ITALY: Man of the Mountains

Until he reached middle age, he persisted in his favorite sport of mountain climbing. Then one day, as he was descending a dangerous peak, his rope jammed, and he went plunging downward to dangle helplessly over a deep chasm. “For 20 minutes I could not move,” Alcide de Gasped recalled later. “Then I swung over to a ridge and was safe. Well, I was 54 then, and I decided I had better give up climbing. But looking back, it had been a good school for political fighting.”

Both politics and mountain climbing seemed unlikely pursuits for a man like De Gasperi. Tall and lanky, he was plagued by bad health. He was an inept organizer, a rambling, self-conscious speaker. He had chilly, blue eyes and a wide mouth that even in repose seemed compressed in grim disapproval. But underneath, De Gasperi had a mountain man’s flint-hard resolution and a devout Christian’s sense of integrity. These qualities made him the greatest man in postwar Italy and helped him revive a nation that had almost died from an overdose of political bombast.

His birthplace in the Tirol made him first an Austrian, then (by the border rearranging at Versailles) an Italian. But first and last he was a European. As an Austrian during the Habsburg decline, he was an M.P. in the Austrian Parliament, an editor, a labor organizer. As an Italian, he was one of the founders of Italy’s dominant Christian Democratic Party, and an enemy of Fascism. In 1926 Mussolini clapped him into Rome’s infamous Queen of Heaven prison on the banks of the Tiber, where he languished for a year and a half until the Holy See was able to negotiate his release.

The Survivor. De Gasperi spent the next 14 years in the quiet of the Vatican library, filing index cards and acting as a receptionist. He stretched his $80-a-month salary by doing German translations at a nickel a page. Surreptitiously, he also kept in touch with his fellow Christian Democrats. When Mussolini fell, a small but well-organized Christian Party was ready. In December 1944 De Gasperi became Italy’s Foreign Minister. A year later he was Premier. The first thing De Gasperi did was to get a salary advance so he could buy a new blue suit.

De Gasperi’s tenacity in holding on to power became one of the amazing political feats of postwar Europe. Industrial production was at an alltime low; Italy had 3,500,000 jobless or partially employed. The Reds controlled one-third of Italy’s 2,735 communes. In those perilous postwar years, De Gasperi was a genius at compromise. His Cabinet had Communists and right-wingers; seven times it fell, and seven times he patiently rebuilt another coalition. Not until May 1947 did he finally rid his Cabinet of Communists. His smashing triumph in the 1948 elections (with powerful backing by the U.S.) was widely recognized as a significant cold-war victory. A passionate believer in Europe, he was convinced that Italy could only achieve itself as part of a united Europe.

Under De Gasperi Italy’s agriculture came back to 100% and national income reached $16 billion, an alltime high. But the country was still harassed by ancient social cleavages, wide gaps between rich and poor, and suspicious anticlericalism. The Communists, with persistent skill, took advantage of De Gasperi’s conciliatory tactics and his fear of provoking an open break between left and right in a land where democracy was still insecurely planted.

A year ago De Gasperi’s government was reelected, but with such a narrow majority that it was, in fact, defeated. Fatigued and discouraged, the old mountaineer could not weather another crisis and submitted his resignation; other, younger hands took over. He continued to be an elder statesman, but in June he stepped down as president of the Christian Democratic Party. Now his noblest ambition was to become the first president of the United States of Europe.

The Retreat. A month ago, as he had done for many summers, he and his wife Francesca moved into their summer chalet near the tiny, Alpine hamlet of Sella. At 73, De Gasperi was worn and haggard. His heart was tired. He was ordered to rest, but he continued anxiously to write and phone Christian Democratic leaders in Rome. He was increasingly distressed by France’s attitude toward the EDC he had helped create. One day last week he had a slight heart attack.

On his last day he arose and, as usual, looked out the window toward a hillside crucifix, then murmured: “I can’t see the crucifix.” A few hours later he talked with Premier Scelba in Rome. Hunched over the telephone, he said passionately: “EDC must be launched! . . . Europe and the fatherland must be saved.” He turned from the telephone in tears. A few hours later he had another heart attack and then another. A priest was summoned, and Alcide de Gasperi, a devout man all his life, received the last sacrament. His daughter began to read the prayer for the dying. Shortly before dawn, De Gasperi said: “I am dying,” and then, with his last breath, muttered, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

All day long, villagers, priests, Cabinet ministers, Senators, and children from a nearby orphanage thronged the mountain road to pass by the wooden bed where lay the gaunt old figure. Pope Pius sent personal condolences; so did Communist Leader Palmiro Togliatti. U.S. Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, interrupting a U.S. vacation, flew back to Rome to represent President Eisenhower at the funeral. Said she: “America lost a good friend and Italy a great statesman.”

All Italy united to pay the old mountaineer homage. A special train, stopping at way stations where silent thousands gathered, took the body back to Rome. And there, this week, after high petitions by his beloved Church for heavenly grace, rich in earthly honors, Alcide de Gasperi would be laid to rest in Rome’s magnificent Basilica San Lorenzo.