WHS • 2025

Combating_Communism_in_Italy.pdf

c.cA EO 13526 1.4(c)<25Yrs TSECRFP I O:\Ilist\History\Landa\Europe Defense BookNew Studies 4th Draft, I l-12-l I ,.f 1os "Shots from a Luce Cannon": Combating Communism in Italy, 1953-1956 DEcLASSIFIED rN FULI Auttrority: EO 13520 3H Trrmr6ltrrDrv,wHe Beginning with the April 1948 Italian national election campaign,r the United States invested large sums in economic aid and military assistiance, along with substantial covert funds, to reduce the power of the Communist Party, the largest in Europe outside the Soviet bloc, and strengthen the goveming Center coalition led by the Christian Democrats (DC) and Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi.'(U) The first series of policy paperc the National Security Council (NSC) produced after its creation in 1947 dealt with the possibility of the Communists winning the 1948 election or staging an insurrection to seize power.2 A successor series (NSC 67) updating policy in 1950-51, in effect until the second year of the Eisenhower adminishation, was unusual in that its focus-the Communist threat--was narrower than most NSC papers covering a single country. The focus derived from the importance accorded the country's stategic position. If the Soviet Union gained control of ltaly, it "could dominate the Westem Mediterranean and could apply substantial military power against the Balkans and Westem Europe."3 In l95l President Truman established the Psychological Strategy ' The smaller coalition parties included the Republicans (PRI), Liberals (PLI), and Social Democrats (PSDI)...