TRIESTE: Diplomatic Triumph

At long last, the fuse was pulled from the explosive problem of Trieste. In London this week representatives of Italy and Yugoslavia would put their signatures to a settlement dividing the coveted Free Territory of Trieste between them and granting Yugoslavia facilities in its seaport. The settlement was a triumph of patient U.S. diplomacy, topped by the personal intervention of President Eisenhower with the right move at the right time.

For nine years, partitioned Trieste ticked like a time bomb at the head of the Adriatic, disturbing the air of Italian politics, setting Italians against Yugoslavs, stirring bloody riots and saber-rattling demonstrations. In 1948, disgusted with repeated Russian vetoes of every proposed neutral governor, the three Western powers renounced the Big Four plan to establish Trieste as a free territory under a U.N. governor and declared instead that the entire 285-square-mile coastal strip should be given to Italy. But when Tito broke with the Kremlin, the West deemed it expedient to renege on the promise to Italy. There the matter rested until last year.

Danger & Opportunity. Recognizing the Trieste situation both as a danger and an opportunity to improve U.S.-Italian relations and strengthen the faltering, pro-U.S. Christian Democrats, U.S. Ambassador to Italy Clare Boothe Luce signaled Washington into a sense of urgency about Trieste. Washington and London decided to break the stalemate, but their first attempt failed. Assured by Anthony Eden that Tito would not object, the U.S. and Britain announced last October that they were withdrawing their troops from Zone A forthwith and turning it over to the Italians. Marshal Tito flared with anger over the failure to consult him and threatened war if Italian troops moved into Trieste.

The British and Americans let the tumult die down, then tried again last February, this time in private. It was a process of wearing down the touchy Yugoslavs. U.S. Ambassador to Austria Llewellyn Thompson and British Assistant Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Harrison got together almost surreptitiously in London to confer with Tito’s representative. For four months, Tito’s man haggled. The problem was to give Tito slightly more than Yugoslav-occupied Zone B, but so little more that the Italian government would not balk.

Tito’s demands alternated between the extravagant and the trivial. He demanded corridors to the sea, large chunks of Italian-held territory, extraterritorial rights to and inside the port of Trieste. He fought over an acre here, a playground there, a rock quarry, a beach. But slowly his demands were beaten down to a strip of land one mile long and 400 yards wide running through the village of Lazaretto. The Italians, who stayed out of the London talks but were kept closely informed, entered some objections. Then Tito shifted some more.

By midsummer, the negotiations were stalled. Ambassador Luce hustled off to Washington, persuaded President Eisenhower to take a direct hand. His decision was to send Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy on a stalemate-breaking mission to Tito last month. With Murphy went a personal letter to Tito from Eisenhower.

Satisfied but Not Jubilant. After a day and a half of talks, Tito agreed to cut his final roadblocking Yugoslav demand to a strip 200 yards wide. The persuader was Eisenhower’s letter. Its content was kept secret, but it was possible that the President made it clear that if Tito expected U.S. aid, there must be no more shilly-shallying. Also, Yugoslavia, hit by a bad harvest, needs surplus U.S. wheat. It was likely, too, that Tito recognized that much as the West welcomed the addition of 25 Yugoslav divisions to its defense, he had pushed his bargaining power to the limit.

The new line acceptable to Tito split Lazaretto like a flounder, even separating some houses from outhouses, kitchens from bedrooms, farmhouses from farms. But otherwise, the settlement made little geographical change in the status quo. Zone A, chiefly Italian and containing the city and port of Trieste, goes over to Italian administration. Zone B, chiefly Slav, and comprising a rocky area of small farms and fishing villages to the south, will be kept by Yugoslavia. The port itself will be “internationalized,” and the Italians agree to sell or rent Tito as many docks and wharfage areas as he has money to pay for. Technically, the Italians and Yugoslavs do not get ownership over the territory, merely the right to “administer” it. The settlement is purely de facto, for Trieste’s juridicial status as a “free territory” can be changed only by vote of the U.N., where Russia can, and almost certainly would, veto the new settlement.

With Tito’s assent in his pocket, Robert Murphy stopped off in Rome and, accompanied by Ambassador Luce, broke the news to Premier Mario Scelba. With tears in his eyes, the chunky Sicilian recited Italy’s claims to all of the Trieste territory, a claim which passionately united Italians of almost every political stripe. But Premier Scelba laid aside that claim and agreed to accept the partition. Italians, said an official, would be “satisfied but not jubilant.”

The Western powers could consider the settlement a genuine step toward security. The Trieste problem had never been the kind of large issue which American publicists like to roll around in their larynxes. But it had long disturbed Italian politics, and it stood as a kind of symbol of the inability of the anti-Soviet nations to settle their own disputes.