Italy and Tito's Yugoslavia in the Age of International Detente 9782875743138, 9783035265873, 2875743139

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Table of Contents......Page 9
Introduction......Page 11
List of Archives, Fonds, Collections of Documents and Abbreviations......Page 17
Section I The International Context......Page 23
From London to Osimo. American Attitude to Yugoslav-Italian Settlement of the Trieste Question (Ivan Laković)......Page 25
The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973) (Aleksandar Životić)......Page 39
French Diplomacy and the Road to the Osimo Agreements (Stanislav Sretenović)......Page 51
Great Britain and the Italian-Yugoslav Relations in the 1970s (Gorazd Bajc)......Page 77
Romania and the Rapprochement between Italy and Yugoslavia (Alberto Basciani)......Page 101
Italy and Albania in the Era of Détente. A Tacit Alliance (Luca Micheletta)......Page 117
Section II The Bilateral Dimension......Page 133
A Mistaken History? A Survey of the Short Century of Italian-Yugoslav Relations (Raoul Pupo)......Page 135
Italian Foreign Policy in the Years of Détente. Ideas and Actions of Amintore Fanfani and Aldo Moro (Luca Riccardi)......Page 161
Aldo Moro, Italian Ostpolitik and Relations with Yugoslavia (Luciano Monzali)......Page 201
Détente in the Adriatic. Italian Foreign Policy and the Road to the Osimo Treaty (Massimo Bucarelli)......Page 219
A Difficult Reconciliation on the Adriatic. The Yugoslav Road to the Osimo Agreements of 1975 (Saša Mišić)......Page 251
Section II The Local Reactions......Page 285
The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty (Viljenka Škorjanec)......Page 287
Croatia and Italian-Yugoslav Relations. The Issues of Demarcation Line, Minority and Property Rights (1943-1983) (Darko Dukovski)......Page 301
The Italian Communist Party’s Policy on Trieste as Viewed by Vittorio Vidali (1954-1975) (Patrick Karlsen)......Page 325
Imperfect Normalization. The Political Repercussions of the Treaty of Osimo (Diego D’Amelio)......Page 345
Resisting Détente. The Associative Network and the Osimo Treaty (Fabio Capano)......Page 369
Biographical Notes of Authors......Page 399
Index of Names......Page 403

Citation preview

Luciano Monzali is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the Political Sciences Department in the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”. Luca Micheletta is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Rome “Sapienza”. Luca Riccardi is Full Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Cassino and Lazio Meridionale. ISBN 978-2-87574-313-8

P.I.E. Peter Lang, Brussels

www.peterlang.com

of International Détente

International Massimo Bucarelli, Luca Micheletta, Luciano Monzali & Luca Riccardi (eds.)

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

P.I.E. Peter Lang

Massimo Bucarelli teaches History of International Relations and Diplomatic History at the Department of History, Society and Human Studies, at the University of Salento (Lecce).

M. Bucarelli, L. Micheletta, L. Monzali & L. Riccardi (eds.)

This book is intended to shed light on the process of Italian-Yugoslav normalization and rapprochement, which ultimately brought to the Adriatic Détente. Based on a wide collection of primary sources and documentary materials, it aims to contribute to a better understanding of the history of the Adriatic region, a conflicted European space that had been affected by territorial disputes and ethnic strife for decades during the 20th century.

P.I.E. Peter Lang

World War II and East-West confrontation redefined borders between Italy and Yugoslavia, reshaped national frontiers and adversely affected political relations. As a result, major quarrels and disputes arose over territorial claims, demarcation of State boundaries, expulsion of national minorities, and diverging visions on international and domestic politics. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s, during the years of Détente, that rapprochement between Rome and Belgrade became possible and normalization of bilateral relations was attained. Long-lasting territorial disputes, such as the Trieste question, were solved and bilateral relationship greatly improved, so much so that Belgrade became an important asset in Italy’s Balkan and Adriatic strategy, while Rome was a sort of bridge between Socialist Yugoslavia and Western Europe.

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age

38 I s s u e s

Luciano Monzali is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the Political Sciences Department in the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”. Luca Micheletta is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Rome “Sapienza”. Luca Riccardi is Full Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Cassino and Lazio Meridionale. ISBN 978-2-87574-313-8

P.I.E. Peter Lang, Brussels

www.peterlang.com

of International Détente

International Massimo Bucarelli, Luca Micheletta, Luciano Monzali & Luca Riccardi (eds.)

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

P.I.E. Peter Lang

Massimo Bucarelli teaches History of International Relations and Diplomatic History at the Department of History, Society and Human Studies, at the University of Salento (Lecce).

M. Bucarelli, L. Micheletta, L. Monzali & L. Riccardi (eds.)

This book is intended to shed light on the process of Italian-Yugoslav normalization and rapprochement, which ultimately brought to the Adriatic Détente. Based on a wide collection of primary sources and documentary materials, it aims to contribute to a better understanding of the history of the Adriatic region, a conflicted European space that had been affected by territorial disputes and ethnic strife for decades during the 20th century.

P.I.E. Peter Lang

World War II and East-West confrontation redefined borders between Italy and Yugoslavia, reshaped national frontiers and adversely affected political relations. As a result, major quarrels and disputes arose over territorial claims, demarcation of State boundaries, expulsion of national minorities, and diverging visions on international and domestic politics. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s, during the years of Détente, that rapprochement between Rome and Belgrade became possible and normalization of bilateral relations was attained. Long-lasting territorial disputes, such as the Trieste question, were solved and bilateral relationship greatly improved, so much so that Belgrade became an important asset in Italy’s Balkan and Adriatic strategy, while Rome was a sort of bridge between Socialist Yugoslavia and Western Europe.

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age

38 I s s u e s

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

P.I.E. Peter Lang Bruxelles · Bern · Berlin · Frankfurt am Main · New York · Oxford · Wien

Massimo Bucarelli, Luca Micheletta, Luciano Monzali and Luca Riccardi (eds.)

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

International Issues Vol. 38

This book has been published thanks to the financial support of : Dipartimento di Storia, Società e Studi sull’Uomo (Università del Salento, Lecce); Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche (“Sapienza” Università di Roma); Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche (Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro”).

This publication has been peer-reviewed. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photocopy, microfilm or any other means, without prior written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

© P.I.E. Peter Lang s.a.

éditions scientifiques internationales

Brussels, 2016 1 avenue Maurice, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium [email protected]; www.peterlang.com ISSN 2030-3688 ISBN 978-2-87574-313-8 eISBN 978-3-0352-6587-3 D/2016/5678/13 Printed in Germany

CIP available from the British Library, UK and from the Library of Congress, USA. “Die Deutsche National Bibliothek” lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.de.

Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................. 9 List of Archives, Fonds, Collections of Documents and Abbreviations................................................................................. 15 Section I: The International Context From London to Osimo. American Attitude to Yugoslav-Italian Settlement of the Trieste Question....................................................... 23 Ivan Laković The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973)........... 37 Aleksandar Životić French Diplomacy and the Road to the Osimo Agreements ............ 49 Stanislav Sretenović Great Britain and the Italian-Yugoslav Relations in the 1970s........ 75 Gorazd Bajc Romania and the Rapprochement between Italy and Yugoslavia.... 99 Alberto Basciani Italy and Albania in the Era of Détente. A Tacit Alliance............... 115 Luca Micheletta Section II: The Bilateral Dimension A Mistaken History? A Survey of the Short Century of Italian-Yugoslav Relations............................................................. 133 Raoul Pupo Italian Foreign Policy in the Years of Détente. Ideas and Actions of Amintore Fanfani and Aldo Moro............................ 159 Luca Riccardi Aldo Moro, Italian Ostpolitik and Relations with Yugoslavia........ 199 Luciano Monzali 7

Détente in the Adriatic. Italian Foreign Policy and the Road to the Osimo Treaty..................................................... 217 Massimo Bucarelli A Difficult Reconciliation on the Adriatic. The Yugoslav Road to the Osimo Agreements of 1975............................................ 249 Saša Mišić Section III: The Local Reactions The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty.......................... 285 Viljenka Škorjanec Croatia and Italian-Yugoslav Relations. The Issues of Demarcation Line, Minority and Property Rights (1943-1983)..... 299 Darko Dukovski The Italian Communist Party’s Policy on Trieste as Viewed by Vittorio Vidali (1954-1975).......................................... 323 Patrick Karlsen Imperfect Normalization. The Political Repercussions of the Treaty of Osimo........................................................................ 343 Diego D’Amelio Resisting Détente. The Associative Network and the Osimo Treaty......................................................................... 367 Fabio Capano Biographical Notes of Authors........................................................... 397 Index of Names.................................................................................... 401

8

Introduction After the Second World War, political and diplomatic relations between Italy and Yugoslavia were characterized by misunderstandings, polemics and hostility, which were mainly, though not exclusively, due to the Trieste question, a territorial dispute that had divided the two Adriatic countries for decades. After Italy’s defeat in the Second World War and Yugoslavia’s attempt to take possession of Trieste and most of Venezia Giulia, the Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947 assigned the whole Italian territory to the east of the Tarvisio-Monfalcone line to Yugoslavia, with the exception of a narrow coastal belt which included Trieste (Zone A), occupied by the Anglo-Americans, and Koper (Zone B), under Yugoslav occupation. Under the Peace Treaty this coastal area was envisaged as a buffer state, the Free Territory of Trieste, which was to be formally built through the appointment of a governor by the UN Security Council. As a consequence of the war, Italy passed from the status of an imperial power to that of a mere object of international policy, searching in vain to influence the fate of the border areas. Instead, Yugoslavia was in a position of strength. As a victorious country that had been attacked by Italy, Yugoslavia could legitimately sue for reparations, and it would try to devise a grand foreign policy design to create a regional scenario which would avert the danger of finding itself encircled by hostile powers one more time in the post-war period. However, the division of Europe into opposing political and ideological blocs made the establishment of FTT impossible. Cold War and bipolar logic turned the Trieste question from a local problem into the Adriatic version of the Iron Curtain. In the light of containment policy adopted by the US government in response to the power policy of the Soviets and to the expansion of the communist movement, the defense of Trieste took on a new importance: the Adriatic city became a sort of a Western shield intended to contain any communist infiltration into Northern Italy. It was for this purpose that the governments in London and Washington postponed the appointment of the governor of the FTT by the UN and preferred to wait for an agreement between Rome and Belgrade, a hypothesis which was virtually impossible at that time. However, a few months after the ratification of the Peace Treaty, a new variable was added to the already complicated framework of ItalianYugoslav relations: during 1948 a political, more than ideological, breakup occurred within the communist world. Following the Tito – Stalin split, Yugoslavia moved away from the Soviet orbit and subsequently closer 9

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

to the Western bloc, which from that moment became the main source of economic and military aid to Tito’s regime. The realignment of Yugoslav policy affected the evolution of the Trieste question. Given the importance of Belgrade for the political and military strategies of Washington and London and due to the impossibility to create the FTT because of unbridgeable differences between Italy and Yugoslavia, the AngloAmericans favored a compromise: the London Memorandum of 5 October 1954. By the terms of the agreement, Italian officials replaced British and American authorities in the administration of Zone A of the FTT, while in Zone B Yugoslav military administration had to be replaced with a civil administration. It was the de facto partition of the FTT, which was intended to eliminate a dispute considered harmful for the Western bloc. Despite the normalization of the bilateral relations that followed the signature of the Memorandum, Italy and Yugoslavia failed to establish an atmosphere of cordiality and friendly collaboration essential for the solution of the Trieste question. The government in Belgrade expected Italy to formally recognize the extension of Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B of the still-born FTT. Italy’s government, instead, reaffirmed the practical and provisional nature of the Memorandum, aiming at launching new negotiations in order to get further territorial acquisitions in addition to Trieste and Zone A. It was only due to crucial domestic changes in Italian politics and to dramatic international events in Eastern Europe during the 1960s that the Italian-Yugoslav rapprochement, which led to the settlement of the Trieste question in 1975, became possible. Following the formation of a center-left cabinet in Italy in 1963 – a coalition consisting of Christian Democratic Party and Socialist Party – Italy and Yugoslavia made a new effort to break the deadlock reached not just in the solution of the territorial dispute, but also in their political collaboration on the international stage. As a consequence of the violent solution to the communist crisis in Czechoslovakia and to the Prague Spring of 1968, the center-left government in Rome was increasingly interested in preserving and consolidating the role of Tito’s Yugoslavia as a necessary territorial and ideological buffer between Italy and countries of the Warsaw Pact. Soviet aggression to Czechoslovakia and the enunciation of the “Brežnev doctrine” put the Belgrade government on alert as it was concerned about the possible application of this doctrine in the case of Yugoslavia, which was struggling with the re-emergence of national and internal problems. Until then, Tito had been able to maintain an independent policy between the blocs, due to the special relationship with the West and the parallel rapprochement with the East that followed Stalin’s death, also opening to economically underdeveloped but politically important countries of the “Third world”. However, all of these accomplishments were not enough to keep the country out of a major international crisis. 10

Introduction

Facing the instability of the neighboring Yugoslav Federation, Italy was obviously concerned about the possibility of seeing Warsaw Pact troops enter Yugoslav territory under the “Brežnev doctrine” and of finding itself directly neighboring the Soviet bloc, bringing again the Iron Curtain near Gorizia and Trieste. As for the bilateral dimension of Italian-Yugoslav relations, the center-left leaders were convinced that it was impossible to modify the territorial settlement established by the London Memorandum. The overall situation created by the Memorandum was supposed to be respected without bringing in any changes. The missing step for stabilization of the border was the transformation of the demarcation line between Zone A and Zone B of the unborn FTT into a state borderline. This solution had to be presented to Italy’s public opinion as a final agreement that would lead to territorial benefits such as the Zone A with Trieste which the Peace Treaty of 1947 had left outside of the national borders as well as political and economic benefits through the revival of the Italian-Yugoslav friendship. Also Tito and his entourage were interested in settling the long standing dispute with Italy and favoring a sort of Adriatic Détente. At that time, Yugoslavia was facing serious internal problems; nationalistic ideas and ethnic divisions surfaced again inside the country and exposed the political weakness of the Federation. Political instability was also exacerbated by economic difficulties caused by the early failures of the Yugoslav socio-economic model that had been based on self-management and local autonomies. The Yugoslav road to socialism ended up deepening economic differences and political divisions between Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and the other Yugoslav Republics. Between 1969 and 1971, growing domestic dissensions shook up the internal cohesion of the country to the point that the affirmation and development of Yugoslavia as a socialist regime seemed to be called into question. Tito and his closest associates, fearing the re-emergence of internal national conflicts, wanted at least the Adriatic border to be formally recognized and pressed for the quick closure of the territorial issue with the hope to regain Slovenian and Croatian support, increasingly uncertain and wavering. The Osimo agreements had a positive impact on political and economic interests of both Italy and Yugoslavia, and contributed to greatly improve bilateral relations between Rome and Belgrade. For the first time in the history of Italian-Yugoslav relations, a true friendship was attained, followed by several important economic, commercial and financial agreements. As a consequence of the Adriatic détente, it became customary to define Italian-Yugoslav relations as a model of peaceful cooperation between two countries that were governed by different social and political systems and belonged to the same geographical area. Furthermore, the Italian-Yugoslav border was presented as the most open border in the world. The presence of 11

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

an Italian national minority on Yugoslav territory was no longer considered a source of tension and worries; rather, it was publicly portrayed as a political opportunity and a real bridge between the two peoples. The settlement of the Trieste question and the normalization of bilateral relationship were also crucial factors in the making of the foreign policies of both countries. For Rome, overcoming the territorial and political disputes with Yugoslavia strengthened Italy’s international role, making it more autonomous. For Belgrade, the Italian acceptance of the existence of Communist Yugoslavia had a profound impact on the stability of Tito’s regime, undercutting external support to anticommunist opposition. Italy and Yugoslavia started playing a crucial role for the achievement of their respective international goals. Indeed, Belgrade became an important asset in Italy’s Balkan and Adriatic strategy, while Rome was a sort of bridge between Socialist Yugoslavia and Western Europe. This book is intended to shed light on the process of Italian-Yugoslav normalization and rapprochement, which ultimately brought to the Osimo agreements of 1975. This volume is based on a wide collection of primary sources and includes relevant scholarly literature on the subject. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the history of the Adriatic region, a conflicted European space that had been affected by border disputes and ethnic strife for decades during the 20th century. As it has been recalled, the settlements after the Second World War, as well as the Cold War, redefined the borders and reshaped the national frontiers between Italy and Yugoslavia; as a result, major quarrels and disputes arose over territorial claims, demarcation of State borders, national minorities, expulsion of ethnic groups and other acts of violence committed by members of one national group against members of another. Thus, the editors of this volume have decided to focus not only on the bilateral and diplomatic dimensions of the Adriatic question and détente, but also on the different local reactions and perceptions inside Italy and Yugoslavia, among political parties, public opinions and ethnic groups. Italy and Yugoslavia were both fragile countries, economically weak and with instable domestic political situation. Italy’s ruling party, the Christian Democratic Party, had to face tough far left and far right opposition. This was led by the Communist Party, which was the strongest in Western Europe, as well as by Movimento Sociale Italiano, seen as the principal extreme right party, and neo-fascist party in Italy. Likewise, Tito’s communist regime had to rule a country deeply divided in conflicting ethnic groups, and the political opposition was lead both by the Catholic Church and nationalist movements. Even though they had been gruesomely crushed and silenced after the War, they had not disappeared. Thus, this project not only explores bilateral affairs but also evaluates the connection between political decisions on a national scale 12

Introduction

and their consequences on a regional and international level in order to provide the reader a better understanding of regional conflicts and their solutions inside the Adriatic region. Moreover, this volume explores the views and strategies of both eastern and western powers toward the region in order to illuminate the broader international political context within which Italian-Yugoslav rapprochement and détente took place. It suggests that Italy’s and Yugoslavia’s foreign policies during the Cold War held significant similarities. They were both positioned at the borderlines of the two blocs and such strategic positions enhanced their political importance for the United States and the Soviet Union. Both Rome and Belgrade tried to exploit their position to develop an international policy in search of partial autonomy and tried to play a role as mediator between the blocs. While Italian-Yugoslav détente deeply affected Italian and Yugoslav foreign policies and resulted in the solution of the long standing territorial dispute over Trieste and Istria, it also significantly affected the lives of their local communities across the Adriatic border. Indeed, the rapprochement between Rome and Belgrade was a turning point in the recent history of the Adriatic region. From that moment, Italy and Yugoslavia inaugurated a strategy of close political, economic and cultural cooperation which resulted in great mutual advantage even after the collapse of the Yugoslav State.

13

List of Archives, Fonds, Collections of Documents and Abbreviations AAPBD AC ACS ADC AFG AFMFA AJ AMG AMIP ANIC ANII ANVGD AP APC APR ASC ASL ASMAE ASR AST AT AVNOJ AUS AVŠ AVV

Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Archivio Coloni Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Roma Archivio Democrazia Cristiana Archivio Storico Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, Roma Archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affaires, La Courneuve Arhiv Jugoslavije, Beograd Allied Military Government Diplomatski arhiv Ministarstva inostranih poslova Srbije, Beograd Arhivele Naţionale Istorice Centrale, Bucureşti Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia Atti parlamentari Archivio Partito comunista italiano Arhiv Predsenika Republike Archivio Storico Camera dei Deputati, Roma Archivio Storico Luigi Sturzo, Roma Archivio Storico Diplomatico Ministero Affari Esteri Italiano, Roma Archivio Storico del Senato della Repubblica, Roma Archivio di Stato, Trieste Archivio Tombesi Antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Jugoslavije Archivio Ugo Spirito, Roma Personal Archive of Viljenka Škorjanec Archivio Vittorio Vidali 15

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

CAB CB CFPF CK CK KPH CK SKH CK SKJ CM CNC CNL CO COMECON CPR CPSI CPSU CREST CSCE DBPO DC DEFE DF DGAP DDI DPS DT EESD ECM EDC EEC FBIS FCO FLP FN

Cabinet Office Carte Berlinguer Central Foreign Policy Files Centralni Komitet Centralni komitet Komunističke partije Hrvatske Centralni komitet Saveza komunista Hrvatske Fond 507/ Arhiv Centralnog Komiteta Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije Papers of Aldo Moro National Centre for the Coordination of the Committees for the Defense of the Zone B and Istria Comitato Liberazione Nazionale Country Files Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Cabinet of the President of the Republic Carte Partito Socialista Italiano Communist Party of the Soviet Union CIA Records Search Tool Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Documents on British Policy Overseas Democrazia Cristiana Ministry of Defense Diario di Amintore Fanfani Direzione Generale Affari Politici I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani Dipartimento della Pubblica Sicurezza Archivio Diocesi di Trieste Eastern European and Soviet Department European Common Market European Defense Community European Economic Community American Foreign Broadcast Information Service Foreign and Commonwealth Office Fondo Luigi Papo Fondazione Nenni, Roma 16

List of Archives, Fonds, Collections of Documents and Abbreviations

FNRJ FO FRUS FSEA FT FTT FUCI GAB GNOR GRDS HR-DAPA HR-DARI IRSMLFVG JCS KMOV KMJ KNO KPJ KPR LC LMOU LN MA MAE MD MFA MI NARA NSC OG OMPP ONOI

Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija Foreign Office Foreign Relations of the United States Federal Secretariat of External Affairs Fondazione Turati, Firenze Free Territory of Trieste Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana Gabinetto Gradski narodni odbor Rijeka 1945-1947 General Records of the Department of State Državni Arhiv u Pazinu Državni Arhiv u Rijeci Archivio Istituto Regionale per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione nel Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trieste Joint Chiefs of Staff Fond 507/ IX Komisija za Međunarodne Odnose i Veze Fond 836 Kancelarija Maršala Jugoslavije Kotarski narodni odbor Komunistička partija Jugoslavije Fond 837 Kancelarija Predsednika Republike Library of Congress, Washington D.C. London Memorandum of Understanding Archivio Lega Nazionale, Trieste Military Archive of Armed Forces of Serbia Ministero degli Affari Esteri Manuscript Division Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministero dell’Interno National Archives and Records Administration, College Park (MD) National Security Council Files Official Gazette Personal Papers of Ottone Mattei Oblasni narodni odbor za Istru 17

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

OT PA PCI PCM PCTT PS PUS RD RG SFRJ SHS SKJ SSFA SSRNH TNA TP UA UCD UI UKDEL NATO UZC VIRI 23

VIRI 24

VIRI 25

VUJA WED

Osimo Treaty Political archive Partito Comunista Italiano Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri Partito Comunista del Territorio Libero di Trieste Permanent Secretary Permanent Under Secretary Research Department Record Group Socijalistička Federativna Republika Jugoslavija Srbi, Hrvati i Slovenci Saveza Komunista Jugoslavije Yugoslav State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs Socijalistički savez radnog naroda Hrvatske The National Archives, Kew-London (UK) 1947 Paris Peace Treaty Archival Unit Ufficio del Consigliere Diplomatico Archivio Unione degli Istriani UK Delegation to NATO Brussels Archivio Ufficio Zone di Confine Škorjanec, Viljenka, Osimski pogajalski proces. I. Del: Uvodna sinteza pogajanj; II. Del: Diplomatska pogajanja 1973-1974, Viri No. 23, Ljubljana: Arhivsko društvo Slovenije – Arhiv Republike Slovenje, 2006 Škorjanec, Viljenka, Osimski pogajalski proces. III. Del: Od Strmola do Osima 1974-1975, Viri No. 24, Ljubljana: Arhivsko društvo Slovenije – Arhiv Republike Slovenje, 2007 Škorjanec, Viljenka, Osimski pogajalski proces. IV. Del: Jugoslovansko-italijanski odnosi po Osimu 1975-1980, Viri No. 25, Ljubljana: Arhivsko društvo Slovenije – Arhiv Republike Slovenje, 2008 Vojna Uprava Jugoslavenske Armije Western European Department 18

List of Archives, Fonds, Collections of Documents and Abbreviations

WO ZAVNOH

War Office Zemaljsko antifašističko vijeće narodnog oslobođenja Hrvatske *

b. bb. doc. docs. et sqq. f. mf. No. Nos. n.d. s. sf. ss. tel. vol. vols.

box boxes document documents and the following file microfilm number numbers no date series sub-file sub-series telegram volume volumes

19

Section I The International Context

From London to Osimo American Attitude to Yugoslav-Italian Settlement of the Trieste Question1 Ivan Laković When the Osimo agreement, signed on 10 November 1975, put a formal end to a dispute lasting since the Second World War, its significance for the participating sides was far greater than the impact it had on American momentary interests in the region. Both Yugoslavia and Italy had a plethora of economic, political, cultural and social interests to regularly close the one of the chapters from their common history, especially the one related to the last formally “unfinished” issue of the war. Trieste question, factually cleared from agenda by the Agreement on Conformity signed in London about twenty years ago, remained a matter of an internal politics in both countries, much more in Italy than in Yugoslavia. It sanctioned a status quo of zonal division of former Free Territory of Trieste, where the city and port of Trieste, along with its northern hinterland (Zone A) remained as a part of Italy, while its southern territories, in northwestern part of the Istria peninsula, came under the official jurisdiction of Yugoslavia.2 That agreement had a long and turbulent history of negotiations, crises, saber rattling and confronting of different interests of not only two involved countries, but also the ones of more important global players. 1

2



The paper is written within the project of Historical Institute of Montenegro “Montenegro and South-Eastern Europe in the foreign policy of the Great Powers in the first half of the 20th century,” funded by the Ministry of Science, Montenegro. NARA, RG 59, SD Foreign Service Post Files, E 3356, b. 1, Trieste Briefing Book. Also see more in: Miljan Milkić, Jugoslavija, Italija I Tršćanska Kriza 1948-1954, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Belgrade, Faculty of political sciences (Beograd: 2012); Miljan Milkić, Tršćanska Kriza u Vojno-Političkim Odnosima Jugoslavije sa Velikim Silama 1943-1947 (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2013); Dragan Bogetić, Bojan Dimitrijević, Tršćanska Kriza 1945-1954; Vojno-Politički Aspekti (Beograd: 2009); Giampaolo Valdevit, Trieste. Storia di una periferia insicura (Milano: Bruno Mondatori, 2004); Massimo de Leonardis, La “diplomazia atlantica” e la soluzione del problema di Trieste (1952-1954) (Napoli: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane, 1992); Roberto G. Rabel, Between East And West: Trieste, United States And The Cold War (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1988); Bogdan C. Novak, Trieste 1941-1951, The Ethnic, Ideological and Political Struggle (Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 1970).

23

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

Emerged from one of crisis points in the early Cold War trials of strength between two rising blocks, Trieste question became the crucial stumbling block in every political project in the region. Normalization in relations between Yugoslavia and Italy, Western political, economic and military support to Yugoslavia or inter-Balkan political and military allying under the auspices of Balkan Pact, affected, but did not change the picture substantially. It remained one of the most easily visible categories of different, even hostile attitudes and standpoints, often complicating and thwarting wider and more complex political and economic initiatives. In that shape, it became one of the most annoying obstacles in the parallelogram of powers established between Washington, London, Rome, Belgrade and SHAPE/NATO, directly engaging Athens, Ankara and, inevitably, Moscow. All these centers were involved in political projects related, even dependent on flow, trends and solution of the mentioned question, especially since the Yugoslav-Soviet breakup in 1948 that has additionally complicated the situation. At first, as an American ally, member of NATO and country recognized by the West as a part of the “free world”, Italy could count on every possible Western support in its dispute with Yugoslavia. The later, especially immediately after the Second World War, was rightfully treated as a total opposite of the mentioned categories  – the staunchest supporter and willing follower of the USSR, country with the autonomously realized communist revolution and displaying the most radical hostility towards the West in communist bloc and social-ideological system it had been representing. Even more, Kremlin had to settle down the Yugoslav claims and rhetoric for harsher and more uncompromising clash with “class enemy” in the West, clearly understanding that nor the time for “world revolution” has come, neither the USSR, even if the first premise would have been true, has been ready for acting in this direction. Having the Second World War finally finished, with all the casualties, social, economic and governmental bonds overstrung, Stalin needed the time and relative settling down of the foreign turbulences to consolidate both the situation in country, as well as the area in Europe’s east that came under its decisive political, ideological and economic hegemony. Yugoslav aggressive attitude towards the West, officially regarding territorial claims to Italy and Austria in Trieste and Carinthia, did not have Soviet support, while the growing mistrust in Belgrade’s leadership intentions forced to make a step further – its isolation and dismissal from the communist realm. Yugoslav leadership, faced against Eastern blockade and relations with the West at the same time, was overburdened in almost every domain and made a series of efforts to ease its position through improving in second category. American and British administrations quickly recognized the importance and projected results of this trend and reacted very flexibly 24

From London to Osimo

adjusting their policies to support Yugoslavia politically, materially, financially, economically and, in the end, even militarily.3 That support provided to Yugoslavia with a solid base for consolidation of its position against the USSR and its European allies, but also became a new factor in its current political dispute with Italy in Trieste question. At that point, its position was not only judged by its political-ideological incompatibility with Western democracies, but exactly trough exploring that systemic difference as the tool for penetrating into the Soviet bloc. Yugoslavia which was to change its internal construction in favor of Western preferences would have hardly been a necessary example for the other socialist countries in the Eastern Europe – it would have only resembled their leaderships that their staying in power was only possible in terms of the Soviet backup. But socialist Yugoslavia with Western support and without any crucial pressure to change its internal constellation structurally and systemically, presented a totally different story. Its survival in such terms would present a bald defiance to other satellites of the USSR making them, at least, to reconsider their position inside the bloc, directly shaking its structure and homogeneity. Leaving aside the real readiness of the West to substantially support such movements if appeared, such picture presented an incredibly strong propagandistic blow into the Eastern cohesion, and the American planners were fully aware of its importance as well as its price. The last was even more acceptable considering its fundamental, territorial and political cheapness, since there were very few real concessions to be made. In this context, Yugoslav-Italian confrontation over Trieste gained some new aspects. Yugoslav new position towards the West did not allow previous rigidity in settling the claims for maximal effect (inclusion of the both Zone A and Zone B in Yugoslav state), but its new importance to the West itself provided it with more flexible approach to the problem. American strategists had to deal with situation in which, formally, they had an obligation to support the position of their official ally in the dispute of significant importance for its internal political constellation. Strong position of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was used both by the Italian ruling circles, as well as their supporters in the American administration, 3



About Yugoslav opening to the West in early 1950s see more in: Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat. The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); Dragan Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad 1952-1955. Jugoslovensko približavanije NATO-U (Beograd: Službeni list Srbije, 2000); John. R. Lampe, Russel O Prickett, Ljubiša S. Adamović, Yugoslav – American Economic Relations Since World War II (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990); Darko Bekić, Jugoslavija u Hladnom Ratu; Odnosi s Velikim Silama 1948-1955 (Zagreb: Globus, 1988); Ivan Laković, Zapadna vojna pomoć Jugoslaviji 1951-1958 (Podgorica: Istorijski Institut Crne Gore, 2006).

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

as the kind of scarecrow in every situation when it was thought that some concessions would be made to the Yugoslav side. The scenario was relatively simple – if the right or center sided Italian governments would fail in regaining the authority over the STT, it would decisively strengthen PCI and even lead to its overpowering their opponents. Such thesis was even more underlined by the almost identically strong and uncompromising attitude of PCI regarding Trieste question, which was derived from their openly expressed animosity towards Yugoslav communists. Accepting mutual communist attitude developed after June 1948 and condemnation of Yugoslav communists as traitors and Western agents, PCI was in comfortable position to retain all the attributes of conducting the righteous national policy. It kept pressing their opponents from the right and center on the issue where their Western capitalist patrons seemed to be ready to sacrifice Italian interests, territory and people to Yugoslavia in their policy of supporting Tito against the rest of the communist world. As Clare Boothe Luce, American ambassador in Rome admitted, “… In March 1948, in order to win the elections here for De Gasperi, we made the ‘Tripartite declaration’, proclaiming Italy’s ethnic, historical and moral right to the whole FTT. This won the election handsomely. It may or may not have been a wise thing to do, but it achieved its near purpose – it won the election handsomely for De Gasperi, and gave the commies a terrible set back in Italy…”.4 Washington also knew that supporting Yugoslav side in any aspect of Trieste crisis would hardly find any serious support at any level of administration, army and domestic public opinion, since such support would have been directly equalized with support to communism against democratic countries and ally in NATO. Yugoslav rapprochement with the West itself was quite a controversial political maneuver, with many opponents and unbelievers on both sides. As for the project in general, the same happened with its subcategories; meaning that each of related political, economic, ideological and military complexes had been facing dominantly negative reaction of the state and the society. The decision to go with it was made at the highest authorities in both Yugoslavia and the USA, including very few decision makers in order to keep the things low profiled. When it was revealed to both lower echelons of administration and public, it simultaneously faced a visible opposition, ranging from bitter skepticism to open disagreement and confrontation. In such atmosphere, the Trieste question not only had not been exception, but it appeared to be one of the most used points of

4



LC, MD, The Papers of Clare Boothe Luce, 600, f. Missions, Investigations, Trieste, 1954, Luce to CD Jackson, 2.

26

From London to Osimo

conditioning, pressing and complicating the whole policy of American “keeping Tito afloat”5 idea. Since the earliest contacts regarding assistance to Yugoslavia, many American officials considered that such policy should be, at least, conditioned with Yugoslav cooperativeness in Trieste dispute. It was among the most serious territorial questions remained in Europe after the war, so, at first glance, current Yugoslav position seemed to offer a possibility for its solution in the West favor. But, as some higher bids have appeared in the game, US’ officials did not hurry with the decision. They have had a joint (the United States, Great Britain and France) note from 20 March 1948, which issued restitution of whole FTT under Italian sovereignty, so that position served as the maximal claim for the start of negotiations. Although they had not pressed their Yugoslav coadjutors immediately, even having created the atmosphere where the Yugoslav side could have a hope for getting some better score, there was not hard to imagine that such result would have been much closer to the Western projections than to the ones of the Yugoslavs. Generally speaking, American negotiators have carefully led the preliminary talks in sense that the Trieste question had not been put as the precondition for deliveries of neither economic nor military aid. But, when those arrangements received some more solid shape and took some time in ongoing, there were noticed clear signs that the mentioned question had not been forgotten. First deliveries of American assistance to Yugoslavia were the supplies of wheat in order to compensate the effects of severe drought in 1950, so connecting these issues would do more harm than good. But, when the cooperation reach the level considering the talks about providing military equipment and security aspects, the Trieste question came directly in the focus. Along with consolidation of southern NATO flank through bonding terrestrially Italy and Greece and denial of direct access to Adriatic Sea to the Soviet forces, American planners recognized the defense of strategic directions through Morava-Vardar valleys towards Thessalonica and Ljubljana Gap towards northern Italy, as the most direct benefits of Yugoslav defection from the Kremlin’s sphere. Defense of Ljubljana 5



For example, at the eve of strategic talks on coordination of military plans with Yugoslavia, assistant to the Undersecretary of State, F.H. Matthews urged that the US delegation should use every opportunity to connect the matters of Trieste question and military aid to Yugoslavia. Reaction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was unambiguously clear in suggesting not only to restraint from putting this question to an agenda, but even if Yugoslav do so, to give nothing but a general answer that “…the effect of early and mutually acceptable solution of Trieste problem would be, from a military point of view, of indubitable benefit…” NARA, RG 218, E 13, b. 120, CCS 092 Yugoslavia (7-6-48) sec. 18, Note by the Secretaries to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Discussion of Trieste by general Handy JCS 1901/94, p. 2.

27

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

Gap was considered even as more important, since it led directly and by the shortest and easiest way to the plains of Lombardy and further towards the southern France.6 During the first substantial negotiations on higher level regarding the American military aid to Yugoslavia, Gen. Collins7 openly informed Gen. Popovic8 that the cooperation with Italian forces in defense would be one of the things expected from the Yugoslav side. Assuming the contemporary situation in FTT, it was clear that the solution of this problem has its high priority among the conditions for the cooperation upgrade.9 At this point, there was no wider consensus among the US officials regarding the appropriate amount of Trieste question’s inclusion in current process of allying with Yugoslavia. For instance, summer of the 1951 brought a dispute between Gen. Eisenhower, supreme allied commander in Europe (SACEUR) and Adm. Carney, chief of the NATO’s south command (CINCOUTH) regarding implementing of arranged plans for deliveries of military materials to Yugoslavia. The reason of that was the Eisenhower’s wish to exclude or bypass Carney on the basis that, among the other matters, location of its command in Naples would make him too prone to Italian requests on Trieste. Eisenhower himself, as well as the British representatives in Standing Group of NATO, was of opinion that Italians, for the same reason, should not have even been told about such an activity in the first stages.10 According to Serbian historian Dragan Bogetić, the Americans did not wait long to put their aid and Yugoslav cooperativeness on Trieste issue into the same basket. In January 1952, Prof. Philip Moseley, a special envoy of U.S.’ Secretary of State Dean Acheson, visited Belgrade and passed an Acheson’s message to Tito that the future of further aid to his country depended on its readiness to cooperate to solve the Trieste question. On the base of the notes from the talks among the highest 6



NARA, RG 218, JCS, E 13, B. 19, f CCS 092 Yugoslavia (7-6-48) sec 7, J.S.P.C. 969/7, Proposed Visit by the Chief of General Staff, Yugoslav Army, Agenda for Discussion with Chief of General Staff, Yugoslav Army, 8 May 1951, 3. 7 General Joseph Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff of US Army. 8 General Koča Popović, Chief of General Staff of Yugoslav Armed Forces. 9 MA, Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija, inventory number 2958, doc. without number, Note from the visit of general Popović to General Collins, 13 June 1951. 10 NARA, RG 218, JCS E 13, b. 19, f. 092 Yugoslavia 7-6-48 sec 10, Memo from J. Wright, US deputy representative in Standing Group for the Joint Staff of NATO, 21 August 1951; ibid., JCS to Eisenhower: Decision of Appointment of Adm Carney for Aid to Yugoslavia, 16 August 1951; ibid., Eisenhower to JCS: Eisenhower’s Disagreement with Carney’s Appointment, 21 Aug 1951; ibid., Eisenhower to JCS, Claiming That Carney Must Be Subordinated to Him, 23 August 1951; ibid., Memo from J. Wright, US deputy representative in Standing Group for the Joint Staff of NATO, 21 August 1951, 1.

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From London to Osimo

Yugoslav officials (Josip Broz, Edvard Kardelj and Veljko Vlahović) with ambassadors of the USA and UK, George Allen and Sir Ivo Mallet, Bogetić realized that the Americans had already come to a conclusion that current zonal division of FTT, with some minor adjustments, presented the only real and achievable solution. Time proved their predictions right, but in the meanwhile, there could have been easily distinguished different, sometimes even opposite views among the members of the same American political and military structure on how to achieve and implement the predicted solution. Tripartite conference in London, which occurred in April 1952, settled the base for it with the contents signed in “Memorandum of Understanding”. It allowed the transfer of administration over Zone A to the Italians; while the lack of any official protest by the American and British ambassador to the Yugoslav openly presented intention to conduct the reciprocal measures in Zone B, meant that they were accepting the division.11 Regarding the program of the American military aid to Yugoslavia, it assumed not only the deliveries of military goods to the Yugoslav Army, but also incorporated a series of high level military talks and conferences with an aim to bond the country closer to the Western defensive system and coordinate strategic military plans in area of the Balkan defense. These activities, provided partly by the changed picture of Yugoslav arsenal with US military equipment, had the primary meaning of approaching Yugoslavia to NATO. It was obvious to both Washington and Belgrade, only the feelings toward such outcome were totally different. In the beginning and throughout 1952, Yugoslav leadership made this scenario possible in case of further worsening of the situation on their eastern borders, especially if the danger of the Soviet or/and their Satellite’s attack appear to be more likely. They knew that it would mean their political end, but to fall again under the Soviet’s authority would mean both the political and biological end. Accepting the beginning of strategic talks with representatives of tripartite powers (US, UK, and France), they knew what they were venturing into, knowing also what they were willing to avoid. On the other side of the Atlantic, entrance in this phase of program seemed very complicated to organize to meet the needs of different subjects in the Western system. Unsolved Trieste question presented a real “stumbling block”, since all the plans discussed were based on the premise that the Yugoslav forces would have taken the task of defending Ljubljana Gap and passage to Trieste, while both the city and its port, which Yugoslavia claimed the rights on, was to be kept away of its jurisdiction. There were many officials who thought that the given situation should be 11

Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad, 44-7.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

used for pressing Belgrade harder to make concessions in this regard, but there prevailed the opinion that this outcome was inevitable so there was no need for further alienation of Yugoslavia by imposing such request. The Western military delegation, led by Gen. T. Handy, came to the first Tripartite-Yugoslav conference in Belgrade in November, 1952 with clear instruction to keep the matters of mutual planning and Trieste question strictly separated.12 Although mentioned conference failed in anything but raising the Yugoslav skepticism regarding the Western intentions,13 beginning of the next year brought two important changes which improved the perspectives of the country. Almost simultaneously, negotiations on creation military alliance with Greece and Turkey greatly relaxed the pressure for tighter bonding with NATO, while the death of Stalin meant the possibility of the same thing regarding the pressure from the East. Concerning the Trieste question, both of them strengthened Yugoslav negotiating position. Without direct danger of the Soviet attack, the reasons for unwilling but forced joining to NATO ceased, while successful accomplishment of formal alliance with two members of NATO provided formal link to the Western military alliance. Moreover, staying away of NATO construction meant further evading of the space where the Italian word had a greater weight, which was considered crucial in the eve of final solution of the Trieste question. The Yugoslav and the Western negotiators met again on the II Yugoslav-Tripartite conference in Washington, DC, in August 1953. Those talks were held in much better atmosphere, discussions were richer in details and conclusions were more concrete.14 As before, final 12

TNA, FO 371/102165, Minutes to Telegram Ministry of Defence to British Joint Services Mission Washington ELL 407, 1-2; NARA, RG 218, E 13, b. 120, CCS 092 Yugoslavia (7-6-48) sec. 18, Note by the Secretaries to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Discussion of Trieste by general Handy JCS 1901/94, p. 2; ibid., 01 Bradley to Sec. Def. Re discussion of Trieste by Gen. Handy, 14 November 1952. British Ministry of Defence has negatively reacted to American intention to include the Allied troops stationed in Trieste in the eventual campaign of Ljubljana Gap’s defense. They didn’t want to allow any overlapping of questions from Trieste agenda with one of coordinating the strategic military plans with Yugoslavia. TNA, FO 371/102165, Telegram Ministry of Defence to British Joint services Mission Washington, Cos(W) 240. TNA, FO 371/102165, Minutes to telegram Ministry of Defence to British Joint Services Mission Washington ELL 407, 1-2. 13 MA, II Department, S-8, f. IV, 1387, 8; NARA, RG 218, E 13, b. 121, f. CCS 092 Yugoslavia (7-6-48) sec. 19, Substance of proposed dispatch for the release to Greeks, Turks and Italians after Approval by Tripartite Powers and Clearance by Yugoslav Government; TNA, FO 371/102168, Letter Mallet to Cheetham with Report on Handy-Mission, 16 and 19 November 1952. 14 MA, II department, S-8, f. III, 14.

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From London to Osimo

solving of the Trieste question was not discussed. Unfortunately for the Yugoslav delegation, fruits of their work were not to be enjoyed, since a final outbreak of the Trieste crisis in the fall 1953 had almost entirely erased them. Flow and solution of the Trieste crisis will not be discussed here in more details, since that question is not unknown for contemporary historiography. However, it is important to emphasize some characteristic moments in displaying the American attitude towards the situation, since they have appeared to be a kind of cliché which will be repeated even some 20 years later, during the final conclusion of the dispute by an agreement in Osimo. After the Declaration of 8 October 1953, which imposed the replacement of the Anglo-American troops in Zone A with regular Italian units, temperature in this area reached its boiling point. Yugoslavs rejected the move and demonstrations were organized throughout the country, while the army forces were given the “red light” with some of them being moved closer to Trieste. On the other hand, Italian public opinion expected that the taking over the Trieste and Zone A will represent only the first step in final bringing back an entire FTT, including Zone B already possessed by the Yugoslav troops and de facto integrated in their governmental and financial system. After the fall spent on trying to find a platform for resolving the crisis, it became obvious that in present circumstances and constellation of powers there could not have been found an instant solution pleasing the both sides, so the negotiations were switched to the long lasting secret contacts in London. There both sides, under the supervision of the American and British diplomats Thompson and Harrison, and already aware that the micro adjustments of the zonal division had presented all the space they were moving through, have taken almost a year to arrange “Agreement on Conformity”, which grew up to be a definite solution.15 At this point, we will concentrate on circumstances affecting the American attitude towards the events, as well as some of the most characteristic standpoints taken by their diplomats and officials. As it turned to be, the same influencing categories remained even in time of signing the final formal agreement in Osimo in 1975.16 In the decade following the end of the Second World War, Italy and Yugoslavia had passed very different historical paths, bringing them into very different positions in the eyes of American administration and diplomacy. After the capitulation in 1943, Italy was under strong pressure and even control 15

Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad, 57-76, 124-40. Saša Mišić, “Poseta Josip Broz Tita Italiji 1971. Godine,” in Tito – viđenja i tumačenja. Zbornik radova, ed. Olga Manojlović Pintar, Mile Bjelajac and Radmila Radić (Institut za Noviju Istoriju Srbije – Arhiv Jugoslavije, Beograd: 2011), 505-21.

