ITALY: Inconceivable

• Share

After the fall of Dienbienphu, Italy's Premier Mario Scelba and Foreign Minister Attilio Piccioni sent messages of sympathy to their opposite numbers in the French government. Next day, noting this simple gesture of human decency, the Communist newspaper L'Unitá surpassed even itself in snarling bad manners. "These messages," wrote L'Unitá, "offer an extraordinary example of Atlantic servility of the present government. They can be explained only by taking into account that Scelba and Piccioni, who are intimately connected with pimps and profiteers, feel sympathy for the exploiters of colonial peoples."

Scelba's reply to this journalistic contumely was prompt and pertinent. "The inconceivable insult to the Premier and Minister for Foreign Affairs in today's L'Unitá," he announced, "shows how far Italian Communism can go to act against the honor of its own government. This attack, which exceeds the limits allowed in political debate and which contains insults of unrepeatable vulgarity, has induced the Prime Minister to order that Communist newspapermen be no longer admitted to the offices of the Prime Minister or any other government ministry."