Italy: New Image, New Influence

After years in the shadows, an old friend of the U.S. speaks up

When Italian President Sandro Pertini called on Ronald Reagan last week, he was welcomed with unusual warmth. As a military honor guard stood smartly at attention, Reagan spoke effusively of the “common ideals” shared by Italy and the U.S. The reception reflected more than the heartfelt kinship of elder statesmen (Reagan is 71, Pertini 85). During his eight-day U.S. visit, Pertini is being embraced as the leader of a staunch and increasingly important ally—a country that, as Reagan put it, “is no fair-weather friend but instead is an indispensable partner.”

That is not the sort of thing Americans are used to hearing about a country whose Communist Party is the largest in the West and whose intrigue-ridden political system has produced 41 governments since World War II. Too divided to pursue a cohesive foreign policy, Italy has traditionally occupied the second rank in international councils. No longer. While grass-roots pacifism and economic crisis progressively undermine the authority of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Italy is quietly becoming, along with France, one of NATO’s most forthright European advocates. Says Pertini: “We maintain that our country has to make its presence felt very strongly in foreign affairs.”

Rome’s new assertiveness dates from the four-nation summit of NATO members called by former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in Guadeloupe in 1979 to address the West’s defense problems. But Italy was not invited. That humiliation produced lingering resentment and a determination to shake off Italy’s image as an inconsequential nation.

The first major sign of change came when Italy unequivocally agreed to deploy new U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles designed to counter the 300 Soviet SS-20s aimed at Western Europe. Italy thereby met West Germany’s condition that at least one other Continental nation take the new weapons. Though Britain, Belgium and The Netherlands also subsequently agreed, Italy is the only country in which the decision is not being seriously challenged by peace movements.

Italy was also the first European country to agree to join the multinational force that will patrol in the Sinai Peninsula after Israel’s withdrawal on April 25. Anxious to dissociate themselves from U.S. policy in the Middle East, other allies hesitated for months.

In 1980, when Malta ended its decade-old “special relationship” with Libya, Italy offered the strategic island republic economic aid in exchange for guaranteed neutrality. The deal moved Malta a step closer to the West, and it signaled Italy’s decision to defend Western interests in the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, Italian authorities seem on the verge of winning their long war against left-wing terrorism. That accomplishment, highlighted by last January’s dramatic rescue of U.S. Brigadier General James L. Dozier from his Red Brigades kidnapers, has done much to erase old perceptions of Italy as ineffective.

The five parties in Rome’s center-left coalition government all support the Atlanticist foreign policy. So does the powerful Italian Communist Party (P.C.I.). Since the collapse of the “historic compromise,” a power-sharing agreement with the ruling Christian Democrats, the Communists have sought to win votes by putting distance between themselves and the Soviet Union. Thus the P.C.I, has criticized the deployment of Soviet SS-20s and expressed only token opposition to the installation of U.S. missiles in Italy.

Pertini is firmly committed to Italy’s new international posture. As he said in Washington last week: “The main reason for my presence here is to bear witness to certain cherished ideals, aspirations and values. For these same ideals we have fought together in Europe, and for them we must continue to struggle with tenacity and optimism.”