16

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

of the Western Allies, securing that democratic internal constitution will be maintained. Its membership in NATO was the key of country’s foreign security, as well as strong back up in unsettled disputes like the one it had with Yugoslavia over Trieste. On the other hand, presence and firm positions of leftist and communist elements, often expressing radical attitudes to the line with ones of Kremlin, both feared the Western (particularly American) diplomats and being used as the scarecrow in their projections. In dispute on Trieste crisis, one of the most repeated statements was that the Italian governments led by De Gasperi and Pella were the best possible choices, while their failure over this matter would have thrown the country in the arms of communists or extreme rightists.17 Yugoslavia succeeded in overpowering the difficulties imposed by the Eastern isolation and blockade after 1948, arranged solid relations directly with the USA and UK, consolidated its regional position through the Balkan Pact and managed to accomplish all mentioned without leaving Italy any space for interference. It put it into solid bargaining position against its across-the-Adriatic neighbor, especially since its troops were directly presented in the part of questioned territory. As it was mentioned before, its new geopolitical position was of extreme importance for the West, and Belgrade’s leadership was ready to exploit the awareness of it to the limit. American officials’ approach to both countries included all mentioned categories, putting emphasize on some of them depending on different subjective or objective preferences. In that sense, one cannot talk about some “general” American attitude to Yugoslav-Italian negotiating, at least not outside a clearly expressed will and intention to have this task finished on the basis of real and achievable compromise.18 As the factor guaranteeing the implementation of results, it was obvious that their representatives would not support any outcome that would endanger the goals and results having had already been achieved in the region, both in Italy and Yugoslavia. As of later, they judged not only the position of the country, having far less influence over its policy prospects in comparison with the one in Italy, but paid much closer attention to position of Tito himself, recognizing him as the source and driving power of all Yugoslav policies. When the crisis escalated in fall 1953, Tito’s public speeches in Leskovac and Skopje (10 and 11 October), when he openly rejected the contents of the Declaration of 8 October, were analyzed and judged by the staff of the American Embassy in Belgrade primarily from the standpoint of Tito’s position and importance within contemporary Yugoslavia. 17

LC, MD, The Papers of Clare Boothe Luce, 600, f. Missions, Investigations, Trieste, 1954, Luce to Admiral Carney. 18 Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad, 64.

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Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy, Walroof Wallner wrote that the mentioned Declaration presented a blow in both the prestige of the regime and Tito himself, when endangering of his role of national interest’s protector affected the real foundations of his popularity. In this light, attitudes expressed in these speeches were understood as the tries to maintain his status of “national symbol” at any cost, which was the role proved effective during the hard days of 1948. After he succeeded to, with time passed, prove that the bonding with the West had been possible without sacrificing the proclaimed national interests; such statement was directly put under the question by contents of the mentioned Declaration. Quoting Tito’s answer that he will not trade the territories for foreign aid, Wallner emphasized the fact that Tito possessed a real power and authority to make such decision, but staying long on that level required the ability to reject such blows when appeared.19 His attitude was shared by the other planners of the American aid to Yugoslavia, realizing that demonstrated toughness served, primarily, for domestic use. From that reasons they were not considered as any meaningful the series of concrete measures taken by certain political and military officials that had been taken in course of suspension, delaying or slowing down some already approved and programmed deliveries. It was obvious that the current mess will soon come to its end, but the damages done in a meanwhile would take additional time and effort to be fixed.20 On the other side of the Adriatic, his colleague in Rome, Clare Boothe Luce, was of diametrically opposite opinion. She disagreed with the official standpoint that Yugoslavia had served as a kind of ideological “Trojan horse” in the system of the European socialist countries, barrier to the Soviet advancement and reliable link in the south flank of NATO. On the contrary, she predicted possible Tito’s role in possible Soviet’s aggression in the light of his inability and reluctance to resist the “…final gravitational pull of panslavia on the march…”, judging it impossible for him to take anything more than position of “… standing pat until we ala Teheran and Yalta promise him great clunks of territory in Albania, Italy, Greece and his hinterland…”.21 As the person of the system and ideology, she could not abandon the matrix of conducting her basic task in Italy – maintaining the governance 19

NARA, RG 59, SD Foreign Service Post Files, E 3356, B. 6, Wallner to Secstate, 2-4. HQ of the US forces in Germany ordered the suspension of all kinds of programmed and agreed deliveries to Yugoslavia after the first notice of the Trieste crisis’ escalation. Planners in Pentagon doubted in meaningfulness of such move, since they knew that the Yugoslav demonstration had been for domestic political purpose only, so there shouldn’t have had the situation complicated more. MA, II department, S-115, 269/12, f. V, 44, 1. 21 LC, MD, The Papers of Clare Boothe Luce, 600, f. Missions, Investigations, Trieste, 1954, Luce to CD Jackson II, 2-4. 20

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

of the elements most suitable for pursuing the US policy. In that sense, a perspective of the current political elite ruling the state was the first thing that any American ambassador was to worry about, especially since, according her own words “…if we don’t deliver honestly and frankly on any of 8 October decision to turn Zone A to the Italians, we can kiss Italy goodbye as a useful member of NATO. The Italian Boot, a not insubstantial piece of real estate, will pass from the hands of proWest statesmen, either to the right or more likely to the left, and Togliatti will become the master of Italy in a year’s time. What good the dubious friendship of renegade communist dictator Tito will do us then, I cannot really see…”.22 Also, in the letter sent to admiral Carney, she underlined the ideological importance of momentary solution – “…significance of Italy’s entrance into Zone A is that it will mark the first, the very first advance of NATO power, a Western democracy into any territory which Communism has claimed as its own…”.23 In 1954, almost any US representative in Rome would think this way. Italy was a democratic state, strategically situated in the middle of the Mediterranean, member of NATO and a country with significant economic and industrial capacities. Despite of all the benefits that Yugoslav defection was bringing to the West, in the minds of the American officials it was still Slavic, communist dictatorship, a kind of structure almost identical (except of size and power) with the projected enemy No.1 – the Soviet Union. Depriving support to legal and legitimate ally in a conflict with such entity was, in short, something unlikely to be accepted. Also, the reputation of Yugoslavia was still “in progress” in the time of the London agreement. It left the Soviet bloc, factually participated in defense of Europe, signed formal military alliance with two NATO members and developed the relations with the Western world that could not be neglected. Until October 1955, its economic exchange with Italy reached the level almost equal to the one with Germany, Yugoslav premier foreign trade partner at the time.24 Tito maintained independent policy even after the Chruščëv’s almost pilgrimage-like visit in 1955 and further rapprochement with the East, starting as well opening to economically undeveloped, but politically important countries of the “Third world”. But, during the 1950s, all those accomplishments were not enough to have the country treated with respect reserved for mayor players. For instance, although planned, Tito’s visit to the United States and meeting with President Dwight Eisenhower were thwarted by a negative response of the American public opinion, while a visit of the American president 22

Ibid., Draft letter Luce to CD Jackson I, 4. Ibid., Luce to Admiral Carney. 24 Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad, 141. 23

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to Yugoslavia was even unthinkable.25 Such reputation has yet been to be built. Some two decades later, a slight glance over two Adriatic neighbors would reveal the picture significantly different, at least from the point of view of their importance and significance in the eyes of the American diplomacy. Italy has still been a productive, strong economy, democratic state and a member of NATO. Its internal political and social life was far from being monotonous, but if one could had slept over those twenty years since the early 1950s, he might have found that the major worry of the American diplomacy have still been the position of the centered and modestly right parties (i.e. West friendly) in electoral standings compared to the leftist ones.26 Regarding Trieste dispute, this question was closed factually, but there was no Italian government which would have taken the task of formalizing it, because of the very same reasons as twenty years ago. In a meanwhile, Yugoslavia has still been a communist country, with Tito on decisive power and unwilling to bond with any of two confronted blocs. Even more, he was considered as one of the leaders of new international body, organization of Non-aligned nations, which presented eminent and unquestionable political category. With their “passport”, Tito’s attitudes in Helsinki process had much greater weight, and his role was of the level that his opinion and position were unavoidable when dealing with almost any world crisis, especially the ones in the Near and the Middle East.27 His position regarding Italy and Trieste was clear; he did not present the London agreement as a momentary result which could be upgraded in the future. While negotiating it, Yugoslav leadership knew that paper they got would be the document that was to last, so they had done their best to get and secure the most from the current situation. When the dynamics of 25

Dragan Bogetić, Nova Strategija Spoljne Politike Jugoslavije 1956-1961 (Beograd: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2006), 111-13. 26 FRUS, 1969-1976, Vol.  XLI, Western Europe: NATO, 1969-1972, doc. 187, Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, Washington, 23 December 1969, 640-2; ibid., doc. 188, Letter From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the Ambassador to Italy (Martin), Washington, 22 January 1970, 642-3; ibid., doc. 191, Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, Washington, 12 February 1970, 646-7; ibid., doc. 192, Backchannel Message From the Ambassador to Italy (Martin) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Rome, 22 April 1970, 648-651; ibid., 195, Response to National Security Study Memorandum 88, Washington, 11 June 1970, 656-67. 27 Ljubodag Dimić, “Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav Foreign Policy and the Shaping of the Concept of European Security and Co-Operation 1968-1975,” in From Helsinki to Belgrade – the First CSCE Follow-Up Meeting in Belgrade 1977/78, ed. Vladimir Bilandžić, Milan Kosanović (Beograd: Fond Mihaila Žikića, 2008), 89-119.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

everyday life cemented division as the permanent state, the lack of formal and final agreement regarding this question fell out from the list of top Yugoslav foreign priorities. It was a matter of regional relations, without capacity to endanger their flow. For the American diplomats dealing with the Mediterranean, this quarrel was considered finished. It appeared occasionally in the Italian daily politics, but has never become a matter of the highest interest. During his visit to Yugoslavia and talks with Tito in August of 1975, the American president Gerald Ford was primarily interested in Yugoslav view on events taking place on the other side of the Mediterranean – Israeli-Arab conflict.28

28

FRUS, 1969-1976, Vol. E-15, Part 1, Documents on Eastern Europe, 1973-1976, doc. 73, Memorandum of Conversation, Presidents Ford and Tito met to discuss the Middle East situation and bilateral relations, Belgrade, 3 August 1975, http:// history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve15p1/d73; ibid., doc. 74, Memorandum of Conversation, Presidents Ford and Tito met to discuss the Middle East situation and bilateral relations, Belgrade, 4 August 1975, http://history.state. gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve15p1/d74.

36

The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973) Aleksandar Životić The change in leadership at the Kremlin in 1964 not only represented an important moment for the political, economic and social life of the Soviet Union, but also an event which would in closer perspective have considerable influence on global international relations. The arrival at its head of the more conciliatory Brežnev meant a more active foreign policy, not only in the sense of relations with the rival superpower but also in the sense of relations with the countries of the Eastern bloc, smaller countries of the Western world and countries that were not engaged in blocs.1 In this context, the relations between Yugoslavia and Italy had special importance for the Soviets. Immediately after the take-over, a series of leading Soviet diplomats gathered around Brežnev. They were led by minister Andrej Gromyko, who as an experienced diplomat of the war and post-war period developed a special approach to the problems of international relations. Having worked in the diplomatic service for many years in Stalin’s and Chruščëv’s time, Gromyko himself adopted something from their foreign political doctrines, but it was the events that took place during and immediately after the Second World War that formed his views on relations with the USA and with other countries. The experience from the time spent in the central apparatus of the Soviet ministry of foreign affairs formed his apprehension that the foreign policy of the Soviet Union had to be constructed on a realistic basis and that ideology had to give way to real political views on problems. He did not hide the fact that his ideal was the diplomacy of “the big three” from the period of the Second World War, the negotiating style of Stalin and Molotov and the summits in Teheran, 1



About the period of government of Brežnev and the Soviet foreign policy of that period, see more in: А. М. Арбатов-Агентов, От Коллонтай до Горбачева (Москва: Международные отношения, 1994); А. А. Громыко, Памятное, II (Москва: Политиздат, 1988); А. Добрынин, Сугубо доверительно. Посол в Вашингтоне при шести президентах США 1962-1986. гг. (Москва: Автор, 1997); В. Зубок, Неудавшаяся империя. Советский Союз в холодной войне от Сталина до Горбачева (Москва: РОССПЭН, 2011); А. С. Черняев, Моя жизнъ и мое время (Москва: Международные отношения, 1995).

37

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

on Yalta and Potsdam. He thought that, under new circumstances, an active policy which would manifest itself through intensive negotiations and summits and whose goal would be the end of international tension should be adopted. He thought that Soviet foreign policy had to work towards international security of the bloc it led, but also engage in serious political dialogue with the USA, as the leader of the rival bloc.2 The profiling of these principles of Soviet foreign policy can be followed from January 1967, when Gromyko suggested to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union a different approach to international problems. He emphasized that international tension was not suitable to the interests of the Soviet Union and its allies and that, for the purposes of a more successful development of socialism and the economy, a peaceful policy, which through the détente would enable the firming and strengthening of the Soviet position in the world, should be pursued.3 He thought that “promising signals” were also coming from the Western countries, emphasizing that it was in the interest of Western countries to reduce the tension in mutual relations.4 Even though the war in Vietnam was entering its severe phase, Gromyko and his diplomats, especially the ambassador in Washington, Dobrinjin, and Georgij Kornijenko, the head of the Department for the USA in the Soviet ministry of foreign affairs, were lending support to the idea of dialogue with Johnson’s administration. Gradually, Brežnev himself adopted the proposed principles, obviously thinking that this was not just about the possibility of stabilization of international relations but it was also about the strengthening of his position within the Soviet political and party nomenclature.5 However, a series of crisis which happened in Europe and Asia, forced Brežnev and his diplomats to temporarily postpone the realization of their ideas. The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia may have put off the immediate possibility of agreement with the West, but, on the other hand, it essentially strengthened the Soviet’s negotiating position. Clear political and military power was demonstrated but also the determination to preserve the unity of the bloc even at the price of armed intervention. Brežnev was aware of this and endeavored to turn the achieved success in the negotiations with the West to his advantage.6

2

4 5 6 3

Черняев, Моя жизнъ и мое время, 305. Добрынин, Сугубо доверительно, 139-40. Ibid. Зубок, Неудавшаяся империя, 299-300. Черняев, Моя жизнъ и мое время, 272, 292.

38

The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973)

1.  The Soviet view on Yugoslavia and Italy With their geographical position and role in the Cold War division of Europe, Yugoslavia and Italy, especially as regarded their mutual relations, had special importance for the Soviet Union. Within the framework of a clear commitment to the policy of détente on a global scale, Yugoslavia and Italy represented for the Soviets countries which had special political influence on the Balkans and in the Mediterranean basin, while their longlasting border conflict with occasional pacification threatened to disturb the Soviet global approach to the pacification of existing focal points of conflict. Yugoslavia was a country which during the Second World War and immediately after it had found itself in the orbit of Soviet interests and was its most firm and, in the ideological sense, closest, ally on the Balkans. After the war it was a country with which it had a serious confrontation between 1948 and 1955. After this, short term normalization was replaced by new confrontation related to the Yugoslav position during the Hungarian crisis of 1956. Yugoslavia then found itself in one more confrontation with the USSR in 1958 because of the program and the statute of the League of Yugoslav Communists. This conflict lasted until 1961. A period of new political, military and economic rapprochement followed and reached its peak in 1967 when, at the time of the war in the Middle East, Yugoslavia literally behaved as an associate member of the Warsaw Pact. The fear of possible Soviet meddling in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia, which its leadership had felt since the confrontation in 1948, culminated at the end of August, 1968, in intervention in Czechoslovakia of 5 members of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet explanations that this was a legitimate action in the spirit of socialist interventionism were understood as a direct threat to the Yugoslav state and its party leadership. This view was additionally strengthened by the reaction of the West to the events in Czechoslovakia, which were based on Western acknowledgment of the Soviet right to regulate relations at its sole discretion within the socialist group of states.7 On the other hand, the issue of how the West should treat Yugoslavia in the circumstances of the unspoken division of spheres of interest on European territory, which both sides respected after the tentative solution of the Berlin crisis, was raised. Did it consider it to be a member of the Eastern bloc or not? Yugoslavia felt endangered by her ideological allies and forced to cooperate with ideological rivals with which it had quite

7



Д. Богетић, “Југословенско-совјетски односи у светлу војне интервенције у Чехословачкој 1968. Године,” in Зборник 1968-40 година после, ed. Радмила Радић (Београд: ИНИС, 2008), 129-30.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

bad relations.8 In the extremely difficult situation caused by the Soviet intervention on the night of 20-21 August, the Yugoslav leadership convened a meeting of the Presidency and the Executive Committee of the CC of the KPJ for 22 August and, the day after, it also convened the Plenum of the CC of the KPJ.9 On the suggestion of Josip Broz, the attitude was taken that this act represented the waning of the sovereignty of one country, the act of an aggressor as well as a clear indicator of Soviet hegemonic aspirations, a heavy blow to socialism and an act which encouraged rebellion against the socialist system. An important element was the call to all citizens of Yugoslavia to be ready to defend their country.10 At the same time, necessary measures in the area of the strengthening of defense capabilities which comprised the enlargement of defense capacities on the basis of the doctrine of general national war and general confrontation of potential aggressors were taken.11 The condemnation of military intervention, solidarity with the Czechoslovakian leadership and the demand for urgent withdrawal of troops represented the most important part of the content of an official Yugoslav demarche to the governments of the five member countries delivered to their embassies in Belgrade, on 22 August. Similar attitudes were presented at the session of the Security Council of the United Nations, organized as a result of the intervention in Czechoslovakia.12 This approach in Yugoslav policy caused an avalanche of dissatisfaction in the USSR. The Soviet accusations were communicated to Josip Broz personally by the Soviet ambassador Benediktov during his visit on 30 August.13 The sharp tone of the Soviet protests was a signal to the Yugoslav side to start defensive preparations. The new phase in the relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union started with the speech of Yugoslav president Josip Broz on the occasion of the celebration of the Day of the Republic in Jajce on 29 November 1968, during which he announced the possibility of normalization of Yugoslav-soviet relations.14 The beginning of this normalization of the relations between Yugoslavia 8



9



10



11



12



13 14



Dragan Bogetić, “Jugoslovensko-američki odnosi u svetlu vojne intervencije u Čehoslovačkoj 1968,” Istorija XX veka, 2 (2007), 75-80. Ljubodrag Dimić, “Pogled iz Beograda na Čehoslovačku 1968. Godine,” Tokovi istorije, 3-4 (2005), 205-7. AJ, CK SKJ/III, doc. 134, The Ninth common meeting of the presidency and the Executive committee of the CC of the LCY, 21 August 1968. М. Бјелајац, “ЈНА на искушењима 60-тих година прошлог века,” in Зборник 196840 година после, 399-402. AMIP, PA, “Strictly confidential,” f. III, doc. 83. AJ, APR, KPR, I-3-a, USSR, Note on the reception of the Soviet ambassador by president Tito, 30 August 1968. Богетић, “Југословенско-совјетски односи,” 153-5.

40

The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973)

and the Soviet Union significantly influenced the position of Yugoslavia in the Mediterranean and relations with Italy. Even though the warships of the Soviet fleet were still in the Mediterranean and significant Soviet forces and its allies’ troops were on Yugoslav borders, the danger of armed intervention did not exist. This way, the possibility was opened for Yugoslav-Soviet rapprochement but also for the solution of confrontations in the region. On the other hand, Italy had completely different importance for the Soviet Union. The very fact that Italy at the end of the Second World War, with the allied agreement, had entered the sphere of interest of Western forces limited Soviet influence and presence in this country. In the years that followed, the Soviets pursued a reserved policy towards Italy, leaning on Italian communists who immediately after the end of the war had considerable influence in the Italian electoral body and participated in the process of composition of Italian governments. However, the facts that Italy was outside the Soviet zone of influence and that the communists lacked the power to take over the government and thus, directly start social and economic changes in accordance with their ideology, caused the Soviets to treat Italy as a part of the Western bloc. The entry of Italy into NATO and its participation in the process of European integration only strengthened this policy. From a geopolitical perspective, Italy’s position in the Mediterranean and especially its economic importance required more active Soviet action towards her. The Soviet Union was the first among the great forces to restore relations with Italy and to establish, in the next decade, economic and cultural relations with her. The coming of Brežnev to power gave new impetus to Soviet – Italian cooperation. In accordance with the gradually proclaimed policy of détente, a more active Soviet presence in Italy followed. In the period between 1965 and 1967, a series of agreements on the use of atomic energy for civil purposes, a new consular convention, a series of trade agreements and the agreement on the investment of Fiat in the Soviet Union were signed. In this way, the space for future cooperation and dialogue was gradually being opened. On the other hand, an ever greater presence of Soviet naval forces in the Mediterranean clearly spoke of the interest of the Soviet Union in the region. As a result of mutual efforts in April 1966, an official visit to Rome by the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrej Gromyko, took place.15 The meeting not only strengthened Soviet-Italian relations but it also created conditions for the rapprochement of attitudes of both countries on the issues that until then had burdened international relations. It was on this occasion that Gromyko expressed the Soviet view that it was necessary to convene 15

Громыко, Памятное, 13-14.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

a special conference on European security. The Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Fanfani supported him and promised their assistance in the realization of this idea. Moro emphasized that the time had come in which the representatives of the Eastern and Western blocs could meet and talk about the solutions which would be acceptable for both sides.16 This development of events was in the interest of both sides. Peace was guaranteed for the Soviets on the borders of their sphere of influence and national security, which could potentially be endangered on the Mediterranean and, to the north, was guaranteed to Italy. Yugoslav-Italian relations had been the object of special interest to Soviet diplomacy since the last days of the Second World War and the opening of the issue of the status of Trieste and Venezia Giulia. The Yugoslav side had not received the expected Soviet support in 1945 when Yugoslav forces were forced to leave Trieste and this state of affairs continued in the later period, right up to the beginning of the SovietYugoslav conflict in 1948. The Soviet side did not want to worsen its relations with the Western world because of this conflict. Wanting to comply with the internationally-agreed obligations, Stalin did not want to risk new confrontation.17 This was followed by the years of confrontation during which the Soviet diplomacy was not paying special attention to the problem. The crisis of Trieste in 1953 and the London agreement in 1954 were treated by the Soviet side as a part of the agreement within the rival bloc, to which Yugoslavia belonged, after its achievement of special arrangements with the Western world. The neutral position which Yugoslavia specially assumed after 1956 and firmly established in 1961, represented for the Soviet side and Brežnev, among other things, an important bridge to the Western world and in this sense to Italy, being the most important country in the Western world which bordered with Yugoslavia.18

2.  The Soviet Union and the Rapprochement of Yugoslavia and Italy In the period between 1954 and 1967, Yugoslav-Italian relations were in constant ascent. In this period more than 200 international agreements were signed. The cooperation in the economic area was especially successful, so that Italy had the first place on the list of Yugoslav international trade 16

Ibid. Л. Я. Гибианский, “Сталин и триестское противостояние 1945.г: за кулисами первого международного кризиса холодной войны,” in Сталин и холодная война, ed. A. O. Чубарьян (Москва: ИВИ РАН, 1994), 44-8. 18 А. Агентов, От Коллонтай до Горбачева, 159-161. 17

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The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973)

partners. At the beginning of 1967, a crisis in international relations broke out due to the postponement of a new trade agreement. Yugoslavia thought this was an Italian attempt to once again raise the issue of Trieste and, through the worsening of relations with Yugoslavia, strengthen its positions in the Mediterranean. This, she reasoned, was a consequence of the French withdrawal from NATO which revived the conviction in Italy that it had a special role as the main military force in the Mediterranean.19 The crisis was overcome in summer 1967; with the signing of a new trade agreement which happened, according to Yugoslav estimations, because of new conflict in the Middle East.20 The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia gave new impetus to Yugoslav-Italian rapprochement. During an audience with the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Medici, full guarantees of security of borders were given to ambassador Prica and a clear signal was given to Yugoslavia to freely relocate towards its Eastern European neighbors most of its military forces which were concentrated towards Italy.21 After this a series of declarations by leading politicians of both countries, aimed at the development of good neighborly relations, followed, which for Yugoslavia had special importance in the situation of direct danger to its borders. Italy also looked at the problem from the pragmatic point of view. In a military sense, Yugoslavia represented the front line for the protection of its borders in the case of aggressive Soviet intentions. Bearing in mind that Soviet troops were only 300 km from the Italian border, the maintenance of stability in the region was of vital interest to Italy. This attitude was openly presented to the leading figure of Yugoslav diplomacy, Marko Nikezić by his Italian colleague Medici, during their meeting in New York in October 1968.22 The result of this was that Italy had a clear interest in the maintenance of Yugoslav independence as an important element of the security of the Southern wing of NATO. Italy thought that this proposition should be put to the USSR and this desire was reflected in the official formulation of the Council of NATO dating from November 16, 1968.23 The Italian interest in preserving Yugoslav security was reiterated by the statement of the new Italian minister Pietro Nenni during his visit to Belgrade in May 1969, when he emphasized that in the case of danger to the Eastern borders of Yugoslavia, this problem would be at the same time considered a problem for Italy, and thereby 19

21 22

AJ, APR, KPR, I-3-b, The Reminder on Italia and Italian-Yugoslav Relations. Ibid. AJ, APR, KPR, I-3-b, Report of Ambassador Prica from Rome, 2 September 1968. AJ, APR, KPR, I-3-b, Note on the Dialogue of the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Marko Nikezić with Medici, New York, 10 October 1968. 23 AMIR, PA, Italy, 1968, f. 60, tel. No. 696 from the Embassy in Rome, 24 October 1968. 20

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

demonstrated the Italian attitude to Soviet pressures and threats.24 The rapprochement which took place due to Soviet military intervention influenced the intensification of mutual economic relations as well as the revival of negotiations on the unresolved border issue.25 The Yugoslav policy of détente towards Italy was conditioned by Soviet pressure at the time of crisis in Czechoslovakia. Italian support gave special impetus to an active Yugoslav policy of resistance. Having leaned temporarily on Italy, the Yugoslav state leadership wanted to prevent future events, being aware of certain negative experiences from the past. These experiences related to the war in the Middle East in 1967, which demonstrated that the concept of national security could not be founded on the doctrine of neutrality and support from countries which were non-aligned and not engaged in blocs, since it was precisely during the Six Day War that the whole system of reaction from neutral countries during these critical moments was shown to be totally ineffective. On the other hand, their experiences with the Soviet threat after the intervention in Czechoslovakia spoke in favor of the fact that the counterbalance to aggressive intentions close at hand was to find support in regional rapprochement, negotiations and finding a way to stop future threats and prevent conflicts. In relation to this, Italy as the most exposed point of NATO towards the countries of the Warsaw Pact and being the strongest military and naval force within NATO in the Mediterranean after the withdrawal of France, strived to strategically strengthen its position towards the forces of the Warsaw Pact, establishing tighter relations with Yugoslavia, as a neutral country with which the strategic depth of Italian defense became stronger and potentially more elastic. In this way, the Soviet Union, through a policy of threats and interventionism found itself in the role of cohesion factor in relations between Yugoslavia and Italy. The Soviet threat additionally made Yugoslavia and Italy closer in the attempt to make special space, which in the long run would disenable the possibility of penetration of Soviet influence in the Mediterranean region. However, even though the intervention in Czechoslovakia was successful, it was clear to Brežnev that he had to work towards a policy of release of tension with the West, primarily due to the growing challenges which were likely to appear. The fear of confrontation with China represented one of the motives for launching new impetus in foreign policy. The beginning of dialogues with German councillor Brandt on the normalization of Soviet-German relations opened perspectives for future 24

AJ, APR, KPR, I-3-b, Visit of Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pietro Neni, 29 May 1969. 25 С. Мишић, “Југословенско-италијански односи и чехословачка криза 1968. Године,” in Зборник 1968-40 година после, 207-10.

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The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973)

détente. Wanting to convert the growing military power of the Soviet Union into the currency for diplomatic agreement and international prestige, Brežnev started with the shaping of his personal concept of foreign policy which was based on the programme of peacekeeping in Europe and mutual cooperation with the countries of the West. The central place in this programme was the convocation of a European peace, security and cooperation conference. This idea was publicly demonstrated at the congress of the communist party of the Soviet Union in April 1971. Brežnev said openly that this was his reaction to the Eastern policy of Willy Brandt. However, in spite of a series of circumstances which positively affected the policy of détente, the war in Vietnam and also the disagreements between the USSR and the USA which had not been overcome, threatened to destroy this policy. The Soviets insisted on pursuing an active policy in the area of the Balkans and the Mediterranean. As a consequence, a series of moves, whose purpose was to essentially normalize relations with Yugoslavia in the first place and then to develop mutual relations in the next phase, were made. The peak of normalization of relations was a visit by Brežnev to Belgrade in September 1971. To Yugoslav interlocutors, Brežnev spoke convincingly about the necessity to fully normalize relations, emphasizing that the Soviet Union did not have aggressive intentions towards Yugoslavia.26 He emphasized that the Soviet side was pursuing a peace policy and that it was open to cooperation with the Western world. The visit of Brežnev, which happened almost a year after the visit of the American president Nixon to Belgrade, was a forum for a discussion on the stabilization of the Yugoslav position in the world, the interest of superpowers in its foreign political position, and it allowed Yugoslavia a more independent international positioning.27 At the same time, Brežnev’s visit indirectly ensured the Yugoslav position and alienated it from the rapprochement to Italy which had just begun and opened the way to new discord in relations between the two countries. However, the determined course of YugoslavItalian relations did not at first suffer the consequences of the change in Soviet policy in the region. On the other hand, Soviet diplomacy, within the determined course of détente in relations with the Western world, aimed to strengthen its relations with Italy and in this way, ensure a simple channel of diplomatic communication which would open, at the same time, new perspectives and enable a more simple point of view on Italian foreign political moves 26

AJ, APR, KPR, I-3-b, Visit of Brežnev to Josip Broz Tito, 22-25 September 1971. Veljko Mićunović, Moskovske godine 1969-1971 (Beograd: Jugoslovenska revija, 1984), 147-9.

27

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

towards Yugoslavia and within the Mediterranean region. Diplomatic efforts gave positive results during the visit of the Italian Prime Minister Andreoti to Moscow in October 1972.28 On this occasion, a SovietItalian agreement on consultations was signed. The document expressed the wishes of both sides to establish comprehensive mutual relations at a higher level.29 With the agreement, the Soviets ensured the heritage of their policy in the Mediterranean while, for Italy, the agreement meant the relaxation of tensions in their relations with the Soviets. The stabilization of relations with the Soviet Union led to the loss of importance of the informal alliance with Yugoslavia for Italy. However, further tension in the area of Europe did not allow Yugoslavia or Italy to return to their earlier discord or to destroy the alliance which had been created with such effort. More direct Soviet insistence on the détente gave Italy and Yugoslavia the opportunity to further strengthen their mutual cooperation, but on the other hand it carried the seed of potential alienation, of a turning to individual interests and an opening up of old disagreements. A series of bilateral contacts were established with constant strengthening of economic and cultural ties. Both sides saw in Brežnev’s insistence a chance to calm the existing tensions not just to begin further strengthening of economic cooperation but to also potentially release tension on their own borders in their attempts to find ways to maintain peace in Europe. Even though Italy belonged to the Western military alliance while Yugoslavia was a neutral and socialist country and they were involved in disagreements regarding their mutual border, the need to find a solution for the maintenance of national security made both sides set aside their differences and work together to each ensure their own security. Yugoslav-Italian cooperation at the local level soon bore fruit, however, impetus on a global level was missing in the form of an agreement between two superpowers, as was an initiative at the European level which would have given both countries security and would have confirmed their belief in the rightness of the existing policy. However, conflict between India and Pakistan and the intensification of hostilities in Vietnam put a halt on negotiations and also limited the Yugoslav-Italian initiative. The beginning of 1971 brought more intensive diplomatic action. After long dialogues, the visit of Yugoslav president Josip Broz to Italy took place. The visit was preceded by secret dialogues about mutual problems which gave limited results.30 One of the topics of the conversations referred to the role of the forces of the major powers in the region and especially 28

Громыко, Памятное, II, 18. Ibid. 30 AJ, APR, KPR, I-3-b, Information on Confidential Dialogue on Potential Global agreement on disputable Issues. 29

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The Soviet Union and Yugoslav-Italian Détente (1968-1973)

of the growing Soviet presence in the Mediterranean. The Yugoslav president emphasized that the presence of the Soviet fleet was a reaction to the presence of the American one and some form of support for the Arab countries after the war in 1967. He spoke in favor of the withdrawal of the superpowers’ fleets from the Mediterranean region and the handing over of the area to the costal countries of the region. He also referred positively to the stabilization of international relations in the area of Europe, wanting to implicitly point to the importance of Yugoslav-Italian relations for the peace and stability in the region as well as distance himself from the superpowers’ policy in the region.31 The Italian president expressed similar opinions wanting to point to the necessity for some more reconciliatory gesture from the Soviet side without looking for the formal denial of the doctrine of limited sovereignty. In substance, he thought that a conference on peace and security in Europe should be convened and that the ultimate solution would be to work towards gradually eliminating the bloc division within Europe.32 However, Italian membership of NATO and the common European market did not allow Italy to adopt a more independent foreign policy. In this regard, Yugoslavia as a country which was not engaged in blocs had special space for more independent actions especially in relation to the Soviet Union with which it abundantly used its diplomacy. Even though practical reasons were more relevant here than ideological ones, the Yugoslav president strived to promote the more active involvement of Italian communists in the government in his conversations with Italian prime minister Colombo, justifying this attitude with the conviction that the Italian communists were in favor of principles of separate roads to communism. Colombo, from his side, denied this possibility, thinking that his participation would have grave consequences on the relations between Italy and the Soviet Union. This was because, in this way, the Soviet influence in Italy would grow which, in practice, would overcome Italian expectations related to the future détente.33 Obviously, waiting for further developments in the situation, the Soviet press did not comment on Broz’s visit to Italy.34 Neither was there any official reaction. Symbolically, the message was sent to Italians and Yugoslavs that the Soviets were not looking kindly on Yugoslav-Italian rapprochement. However, Italian diplomacy feared the possible new Yugoslav-Soviet rapprochement. Italian diplomatic representatives on the basis of available 31

AJ, APR, KPR, I-2/48, Information about secret speeches about potential global agreement with Italy. 32 Ibid. 33 AJ, APR, KPR, I-2/48, Note on Dialogues of President Tito and the Prime Minister Colombo in Rome, 26 March 1971. 34 AJ, APR, KPR, I-2/48, Press Reactions to the Visit of President Tito to Italy.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

information and press articles concluded that cooperation was developing normally. Italian fear was motivated by reasons of a security nature.35 The possibility of Yugoslav-Soviet rapprochement would negatively affect Italian interests in the region and potentially would have brought Soviet military forces to the borders of Italy. The Italians were worried because of the announced joint maneuvers of Soviet and Hungarian military forces.36 The established Yugoslav-Italian cooperation on the issue of mutual interest to reduce tension in Europe, as well as in the area of mutual relations, gave significant results in the beginning. However, new YugoslavSoviet rapprochement and the growing problems of the definition of a mutual borderline which in the name of the finding of an agreeable solution motivated by higher goals had been left aside, started once again to burden mutual relations. During 1972 and 1973, a series of incidents occurred in regular communication as well as the delay in the signing of mutual agreements and greater insistence on the solution of the problem of borders. This resulted in the reopening of old disputes which had been forgotten. This was the prologue to the clash that took place in 1974 and threatened to lead Yugoslavia and Italy into a state of war. Soviet influence on the course of Yugoslav-Italian détente was multiple and significant. The Soviet commitment to a global policy of détente had an effect on both countries and their relations. The complementarity of Soviet commitment to this policy, Yugoslav closeness with the Soviets and the crisis in Yugoslav-Italian relations in 1967 did not bode well for the success of these efforts. Then Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia accelerated Yugoslav-Italian détente. Both sides thought that with mutual cooperation they could strengthen their own national security against the danger of the Soviet threat. Yugoslavia needed a strong ally in the Mediterranean and Italy needed an ally who would, with the depth of its territory and stability of its geostrategic position, potentially remove direct Soviet danger from Italian borders. Later Brežnev’s commitment to détente on a global scale, full normalization of relations with Yugoslavia and the establishment of closer contacts with Italy resulted in the strengthening of Italian-Yugoslav relations, but the independent improvement of relations between these two countries had the indirect effect that they no longer saw the Soviet Union and its presence as threatening. Instead it was seen as an important factor of stability and therefore, a power which went from being a potential danger to becoming a partner in the future progress towards European collective stability and cooperation. 35

AJ, APR, KPR, I-5-b, Report of DSIP, 11 June 1971. Ibid.

36

48

French Diplomacy and the Road to the Osimo Agreements Stanislav Sretenović In 1945, France emerged from the Second World War as a victorious power alongside the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Together with these victorious countries, it participated in the occupation of defeated Germany and played an active role in the post-war peace settlement. However, France was seen at that time as the “weakest” of the great powers, as a great power which obtained (or retained) its status more on the basis of the memory of its key role in international relations before the Second World War than on the basis of its real contribution to the victory of the Allies in the War. Aside from Germany, traditionally the most important preoccupation of French foreign policy, France was interested in the future of its Transalpine neighbor Italy, but showed no particular interest in Eastern Europe which was seen as part of the Soviet sphere of influence. During the preparation of the peace treaties with five former German allies, signed solemnly in Paris on 10 February 1947, France only took an active part in the drafting of the treaty with Italy. The creation of the Free Territory of Trieste – under the protection of the UN Security Council – through the Peace treaty with Italy, as well as the difficulties of Italian-Yugoslav relations from that moment onwards, were not of particular interest to the French, although they were carefully observed by their diplomats. The relative lack of involvement of the French in Italian-Yugoslav relations from 1945 onwards and during the détente of the 1970s was a surprise for the author of this paper. During the Great War and the period between the two world wars, the French government was involved and interested politically, militarily, economically and culturally in ItalianSerbian relations which, from 1918, were made more adversarial by the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians/Yugoslavia. Until 1939, in an effort to build an anti-German grouping, France worked on the reconciliation of its Italian ally and rival with its Serbian ally-protégé from the Great War. It was a difficult goal to achieve, as Italian nationalism was constantly opposed to Slovenian and Croatian nationalism within the Yugoslav ideology sustained by the Serbs. We expected to find the heritage of the inter-war period in French participation 49

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

in Italian-Yugoslav relations in the 1970s. However, in the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in La Courneuve, in the under-series Yugoslavia, we find only one box of documents dedicated to ItalianYugoslav relations in the 1970s in existence together with documents regarding relations between Yugoslavia and Austria and Yugoslavia and American countries (United States excepted) in the same period.1 These documents were made available to researchers only very recently. They show that French ambassadors in Rome and Belgrade were very well informed of the state of Italian-Yugoslav relations in the period leading up to the Osimo agreements, which they observed systematically and in detail. They suggest also that if France was an excellent observer, it was not an actor in Italian-Yugoslav relations. In this paper, we will examine who the French diplomats that observed Italian-Yugoslav relations in the 1970s were, how they gathered their information and which subjects and issues were of particular interest to them. The central administration of Quai d’Orsay showed some interest in Italian-Yugoslav relations only from 1971, when it wrote its first memo on that subject to the French diplomatic representatives abroad. We will examine how the question of Italian-Yugoslav relations became more important for French diplomacy from that moment in the context of preparations for the Conference of European Security and Cooperation.

1.  From the “opening to the left” to the “opening to the East” in Italy: Italian-Yugoslav relations according to French diplomats (1962-1969) With no occupation forces on the ground and engaged in different internal and external problems especially regarding its colonial empire, France was not a signatory of the 5 October 1954 Memorandum of Understanding regarding the Free Territory of Trieste between the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Yugoslavia.2 According to the Memorandum, the Free Territory of Trieste was divided temporarily into Zone A (including the city of Trieste) under Italian administration and Zone B under Yugoslav administration. From that moment on, Belgrade considered the line of demarcation between Zones A and B as a state border. Rome denied the existence of the state border and insisted that this was merely a line of demarcation within the Free Territory of Trieste in line with the peace settlement of 1947. On the occasion of the signing of the Memorandum, French diplomacy expressed its agreement with the solutions that had been adopted and its conviction that all future possible 1



2

AFMFA, s. Europe 1944, ss. Jugoslavia 1971-1976, b. 3763. United Nations Treaty S., doc. 3297 (New York: 1956), 100-18.

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French Diplomacy and the Road to the Osimo Agreements

problems between the two countries could be resolved through “friendly negotiations”. With the gathering pace of European integration processes marked by the signing of the Treaty of Rome (Common Market and Euratom) on 25 March 1957 and the search for the “proper place” for France in international relations announced by General Charles de Gaulle after his coming to power in 1958,3 France found itself detached from Italian-Yugoslav relations, which continued to be seen as a reflection of the tensions between the Communist bloc and the West. The year 1962 was decisive in French foreign policy. With the Evian agreements, the Algerian question was resolved. De Gaulle orientated his policy towards European and nuclear questions, trying to oppose the “European Europe” under French influence to the “Atlantic community” under the dominance of the United States. In the European policy of de Gaulle, the Federal Republic of Germany had an essential role, much more important than that of Italy. At the same time, de Gaulle was looking for French autonomy in nuclear matters and within NATO. In his European ambitions, de Gaulle met with the opposition of the United States. The Kennedy administration did not hesitate to intervene in the internal affairs of some European countries. This was the case with Italy, where the American administration strongly supported the “opening to the left” of Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani (1954, 1958-59, 1960-63, 198283, 1987). A Christian-Democrat, Fanfani created a new government in February 1962, incorporating the Social-Democrats. This tendency was accentuated with the government of Aldo Moro (1963-68, 1974-76) in November 1963, which consisted of Christian-Democrats, SocialDemocrats and the Socialists, unifying in this way the non-Communist left and the Christian-Democrats. The creation of governments led by Fanfani and Moro was the result of the efforts of several advisors of President Kennedy initiated at the very beginning of his presidency. Contacts were established between American and Italian trade unions as well as with the Socialist leader Pietro Nenni, who took on ministerial positions in both governments. In terms of foreign policy this political combination signified Italy’s link to “Atlantic Europe” and the end of the de Gaulle’s desire to attract Italy together with Germany to his project of “European Europe”.4 One of the consequences of American involvement in Italian affairs was the policy of Moro towards Yugoslavia. Moro’s aim was to establish relations of “intensity and friendship” with its eastern neighbor in order to show that two countries with different political and economic systems could cooperate fruitfully, especially at an economic and cultural 3



4



Serge Berstein, La France de l’expansion. La République gaullienne (1958-1969) (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1989), 35-44. Georges-Henri Soutou, La Guerre froide, 1943-1990 (Paris: Fayard, 2011), 608-9.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

level. Supported by economically more developed Italy, Yugoslavia was to play the role of a “Trojan horse” within the Eastern bloc, as a country that would show that an alternative “way towards communism” than that of Moscow was possible. The French diplomats in Italy and Yugoslavia in the mid-1960s saw Italian-Yugoslav relations as being in a state of constant change characterized by highs and lows. For the French diplomats, these relations were a function of the unstable internal situation in both Italy and Yugoslavia. The perception of instability in Italy resulted from the constant political struggles which manifested themselves in frequent changes of government. However, it was Yugoslavia which was seen as the weakest and more unstable state that was on the brink of disintegration and in a state of constant economic crisis. The “self-management” introduced by the Constitution of 1963 and supported by strong official propaganda, showed its disastrous effects on the economy. Instability also resulted from relations between the different socialist republics within the federation and within the communist political elite of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In this period, Josip Broz settled his scores with Aleksandar Ranković (1966), a senior Serbian Communist official, strengthening his own leader cult along the way.5 The “non-alignment” proclaimed in foreign policy showed its weaknesses due to the low level of economic development and the dispersal of the countries within the movement. Along with “self-management”, “non-alignment” became the most important ideological frame of reference for political use in the domestic political arena. Regarding Italy, the regime presented itself as a decisive and strong partner that defended “Yugoslav” interests, especially in border and minority questions seen as resolved by the “victory over fascism” during the war. Yet at the same time, the regime expected economic, financial and cultural support from Italy to decrease the internal tensions in Yugoslavia. A sign of the improvement of Italian-Yugoslav relations was the visit of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro to Yugoslavia in November 1965. At that time, France changed its ambassador in Belgrade. The new French Ambassador Pierre Francfort (1965-70) was known for being experienced in East European affairs. Prior to Belgrade, he had been ambassador in Bucharest (1953-58) and Budapest (1962-65). In his diplomatic career, as the Second Counselor of the French Embassy in Washington in 1952, he also observed US policy towards the Eastern Bloc. After the two sides 5



Stanislav Sretenović, Artan Puto, “The Leader Cults in the Western Balkans (1945-90): Josip Broz Tito and Enver Hoxha,” in The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships. Stalin and Eastern Block, ed. Balézs Apor et al. (London: Palgrave – McMillan, 2004), 208-23.

