ITALY: Cure

Scholarly Alcide de Gasperi has one hobby: mountain climbing. But no rock wall he ever encountered gave him the trouble he experienced last week in forming a new government for Italy.

When Crown Prince Umberto, Lieutenant General of the Realm, named him Premier to succeed Ferrucio Parri, De Gasperi was ill with influenza. At first, propped up in bed, sneezing and rheumy-eyed, he haggled with fellow politicians. Then, pale and weak, he left his bedchamber for day-&-night sessions in the Chigi Palace. Punctually at 7 each morning a neighbor’s phonograph woke him up.

Sleepless De Gasperi wanted to continue coalition government. Communists, Socialists, Christian Democrats, Actionists, Labor Democrats agreed, but the Liberals insisted that De Gasperi promise to call off the purge of Fascists.

His wife Francesca had never seen De Gasperi in a more abominable temper. After a fortnight of fever and frustration, he threatened to form a five-party government. While the neighbor’s phonograph played, he drafted a tentative list of ministers. Then much-enduring Alcide de Gasperi fainted.

This week the Liberals capitulated. Still pale and weak, Premier De Gasperi announced a six-party Cabinet. The purge would continue under Socialist Vice Premier Pietro Nenni. As he and his ministers took their oaths in the Quirinal Palace, Alcide de Gasperi cried out in relief: “You wouldn’t believe it, but now my cold is cured!”