. German unification (both against), a European “security” pact (both for), etc., etc. According to Nenni, the closest they came to discussing Italian politics was a casual remark of Khrushchev’s: “And, by the way, how is Togliatti feeling these days?” Nenni rather implied that Khrushchev was just being polite—Togliatti has yet to receive an invitation to Yalta, or even to Moscow, from Russia’s post-Stalin bosses.

As Nenni returned last week spouting his reports, many an Italian who had been voluble on the merits of the Nenni “opening to the left” fell into crestfallen silence. Snapped one Italian politician: “That’s no opening—that’s a trap door, and right over the bear pit.”