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French Diplomacy and the Road to the Osimo Agreements

expressed their mutual understanding on international and bilateral issues during Moro’s visit and signed commercial and cultural agreements, Francfort observed Moro’s strong intention to present the visit to Yugoslavia as an important success.6 For the French Ambassador, it was a confirmation of the Italian policy of “opening to the East”. Indeed, it was the second visit of an Italian politician of the highest rank to Eastern Europe in the period of less than one month. Moro’s visit to Yugoslavia came following the visit to Poland in October 1965 of Italian President Giuseppe Saragat (1964-71) who was known to the French political and diplomatic elite as a former Italian Ambassador in Paris (1945-46). The declaration by Moro that his government would postpone the repayment of Italian loans by Yugoslavia and would support Yugoslavia’s integration into the economic system of Western Europe was underlined by Francfort in his telegram to the Quai d’Orsay.7 The French Ambassador in Belgrade based his observations on the information received separately from both sides in the talks. Each side found itself in front of a partner better disposed to talk and agree than previously expected.8 Francfort judged that the conclusion of the talks – “apparently satisfactory for the two sides” – was the result of their careful preparation. It was also the result of the new approach in bilateral relations with Yugoslavia regarding territorial problems introduced by Moro before this trip to Belgrade. In front of the Italian Parliament, Moro stated that he would not evoke the “disputed territorial questions”, an attitude that was accepted in Belgrade. For Francfort, the visit signified Moro’s and Tito’s wish to establish their relations on a “normal basis” and even as “good neighbors”. The French Ambassador saw in the approach of not raising disputed questions and adopting a “favorable disposal” towards the other as proof that “the moral aspect was of real political importance”,9 an observation that probably referred to American influence. As an example of the impact of this “positive” attitude in negotiations Francfort observed that, surprisingly for both sides, the difficult minority question was mentioned as a “point of comprehension” even if the minority question was not on the program of the talks. However, the French Ambassador came back to the arguments regarding the situation on the ground and the weight of minority questions in both countries. The Slovene minority in Italy was more numerous than the Italian minority in Yugoslavia, which is why Belgrade was in 6



7

9 8

AFMFA, Europe 1944, Yugoslavia (1961-1970), b. 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 12 November 1965, tel., 2; this document was transmitted to the French diplomatic representatives in Rome, New York (United Nations), Brussels, The Hague, Vienna and Athens. Ibid., Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 15 November 1965, tel. Ibid., Francfort to MFA (Department of Europe), Belgrade, 15 November 1965, copy. Ibid., 5.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

the stronger position to demand minority protection, a demand that was accepted by Moro. The expulsion of Italians from the former Italian territories that became Yugoslav in 1945 was not mentioned. From Rome, French Ambassador Armand Bérard,10 an experienced diplomat previously posted to Washington, Bonn, Tokyo and New York, informed the Quai d’Orsay about the attitude of Farnesina regarding Moro’s visit to Belgrade.11 Without speaking about morality and politics as his colleague in Belgrade had, he informed the Quai d’Orsay that Italian diplomacy represented Moro’s visit as one of “diplomatic routine” which contributed to the utilitarian strengthening of the ties between the two countries in the fields of economy and culture. Bérard confirmed that the territorial questions were not mentioned during the talks. The French Ambassador underlined that the minority question had a “painful character” for the Italians because the number of Italians in Yugoslavia in the hinterland of Trieste had diminished between the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (London Agreement) in 1954 and Moro’s visit to Belgrade (1965) from 70,000 to 30,000 persons. At the same time, the “Yugoslav community” constantly increased in Italy because of the arrival of political émigrés. Although the French Ambassador did not mention the sources for the given figures and what exact territory he was referring to when speaking of the hinterland of Trieste, the reasons for this process, unfavorable to Italy, lay in the different political systems of the two countries. The London Agreement provoked a new wave of displacement of Italians from Area B of the Free Territory of Trieste put under the Yugoslav administration, as it was seen as the definitive establishment of the communist regime that they did not want to serve.12 Through economic and cultural rapprochement with Yugoslavia, Rome tried to stop the dual process of displacement towards Italy from the East. Aside from that, Bérard observed the satisfaction of Italian diplomacy that Italy held the first place in terms of Yugoslavia’s trading partners (15% of exports and 11% of imports) while financial ties were constantly expanding. The development of Italian-Yugoslav bilateral relations could also be explained by the strong relations established in the 1960s between the League of the Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and the parties of the Italian left. After the crisis provoked by Tito’s split with Stalin in 1948, the relations with the Italian Communist Party again became close. In 10

Armand Bérard, Cinq années au Palais Farnèse. Un ambassadeur se souvient (Paris: Plon, 1982), 237. 11 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Bérard to MFA, Rome, 16 November 1965, tel. 12 Raoul Pupo, Il lungo esodo. Istria: le persecuzioni, le foibe, l’esilio (Milano: Rizzoli, 2005), 334.

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French Diplomacy and the Road to the Osimo Agreements

the message that the PCI sent to the SKJ on the occasion of the Yugoslav national holiday of 29 November 1965, the Italian communists invited their comrades from the East towards “closer ties between the European parties on the unity of our entire continent regarding security problems”.13 Within this rhetoric, Francfort saw the existence of the “European conception” within the PCI and the SKJ, a conception that is confirmed through the relations of the SKJ with “all Italian parties from the left”, especially with the socialists of Nenni.14 The observation of Francfort was confirmed by the mutual visits of the delegations of the SKJ, the Italian Socialist Party and the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity in April and July 1966.15 These relations were developed on the basis of the memory of the partisan anti-fascist cooperation in 1945, but also on the geographical proximity of the two countries, which contributed to the exchanges of party representatives from the border regions of Friuli and Slovenia. The SKJ was very attentive to the relationship of the PCI with the “Catholics” and “Socialists” in Italy, as well as with the French Communist Party.16 Through the strong ties with the PCI, the SKJ tried to influence Italian domestic politics in favor of the parties of the left and tried to regain some influence in the “international proletarian movement”. In November 1966, after the visit of the delegation of the SKJ to the XI Congress of the PCI, the joint communiqué was published. The two parties expressed their points of view on border questions in Europe, inspired by Soviet conceptions: “For the establishment of détente in Europe, the recognition of the borders of the current states, the existence of the two German states by all the states and particularly German Federal Republic, is essential”.17 The two parties insisted on the ideological argument inherited from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War that if borders are not recognized, this would result in the strengthening of nationalist and neo-Nazi tendencies. In fact, this ideological construction was intended for internal political use within the context of the strengthening of the activity of extreme right parties in Italy and of anti-communist groups in Yugoslavia.18 According to French diplomacy, in December 1966, the established Italian-Yugoslav economic relations brought the first concrete changes in Yugoslavia. Based on the information from the Italian embassy in Belgrade, 13

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 1 December 1965. Ibid., 2. 15 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 30 April 1966; ibid., Belgrade, 5 July 1966. 16 Ibid., Belgrade, 23 November 1966. 17 Ibid., 3. 18 Marina Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007), 336. 14

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

Francfort wrote to Quai d’Orsay about the “peaceful invasion” of the shops in Trieste by some 200,000 citizens of Yugoslavia as a consequence of the opening of borders without visa requirements, something which had been decided during Moro’s visit.19 The bulk of these travelers were from the socialist republics of Slovenia and Croatia, geographically the closest to Italy. The facilitation of visa-free travel contributed to the economic development of Slovenia, which had already established commercial ties with the Italian region of Friuli. Francfort came back to the discussion on morality and politics. Not without cynicism, he concluded that “the mercantile side of the relations with the West corrupted the socialist morality that was already damaged”.20 On the political level, the French Ambassador observed that the exchanges with Italy could provoke differences of behavior on the part of Slovenia and Croatia in relation to the other republics and the Federation. Thus, the most important question became whether this process would bring pro-Western change throughout Yugoslavia or whether in fact it would contribute to the deepening of its internal problems and its dissolution. French diplomacy was perplexed regarding this question. When the negotiations on the new ItalianYugoslav commercial treaty broke down in January 1967 and ItalianYugoslav relations entered into a period of crisis,21 French diplomats placed particular attention on the situation in Croatia. The General Consul in Zagreb noticed the augmentation of interest of the Croatian communist leaders in an expansion of the rights of the Italian minority in Croatia.22 Yet the reason was not to satisfy Rome in return for the continuation of commercial negotiations. The real reason was in order to pressure the Yugoslav and Italian governments so as to secure gains for Croatia in domestic and foreign policy. Some ten thousand minority Italians well overseen by “the reliable communists” could not represent a threat for Croatia or for the Federation. However, by defending the rights of the Italian minority, the Croatian communists wished to defend the rights of Croatia supposedly endangered within the Federation.23 According to the French Consul in Zagreb, the Croatian communists also wished to influence the Slovenian minority in Italy to ask for the same rights. The Slovenian minority in Italy could embarrass the local government because it supported the opposition parties to the Christian-Democrats in power. From Belgrade, Francfort criticized the excessive reaction of the senior Croatian communist official Josip Djerdja, a Parliamentary deputy 19

21 22

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 8 December 1966. Ibid., 2. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 27 January 1967, tel. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, General Consul in Zagreb to Francfort, Zagreb, 17 March 1967. 23 Ibid., 5. 20

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from the former Italian territory Zara (Zadar) and ex-diplomat whom he saw as an extremist constantly seeking to stir up disputes with Italy.24 The French Ambassador thought that the interest of both sides was to maintain good relations. The behavior of Djerdja was seen as a way for the central government in Belgrade to pressure Italy to continue the commercial negotiations by showing the kind of anti-Italian reaction that could be provoked in Croatia. From Italian sources, the French chargé d’affaires in Belgrade Gerard Amanrich described the Yugoslav tactic of diplomatic pressure which sought to introduce France into the game. The senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated to Italian diplomats that if Italy did not change its attitude in the commercial negotiations, they would turn towards others, “particularly France”.25 Amanrich commented on this attitude only with an exclamation mark. Yet he was aware that the Yugoslav “manoeuvres” were orientated to appeal to a part of the Italian public opinion on the left with the aim of increasing pressure on the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amintore Fanfani (1965-68), considered too intransigent in the commercial negotiations. The observed radicalization of the tone towards Italy of the Croatian daily Vjesnik was also seen as part of the attempt to pressure the Italian government into restarting the commercial negotiations.26 At the end of 1967, during the crisis in Italian-Yugoslav relations, France changed its ambassador in Rome. The new French Ambassador, Etienne Burin des Roziers27 – a man close to Charles de Gaulle – who had previously been chargé d’affaires in Belgrade at the time of the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding (1954), then ambassador in Warsaw (1958-62) and Secretary-General of the Presidency (196267), believed in the possibility of improving Italian-Yugoslav relations through contacts at the highest political level.28 The opportunity was the visit to Rome, in January 1968, of the Federal Prime Minister Mika Špiljak, (1967-69) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Marko Nikezić (1965-68), high-level communist officials from Croatia and Serbia. This was the return visit for Moro’s trip to Belgrade in 1965 and the first visit to Italy since the Second World War of a Yugoslav Prime Minister. The French ambassador transmitted, without commenting, some points of the 24

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 13 April 1967. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Gerard Amanrich to MFA, Belgrade, 16 May 1967. 26 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, General Consul in Zagreb to Francfort, Zagreb, 25 May 1967. 27 Etienne Burin des Roziers, Retour aux sources. 1962, l’année décisive (Paris: Plon, 1986), 36-49. 28 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Burin des Roziers to MFA, 21 December 1967, tel. 25

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

official communiqué, saying that the two Prime Ministers expressed their wish for the improvement of their bilateral relations, their devotion to peace and détente29 in the world. On that occasion, President Saragat was invited to visit Tito in Belgrade.30 In communication with representatives of the Farnesina, the French Ambassador was told that only general questions were raised with Špiljak, and that the visit represented the end of the “coolness” in relations, which characterized the year 1967, due to the Yugoslav rapprochement with Moscow.31 Indeed, during the IsraeliArab conflict of 1967, the Soviets wished to increase their Mediterranean fleet and Fanfani suspected that the Yugoslavs were willing to give them access to the Adriatic ports. Moro’s interest in Adriatic questions was interpreted by the Italian diplomats (and accepted by the French) as being linked to his political origins as a deputy from Bari. The French position towards British access to the Common Market had some echoes on Italian-Yugoslav relations. French opposition to British access to the Common Market in November 1967 provoked the Italians to announce a “period of reflection after the failure within the Common market” in regard to Italian support for Yugoslavia’s candidacy.32 Yet the French did not oppose the Italian long-term policy of drawing Yugoslavia closer to the West in order to bring about domestic change in the country. In Rome, Burin des Roziers expressed his conception of realism in policy: he insisted that the development of Italian-Yugoslav relations was based on the “strongly concrete figure” that Italy is the most important trading partner of Yugoslavia. Ambassador Roger Seydoux, the French representative to NATO in Brussels, got confirmation from his Italian colleague that the visit of Špiljak was “very satisfactory”, that “the Yugoslavs” showed themselves to be “moderate and constructive” and that Yugoslavia, inspired by the “growing flexibility” between Bonn and Pankow, will improve its relations with the German Federal Republic.33 On the other hand, the Yugoslavs spoke about the economic reforms in their country that “already” had a certain influence in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, a sentence destined to show to the West the impact of the Yugoslav model on the Eastern bloc. Within the Quai d’Orsay, Seydoux’s 29

Georges-Henri Soutou, “Convergence theories in France during the 1960s and 1970s,” in The Making of Détente. Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965-75, ed. Wilfried Loth, Georges-Henri Soutou (New York: Routledge, 2008), 25-45. 30 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 10 January 1968, tel. 31 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 11 January 1968, tel. 32 Ibid., 3. 33 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Roger Seydoux to MFA, Brussels, 17 January 1968.

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note was transmitted to the Directorate for Eastern Europe “for their information”. In Belgrade, Francfort wrote a detailed note of 14 pages on Špiljak’s visit to Rome after a conversation with his Italian colleague.34 Špiljak’s visit to Rome and the topics discussed are explained by domestic political factors both in Italy and in Yugoslavia. Because of the approach of Italian elections in May 1968, the Italian government asked the Yugoslavs not to raise territorial and minority questions, seen as “delicate bilateral questions” which could provoke inappropriate campaigns and polemics in Italy.35 The request was accepted by the Yugoslav side on the grounds of supporting the leftist parties in Italy. The territorial and minority questions were seen by leftist propaganda as subjects that parties of the Italian right used for their political promotion. In Yugoslavia, Francfort observed the split in the communist political elite between the pro-Western and proSoviet camps. For the French, Špiljak’s visit to Rome was a sign that Yugoslavia would not renounce its Western friendships. Moreover, the note from Zagreb confirmed that during the visit to Rome, Špiljak had a “cordial meeting” with Pope Paul VI, information given by Špiljak, himself in Zagreb during a local communist meeting and not exploited by the press.36 During the meeting in Zagreb, the questions to Špiljak focused on economic relations with the Western countries, something that was seen as an expression of the “essential preoccupations” of the Croats. For the French observer, probably the Consul, Western influence was penetrating among the Croats and starting to show results. During that time, the relationship with the Common Market was the most important preoccupation of the Yugoslav government. Yugoslav Communists expected that entrance to the Common market would resolve the disastrous economic situation in their country and would confirm the country’s position as a model for the Eastern bloc. The decision from March 1968 of the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community not to discuss the demand for negotiations with Yugoslavia, provoked an anti-Italian reaction in the country. This decision was based on the Italian veto on negotiating with any country before the resolution of the question of Britain’s candidacy, refused in 1967 by France. Yugoslav officials and the press portrayed Italy as being responsible for the failure of Yugoslavia’s candidacy.37 They tried to play on the FrancoItalian rivalries within the Common market, accusing Italy of wishing to have its revenge on France for the French veto on Britain’s candidacy. 34

36 37 35

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 22 January 1968. Ibid., 2. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Note for the Embassy, Zagreb, 2 February 1968. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 18 March 1968.

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Furthermore, they complained that Yugoslavia was the “accidental victim” of the Italian settling of accounts with “its Mediterranean rivals”. One representative of Yugoslavia’s Foreign Ministry complained to Francfort regarding the Italian veto in Brussels and put the responsibility on Fanfani, who presumably wished to satisfy the Italian right before the elections.38 In communication with Francfort, the under-secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Radivoj Uvalić – a senior communist diplomat of confidence from Serbia, who got his PhD in law in Paris and was ambassador to Norway, Austria and France – accused Italy of hiding behind the economic questions the more political border problem in Trieste and the bad position of the Slovenian minority in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.39 Using the communist rhetoric inherited from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, Uvalic blamed Italy for considering the ItalianYugoslav border as temporary and having pretentions over Yugoslav territory. The Yugoslav diplomat assured Francfort that, for Yugoslavia, the question was resolved “through facts”, without mentioning explicitly the occupation zones in Trieste and the expulsion of ethnic Italians from the ex-Italian territories after 1945. In the manner of the victorious Yugoslav communists of 1945, Uvalic demanded that the “settlement should be legalized” in the imminent future. Before that, he said, it would be necessary to limit the actions of “right-wing forces in Trieste”. The recriminations of Yugoslav diplomacy against Italy did not leave Francfort indifferent. He prepared a response that protected the French position in the EEC: “Maybe, one can judge it expedient in Rome the transfer to France of the responsibility for the loss of time of which Belgrade is complaining”.40 However, he was not sure that this way of presenting the attitudes of France would be accepted in Belgrade. At the same time, the French consul in Zagreb reported the orchestration of anti-Italian feelings by the newspaper “Vijesnik”.41 Employing the usual language of Yugoslav national communists, the Croatian newspaper accused Italy of irredentism, chauvinism, propaganda to “again grab Istria” and “other Adriatic regions”, domination on “both sides of the Adriatic”, preparing and financing the intelligence units to be introduced in Istria. The consul in Zagreb was aware that Yugoslav propaganda was in the function of the approaching Italian elections with the aim of supporting the Italian left. He informed Francfort that the periodic “expressions of bad mood” of Croatian public opinion does not last long and that it would stop after 38

40 41 39

Ibid., 3. Ibid., 4. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 18 March 1968, 7. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, General consul to ambassador, Zagreb, 30 April 1968.

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the Italian elections.42 The defeat of the Italian right in the elections of May 1968 was accepted with satisfaction in Yugoslavia. At the beginning of June, the French Consul in Zagreb reported the end of anti-Italian campaigns in the press.43 The results of Italian elections were welcomed by Francfort in Belgrade, who confirmed the improvement in relations between the two countries.44 During the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the evolution of Italian-Yugoslav relations was in line with the general policy of France. De Gaulle condemned strongly the Soviet intervention and saw it as a consequence of the division of Europe into blocs, something that should be overcome. The Soviet intervention contributed to the strengthening of bilateral relations between Italy and Yugoslavia.45 From 1948, Tito’s regime was obsessed with the possibility of an eventual Soviet intervention and used this fear to obtain Western support and to strengthen the internal cohesion of the country. Italy feared that in the case of Soviet occupation of Yugoslavia its army within NATO would be the first to face the Red army. That is why the Italian government reacted to the Yugoslav military measures of protection against the presumed Soviet attack on the Eastern border by assuring the Yugoslavs that they had no need to “be worried” about their Western border with Italy. Francfort underlined that this Italian reassurance to Yugoslavia was “spontaneous”, i.e. not at the instigation of the Americans, but that it did not imply Italian renouncement on the territorial issue in Trieste.46 At the same time, the contacts of the Italian left and the Yugoslav communists were intensified to stress the common views on the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. On the economic front, the French diplomat observed the intensification of relations and the “full restoration of the climate of good neighbors”. However, French diplomacy was aware that the impulse for the restoration of good Italian-Yugoslav relations also came from American-Italian contacts. In October 1968, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Giuseppe Medici came back from New York where he had contacts with representatives of the State Department and his Yugoslav counterpart, Marko Nikezić. Together with the State Department, Farnesina was worried about the consequences on Yugoslavia of possible Soviet political and economic pressure in the long term.47 Immediate 42

44 45 46 47 43

Ibid., 3. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, General consul to ambassador, Zagreb, 4 June 1968. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 18 June 1968. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 24 September 1968. Ibid., 2. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 268, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 19 October 1968, tel.

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Soviet military intervention was ruled out after the contacts in New York. The Italian military and civil interlocutors of the French Ambassador in Rome also excluded the possibility of Soviet intervention by sea against Albania because of the weakness of the Soviet fleet and stressed the importance of the capacity of Yugoslavia to resist Soviet pressure. Western diplomacy underestimated the use of the Soviet threat in Yugoslav domestic politics. The intervention in Czechoslovakia weighed upon the Soviet Union. Within half a year, the Soviets turned from an aggressive to a more conciliatory policy in Europe. Under the Soviet impulse, in March 1969, the political-consultative committee of the Warsaw Pact launched from its meeting in Budapest an appeal for the organization of a Conference on European Security and Cooperation in Europe.48 The Council of NATO held in Washington in April 1969, responded with interest to the Soviet initiative. At the Washington Council, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pietro Nenni laid out the idea of the organization of one huge conference that would bring together the countries of Western Europe, of the Warsaw Pact, of neutral and nonaligned countries as well as the Soviet Union and the United States.49 During his visit to Belgrade at the end of May 1969, Nenni insisted that Italian-Yugoslav relations would be an example of the possibility of “cooperation and peaceful coexistence” between two countries with two different political systems, “one linked to the pact, the other nonaligned”.50 Nenni insisted on European cooperation, advocated “the end of the bipolar system” and the development of a “multi polar system” where Europe would play an important role in “spreading democracy in the world”. The Italian minister paid tribute to de Gaulle’s vision of the future of Europe,51 but expressed his reservation for the “methods” of the General, certainly thinking of his veto on Britain’s accession to the Common Market. The French chargé d’affaires in Belgrade concluded that the discourse of Nenni was very well received in Yugoslavia. In fact, Nenni spoke more as a politician than as a diplomat. Together with Tito, he presented himself as a “champion of socialism” and “eminent combatant against fascism”. In the rhetoric of Nenni, French diplomacy saw two frustrated countries wishing to forget their domestic and foreign problems by insisting on their international importance. But, under Italian instigation, Italian-Yugoslav bilateral relations could become a part of the wider discussions on security and cooperation in Europe. 48

Ljubivoje Aćimović, Problemi bezbednosti i saradnje u Evropi (Beograd: IMPP, Prosveta, 1978), 447. 49 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Serge Gelade to MFA, Belgrade, 30 May 1969, tel. 50 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Serge Gelade to MFA, Belgrade, 4th June 1969. 51 Ibid., 3.

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2.  France and the solution of the “ultimate consequence of the war” in Europe (1969-1975) European questions had priority in the foreign policy of Georges Pompidou from the beginning of his Presidency in June 1969.52 This was clear from the choice of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Maurice Schumann, known as “the most Gaullist of the Europeans and the most European of the Gaullists”. Pompidou was skeptical of de Gaulle’s Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals” and thought that the process of détente should be gradual. In the relationship with the Soviet Union, which he intended to develop, he rejected the Soviet tendency to “freeze” the world order characterized by the two blocs and to recognize the status quo in Europe. In October 1969, Pompidou was the first statesman in the West to officially accept the Soviet proposal for a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, but under the condition that questions of human rights would be addressed. In the relationship with Germany, he supported the Ostpolitik of chancellor Willy Brandt, but was suspicious about the reunification of the two Germanys as its final aim. Pompidou wished to supervise the Ostpolitik through the strengthening of the Franco-German relationship and of the European construction. Italian-Yugoslav relations remained of limited significance for French diplomacy. While Pompidou accepted the Soviet proposal for the CSCE, Italian President Saragat was on an official visit to Yugoslavia from 2 to 6 October 1969. This was the first visit of an Italian president to its Eastern neighbor after the Second World War and represented not only a sign of friendship but also the coronation of the evolution of around a decade of bilateral relations that sought to overcome the “difficulties of the past”.53 Burin des Roziers observed that the opposition to fascism and a common experiences of the resistance, both of Saragat and Tito, would contribute to the sealing of the friendship of the two countries. However, the French Ambassador in Rome was aware that “everything is still unresolved”, especially the border and minority questions, which were not intended to be discussed during the Saragat visit. Nevertheless, Tito made an allusion to the border question, but found a reaction only from the side of the Italian press, not from Italian officials.54 What really interested French diplomacy was the impact of Saragat’s visit on the other East European 52

Georges Pompidou et l’Europe, ed. J.R. Bernard et al. (Bruxelles: Complexe, 1995), 691; Thierno Diallo, La politique étrangère de Georges Pompidou (Paris: LGDJ, 1992), 271. 53 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 1 October 1969, tel. 54 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 6 October 1969, tel.

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countries. This is why the telegram from the Ambassador in Prague speaking about the wishes of Czechoslovaks to build their relationship with the West on the model of Italian-Yugoslav relations was of particular interest and was transmitted from the Quai d’Orsay to the embassies in Moscow, Rome and Belgrade.55 From Belgrade, Francfort confirmed that Italian-Yugoslav relations would encourage the socialist countries to come closer to Western Europe.56 Moreover, he adopted the point of view of his Italian colleague in Belgrade, Ambassador Folco Trabalza, that Saragat’s visit would diminish both Italian and Yugoslav “nationalism” and would reduce the “nationalist” disputes in Italian domestic policy. At the end of the visit which was represented by both sides as “historical”, Tito was invited to come to Rome in 1970.57 In the meantime, in May 1970, the two Ministries of Foreign Affairs held the first political consultations on the situation in Europe and the world, wishing to establish an exchange of views on a regular basis.58 Francfort noticed that Yugoslav diplomats and the press expressed their appreciation for the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt and their admiration of Aldo Moro’s foreign policy “in the interest of détente and peace”. The Italians and the Yugoslavs judged Soviet policy as “defensive” and wishing to assure the status quo in Europe because of the Chinese danger. On the other hand, French diplomacy of that time, fearful of being excluded, was frustrated by the contacts between the Soviets and Willy Brandt. France was worried about preserving the quadripartite prerogatives on Germany that could be neglected in the preparation of the German-Soviet treaty of August 1970. The international context was favorable to the development of Italian-Yugoslav relations. Tito’s visit to Italy was scheduled from the 10 to the 15 of December 1970 with a charged program in which he was to be received by Saragat and by the Pope, Paul VI.59 However, the visit was planned during difficult internal situations both in Italy and Yugoslavia. Italy was affected by social dissatisfaction, strikes and political tensions, while the confrontation between the socialist republics and the federation was deepening in Yugoslavia with the expression of Croatian protest against the central government (“Mass-movement”). The new French ambassador in Belgrade Pierre Sebilleau (1970-76) – who previously was in Libya, Brazil and Denmark – reported on the manifestations of Yugoslav domestic rivalries concerning foreign 55

57 58 59 56

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Lalouette to MFA, Prague, 9 October 1969, tel. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 10 October 1969, tel. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 11 October 1969. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Francfort to MFA, Belgrade, 22 May 1970. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 8 December 1970, tel.

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policy. A few days before Tito’s intended visit to Italy, a low ranking Croatian communist from Zagreb denounced publically the “Bulgarian pretentions on Macedonia” and the pretentions of “some Italian circles” to “seize” Zone B of Trieste.60 The Italian embassy in Belgrade feared that, at the moment when the tendency in Europe was to affirm the status quo, Belgrade would make a parallel between the settling of the contentious issue of Trieste and the recognition of the Oder-Neisse line, following the example of the negotiations that led to the signing of the German-Polish treaty a few days later (7  December 1970). Sebilleau assessed that the Yugoslav diplomacy did not want to compromise its relations with Italy through such a statement. The evocation of Bulgarian (implicitly Soviet) and Italian threats was, in fact, in the service of domestic policy. Yugoslav propaganda used the fear of external menace to strengthen internal cohesion. Given such domestic situations both in Yugoslavia and Italy, one Parliamentary question in Rome provoked a diplomatic incident. The Parliamentary question by two senators of the Italian Social Movement, considered a neo-fascist party, and a DemoChristian deputy form Trieste close to Fanfani was regarding Moro’s attitude in case the border problem was to be brought up by Tito. For Burin des Roziers, Moro’s response that the “Italian Government will not take into consideration any renouncement on legitimate national interests” was a sign that Farnesina was anxious about the question as well as Italian public opinion.61 The response of Aldo Moro to the parliamentary question provoked the postponement of Tito’s visit to Italy.62 For Sebilleau, the Yugoslav reaction was one of excessiveness, reflecting more the deep internal problems than those in relations with Italy. The Yugoslav domestic problems concerned the weakening of Tito’s power in the face of Croatian and Slovenian pressure for a border resolution with Italy, which he sought to balance with references to disputes over the Yugoslav-Bulgarian border in Macedonia.63 The French Ambassador in Belgrade agreed with his colleague in Rome that the diplomatic incident was “serious” and that the situation should be repaired as soon as possible.64 He advised the Quai d’Orsay that France, “ally of Italy and friend of Yugoslavia”, should encourage the two sides 60

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 5 December 1970; this document was transmitted to 20 French diplomatic addresses abroad. 61 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 9 December 1970, tel. 62 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 10 December 1970, tel. 63 Ibid. 64 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 12 December 1970, tel.

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to overcome the crisis. The Ambassador remained without a response from the central administration in Paris and continued to be an attentive observer of Italian-Yugoslav relations. In fact, Italian-Yugoslav relations were clearly limited by factors that resulted from the divergent positions of the two countries inherited from the war. Italy wished to hold on to the terms of the Peace Treaty of 1947 that established the Free Territory of Trieste and was a pledge for Italian integration in the Western world, while Yugoslavia, in the manner of the Soviet Union, seen as the threat and as the model at the same time, wished to assure the status quo of its territorial conquests from the war. Yugoslav diplomacy’s offensive in favor of securing de jure recognition of the demarcation lines between the two zones of the territory of Trieste did not surprise French diplomacy. The Yugoslav diplomats in Rome evoked the German-Soviet and German-Polish treaties as models for the recognition of borders in Eastern Europe.65 In Farnesina, these treaties were interpreted as meaning that Bonn did not recognize de jure the new frontiers in Eastern Europe and the possibility was excluded that Italy could do more than the Federal Republic of Germany. Nevertheless, the contacts between the Farnesina and the Yugoslav embassy in Rome continued and the amelioration of Italian-Yugoslav relations was anticipated from January 1971. For both sides, it was important that Tito visited Saragat before the Italian presidential elections in 1971. As reported previously by French diplomacy, the two politicians established a particular understanding which contributed to the good relationship of the two countries. The impulse in that sense came from the highest level of Italian diplomacy. On 21 January 1971, Moro declared to Parliament that Italy would respect “the territorial dispositions that result from the London memorandum of 1954”, an expression that satisfied his Yugoslav counterpart Mirko Tepavac (1969-72).66 The two ministers met in Venice in February 1971 to prepare Tito’s visit. On that occasion, Moro assured Tepavac that Italy considered the demarcation line between Zones A and B as an international border, but that it could not announce this position publically because of the rationale of domestic policy before the presidential elections. Sebilleau informed Paris that the negotiations on the border question were initiated from that moment even if the Italians did not want to pronounce this word.67 In fact, a secret Italian-Yugoslav commission was established to discuss the questions that remained to 65

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (61-70), 269, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 28 December 1970, tel. 66 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 22 January 1971, tel. 67 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 13 February 1971, tel.

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be resolved, such as the demarcation of the border between Italy and Yugoslavia, the rights of minorities and compensation of the Italian goods that were nationalized in Yugoslavia. The French Ambassador in Belgrade was satisfied with the evolution of Italian-Yugoslav relations. It was hoped that the resolution of the “package” of Italian-Yugoslav contentions would come as soon as possible in direct negotiations between the two sides. Once the “package” was resolved, the two sides could notify “with discretion” the United Nations that the “Trieste affair is not anymore on the agenda of the Security Council”.68 The hope for the quick and “discrete” resolution of Italian-Yugoslav disputes shows the preoccupation of the French Ambassador who sustained the Yugoslav positions in contrast to the more prudent Burin des Roziers in Rome. For Sebilleau, it was not conceivable to go to the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe without resolving previously this “ultimate consequence of the war”. In fact, the cohesion of Yugoslavia was at stake. Diplomats in Belgrade speculated on the succession to Tito. The internal problems of Yugoslavia were such that the dissolution of the country after Tito’s death was discussed. Not resolving the border question could allow Italy the possibility of direct negotiations with the bordering republics of Slovenia and Croatia thus jeopardizing the integrity of Yugoslavia once Tito was no longer there. Tito’s visit to Rome took place from 25 to 29 March 1971. The visit presented the cordiality of Italian-Yugoslav relations despite the divergence of views on major international problems and the Trieste question “not being completely resolved”.69 In the context of the negotiations regarding the status of Berlin that involved France, the Quai d’Orsay showed particular interest in Tito’s visit to Rome. The Under-Directorate for Eastern Europe wrote a memo that served as a summary of the evolution of the Trieste problem from 1954 onwards and, based on the telegrams of Burin des Roziers,70 reported the results of Tito’s visit. The note adopted the point of view of the Ambassador in Rome that the visit reflected “fundamentally different” attitudes – the Yugoslavs “hostile to the blocs” and the Italians “very attached to NATO”. The first visit of the president of a socialist country to the Pope was particularly underlined. French diplomacy observed that Pope Paul VI and Tito examined international questions in the “spirit of mutual comprehension” and agreed that the situation had “sensibly 68

Ibid. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Holly Seat, 3567, MFA, Note, Paris, 9 April 1971. 70 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 26 March 1971, tel.; ibid., Rome, 29 March 1971, tel.; ibid., Rome, 1st April 1971, dispatch; ibid., Rome, 5 April 1971, tel. 69

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improved” for about six million Yugoslav Catholics. The satisfaction of Yugoslav Catholics, mostly Croats and Slovenians, could contribute to the internal strengthening of Yugoslavia, desired by France. During the visit of the French Prime Minister Chaban-Delmas and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Maurice Schumann to Belgrade from 22 to 24 April 1971, Tepavac characterized Italian-Yugoslav relations as “very satisfactory” with no reaction from the French side.71 Italy continued to grant loans to Yugoslavia under advantageous conditions.72 After the signature of the treaty regarding the status of Berlin in September 1971 that involved France, Moro met Tepavac in October at the United Nations in New York. The two ministers expected the relaxation of the Soviet pressure on Yugoslavia because of the Soviet satisfaction with the Berlin agreement and the difficult Sino-Soviet relations.73 However, the situation on the ground around Trieste continued to be unstable. In November 1971 an incident occurred concerning the Slovene ethnic group from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, who could not indicate their nationality on Italian official documents for the census.74 The socialist republic of Slovenia supported the protests of the Slovene ethnic group in Italy and the incident gained a certain importance. It was possible because the central government in Belgrade allowed the republics to handle foreign policy with their neighbors. The weakening of central power in Belgrade suited the Italians. The direct contacts with Slovenia and Croatia permitted Italy to expand the circulation of persons and goods in the border zones without Belgrade. However, the explosion of Croatian dissatisfaction with the central government in Belgrade was seen in Rome as a threat which could upset Balkan equilibrium.75 Eventual Croatian independence could benefit the Soviets, who could seize the Dalmatian coast by imposing a pro-Soviet leader as head of state. The diplomats also reported verbal insults against the Italian minority in Croatia. Burin des Roziers assessed that these incidents would not impact on the wish of the senior leaderships of the two countries to resolve the problem of Zone B in Trieste. In fact, it was the internal struggle between senior communist leaders of the Yugoslav republics for Tito’s legacy that conditioned the resolution of the question of Zone B in Trieste. From September 1972, Sebilleau 71

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3767, MFA, Note, Paris, 3 May 1971, circular. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 16 July 1971, tel.; ibid., Robert Richard to Minister of Economy and Finance, Rome, 23 July, 1971. 73 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 7 October 1971, tel. 74 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 20 November 1971. 75 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Burin des Roziers to MFA, Rome, 21 December 1971, tel. 72

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noticed the offensive of Slovenian communist leader and Tito’s possible successor Stane Dolanc for the formal attribution to Yugoslavia of Zone B in Trieste.76 The border and minority question became the subject of Yugoslav internal and external diplomatic blackmail. Under Slovenian and Croatian pressure, the Yugoslav authorities complained about the situation of Slovenian and Croatian minorities in Italy, the Slovenian minority in Carinthia in Austria and, for the sake of domestic equilibrium, of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria.77 The intention of the Yugoslav ambassador in Helsinki to ask the future CSCE to pronounce on the minority problem in Europe provoked the first expression of the position of Quai d’Orsay regarding Italian-Yugoslav relations. French diplomacy reacted only when the minority question threatened to go beyond the Italian-Yugoslav bilateral level. In the note from the Under-Directorate for Eastern Europe prepared for the upcoming meeting of French and Italian ministers of foreign affairs (Maurice Schumann and Giuseppe Medici), written in case the situation in Yugoslavia was touched upon, the Quai d’Orsay expressed its categorical disapproval of the intention of Yugoslav diplomacy to “call to the international community for the affairs of the bilateral order”.78 For French diplomacy, the discussion on minority questions during the conference could bring risks of territorial claims for most of the participant countries (34 in the document). They saw the particular vulnerability of Eastern Europe where the discussion could provoke the “illusions” of numerous minority groups. Furthermore, the notion of “national minority” was not clearly defined by international law and was sensitive in France because French constitutional law did not provide to minority members collective, but rather individual rights. To avoid Yugoslav diplomatic menace at the CSCE, French diplomacy tried to facilitate the conclusion of the Italian-Yugoslav agreement on a bilateral level. During the audience of Sebilleau with Schumann, the French Ambassador in Belgrade got instructions to transmit to the Yugoslavs the conversation that the Minister had with Medici in December 1972.79 On that occasion, Medici affirmed that Italy could decide to recognize de jure the annexation of Zone B by Yugoslavia, if Yugoslavia accepted the arrangement along the entire border that was contentious between the two countries. The information was accepted with interest in Belgrade, but it did not believe that the Italian government would accept it because of the fear of “nationalist reactions”. The French initiative failed and Sebilleau 76

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 20 September 1972, tel. 77 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, MFA, Note, Paris, 12 December 1972. 78 Ibid. 79 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 9 February 1973, confidential.

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concluded that the resolution of the Trieste problem was still far away. A new crisis occurred after Tito’s recriminations against Italy in his speeches in Ljubljana and Titograd (Podgorica) in December 1972. The meeting of the Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs Miloš Minic (1972-1978) and Medici in March 1973 in Dubrovnik did not provide new elements for the resolution of the border problem.80 With the arrival of Michel Jobert81 as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in April 1973, French foreign policy turned to the decisive style of the “necessity of Europe” from the Gaullist period. The symbol of the FrancoItalian alliance was the visit of Italian president Giovanni Leone together with Medici to Pompidou and Jobert prepared for June 1973 in Paris.82 For that occasion, the Under-Directorate for Eastern Europe wrote a Note on the recent history of the Italian-Yugoslav dispute over Zone B in Trieste.83 French diplomacy concluded that the Yugoslavs had not given up on obtaining formal recognition of the border and that it could not be excluded that they would appeal to the CSCE if they believed this necessary to force an Italian decision. Jobert was less disposed to intervene in Italian-Yugoslav relations than Schumann. During the conversation with Minic in May 1973 in Paris, he refused to speak with the Yugoslav Minister about Italy, respecting the wish of his Italian colleagues.84 His preoccupation was to position Europe in a world divided by the two blocs. In his speech on the occasion of the opening of the CSCE in Helsinki on 4 July 1973, Jobert rejected the idea that Europe become the “playing field where external forces would balance, the place of their rivalry” thinking of the two antagonist super-powers. This attitude supposed the solution of the Italian-Yugoslav border and minority problem at the bilateral level, which was the constant attitude of French diplomacy in that regard. While the CSCE was in session, in January 1974, a new crisis started in Italian-Yugoslav relations regarding Zone B. Unilaterally, the Yugoslavs installed border posts on the demarcation line which provoked strong protests from the Italian authorities.85 The Italians officially reaffirmed that the problem of Zone B remained open and qualified this zone as “Italian territory”. The strengthening of the Italian position provoked 80

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 29 March 1973. This document was transmitted to 26 French diplomatic addresses abroad. 81 Michel Jobert, Mémoires d’avenir (Paris: Grasset, 1974), 310; Michel Jobert, L’autre regard (Paris: Grasset, 1976), 412. 82 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, MFA, Note, Paris, 24 April 1973. 83 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, MFA, Note, Paris, 18 May 1973. 84 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3766, MFA, collective dispatch note, Paris, 23 July 1973. 85 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, MFA, Record, Paris, 9 December 1974.

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an explosion of protests from the Yugoslav side which accused Italy of irredentism. The Italian right was accused of collusion with NATO, which organized manoeuvres in the northern Adriatic in March. It was Aldo Moro, who became Prime Minister in November 1974, who calmed the dispute appealing to Yugoslav friendship. During the 1974 crisis, the Yugoslav government asked for the official support of France in the Trieste affair.86 French diplomacy, guided from May 1974 (following the death of Pompidou) by Jean Sauvagnargues as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing as the President of the Republic, expressed the point of view that “it was difficult to give satisfaction” to the Yugoslavs, making reference to the legal arguments from 20 years ago: France is not the signatory of the London Memorandum. In the declaration of 4th October 1954 we made known our position in that field: we do not give our support to the ‘claims that one of two countries could express on the territories put under the sovereignty or administration of the other’. We declare our conviction of the possibility for the two countries to resolve in the way of friendly negotiations the different problems that arise to them.87

Thus, the first explicit French official point of view on the question was given on the occasion of the preparation of the Franco-Yugoslav political consultations in December 1974. France did not want to interfere in the Italian-Yugoslav dispute and still expected its resolution on a bilateral level. The duration of the CSCE and the signature of the Final Act in Helsinki on 30 July-1 August 1975, symbolized the peak of the détente. Simultaneously with the preparation of the Final Act and in relation with it, the Italian-Yugoslav negotiations on the Trieste issue progressed while French diplomacy continued to observe without acting. At the end of June 1975, a group of Italian deputies from the ruling coalition prepared a “declaration” which consisted of the de jure recognition of Belgrade’s suzerainty over Zone B.88 Sebilleau was satisfied by the democratic procedure through which the Italian Parliament would give a mandate to the Government to define the practical modalities of that recognition. Furthermore, the “package deal” on other pending problems was in preparation as required by the Italians. The declaration of the Italian Parliament was postponed once again until autumn because of Italian domestic politics.89 For this reason the Yugoslavs would introduce “a small sentence” in Tito’s speech in Helsinki regarding their position on 86

88 89 87

Ibid. Ibid. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 27 June 1975, tel. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 29 July 1975, tel.

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Zone B. Tito’s speech in Helsinki was accepted with great relief by both the Italians and the French.90 The “minority question” was not discussed and Sebilleau characterized the discourse as “proof of moderation”. The Osimo Agreements signed on 10 November 1975 by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Italy and Yugoslavia Mariano Rumor and Miloš Minic, were written in French, the most familiar diplomatic language for both sides. The Quai d’Orsay contented itself in having one example of the official text of the agreements published in 1976 by the Documents d’Actualité internationale, which reprinted the text published in Belgrade by the Revue de Politique internationale some days after the signing of the agreements.91 In May 1976, speaking about the “situation of the détente” as the consequence of the signing of the Final Act in Helsinki, Sebilleau lumped the Osimo agreements together with the GermanPolish reparation agreement (October 1975) and the Greek initiative for Balkan cooperation (1975) as being the significant result of the revival of cooperation in Europe.92

Conclusion For French diplomacy after the Second World War, Italian-Yugoslav relations were of secondary importance. Although concerned for its position as a great power in the world and implicated in its relations with Germany, French diplomacy was a very well informed observer of Italian-Yugoslav relations. France supported Italian-Yugoslav economic cooperation from the 1960s which would bring Yugoslavia closer to the West and be a model for the other East European countries under the control of Moscow. Ally of Italy and “friend” of Yugoslavia, France hoped for the resolution of Italian-Yugoslav border and minority disputes concerning the Trieste territory. The difficulties in Italian-Yugoslav relations were seen as a function of the internal situation in both countries. The instability of democratic governments in Italy and the internal crisis in Yugoslavia (seen sometimes on the brink of disintegration), were the factors that blocked the resolution of the Italian-Yugoslav problems. With the German-Soviet and German-Polish treaty of 1970 and the agreement on Berlin of 1971 that involved France, the international context changed in favor of Italian-Yugoslav agreement. France saw the Italian-Yugoslav dispute as the “ultimate consequence of the war in Europe” and expected its resolution on a bilateral basis. The Yugoslav diplomatic blackmail of Italy regarding the threat of putting the question of Trieste on the table 90

AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 1st August 1975, tel. AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3763, Official text, source: Revue de Politique internationale, No. 615, Belgrade, 20 November 1975. 92 AFMFA, Eur. 44, Yug. (71-76), 3767, Sebilleau to MFA, Belgrade, 25 May 1976, tel. 91

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for the discussion of the CSCE, met with the categorical disapproval of France. In 1972, for the first time, French diplomacy involved itself in Italian-Yugoslav relations by trying to mediate between the two sides but without success. It was the preparation of the Final Act in Helsinki which gave the impetus for the resolution of the Italian-Yugoslav dispute leading to the Osimo agreements which were perceived by French diplomacy as a sign of the “revival of cooperation in Europe” after Helsinki.

73

Great Britain and the Italian-Yugoslav Relations in the 1970s Gorazd Bajc Introduction Great Britain carefully monitored Yugoslav-Italian relations in the 1970s.1 At the beginning of the decade the border question became more and more a top priority for the two States, eventually solving it in November 1975 with the signing of the Osimo Agreements. British primary sources2 can offer us the opportunity not only to comprehend how the British Government and its diplomacy carefully attempted to follow the intricate question focusing on Osimo and its consequences, but also to understand the complicated context in which the last chapter of the border dispute between Yugoslavia and Italy “danced” together with other problems. In order to avoid any kind of misunderstanding, I would like to specify that what I am going to put forward in this essay is a reflection on the British knowledge and view of the events. It can prove to be particularly interesting, because British diplomats and other experts (particularly from Departmental Research) had already had a considerable experience of the relations between Italy and Yugoslavia.

