ITALY: A Resounding Yes

Unlike France, Italy last week ratified the Paris accords with a minimum of argument and a maximum of assent. Resistingevery parliamentary maneuver to block and delay by Western Europe’s biggest Communist Party, Liberals, Monarchists, neoFascists, Republicans and right-wing Socialists joined with Premier Mario Scelba’s Christian Democrats to vote 335 to 215 for German rearmament in NATO.

The vote was a triumph for Premier Mario Scelba, who at long last is beginning to turn the screws on Italy’s home grown Reds. “Italy’s foreign policy of collaboration with the West,” beamed the Premier as he left the Chamber, “is no longer a party policy but has become a national policy.” It was the first time that the Monarchists and neo-Fascists have joined the government on a major issue, isolating the Communists and the left-wing Socialists.

As if to confirm the Premier’s words, hundreds of university students gathered spontaneously outside the U.S. embassy in Rome to cheer. U.S. Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, who had gone to the island of Sardinia, got word of the student demonstration and sent a message of thanks, ending with the words: “Long Live Italy.”