People’s victory seen in Italy

By GINO BARDI

—ROME.

AS§ the April 18 national elec-

tions draw near there is in-
creasing perplexity among politi-
eal observers here because of the
hysteria in Premier Alcide De Gas-
peris Christian Democratic party.
The perplexity arises because all
the cards seem to be stacked in
the party's favor. Among the main
factors are:

Its complete contro! over the
state apparatus, including police
and armed forces, and the absence
of any opposition from parliament,
which has .been adjourned until
after the elections. Its complete
control over the radio and back-
ing from 90 percent of the press.

The full support of the U. S.
diplomacy and the presence in
Italian ports of substantial Ame-
rican naval forces. The propa-
ganda value of the whole gamut
of U.S. aid, from UNRRA to the
promised Marshall plan, and the
US. threat of cutting off all aid
to Italy if the 8-party Democratic
Popular Front wins the elections.

The Vatican's full support, mor-
al and material, with the church
hierarchy having decreed excom-
munication of Catholics who vote
for the Front and with thousands
ef priests canvassing for ; the
Christian Democrats... Unlimited
campaign, funds from industrial-
ists, landowners and the Vatican.

Under such favorable circum-
stances, it is felt here, the Chris-
tian Democrats should be in a
position to carry the country
hands down. Instead their hyste-
ria betrays fear. The Democratic
Popular Front, in contrast — in
face of what are considered the
most unfavorable conditions con-
ceivable — is campaigning with
measured calm. The Front is ap-
parently confident of victory.

The Communists, a vital part
of the Front, are not able to pro-
mise so much as a grain of wheat
or a lump of coal from the Soviet
Union. The Front-faces a whole
barrage of propaganda about the
“menace to Christian  civiliza-
tion,” Italian reparations due Rus-
sia, the purported existence of
tens of thousands of Italian war
prisoners in Soviet concentration
camps and Yugoslavia’s alleged
designs on Trieste.

€
Front’s supporters explain
their calm by judging the Ap-
ril elections in light of events
since the June 1946 elections.

De Gasperi'’s speeches, in which
he predicts “red terror’ and the
end of U.S. aid should he fail to
win, they point out, are being ad-
dressed to the same people who
two years ago heard him promise
land reform, worker control over
Production, jobs for all, recon-
struction, national unity and
peace. The workers, they say, are
aware that efforts by Commun-
ists and Socialists to initiate even
elementary land reforms were
blocked by the Christian Demo-
crats, who also fought major
strikes on the pretext that they
were “political.”

As for promises of jobs, sup-
porters of the Front say work-
ers know unemployment is wide-
spread and_increasing daily, and
reconstruction has been blocked
by the same industrialists who are
now financing the Christian De-
mocratic campaign.

Main slogans’ of the Democratic
Popular Front are “Work, Free
dom, Peace."” De Gasperi claims
these objectives are his also but
that they can be realized only
with U.S. aid. Front spokesmen

lations with all countries are the
answer.

The prospect of dividing up
large landed estates apparently
makes sense to landless peasants.
Even the Christian Democrats

have begun to promise again that
land reform will come “in time.”
The peasants don't relish the “in
time,’ having heard it for 50

years.
Workers fear the Marshall plan

U.S. arms for Turkey

i

Like Greece and Franco Spain, Turkey is not a democracy.
Like Francd Spain, Turkey gave considerable aid to the Axis
during the war. But Turkey is anti-Communist and thus, with
Greece, qualifies for military and economic aid in the Maginot
Line of fascist states and democracies shorn of their democracy
the U.S. is seeking to build around Russia and eastern Europe.
Here tanks and howitzers leave the U.S. for Turkey.

means the U.S. will flood Italy
with manufactured goods, caus-
ing a shutdown of Italian factor-
ies. The Front argues that Italy
has a vast market in eastern Eu-
rope which needs autos, trucks,

Séandil involves Vatican

agricultural machinery, electrical
equipment and can supply coal
and other raw materials to Italy.
This is better understood by the
workers than the still nebulous
Marshall plan.

—ROME

LARMED at the threat of exposure of its black market
currency dealings, the Vatican is trying desperately to
“cut its losses” by acknowledging what is already becoming
known of the ramifications of these deals and disavowing

the individuals concerned.
This lies behind the “resigna-
tion,” just announced of Mon-
signor Giulio Guidotti, the
Vatican administrator, whose
name has been connected with
the case of Edoardo Cippico,
former member of the Pope’s
secretariat, now under arrest on
charges of embezzling jewels
and money.

Guidotti’s connection with the

Cippico scandal is now admitted -

by the official Vatican organ
Osservatore Romano. The paper
adds that the joint operations
of the two men concerned sums
of money belonging to the Italian
industrialist, Alessandro Rossini.