1



2



Among the studies on the relations between the two States, see Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (1945-1999) (Roma: Aracne, 2008). On the Yugoslav-Italian relations in the 1970s as reported in British documents, see also Gorazd Bajc, “Dietro le quinte della visita di Tito a Roma nel 1971: il contesto locale e internazionale letto dalla diplomazia britannica,” Annales, Series historia et sociologia 24, 4 (2014): 713-32. All documents – as is known – are located in The National Archives, Kew-London (formerly Public Record Office). Published documents of the British diplomacy have been used as well: DBPO, s. III, Vol.  I, Britain and the Soviet Union 19681972 (London: The Stationery Office, 1997); Vol. II, The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1972-1975 (London: The Stationery Office, 1997); Vol.  III, Détente in Europe 1972-1975 (London – Portland: Whitehall History Publishing – Frank Cass, 2001).

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1.  The Context  3 The British attitude towards Yugoslavia4 in the 1970s was positive, especially as a consequence of the great upheaval following the expulsion of Tito from Cominform in 1948. In fact, Yugoslavia was no longer the first ally of the Soviet Union in that delicate area of Europe, but represented an anomaly in the severely monolithic system of those Communist States all loyal to Moscow (with the exception, in part, of Romania). British aid increased year after year until relations deteriorated in the 1960s. The Soviet aggression of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 represented a renewed turnaround, as it became clear that even Tito’s Yugoslavia could become the object of more or less the same pressure. So if we want to comprehend the policy of Great Britain towards the said dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia properly, we should start looking back at least from the Soviet invasion of Prague. In the summer of 1968 Yugoslavia appeared to be in a difficult position. Great Britain and her allies were fully aware of it as it was becoming more evident that Moscow’s “appetites” would increase after Tito’s retreat or death. On 27 August 1968 the Yugoslav ambassador in London had already made some enquiries to the Secretary of State Michael Stewart to know what attitude the Government of the United Kingdom would adopt in case of a Soviet intervention. The bilateral Anglo-American talks about the Yugoslav question took place in Washington between the end of September and the beginning of October. On 12 October the President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson declared his interest in the independence, sovereignty and economic development of Yugoslavia, an assertion which was repeated by the US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach when he visited Belgrade. On 16 November NATO stated that a Soviet Union’s direct or indirect intervention in Europe could provoke an international crisis with troublesome implications in the Mediterranean. Even the Atlantic Alliance started to plan how to act in case it was necessary to intervene. On 26 November the Permanent UnderSecretary Paul H. Gore-Booth forwarded to the Yugoslav ambassador in London the content of the NATO statement.5 Nonetheless in early 1969 3



4



5



On the context (i.e. the period of the Cold War between the 1960s and the 1970s), see The Cambridge History of the Cold War, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, Vol. II, Crises and Détente (Cambridge: University Press, 2011). Among the latest works on the history of Yugoslavia, see Jože Pirjevec, Tito in tovariši (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 2011) or, by the same author Tito i drugovi (Zagreb: Mozaik, 2012), Tito i drugovi (Beograd: Laguna, 2013), Tito e i suoi compagni (Torino: Einaudi, 2015). TNA, FCO 28/2412, to B. Sparrow-FCO, EESD: Yugoslavia after Tito [1973] and Annexe A: Yugoslavia – Contingency Planning since 1968 and Annexe B: Western Statements etc. in relation to Yugoslavia since August 1968.

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the Foreign and Commonwealth Office believed that the Soviets were actually wishing for a status quo in Europe and that Moscow preferred to reduce the US’s influence there.6 For the Yugoslavs the situation remained delicate. Numerous other internal problems began to shake their country in that period and tension grew. Tito was still managing to retain his charismatic and decisive leadership so that his country could maintain its special status, but he was inevitably aging. Expectations of his death had grown over the years (like a D Day) and speculation on what would happen then had multiplied. As mentioned above, after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Great Britain and her allies in NATO (primarily the US) engaged in plans and projections. The first document of the Alliance appeared in spring 1969 and contained an analysis of threats and of what would be the possible actions of NATO’s preventive diplomacy. After this, according to Great Britain, NATO’s planning stalled slightly because the Americans did not show enough interest in the question,7 while, at the same time, London and Washington were developing different views and approaches.8 Meanwhile, Great Britain was often discussing the possible scenarios of Yugoslavia and the threat of a Soviet intervention or influence over the country. We can say that she had made significant efforts that induced NATO to admit that Yugoslavia would be interested in developing exchanges with the West, particularly in trade and industry, and obviously with the European Economic Community as well. Great Britain emphasized that Yugoslavia comprised a significant part of the Mediterranean and important maritime routes towards Italy and Greece, so it was necessary to prevent the Soviets from getting them. Yugoslavs were wishful and determined to defend their territory and that depended on their ability to preserve the cohesion of internal politics and economical development. Pressure from the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was inevitable. The best thing NATO could do was to become fully aware that it was in the concrete interest of the West to maintain an independent, non-aligned and unified Yugoslavia. Among others, the Ambassador in Belgrade Dugald L.L. Stewart felt that the Yugoslavs knew that the real 6



7

8



DBPO, s. III, Vol. I, doc. 23: 112-13. TNA, FCO 28/2412, EESD: Yugoslavia: Implications of Possible Future Instability, 7.09.1973 (also in FCO 28/2620); to B. Sparrow-EESD: Yugoslavia after Tito [1973] and Annexe A: Yugoslavia – Contingency Planning since 1968. TNA, FCO 28/1647, A. Davidson-UKDEL NATO Brussels to B. Sparrow-EESD, 22.01.1971; FCO to A. Davidson-UKDEL NATO, 28.01.1971; E. R. Porter-UKDEL NATO to B. Sparrow-EESD, 10.02.1971.

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enemy was the Warsaw Pact and that NATO on the other hand was the first line of defense, even though Yugoslavia was officially against the two blocs. Great Britain counted that the Army and the so-called “All Peoples’ Defense” (the Teritorialna obramba) would play an essential role. She also stressed that the Yugoslavs claimed that if tensions rose in the Middle East this could offer the Soviets an excuse to press Yugoslavia to allow them to use its territory for military purposes. The primary fear was that in times of instability Moscow could exploit opportunities and assert its interests on the strategic area with worrying consequences. The success of the Soviet activity would therefore depend primarily on the level of cohesion and stability of Yugoslavia. Deterioration of the situation would of course lead to serious consequences for the West: it could change the balance of power and cause the decline of NATO in Europe and in the Mediterranean; moreover it could decrease the selfconfidence of the West with political consequences for some countries. Inability to prevent invasion – as happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968 – would mean that NATO hadn’t been very effective and in particular that the US was not able to keep the balance in Europe and that NATO’s Navy had problems in the Mediterranean. Italy, Greece and Turkey would feel that the strategic relationship in the Mediterranean was reversing in favor of Moscow and this would affect also their political life. In any case, there was a good chance to replace Tito with a group of capable people in order to maintain stability and prevent the Soviet Union from intervention. The achievement of these goals depended on the engagement of everyone in the West. Obviously, without the US the West could do little.9 9



TNA, FCO 28/1647, FCO to A. Davidson-UKDEL NATO, 28.01.1971; Belgrade 291315Z to FCO (No. 49), 29.01.1971; FCO 28/2131, D.L. Stewart-British Embassy Belgrade to T. Brimelow-FCO, 24.02.1972; FCO 28/2122, D.L. Stewart-British Embassy Belgrade to T. Brimelow-FCO, 25.02.1972; FCO 28/2119, P. CradockCabinet Office to J. Bullard-FCO: Yugoslavia after Tito, 25.05.1972; Yugoslavia after Tito, [July] 1972; The Outlook for Yugoslavia [Draft], 31.08.1972; R. D. McGlue to A.F. Green-EESD: The Outlook for Yugoslavia, 16.10.1972; FCO 28/2414, Draft: Yugoslavia and the Soviet Untion [Union], [March 1973]; DEFE 11/862, Cabinet Joint Intelligence Committee (A): The Outlook for Yugoslavia JIC(A)(72)32, 6.02.1973; P.D. Nairne-DUS(P) to Secretary of State (DUS(P)195/73): Yugoslavia, 28.03.1973; J.M. Stewart-Head of DS12 to DIS(P) (D/DS12/43/8/D), 22.03.1974 and Draft to PS/Sofs: Yugoslavia [undated]; A.P. Hockaday-DIS(P) to PS/Secretary of State (DUS(P)111/74: Yugoslavia, 27.03.1974 and Terms of Reference for a Mod Study on Yugoslavia (also in DEFE 13/984); F.W.E. Furdson-D of D Pol (B) (D/DPS/B/52/5): Changes in the threat to NATO and options for UK Reaction arising from Warsaw Pact Pressure on Yugoslavia, 14.03.1975; DP Note 203/75(B) (Second Revised Draft), Chiefs of Staff Committee Defence Policy Staff: Changes in the Threat to NATO and Options for UK Reaction arising from Warsaw Pact Pressure on Yugoslavia, 17.04.1975; DP Note 203/75(Final), Chiefs of Staff Committee Defence Policy Staff: Changes in the Threat to NATO and Options for UK Reaction arising from Warsaw Pact Pressure on Yugoslavia, 3.06.1975; A.G. Bohannan Col GS MO 3 to SECCOS: Changes in the

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According to British sources, the NATO alliance showed a new concrete interest in the question at the beginning of 1974. Until then, as was written in British military circles, “the general topic of Yugoslavia is by no means new to NATO, but, partly because of its politically sensitive nature, is not one that the Alliance has ever really gripped.” So it was in February that, under the suggestion of the US, the Military Committee was instructed to prepare an intelligence report on Yugoslavia. The report concluded that the Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia would represent a very big problem for the Alliance. Even though British experts were not entirely satisfied with it, the report confirmed an important reiterated interest for the Yugoslav problem.10 At the end of the following year Great Britain noted also that the US wanted more than ever that NATO and other countries showed a desire to cooperate with the American policy. In doing so Italian participation was essential: “It would obviously, for example, be impossible for the Americans to stage forces through Udine if the Italian Government did not agree.”11 From the British comments on the plans, analyses and discussions developed in the NATO framework, it is possible to suggest that Italy would also have had a role to play in any eventual defensive plans. Moreover Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia would have increased Threat to NATO and Options for UK Reaction arising from Warsaw Pact Pressure on Yugoslavia, 18.06.1975 (like in DEFE 13/984); FCO 28/2412, EESD: Yugoslavia: Implications of Possible Future Instability, 7.09.1973 (also in FCO 28/2620); to B. Sparrow-EESD: Yugoslavia after Tito [1973] and Annexe A: Yugoslavia – Contingency Planning since 1968 and Annexe C: Extract from JIC(A)(72)32 (also in FCO 28/2620); FCO 28/2620, D.A. Burns-British Embassy Belgrade to A. Green-EESD: Yugoslavia: Possible Future Instability, 13.02.1974; FCO 28/2121, NATO, J.H.S. Read-UK Army, Director International Military Staff: Memorandum for the Members of the Military Committee Chief, French Military Mission: Yugoslavia (IMSM-84-74), 1.03.1974; FCO 28/2813, A.F. Green-EESD to T.A. Wells-MOD DPS(B) Division: Options for Support of Yugoslavia, 3.01.1975, Annex A: FCO Comments on DP11(74)(B) (Preliminary Draft) of 11 December 1974 and Annex B: Probable Reactions by NATO; Chiefs of Staff Committee Defence Policy Staff: Options for Support of Yugoslavia (DP 11/74(B)(Draft)), 28.01.1975, Annex A; Annex 1 to Annex A: DIS Input to MOD Study on Yugoslavia; J.E. Cable to J. Bullard: Options for Support of Yugoslavia, 4.02.1975; A.S. Morton-Vice Admiral, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Policy): Chiefs of Staff Committee Defence Policy Staff, Changes in Threat to NATO and Options for UK Reaction arising from Warsaw Pact Pressure on Yugoslavia (DP Note 203/75(Final), 3.06.1975; Annex A: DIS Input to MOD Study on Yugoslavia; Annex B: Draft Submission to the Secretary of State; FCO 28/2801, A. Figgis-EESD to P. Rennie-RD: After Tito what?, 5.11.1975 and copies of Stewart’s paper on this subject; DBPO, s. III, Vol. I, No. 95: 467-71; Vol. III, No. 84: 408 and notes 8-9; No. 87: 434, 437; No. 93: 464 and note 9. 10 TNA, DEFE 11/862, J.M. Stewart-DS12 to DIS(P) (D/DS12/43/8/D), 22.03.1974 and Draft to PS/Sofs: Yugoslavia [undated]. 11 TNA, FCO 28/2803, British Embassy Washington to B.G. Cartledge-EESD, 4.12.1975.

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the direct threat for Italy and other Mediterranean countries (particularly Greece).12 Italy therefore had a quite a big interest that Yugoslavia should not fall under Soviet influence. The US obviously had the key role. As for the UK. In our opinion, its role was excellently described by the Ambassador in Belgrade Stewart who in February 1975 said that the West needed to trust Yugoslavia, and vice versa. That was the most important role the United Kingdom had to play, as he wrote: “The Yugoslavs are coming to think that we may be the reliable medium-sized partner they so badly need. If we make as much further progress in the next 2 or 3 years we shall have made a very real contribution to the security of this somewhat sensitive part of Europe.”13 This was not an impossible task for London. An overview of the sources from the 1970s (which we can only partially present here) shows us that bilateral relations between Yugoslavia and Great Britain were getting better, not only because the trade between them or cultural contacts had increased, but also for the shared awareness of the importance of a common political aim to maintain Tito’s country in its special non-aligned status. London had in fact become a sort of first ally to Tito, while relations between Yugoslavia and the US, however, were constantly fluctuating. Yugoslavia and Great Britain started to show more and more similar views on the global situation. This had already happened in spring 1968, for example, before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.14 We can say that in the 1970s British diplomacy followed with growing interest the approximation of Yugoslavia (and Romania) to the West. When at the beginning of the 1970s preparations were made for the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, Great Britain noticed that Yugoslav policy was not in unison with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact Members. London and Belgrade were looking to increase the exchange of visits at the highest level. In fact, at the beginning of the 1970s British diplomacy believed that, compared with other allies, Britons had started 12

See note 9 and TNA, FCO 28/2119, UD of S (RAF) to Secretary of State (V. 23/72/7/538), 16.08.1972; P.D. Naire-DUS(P) to PS/Secretary of State: Yugoslavia, 2.10.1972; A. Douglas-Home-FCO 051715Z to Hague (No.  206), 5.10.1972; Ambassador Ducci and Yugoslavia, 16.10.1972; DEFE 11/862, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff: Yugoslavia after Tito, 4.01.1973; FCO 28/2408, J.L. Bullard-EESD to T. Brimelow: The Future of Yugoslavia, 31.10.1973; FCO 28/2620, A.F. Green-EESD to Mr. Marsden-European Integration Department: The Political Committee on 10 and 11 January: Yugoslavia, 7.01.1974; FCO 28/2622, D.L. Stewart-British Embassy Belgrade to J.L. BullardEESD, 28.05.1974; FCO 28/2798, D.L. Stewart, 19.02.1975 and: The Kosovo, 19.02.1975; D.A. Burns: The “Second Letter,” 19.03.1975; D.A. Burns: Odds and Ends, 14.04.1975: Information picked up during the Weekend 11, 12 and 13 April, [1]–3. 13 TNA, FCO 28/2813, Stewart-Belgrade 061500Z to FCO (No. 34), 6.02.1975. 14 E.g. TNA, CAB 128/43/31, CC(68), 31st Conclusions, 20.06.1968, 6.

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these visits late. In a few years they remedied this situation (for example when in October 1972 the Queen Elisabeth II visited Yugoslavia). Last but not least, the memory of a successful collaboration during the Second World War also had its impact. Despite the ideological differences and the lack of democracy in Yugoslavia, there was in every sense a very good feeling between the two states.15 In December 1971, for example, a representative of the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry, who was the head of the Department of Western Europe, complained with a representative of the British diplomats who said: “[…] how sad it was that all the countries with whom he had to deal did not have the sort of good steady relations with Yugoslavia that Britain had.”16 On the other hand, among the interests of Great Britain there was Italy17 as well. Both states were members of NATO and in this Alliance Italy represented an important point of reference for her position in the Mediterranean where, in the period of the Cold War, strong tensions and crises took place. As mentioned, Italy could have a certain role in countermeasures of NATO in case of pressure against Yugoslavia by the Soviet Union or by the Warsaw Pact. What is more London saw in Rome a good ally in the United Kingdom’s approaches to the European Economic Community (as is well known France vetoed Great Britain). Italy was therefore a good partner, although in London the favorable contacts between Rome and Moscow were not greatly appreciated.18 For all the above reasons, Great Britain tried to follow carefully the evolution of Italian domestic politics. In short, they could not trust the Italian 15

TNA, FCO 28/1645, B. Sparrow-EESD to T. Brimelow-Private Office, 11.08.1971; FCO 28/1646, Brief for H.M. The Queen: Visit of President Tito [undated]; CAB 128/49/55, CM (71) 55th Conclusions, 11.11.1971, 3; FCO 28/2120, British Embassy Belgrade to J. Bullard-EESD, 23.02.1972; FCO 28/2134, Record of Meetings between Jaksa Petrić, Deputy Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia, and leading officials of FCO, 6. and 7.03.1972; FCO 28/2167, Buckingham Palace to A. Douglas-Home, 23.05.1972; FCO 28/2163, The Queen’s State Visit to Yugoslavia: 17-21 October 1972 [September 1972]; FCO 28/2119, P.D. Nairne-DUS(P) to PS/Secretary of State: Yugoslavia, 2.10.1972; FCO 28/2622, EESD: Call by the Yugoslav Ambassador on the Secretary of State, 13.06.1974; FCO 28/2812, G.D.G. Murrell-British Embassy Belgrade to J.H. Moore-IAD: Yugoslavia: sponsored Visitors Programme, 18.09.1975; Callaghan-FCO 030955Z to Belgrade (No.  181), 3.11.1975; Callaghan-FCO 071515Z to Belgrade (No.  187), 7.11.1975; DBPO, s. III, Vol.  I, No.  89: 438-9, 443; No.  95: 467-71; No. 104: 498; Vol. II, No. 3: 19; No. 5: 24-33; No. 21: 92; No. 28: 112; No. 120: 402-3 and note 5; Vol. III, No. 55: 263-73. 16 TNA, FCO 28/1640, M.L. Tait-British Embassy Belgrade to B. Sparrow-EESD, 6.12.1971. 17 Among the latest works on the Italian role between the 1960s and 1970s see: Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali and Massimo Bucarelli (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2011). 18 E.g. DBPO, s. III, Vol. III, doc. 45: 217 and note 5.

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Communist Party (though with Enrico Berlinguer it had embarked on a particular road, more detached from Moscow).19 In general, however, probably the case of Yugoslavia was a “Time bomb” for London and compared to Italy a priority in the global context of the 1970s.

2.  The Border Issue It goes without saying, therefore, that in the described context of the 1970s Great Britain closely followed the Yugoslav-Italian attempts to solve the border issue. With the Memorandum of Understanding, signed in London on 5 October 1954, the contended territory had been divided between Yugoslavia and Italy. In 1964 both countries started to look for a final solution. There were many difficulties and problems, as has already been described in detail, particularly by Viljenka Škorjanec.20 After a few years of more or less unsuccessful attempts, it seemed that Tito’s visit to Rome, announced for the end of 1970, could give decisive impetus to the issue (it is worth saying however that over the two previous decades the political, cultural and economic relations between Yugoslavia and Italy had steadily improved, and Italy had become Yugoslavia’s chief trading partner). As a consequence of the controversial statement made in early December 1970 by the new Italian Foreign Minister Aldo Moro that Italy would never give up sovereignty over Zone B (the northwest part of Istria), relations deteriorated again. Tito’s visit failed.21 It is interesting how the British analysts interpreted the background of this “new” problem. On the one hand, the Slovenian Government, which had invested heavily in its part of Zone B and the Port of Koper (Luka Koper), put pressure on the Yugoslav Government to obtain recognition from Italy of the Yugoslav sovereignty over the territory. On the other

19

On the British attitude towards Italy as reported in British documents cf. Mario José Cereghino, Giovanni Fasanella, Il golpe inglese. Da Matteotti a Moro: le prove della guerra segreta per il controllo del petrolio e dell’Italia (Milano: Chiarelettere, 2011). 20 E.g. Viljenka Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja (Koper: Založba Annales, 2007). For the questions on the agreements and their background see Osimska meja. Jugoslovanskoitalijanska pogajanja in razmejitev leta 1975, ed. Jože Pirjevec, Borut Klabjan, Gorazd Bajc (Koper: Založba Annales, 2006). Among the latest works, see Massimo Bucarelli, “La politica estera italiana e la soluzione della questione di Trieste: gli accordi di Osimo del 1975,” Qualestoria 41, 2 (2013): 29-54; Saša Mišić, “La Jugoslavia e il Trattato di Osimo del 1975,” Qualestoria 41, 2 (2013): 55-81. 21 On the Tito’s visit as reported in Yugoslav documents, see Saša Mišić, “Poseta Josipa Broza Tita Italiji 1971. godine,” in Tito – viđenja i tumačenja, ed. Olga Manojlović Pintar, Mile Bjelajac, Radmila Radić (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije – Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2011), 505-21.

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hand, Moro was under pressure from Italian nationalists.22 Even though the visit of the Yugoslav leader had failed, the Yugoslavs hoped to solve the problem. In late December 1970, during an interview with the British Ambassador in Belgrade Terence W. Garvey, Dimče Belovski, Member of the Presidium of the Yugoslav Party (the League of Communists of Yugoslavia), and Aleš Bebler, Member of the Council of the Federation, expressed their wish that the West and particularly the United Kingdom should convince the Italians to recognize the border. Garvey replied that the 1954 arrangement was temporary, while the final confirmation of the border was something completely different. He also expressed the opinion that if the Italian Government was too weak to face the problem – which was clearly in its own interest – the real question was who or what could force its resolution?23 We can say that the British diplomat foresaw what would become the leitmotiv of Italian-Yugoslav relations in that period. Negotiations were resumed in the last months of 1970, while in March 1971 Tito visited Rome. From that moment British diplomats began to follow very closely the entire development of the negotiations which concluded only 5 years later. They tried constantly to report and remain informed, though there were some moments when there was no regular communication between them.24 From many messages and reports from the Embassies in Rome and Belgrade, as well as from other consular representations in Yugoslavia and Italy, Great Britain depicted the situation as follows:25 the Italians considered that their sovereignty over Zone B had never been extinguished, although they wished to reach an agreement, while the Yugoslavs were not willing to compromise and correct the borderline (particularly in the north of Trieste, near Gorizia), neither were they willing to define the border on the sea, because in the past this border had allowed them to intervene in the arrival of ships in the port of Trieste. Tito wanted to solve the problem as soon as possible, but the Italians were not ready, because they were hoping to obtain something in return (for example real estate and other Italian properties in Istria, although in the documents examined this question has not obtained much mention). The Italians let the British know that they were under 22

TNA, FCO 51/391, East European Section RD FCO, Memorandum: Yugoslavia, Italy and Trieste (DS(L)498 Departmental S. RD DS No. 1/75), 2.01.1975, 9; cf. drafts on 22.08.1974 in FCO 51/348 and on October 1974 in FCO 28/2804. 23 TNA, FCO 28/2637, R.T. Jenkins-East European Section RD to Green-EESD: ItalianYugoslav Relations – Trieste, 2.04.1974. 24 Cf. TNA, FCO 28/2637, A.J. Hunter-British Embassy Rome to A.F. Green-EESD, 22.03.1974. 25 The most important documents about the border issue, from 1970 till 1975, held the following files: TNA, FCO 28/1640; FCO 28/2126; FCO 28/2637; FCO 28/2638; FCO 28/2804.

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very strong public pressure, and therefore asked for secret negotiations. Together with the border question, other issues began to open up and one of the most important for Yugoslavia was that of the Slovenian minority in Italy (in Trieste, Gorizia, and the eastern part of the province of Udine). In the same years when the Italians and the Yugoslavs were negotiating, disputes of varying seriousness were frequent; British diplomacy was aware that more than once Yugoslavia and Italy had interpreted in their own way the statements of the other party; British diplomacy also knew that the crises in Italian politics inevitably implied a slowdown in the process of negotiation. On this last issue, for example, it was in January 1971 that British representatives in Belgrade had already estimated that the Italian desire for negotiation depended largely on its internal policy. They wrote: “Thereafter pace of reassumed progress towards common objective of fixing Trieste border for good will depend largely upon how quickly Italians are prepared to move.”26 London and her diplomats in Rome shared this view.27 It seems quite interesting to quote the opinion about Moro of T.C. Wood, one of the British diplomats in Rome at the time: he said that Moro did not know how to solve the problem, because “The Zone B issue is a much hotter potato than it was and I doubt if he will want to risk burning his fingers.”28 That Great Britain was particularly interested in solving the dispute – because it represented a potential negative danger for the international position of Yugoslavia – can be inferred from the writings of the ambassador in Belgrade, dated April 1973. Relations between Yugoslavia and Italy – wrote the ambassador Stewart – were generally very good, but the border issue was still open. Any influence of the neo-fascists (the party of Movimento Sociale Italiano) on the Italian Parliament might deteriorate the relationship between the two countries, which (also) constituted nothing less than a significant part of the relationship between Yugoslavia and Western Europe.29 More than once tension grew between Italy and Yugoslavia because of external factors, especially when in March 1974, after a long pause, an 26

TNA, FCO 28/1640, Belgrade 221630Z to FCO (No. 31), 22.01.1971. TNA, FCO 28/1640, Rome 261730Z to FCO (No. 58), 26.01.1971 and FCO, WED to EESD, 4.02.1971; C.S.R. Giffard-EESD to T. Garvey-Belgrade, 28.01.1971; T. Garvey-British Embassy Belgrade to J.L. Bullard-EESD, 28.01.1971; W. BentleyBritish Embassy Belgrade to B. Sparrow-EESD: Yugoslav/Italian Relations: Trieste, 18.02.1971. 28 TNA, FCO 28/1630, T.C. Wood-British Embassy Rome to B. Sparrow-EESD, 16.02.1971. 29 TNA, FCO 28/2115, D.L. Stewart-British Embassy Belgrade to J. Bullard-EESD, 18.04.1973. 27

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intense polemic broke out as Yugoslavia set up road signs in Zone B. On 11 March Italy sent a protest note which said that Zone B was not part of Yugoslavia and that marked the beginning of an exchange of notes between the two countries. Moreover, almost simultaneously (from 29 March to 5 April), a joint US-Italian military amphibious exercise (called Dark Image 74), began about 50 miles from the Adriatic coast, within the NATO framework. Yugoslavs were protesting that Italy was claiming its own conditions just when the US Sixth Fleet was in the Adriatic Sea. The explanation that NATO had planned the exercises almost 2 years before did not convince the Yugoslavs or maybe they did not want to believe it. At the end of the month the Yugoslav army and tanks moved near Koper (Capodistria i.e. in Zone B). The dispute had quite strong echoes. Even the Americans at the end of March manifested their interest in the deeper reasons which could hide behind it. Their analysts did not have any concrete information, but suspected that the Italians might have something to do with it. At the beginning of April discussions on the problem started also in the NATO framework, at the Conference on Security and Co-operation of Europe and in some countries of the Warsaw Pact, while the Soviet press showed its sympathy for Yugoslavia. As often happened, the dispute was finally solved by Tito. On 15 April 1974 he delivered a speech in Sarajevo showing determination and criticizing NATO, but also stressing that it was time for moderation. British and Italian diplomacy understood that Yugoslavia was ready to compromise on some territories.30 This is a demonstration of how the crisis of March-April 1974 had a happy ending, but added a further complication for Great Britain. At the end of March the British Embassy in Belgrade notified the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the Italian side had claimed that the Yugoslavs had consulted with Great Britain, US and France on the interpretation of the London Memorandum of 1954 and had stated that they considered the border as definite; in other words, the Italian sovereignty over Zone A and Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B. Stewart asked for clarifications.31 Andrew F. Green from the Eastern European and Soviet Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office immediately wrote that Great Britain had not exchanged any views with Yugoslavia about the agreement of 1954. He also asked his superiors for directions and suggested that they should be careful not to offer a new interpretation of the agreement.32 So the Foreign and Commonwealth Office immediately advised Stewart: 30

TNA, FCO 28/2637 and FCO 28/2638; cf. FCO 51/391, East European Section RD FCO, Memorandum: Yugoslavia, Italy and Trieste (DS(L)498 Departmental S. RD DS No. 1/75), 2.01.1975, 9-11. 31 TNA, FCO 28/2637, Stewart-Belgrade 271020Z to FCO (No. 88), 27.03.1974. 32 TNA, FCO 28/2637, A.F. Green-EESD to Hendry-Legal Adviser and Jenkins-RD, 28.03.1974.

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“Meanwhile, you should of course avoid making any statement of our view. For obvious reasons we wish to avoid being drawn onto this dispute.”33 The debate was evolving in British circles where the question was if Great Britain had any legal obligation (locus standi) in relation to the agreement of 1954. They consulted with legal advisors and experts from Research Departments who drew up an historical overview of the Trieste question. Meanwhile London continued the analysis of historical documents which confirmed that in 1954 Great Britain, as a co-signatory of the Memorandum, on the very same day, 5 October, had made the following statement: […] HMG take this opportunity to declare that they will give no support to claims of either Yugoslavia or Italy to territory under the sovereignity or administration of the other. HMG is confident that it will be possible for the two countries to resolve any outstanding problems by friendly negotiation in a spirit of mutual understanding. […]34

It seems that there were no other documents on this topic (otherwise, they found that the documents from 1955 had been mislaid and, as that year was very important, the fact represented a serious gap for the British).35 Only on 12 April 1957 had the Foreign Office written its point of view on the Memorandum and expressed its concern for a definitive settlement: “The agreement of October 1954 did not cede formal sovereignty to the Italians and Yugoslavs over Zone A and B, but we hope that this settlement will in fact prove final.”36 The Eastern European and Soviet Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office decided that if in Rome or Belgrade they were pressed they would have to reply that Great Britain had already made a statement, on the very same day of the signature of the London Memorandum of 1954. Here follows a quotation from the instructions:

33

TNA, FCO 28/2637, Callaghan-FCO 021700Z to Belgrade (No. 56), 2.04.1974. E.g. TNA, FCO 28/2637, R.T. Jenkins-East European Section RD to Green-EESD: Italian-Yugoslav Relations – Trieste, 2.04.1974; Manlio Udina, Gli Accordi di Osimo. Lineamenti introduttivi e testi annotati (Trieste: LINT, 1979), 151; cf. TNA, FCO 51/391, East European Section RD Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Memorandum: Yugoslavia, Italy and Trieste (DS(L)498 Departmental S. RD DS No. 1/75), 2.01.1975, 7-8; Giampaolo Valdevit, La questione di Trieste 1941-1954. La politica internazionale e contesto locale (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1986), 273. 35 TNA, FCO 28/2637, A.F. Green-EESD to Mr. Burrows-Legal Adviser, 3.04.1974 [twice]. 36 TNA, FCO 28/2637, R.T. Jenkins-East European Section RD to Green-EESD: ItalianYugoslav Relations – Trieste, 2.04.1974. 34

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We continue to believe that we can and should keep well out of this dispute. If either yourselves or Chancery Rome are pressed you should say that we consider our only current locus standi [underlined in the original] relates to the interpretation of a document to which we were a party. We made an explanatory statement on this point on 5 October 1954. We have nothing to add.

At the same time Green pointed out that the State Department said that the US would not have supported any claim. Green observed that this was also the line followed by Great Britain, although the US statement could refer to the claims of both sides, while Yugoslavia on the other hand had never expressed any claim. This further indicated the need not to be implicated in the question. He concluded however that Yugoslavia had also tried to entice Great Britain to take part in the question.37 A hands-off approach was therefore the motto. According to British sources, even the Americans had been stimulated by the crisis to do something in order to bring the dispute to an end. They had complained to Egidio Ortona, the Italian Ambassador in the US, that the Italian Government should solve the dispute over Zone B through negotiation. The State Department was worried because the US had cosigned the agreement in 1954 and because of the strong Yugoslav protests against the Sixth Fleet in the Adriatic. Americans were also worried about unsettling Yugoslavia’s position or threatening Tito’s health. The essence of the Ortona’s visit had been to ask US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger if he could tell the Yugoslavs to concentrate on the issue of Zone B and at the same time try to solve all the other open problems; that is, to work both for a global solution, including the payment of a compensation for the Italian property, which had been nationalized, and for a definitive agreement which would define the border precisely.38 The controversy between Rome and Belgrade resounded, of course, locally, particularly on the temporary border. It is worth mentioning the report of April 1974 of the British Consul in Trieste, Velleda Crean, on the small incidents which occurred on the border and on both sides of the border zone. It said that the controversy had generated a certain psychosis, even though people were convinced that twenty years were enough to say that the border was de facto set. The main hope was to calm things down, particularly that tension artificially created in Zone B, where patriotism was used as an excuse for internal problems. Of course, what would 37

TNA, FCO 28/2637, A.F. Green-EESD to D.A. Burns-Belgrade, 11.04.1974; cf. FCO 51/391, East European Section RD Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Memorandum: Yugoslavia, Italy and Trieste (DS(L)498 Departmental S. RD DS No. 1/75), 2.01.1975, 11. 38 TNA, FCO 28/2638, J.E. Cornish-British Embassy Washington to C. Hulse-WED, 30.04.1974.

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happen when Tito died was still unknown.39 The report was welcomed with interest at the British Embassy in Rome, where they focused particularly on the newspapers news on the leader of Movimento Sociale Italiano, Giorgio Almirante, who gave a speech in Trieste on 18 April in which he accused the local communists (Italian Communist Party – PCI) of having taken the pro-Yugoslav line on the border dispute.40 According to British sources, in May 1974 the crisis reached its end. The Eastern European and Soviet Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for example, was sure of the safety of tourist travel in Istria.41 It seems however that the crisis of March-April had left some negative consequences in trade relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, which otherwise had always been good. In May a representative of Yugoslavia in London lamented the imposition of tax restrictions on their exports to Italy without any prior consultation.42 The following year relations continued to improve. The Italian military attaché in Belgrade explained for example that the Yugoslavs were interested in Italian military materials: missiles, helicopters, guns.43 In June the British Embassy in Belgrade analyzed Yugoslavia’s relationship with its neighboring countries saying that this proved that those with Italy had straightened out after the tensions over Zone B, “[…] which seems to indicate that somehow somewhere negotiations are going on about the Trieste problem.”44 These were signals that Italy and Yugoslavia would finally manage to get a solution. The following month, on 24 July to be precise, Ambassador Stewart sent the following much awaited news: “The Italian Ambassador has told me in strict confidence that his Government and the Yugoslavs have in fact reached almost complete agreement, that is to say on confirmation of the existing frontier (possibly subject to minor agreed rectifications later) and a settlement on the extent of each country’s territorial waters around Trieste. But it seems that formal and public conclusion must await ‘a favourable moment’ in terms of Italian politics.” He continued saying: 39

TNA, FCO 28/2638, V. Crean-British Consulate Trieste to A. Brooke Turner-British Embassy Rome, 20.04.1974. 40 TNA, FCO 28/2638, A. Brooke Turner-British Embassy Rome to V. Crean-British Consulate Trieste, 24.04.1974. 41 TNA, FCO 28/2638, E. Kellett-Bowman to Callaghan, 3.05.1974; Mr. Hattersley to E. Kellett-Bowman and note, 10.05.1974. 42 TNA, FCO 28/2622, J.E. Cable to Bullard: Yugoslav Minister, 22.05.1974; cf. FCO 28/2638, to Bullard, [end of] May 1974. 43 TNA, FCO 28/2804, Belgrade Min[ute], Burns, 14.03.1975. 44 TNA, FCO 28/2798, D.A. Burns-British Embassy Belgrade to M.F. Sullivan-EESD: Current Points of Interest on the Yugoslav Scene, 19.06.1975, 4.

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“This is of course a matter which we keep out of and with good reason. There is, however, a real Western interest in it. The fact that this frontier is still formally speaking unsettled and that the Italians remain on record with a form of territorial claim is a specifically destabilising factor here. It gives substantial support to Tito’s thesis that the West is just as dangerous to Yugoslavia as the East and although at present it may not do the West much real damage here there are circumstances particularly After Tito in which it could.”

Stewart also warned that although the Summit of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe would soon be concluded (at the conference they spoke also about the inviolability of frontiers), this didn’t mean that it was an appropriate moment for Italian public opinion to deal with the big anomaly in Europe – that is, the unresolved border issue. Therefore he advised expressing to the Italians – privately if possible – their support in reaching their goal. Stewart added that it was in the interests of all parties to fix everything before Tito’s departure. According to him, Yugoslavs did not fear that the post-Tito era could bring a dissolution of the state, but rather that it would represent the right time for all neighboring countries with territorial claims or aggressive purposes to seize the moment and apply pressure. Stewart concluded that after Tito’s departure no new leader would be tough enough to “[…] dare to authorise the transfer of a square kilometre of territorial waters to Italy.”45 We can imagine that for British diplomats Stewart’s news did not mean that they could relax. We can say that they foresaw that they would have to continue to follow carefully and, if possible, exercise a discrete influence on Italian diplomacy because the situation in Italy was not yet mature. In this context a letter from the Ambassador in Rome, Guy E. Millard, written four days later is quite meaningful. He agreed with his colleague Stewart that it would have been highly desirable if the Italians could solve their territorial problems with Yugoslavia before Tito’s departure. But he warned on the key issue: “In terms of Italian domestic opinion practically no moment is ‘a favorable moment’ for the settlement of this problem.” Any solution might have offered arguments for criticism, not only in the context of right-wing policy and – he continued – it was also difficult to predict when Italy could have a Prime Minister who need not concern himself with these problems. It was at this time that the Embassy noticed that the personnel of the Italian Foreign Ministry was becoming more and more reserved. The usually frank and open Giorgio Franchetti Pardo markedly avoided answering the questions of the British diplomats. Anyway he agreed that it was necessary to find an ultimate solution once and for all before Tito’s departure, but all depended on the party of the 45

TNA, FCO 28/2804, D.L. Stewart-British Embassy Belgrade to J. Killick-FCO, 24.07.1975 (also in FCO 33/2725).

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Prime Minister (the Democrazia Cristiana). Millard also believed that it would not be a good thing to consult excessively in Rome as it could seem that Great Britain wanted to interfere in the matter. Therefore, he supported the idea of speaking directly with the Italian ambassador in London Roberto Ducci who would probably get the message across to the right people.46 London agreed with both the Ambassadors and sent copies of their letters to several addresses.47 Hence, if the Italians were the first to announce to Great Britain that an agreement would soon be reached (it should be noted that the two states signed the agreed texts in Belgrade on 6 August 197548 when they had almost fully concluded their long secret negotiations), the Yugoslavs were the ones who provided British diplomacy with detailed information on the agreement. In September they spoke with Stewart – confidentially, of course – and asked him to report to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the Governments of Yugoslavia and Italy had reached a package of agreements on all the open problems, including the one on economic cooperation. This information should kept secret by Great Britain until the case was presented in both Parliaments in more or less ten days. Then the signing by the two Foreign Ministers would soon follow. But what is more interesting is that the Yugoslavs provided the first data on the agreements: they confirmed the border between Zones A and B and delimited in details those borders in the further north which had not been outlined perfectly in the Treaty of Peace of 1947; they defined the territorial waters in the Gulf of Trieste, clarified any question regarding the compensation in Istria and gave rights to minorities. The economic one was also a broad issue which included several questions, the most important of which was the protocol on the establishment of a free zone for joint industrial activity, which would be located within ten kilometers of the border, in both Yugoslav and Italian territory. This was suggested by the Italians, partly in order to resolve the problem of industry in Trieste, partly because they needed European Economic Community agreement. The Yugoslav interlocutor Deputy Foreign Minister of Yugoslavia Lazar Mojsov wanted also to point out that the agreements were an example of how, in practice, the issue could be resolved in the spirit of Helsinki.49 In London they immediately wrote that “The agreement is, of course, excellent news” and indicated why they were looking forward to it: in the 46

TNA, FCO 28/2804, G.E. Millard-British Embassy Rome to J. Killick-FCO, 28.08.1975. 47 TNA, FCO 28/2804, to J. Killick, 5.08.[1975]; copies of Stewart’s and Millard’s letters; A.D.S. Goodall-WED: Minute Draft [end of August 1975]. 48 Škorjanec, Osimska, 168-9. 49 TNA, FCO 28/2804, Stewart-Belgrade 221310Z to FCO (No. 214), 22.09.1975.

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short term it might be criticized by right-wing political circles in Italy, but in the long run it would be forgotten as an internal political problem; in the past the Trieste question had been used against the West and after Tito’s departure this could happen again; moreover the agreements could probably reduce the conflict between Yugoslav Communists and other parties in the East as well as that with the Italian Communists. In other words, it was potentially a big step towards détente. However the British comment is interesting also for other reasons. In London they pointed out that the Italians had not told them anything more than what they had already communicated confidentially a few weeks before, that is that the agreement would soon be reached; by contrast, the Yugoslavs had shown more confidence. Therefore it was suggested that Mojsov be told that the British Foreign Minister highly appreciated Minić’s gesture.50 This confirmed that Great Britain wanted to follow very closely the problem of the border. Immediately London communicated the information to various Departments and Ambassadors and further underlined that Minić evidently wanted to maintain good relations: The Department are struck by the fact that the Yugoslavs have conveyed this news to us before the settlement has been made public and indeed before the Italians have said anything firm to us. This suggests that Minić is anxious to give as much genuine substance as possible to his exchanges with the Secretary of State.51

Clearly, Osimo was not the only point of discussion involved and this was once again a confirmation that the United Kingdom wished to cultivate the best possible relations with Yugoslavia. The Chief of Yugoslav diplomacy Minić seemed to be a good warranty of this (in the past he had already been on good terms with Great Britain, as shown for example by the fact that he continued corresponding with the Foreign Minister James Callaghan).52 Just a few days later, on 24 September, newspapers revealed that the two countries would agree on the borders. The British Embassy in Rome immediately reacted and noted some different details in some Italian newspapers. Mainly they noticed that in Italy the news was calmly accepted and that the Italian Foreign Ministry largely preserved a no comment line. Franchetti Pardo had only confirmed that an agreement would be “imminent” and had avoided giving any detail. Farnesina was 50

TNA, FCO 28/2804, B.G. Cartledge-EESD, 23.09.1975. Miloš Minić was the Yugoslav Minister for Foreign Affairs. 51 TNA, FCO 28/2804, Callaghan-FCO 241146Z to UKMIS New York (No.  701), 24.09.1975. 52 TNA, DEFE 13/984, Record of a Conversation between the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and the Yugoslav Defence Minister General Ljubičić, 11.07.1975, 1.

