The Mysterious Affair at Olivetti by Meryle Secrest

Author:Meryle Secrest
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2019-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

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Adriano Olivetti was back in business, ready for action, and in the only place he wanted to be just then, which was Rome. The company offices were in the Piazza Barberini, near the Spanish Steps, and the first order of business was getting his magnum opus, L’ordine politico delle comunità, into print. There were lots of other works as well. So naturally he established his own printing house. He also started publishing a new magazine as a vehicle for his ideas. Ignazio Silone, novelist, author of Fontamara and Bread and Wine, and a pronounced anti-Fascist, was the latest rage and so it was gratifying to have him write the opening essay. His imprimatur would no doubt reach the intelligentsia in short order. At the same time, the government was in such political flux that it was, for Adriano, even more of a gamble than usual. As Allen Douglas wrote, postwar politics in Italy was “a wilderness of mirrors, with its rapid changes of government, multiple coup attempts and spectacular outbreaks of terrorism.” In the 1946 elections the Christian Democrats, headed by Alcide De Gasperi, a professor, journalist, and the party’s founder, won 35.2 percent of the vote and 207 seats out of a total of 574. The Communists, led by Palmiro Togliatti, who had returned from Moscow, won 104 seats, and their Socialist colleagues, 115. Between them, they constituted a plurality at 39.7 percent, but they had each fielded their own candidates and so the Christian Democrats won.

After a referendum the monarchy was abolished and King Umberto II stepped down. A new constitution was in place, which should have clarified and simplified matters. But no sooner was it ratified than new rifts developed to further fragment the parties. Four Communists who had been awarded government posts were forced out. The battle of 1948 was looming. Under the new banner of the Popular Front, the Communists and Socialists intended to unite in support of Togliatti, making victory all but certain.

The 1948 elections in Italy are considered one of the most flagrant interventions in foreign affairs ever conducted by the U.S. government. Catholic families with Italian backgrounds were urged from the pulpit to write letters to their Italian relatives, begging them not to support the godless Communists. Hollywood stars waved and smiled, urging the same message. The U.S. administration increased its “interim aid” to Italy to the tune of $176 million. As each ship, containing food, medicine, and supplies, arrived at a different Italian port, U.S. ambassador James Dunn was at the dock for a new photo opportunity.

A month later the Christian Democrats soared to an increased majority of 305 seats out of 574, or 48 percent of the popular vote. The Popular Front dropped to 31 percent. That particular crisis was over for the moment at least. And no one who mattered could fail to understand who Italy’s new masters were.

As all this was happening, the Pentagon received an urgent message from the chief of American forces in Berlin, Gen.

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