It is commonly believed that
Cippico was made a scapegoat
to hide the responsibility of more
important personages in the
Catholic Church, among them
members of the Vatican State
Secretariat and the three neph-
ews of Pope Pius, the Princes

Pacolli. The Pope's princely
nephews are heads of Vatican
financial institutions, including

real estate and industrial inter-
ests.

The Vatican’s first effort to
mitigate the Cippico scandal by
releasing stories that Cippico
stole Vatican secretariat secret
documents and gave them to a
foreign power, allegedly Yugo-
slavia, backfired because it sug-
gested that the Yugoslav govern-
ment’s charges against the Vati-

can were based on documentary
facts.

Repercussions of the scandal
are being felt by the Christian
Democrats in their election cam-
paign.

ATIC UT Ac
fe Cie

Purge ‘inspired’

LONDON.
SUPPORTING 2 resolution
at the National Council for
Civil Liberties’ annual confer-
ence which expressed ‘unqualified’
condemnation” of Britain’s loy-
alty purge, General ‘Secretary
L. C. White of the Civil Service
Clerical Association said:

“It is bad enough to have our
civil liberties taken away but
it is worse to have them taken
away at the instigation of Am-
erica.” White said the timing of
Prime Minister Clement Att-
lee’s call for a purge of Com-
munists and supporters—which
came shortly before President
Truman urged the U.S. Con-
gress to approve a new draft —
demonstrated trans - Atlantic
coordination.

White said the purge was not
a civil service issue alone. He
maintained that if the govern-
ment went ahead with its
purge, private employeers would
follow suit.

TONIC AR

Newsman reports on Greek terror

NEW YORK.

STATEMENTS by Dwight D.
Griswold, chief of the Ameri-
can aid mission in Greece, that
democracy prevails in that coun-
try “must be dismissed as eye.
wash,” Homer Bigart, Athens
correspondent of the conserva-
tive New York Tribune, wrote
March 25,
“Undoubtedly Griswald was in-
spired byalaudable desire tocre

UCHLI TCA

grab feared

SYDNEY.

ANSETT Transport Indus-

tries, in which American air-
lines magnate Thomas Fortune
Ryan recently acquired big hold-
ings, has caused sharp la-
bor protests with its offer to
buy Melbourne’s government-
owned streetcar and bus ser-
vice. :

The ‘issue has become a na-
tional one because all street-
Car services in Australia are
government-owned and union-
ists fear a blow at all national-
ization. They also oppose allow-
ing a foreign-financed firm to
move in on an important utility.

Earnings from American cap-
ital invested in Australia are-
now so big that they are aggra-
vating Australia’s dollar short-

ate a favorable press for Greece
back home while Congress is de-
bating futrher aid,” Bigart said,
“but it would be much better to
stick to simple, undisputed facts.”

Among the facts cited by Bigart
are that “far from enjoying free-
dom of assembly, Gretks are
obliged to obtain government per-
mission for meetings... Freedom.
of the press is enjoyed by Royal-
ist papers which are free to de-
nounce America for niggardly
aid ... But the Socialist paper
Machi cannot criticize police mea-
sures without risking seizure of
its plant and arrest of its edi-
tors, two of whom were recently
held for 16 days for denouncing
the execution of resistance fight-
ers accused of crimes during the
last days of the German occupa-
tion.”

Bigart also quotes Griswold as
saying Greece is not a police state
and that “here for all the world
to see are majority rule, parlia-
mentary procedure, freedom of
speech, press and assembly and
respect for the decency of man
and dignity of his faith.”

While no one sits in newspaper
offices with the traditional blue
pencil of censorship, Bigart states,

Greek law permits the arrest of -

an editor “for causing dissension
or uneasiness among the citizenry.
The law is so vague that any

- editor venturing cirticism of the

secretary of state for the
press...” :
Challenging Griswold’s_ state-

ment that only 5,000 persons are
now in exile in Greek islands, Bi-

New stamps for India

gart says Griswold “did not men-
tion the 10,000 to 12,000 officers

and soldiers suspected of leftist -

tendencies who are confined on
Makronisos Island.”

age. “Invisible exports,” says

Four prize-winning designs, selected from 1,750 submitted
the conservative Melbourne Her-

in a government of India contest, for the D v j
stamps are shown above. Top left, Busihe wae aie
Gandhi; top right, the Ship of State; lower left, the Lotus,
symbolizing purity; and lower right, the Mohenjo Daro Bull,
Symbol of prosperity.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRUHL, 2, 1948—PAGE 6

say the Marshall plan will not
permanently solve Italy’s econo-
mic problems and that national. ald, “are draining Australia’s
ization of big industry, land re- dollar reserves.

form and peaceful commercial re- gam asimmuumunnnammant

government risks jail and perma-~
’ nent suspension. Furthermore, no
new newspaper or periodical may
be published in Greece without a
special permit from the under-