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waiting for the return of the Foreign Minister Mariano Rumor from New York who would answer parliamentary questions. Rumor acknowledged that the economic aspects of the agreements would be brought before the European Economic Community which would accept them.53 During the interview with Franchetti Pardo and on several other occasions the British Diplomatic Service noticed that it would have been better if the Italians had not found out that the Yugoslavs had provided information about the arrangement.54 Nonetheless, at the meeting with Ducci on 1 October, the Permanent Under-Secretary admitted that Great Britain had received some information. Ducci was somewhat surprised. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was worried that the Yugoslavs would come to know that Great Britain had not kept secret the fact that she had received some confidential information from them. Therefore, if the question was raised, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would declare that the Permanent Under-Secretary had spoken only in general terms and in response to a direct question from Ducci.55 Surely Great Britain feared to losing the Yugoslavs’ trust but apparently this was not a problem. On 1 October, in fact, confirmation came that Anglo-Yugoslav relations were very good. When Minić announced the agreement with Italy, there was as a special guest, John Selwyn Lloyd, in the Belgrade Parliament. The British Conservative politician, at that time Speaker of the House of Commons (and the former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1955-60), visited Yugoslavia from 28 September to 4  October 1975.56 He had already been invited in early February 1975 for September57 and his presence in Belgrade in the autumn turned out to be perfect. Stewart reported that the visit had been very successful, as Selwyn Lloyd had already played an important role in the London Memorandum of 1954 (as assistant to the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden). Minić and others thanked him warmly, and Stewart added that he felt no doubt that they were sincere in this.58 At the presentation the Yugoslav side stressed that the agreement had been made ​​in the spirit and in the practice of Helsinki and praised the Italian side for participating in 53

TNA, FCO 28/2804, Millard-Rome 251505Z to FCO (No. 563), 25.09.1975. TNA, FCO 28/2804, A.D.S. Goodall-WED to PS/PUS: Agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia over Trieste, 1.10.1975. 55 TNA, FCO 28/2804, Callaghan-FCO to Belgrade (No. 170), 2.10.1975. 56 TNA, FCO 28/2961, D. Stewart-HM’s Ambassador at Belgrade to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Diplomatic Report No.  103/76, Yugoslavia: Annual Review for 1975, 14.01.1976, 8. 57 TNA, FCO 28/2810, Inter-Parliamentary Union to D. Stewart-Ambassador Belgrade, 12.02.1975. 58 TNA, FCO 28/2810, D. Stewart-British Embassy Belgrade to B.G. Cartledge-EESD: Speaker of the House of Commons, 9.10.1975. 54

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the negotiations. The Assembly showed their agreement by applauding warmly.59 Even the Parliament of Rome adopted the agreement. Here too British diplomacy was very interested that matters moved in the right direction and so it happened after two days of discussions: 349 for and 51 against.60 Italian diplomacy communicated to Great Britain that there would be no problems in Rome. However, a specific issue was raised: how the European Economic Community would react to the industrial free zone. Would it be possible to export some goods made in Yugoslavia to Italy and to other European Economic Community countries via the Free Zone, ie tax free? The Italians did not believe that there would be any problems, so a request was sent to the European Economic Community to verify whether the application of the arrangements in the area was in harmony with the rules of the Treaty of Rome and of the Community. Italy hoped that even this issue would be resolved before Tito’s departure and wouldn’t be delayed because of Brussels bureaucracy. Some Italian diplomats admitted that there was still much to define about the free zone.61 Although Britons had a keen interest in it, they failed to obtain more detailed information. Among the British comments before the signing of the agreement the one written on 6 October by one of the members of the British Embassy in Belgrade, Charles L. Booth is particularly interesting. He said that, among other things, the agreement provided new access for Italian ships to the port of Trieste through defined channels in Yugoslav territorial waters. These channels would have be used not only by tankers, but by all types of ships including warships.62 On 10 November 1975 Italy and Yugoslavia signed the agreement in Osimo. The Italian Embassy in Belgrade confidentially informed Stewart on the details on 8 November: “According to the Italian Embassy, Yugoslav and Italian foreign ministers will sign the agreement at Castel San Pietro, Osima[o] (near Ancona) at 5 pm on 10 November. This is confidential until the press announcement at noon that day.”63 59

TNA, FCO 28/2804, Stewart-Belgrade 020825Z to FCO (No. 221), 2.10.1975. TNA, FCO 28/2804, Millard-Rome 021200Z to FCO (No. 590), 4.10.1975. 61 TNA, FCO 28/2804, Italian Embassy London, 1.10.1975; Callaghan-FCO 011800Z to Rome (No. 298), 1.10.1975; A.D.S. Goodall-WED to PS/PUS: Agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia over Trieste, 1.10.1975; Millard-Rome 021400Z to FCO (No. 582), 2.10.1975; C.L. Booth: Italian/Yugoslav Agreement, 6.10.1975; H. Holmes to Mr. George: Agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia over Trieste [undated]; A. Brooke Turner-British Embassy Rome to C. Hulse-WED, 7.10.1975; C.L. BoothBritish Embassy Belgrade: The Trieste Agreement, 10.11.1975. 62 TNA, FCO 28/2804, C.L. Booth: Italian/Yugoslav Agreement, 6.10.1975. 63 TNA, FCO 28/2804, Stewart-Belgrade 081330Z to FCO (No.  247), 8.11.1975; cf. C.L. Booth-British Embassy Belgrade: The Trieste Agreement, 10.11.1975. 60

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*** The question was not definitively resolved with the signature of the agreement because it had to be ratified by both Parliaments. This was to take more than a year even though the Italian Foreign Minister explained to the British Embassy that he thought that they would ratify soon. Discussion in fact could have probably started in Parliament within a week and ratification would have been delayed at longest to the beginning of 1976.64 Actually, it was only in April 1977, that the Exchange of Notes of ratification took place. From the British perspective, in this intermediate stage, nothing substantially happened in relation to the border problem. Satisfaction was expressed in the internal discussions of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as in the assessment made by Stewart in his annual report on Yugoslavia for 1975: “[…] The frontier settlement with Italy should lay to rest the longest standing and potentially the most damaging of Western European differences with Yugoslavia and has important implications for the general stability of this country.”65 Satisfaction was also expressed by Minić who, at the beginning of December 1975, visited Great Britain. He said that Yugoslavia and Italy had been able to solve serious problems in the spirit of Helsinki. He added that his country wished also to solve contentious issues with other neighboring countries, that is, with Austria and Bulgaria,66 with which Yugoslavia was involved in long-standing disputes. At the beginning of March 1977, the British Embassy in Rome reported that the treaty had just got through the two Chambers and in a few weeks it should reach the final ratification.67 Soon after diplomats from Belgrade announced that on March 1 the Yugoslav Parliament had ratified. Minić gave a speech in which he depicted Osimo as a significant contribution to implement the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.68 The Osimo Treaties were finalized in Belgrade on 3 April 1977 through the exchange of ratification documents and were obviously followed by a series of favorable comments. 64

TNA, FCO 28/2804, Millard-Rome to FCO, [11.11.1975]; Millard-Rome to FCO (No. 47), 11.11.1975 (also in FCO 28/3158). 65 TNA, FCO 28/2961, D. Stewart-HM’s Ambassador at Belgrade to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Diplomatic Report No.  103/76, Yugoslavia: Annual Review for 1975, 14.01.1976, 4. 66 TNA, FCO 28/2805, Barnes-Hague to FCO (No. 329), 5.12.1975, 1. 67 TNA, FCO 28/3158, M. Morland-British Embassy Rome to A.D.S. Goodall-WED: Treaty of Osimo, 2.03.1977. 68 TNA, FCO 28/3158, A.M. Wood-British Embassy Belgrade to J. Brown-EESD: Treaty of Osimo, 15.03.1977.

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*** Nonetheless, some new questions were raised. The main points can already be found in a long report written at the beginning of May by the British Ambassador in Rome from 1976, Alan H. Campbell. He stressed how difficult it had been to come to an agreement. An expert of the Italian Foreign Ministry had told him that Italy had worked very hard to negotiate with the Yugoslavs because they wanted the status quo. He had told him also that Mariano Rumor had needed great courage to reach the end of negotiations, while Arnaldo Forlani (Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1976-79) had been extremely nervous until the last because he had been afraid of possible riots in Parliament or in the country. In fact it was surprising that there had not been any disorder because it is always a risk when a country leaves some territories. The expert also added that the borders of Osimo had been established very accurately and – “[…] according to our MFA informant […]” – had resolved several doubts and anomalies (some of them on military aspects), in most cases favoring the Italians. He had explained also that the Yugoslavs had eventually surrendered on the problem concerning minorities because the Italians had conditioned negotiations and had been determined to eliminate the issue, without doubt – according to the Ambassador – because they had had problems in the north Italian region of South Tyrol. Italy’s proposal for the free zone was justified by the fact that it could contribute to the economic development of Trieste. The Ambassador was however of the opinion that it was more likely that the Yugoslavs wanted it most because of political and economic reasons, particularly the fact that it could have ensured employment opportunities, but, above all, because they would have been able to get a foothold in the Community’s Common External Tariff. In other words, with the free zone Yugoslavia could have become even closer to Europe and its market. The local opposition to Osimo in Trieste, which had gathered 67,000 signatures, wished to move the location of the zone closer to the sea because they did not want to share the benefits with the Yugoslavs; moreover, they wanted to avoid pollution and the Yugoslav repopulation of this area, which would inevitably change its ethnic composition. But opposition was probably thinking also about the elections in the following autumn. Campbell said that all the media, with the exception of the local newspaper (Il Piccolo), wrote about Osimo as an opportunity and omitted the protests, which however had not been violent. The European Economic Community accepted the economic arrangement only after a very brief examination and without any discussion. In fact the Ambassador commented that the terrain was not suitable and it would have been really a surprise if the plan had materialized. The expert of the Italian Foreign Ministry explained that the plan for the free zone had not been developed seriously by the Italian 95

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side, but they had included this part in the Osimo Agreement for the sake of political symmetry. However, if the zone had become a reality, it would have been in the interests of the British Government – according to the Ambassador – to turn a blind eye to the question. In the zone, in fact, they could produce goods probably using Yugoslav raw materials as well as a cheaper Yugoslav workforce and sell them to the European market without the payment of any fee. Her Majesty’s Government should pay attention also to the fact that, in theory, each State Party of the Treaty of Peace with Italy (Italy had signed it with other 20 states on 10 February 1947) could have ask that any change in the Treaty required the approval of all parties; this was the same risk already in 1954 with  the London Memorandum. In any case, according to the Ambassador, the risks were actually “remote”. According to him Osimo nullified the hypothetical possibility of future problems and offered also an incentive to the trade between the two countries. It remained to be seen if, thanks to the economic foundations of the Agreement, Yugoslavia would be able to bind even more with the West.69 Although London was not entirely satisfied with the long report  – because, among other things, it had been written too much under Italian influence70 – it was clear that only the border between the two countries was under lock and key. Everything else remained up in the air. Implementation had proved to be de facto an insurmountable obstacle. British sources are again very rich on this issue. British diplomats were fully aware that the problem of minorities (in particular that regarding the Slovenians in Italy) remained open and unresolved, although there were promises to improve the situation. The opinion of Italian nationalists – who had acquired great influence in the local area and had created a new political movement, Lista per Trieste – carried considerable weight on the unresolved question.71 However British diplomats knew that the situation of the Slovenian and Croatian minorities in Carinthia was less favorable than that of the Slovenian in 69

TNA, FCO 28/3158, A. Campbell-British Embassy Rome to D. Owen-HM’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 3.05.1977. 70 TNA, FCO 28/3158, J. Brown to A. Figgis: Despatch on the Treaty of Osimo, 19.05.1977. 71 TNA, FCO 28/3158, H.R. Mortimer-British Embassy Rome: Visit of Miloš Minić, Vice President of the Yugoslav Executive Council, 28.11.1977; C.L. Booth, British Embassy Belgrade, to J. Brown: The Yugoslav Foreign Minister’s Visit to Italy, 30.11.1977; FCO 28/3580, D.I. Miller-British Embassy Belgrade, 27.09.1978; FCO 28/3918, D.I. Miller-British Embassy Belgrade to M.F. Smith-FCO: Visit of Italian Foreign Minister to Yugoslavia, 17.01.1979; T.J. Clark-British Embassy Belgrade to C.C.R. Battiscombe-EESD: Yugoslav/Italian Relations, 11.07.1979; Translation of the Joint Communiqué from Politika, 15.10.1979.

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Italy. In fact, Italy, for example, had regulated the problem of the reception of Ljubljana TV in Friuli-Venezia Giulia (through repeater stations), whereas Austria had not.72 Great Britain had a rather negative opinion about the free industrial zone in the Karst. The very location seemed entirely inappropriate to them. They understood that the Yugoslav side showed more interest in its realization, even though immediately after the ratification they had announced that many problems would arise.73 British diplomacy was particularly interested in whether Osimo could give an opportunity to Yugoslavia to obtain “[…] a springboard into EEC markets”.74 Great Britain worked really hard on this topic. She believed that it was an illusion if the Yugoslavs thought that through the free zone they would have easier access to the European market. European Economic Community also dealt with these complex issues. However, Italy ensured that everything would be fine, but did not show a real desire for the realization of the zone and, on the local scene, Lista per Trieste filibustered. Great Britain understood that the argument about the dangers of pollution was secondary, while there was a much greater fear – a real nightmare – in the relocation of workers coming from the southern parts of Yugoslavia, since they would change the “ethnic make-up” of Trieste. This would put the mentality of the city, which still lived on the memories of the past under crisis.75 The free industrial zone was not realized, but however relations between the two countries further improved. For Yugoslavia the minority problem still remained unsolved, but a series of intensive scientific and technological initiatives began, as well as a cooperation in order to find various practical solutions.76 *** Nevertheless, the final border was definitely a positive achievement, and not only for the Italian-Yugoslav relations. It is interesting, for example, what C.L. Boothe wrote from Belgrade on the strategics: […] the Jugoslavs can now, if they wish, divert the forces they have always previously stationed in Slovenia and Croatia, in case the dispute should flare 72

TNA, FCO 28/3607, J. Brown: My Visit to Ljubljana and Zagreb, 13-17 November 1978 and Record of Information Officer’s Call on the Slovenian Republican Secretary for Information, Mr. Mirko Čepič, 14.11.1978, 2. 73 TNA, FCO 28/3158, C.L. Booth-British Embassy Belgrade to J. Brown-EESD, 28.04.1977. 74 TNA, FCO 28/3158, Brown-EESD to Murrell-Belgrade: Treaty of Osimo, 24.05.1977. 75 Many documents with interesting details about the free zone are located in TNA, FCO 28/3158 and FCO 28/3580. 76 TNA, FCO 33/4902, Summary Translation of Communiqué issued after the Visit of President Mijatovic of Yugoslavia, December 1980, 19.12.1980; R.N. Culshaw-British Embassy Rome to M. Savill-WED: Visit of Yugoslav President, 12.01.1981.

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up into war, to other parts of the country. Traditionally, Yugoslav units have been stationed in large numbers in those two Republics and there are a lot of barracks there. If they now wish, these forces can be released for the defence of other frontiers and, of course, the Hungarian and Bulgarian spring to mind.77

The Western European Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office completely agreed with him and added: I think it is important that agreement has been reached on the issue before any possible loosening of the political structure in the two countries. One could have imagined this running sore becoming dangerously inflamed if instability on either side of the border were to lead to any reassertion of the old claims and prejudices.78

In conclusion, we can mention the following quotation taken from a draft of a Top Secret and Strictly Personal letter from February 1976 written by some important British authorities. It contains the essence of this essay. On the one hand it shows us how Great Britain perceived the complicated context of Soviet threats against Yugoslavia, but at the same time it also shows us that lack of confidence, at least from the Yugoslav side (apparently originating from the past), was very present at that moment: […] the Yugoslavs would not welcome either the intervention of Western forces upon their territory or anything which in any way smacked of NATO. They would accept bilateral help from the United States or the United Kingdom, and perhaps even from France. But they object to NATO, first because they want to preserve their positions as a member of neither bloc; secondly, because any evidence of NATO activity could, they fear, be construed by the Russians as a pretext for intervention […]; and thirdly, because they hate the guts of the Germans and the Italians. The second of these reasons would also inhibit them from welcoming formal military intervention or assistance from any Western power; what they would like is help of the sort that was given to Tito’s partisans in the Second World War.79

77

TNA, FCO 28/3158, C.L. Booth-British Embassy Belgrade to J. Brown-EESD: Treaty of Osimo, 8.06.1977, 2. 78 TNA, FCO 28/3158, A.D.S. Goodall-WED to I.J.M. Sutherland: The Treaty of Osimo, 6.07.1977. 79 TNA, DEFE 13/984, Draft Letter to Mr. Skyes: Yugoslavia, [February 1976], 4; cf.  DUS(P) to PS to Secretary of State (DUS(P)/88/76): Yugoslavia – Contingency Planning, 18.02.1976.

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Romania and the Rapprochement between Italy and Yugoslavia Alberto Basciani The 1960s and 1970s were a time of great change for South-East Europe, following the tensions which arose during the most critical phase of the Cold War. During these years commercial business increased, cultural activities resumed, tourism began to expand, but most of all, a season of intense diplomatic contacts and political opening towards the West was inaugurated. Despite differences between the three countries, regarding for example forces in power and the ultimate goals pursued, Italy, Yugoslavia and Romania were undoubtedly the central players in a new phase marked by an easing of tension in international relations. This essay intends to shed some light on one of the least known aspects of European politics by analyzing the normalization of relations between Italy and Yugoslavia determined by the definition of Italy’s eastern border, from the perspective of a South-Eastern European country, Romania. Bucharest had in fact gained a certain autonomy from Soviet power during these years. With the aim of expanding margins for maneuver and emancipating the country from Soviet power, the Romanian leading class was driving the country to become a mediator between the capitalist and communist worlds, by focusing foreign policies on issues of non-interference, respect of national sovereignty of all countries and, last but not least, the strengthening of commercial and technological ties with the Western world. Similarly to other popular democracies under the direct control of Moscow, Romania severely condemned Yugoslavia, following the expulsion of the country from the Cominform, the advisory organ of the communist parties set up in September 1947 in Szklarska Poręba, in Poland. Curiously, the resolution condemning Yugoslavia was adopted on 28 June 1948 (a historically significant date for the Southern Slavs and for Serbs in particular) during a meeting of the communist parties in Bucharest itself, which had become the organization’s headquarters.1 1



The Cominform headquarters was established in Belgrade. With the transfer to Bucharest Soviet predominance on this organization increased. The entire structure of the Cominform was dominated by Soviet elements, while only a part of the personnel

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In the following weeks and months the Romanian leading class was among those to violently attack Yugoslavia, to the extent that in the 24 August 1948 edition of the Scînteia, the official press organ of the Romanian Working Class Party (Partidul Muncitoresc Român was the name adopted by the Romanian communists in 1948 after the merger, or rather the annexation of the Socialist Party) Tito and his close collaborators were described as ‘a gang of assassins’. The attacks were not limited only to this sort of insult. In fact during the course of 1948 the Romanian authorities proceeded in a series of actions aimed at harming Yugoslav interests, symbols and institutions present on Romanian soil. Tension increased the following year causing various incidents along the Romanian-Yugoslav border, to the extent that the Romanian military chief of staff implemented the strengthening of the military divisions deployed throughout the Banat region, with the aid of numerous Soviet troops.2 Such a radical stance is not surprising. During the period in question Romania was under firm Soviet control, and Romanian foreign policy outside of the communist countries was more or less inexistent. The hostile attitude adopted towards Tito was yet another element confirming the total submission of Romania to the dominant Soviet power.3 On the other hand the Red Army was heavily deployed in the Danube country, acting more as an occupation army than an allied force. Furthermore, beginning in the last years of the 1940s, a number of mixed Soviet and Romanian entities (the infamous ‘Sov-Rom’) controlled the vital centers of Romanian economy, beginning with the raw material sector, running them in favor of Moscow. Behind an apparently compact and ferocious facade of true or presumed ‘class enemy’ repression, the Romanian communist party itself was ridden with profound disagreements and by personal hostilities, jeopardizing its solidarity and cohesion. Such internal rivalry simplified the work for the Kremlin, and its skillful use of the divide et impera method to maintain firm control and a strict influence over the ruling class in power in Bucharest.4

2



3



4

and of the security services were Romanian. See: Leonid Gibianskii, “Soviet-Yugoslav Relations, the Cominform and Balkan Communist Parties: Documentary Sources and some Aspects of Research,” in The Balkans in the Cold War. Balkan Federations, Cominform, Yugoslav-Soviet Conflict, ed. Vojislav G. Pavlović (Belgrade: Institute for Balkan Studies, 2011), 295. More generally on the Cominform see: The Cominform: Minutes of the Three Conferences, 1947/1948/1949, ed. Giuliano Procacci et al. (Milano: Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, 1994). Gheorghe Ciobanu, Relaţiile internaţionale ale României între anii 1948 şi 1964 (Iaşi: Junimea, 2006), 70-3. Ibid., 26. On the sovietization process in Romania refer to Dennis Deletant, România sub regimul comunist (Bucureşti: Fundaţia Academia Civică, 2006) 83-126 [original ed., Romania under Communist Rule, Bucharest, 1998]. On the internal struggles within the Romanian Working Class Party at the time of Tito’s excommunication refer to

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1948 was a crucial year in the history of the Romanian communist dictatorship. It was the year in which the process of ‘sovietization’ brought the state, the economy and cultural life, and finally the whole of society, under the strict supervision of Soviet councilors.5 In the setting of the bilateral relations with Belgrade, the situation certainly did not improve during the years which immediately followed. Also due to the geographical proximity of Yugoslavia, Romania became a privileged base for propaganda against Tito as well as for the implementation of acts of sabotage. A specific ‘Yugoslav section’ was created within the PMR’s (the Romanian Working Class Party) central Committee formed by leading figures who over the past years had steadily gained experience in covert operations.6 The political and ideological conflict with Tito was also used by the Romanian authorities as a pretext for the planning, towards 1950, of the deportation to one of the most inhospitable areas in Romania (Câmpia Bărăganul) but also to Russia, of over forty thousand people. Twenty-eight thousand of these people were Serbs whom the Soviet regime considered unworthy of trust as they belonged to non-Romanian ethnic groups. The population subjected to this treatment lived in a portion of land stretching between 25 and 40 kilometers from the border with Yugoslavia, between Banat and southeast Oltenia. Meanwhile, along the extent of the border with Yugoslavia a military zone was created, inaccessible to ordinary citizens, characterized by the construction of a complex military apparatus of barracks, barbed wire fences and so on.7 Similarly to what happened in other popular democracies, the Yugoslav schism resulted in a witch-hunt that involved party leaders as well as common citizens who were generally accused of espionage for the imperialist powers, and of course of betrayal of the ‘Tito gang’. It is worth remembering that in September 1951 a trial was held in Bucharest against people accused of plotting in favor of the Vatican and of being part of the so-called Italian espionage center. This period

5



6



7

Florin Constantiniu, Adrian Pop, Schisma roşie. România şi declanşarea conflictului sovieto-iugoslav (1948-1950) (Bucureşti: Compania, 2007), 42-8. For further specific information on the direct consequences of Tito’s schism on relations between Romania and Yugoslavia refer to the volume by Mircea Chiriţoiu, Între David şi Goliath. România şi Iugoslavia în balanţa războiului rece (Iaşi: Casa Editorială Demiurg, 2005), 35-69. For the Italian reader a useful general overview of Nineteenth century Romanian history can be found in the book by Francesco Guida, Romania (Storia d’Europa) (Milano: Unicopli, 20092). Mioara Anton, Ieşirea din cerc. Politica externă a regimului Gheorghiu-Dej (Bucureşti: Institutul Naţional pentru Studiul Totalitarismului, 2007), 8-9. Ibid., 51-2. Johan Steiner, Doina Magheţi, Mormintele tac. Relatări de la cea mai sângeroasă graniţă a Europei (Iaşi: Polirom – Institutul de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului în România, 2009), 18-19.

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also corresponds to the worst phase in Italian-Romanian relations, which were marked by tensions, accusations and opposing claims, and by the complete absence of any commercial and cultural relations.8 Regarding Romanian foreign policy, the situation began to change slowly only after Stalin’s death and especially after 1956, when the Romanian communist regime gradually developed an internal strength, coinciding with the beginning of a gradual and uneasy transition towards relative autonomy from Moscow.9 This was the context in which a cautious approach towards Yugoslavia became possible. In June 1954 diplomatic relations were restored between Bucharest and Belgrade, following in the path set by Chruščëv. On that occasion the unrivaled dominus of the Romanian party and state, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, was easily able to point at the false information received from Moscow as the reason for the previous quarrels with Yugoslavia. Naturally, it was impossible to altogether dismiss the consequences of the political and ideological conflict that for some time still continued to linger in the background of relations between Yugoslavia and Romania. However, the ice had been broken, and despite many difficulties and differences still remaining, as a matter of fact as early as the end of 1954, bilateral relations between the two countries improved substantially, when a series of commercial, cultural and scientific agreements were entered into, including the agreement for the construction of the hydroelectric dam just outside the Iron Gates.10 The improvement 8

Giuliano Caroli, La Romania nella politica estera italiana 1919-1965. Luci e ombre di un’amicizia storica (Milano: Edizioni Nagard, 2009), 376-428. 9 On the strengthening of the Romanian Communist Party refer to Stefano Bottoni, Transilvania rossa. Il comunismo e la questione nazionale (1944-1965) (Roma: Carocci, 2007), especially chapters 6 and 7. According to Paul Niculescu Mizil, a Romanian Working Class Party leader, already in 1957 Gheorghiu-Dej renounced taking part in the demonstration in Moscow for the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution in solidarity to Tito, who at the last moment decided to stay in Belgrade because of disagreements with the Soviets regarding the final statement that all the communist parties gathered in the Soviet capital were to undersign. Cf. Paul Niculescu Mizil, De la Comintern la comunismul naţional (Bucureşti: Editura Evenimentul Românesc, 2001), 55. In any case, the leader’s choice would prove successful because upon arrival at Vnukovo airport in Moscow the Romanian delegation was involved in a serious plane crash in which the minister for foreign affairs Grigore Preoteasa lost his life. It is worth noting that historiography does not consider the accident as an attack. 10 Ciobanu, Relaţiile internaţionale, 74-5. On the normalization of relations between Romania and Yugoslavia see Dan Cătănuş, “Reluarea relaţiilor româno-iugoslave. Vizita lui Tito la Bucureşti, 23-26 iunie 1956,” Arhiva Totalitarismului, 3-4 (2002), 72-86. It was only during an official visit by Gheorghiu Dej to Belgrade in November 1963 that a number of difficulties were overcome (due also to Bulgaria’s desire to become part of the project) and the signing of a bilateral agreement was possible, regulating the construction of the hydroelectric station at the Iron Gates. See: Cezar Stanciu, Frăţia socialistă. Politica RPR faţă de ţările lagărului socialist 1948-1964 (Târgovişte: Editura Cetatea de Scaun, 2009), 224.

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of relations with Yugoslavia, a state struggling to gain autonomy from Moscow, a regime that had successfully sustained the trial of Stalinist ‘excommunication’, breaking the imposed isolation within the communist area and preparing to become one of the key players on the international political scene, was undoubtedly very important for Romania, and increased its room for maneuver in relation to the Soviet Union.11 During the second half of the 1950s Romanian diplomacy observed the direction taken by Yugoslavia in foreign policy, a direction aimed at maintaining the balance between the two blocks. Specifically, a report sent by the Romanian embassy in Belgrade to Bucharest spotlighted how in consequence of the pressures exerted on Yugoslavia by the Western Powers and especially by the U.S., it can be expected that in order to prove that Yugoslavia has no intention to get closer to the socialist countries the Yugoslav government will seek to restore the “balance of power” through a variety of approaches in favor of the Western countries order, strongly reaffirming its intention to remain “outside the camp” [as in the text], and play a prominent role among the neutral countries.12

For Romania this implied maintaining a special relationship with Yugoslavia also during the difficult period marking the end of the 1950s, when relations between Tito and the Soviet leadership suddenly worsened again.13 During the next few years the Romanian leadership continued to develop the process of emancipation from Soviet protection, implementing economic policies with a certain ability. In fact for the Soviets the COMECON, founded in 1949, represented much more than a simple instrument for consultation: the Council was to actually coordinate and direct the economic development of the various satellite countries and on this basis the so-called Valev plan was devised in 1963, consigning Romania to the role of supplier of raw materials and agricultural products, a humiliating position for any socialist country.14 The opposition to the Soviet plan shown by the Romanian Communist leaders led to the adoption by the Plenum of the Central Committee of Romanian Worker’s Party of the so called ‘declaration of independence’ dated April 1964, which marked a 11

Ciobanu, Relaţiile internaţionale, 75. On the evolution of Romanian foreign policy after the death of Stalin refer to: Constantin Moraru, Politica externă a României 19581964 (Bucureşti: Editura Enciclopedică, 2008). 12 ANIC, Fond CC al PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe (1958-1965), Dosar 68/1958, Report not dated (however the year is certainly 1958) on the guidelines of foreign policies adopted by the Yugoslav Communist League on the occasion of the 7th YCL Congress. 13 Chiriţoiu, Între David şi Goliath, 77-125. 14 The creation of the economic region between Bulgaria, Romania and Moldavia worried the Romanian leadership even more. Refer to Brândusa Costache, “România şi Consiliul de Ajutor Economic Reciproc, 1949-1960,” Arhivele Totalitarismului, 28-29 (2000), 83-8.

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crucial moment in relations between Bucharest and Moscow, inaugurating a new phase of increased Romanian autonomy.15 In this setting, during the last phase of Gheorghiu-Dej’s power, relations between Romania and Yugoslavia underwent continuous and substantial improvement. It appeared almost as if with the anti-Soviet turn aimed at building a national communism capable of standing on its own, Gheorghiu-Dej was looking for Tito’s concrete political support, and even more.16 From this moment on, each time the Romanian communist leaders faced a political matter of primary importance they resorted to the support or mediation of Tito. On the other hand, the close ties to the Yugoslav leadership were proof of the autonomy won by the Romanian regime. Furthermore, Yugoslavia could become a useful connection to improve economic relations with the West, relations which were greatly needed by Bucharest for enforcing its economic structure and gaining emancipation from an economy based on raw materials, from the Soviet market as well as from the eastern European market in general. There was no question of Yugoslavia ever re-entering the communist block; on the contrary, Tito’s regime was intending to continue along the path of neutrality, also for further improving privileged commercial relations with the western nations as well as with the neutral ones and with the third world. Such was the intention of Mario Stendardi, a high level figure of the Italian Communist Party, responsible for foreign issues within the party, as stated to the Romanian ambassador in Rome.17 The political position initiated by Gheorghiu-Dej (who died in March 1965 after a brief illness) was continued with even greater determination by his successor, Nicolae Ceauşescu. His intention to do so was clearly stated on 27 May 1965 during the course of a meeting held between Ceauşescu and the Yugoslav ambassador in Bucharest, creating the 15

On the process of the gradual emancipation of Romania from the Soviet Union and on the origin of the so called Romanian “heresy” refer to the study of Anton, Ieşirea din cerc, especially 148-78. 16 Liviu Ţăranu, România în Consiliul de Ajutor Economic Reciproc 1949-1965 (Bucureşti: Editura Enciclopedică), 2007, 80-1. 17 ANIC, Fond CC al PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe (1958-1965), Dosar 67/1964. Report on the talks of 6 April 1964. During this conversation Stendardi referred to his Romanian interlocutor that the meetings with the delegations and leaders of the various communist parties of the East had left him with the impression that with a few exceptions (one of them being Romania) the economic situation in the socialist countries was overall complex. In March 1970 Stendardi was expelled from PCI for allegedly giving confidential information to the Soviets. Maurizio Caprara, Lavoro riservato. I cassetti segreti del PCI (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1997), 182-83. During the 1960s and 1970s relations between the PCI and the PCR became very intense, see Stefano Santoro, “Partito comunista italiano e ‘socialismo reale’. I casi romeno e polacco,” Storicamente, 9 (2013), available at: www.storicamente.org/07_dossier/est/ santoro.pdf (last access on 18 February 2013).

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premises for the first summit between the new Romanian leader and Tito.18 A clear demonstration of this was the non-participation of Romania in the armed intervention of the Warsaw Pact during the summer of 1968 to suppress the reformist experiment carried out in Czechoslovakia by Dubček, as well as the firm condemnation of this episode and the support of each nation’s right to choose its own path towards the attainment of socialism.19 A secret classified report dated February 1970, sent from the Romanian foreign bureau to Ceauşescu, highlighted the growing importance that relations with Yugoslavia had gained in Romanian international policies. A major role in this improvement was played by the summits held between the leaders of the two communist parties in power.20 During this same period political relations between Italy and Romania entered a new more dynamic phase after a long period of difficulties and standstill, as described above. This new phase would become particularly dynamic as testified by the official visit to Italy in 1968 by the Romanian prime minister Ion Gheorghe Maurer and the minister for foreign affairs Corneliu Mănescu.21 Relations between Rome and Bucharest improved to the extent that in January 1971 it was the turn of an official visit to Romania by Aldo Moro, the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs. During talks on the state of bilateral relations, Ceauşescu remarked that Romania wished to develop the commercial relationship and to support the distension of European political affairs, as a result of its effort to improve relations between Romania and Yugoslavia, and between Italy and Yugoslavia. Today our relations with Yugoslavia are good. This represents a good basis for direct and appropriate contact with Italy, and for this reason we give great 18

ANIC, Fond CC al PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe (1958-1965), Dosar 22/1965, Shorthand report of the meeting between Nicolae Ceauşescu and the Yugoslav ambassador in Bucharest Arso Milatović. 19 Lavinia Betea, Cristina Diac, Florin-Răzvan Mihai, Ilarion Ţiu, 21 august 1968. Apoteoza lui Ceauşescu (Iaşi, Polirom, 2009). 20 ANIC, Fond CC al PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe (1958-1965), Dosar 86/1970, secret report sent by the Romanian MAE to Nicolae Ceauşescu as secretary of the Romanian Working Class Party. Visits to Yugoslavia were classified as “Stately and friendship visits,” whereas the rest of the official visits to other socialist countries were classified as “State visits”. According to the official version of a high official of the Securitate, general Ion Mihai Pacepa, at the beginning of the 1970s Ceauşescu, not yet the unrivaled dominus of the party and the state, idolized Tito as a model to follow. Refer to Ion Mihai Pacepa, Orizunturi roşii. Crimele şi moştenirea Ceauşeştilor (Bucureşti: Humanitas, 2010), 401. 21 Refer to my work: “Tra aperture e neostalinismo. Italia e Romania negli anni Sessanta e Settanta,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Massimo Bucarelli (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2012), 188-91.

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importance to the establishment of good relations in this part of the world, and between these two countries.22

In his reply, Moro did not avoid confronting the issue of relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, and despite the use of the usual diplomatic formulas, did not deny that some difficulties threatening positive relations with Belgrade had arisen: I wish to assure you that despite recent misunderstandings [with Yugoslavia, ed.] the substance of our relationship and our respect and collaboration towards Yugoslavia have not been damaged. In any case, I believe these misunderstandings will soon be cleared up, with benefit to all three countries, with a satisfactory development of their relations, as has been the case for our relations during this past year. On Italy’s part nothing has changed and I believe this is so also on the part of Yugoslavia.23

As a matter of fact, in that period relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, after a phase of constant improvement, had suffered a sudden freeze. Negotiations for the defining of the border were progressing slowly amidst many difficulties with repercussions on political affairs and in general on Italian public opinion. The situation was so delicate that an unconfirmed press report caused the Italian right wing to react. According to the report Italy would give up Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste following an agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia, which defined the borders between the two states. This agreement was reported to be due to be signed on the occasion of Tito’s visit on 10 December 1970. Questioned in parliament on the issue, Moro himself stated in response to criticism that despite efforts to settle relations with the eastern territories, Italy would never fail to defend its legitimate national interests. This was all it took to increase tensions with Yugoslavia, leading Tito to cancel his scheduled visit to Italy, precipitating the worsening of the relations between the two countries.24 This impasse in relations between the neighboring Adriatic countries could have represented a good opportunity for Romania to give its foreign policies new vitality. As member of the soviet bloc, Romania had a certain degree of autonomy from the Soviet Union. This particular political position gave the country the opportunity to play an active role on the international scene. This quality (exalted in many publications and pamphlets in various languages praising Romania’s foreign policy) enhanced Ceauşescu’s personal prestige and represented the means of 22

ANIC, Fond CC of PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe, Dosar 2/1971, Shorthand report of the meeting between Aldo Moro and Nicolae Ceauşescu, 14 January 1971. 23 Ibid. 24 Cf. Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (1945-1999) (Roma: Aracne, 2008), 45-58.

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increasing commercial exchanges with the Western Countries. This was a resource greatly needed by Romania to fuel dissidence towards the Soviet Union, in relation to international power balances and to the Romanian Communist Party’s need for new political and ideological ways of consolidating internal legitimation. The Romanian ruling class needed to mark its autonomy from Moscow to consolidate its power for once. In this perspective, close ties to Yugoslavia could be the key for implementing a certain degree of autonomy and security for Romania in an international context, just as the previous Sino-Soviet conflict had been used by Gheorghiu-Dej to win an increasing degree of self-determination from the suffocating relationship with Moscow. Obviously Yugoslavia also had an interest in involving Romania in its most problematic issues with neighboring countries. These were dealt with in the meeting between Ceauşescu and Tito in July 1974. On this occasion the foreign office of the PCR’s Central Committee prepared an accurate report dealing with the unsettled controversy concerning the border question between Italy and Yugoslavia. In examining the matter, the document pointed out that despite excellent diplomatic relations between the two countries, there were however some points of disagreement. Specifically, it referred to Yugoslavia’s strong opposition towards involving Italy in the talks concerning the disarmament of the Balkan peninsula, and most of all, the disappointment demonstrated by Yugoslavia for the ‘lack of support shown by the Romanian press for Yugoslavia in its territorial dispute with Italy’.25 Documents prepared for the summit also contained statements by Tito on the occasion of the 10th Congress of the Yugoslav Communist League (that had been held not long before, in May 1974), during which the Yugoslav president had strongly rejected the latest developments in Italian foreign policy towards Belgrade, setting out territorial claims considered by himself and the Yugoslav leadership as a direct attack on Yugoslav sovereignty and national integrity: The issue concerning Zone B cannot be taken into consideration any more. We are ready to promote relations with Italy on the basis of the principles that have allowed positive developments until now. However no-one should have any doubt that all our different nations and nationalities will defend the borders, the freedom and the independence of Yugoslavia as one.26

25

ANIC, Fond CC of PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe, Dosar 139/1974. Shorthand report of the meeting between Tito and Ceauşescu and attached files. 26 Ibid.

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Romania did not have the necessary political or diplomatic means to intervene directly in the dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia; however the experience gained during those years as a mediating country in the Balkan area could be used with some advantage. In fact an interesting meeting took place in Bucharest in May 1975 between Ceauşescu and Aleksandar Grličikov, the secretary of the Executive Committee of the Presidium of the Central Committee (UCJ). The Yugoslav political leader remarked on the bad state of relations between his country and Bulgaria, and on how, according to Yugoslavia, not only had Bulgaria not given up claims over Macedonia, but the heads of the Bulgarian nomenklatura were spreading information among the leaders and the members of their party concerning the right to such territorial demand, also stating that with the fall of Yugoslavia the region would return under Bulgarian control. According to Grličikov the Bulgarian authorities were not only taking advantage of every occasion to gather troops along the Yugoslav border, but they had also gotten to the point of committing ‘outright acts of terror towards the population in Pirin’.27 In his reply, Ceauşescu made an attempt to minimize these accusations, and mentioning his meetings with the Bulgarian communist leader Todor Živkov, suggested direct contact between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. He then stated that only a continuous strengthening of Yugoslavia and of the national communion of its people, along with a greater impulse in international politics, would have guaranteed the maintaining of the current borders and the end of every threat to territorial integrity.28 The Romanian leader probably guessed that behind the aggressive Bulgarian attitude, Soviet influence was hiding.29 27 This was the only part of Macedonia within the borders of the Bulgarian state after World War II. For an overview of the Macedonian issue from a Bulgarian perspective during the socialist years refer to Armando Pitassio, Storia della Bulgaria contemporanea (Passignano sul Trasimeno: Aguaplano, 2012), 103 et sqq. The Macedonian question, therefore, is not even dozed off during the years of communism. The tensions that shook the communist bloc and even the war in Indochina became elements able to procure new rivalries and disagreements between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria practically until the early 1980s. See Dimităr Petkov, “The Macedonian Question in Bulgarian-Yugoslav Relations (July 1948 – October 1956),” Bulgarian Historical Review, 1-2 (2011), 14068; Spyridon Sfetas, “The Bulgarian-Yugoslav Dispute over the Macedonian Question as a Reflection of the Soviet-Yugoslav Controversy (1968-1980),” Balcanica, XLIII (2012), 241-71. 28 ANIC, Fond CC of PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe, Dosar 72/1975. Shorthand report of the meeting between Nicolae Ceauşescu and Aleksandar Grličkov of 22 May 1975. 29 Sfetas, “The Bulgarian-Yugoslav Dispute,” 259-66. In January 1979, Brežnev visited Bulgaria. In his meeting with the soviet leader, Živkov expressed his concerns over the unholy alliance of Yugoslavia, Romania, China, the USA and NATO against Bulgaria. According to him was a maneuver aimed to isolate Bulgaria in the Balkans. Živkov thought: “Measures should be taken by both countries, and by the brotherly socialist countries, to reinforce our positions in the Balkans,” ibid., 261.

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Of course the situation along the Italian eastern border was very different to the one along the Macedonian border, and, as we know, the worst case scenario was avoided. During 1974 most of the pending issues were settled through long and difficult negotiations, and finally at the end of the same year negotiations between the two countries succeeded in finding an agreement, perfected during the following months, that finally led to the signing of the Osimo agreement on 10 November 1975. This agreement brought a definitive solution to the old and delicate issue concerning the defining of the border between Italy and Yugoslavia, as well as to matters concerning the treatment of the respective national minorities.30 Romania had become a reliable element within the sphere of relations between European states: the opening towards Western Countries, the special relationship built with Yugoslavia and a certain degree of acquired autonomy, at least apparently, within the Soviet bloc, gave credit to the Danubian state as a trusted political player with which one could do business and at the same time as a trait d’union with the rest of the socialist world, especially in the Balkan region. The normalization of relations between Italy and Yugoslavia was the object of an interesting conversation that took place in Bucharest on 25  May 1977 between Ceauşescu and an important Italian delegation headed by the prime minister Giulio Andreotti and his minister for foreign affairs Arnaldo Forlani. During the course of the conversation matters concerning foreign policy were dealt with, beginning with the international situation in the Balkan region and in the Mediterranean area. Ceauşescu urged a widening of the distension process in international affairs on the part of European countries, along with the reduction of armaments in respect of full national sovereignty by all states, according to the Helsinki agreement (which had in the meantime become a stronghold of Romanian foreign policy). In answer to these requests, Andreotti stated that in such matters Italian politics were going in the right direction: we have just concluded an important agreement with Yugoslavia to find a definite solution to the problems along the border. I believe this to be an act of great importance, it has caused some emotion in the local population, but the treaty was ratified in Parliament with a vast majority.

Forlani’s words on the subject were even clearer: President Andreotti has just stated that we have done everything possible in this direction, at the cost of bearing sacrifices and difficulties. Indeed we consider relations with Yugoslavia essential and in this perspective we must 30

Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera, 68-73.

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interpret the solution to problems concerning the border. We have established a zone of free economic cooperation in the hope that this may also be achieved with other countries besides Yugoslavia. President Andreotti has also spoken of the great interest shown in this matter by president Karamanlis in Athens, towards Romania and the other countries in the Balkan region: Yugoslavia, Turkey […] it is undoubtedly true what you say about the great difficulties and indeed we cannot expect spectacular results, however an interesting prospect is to maintain the European Community area open, offering a chance for cooperation.31

The Balkan issues were also an opportunity to deal with a regional problem often raised (as we have already seen) during the frequent meetings between Ceauşescu and Tito: the difficulties in the relationship between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria caused by the Macedonian issue. The Romanian communist leader recognized a certain difficulty on that front but believed that this would never lead to open confrontation between the two countries. This reassurance could not have been very convincing, despite Andreotti’s quick and cryptic answer: ‘the only real problem will present itself after Tito’.32 During those years relations between Italy and Yugoslavia were dealt with by Romania and Yugoslavia also on occasions other than the ritual bilateral meetings. In his memoir Mihai Pacepa, a high official of the Securitate (the Romanian secret police) who had escaped to the West in 1978, recounts that on one day early in 1978 he had a secret meeting with Silvo Gorenc, Tito’s envoy, who arrived in the Romanian capital on a secret flight. Gorec carried a message from Tito in reply to a previous message by Ceauşescu asking the Yugoslav president to mediate in order to obtain the release of Aldo Moro, held captive by the Red Brigades. Tito’s answer was negative, because the Yugoslavs – who, according to Pacepa, boasted about being the organizers of the first terrorist formations in Italy and especially of the Red Brigades, with the aim of destabilizing their capitalist neighbor – believed that the decision to assassinate the leader of the DC had already been taken and was irrevocable. Tito suggested to Ceauşescu that he wrote a telegram of condolence to the headquarters of the Italian Communist Party, and that he sent a personal telegram to Enrico Berlinguer.33 This is obviously a testimony to be taken with a measure of skepticism. While it is true that because of his high position within the intelligence Pacepa had knowledge of classified political information and of details 31

ANIC, Fond CC of PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe, Dosar 77/1977, shorthand report of the meeting between Ceauşescu, Andreotti and Forlani in Bucarest. 32 Ibid. 33 Pacepa, Orizunturi roşii, 409-11.

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regarding Romanian society, many of his statements (including this one) can not be proven and in many cases seem purposefully designed. Indeed, as researchers studying Romanian communism well know, in these cases orders and directives given by Ceauşescu were exclusively verbal and direct, to avoid any possible trace. Certainly the old issues between Italy and Yugoslavia appeared to be completely solved quite rapidly, as the Secretary of the Italian Socialist Party, Bettino Craxi, confirmed in October 1978, during a visit to Bucharest. In fact according to Craxi relations between his party and the Yugoslav Communist League were ‘naturally good because of Italy’s excellent relations with Yugoslavia’.34 Yugoslavia however continued to occupy an important role in the frequent and important bilateral meeting between Italy and Romania. On 15 March 1980, only two months before Tito’s death, Giulio Andreotti visited Bucharest as President of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and had a long meeting with Nicolae Ceauşescu, by then the undisputed leader of the Communist Party and of the Romanian State, having imposed a dictatorship. As had happened during other recent meetings with Italian political delegations, much of the conversation was dedicated to the Afghanistan issue. Romania, applauded by the West, had immediately adopted a critical position on Soviet armed intervention in the Asian country. Following close examination of the development of this delicate situation, Andreotti addressed a new issue concerning the Adriatic region close to Italy: We are evidently interested in Yugoslavia. We have maintained an extremely reasonable political position towards this country and our relations have been very good for some years. However we are concerned about internal contradictions, and about the different nationalities.35

Andreotti stated that he had also expressed his concerns directly to marshal Tito himself who had reassured him, indicating that he was certain of the integrity of the Yugoslav Federation. However, according to the Italian politician: there are worries caused by groups of refugees who have left Yugoslavia? who could create a degree of destabilization in Yugoslavia. Others are also concerned about the possibility of Soviet intervention. But such a thing does not seem possible to me.36 34

ANIC, Fond CC of PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe, Dosar 186/1978. Shorthand report of the meeting between Bettino Craxi and Nicolae Ceauşescu on 20 October 1978. 35 ANIC, Fond CC of PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe, Dosar 35/1980, Shorthand report of the meeting between Nicolae Ceauşescu and Giulio Andreotti on 15 March, 1980. 36 Ibid.

