SAN MARINO: World's Smallest Crisis

With its crenelated walls and towers, San Marino perches on a mountaintop in northern Italy like some displaced relic of the Middle Ages. The world's oldest and smallest (23 square miles) republic, it was reputedly founded around A.D. 300 by Saint Marinus of Dalmatia as a refuge for persecuted Christians, has survived as a curious, isolated island in time amidst Italy's sweeping political tides. But last week the harsh forces of the 20th century clashed noisily in its cobbled streets.

In 1945 the good people of San Marino made the mistake of electing a Communist and left-wing Socialist majority to their local Parliament, the Grand Council. Heady with power, the nation's new rulers took over with an impressive program of local improvements, including nationalization of the nation's only two factories, which both manufacture ceramic souvenirs for the tourist trade. But the new deal never quite came off. One by one the Red faithful left the fold. Three weeks ago San Marino's Demo-Christian minority leader suddenly woke up to the fact that his party now commanded a clear majority of 31 to 29 in the Council. Aware of the same ugly fact, San Marino's two Red "Regents" promptly dissolved the Council and barred the Demo-Christians from the council hall.

By Candlelight. Last week Christian Democrat Federico Biggi, a lawyer and Latin professor in his spare time, called his followers together over a secret dinner of lasagna. roast chicken and Chianti in a small restaurant in the Italian seaside town of Rimini. Dinner over, Biggi and his lieutenants slipped furtively back into San Marino, called their followers together and passed out a formidable armory of ancient muskets, hunting rifles and outmoded carbines. Then they holed up in an abandoned iron foundry only 50 yards from the Italian border, and on a rickety table lighted by a candle stuck in a bottle, wrote out a proclamation declaring themselves San Marino's legal government. "This is a great historic hour," said the new government, as the blue-and-white flag of the republic was hoisted aloft to flutter atop a rusty boiler on the roof of their new capitol.

Damp Spirits. As soon as the Communists heard the news, they ringed the Public Palace on the hilltop with a guard of local comrades armed with weapons cached away since war's end. While Italy's press screamed of "bloody civil war" in the tiny contained nation, San Marino's own partisans were subdued by a drizzling rain. At one point the Reds on the hill organized a sortie against their adversaries, but what with the mud and all, gave up after firing a single wild shot. The Italian government helpfully recognized the anti-Communist government, then sent a couple of thousand police to set up a blockade on all roads leading into the embattled republic, in the hope of starving out the Communists ("Italy will not send her tanks into San Marino," proclaimed Italy's Foreign Minister Giuseppe Pella righteously). The U.S. sent its young consul splashing through the mud from Florence, Italy to the foundry, to offer recognition to the democratic government. He lingered long enough to join in a toast in brandy, served in cracked glasses set on a cardboard flap torn from a packing case.