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There was no wait for Ceauşescu’s response. He confirmed the excellent state of relations between the two states as well as the economic difficulties in the predicament Yugoslavia was experiencing. He anyway displayed greater optimism than Andreotti who, as we remember, had shown his worries about a post-Tito era in a previous encounter, but the Romanian satrap assured [his interlocutor] that political life in Yugoslavia will continue to develop in a future framework of stability and development. There are certainly circles abroad – I refer to groups of Yugoslav refugees – who are attempting to put certain acts in motion. It is possible that these could present a problem, considering that many of them work in the West, and I believe it will be necessary to put the brakes on their activities. But I do not think there is a problem of Soviet intervention. There is no such danger and the situation in Yugoslavia is not such as to raise Soviet worries.37

We know that at the beginning of the 1990s the situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia took a very different turn from the one expected by the Romanian dictator who not only fell from power in 1989 but lost his life following his capture and a show trial after his brief flight from a Bucharest in revolt. Perhaps the certainty displayed by Ceauşescu in 1980 for his Italian guest was aimed at reassuring him of the fact that in spite of the predictable consequences of the departure of Tito, the status quo established between the Balkans and the Danube would not undergo substantial change and Romania, sharing a border with Yugoslavia, would continue to play a mediatory role between the Socialist lineup and the West. On closer inspection, the death of his friend Tito could have strengthened even further the role and prestige of the Romanian leader. Yet something in Ceauşescu’s perception of the international situation must have changed. This appeared evident in a meeting of senior Romanian and Yugoslav officials held a short time after Tito’s death, on 19 May, 1980, set to sanction the continuance of excellent bilateral relations. Between 22 and 24 October, Ceauşescu conducted an official visit to Yugoslavia where he had a series of meetings with the new political leaders in the Socialist Federation. For the Romanian leadership it was important to pursue relations with Yugoslavia along the precisely same track that had been laid down over many years of cooperation with Tito. Relations between the two States did figure in the talks and, more in general, the international situation did not come up for analysis. Cvijetin Mijatović, as president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia presidium, appeared to maintain a low profile; he simply indicated that his country would continue to follow the line drawn by Tito promising such good results as excellent relations with neighbors and especially 37

Ibid.

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with Italy, underscoring the goodness of economic relations, which were clearly demonstrated. On the contrary, Ceauşescu was almost aggressive. Dropping the tone used only a few months earlier in his talk with Andreotti, the Romanian dictator spoke of the danger of the return of fascist forces on the European continent, probably referring to the Croatian terroristic Movement (ustaša), which, exploiting difficult economic conditions, could destabilize European politics with unimaginable consequences for European stability and the balance between the two blocs.38 These words signaled the thinking, though only at the intuitive level, that the loss of Tito after years of close cooperation, and especially with the increasing difficulties within the Socialist bloc, could lead the Romanian leader to see difficult times ahead. This could have compromised the tried and tested system for running international relations which, up to that point, had served well to strengthen his personal power and put under the world’s spotlights the brilliant foreign policy of his Romania which, on the other hand, was not improving domestic conditions in his country which was coming close to experiencing the worst civil and economic period in its history.

38

ANIC, Fond CC al PCR – Secţia Relaţii Externe, Dosar 179/1980. Shorthand report of the meetings between Tvietin Miatović and Nicolae Ceauşescu on 22 and 24 October 1980. During these talks the Romanian president remarked on preoccupations regarding the situation developing in the socialist bloc, especially concerning events in Poland (which would soon become an obsession for the Romanian dictator) where according to him the solution to the crisis, aside from the collaboration between the working class and the Worker’s Party, required strong policies capable of eliminating all maneuver space for counter-revolutionary forces, acting, according to him under the mask of the free union Solidarność.

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Italy and Albania in the Era of Détente A Tacit Alliance Luca Micheletta Albania, as is well-known, was the only European country not to participate in the process of détente between the two blocs that began in the late 1960s and culminated in the opening of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the signing of the Final Act of Helsinki in 1975. This position arose from the rigid ideological opposition maintained by the regime of Enver Hoxha towards the United States as well as towards the Soviet Union. The United States had been the first ideological enemy, while the Soviet Union had followed after the 1961 split and the Albanian alignment with the ideological positions and international policy of the People’s Republic of China. Albanian authorities repeatedly expressed their belief that any form of dialogue between the East and the West, supported by the two superpowers, would have as a consequence the reinforcement of the division of Europe into two camps of influence rather than facilitate the way to overcome it. Consistently, Albania refused the formal invitation to take part in the work of the CSCE that the Finnish Government had sent at the end of 1972, and continued to criticize and to systematically boycott every initiative to pursue détente between the Soviet Union and the United States.1 However, around the same time, the Albanian leadership had to drastically reorient its foreign policy to adjust it to changes in the international system and open itself up as never before to the outside world, while the regime remained critical, ideologically and rhetorically, of the détente and peaceful coexistence. With regard to the relations with Italy, the Albanian regime had already taken the path of coexistence, as a result of the search for security within the international dynamics that had affected the Balkans since the end of the war. Until the Yugoslav split in 1948, the relations between Italy and Albania had been going through their most turbulent phase since the Second World War. They were burdened by the memories and dramatic legacies of war and occupation by the Fascist regime in 1939, well before the outbreak of the Second World War, following considerable 1



NARA, RG 59, GRDS, CFPF, 1970-73, Political and Defense, b. 2036, Department of State, Research Study, 7 September 1973, RESS, 43.

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Italian interference in the Albanian political and economic life of the 1920s and 1930s which in the end became suffocating.2 The experience of occupation and its consequences, therefore, separated Italy and Albania and continued to do so after the end of military operations, because the Albanian Workers’ Party - not unlike the rest of the communist parties of Eastern Europe and the Balkans - drew its own legitimacy from the liberation war against the Nazi-fascists. It should be enough just to recall that the propaganda of Enver Hoxha, during the election campaign that was to lead to the proclamation of the People’s Republic of Albania, on 11 February 1946, was centered on the liberation struggle which, actually, was the fight against Italy.3 To the negative experiences of occupation ideological contrast was added, a true novelty in Italian-Albanian relations and a typical characteristic of the postwar period. The ideological opposition, already present since 1945, exploded with the outbreak of the Cold War and the open hostility between the two establishing blocs. Albania and Italy found themselves on different fronts, making opposite choices regarding both internal and international issues. After the elections of 1948, Italy moved towards liberal democracy and chose, under the impetus of De Gasperi,

2



3



On the foreign policy of Fascist Italy towards Albania see Pietro Pastorelli, Italia e Albania 1924-1927. Origini diplomatiche del Trattato di Tirana del 22 novembre 1927 (Firenze: Biblioteca della Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 1967); Francesco Lefebvre D’Ovidio, L’intesa italo-francese del 1935 nella politica di Mussolini (Roma, 1984); Massimo Borgogni, Tra continuità e incertezza. Italia e Albania (1914-1943). La strategia politico-militare dell’Italia in Albania fino all’operazione “Oltremare Tirana” (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2007); Ennio Di Nolfo, Mussolini e la politica estera italiana (1919-1933) (Padova: Cedam, 1960); Bernd Jurgen Fischer, King Zog and the Struggle for Stability in Albania (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1984). On the economic relations between Italy and Albania, see Alessandro Roselli, Italy and Albania: Financial Relations in the Fascist Period (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006); Matteo Pizzigallo, L’AGIP degli anni ruggenti (1926-1932) (Milano: Giuffrè, 1984); Id., La “politica estera” dell’AGIP (1933-1940). Diplomazia economica e petrolio (Milano: Giuffrè, 1992). See also Massimo Bucarelli, Mussolini e la Jugoslavia 19221939 (Bari: B.A. Graphis, 2006); Luciano Monzali, Il sogno dell’egemonia. L’Italia, la questione jugoslava e l’Europa centrale 1918-1941 (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2010). On the Italian occupation of Albania, Antonella Ercolani, L’Italia in Albania: la conquista italiana nei documenti albanesi 1939 (Roma: Libera Università San Pio V, 1999); Luca Micheletta, La resa dei conti. Il Kosovo, l’Italia e la dissoluzione della Jugoslavia 1939-1941 (Roma: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2008); Id., “Italy, Greater Albania, and Kosovo 1939-1943,” Nuova Rivista Storica, 2013/2, 521-42. Settimio Stallone, Prove di diplomazia adriatica. Italia e Albania 1944-1949 (Torino: Giappichelli, 2006), 120 et sqq.; Id., Ritorno a Tirana. La politica estera italiana e l’Albania fra fedeltà Atlantica e “ambizioni” adriatiche 1949-1950 (Roma: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2011).

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the Western way, culminating in joining the North Atlantic Treaty in 19494 – a choice that, despite different interpretations and international and domestic scenarios which changed the role of Italy, has never been revised. Albania, on the other hand, found itself in the socialist-communist bloc, and remained there, at least in terms of its internal system, until 1990. These conditions, between 1945 and 1948, led to ‘dramatic’ relations between the two countries. Although they did not have territorial disputes, as Italy had with Yugoslavia over the issue of Trieste and Istria, Rome and Tirana had several serious problems to solve, starting with the huge reparations that Albania, supported by the Soviet Union, requested on the occasion of the Italian Peace Treaty discussions, and the detention of Italian soldiers and civilians, kept in Albania until 1946 and beyond.5 The relationship with the other shore of the Adriatic Sea for Rome was characterized by instability and open hostility, while for Tirana the value of the bond with Italy was diminished by the contingent situation in the Balkans. The apparent strength of ties with other communist regimes in the Balkans, indeed, gave Albania a possible solution to the security issues, which were the true bond that had been tying it to Italy for decades. Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, at that time, were not only ideologically aligned, but were considering the path of unity within a confederation. In the name of communist idealism Tito promoted the project of a Balkan federation to solve various national issues that the war had cruelly reopened. The Albanian regime proved favorable to this project. It bound itself with Belgrade on 9 July 1946 with a political treaty of alliance and friendship, and on 27 November 1946 with a trade and customs union agreement. With this political treaty, it must be noticed, Tirana gave up any claim to Kosovo, which had also been at the center of Albanian foreign policy since 1913.6 On the other hand Tirana was protected from another danger which had arisen after the Second World War, as after the First, namely the danger of Greece, devastated by civil war between the Communists and legitimists. Indeed, the Greek government claimed, at the time of

4

Antonio Varsori, L’Italia nelle relazioni internazionali dal 1943 al 1992 (Bari: Laterza, 1998); Id., La cenerentola d’Europa? L’Italia e l’integrazione europea dal 1947 a oggi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010); Italy’s Foreign Policy after the Second World War, ed. Massimo de Leonardis, UNISCI Discussion Papers, 2011/25. 5 Stallone, Prove di diplomazia adriatica, 177 et sqq. 6 On the general history of Kosovo, Noel Malcolm, Kosovo. A Short History (London: Macmillan, 1998); Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian. A History of Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Konrad Clewing, “Zur Continuität des Kosovo-Konfliktes 1878 bis 2008,” in Kosovo. Wegweiser zur Geschichte, ed. Bernhard Chiari, Agiolf Kesselring (Paderborn: Schoening, 2008).

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the Peace Conference, the Northern Epirus.7 And Athens claimed it, incidentally, while appealing, in order to obtain the consent of the West, to the support that Tito and Hoxha gave to the communists in the civil war. It seems clear that Hoxha’s support of the Greek communists was not only connected with Tito’s plan to create a Balkan federation, but also, more prosaically, with an attempt to weaken Greek territorial aspirations and defend the Albanian borders of 1913. The possibility of being able to count on the friendship and alliance of Belgrade and Sofia, as well as on that of the Soviet Union, and the hope to influence the outcome of the Greek conflict, met the need for security of the Albanian state and regime, two entities that increasingly came to coincide with the personality of Enver Hoxha. In this scenario, as mentioned, the role of Italy became marginal.

1.  The Good Neighborhood Policy This dramatic period was overcome due to the Yugoslav-Soviet split in 1948, which opened the second phase of Italian-Albanian relations. It is well-known that it was the opportunity of realizing the Balkan federation project that broke the link between Tito’s Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union of Stalin, who opposed it, fearing the formation of an overly big and powerful aggregate in the Balkans. But the Tito-Stalin split also resulted in a break between Albania and Yugoslavia. The Albanian regime looked favorably on this event, which allowed it an unexpected freedom of maneuver with respect to its biggest and most powerful neighbor – Yugoslavia. Tirana was growing increasingly tied to the Soviet Union, which offered thousands of technical and economic favors in exchange for the base of Vlora, specially rearranged to accommodate the Russian fleet. For Moscow, on the other hand, after the break with Tito and the co-optation of Greece and Turkey into the Western bloc, all that remained was a small Albania – a loyal client in the Mediterranean.8 Therefore, any kind of political collaboration between Tirana and Belgrade was stopped, particularly on the issue of Kosovo and the improvement of the conditions of the Albanians in Serbia. Tirana felt not only free, but rather encouraged by the Soviet Union to renew its old irredentist anti-Yugoslav policy, which became evident immediately

7



8



Luca Micheletta, “La lotta per il limes greco-albanese e l’eccidio Tellini,” in Il caso Tellini dall’eccidio di Janina all’occupazione di Corfù, ed. Ornella Ferrajolo (Milano: Giuffré, 2005), 67 et sqq. Mark Kramer, “Breznev e l’Europa dell’Est,” Storica, 22 (2002), 35-102; also in www.viella.it/toc/132, 44 (see also ibid. footnote 22).

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with the strong support for the protests of Kosovan Albanians and the financing of activities aimed at the union with Albania.9 Detachment from Belgrade brought to the Albanian regime an economic, rather than political, necessity to open up towards Italy. Hoxha was in Moscow in March 1949, and Stalin encouraged him on the path of reconciliation with Rome.10 Italy and Albania were able to reach the re-establishment of diplomatic relations on 2 May 1949, thus allowing the regularization of economic relations, and a step forward in solving the problems left open since the war, such as issues relating to Italian citizens or nationalized Italian properties. Rome, therefore, in the eyes of Tirana became again an important partner because, although economic aid from Yugoslavia was replaced with aid from the Soviet Union and Bulgaria, this was not enough in economic terms. Moreover, the Soviet Union and Bulgaria were only partially able to respond to the political problem which had already regained its central role for the government in Tirana, i.e. how to preserve the independence and territorial integrity of Albania. It’s worth remembering that the break between Tito and Stalin had another - and for the Balkan context, much more important - repercussion on an international level: Yugoslavia was sliding gradually, though never fully, into the western sphere. Tito never became a formal ally of the United States, although he became an ally of the allies of the United States. Between 1953 and 1954, the Belgrade regime was linked, first through political agreements, and then through military alliance, to Greece and Turkey, two countries that, in the context of containment of Soviet communism, were drawn into the sphere of American influence from the time of the Truman doctrine and were accepted as members of the Atlantic Alliance in 1952. The Greek-Yugoslav alliance meant for Albania being encircled by the two neighboring states and Tirana perceived this situation as hostile and dangerous both in terms of territorial claims and political interference. It can be said that, after the failure of the Balkan federation project and the Tito-Stalin split, old national issues regained the upper hand in interBalkan dynamics. No less important was the fact that, for its part, Belgrade, after the breakup with Albania, came to regard the Kosovan Albanians not only as a long-standing problem that needed to be solved, but also as a renewed threat to fend off. The outcome, quite obviously, was that the Belgrade authorities soured the lives of the Kosovan Albanians and took 9

Peter Danylow, Die Aussenpolitischen Beziehungen Albaniens zu Jugoslawien und zur UdSSR 1944-1961 (Muenchen: Oldenbourg, 1982). 10 Luigi Vittorio Ferraris, Manuale della politica estera italiana, 1947-1993 (Bari: Laterza, 1996), 75.

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up the old attempt to get rid of the Albanian presence, making use, as they had done between the two world wars, of the complicity of Turkey – now a friend and, moreover, an ally. It was through this renewed friendship that in 1953 Belgrade and Ankara reached the agreement for transferring the so-called ‘Turks’ still present in Yugoslavia to the Anatolian peninsula playing again, as had been done in the 1920s and 1930s, on the confusion between religion and nationality. This time as well the Albanian Muslims were identified as Turks, probably the most devout from the religious point of view and most unpleasant for Tito’s regime, and a forced transfer was imposed on them. It has been estimated that about one hundred thousand Albanians took the road of emigration to Turkey in the period 1953-1966.11 In short, the quest for security led the Albanian regime to reconsider the value of its relationship with Italy, which began to show, as in previous decades, its interest in the stability of Albania. For strategic reasons, in fact, the Italian military continued to regard, even in the 1950s, as crucial to the defense of Italy, and now to the defense of the West more generally, the preservation of the integrity and independence of the Albanian State. Starting from 1953, with De Gasperi, a series of public positions were taken by the Italian authorities on maintaining the status quo in the Balkans and the respect for the integrity of Albania12. These positions culminated in the unequivocal statements made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gaetano Martino, in the House, on 27 September 1955, about the fact that Italy had never hidden ‘its own and Western interest in preserving the independence and integrity of the Republic of Albania’.13 They repeated - except for the reference to the West, which was the big news in Italian foreign policy after the Second World War - a formula that had guided, in some crucial periods, Italian-Albanian relations since the time of Giolitti and Sforza in the 1920s. And paradoxically, the role of Italy to defend the interests of the Albanians was augmented by its own clear position within the Western bloc, where there were also two ancient enemies of the Albanians, Greece and Yugoslavia, now allied and, in different ways, linked to the West.

11

Malcolm, Kosovo, 320-3. On the Italian attitude toward the Balkan Pact see Giuliano Caroli, L’Italia e il Patto Balcanico, 1951-1955. Una sfida diplomatica tra Nato e Mediterraneo (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2011). 13 Ferraris, Manuale della politica estera italiana, 1947-1993, 184. See also Luciano Monzali, Mario Toscano e la politica estera italiana nell’era atomica (Firenze, Le Lettere, 2011), 87. 12

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Italian diplomacy was at the forefront of curbing any tendency of Belgrade or Athens to threaten the existence of the Albanian state. And most importantly, they made sure they found a way for this desire not to be encouraged, as it had been in the past, by other Western partners, such as the British government. London had broken off diplomatic relations with Tirana after the incident in the Corfu Channel in 1946 and had remained unwilling to reestablish them until after the end of the Cold War. In this regard, it is worth citing this excerpt from a report of a meeting held at the Foreign Ministry in January 1957 in anticipation of a visit by the British Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd. The document is very explicit in disclosing what the divergence of views between Rome and London on Albania was: Ambassador Magistrati, – it says – at the invitation of the Minister, recalls this last major episode. Field Marshal Montgomery, in the course of his conversation with Marshal Tito, mentioned the benefits of a potential Yugoslav occupation of Albania in the event of a war crisis. This conversation was then referred to us. After airing our grievances, rather vividly, the English tried to minimize things. The problem now is to see if we still believe that the current situation in Albania should be a constant in our policy, a constant in which, as is well known, the Italian military take particular interest. It should be pointed out, to provide every possible element of judgment, that in his recent visit to Rome Ambassador Pietromarchi hinted at a possible revival of the Balkan Pact: if this were true it should not be ruled out that the intention was to compensate Greece for some sacrifice on Cyprus, with the division of Albania, especially as the Albanian government has recently shown itself a spearhead of the satellite group. However, he believes that our position should be to keep, at any cost, Albania, although communist, away from the Balkan sphere. He suggests that, on the occasion of the upcoming talks with the British, they should be provided a sense that we do not intend to give up on such a position.

For the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, communist Albania wanted to ‘ground the defense of their independence not only on their friendship with Russia, but also on the rapprochement – albeit limited and with a purely utilitarian purpose – with Italy, which has publicly and repeatedly said it wants to see the independence and territorial integrity of Albania preserved’ […] ‘The abovementioned rapprochement is, however, desirable and seems to still be in conformity with both Italian and Western interests. It should also be borne in mind in this regard that, with respect to Albanian communism, Western policy – at present  – certainly could not aim at encouraging the process of emancipation from Moscow, of which there are no prerequisites, but should aim to lay the foundation for the development of reasonable relationships of technical cooperation with the Albanian official bodies, whatever their doctrinal 121

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direction might be. Italy is especially qualified to carry out, in the interests of the West, such action in the context of an active Good Neighborhood policy towards Albania’.14 The above explains well the small steps that were made to build bridges between the two shores of the Strait of Otranto: the conclusion of the trade agreement between Italy and Albania on 18 December 1954, the first agreement between a Western country and the regime of Enver Hoxha, which had positive consequences also for the solution of the still pending issues related to the war and the peace treaty, such as the release of the last Italian prisoners in 1955; the agreement for the return of the remains of the Italian soldiers fallen during the war;15 and, finally, the agreement of 22 June 1957 which provided for a lump-sum compensation for confiscated goods, the return to Albania of the artistic property taken during the occupation, the return of documents relating to Italian citizens, etc.16

2.  A Tacit Alliance Even more paradoxically, this link between Rome and Tirana was reinforced by the rapprochement between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1955, when Albania began to slip out of the Soviet orbit. Already after the XX Congress of the CPSU in February 1956, a latent conflict between Moscow and Tirana was noted, together with Soviet rapprochement with Yugoslavia and the Albanian resistance to following the new political and ideological impulses, domestically and internationally, coming from post-Stalinist leaders, such as the coexistence and the détente with the non-Communist world. Many observers, at the time, explained this disagreement as being a consequence of the ‘unbridled hatred’ that was fed by Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu, the number two of the regime, towards Yugoslavia and its leaders, but also of the will of the Soviet destalinizationists to interfere in the internal affairs of satellite countries. Slowly, Albania came closer to the positions of Maoist China, with which it ended up sharing a critical view of the new policy in Moscow.17 On the other hand, Beijing was showing 14

ASMAE, Affari Politici 1950-57, b. 1360, Riunione per la visita del Ministro Selwyn Lloyd presieduta da S.E. Il Ministro, 11 January 1957; Appunto per il Consigliere Mondello, 18 January 1957; Appunto, Ufficio II, Albania, n.d. The texts of the Italian documents quoted in the article have been translated by the author. 15 Ferraris, Manuale della politica estera italiana, 75. 16 Ibid., 185. 17 William E. Griffith, Albania and the Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1963); Ana Lalaj, Christian F. Ostermann, Ryan Gage, “‘Albania is not Cuba’. SinoAlbanian Summits and the Sino-Soviet Split,” Cold War International History Project

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more respect for the Hoxha regime and was, as far as was possible, willing to consolidate it. It certainly was not a mystery that the Albanian ruling class was – as recorded by the Italian minister in Tirana, Tristano Gabrici, at the beginning of 1962 – ‘the gang which survived a fierce struggle for power, although fought in the name of Marxism-Leninism, but in reality for its own survival’. This leadership held power firmly in its hands and was aware that any political change might lead to its physical elimination: ‘Government – wrote Gabrici again – is forced to isolate itself so the homes of its members are concentrated in a single street, in which trees are cut down to ensure better visibility to the guards armed with machine guns, (…) and which is floodlit at night, in stark contrast to the poor lighting of the town’.18 From the late 1950s the conflict with the Moscow government worsened. In 1958, Hoxha described it as “the imperialist clique”, borrowing the language of the Chinese leaders, while between 1959 and 1960 other symptoms revealed the uncertain future of relations between Tirana and Moscow: Chruščëv’s trip to Tirana at the end of May 1959, during which the Soviet leader, in turn, criticized the weaknesses of the Albanian regime in many fields and made ​​it clear that for the Soviet Union the relationship with Yugoslavia was a priority; the ideological mismatch at the meeting of communist parties in Bucharest in June 1960 in concomitance with the Congress of the Romanian Communist Party; the meeting, a few days before the Congress of Bucharest, between Chruščëv and the Greek leader Sophocles Venizelos, a former prime minister and son of the famous Eleftherios, the greatest theoretician of the Megali Idea and, therefore, of the Greek aspirations for the North Epirus, who had protested over the treatment of the Greek minority in Albania and obtained, at least in words, the support of the Soviet Communist Party and of the fraternal Parties with regard to the granting of autonomy for national minorities;19 the doctrinal disagreements at a further meeting of communist parties in Moscow in November 1960, culminating in the deliberate ratification of the line of friendship with China in the fourth Congress of the Albanian Labor Party in February 1961; finally, the purge of some of the Soviet Union loyalists in Albania, such as Admiral Bulletin, Issue 16, in www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/CWIHPBulletin16_ p3.pdf. Also: Albania Challenges Khrushchev Revisionism (New York: Gamma Publishing, 1976); Enver Hoxha, The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha (London: Chatto and Windus, 1986). 18 ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), Borromeo (Direzione Affari Politici) to Marchiori, 17 February 1962, letter 12/181; Gabrici: “Osservazioni sulla attuale situazione albanese,” Note, 5 February 1962. 19 Paulin Kola, The Search for Greater Albania (London: Hurst & Company, 2003), 120 et sqq.

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Seiko, sentenced to death and shot, or the execution of other two officers, accused of being Soviet spies. The expulsion, in June 1961, of eight Soviet submarines and of the support ship stationed in Vlora and, together with them, of the Russian naval attaché in Tirana, which was followed, in retaliation, by the expulsion of the Albanian military attaché in Moscow, concluded this season of conflicts. These last episodes – it is appropriate to insist on this point – regarding the Russian military presence in Albania, in addition to manifesting the final break from Moscow, enabled a better understanding of the fears of Hoxha and Shehu – that the Soviets could regain influence in Albania either by causing political changes at the top of the Albanian state ‘or, worse, by resorting to force’.20 It was becoming increasingly clearer that a resolution of the disagreement with the Soviet Union was completely impossible, hindered even and especially by the tone of personal confrontation between the leaders of the two countries: any compromise would mean the ‘definite end’ of Hoxha and Shehu, who, however, continued to tightly control the internal situation, and became even more popular due to the nationalist tone they had given to the dispute with Moscow.21 This dispute was to explode officially and publicly during the XXII Congress of the CPSU in October 1961, where the positions of China and Albania on the one hand, and that of the Soviet Union on the other confronted each other in very heated tones.22 As it was getting worse and its outlines becoming clearer, the SovietAlbanian crisis started to interest the members of the Atlantic Alliance, raising a number of questions and re-launching the role of Italy. As in the case of Yugoslavia in 1948, the American side hoped that another crack in the Eastern Bloc would be opened, though Washington did not want to take the initiative to intervene directly and limited itself to pay attention to what was happening in the meantime in political and especially economic relations between Rome and Tirana. Strong concerns within the Atlantic Alliance also arose because of the fact that Albania could become a bridgehead of China in the Mediterranean, through which Beijing could maneuver with both anti-Soviet and anti-Western goals. In order to avoid this threat, according to the Italians, the British, for example, were not against changes within the Albanian regime that would orient its foreign policy in a pro-Yugoslav direction: Tito, in short, the old ally from the 20

ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), Addetto militare a Belgrado to MAE, Note, 30 June 1961. 21 ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), G. D’Aloja to MAE, 25 November 1961, telespresso 1321/876. 22 ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), Borromeo a Marchiori, 17 February 1962, letter 12/181; Gabrici: “Osservazioni sulla attuale situazione albanese,” Note, 5 February 1962; Marchiori to Presidente del Consiglio, Note, 9 November 1960.

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war, could play, in the eyes of the British, a fundamental role in Albanian affairs to the benefit of the West.23 In fact, Tito adopted an attitude of extreme caution towards the SovietAlbanian conflict for a number of understandable reasons. Apart from the economic difficulties that prevented him from embarking on expensive international operations, Belgrade did not want to risk the political and financial fruits that the policy of non-alignment was bringing. Furthermore, Tito was aware that the Yugoslav interference in Albania would provoke a Greek reaction and reopen the Albanian question, with dangerous destabilizing effects in the Balkan region. In this context, as mentioned above, the role that Italian diplomacy could play in Tirana, in the eyes of the Western allies re-assumed importance. After the break with Moscow, financially and commercially, Albania was almost totally isolated from the countries of the Communist bloc. Chinese food aid, technical assistance, and granted credits left unsolved a number of crucial problems for the survival of the Hoxha regime: the supply of industrial equipment for the realization of the five-year plans, and, above all, the need to trade abroad in order to find outlets for the materials from the extractive industries and industrial agricultural products such as cotton and tobacco. The new international political scene required the Albanian goods to gravitate toward the Italian market. It must also be noted that quite evidently the Chinese support had economic value. It could have political value for the strong ideological role and for the prestige which Beijing had already gained at the international level but, for the purpose of the security of the Albanian state and the survival of its leadership, distant China, the enemy of the two nuclear superpowers, was worth very little. From this situation came a series of openings of the Tirana regime towards the Italian Government, which followed a certain level of the already existing collaboration with private companies of the Peninsula: at the end of 1961, for example, the Edison Company signed an agreement to build a fertilizer factory, and various Italian oil companies, such as ‘Romanica’, purchased Albanian crude oil.24 On 7 December 1961, in Rome a more far-reaching trade agreement was signed that doubled the trade flow between the two countries. To sum up, it was very clear to Italian diplomacy that the Chinese aid was not enough to keep the Albanian economy alive, and that the Albanians were ‘forced to seek support to solve their problems, some of which cannot 23

ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), Quaroni (London) to MAE, 9 January 1962, telespresso. 24 ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), D’Aloja to MAE, 25 November 1961, telespresso 1321/876.

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be postponed or resolved only with the help of China’. In the days of the signing of the trade agreement, an explicit and clear opening came personally from Behar Shtylla, Foreign Minister of Albania from 1953. Perhaps it is not superfluous to recall that Behar Shtylla had studied in Italy from 1940 to 1944, spoke Italian fluently, had been a diplomat in Rome from 1952 to 1953 and that the Shtylla family could boast, beyond the political ideologies of each of its members, a long history of collaboration and friendship with the Italians.25 Shtylla manifested, along with the obvious joy for the signing of the trade agreement, the earnest desire of the Albanian government to tighten even more commercial, technical and cultural relations and insisted on establishing a stable weekly air link between Tirana and Rome.26 Given the Albanian domestic and international situation and the fears, even of a personal nature, of the regime leaders, it is not trivial to underline the significance of the proposal for an air link with the Peninsula, at a time when the government of Tirana expelled the old Russian allies from across the country. Perhaps this, more than any diplomatic document, clearly shows the level of confidence with which the Hoxha regime had already turned its eyes towards the Republic of Italy and, on the other hand, the substantial acceptance of that regime, as a lesser evil, by the Italian government. Italy thus returned, unexpectedly, to the center of Albania’s politics and interests. The leadership of the foreign ministry welcomed the repeated Albanian openings with great interest and great caution. Ambassador Carlo Marchiori, diplomatic advisor to the Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani, wrote to the legation in Tirana that it was necessary to move ‘very cautiously’: there was a danger of ‘annoying’ a lot of people with whom they enjoyed good relations. Everything had to be done in such a way that it ‘appears and is talked about as little as possible’.27 On the other hand, the Italian diplomats were convinced that it was up to Italy and not the other countries to somehow engage Albania in the West. Gabrici in 1962 wrote that ‘the vast majority of the Albanians do not have a bad memory of Italy’.28 The Italian government, therefore, set aside their hesitation and agreed to meet, without asking anything in return, all requests of the Hoxha regime, from the recovery of the telegraph and telephone communications 25

See Micheletta, La resa dei conti, 36 et sqq. ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), Gabrici to Marchiori, Letter, 12 December 1961; Gabrici to Segni, 11 December 1961, report No. 1366. 27 ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), Marchiori to Gabrici, Letter, 23 December 1961, M22-E. 28 Borromeo to Marchiori, 17 February 1962, Letter No. 12/181. 26

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to the establishment of an Alitalia airline from Rome to Tirana. Briefly, according to the Italians, the Hoxha regime was trying to walk in the footsteps of Tito, of whom, however, it remained hopelessly an enemy, and Italy and the West had everything to gain from the consolidation of Hoxha and Shehu. The fall of the Albanian government, indeed, would bring the Russians to the mouth of the Adriatic. The Italian attitude was inspired by two criteria: not to compromise the Albanian government in front of the Communist camp and to take no action that would ‘disappoint’ the Atlantic ally countries. ‘The Italian government – it could be read in a memorandum of 1962 – cares only about the territorial integrity and political independence of Albania. For this reason, it considers the departure of the Russians from the other side of the Adriatic an unexpected opportunity, since the Chinese, in its view, do not constitute such a serious danger’.29

3.  Italy’s Ostpolitik and Albania By the mid-1960s Italy had become a stable and reliable partner for the Albanian regime, more and more forced towards friendship with the West.30 Failure to take off in production and the low standard of living, even at the time of the partnership with China, made economic cooperation with the Italians increasingly essential. Especially since the accentuated economic crisis and, at times, the scarcity of goods necessary for simple subsistence aroused a growing discontent among the population. Any faint hints of opposition to the regime were, as before, brutally repressed by the political trials, shootings and methodical work of the violent repression of the political police, the notorious ‘Sigurimi’.31 A new impetus to the strengthening of relations with Italy came from the repression of the Prague Spring of 1968 and the subsequent enunciation of the “Brežnev doctrine”. The invasion of Czechoslovakia had a traumatic effect on Albania, as it had on Yugoslavia.32 Between 1968 and 1971 Albanian foreign policy was radically reoriented, as had happened 29

ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 38, f. 22 (Albania), Borromeo to Marchiori, 9 April 1962, Letter No. 12/394; Note: “Albania”. 30 NARA, RG59, GRDS, CFPF, 1964-6, Political Defense, b. 1876, US Embassy (Rome) to the Department of State, t. No. 2519, 10 November 1966. 31 NARA, RG59, GRDS, CFPF, 1964-6, Political Defense, b. 1876, Gabrici to MAE, 13, 27 December 1963, telegrams 621 e 823; Gabrici to MAE, 22 July, 10, 22 August 1964. 32 Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana 1945-1999 (Roma: Aracne, 2008), chapters I-II; Id., “A Belated Friendship: Italo-Yugoslav Relations (1947-1990),” in Italy’s Balkan Strategies 19th & 20th Century, ed. Vojislav G. Pavlovic (Belgrade: Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of the Sciences and Arts, 2014), 255-66.

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after 1948 or after 1961, without the same fanfare, but with the same effectiveness. Fearful of an invasion by the Soviet Union, the Albanian leadership formally denounced the Warsaw Pact in September 1968 and strengthened its ties with Italy, while gradually resuming dialogues with Yugoslavia and Greece. From Rome came a new formal assurance that Albania had nothing to fear from Italy, whose position in favor of the independence and integrity of the country was known.33 During the same period Italy also explored the possibility that the United States and other Western powers could issue a public statement about their interest in maintaining the independence and integrity of Albania. However, the US administration dismissed the proposal, finding it inappropriate to make a specific declaration that the Soviet Union could interpret as a green light to attack other countries.34 The strengthening of relations between Italy and Albania was also facilitated by the fact that Rome, right about that time, was coming to recognize the People’s Republic of China, in 1970, a fact that was viewed with suspicion by the Albanians, fearful that a larger Chinese presence in the Mediterranean could devalue the role of Albania in the eyes of Beijing.35 The regime in Tirana, dissatisfied by the limited economic and military aid from China, and surprised by the dynamism of Bejing’s foreign policy - which after 1968 aimed at establishing links with those communist countries, like Yugoslavia and Romania who were dissidents of the Soviet Union, and which even managed to welcome the US President Nixon in 1972 - showed a greater determination to pursue the path of economic cooperation with Italy.36 Albania took for the first time a booth at the Milan Fair in 1970. It was visited by minister Aldo Moro, who spoke with Albanian representatives and reiterated Italy’s total readiness to intensify the interchange. The Italian Foreign Ministry was positively surprised that the expulsion from Italy of an Albanian diplomat for spying in 1972 did not give rise to any reaction from the Hoxha regime, but rather was followed by new openings to increase the economic and cultural interchange.37 Gradually, all forms of political détente were becoming more and more evident. In September 1972 the Minister of Foreign Trade, Gianmatteo Matteotti, went to Tirana 33

NARA, RG 59, GRDS, CFPF, 1967-9, Political and Defense, b. 1778, Ackley (Rome) to Department of State, 26 September 1968, t. 8539. 34 NARA, RG 59, GRDS, CFPF, 1967-9, Political and Defense, b. 1778, alcom Toon (Rome), Memorandum of conversation, 22 October 1968. 35 NARA, RG 59, GRDS, CFPF, 1970-3, Political and Defense, b. 2036, Stabler (Rome) to Department of State, 22 October 1970, Airgram 727. 36 NARA, RG 59, GRDS, CFPF, 1970-3, Political and Defense, b. 2036, Leonhart (Rome) to Department of State, 29 May 1970, Airgram 238. 37 NARA, RG 59, GRDS, CFPF, 1970-3, Political and Defense, b. 2036, Martin (Rome) to Department of State, 3 April 1972, t. 1635.

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and that was the first visit by an Italian minister to the Albanian capital. It was followed, on 10 November, by the visit of Undersecretary Giulio Orlando for the signing of a new commercial agreement.38 Economic leverage and tacit political alliance were the instruments through which Italian diplomacy promoted peace and stability during the era of the détente. The relationship of trust which had developed between the two shores of the Vlora channel, in fact, allowed the Ministry to take action in order to reach one of the primary objectives of Moro’s Ostpolitik regarding the Balkans, namely the maintenance of the status quo, starting with the consolidation of the Yugoslav state threatened both externally and internally.39 Even Belgrade, after the repression of the Prague Spring of 1968 and the enunciation of the “Brežnev doctrine”, feared an invasion by the Warsaw Pact. From the internal point of view, in the second half of the 1960s the Belgrade government was faced with a long period of internal instability caused by the negative economy and the rise of violent never-ending national conflicts, especially between the Croats and the Serbs which culminated in the so-called Zagreb Spring in 1971.40 But the Albanians in Yugoslavia also rose up and, from November 1968, they organized big demonstrations in Pristina, with the request to change the status of Kosovo from autonomous region of Serbia to Republic within the Yugoslav Federation.41 Precisely, in order to consolidate the former Yugoslavia, Italy, along with other Western partners, from the end of the 1960s, favored the difficult process of rapprochement between Yugoslavia and Albania in the context of détente, which required, as a basis for any dialogue at the European level, the recognition of existing borders. A sign of this new state of Yugoslav-Albanian relations was the promotion, in 1971, of the respective delegations to the level of embassy, and a considerable decrease of tensions in Kosovo with Tito being significantly more open towards the Albanians in Serbia.42 From 1968 the Yugoslav Constitution was amended and Kosovo became an autonomous province of the Federation and not only of Serbia, with, 38

NARA, RG 59, GRDS, CFPF, 1970-3, Political and Defense, b. 2036, US Embassy (Rome) to Department of State, 14 November 1972, t. 6892; Ferraris, Manuale della politica estera italiana, 287. 39 Luciano Monzali, “Aldo Moro e la politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana nel Mediterraneo (1969-1978). Momenti e problemi,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i popoli del Mediterraneo, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Federico Imperato (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2013), 68-124. 40 John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History. Twice There Was a Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2000. 41 Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian, 167-8. 42 Kola, The Myth of Greater Albania, 130-2.

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at least theoretically, the powers of a republic. The following year the University of Pristina was born, and the Yugoslav government even allowed the arrival of 200 teachers from Albania, just to teach the Albanian language.43 Those who are acquainted with the history of the Balkan nations know how to measure the political importance of an initiative such as the latter. And this progress of rapprochement between Tirana and Belgrade culminated in the particular status that Kosovo obtained with the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974, which put, in fact, at the constitutional level, this autonomous province on an equal level with other republics of the Federation, which were even admitted a theoretical right to secede.44 In conclusion, it can be said that, despite the legacies of Italian occupation and later ideological separation due to the Cold War, Albania and Italy soon became closer. From the beginning of the 1950s, Rome definitively chose the policy of support for the integrity and independence of the Albanian state, without any doubt or hesitation as it had done from the birth of Albania in 1913 and until the Second World War. During this period the ideas of defense of the existence of Albania on the one hand and of its division in accordance with the will of its neighbors on the other, had coexisted within Italian diplomacy, and were alternated in practice. After the Second World War and the creation of the Republic, Italy definitively put aside any ambition in the latter sense and from that time viewed the existence and independence of Albania as a positive fact that needed to be preserved. Tirana knew it could count on this friendship, and that there was no need for treaties of military alliance or friendship agreements, which would have had two major drawbacks: they would formalize and facilitate an inconvenient return of Italy in Albania, and they would be difficult to explain for a regime that based its legitimacy on the fight against the Italians, and that continued to generate its support on the fight against the Western imperialists. As for the Italians, they accepted this reality, which saw them at one and the same time as ideological opponents and tacit allies.

43

Malcolm, Storia del Kosovo, 325 et sqq. Roberto Morozzo della Rocca, Kosovo. La guerra in Europa. Origini e realtà di un conflitto etnico (Milano: Guerini e Associati, 1999).

44

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Section II The Bilateral Dimension

A Mistaken History? A Survey of the Short Century of Italian-Yugoslav Relations Raoul Pupo In one of the first studies on Italian foreign policy in the second postwar period, Sergio Romano wrote thus in regard to Italian-Yugoslav relations: “Italy seemed condemned by history to constantly miscalculate the timing of its Yugoslav policy”.1 Although this judgment may be questioned, it is certainly an insight with which to understand the longterm trend in relations between Rome and Belgrade in that short century, of which Yugoslavia was one of the most ephemeral and tragic creations. Born in 1918, following the apparent triumph of the nation-states in Europe, Yugoslavia failed to resist the explosion of their rivalries, and in 1941 it disappeared after little more than twenty years of assault by its neighbors and laceration by internal divisions among ethnic groups unable to achieve any stable equilibrium. When Yugoslavia emerged from the maelstrom of the Second World War, it did so amid another of the great 20th century historical processes: that of the Bolshevik revolution. It was thus able to construct an apparently more robust state, and also to acquire an autonomous and significant role in a world divided between opposing blocs. However, in the early 1990s, the crisis of communism and the end of the Cold War dissolved the bonds that had held Yugoslavia’s many conflicting elements together. The country was unable to remedy the economic crisis that had long afflicted it, and it once again collapsed. Italy had become a unitary state half a century previously, and it was endowed with indubitably greater economic resources. Despite its fragility, therefore, Italy was better able to withstand the terrible 1900s, and it was also able to survive its malignant dreams of greatness which culminated in the Fascist war. Until the 1940s, Italy repeatedly sought, using every means available, to rid itself of its awkward Balkan neighbor. But when it finally resigned itself to make a virtue out of necessity and from the 1960s onwards decided to invest in the stability of Yugoslavia, the latter entered a terminal crisis. The dissolution of the Federal Republic 1



Sergio Romano, Guida alla politica estera italiana. Dal crollo del fascismo al crollo del comunismo (Milano: Rizzoli, 1993), 168.

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left entirely Italy wrong-footed and forced it to deal with the successor states, which were well aware of the Rome government’s scant enthusiasm for Slovenian and Croatian independence. But let us proceed in order. At the end of 1918, one of main factors in the creation of the Kingdom of SHS was the desire of the Slovene and Croatian ruling elites to block implementation of the border clauses in the Pact of London, which assigned Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia to Italy  – both of which also had Slovene and Croatian populations considered integral parts of their respective ‘ethnic territories’.2 For Italy this meant that the new Balkan state had been born with an anti-Italian imprint. In fact, not only did the Belgrade government contest what the Rome government considered to be acquired rights, but it also obstructed achievement of the Adriatic hegemony to which Italy had long aspired. This came as a decidedly unwelcome surprise to the liberal and nationalist Italian groups, which had assumed that the dissolution of Austria-Hungary would not only free the ‘unredeemed lands’ but also remove every obstacle to Italy’s economic and political penetration of Central Europe.3 Their first reaction was to deny the reality: until December 1920 the Italian government refused to recognize the Kingdom of SHS and strove in various ways to undermine its compactness by covertly supporting the Croatian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, and Albanian separatist movements. To the annexations already provided by the Pact of London, the government of Orlando and Sonnino sought to add the annexation of Fiume. They thus brazenly mixed strategic considerations with respect for the principle of the self-determination of peoples. The Yugoslav foreign policy-makers, for their part, were under pressure to gain the consensus of all national groups on the new governmental order. They consequently adopted a maximalist negotiating position by demanding that the new Italian-Yugoslav border coincide with the old frontier between Italy and Austria – which Italy had fought the Great 2



3



Ivo Lederer, La Jugoslavia dalla Conferenza della pace al Trattato di Rapallo (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1966), 50 et sqq.; Dragovan Šepić, Italija, saveznici i jugoslavensko pitanje 1914-1918 (Zagreb: Školska knijga, 1970); Massimo Bucarelli, Mussolini e la Jugoslavia (1922-1939) (Bari: Graphis, 2006), 8. Maria Grazia Melchionni, La vittoria mutilata. Problemi ed incertezze della politica estera italiana sul finire della grande guerra (ottobre 1918-gennaio 1919) (Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1981); Francesco Caccamo, L’Italia e la “Nuova Europa” (Milano-Trento: Luni, 2000). As to Italian imperialism see Mario Alberti, Adriatico e Mediterraneo (Milano: Società editoriale italiana, 1915); Attilio Tamaro, Italiani e slavi nell’Adriatico (Roma: Athenaeum, 1915); Id., L’Adriatico – Golfo d’Italia. L’italianità di Trieste (Milano: Fratelli Treves, 1915); Ruggero Timeus (Fauro), Scritti politici (1911-1915) (Trieste: Tip. Lloyd Triestino, 1929); Id., Trieste (Trieste 1966).

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War to change.4 This decision thwarted the Italian democrats – heirs to the Mazzinian tradition – who had sought mediation with the Yugoslav patriots during the conflict and had urged the Italian government to renounce some of the territories promised by the Pact of London.5 If one adds to this the sympathy of American president Wilson for the Yugoslav cause and the scant enthusiasm of Great Britain and France for a possible Italian competitor in Habsburg Europe, one easily understands the impasse in which the peace conference was soon caught.6 Amidst the negotiations, D’Annunzio’s exploits in Fiume further exacerbated nationalist antagonisms.7 The turning-point came in 1920. The Italian government headed by Giovanni Giolitti, with Carlo Sforza as Foreign Minister, decided to consider Yugoslavia no longer an obstacle but rather a possible base for Italian initiatives in Danubian and Balkan Europe. Consequently, Giolitti and Sforza proposed to their counterparts in Belgrade an agreement which – as an anti-Habsburgian convention with clear antirevisionist import – protected the Kingdom of SHS against its many external and internal enemies. It did so in exchange for abandonment of most of the Adriatic claims advanced by the Slovenes and Croats. For its part, Yugoslavia was suffering severe isolation because its principal international sponsor, American president Wilson, had withdrawn from the European disputes. Also the internal political situation appeared anything but stable, and the Serb elite which effectively controlled the Yugoslav institutions deemed it prudent to sign an agreement with Italy  – the Treaty of Rapallo – which protected its hegemony and deprived the separatist forces of their main source of international support. Of course, none of this placated the reciprocal resentment. Slovenians and Croats felt betrayed because the 1920 treaty and the subsequent Rome accords of 1924 had granted Venezia Giulia, Fiume, and Zara to Italy. Resentment was further heightened by Italy’s dreadful treatment of the Slovene and Croatian minorities in Venezia Giulia. The Italian nationalists 4

Lederer, La Jugoslavia, 101-2; 172 et sqq. Marina Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007), 103-7. 6 On the peace conference, see also Roberto Vivarelli, Storia delle origini del fascismo, Vol. I, L’Italia dalla grande guerra alla marcia su Roma (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991); Henry J. Burgwyn, The Legend of the Mutilated Victory: Italy, the Great War, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1915-1919 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1993); Luciano Monzali, Italiani di Dalmazia (1914-1924) (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2007), 89-115; Id., Il sogno dell’egemonia. L’Italia, la questione jugoslava e l’Europa centrale (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2010). 7 Paolo Alatri, Nitti, D’Annunzio e la questione adriatica (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1959); Michael A. Ledeen, D’Annunzio a Fiume (Roma – Bari: Laterza, 1975). 5

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bemoaned the renunciation of Dalmatia and perpetuated the myth of the ‘mutilated victory’ created by D’Annunzio’s fervid imagination. Moreover, after the end of the Fiume adventure, the new leader of Italian national radicalism became Benito Mussolini, who was a much more pragmatic politician than D’Annunzio. Mussolini did not hesitate to give Giolitti his endorsement of the Treaty of Rapallo. In exchange, he obtained the political legitimation that the Fascist movement had hitherto sought in vain, and which would become concrete a few months later when Fascist candidates were included in the ‘blocco nazionale’ lists for the general elections. After assuming power, Mussolini continued to pursue a twofold policy. His propaganda never attenuated its aggressively anti-Slav posture, which was accompanied by a harsh policy of ‘bonifica etnica’ (ethnic cleansing) aimed at the forced assimilation of the minority groups. At the diplomatic level, however, for some years Mussolini continued the good neighbor policy with Yugoslavia initiated by Sforza. And it was Mussolini who, in 1924, sanctioned a highly anti-revisionist pact of friendship and collaboration between the two countries.8 However, this was not a definitive choice, and for twenty years Italian foreign policy continued to oscillate between two objectives. One was the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the creation of a Croatian state, independent but a satellite of Italy. The other, which was deemed preferable, was an agreement with the Serb leadership that would serve to stabilize the Balkan area by curbing German encroachment.9 There is no doubt, however, that behind these oscillations the anti-Slavism constituting one of the core components of fascist ideology created terrain entirely unsuited to the construction of a lasting agreement – all the more so because this stance was included in, and strengthened, the continuing national antagonism between Italians and southern Slavs that the two sides fomented with press campaigns and the repression of their respective minorities.10 However, although Italy aspired to recognition as a great power, it proved unable to perform that role adequately. It had in fact two ways forward. The first was to subdue the smaller states – like Yugoslavia – which occupied its strategic space. The second was to include those states in a common project: to do this, however, the leader power would have to be able to take adequate account of the interests of the smaller states and also to make partial sacrifices in order to consolidate its hegemony. 8

Bucarelli, Mussolini e la Jugoslavia, 5-34. Ibid., passim; for a different approach, which instead emphasizes Italy’s continuing aggressiveness, see Enzo Collotti, Nicola Labanca, Teodoro Sala, Fascismo e politica di potenza: politica estera 1922-1939 (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 2000). 10 Dennison I. Rusinow, L’Italia e l’eredità austriaca (Venezia: La Musa Talia, 2010), 228-47.

9

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In both cases, the Rome government failed in its intent The cause of this difficulty, besides a hyper-nationalist ideology, was the weakness of Italy’s industrial and financial system, whose capacity to penetrate the Danubian-Balkan markets depended excessively on the direct political control that the government could exert over that territory.11 However, the diplomatic honeymoon between Italy and Yugoslavia in 1920 did not last long. The crisis exploded in 1927, when Italy decided not to renew the 1924 accords, and it was triggered, not by the question of the upper Adriatic region, but by the issue of Albania. One of the corollaries of the 1924 Pact of Rome was Italy’s renunciation of its hegemonic policy towards Albania. This willingness was interpreted by the Belgrade government as the go-ahead to increase its own influence in that country. In 1924, therefore, the Kingdom of SHS supported the seizure of power by Ahmed Zogolli – who, however, immediately turned to Italy to free Albania from Yugoslav protection. In effect, Mussolini had no intention of foregoing Italy’s sole right to Albania – which held the keys to the Adriatic – with or without Yugoslavia’s consent. Hence Italy stipulated a series of increasingly binding agreements with the new government in Tirana, among them the 1926 Pact of Tirana, supplemented in 1928 with an anti-Yugoslav military convention.12 Belgrade reacted to this attempt at encirclement by decisively siding with France; and this time it was Italy that felt itself encircled. The spiral continued. The Rome government set about assembling a series of bilateral accords with all the DanubianBalkan states with the exception of Czechoslovakia, its purpose being to surround the Kingdom of SHS with hostile states and simultaneously to curb French influence. The costs of the renewed hostility between the two countries were borne largely by their respective minorities, but with some differences. In Dalmatia only some thousands of Italians remained to be mistreated, and they were partly protected by the clauses of the Treaty of Rapallo that allowed Italian-speaking Dalmatians to opt for Italian citizenship without being obliged to leave the country. The Yugoslavs, therefore, more than persons, took reprisals on the stone lions adorning the walls of the once Venetian towns.13 In Venezia Giulia, by contrast, there lived around half a million Slovenes and Croatians, on whom the fascist government decided to clamp down even harder. Added to the persecution of the political and 11

Teodoro Sala, Tra Marte e Mercurio. Gli interessi danubiano-balcanici dell’Italia, also in Id., Il fascismo italiano e gli Slavi del sud (Trieste: IRSMLFVG, 2008), 333-74. 12 Pietro Pastorelli, Italia e Albania 1924-1927. Origini diplomatiche del Trattato di Tirana del 22 novembre 1927 (Firenze: Biblioteca della Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 1967); Collotti, Fascismo e politica di potenza, 56-8; Monzali, Il sogno dell’egemonia, 41-3. 13 Ibid., 48.

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intellectual class, and the destruction of the economic and cultural assets of the minorities, was the endeavor to make them invisible by prohibiting public use of Slovene and Croat and the Italianization of names and toponyms.14 The consequent attempts at rebellion by groups of young people were harshly repressed.15 Hostilities between Yugoslavia and Italy were thus prosecuted with every means available. For example, the Italian government renewed its support for the Macedonian, Kosovar, and Croatian separatist groups. In particular, it supported the Ustasha movement, which had such confidence in its strength that in 1932 it raised an insurrection in the Lika region, although it failed.16 For its part, the Belgrade government openly backed the movement of the Slovenes and Croatians exiled from Venezia Giulia, and it gave assistance to the TIGR irredentist and terrorist group.17 After almost a decade of hostilities, which on some occasions seemed set to degenerate into armed conflict, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction. This time, the impetus came from the anxiety of both governments about the new dynamism of German foreign policy following Hitler’s ascent to power. Already in 1934, Mussolini – who also wanted reconciliation with France in order to gain its approval of his Ethiopian venture – was ready to resume dialogue with Yugoslavia. In the October 14

Lavo Čermelj, Sloveni e Croati in Italia tra le due guerre (Trieste: Editoriale stampa triestina, 1974); Elio Apih, Italia, fascismo e antifascismo nella Venezia Giulia. 19181943 (Bari: Laterza, 1966); Milica Kacin Wohinz, Jože Pirjevec, Storia degli sloveni in Italia 1866-1998 (Venezia: Marsilio, 1998). 15 Besides the works cited in the previous footnote, see Marco Puppini, Marta Verginella, Ariella Verrocchio, Dal processo Zaniboni al processo Tomažič (Udine: Gaspari, 2003), and Sergio Dini, “Il tribunale speciale per la difesa dello stato e l’irredentismo jugoslavo,” Qualestoria, 1 (2004): 65-80. 16 On Italian support for Croatian independentism and in particular the ustaša movement, see Teodoro Sala, “Le basi italiane del separatismo croato (19291941),” in L’imperialismo italiano e la Jugoslavia, ed. Massimo Pacetti (Urbino: Argalia, 1981), 283-350; James J. Sadkovich, “Opportunismo esitante: la decisione italiana di appoggiare il separatismo croato,” Storia contemporanea, 3 (1985): 40626; Pasquale Iuso, Il fascismo e gli ustascia. Storia del separatismo croato in Italia (Roma: Gangemi, 1998); Id., “Il fascismo, la Jugoslavia e gli Ustaša (1925-1940),” in L’Italia fascista quale potenza occupante: lo scacchiere balcanico, ed. Brunello Mantelli, Qualestoria (special issue), 1 (2002): 85-102; Eric Gobetti, Dittatore per caso. Un piccolo duce protetto dall’Italia fascista (Napoli: L’ancora del Mediterraneo 2001); Id., “Da Marsiglia a Zagabria. Ante Pavelić e il movimento ustaša in Italia,” in L’Italia fascista quale potenza occupante, 103-15; Massimiliano Ferrara, “Fascismo e separatismo croato,” Nuova storia contemporanea, 1 (2002): 45-67. 17 Milica Kacin Wohinz, “Il primo antifascismo armato. Il movimento nazionalrivoluzionario degli sloveni e croati in Italia,” Storia contemporanea in Friuli, 19 (1988): 35-66; Aleksej Kalc, “L’emigrazione slovena e croata dalla Venezia Giulia fra le due guerre e il suo ruolo politico,” Annales, 8 (1996), 23-60.

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of that year, the Ustasha attempted to sabotage the rapprochement with a bomb attack in Marseilles which claimed the lives of King Alexander and the French foreign minister Barthou, but they were only able to delay it. The real thaw came only three years later, but it did so within a frame of reference by now different. Left internationally isolated after the conquest of its African empire, Fascist Italy rapidly drew close to Nazi Germany, and in 1936 the Rome-Berlin axis was forged. This entailed a general recasting of Italian foreign policy, which now concentrated on expansion in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Secondly, it replaced Italy’s previous hegemonic ambitions towards the DanubianBalkan area with the project of an Italo-German condominium in that region. In this regard, the heads of Fascist foreign policy wanted – or better, hoped – to flank, and also to balance, the Rome-Berlin axis with a ‘horizontal’ Rome-Belgrade axis which would possibly also extend to include Hungary, Poland and Romania. The purpose now was not so much Germany’s containment as, more modestly, countering the German onslaught and preventing countries from being overwhelmed by it one by one.18 The operation was facilitated by the fact that the Yugoslav prime minister, Stojadinović, openly sympathized with Fascism. Moreover, the Yugoslav government wanted a further guarantee against Germany’s radical revisionism besides those already provided by the Little Entente and French protection. Finally, removal of Italy’s support for Croatian separatism might assist Stojadinović in his attempts to win over the Croatian Peasant Party. With the accords of 25 March 1937, therefore, the two parties undertook not to provide further support to the irredentist and separatist movements in the two countries.19 Italy again renounced its antiYugoslav policy in Albania and also promised to attenuate its pressure on the Slovene and Croatian minorities in Venezia Giulia. Thanks also to new economic agreements, Yugoslavia therefore seemed set to become an ideological power base for Fascism’s Balkan policy. But once again the entente was short-lived. The sensational events of 1938 – the Anschluss and the Munich Agreement – demonstrated the baselessness of Italy’s belief that it could hold German expansionism at bay. By the end of that year, Germany was the dominant power throughout the Danubian-Balkan area; French influence on the region had collapsed; and the Fascist dreams of an ItalianGerman duopoly had dissolved. All that Italy had managed to obtain from its now overweening ally was a declaration by the German government 18

Bucarelli, Mussolini e la Jugoslavia, 367-8, 389. Rusinow, L’Italia e l’eredità austriaca, 281-5.

19

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of its lack of interest in the Croatian question, which it considered Italy’s sole concern.20 From Yugoslavia’s point of view, therefore, the privileged relationship with Italy no longer served any purpose; and this put in crisis the policy pursued by Stojadinović, who had also proved unable to solve the Croatian problem. His replacement with Cvetković in February 1939 marked a new path for Yugoslavia’s foreign policy, which preferred to rely on Germany and Great Britain for protection of its integrity. Simultaneously, the agreements reached in August between the Yugoslav prime minister and the leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, Maček, finally stabilized the country’s internal situation. Italy reacted very badly to this setback. In April 1939, it decided to annex Albania without consulting the Yugoslavs, while the Fascist authorities again started to plot with the Ustasha, in the vain hope that a revolt raised by them in Croatia would provide occasion for Italian military intervention – with the consequent dissolution of the Yugoslav kingdom.21 At the same time, the Yugoslav secret services, flanked by the British ones, resumed their support for the Slovene and Croatian irredentist groups in Venezia Giulia.22 The onset and then outbreak of the war in Europe caused further confusion between the two Italian foreign policy lines in regard to Yugoslavia. Immediately after Italy entered the war, in the summer of 1940 Mussolini prepared the invasion of Yugoslavia, which was scheduled to begin in September.23 But the plan was halted by Germany, which preferred to keep the Balkans – over which it already exercised sufficient economic and political control – out of the war operations. Italy once again changed policy. Bogged down in a militarily unwinnable campaign in Greece since the autumn, the Rome government again sought agreement with Belgrade, also offering an exchange between Slovenes and Croats in Venezia Giulia and Albanians in Kosovo.24 By now, however, after its repeated defeats in Greece, Africa, and the Mediterranean, Italy counted for nothing in terms of power. The Belgrade government, headed 20

Mario Toscano, Le origini diplomatiche del patto d’Acciaio (Firenze: Sansoni, 1956), 169-71. 21 Galeazzo Ciano, Diario 1936-1943 (Milano: Rizzoli, 1990), 262, 269, 274; Alfredo Breccia, Jugoslavia 1939-1941. Diplomazia della neutralità (Milano: Giuffrè, 1978); Juso, Il fascismo e gli ustascia, 125 et sqq. 22 Kalc, “L’emigrazione slovena e croata”; Tone Ferenc, Akcije organizacije TIGR v Austriji in Italiji spomladi 1940 (Lubljana: Borec, 1977). 23 Teodoro Zurlo, “‘Emergenza E’. Studi e predisposizioni militari alla frontiera giulia nel periodo luglio-ottobre 1940,” Memorie storiche militari, edited by SME, Ufficio Storico (1979), 369-426. 24 Breccia, Jugoslavia 1939-1941, passim.

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by Prince Regent Paul, consequently sought as far as was possible to remain neutral; but when the German pressure became overwhelming, it preferred to form a direct alliance with Berlin which by-passed Rome.25 However, Yugoslavia’s adherence to the Tripartite Pact provoked an uprising by the Yugoslav armed forces on instigation by Great Britain, and Prince Paul was forced to resign. Germany’s reaction to the Yugoslav volte-face was predictable: it attacked without warning on April 6, trailing Italy behind it. Thus Italy finally found itself fighting the war against the Yugoslavs so long invoked by the Fascist propaganda; but it was doing so as Germany’s rearguard.26 This seemed to mark the end of a Yugoslavia defeated and dismembered by its aggressors, and the triumph of Italy, which annexed not only long-desired Dalmatia but also southern Slovenia as a buffer against Great Germany, and then Montenegro to complete Italian dominance of the Adriatic coast. Moreover, the newly-independent Croatia seemed to be precisely the satellite state that Italian diplomacy had envisaged: for installed as head of government was Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Ustashas and who had for years been sheltered and trained in Italy. With the annexations and the occupations in Yugoslavia, added to which were those in Greece, Fascist policy in Eastern Europe therefore shifted from being nationalistic to fully imperial. This, however, was a dimension of power which Italy was unable to sustain. The Italian annexation of Dalmatia inevitably provoked the hostility of both the population and the ultranationalist Croatian government.27 In its turn, Germany, though it officially expressed indifference to an area considered the preserve of Italy, immediately and successfully began the economic conquest of the new Croatian state. Pavelic’s Croatia was therefore not at all the puppet state of Italy imagined by Mussolini, and it increasingly gravitated into the German orbit. On the ground, the situation was even worse. In all the occupied territories the Italian troops were caught up in a civil war – obviously provoked by the invasion – in which they frequently found themselves fighting against the communist partisans alongside not only the Croatian Ustashas, formally allied with Italy, but also the Serb Chetnik militias. 25

Ibid. Stefano Bianchini, Francesco Privitera, 6 Aprile 1941. L’attacco italiano alla Jugoslavia (Milano: Marzorati, 1993); James H. Burgwyn, L’impero sull’Adriatico. Mussolini e la conquista della Jugoslavia 1941-1943 (Gorizia: LEG, 2006), 52-6. 27 Raoul Pupo, “Slovenia e Dalmazia fra Italia e Terzo Reich,” Qualestoria, 1 (2002), 129-41; Id., “Le annessioni italiane in Slovenia e Dalmazia 1941-1943. Questioni interpretative e problemi di ricerca,” Italia contemporanea, 243 (2006), 181-211; Burgwyn, L’ impero sull’Adriatico, 56-76. 26

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The latter were the sworn enemies of the Ustashas. They were led by General Mihailović, war minister of the Yugoslav government in exile in London, but they were nevertheless armed by the Italians, so that on the battlefield they were effectively allied with their enemies.28 Besides great political confusion, the conflict in Yugoslavia also generated high levels of violence, and in the attempt to put down the liberation movement headed by Tito, Italian soldiers committed grievous war crimes. Particularly common was the deportation of civilians from areas of high partisan density, and the mortality rate in the concentration camps was extremely high.29 The horrors of the partisan war and the antiguerrilla operations obviously exacerbated the already-existing conflicts between Italians and Slavs, especially after the Slovenian and Croatian partisan movements extended into Venezia Giulia and eastern Friuli. After the armistice of 8 September 1943, Italy passed from the status of an imperial power to that of a mere object of international policy. It therefore sought in vain to influence the fate of the border areas. Traditional diplomacy failed, for it evoked only tepid interest from the British and Americans, and so did the parallel diplomacy of the Resistance. In truth, the maximum political organ of the Italian liberation movement, the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale per l’Alta Italia, during 1944 engaged in negotiations with the Yugoslavs, but only as long as Tito’s movement waited for Anglo-American recognition of it as the principal political force in Yugoslavia.30 When such recognition came, in the late summer of 1944, the new Yugoslav leaders lost all interest in dealing with the Italians. Instead, the Yugoslav communist leadership began to devise a grand foreign policy design with a twofold objective: to externalize the nationalistic urges of the main ethnic groups fighting the civil war; and to create a regional scenario which would avert the danger of Yugoslavia again finding itself encircled by hostile powers in the post-war period. Two 28

Sala, Il fascismo italiano e gli Slavi del sud; Burgwyn, L’impero sull’Adriatico, 124 et sqq.; Erick Gobetti, L’occupazione allegra. Gli italiani in Jugoslavia, 1941-1943 (Roma: Carocci, 2007); Id., Alleati del nemico. L’occupazione italiana in Jugoslavia (1941-1943) (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2013); L’occupazione italiana della Jugoslavia (1941-1943), ed. Francesco Caccamo, Luciano Monzali (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2008). 29 Alessandra Kersevan, Un campo di concentramento fascista. Gonars, 1942-1943 (Udine: Kappa vu, 2003); Spartaco Capogreco, I campi del Duce. L’internamento civile nell’Italia fascista (1940-1943) (Torino: Einaudi, 2004); La deportazione dei civili sloveni e croati nei campi di concentramento italiani 1942-1943. I campi del confine orientale, ed. Boris M. Gombač, Dario Mattiussi (Gorizia: Centro isontino di ricerca e documentazione storica e sociale L. Gasparini, 2004). 30 Galliano Fogar, Trieste in guerra. Società e resistenza (Trieste: IRSMLFVG, 1999), 129-30; Raoul Pupo, Trieste ’45 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2010), 53-8.

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instruments were developed for the purpose. One was highly traditional: territorial claims on all bordering states (in Italy’s case, the demands were substantially the same as those of 1919). The other was much less orthodox: hegemony over the Communist parties of the neighboring countries. The war plans of the Soviet Union, in fact, foresaw dissolution of the Comintern in order to reassure the Western allies concerning the Communist movement’s good intentions. It was this opportunity that Tito adroitly exploited to promote a regional pole of Communist parties extending from the Danube to the Aegean via the Adriatic, and which was coordinated by the Yugoslav ‘older brother’.31 In particular, the clandestine micro-network of the Italian Communist Party depended almost entirely on the support of the Yugoslavs, who believed that they could induce their Italian comrades to turn the war of liberation into a revolution, and accept Yugoslav occupation of northeastern Italy as an act of fraternal assistance.32 Instead, in early 1944, Stalin gave Togliatti different instructions: the Italian Communist Party was not to fight for the conquest of power, but to replace the fascist regime with a liberal democracy in which the communists would have a leading role – but together with the other parties of the Committee of National Liberation. For the party’s rank and file and numerous officials, however, the Yugoslav strategy was much more attractive than the one described by Togliatti, and the latter had to work hard to impose his policy line. He succeeded because that was what Stalin wanted, but what he could not do was to oppose the Yugoslav request to occupy Venezia Giulia as the prelude to its annexation.33 At the end of the war, therefore, Yugoslavia was in a position of strength. As a victorious country after being attacked by Italy, it could legitimately sue for reparations. A substantial part of the Italian political forces – namely the Communist Party – had been at least neutralized, notwithstanding Togliatti’s dialectical acrobatics. Moreover, the Yugoslav army had managed with a bold final offensive to occupy all the territories claimed on the frontier

31

See: Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito. Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism (New York: Cornell University Press, 1988); Geoffrey Swain, “Tito and the Twilight of the Comintern,” in International Communism and the Communist International, ed. Tim Rees, Andrew Thorpe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999); Id., Tito: a Biography (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2010). 32 Patrick Karlsen Frontiera rossa, Il PCI, il confine orientale e il contesto internazionale 1941-1955 (Gorizia: LEG, 2010), 39-62. 33 Ibid., 62-71.

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with Italy.34 The only problem – and it was a serious one – was that the Anglo-Americans had decided that they could not do without Trieste as a supply base for the occupation of Austria. Even more serious was the fact that they had interpreted the Yugoslav push towards the River Isonzo as a Soviet ploy to test the determination of the Allies to defend their strategic interests on the boundary between the occupied areas in Europe. There followed a brief diplomatic skirmish – considered by some the first crisis of the post-war period – during which the Yugoslav government received much less robust Soviet support than it expected: the Cold War had not yet begun in Europe, and for Stalin the upper Adriatic was certainly not worth a clash with the Anglo-Americans when very different issues were at stake.35 Consequently, the Yugoslavs had to withdraw from Trieste, Gorizia and Pola, where an Anglo-American military administration was installed. What Yugoslavia had been unable to obtain militarily, it was able to achieve at the peace table. The Rome government initially deluded itself that, by virtue of the Resistance and because the Italian Liberation Corps had fought alongside the Allies, Italy had earned itself a ‘biglietto di ritorno’ (return ticket) for the misdeeds of Fascism?36 Instead, this was not so, and Italy found itself paying the full price of its alliance with Nazi Germany. As had happened in 1919, also in 1946 ethnic considerations were of secondary and almost entirely propagandistic importance in the negotiations on borders: what really counted were the relations and balances among the great powers. To understand how the roles of Italy and Yugoslavia had reversed since 1919, suffice it to consider that, in 1946, the discussions centered on the region’s western borders and no longer on its eastern ones. Dalmatia did not even figure in the negotiations, whose crux and symbol was no longer Fiume but Trieste. On the eastern frontier, Italy therefore lost almost all the territories that it had gained after the First World War. Still remaining under Rome’s sovereignty, in fact, was only the southern part of the province of Gorizia. The majority of Yugoslavia’s demands had been granted, with one very significant exception. The Americans and the British grew increasingly convinced of Trieste’s strategic importance, to the point that two years later they considered the city a ‘bulwark of the West’ along the Iron 34

Geoffrey Cox, La corsa per Trieste (Gorizia: LEG, 1985); Stanko Petelin, La liberazione del litorale sloveno (Gorizia: Pretoki, 1999); Pupo, Trieste ’45, 136-71. 35 Giampaolo Valdevit, La questione di Trieste 1941-1954. Politica internazionale e contesto locale (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1986), 89-109; Marina Cattaruzza, “1945. Alle origini delle questione di Trieste,” Ventesimo secolo, 7 (2005), 97-111; Pupo, Trieste ’45, 172-86. 36 Sara Lorenzini, L’Italia e il trattato di pace del 1947 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007).

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Curtain.37 Trieste, therefore, must absolutely not fall into Yugoslav (i.e. Soviet) hands. Nor should it return to Italy, which was too weak and isolated to defend it. The compromise reached with the Soviet Union was therefore that of creating a buffer state, the Free Territory of Trieste, comprising that city and a narrow coastal strip in western Istria. For opposite reasons, neither the government of Rome nor that of Belgrade were enthusiastic about the decisions taken in Paris, but they were obliged to accept them. Attempts to break the arrangement were made by the Italian communists, who had been politically wrong-footed by the full support given by the USSR to Yugoslavia. After a surprise meeting between Togliatti and Tito in November 1946, they sought to promote a direct accord between Italy and Yugoslavia. To do so they presented one of the tactical variants of the Yugoslav negotiating line as their own: Trieste would go to Italy and Gorizia to Yugoslavia.38 However, Togliatti’s attempt to regain political consensus in Italian public opinion turned into a boomerang. Italian diplomacy rejected an exchange that gave to Yugoslavia a city (Gorizia) which the peace treaty had assigned to Italy in exchange for a city (Trieste) which the same treaty had not granted to Yugoslavia, and which the Rome government therefore hoped to recover by other means. Moreover, the Togliatti-Tito accord did not consider Trieste’s closeness to Italian territory. Consequently, the initiative was branded a ‘wicked barter’ and Togliatti was accused of betraying Italian national interests. This was an accusation that would haunt the Italian Communist Party until its demise, and which in the 1990s, with the birth of the so-called ‘Second Republic’, would induce the heirs of the Italian Communist Party to revise the history of Italy’s eastern border in national terms.39 Every attempt at bilateral negotiation having failed, the only option was to create the Free Territory of Trieste. But then, during the year between the decisions taken in Paris and the entry into effect of the Peace Treaty (15 September 1947), the British and Americans changed their minds. Or better, they realized that the tactical instrument (the FTT) selected to achieve their strategic objective (i.e. maintenance of allied control over Trieste) was too risky. There was in fact the danger that, after withdrawal of the allied troops, the local communist organizations, helped by the Yugoslavs, might take power. The London and Washington governments 37

Valdevit, La questione di Trieste, 189-90. Leonid J. Gibijanskij, “Mosca, il Pci e la questione di Trieste,” in Dagli archivi di Mosca. L’Urss, il Cominform e il Pci (1943-1951), ed. Francesca Gori, Silvio Pons (Roma: Carocci, 1998); Karlsen, Frontiera rossa, 151-9. 39 Liborio Mattina, Democrazia e nazione. Dibattito a Trieste tra Luciano Violante e Gianfranco Fini (Trieste: EUT, 1998). 38

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consequently decided to block the appointment of the Governor of the FTT in order to maintain the status quo indefinitely.40 Zone A of the Free Territory, including Trieste, thus continued to be administered by an allied military government (the AMG) and Zone B, comprising the towns of Capodistria, Isola, Pirano, Buie, Umago and Cittanova, remained under Yugoslav military administration. There followed a long phase of stalemate, while what was by now called ‘the Trieste question’ was one of the main rallying-points of Italian national sentiment after the disaster of 8 September 1943.41 What changed, and with unexpected rapidity, was the international context. Between the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948, the Cold War erupted, and this initially favored Italy. The Italian peninsula was obviously of strategic importance in the new bipolar world order, and this induced the Americans and the British to develop a positive policy towards the Italian government, with its pro-Western prime minister Alcide De Gasperi, to prevent it from falling into communist hands. Various measures in support of Italy and the anti-communist Italian parties were enacted. Moreover, the two allied governments also decided to support Rome’s claims to Trieste. Thus, on 20 March 1948, with the first Italian general elections now imminent, the governments of Paris, London and Washington issued a Tripartite Declaration which recognized Italy’s right to recover the Free Territory in its entirety.42 This was a manoeuvre devoid of practical significance, however, because any revision of the Peace Treaty required Soviet assent, but its electoral value was considerable. And so too was its diplomatic import, for Italy was no longer internationally isolated. Italy obtained allied support in the negotiations on the FTT, and Trieste found itself out of danger, given that it was garrisoned by Anglo-American troops and administered by a military government which sought in every way to favor the pro-Italian component of the population. Italian enthusiasm was short-lived, however. To the great surprise of international observers, a crisis erupted between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the summer of 1948. At first, the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform seemed to prelude a weakening of Yugoslavia’s position, but it was instead the premise for Yugoslavia’s international realignment. What had been weakened, in fact, was Soviet control over the entire Balkan area, and the Americans and British immediately sought to profit from the new, advantageous, situation. The watchword in Washington 40

Valdevit, La questione di Trieste, 186-91. Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale, 325-6. 42 Diego De Castro, La questione di Trieste. L’azione politica e diplomatica italiana dal 1943 al 1954 (Trieste: Lint, 1981), Vol. I, 721-55; Valdevit, La questione di Trieste, 191-7. 41

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and London became ‘keep Tito afloat’.43 The threat constituted by the Red Army would be shifted much further eastwards, entirely to the advantage of defense of the Po Valley and the Aegean coasts. In exchange for Western support, moreover, the Belgrade government would cease supporting the communist guerrillas in Greece, thus stabilizing the southern Balkans. But in order to ‘keep Tito afloat’, it was also necessary ‘to save his face’ on the Trieste question. Of this English and Americans soon became convinced: indeed, in the summer of 1949 the Department of State reasoned thus: “Indeed, in present situation, Dept consider Yugo agreement on formula which would save face for Tito and have his support indispensable element of any solution. There could therefore, for example, be no consideration return even US-UK Zone to Italy without Yugo agreement, even if Sovs should agree”.44 This was the complete reversal of the Tripartite Declaration, even if the latter was never formally withdrawn. Consequently, from a ‘bulwark of the West’ Trieste had swiftly turned into an ‘erratic boulder’ deposited by the retreat of the Cold War from the shores of the upper Adriatic.45 Nevertheless, perceptions on the ground were very different: in the summer of 1945, and thereafter for a decade, the inhabitants of the frontier area were caught in the midst of utter hostility between two worlds – the Western and Communist blocs – divided by an increasingly impermeable border. In both zones, the accumulation of national and ideological antagonisms generated an explosive climate punctuated by episodes of violence.46 For diplomacy the situation was different: the conflict between Italy and Yugoslavia dwindled to a dispute between a member-county of the Atlantic Alliance and a country that the British and Americans wanted to integrate into the West’s defensive system as soon as possible. Hence, Washington and London began to pressurize Rome and Belgrade to reach an amicable agreement on division of the Free Territory. It was not so easy, however. The Italians obviously started from the Tripartite Declaration. They wanted to exchange the coastal towns of Zone B – which was almost entirely populated by Italians – with the hinterland 43

Valdevit, La questione di Trieste, 206-24; Beatrice Heuser, Western “Containment” Policies in the Cold War. The Yugoslav Case 1948-1953 (London-New York: Routledge, 1989); Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat. The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). 44 FRUS; 1949, Vol. III, 509-11, Acheson at the American embassy in London, 29 June 1949. 45 Valdevit, La questione di Trieste, 224-37; Id., Trieste 1953-1954. L’ultima crisi (Trieste: MGS Press, Trieste 1994), 9. 46 Bogdan C. Novak, Trieste 1941-1954. La lotta politica, etnica e ideologica (Milano: Mursia, 1996); De Castro, La questione di Trieste, Vol. II, 163-89.

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of the Free Territory, which was mainly Slovenian and Croatian. The Yugoslavs instead wanted to assert their status as beati possidentes of Zone B, whilst Italy had no influence in Zone A. Moreover, the Peace Treaty had almost entirely satisfied Croatia’s claims, but not those of Slovenia. Furthermore, the Slovenes, besides having still to digest the forfeiture of Trieste – traditionally considered ‘the lung of Slovenia’ – needed a coastal outlet for Slovenia. They wanted it in the Bay of Trieste, so that they could build a Yugoslav Novi Trst close to the Italian city – a prospect which alarmed the Italians of Trieste. Behind the diplomatic difficulties lay the weight of ancient national antagonisms and the dramas which had divided peoples and ruling classes, and permeated their political cultures. The Yugoslavs still burned with memories of the Fascist persecutions between the two world wars and the horrors of the Italian occupation after 1941. The Italians had been traumatized by the mass violence unleashed against them in the two periods – after 8 September 1943 in inland Istria, and after 1 May 1945 mainly in Trieste and Gorizia – when Venezia Giulia had been governed by the communist Yugoslav authorities. In both cases, the occupiers (who considered the territory as already annexed to Yugoslavia) immediately began liquidation of the ‘enemies of the people’, as they had done during the Yugoslav war of liberation, civil war, and revolutionary war. In Venezia Giulia the broad category ‘enemies of the people’ included fascists, members of the repressive apparatus, and state functionaries, but also the more visible leaders of the Italian communities in Istria, farmers and industrialists, officials of patriotic associations, as well as anti-fascists and combatants against the Germans (who, however, had not followed the orders of the Yugoslav partisan commanders and had opposed annexation to Yugoslavia). In the autumn of 1943, the victims numbered some hundreds, in 1945 they amounted to thousands. The Italian called these mass executions ‘foibe’ because the bodies of some victims were thrown into the deep limestone sinkholes of the Karst plateau known as foibe, and memory of the atrocities long weighed on border relations.47 Added to the memory of what had happened only a few years previously was the experience of a phenomenon still in progress: what the Italians called the ‘Istrian exodus’.48 The Peace Treaty contained a clause 47

Foibe. Il peso del passato. Venezia Giulia 1943-1945, ed. Giampaolo Valdevit (Venezia: Marsilio, 1997); Guido Rumici, Infoibati. I nomi, i luoghi, i testimoni, i documenti (Milano: Mursia, 2002); Raoul Pupo, Roberto Spazzali, Foibe (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2003); Elio Apih, Le foibe giuliane (Gorizia: LEG, 2010); R. Pupo, Trieste ’45, 228-57. 48 Raoul Pupo, Il lungo esodo. Istria: le persecuzioni, le foibe, l’esilio (Milano: Rizzoli, 2005); for a comparative treatment see Esodi. Trasferimenti forzati di popolazione nel Novecento europeo, ed. Marina Cattaruzza, Marco Dogo, Raoul Pupo (Naples: ESI,

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safeguarding minorities, and under which Italian-speaking citizens resident in the territories transferred to Yugoslav sovereignty could opt for Italian citizenship and move to Italy. This clause was used by the large majority of the Italian population to flee Yugoslavia, where they felt themselves persecuted, economically victimized, politically and religiously oppressed, and subject to a process of identity destruction. Initially, the Italian government tried to restrain the exodus, because it realized that the Italians’ departure would weaken any possible claim to the ceded territories. Then, however, considering that the flow was unstoppable, the Italian government tried to organize reception in Italy. In parallel, the Italian authorities sought with every means possible to prevent the exodus of the Italians living in Zone B of the FTT, where the Yugoslav administration was only provisional. In effect, covertly assisted and bolstered by the hope that the entire Free Territory would soon return to Italy, some tens of thousands of Italians remained on their land until the mid-1950s. Historians have long debated whether the exodus can be considered a mass expulsion on the basis of nationality. Recent comparative studies on forced population movements in Europe have made it possible to clarify the distinction among deportations, expulsions and exoduses. Today, this last term means: cases in which a group of inhabitants has been forced to leave the politicallydefined territory on which they live by governmental pressure in the form of both direct violence and deprivation of rights, especially in correspondence to a radical political change affecting relations among states (wars, the collapse and construction of states). In these circumstances, forced migration has not been the clear initial objective of the government in question, even less has it been organized by the latter; but the final outcome has been the group’s almost total emigration. These cases are indubitably to be included in the category of forced migrations, even if they are the only ones in which decisions to migrate taken by individual persons or families – but which then spreads to become a mass phenomenon – are the drivers of the exodus.49

Encumbered by reciprocal antagonism and very distant in their objectives, until the early 1950s the Italians and Yugoslavs failed to reach agreement, despite the pressures applied by the Allies.50 The breakthrough 2000); Naufraghi della pace. Il 1945, i profughi e le memorie divise d’Europa, ed. Guido Crainz, Raoul Pupo, Silvia Salvatici (Roma: Donzelli, 2008); Antonio Ferrara, Nicola Pianciola, L’età delle migrazioni forzate. Esodi e deportazioni in Europa 18531953 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012). 49 Ferrara, Pianciola, L’età delle migrazioni forzate, 18. 50 De Castro, La questione di Trieste, 107-31, 267-485; Massimo de Leonardis, La “diplomazia atlantica” e la soluzione del problema di Trieste (1952-1954) (Naples: ESI, 1992), 34-280.

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came only in 1953 after the Italian position weakened. Alcide De Gasperi, who had always refused to contemplate division of the FTT along the demarcation line between Zone A and Zone B, was defeated in the general elections held in June of that year, and he was replaced by Giuseppe Pella as head of a minority government also supported by the extreme right parties. Yugoslavia took advantage to augment its claims so that it could position itself better during the final negotiations. Pella reacted forcefully by staging military manoeuvres and also entertaining the idea of a strike on Trieste.51 This, however, was a smokescreen, for the new Italian government’s intention was to conclude the matter by renouncing any claim to the towns in Zone B. This was also the intent of London and Washington, which decided to venture a forced mediation, being certain that the Italians and Yugoslavs would welcome it – albeit with some token protests. Thus, on 8 October 1953, the two allied governments officially communicated their intention to dissolve the allied military government headquartered in Trieste and to assign administration of Zone B of the FTT to Italy. Contrary to their expectations, however, Tito objected and threatened military action in Trieste. There were two main reasons for Yugoslavia’s decision to take a hard line. The first was the difficulty of persuading Yugoslav public opinion to accept an external imposition certainly resented in a country for which pride in its autonomy from the great powers was a core elements of its political identity. The second, no less important, reason was Yugoslavia’s intention to spend the negotiating capital accumulated with the occupation of Zone B to gain further political and economic advantages.52 There followed further months of diplomatic stalemate, while public order in Trieste degenerated, with deaths and injuries in the streets.53 The situation was unblocked at the beginning of 1954 by the allied decision to change approach and to shift from a proposal of external mediation, which had been perceived as favourable to Italy, to the involvement of Yugoslavia as protagonist of the final decision on the fate of the FTT, leaving the Italian government with solely the choice of accepting or rejecting the agreement already concluded among the representatives of Washington, London and Belgrade. 51

De Castro, La questione di Trieste, 527-541; de Leonardis, La “diplomazia atlantica”, 281-306; Paolo Emilio Taviani, I giorni di Trieste. Diario 1953-1954 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1988), 45-52; Georg Meyr, “L’opzione militare: le Forze Armate italiane nella crisi dell’estate-autunno 1953,” in Dalla cortina di ferro al confine ponte: a cinquant’anni dal Memorandum di Londra, l’allargamento della Nato e dell’Unione Europea, ed. Georg Meyr, Raoul Pupo (Trieste: Edizioni Comune di Trieste, 2008), 38-43. 52 Valdevit, La questione di Trieste, 257-69; Id., Trieste 1953-1954, 21-7. 53 De Castro, La questione di Trieste, 651-708; Valdevit, Trieste 1953-1954, 36-9.

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The compromise reached among the British, Americans, and Yugoslavs at the end of May 1954 therefore envisaged the division of the FTT between Italy and Yugoslavia along the zone border, with some adjustments for Yugoslavia. Formally, however, this involved only a change of administration without any extension of sovereignty: administration of Zone A, already exercised by the AMG, would be transferred to the Italian government; and administration of Zone B, already exercised by the VUJA, would be transferred to the Yugoslav government, London and Washington also declared that they would not support further territorial claims by the two parties. The Anglo-Americans would thus be the guarantors of the definitiveness of the accord, as required by Yugoslavia, although they would accede to Italy’s demand that the formal provisionality of the new border arrangement be maintained. In exchange for its agreement to this contrivance, Yugoslavia also received the funding necessary to construct a new harbor in Capodistria and its links with the Slovene railway network. On 12 June the pre-agreement was presented to the Italian government, and it was followed by further, brief but very intense, negotiations. Although, according to the Department of State, by now only ‘trading minutiae’ still remained to be resolved, necessary to close the deal was a mission to Belgrade by the American special envoy Robert Murphy in mid-September. There ensued the Italian-Yugoslav Memorandum of London, which came into effect on 26 October 1954.54 To the great relief of the two governments, the border dispute was thus settled. Italy was now free from the ‘omnivorous presence’55 of the Trieste question. The Rome government was no longer subject to the heavy conditioning exercised by its allies, and on which the fate of Trieste had hitherto depended; and it could pursue a more uninhibited foreign policy in other theatres, such as the Middle East, where its interests and intentions did not fully coincide with those of the two Atlantic powers. For its part, Yugoslavia was not longer obliged to watch its back while consolidating its autonomy from the Soviet bloc; and settlement of the dispute with Italy considerably strengthened its position – just as had happened a few months previously with signature of the Balkan Alliance with Greece and Turkey. Removal of every obstacle to full integration into the West’s defensive system, strongly urged by the United States, allowed the Yugoslav government to explore alternative scenarios as and 54

Valdevit, La questione di Trieste, 269-73; Id., Trieste 1953-1954, 41-67; Raoul Pupo, Fra Italia e Jugoslavia. Saggi sulla questione di Trieste (1945-1954) (Udine: Del Bianco, 1989), 91-150; de Leonardis, La “diplomazia atlantica”, 393-493. 55 Ennio Di Nolfo, “La “politica di potenza” e le formule della politica di potenza. Il caso italiano 1952-1956,” in L’Italia e la politica di potenza in Europa, ed. Ennio Di Nolfo, Roman H. Rainero, Brunello Vigezzi (Milano: Marzorati, 1992).

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when it wished. It could exploit the openness of the post-Stalin leadership to normalize relations with Moscow, and it could lay the bases of the nonalignment policy. The Memorandum gave rise to an ambiguous situation. Formally, the Italian government could pledge to public opinion that it would never renounce its claim to Zone B: a position particularly appreciated by the Istrian refugee associations, given that after the Memorandum’s entry into effect the entire Italian population had abandoned the zone, exactly as their compatriots had done in the territories transferred to Yugoslavia after the Peace Treaty.56 In reality, however, the claim did not exist; nor in fact was it ever advanced – even though the Italian government formally declared that it had no intention of abandoning Italy’s ‘legitimate interests’ – because both Rome and Belgrade knew very well that the new border arrangement was definitive. But the accord was deliberately based on ambiguity so that the border problem would be removed from the attention of the respective public opinions, particularly in Italy. Once resentment had subsided, it would be much easier to formalize the status quo. And this indeed is what happened. Over the next twenty years the reciprocal perceptions of the Belgrade and Rome governments substantially changed. In the 1960s Yugoslavia became no longer Italy’s bitter enemy, but rather the core of Balkan stability and an essential strategic buffer to protect the eastern frontier. This was made evident in the summer of 1968 when, in reaction to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Italian government hastened to inform Yugoslavia that Italy would have no objection if it decided to move its troops stationed along the River Isonzo closer to the border.57 Further signals that the previous antagonisms had by now subsided came from the frontier area. They confirmed the interweaving between the local and state dimensions which had long characterized relations between Italy and Yugoslavia. In the 1920s and 1930s, ‘border fascism’ – born in Trieste and radically anti-Slav – had significantly influenced the regime’s foreign policy, accentuating its intolerance of the Slovene and Croat minorities in Italy and its aggressiveness towards the Yugoslav kingdom. Conversely, during the 1960s the ‘frontier Catholicism’ elaborated in what remained of Venezia Giulia centered on inclusion 56

Pupo, Il lungo esodo, 149-186; Id., “Eksodus iz cone B Svobodnega tržaskega ozemlja (1945-1958),” Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino, 2013, 173-185. 57 Giuseppe W. Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” Rivista di studi politici internazionali, 1 (1993); Saša Mišić, “Jugoslovensko-italijanski odnosi i čehoslovenska kriza 1968. Godine,” in 1968 – Četrdeset godina posle (Beograd: Institut za Noviju Istoriju Srbije, 2008), 293 et sqq.

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of the Slovene minority in the local ruling class and on cross-frontier cooperation with Yugoslavia.58 This became the policy of the center-left majorities in the local administrations of Trieste and Gorizia; and so did the ‘little foreign policy’ of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, whose Christian Democrat administration sought to increase cooperation with not only Carinthia but also Slovenia and Croatia. Thus, in the space of a decade, the barrier dividing two opposed worlds and histories was replaced by a ‘bridge border’ – decidedly porous – which facilitated a veritable boom in local frontier traffic.59 Also trade developed considerably: indeed, Italy became the first importing country from Yugoslavia and the second exporter to it.60 Moreover, Yugoslavia had earned itself a highly respectable international role as a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. On the other hand, the Yugoslav leaders were no longer confronted by the economically backward Italy hungry for the land of others that they had known in previous decades. Rather, they had to deal with a country which had experienced an economic boom (envied but not seen as a threat) precisely because its international profile – notwithstanding the activism of certain exponents of the Christian Democrat left, like Gronchi, Fanfani and Mattei – was devoid of previous power dimensions. Furthermore, Italy was governed by a center-left coalition in which the Socialist and Social Democrat parties pressed for an improvement of bilateral relations that 58

“Introduzione,” in: Cattolici a Trieste, nell’impero austro-ungarico; nell’Italia monarchica e fascista; sotto i nazisti; nel secondo dopoguerra e nell’Italia democratica (Trieste: Lint, 2003); R. Pupo, “Il ‘partito italiano’: la Dc di Trieste,” in Dopoguerra di confine, ed. Tullia Catalan et al. (Trieste: IRSMLFVG-Università di Trieste, 2007), 45-50. 59 On the center-left’s policy in Trieste see Corrado Belci, La Dc per Trieste: 1957-1962 (Udine: Del Bianco, 1963); Id., Trieste. Memorie di trent’anni (1945-1975) (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1989); Guido Botteri, Trieste, città italiana al servizio dell’Europa e della pace (Trieste: Tipografia moderna, 1967); Id. et  al., Trieste e la sua storia (Trieste: Dedolibri, 1986). On the ‘bridge border’ see Egidio Vrsaj, La cooperazione economica Italia-Jugoslavia (Trieste: Mladika, 1970); Id., La cooperazione economica Alpe-Adria. Italia – Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Jugoslavia – Slovenia, Austria – Carinzia (Trieste: Mladika, 1975); Liviana Poropat, Alpe Adria e iniziativa centro-europea (Napoli: ESI, 1993); Moreno Zago, “Il confine-ponte: la strategia,” in Dalla cortina di ferro al confine ponte, 78-88; Franco Richetti, Il confine-ponte: l’esperienza di Trieste, 78-94; Marco Antonsich, “Il Nordest tra Mitteleuropa e Balcani: il caso del Friuli – Venezia Giulia,” in Alessandro Colombo, Aldo Ferrari, Riccardo Radaelli, Alessandro Vitale, Fulvio Zannoni, Geopolitica della crisi. Balcani, Caucaso e Asia Centrale nel Nuovo Scenario Internazionale (Milano: ISPI, 2002), 141-249. 60 Michele Capriati, “Gli scambi commerciali tra Italia e Jugoslavia dal dopoguerra al 1991,” in Europa adriatica. Storia, relazioni, economia, ed. Franco Botta, Italo Garzia (Roma-Bari: Laterza 2004), 156-81; Rosario Milano, “L’ENI e la Jugoslavia (19611971),” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Massimo Bucarelli (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2011), 311-41.

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would also derive from the settlement of border disputes. Finally, also the new Christian Democrat leader, Aldo Moro, seemingly wanted to pursue a foreign policy that superseded rigid bipolarism in Europe, and he welcomed the prospect of definitive pacification of the Adriatic region.61 The conditions were therefore in place for reciprocal substantial interest. They formed the basis for the strong rapprochement that began at the end of the 1960s because of the fears aroused by application of the “Brežnev doctrine” and shared worries about what would happen post-Tito. This induced the two governments to resume negotiations on the frontiers.62 However, the negotiations proceeded very slowly. Moro was convinced that the situation by now created on the ground and consolidated by the Memorandum could in no wise be altered, so that agreement was the only option. Nevertheless, he adopted an approach, in both domestic and foreign policy, which ruled out rapid action and privileged the slow building of consensus on the most difficult issues. Moro’s purpose was also to obtain approval of the hardest decisions from his interlocutors least convinced of the need for an agreement. Indeed, in Italy there was no lack of the latter. The associations of Julian and Dalmatian refugees were obviously opposed to the transformation of the demarcation line between Zone A and Zone B into a state border. They made their voice effectively heard on the occasion of Tito’s scheduled – and then postponed – visit to Italy in December 1970. Perplexities were also expressed by the DC in Trieste, where the same components of the party favourable to cooperation with Yugoslavia feared an electoral collapse in the event of agreement on the borders. Also doubtful was the Christian Democracy executive, in which a leader of the caliber of Fanfani, although he did not dispute the good neighbor policy with Yugoslavia, saw no urgency in recognizing its sovereignty on Zone B. It proved increasingly difficult for Italy to reconcile the strategic objective of consolidating the Yugoslav state with its tactical worries concerning the political costs of an agreement on the borders. The Belgrade government, pressed by the tensions among the ethnic groups that made up the Yugoslav mosaic and which in the spring of 1971 seemed about to detonate, felt impelled to appease Slovene and Croatian public opinion by definitively sanctioning the border. Therefore, doubtful of the 61

Massimo Bucarelli, “Aldo Moro e l’Italia nella ‘Westpolitik’ jugoslava degli anni Sessanta,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, 115-60. 62 For a detailed reconstruction of the negotiations, besides the studies published in this book, see Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana, 1945-1999 (Roma: Aracne, 2008); Luciano Monzali, “‘I nostri vicini devono essere nostri amici’. Aldo Moro, l’Ostpolitik italiana e gli accordi di Osimo,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, 89-114.

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Italian government’s real interest in rapid conclusion of the negotiations, Belgrade sought to stimulate it in various ways, even rather abrupt ones. There followed a number of tempestuous episodes, such as the crisis of spring 1974, when, after almost twenty years, armored cars were once again seen on the streets of Capodistria. But the two countries did not want any real worsening of bilateral relations, and nor could they afford one. The negotiations therefore restarted, to conclude with the Treaty of Osimo signed on 15 November 1975.63 In the final phase of the negotiations, Italy had partly modified its negotiating stance. The Rome government relinquished its claim to symbolic compensation in the form of territory in Zone B, in exchange for its own assent to the annexation of the same zone to Yugoslavia. Italy instead obtained two substantial compensations. The first was that Yugoslavia would forego extension of the rules protecting the Slovene minority in Italy beyond the territorial limits set by the Memorandum. This meant that no recognition was granted to the Slovene-speaking minority living the valleys of the Cividalese area (called ‘Slavic Veneto’ by the Slovenes and annexed to Italy already in 1866) in the province of Udine – a prospect intolerable to the Friulian Christian Democrats. The second compensation was an economic package including a feasibility study on a navigable canal between Sava and the Isonzo, and the construction of a cross-frontier industrial zone near Trieste intended to relaunch the languishing local economy. But, both compensations has scant political pay-offs. It seemed entirely obvious to Italian national groups that the mountain-dwellers of the high Natisone and Torre Valleys, with their strange dialect, could not be equated to the Slovenes of Trieste and Gorizia. Italian insistence on the result obtained would therefore have been ineffectual, while it would have soured relations with the Slovene minority. As regards the economic package, nobody believed in the feasibility of the mammoth canal project, while the project of an industrial zone straddling the border proved to be a boomerang. Its large size and location on the Karst plateau, a protected natural area above Trieste, prompted an alliance among the opponents of the political part of the treaty, ecologists worried by the predictable environmental impact of the new industrial installations, and those who – regardless of political affiliation – feared the disruption that an inflow of predominantly Slav labor would cause to the national and social order in Trieste. After all, this was not the first time that a substantial part of the city’s Italian ruling class and public opinion had preferred the risks of

63

For the text of the treaty see Gli accordi di Osimo. Lineamenti introduttivi e testi annotati, ed. Manlio Udina (Trieste: Lint, 1979).

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economic decline to those connected with a development that – considering the multi-ethnic nature of the area – would probably upset traditional national balances. This had already happened on the occasion of the last wave of Habsburgian modernization on the eve of the Great War, and not even Italian sovereignty on Trieste seemed sufficient guarantee against harm by the industrialization envisaged by the Treaty of Osimo.64 In the end, therefore, the industrial zone was not constructed, also because the possible advantages deriving from its favourable tax regime were rapidly annulled by subsequent accords between Yugoslavia and the European Community. The protest movement against the planned industrial area was so successful that it provoked crisis in the party-political system of Trieste and for some time assumed the city’s political leadership.65 The Treaty of Osimo of 10 November 1975 also formally concluded the long border controversy between Italy and Yugoslavia, and it was hailed internationally as a concrete application of the Helsinki Accords signed only a few months previously. In the meantime, however, much had changed since the two countries had started their rapprochement. Yugoslavia was about to descend into permanent economic crisis, while tensions among the various national groups grew increasingly severe. In Italy, the euphoria of the economic boom had given way to the uncertainties of stagflation, and the democratic political system came under joint attack from the far-right ‘strategy of tension’ and far-left terrorism. Nevertheless, the entry into effect of the Treaty of Osimo allowed a further development of bilateral relationships that became an example for relations among countries belonging to different political systems. However, the new bipolar rigidity of the late 1970s restricted the capacity of an agreement which, in the hopes of Aldo Moro, would have contributed powerfully to making Italy a bridge among the West, the neutral and non-aligned countries, and those belonging to the Soviet bloc.66 Nor were the expectations placed in the radical improvement of economic cooperation fulfilled. Above all, contrary to the hopes of both parties, the first phase of unconditional and close friendship between the two countries did not substantially contribute to the stabilization of Yugoslavia. The 1980s saw the progressive worsening of the Yugoslav crisis, while the Italian political system, although it had survived the ‘years of lead’, was irremediably stagnating. Shortly 64

On the center-periphery relationship and the insecurities of the Italians in Trieste see Giampaolo Valdevit, Trieste. Una periferia insicura (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2004). 65 For a synthesis of the political history of the period see Roberto Spazzali, Trieste di fine secolo 1955-2004 (Trieste: Italo Svevo, 2006). 66 Monzali, “I nostri vicini devono essere nostri amici,” 106.

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afterwards, the unexpected end of the Cold War demolished at a stroke the bases for political equilibrium in the two countries. Italy, paralyzed by the ‘Tangentopoli’ crisis and by the consequent transition between the First and Second Republic, uncertain about the road to take and substantially impotent, witnessed the dissolution of what had transformed itself from a historic enemy into one of its greatest political investments of the previous twenty years: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.67

67

Il confine riscoperto. Beni degli esuli, minoranze e cooperazione economica nei rapporti dell’Italia con Slovenia e Croazia, ed. Tito Favaretto, Ettore Greco (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1997); Antonio Varsori, L’Italia nelle relazioni internazionali dal 1943 al 1992 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1998); Adriano Biasutti, Friuli Venezia Giulia dieci anni dopo. Diario di un democristiano (Udine, 2000); Gianni De Michelis, “Così cercammo di impedire la guerra,” Limes, 1 (1994); Bucarelli, “L’Italia e le crisi jugoslave di fine secolo,” in Europa adriatica, 73-116; Id., “La Slovenia nella politica italiana di fine Novecento,” in Italia e Slovenia fra passato e futuro, ed. Massimo Bucarelli, Luciano Monzali (Roma: Studium, 2009), 103-49; Georg Meyr, “L’Italia e la dissoluzione della Jugoslavia,” in Dalla cortina di ferro al confine ponte, 102-7.

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Italian Foreign Policy in the Years of Détente Ideas and Actions of Amintore Fanfani and Aldo Moro Luca Riccardi Introduction We are still far from drawing a definite historiographical conclusion from Italian political experience in the years 1946-1992 also known as the time of the First Republic. It brought a big novelty, as is known – a new Roman Catholic Christian Democratic party and its leadership team took over a central, sometimes hegemonic, role. Until 1954, the dominant figure in the Italian political world was Alcide De Gasperi to whom a few choices that produced long-term policies, which deeply affected Italian society, are owed. It was under his leadership, both governmental and party, that Atlanticism and Europeanism as regards foreign policy became cornerstones in international operations of the republican governments.1 His resignation as party leader – which had just preceded his death, in 1954 – opened the way for a new generation of young politicians who had cut their teeth in the Constituent Assembly debates; but also as ministers or undersecretaries in the governments led by De Gasperi facing the challenge of post-war reconstruction of the country.

1



A great number of scholarly works have been written on De Gasperi’s historical figure, for all see VV. AA., Alcide De Gasperi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2009), Vol. II, Francesco Malgeri, Dal fascismo alla democrazia (1943-1947) and Vol. III, Pier Luigi Ballini, Dalla costruzione della democrazia alla “nostra patria Europa”; Piero Craveri, De Gasperi (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006), 193 et sqq.; Alfredo Canavero, Alcide De Gasperi. Cristiano, democratico, europeo (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003); more generally on history of the Christian Democrats, Agostino Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano. La Democrazia Cristiana dal 1942 al 1994 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1996), 4173; for a reading on the period see also Simona Colarizi, La seconda guerra mondiale e la repubblica (Milano: TEA, 1984) 495-678; on Europeanism see, inter alia, Antonio Varsori, La Cenerentola d’Europa? L’Italia e l’integrazione europea dal 1947 a oggi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010), 41-118; a synthesis in Luigi Vittorio Ferraris, Manuale della politica estera italiana 1947-1993 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1996), 3-89; Pietro Pastorelli, Il ritorno dell’Italia nell’Occidente. Racconto della politica estera italiana dal 15 settembre 1947 al 21 novembre 1949 (Milano: LED, 2009) and Id., La politica estera italiana del dopoguerra (Bologna: Il Mulino 1987).

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The most authoritative representatives of this ‘new generation’ of Christian Democrats were undoubtedly Amintore Fanfani and Aldo Moro. Both coming from the Dossettian wing of the DC,2 they followed distinct political paths. Fanfani, more ambitious and innovative, was the Minister of Labor who, immediately after the war, promoted a plan for the construction of hundreds of thousands of housing units which represented one of the most important welfare acts in the history of the Republic of Italy. Because of its importance it was compared to the Beveridge Plan. As the latter did in Great Britain, with this plan together with the land reform laws of Minister Segni in 1950, he radically changed the social conditions of large segments of Italian society.3 Moro, eight years younger than Fanfani, during the first republican legislature, occupied a more secondary political position as undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in De Gasperi’s fifth cabinet.4 He established himself as a leader of the highest level in the legislatures which followed: from 1953, in fact he was first the chairman of the parliamentary group in the Chamber, Minister of Justice and then Minister of Public Education. It was in this latter capacity that he introduced the study of Civic Education into the program of public schools. This was the first attempt to give birth to a mass republican culture. Both of these politicians, in different times and circumstances, were the successors of De Gasperi, first as party and then as government leaders.5

1.  Fanfani and Italian foreign policy in the 1950s Fanfani arrived at the DC secretariat after the Congress in Naples in 1954 which saw the victory of Democratic Initiative, a component 2



3



4



5



On the figure of Giuseppe Dossetti and his positions on foreign policy in the years of De Gasperi see inter alia Guido Formigoni, La Democrazia Cristiana e l’alleanza occidentale (1943-1953) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996), 303-40. More generally see Gianni Baget Bozzo, Il partito cristiano al potere. La DC di de Gasperi e Dossetti 1945/1954 (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1974). On INA-Casa Plan and internal conflicts in the DC that led to Fanfani’s failure to enter De Gasperi VI cabinet see Francesco Malgeri, La stagione del centrismo. Politica e società nell’Italia del secondo dopoguerra (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2002), 95-7. On land reform the testimony of one of the protagonists in Emilio Colombo, Per l’Italia e per l’Europa. Conversazione con Arrigo Levi (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2013), 53-82. On this experience, which Dossetti defined as ‘really pitiful’ because of the absence of ‘power’ that he had been granted by Minister Sforza see Francesco Malgeri, ‘Moro democristiano: dalla nascita del partito al Consiglio Nazionale di Vallombrosa’, in Aldo Moro nell’Italia contemporanea, ed. Francesco Perfetti, Andrea Ungari, Daniele Caviglia, Daniele De Luca (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2011), 49-67, 53-5, 54. A reconstruction in Gianni Baget Bozzo, Il partito cristiano e l’apertura a sinistra. La DC di Fanfani e di Moro (1954-1962) (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1977).

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that also gathered the heirs of Giuseppe Dossetti who had retired from politics in 1951. Fanfani’s idea of the role of the DC in the republican institutions largely exceeded that of De Gasperi’s. If for the latter the party was “a part that served the whole”, for the former it assumed a function of “institutional centrality”.6 With him as secretary this became the engine that was to initiate social changes. Relationships between the party, government and Parliament became stronger with a vision which has been defined as “almost Leninist”.7 It is possible that the organizational strengthening of the DC was following the model, considered very efficient, of Communist rivals whose penetration into every layer of society was feared. The ability to continue with the renewal of Italian society, government work efficiency8 and the fight against the internal affirmation of communism, in short, depended on the smooth functioning of the party. It is no coincidence that, from the beginning of his mandate, Fanfani tried to impose on the government, with the DC holding the majority, a “wide and articulated” program of reforms.9 His push for reforms emphasized the inadequacy of the centrist formula, inherited by De Gasperi, on which the ruling coalition was based. He lacked numbers and political cohesion, which contrasted heavily with the need for a “strong” leader who would impose an effective policy of change. This orientation was disapproved of by some, even from within the DC, from the Left. It was this “stagnation” of the political environment that made the Christian Democratic leader look with increasing interest at the evolution inside the Socialist Party led by Pietro Nenni. His progressive detachment from the PCI, which accelerated from the time of the Hungarian crisis in 1956, brought the oldest party of the Italian Left back closer to the governmental area. For nearly ten years, the relationship between the DC and PSI was the main political issue of Italian public life.10 Fanfani’s political action, therefore, decisively contributed to the “slow decline of centrism”.11 6

Vera Capperucci, Il partito dei cattolici. Dall’Italia degasperiana alle correnti democristiane (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010), 636. 7 Ibid., 647. 8 Luciano Radi, La DC da De Gasperi a Fanfani (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2005), 141-6; Malgeri, La stagione del centrismo, 172. On the results of Fanfani’s party politics, see Piero Craveri, La repubblica dal 1958 al 1992 (Milano: TEA, 1995), 11. 9 Malgeri, La stagione del centrismo, 172. 10 Giuseppe Tamburrano, Storia e cronaca del Centro Sinistra (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1976) [1st ed. 1971]. 11 Colarizi, La seconda guerra mondiale e la repubblica, 679 et sqq.; see also Ead., Storia dei partiti nell’Italia repubblicana (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1994), 184-5.

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His air of modernizing activist raised some concerns, but even culturally distant men were able to like him. Liberal Manlio Brosio, for example, politician and long-time diplomat, ambassador in Washington, in 1955 considered him to be “the man of tomorrow”12 for Italy. The diplomat was certainly pleased when the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, after a meeting held in Rome with the Secretary of the DC, described him as “a solid and reliable man”.13 As secretary of the party, Fanfani widely intervened in matters of foreign policy. In his opinion the renewal of society was closely connected with the development of the Italian international position. He wanted to broaden the horizon until then defined mainly by the “Atlantic dimension”.14 From the beginning of his service as secretary the Arezzo statesman was engaged in the search for a “new discourse”15 on Italian foreign policy. For the Christian Democratic leader, however, the Atlantic Alliance remained the “cynosure” of Italian foreign policy; nevertheless, from 1955, he began to pay increasing attention to changes taking place in the international situation caused primarily by Chruščëv’s leadership.16 The sectors which he was watching with greatest interest were the Mediterranean, relations with the Socialist countries and the newly independent countries which were quickly emerging on the world stage. His interventionist character, therefore, pushed him to move more decisively on the international horizon. His ideas represented the heart of the direction of the Italian foreign policy, defined as “neo-Atlanticism”, which emerged in the mid-1950s and reached its climax with Fanfani’s second cabinet in 1958-1959. The name of this current of thought on Italian international action should undoubtedly be attributed to the right wing Christian Democrat Giuseppe Pella.17 He – Prime minister and Foreign Minister of a provisional government in 1953-1954, then again twice the head of Italian diplomacy in the II and III legislature – interpreted it as a greater freedom of action in defense of traditional national interests. Many innovative trends went under this definition, though inadequate, and animated Italian foreign policy in the second half of the 1950s. 12

Manlio Brosio, Diari di Washington 1955-1961, ed. Umberto Gentiloni Silveri (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008), 66; for an interpretation of such a judgment, regarding the figure of Brosio, see Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, “Introduzione,” ibid., 31. 13 Brosio, Diari di Washington, 116. 14 La dimensione atlantica e le relazioni internazionali nel dopoguerra (1947-1949), ed. Brunello Vigezzi (Milano: Jaca Book, 1987). 15 Guido Formigoni, “Fanfani, la DC e la ricerca di un nuovo discorso di politica estera (1954-1968),” in Amintore Fanfani e la politica estera italiana, ed. Agostino Giovagnoli, Luciano Tosi (Venezia: Marsilio, 2010), 78-102. 16 Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano, 77. 17 Formigoni, “Fanfani, la DC e la ricerca,” 80.

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These trends pivoted, in fact, on a new leading role in the new scenarios that the end of the first phase of the Cold War seemed to prepare for Italian action. They depended upon men with different political inspirations and their synthesis, however, was the desire to see Italy reaching the “status of a great power”.18 Besides Fanfani – who will be discussed later – there was first the new president of the Republic, former trade unionist Christian Democrat Giovanni Gronchi, in office from May 1955. His activism – especially regarding relations with the Mediterranean, Atlantic and countries behind the Iron Curtain – tended to impose itself on the actions of governments and with some of them, in fact, he had major disagreements.19 To this neo-Atlantic policy one can certainly attribute the action of the Christian Democrat Enrico Mattei, president of the newly formed state oil company (ENI), whose objective was to achieve energy self-sufficiency as a basis for the transformation of Italy into a great industrial power. According to this original statesman the goal was to be achieved even regardless of the traditional international position of Italy.20 Even the intense Europe-oriented activity of Gaetano Martino was considered as part of these general trends. The Liberal leader was Foreign Minister in the centrist cabinets of Scelba and Segni in 1954-1957. His action put the government of Rome at the center of the process of the revival of European integration which led, in March 1957, to the signing of the Treaty of Rome and the establishment of the Common Market and EURATOM.21 During his tenure at the helm of diplomacy, in December 18

Massimo de Leonardis, “La politica estera italiana, la NATO e l’ONU negli anni del Neoatlantismo (1955-1960),” in L’Italia e le organizzazioni internazionali. Diplomazia multilaterale nel Novecento, ed. Luciano Tosi (Padova: CEDAM, 1999), 201-33. 19 Antonio Varsori, L’Italia nelle relazioni internazionali dal 1943 al 1992 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1998), 128. 20 On Mattei see, inter alia, Leonardo Maugeri, L’arma del petrolio. Questione petrolifera globale, guerra fredda e la politica italiana nella vicenda di Enrico Mattei (Firenze: Loggia de’ Lanzi, 1994); Giampaolo Calchi Novati, “Mediterraneo e questione araba nella politica estera italiana,” in Storia dell’Italia repubblicana, Vol. II, La trasformazione dell’Italia. Sviluppo e squilibri, part. II (Torino: Einaudi, 1995), 218-9; Georg Meyr, “Enrico Mattei e la politica neoatlantica dell’Italia nella percezione degli Stati Uniti d’America,” in Il Mediterraneo nella politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra, ed. Massimo de Leonardis (Bologna: Il Mulino 2003), 157-69; Alberto Tonini, Il sogno proibito. Mattei, il petrolio arabo e le ‘sette sorelle’ (Firenze: Polistampa, 2003); Bruna Bagnato, Petrolio e politica. Mattei in Marocco (Firenze: Polistampa, 2004); Giovanni Buccianti, Enrico Mattei. Assalto al potere petrolifero mondiale (Milano: Giuffrè, 2005); Massimo Bucarelli, “All’origine della politica energetica dell’ENI: Enrico Mattei e i negoziati per gli accordi petroliferi in Iran nel 1957,” Nuova Rivista Storica, 2 (2010). 21 On Martino see for all Marcello Saija, Angela Villani, Gaetano Martino 1900-1967 (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2011).

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1955, Italy also achieved the long-awaited admission to the United Nations, after more than a decade of waiting. During his leadership, therefore, several possibilities opened up to Italian diplomacy which had, in the neo-Atlantic perspective, a value far from negligible.22 Amintore Fanfani, albeit in an original way, shared these views. We have seen how his reflections on international issues were pivoting on all the news that emerged on the global scene after the death of Stalin. He was profoundly influenced on this issue in different ways. First, there was certainly Giorgio La Pira. The thought of this Christian Democratic leader – Undersecretary of Labor with Fanfani as Minister and then Mayor of Florence in the 1950s and 1960s – stemmed from a vision of political issues that often transcended the border with the spiritual, between “religion and realism”.23 He was at the forefront of the dialogue with the Orthodox Slav world as well as with the monotheistic religions of the Mediterranean. For this “prophet” of dialogue “the dream of a new time”24 was based on the understanding of communist Russia with the aim of giving birth to “an era of peace”, as he wrote in 1961 to Pope Roncalli.25 In the 1950s and 1960s the thinking of the mayor “saint” of Florence found its natural harbor in Fanfani’s government where it was often inspiring, sometimes cooperating and always bravely supporting. Ultimately La Pira looked to the dialogue between men of religion as the key to a peaceful future for humanity.26 Second, the above-mentioned Enrico Mattei also influenced Fanfani. Even though they had a challenging relationship, Mattei’s strategy in the international oil system was one of the main factors in the Italian foreign policy renewal envisioned by Fanfani.27 The latter represented the synthesis between these two tendencies in the Christian Democratic world. They were both, in fact, pushing for a reassessment of the political role in a world that showed signs of profound change. Not surprisingly, 22

Pietro Pastorelli, “L’ammissione dell’Italia all’ONU,” in Relazioni internazionali. Studi in onore di Giuseppe Vedovato, Vol. III, Contributi (Firenze: Biblioteca della Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 1997), 239-54. 23 Mario Castelli, “Carteggio di La Pira con Malenkov e Krusciov. Le armi atomiche. Religione e realismo,” Aggiornamenti Sociali, 2-3 (1965), 15-20. 24 Giorgio La Pira, Lettere a Giovanni XXIII. Il sogno di un tempo nuovo, ed. Andrea Riccardi, Augusto D’Angelo (Cinisello Balsamo: San Paolo, 2009); see also Amintore Fanfani, Giorgio La Pira: un profilo e 24 lettere inedite (Milano: Rusconi, 1978). 25 La Pira a Giovanni XXIII, 8 August 1961, in Giorgio La Pira, Lettere a Giovanni XXIII, 274-7. 26 Luca Riccardi, “Tra Stati Uniti ed Egitto: Fanfani e la crisi di Suez,” Nuova Storia Contemporanea, 6 (2009), 81-98. 27 Ilaria Tremolada, “Mattei, Fanfani, l’Eni e le relazioni internazionali dell’Italia,” in Amintore Fanfani e la politica estera, 283-332.

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to Fanfani’s mind, this perspective was anchored in the development of domestic politics: the evolution of society pushed towards the creation of government majorities which would increasingly represent the working classes; therefore it seemed inevitable, in the medium term, that a more intensive dialogue with the Socialists should be opened.28 At the same time, as mentioned, the secretary of the DC was maintaining firm friendship with the United States. For Fanfani, relationship with the United States could not be an end in itself, but, among other things, it was supposed to become a “fundamental tool for achieving and maintaining world peace”.29 Everything, therefore, was indicating, as already mentioned, an “alignment”30 with Washington. The effective synthesis of his thought was the attempt which he pursued on his own, to bring closer, through his mediation, the United States and Nasser’s Egypt during the first phase of the Suez crisis in 1956.31 This was interpreted as a way to reconcile the interests of the West and the aspirations of the Arab world.

2.  Fanfani’s second cabinet The parliamentary elections of 1958 seemed to put Fanfani in a favorable position. The good result achieved by the DC, which had regained some of the consent lost in 1953,32 urged the secretary to directly assume leadership of the government, as well as of Foreign Affairs. The formula, however, based on a coalition with the Social Democrats (PSDI) – closed to the Liberals, but not yet open to the Socialists – reflected all the uncertainties that tormented the DC, which won the relative majority. Despite uncertainty of his position, the new President of the Council did not give up trying to leave his mark on the conduct of foreign affairs. Characteristic of this cabinet was the neo-Atlantic direction: alignment with the US and the centrality of the Mediterranean policy. It was the “orthodox core of neo-Atlanticism” that, in those months, was measured by its “achievements” and “limits”.33 Some aspects of his policy raised the concerns of active diplomats. First of all, the new Foreign Minister imposed a revolution at the top of the Ministry’s bureaucratic structure. He put some officials in positions 28

Leopoldo Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a sinistra. Importanza e limiti della presenza americana in Italia (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1999). 29 Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, “Fanfani visto da Washington,” in Amintore Fanfani e la politica estera, 105-29. 30 Alessandro Brogi, L’Italia e l’egemonia americana nel Mediterraneo (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1996), 295. 31 L. Riccardi, “Tra Stati Uniti ed Egitto,” passim. 32 Giovagnoli, Il Partito italiano, 91. 33 Brogi, L’Italia e l’egemonia americana nel Mediterraneo, 295.

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with greater responsibility not because it would have been a logical step in their “career”, but for the fact of being “most loyal”34 to the new leader. This group of diplomats – defined by the American journalist Cyrus Sulzberger as mau mau – was accused of being ready to form a real “clique” in Palazzo Chigi.35 “Content” of his policy appeared equally troubling. The “filo-Arab policy” seemed to be able to push Italy to a “neutralist” ridge; his “approach of dialogue” with the USSR would favor the advance of the Communists within Italy. The interference of La Pira and Mattei would be “an element of system degradation”.36 In reality Fanfani’s policy was far from risky. Even in the Mediterranean area he did not stray far from his “Atlantic” idea. While the new Italian government was presenting itself to both Houses there was a Nasser type coup d’état in Iraq that put an end to the pro-Western rule of the Hashemite dynasty. Facing similar threats in Jordan and Lebanon, the Anglo-Americans reacted with a move of “armed diplomacy”37 and sent into these countries, at their request, troops to protect the stability of their governments. Initially Fanfani showed himself to be “very reserved”38 towards this course of action. He was afraid to see more and more Nasser connected to the Soviet Union. It was also for this reason that he, through the Egyptian ambassador in Rome, sent to the rais reassurances about Italian friendship and invited him “not to do a foolish thing and react”.39 However, he fulfilled his duty as an ally. On 18 July, he announced to Eisenhower his full operational support, both political and logistical. But he did not hide his fears that the Middle East was likely to suffer a setback to the detriment of Western presence in the region. And he picked up, in a sense, the thread of his behavior during the crisis of 1956: he offered his contribution, by virtue of good relations with the Arab countries, “for a peaceful resolution of immediate and fundamental problems”. All this, of course, had as objective the realization of “democracy” and “prosperity”40 in the Middle East.

34

Fabio Grassi Orsini, “La ‘rivoluzione diplomatica’ del secondo gabinetto Fanfani,” in Amintore Fanfani e la politica estera, 195-204. 35 Brosio, Diari di Washington, 369. 36 Grassi Orsini, “La ‘rivoluzione diplomatica’ del secondo gabinetto Fanfani,” 196. 37 Daniele De Luca, “La diplomazia armata. Gli Stati Uniti e le crisi giordana e libanese (1957-1958),” in Ombre di guerra fredda. Gli Stati Uniti nel Medio Oriente durante gli anni di Eisenhower (1953-1961), ed. Antonio Donno (Naples: ESI, 1998), 651-85. 38 Evelina Martelli, L’altro atlantismo. Fanfani e la politica estera italiana (1958-1963) (Milano: Guerini, 2007), 29. 39 ASR, DF, 17 July 1958. 40 Martelli, L’altro atlantismo, 30.

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Attention was also brought to this “double step” during the debate in the General Assembly of the United Nations dedicated to the Middle East crisis. The Head of the Italian Delegation, Attilio Piccioni, after pointing out “the positive and constructive approach”41 of the President of the United States, presented the Italian policy on the matter. First of all, a greater multilateral development with the creation of a UN rapid reaction force which must be used in case of emergencies such as those which had occurred in Lebanon and Jordan; then a growing “understanding” for the “autonomous force of Arab nationalism in full development”; adding to this the recognition for the Middle East Arab countries in order to meet the “aspirations” of reaching the levels of well-being in the most advanced countries. “Independence and freedom” were “inseparable from certain standards of prosperity”.42 It was clear, as in Fanfani’s conception, that international cooperation and multilateralism, in particular the role of the UN, were crucial elements.43 The new Prime Minister visited Washington, from 28 to 31 July 1958, and that visit was supposed to definitely become the Atlantic anchor of his “new” foreign policy. In these talks with the most important leaders of US policy – despite the convergences – a clear discrepancy of judgment on the personality of Nasser emerged. For the Secretary of State, Foster Dulles, he was as insatiable as “Hitler”; Eisenhower, more moderate only in his tone, found useless any new economic initiative towards Egypt. The Italian Prime Minister considered it necessary, however, to cultivate good bilateral relations and then induce the Soviet Union not to encourage him in his subversive actions. For Fanfani the “key” to the solution was in Moscow.44 This proved how the “need to maintain an open dialogue with the Kremlin” was a “constant” in his “policy proposals”.45

41

Attilio Piccioni’s address, 18 August 1958 in Sulla scena del mondo. L’Italia all’Assemblea Generale delle Nazioni Unite 1955-2009, ed. Luciano Tosi (Naples: Editoriale Scientifica, 2010), d. 8. 42 Ibid., 42. 43 Luciano Tosi, “Tra politica ed economia. I nuovi orizzonti delle relazioni internazionali italiane,” in Amintore Fanfani e la politica estera, 54-77; Angela Villani, “Fanfani, l’ONU e la politica italiana di distensione internazionale,” ibid., 205-32; see also Luca Riccardi, “L’Italia e l’ONU. Alcuni elementi per una riflessione sulla politica estera italiana (1955-1989),” Nuova Storia Contemporanea, 3 (2011), 135-160. 44 Martelli, L’altro atlantismo, 35. On Fanfani’s trip see Brosio, Diari di Washington, 367-77; Egidio Ortona, Anni d’America. La diplomazia 1955-1961 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 306-18. 44 Bruna Bagnato, “Fanfani e l’Unione Sovietica,” in Amintore Fanfani e la politica estera, 171-94. 45 Ibid.

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It must be said, however, that at the moment of Fanfani’s cabinet appointment relations with the USSR were not very promising. The importance of change at the top of Italian foreign policy was still clear to the Soviets. It was no coincidence that the ambassador in Rome, a few days after the election, when the Zoli government was still in office, asked Fanfani for a meeting.46 Bilateral relations were not sufficiently independent from the overall situation. It has been rightly observed that, at the time when the Fanfani government entered the scene, relations with Moscow were still “anchored in the usual interpretative grids”.47 Bilateralism was suffering, heavily conditioned by what remained of the postwar inheritance; at the global level from the installation, according to the Atlantic Alliance decision, of Thor and Jupiter missiles in response to the progress achieved by the Soviets in the area of intercontinental range missiles.48 In addition, Soviet attempts to create havoc in the opposing camp by proposing non-aggression pacts, both multilateral and bilateral, were interpreted as propaganda frauds.49 Up to that moment relations with the USSR were kept strictly in the Atlantic framework: the Ambassador in Moscow himself, Di Stefano, at the time of his appointment, in 1951, was asked to keep a “low profile”;50 in his actions he would need to stay in close contact with American diplomats accredited to the great communist power. In essence, on his arrival, Fanfani found relations with the USSR “stagnant”. This did not fit the idea that he had of détente. It was a road, however, that Italy would pursue with greater determination. Coexistence meant embracing the other and a dialogue, not an ideological or doctrinaire failure. Anti-communism was a cornerstone in the cultural structure of the new Prime Minister. But international coexistence was a service “to the cause of freedom”. It would be useful to free communist countries from the anxieties produced by persistent economic difficulties; and therefore also “to let penetrate […] some ideas with the flavor that the most abundant bread gains when it is made more savory through the oil of freedom”.51 In the name of all this he decided to change his attitude. For this he sent a new Ambassador to Moscow, Luca Pietromarchi, with the obvious task of revitalizing relations between the two countries. The goal of this 46

ASR, DF, 11 June 1958. Fanfani postponed the meeting asking to take ‘a little breath’. Bruna Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik. Politica ed economia nella strategia italiana verso l’Unione Sovietica 1958-1963 (Firenze: Olschki, 2003), 25. 48 Leopoldo Nuti, La sfida nucleare (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007), 171-239. 49 Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, 36. 50 Ibid., 31. 51 Bagnato, “Fanfani e l’Unione Sovietica,” 178. 47

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mission was to renew bilateral relationship in an attempt to develop, according to the new nature of Soviet-Italian relations, “[Italian] leeway in the international system”.52 It was, in short, an attempt to acquire a more important position in the complex system of global relations in which, up to that time, Italy had been still rather marginal. Still, this task, given the difficult political context in which it was supposed to happen, had “very little […] leeway”.53 “Firmness”54 towards the Soviet “policy of interference”55 in the Italian internal framework – i.e. its connection with the PCI – was another obstacle difficult to overcome. As happened on the Mediterranean issue, Fanfani’s policy was always firmly announced but weakly implemented. Fanfani, however, believed that the economic aspect was of great importance. It was no coincidence that the new Ambassador had among his most important goals the improvement of trade relations.56 Their strengthening was the point of contact with the strategy towards the USSR which was at that time being elaborated in Rome by the President of the Republic, Gronchi. The latter, in a much more unscrupulous manner than Fanfani, in fact, insisted on looking for a policy alternative to the one of strict opposition to the USSR, considering it “anachronistic”.57 So the activity of Italian diplomacy was directed towards economic matters, and that was the point of connection between the strategies of Palazzo Chigi and Palazzo Quirinale. This direction, moreover, was well coordinated with the economic situation of the country. At that time the Republic of Italy was entering the age of the greatest economic development in its history. Also for this reason it was necessary to develop positive relations with, though ideologically opposed to, the major economic power. It must be said that, at least in the first phase, the growth of economic cooperation between the two countries was the main legacy left by Fanfani to his successors.

3.  Back to government The first weeks of 1959 were marked by a rapid decline in the influence that, until that moment, Fanfani had had on Italian politics. The “monocratic design”58 that his simultaneous takeover of the governmental 52

Bruna Bagnato, “Introduzione,” in I diari di Luca Pietromarchi ambasciatore italiano a Mosca (1958-1961), ed. Bruna Bagnato (Firenze: Olschki, 2002), XIII. 53 Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, 79. 54 Martelli, L’altro atlantismo, 64. 55 Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, 79. 56 Ibid., 55-76. 57 Ibid., 84. 58 Craveri, La repubblica, 24.

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leadership and the DC secretariat had foreshadowed now crumbled. Disagreement with the President of the Council manifested itself in the repeated action of flip-flop politicians that repeatedly outvoted the cabinet in parliamentary voting.59 He replied with a rigid attitude: after resigning from the government he reacted to the criticism with the abandonment of the party’s leadership as well by which he put himself in a position of “isolation”.60 Some commented that this move was intended to bring the leader back to power free from the constraints of the party secretariat.61 The operation failed. The lack of support from the DC opened the way for Segni who presided over a government which counted on the Liberals and the non-decisive support of the Right. But primarily the fracture within the party appeared. One part of the Democratic Initiative separated and, together with the right wing of the DC, it led to the secretariat of Aldo Moro, who, from that moment on, became the party-antagonist of Fanfani. The agreement against Fanfani’s leadership gave birth to a new broad trend – the Dorotei, which took its name from the Roman convent where several Christian Democrats gathered in March 1959 – and which would dominate the life of the DC for over ten years. In the following months confusion grew because of the inability to identify a clear parliamentary majority on which to build effective government action. The Right supported Fanfani’s successors, Segni and Tambroni, with the intention to prevent Socialists from entering the majority, which was also strongly opposed by the ecclesiastical authorities.62 In these months, the dominant figure in Italian politics was the President of the Republic, Gronchi. His aspiration to include the PSI in the majority was implemented in a contradictory and personal manner obviously resulting in the revival of a Right which, until then, had been somewhat marginalized.63 In these eighteen months (February 1959 to July 1960) confronted with a growth in GDP which exceeded 7%, a total deficit of government capability was noted, burdened with a series of political struggles which were not immediately comprehensible to the general public.64

59

Malgeri, La stagione del centrismo, 357. Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano, 93. 61 Malgeri, La stagione del centrismo, 360. 62 Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano, 96-97. 63 Malgeri, La stagione del centrismo, 373-87; see also Luciano Radi, Tambroni trent’anni dopo. Il luglio 1960 e la nascita del centrosinistra (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990). On the political action of the Right, see Davide Conti, L’anima nera della Repubblica. Storia del MSI (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2013), 24-30. 64 Craveri, La repubblica, 85. 60

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In this phase foreign policy regarding détente was also profoundly influenced by Gronchi’s thought. In the “changing international context”65 trends to peaceful coexistence seemed to be reinforced as well by the growing prominence of the CPSU secretariat, Chruščëv, whose action, however, was not free from contradictions and diplomatic controversies. “Global antagonism”66 was not fading away and, once the phase of Stalin’s militarization passed, it was turning towards ideology and influence on the newly independent countries. The Kremlin was convinced that the socialist model of society gave to the USSR the “prestige” necessary to become a real alternative to the capitalist model.67 It was in this climate that Gronchi insisted on accepting the invitation to visit the Soviet Union that had been sent to him in 1959. It was an important political step that would acknowledge a progressive growth of economic relations between the two countries. For the President of the Republic this occasion would be useful not only to confirm his crucial role in the carrying out of Italian foreign policy; but it would also be a decisive international côté of his project of opening towards the left. Détente, in fact, was an element that could “sweeten and enrich the vocabulary between Piazza del Gesù and Via del Corso”.68 The trip took place in February 1960. It could hardly be called a success. From the clear dissent that was expressed at the plenary meeting between the two delegations, things went as far, during a reception, as a rather low level of ideological squabble – directly involving the President of the Republic of Italy and Chruščëv.69 Fanfani fully understood the consequences, both at the international and domestic level, of this failure: In Moscow yesterday great conflict Chruščëv Gronchi. Here the result was painful […] Chruščëv has evidently indulged his every whim against Gronchi knowing that he represented neither the West nor indirectly the Catholics. Piccioni complains that Segni failed to take the journey seriously by not studying and preparing for it well. Socialists are frightened by the reactions that may arise. The MSI gloating.70

Nevertheless this did not make him change his positive opinion on the opportunity he used to take this “goodwill trip”, as defined by Gronchi 65

Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, 162. The definition is by Federico Romero, Storia della guerra fredda. L’ultimo conflitto per l’Europa (Torino: Einaudi, 2009), 124. 67 Reflections of Chruščëv in Nikita Kruscev, Kruscev ricorda (Milano: Sugar, 1970), 536-51. 68 Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, 163. Via del Corso was the national headquarters of the Italian Socialist Party. 69 Ibid., 234-55. 70 ASR, DF, 9 February 1960. 66

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himself.71 In his reflections “optimism” was clearly heard which inspired the thought of his friend La Pira: They err, however, who believe it cannot produce anything. For “prisoners” such as the Russians are, any contact with other peoples and visitors cannot fail to be a seed. When will it bear fruit?72

This “failure” was no small contribution to the end of the Segni government and to the beginning of the confused political phase that coincided with the Tambroni government. The majority of public opinion was opposing the government whose survival was the reason why the MSI was holding decisive votes, and it gave back, after a few months, the leadership to Fanfani who held it until the end of the term. His third cabinet, thanks to the mending done by the DC Secretary, Moro, was relying on a majority with a new composition. The government of the “democratic convergence” was a solid DC cabinet that was availing itself of the outside support of the Republicans, Liberals and Social Democrats and the abstention of the PSI and the monarchists.73 Its function was to open the way for the formation of a center-left in which the Socialists could play their full role of coalition reformist wing. This direction was confirmed at the Congressional Conference of the PSI in 1961 and of the DC in 1962. This characteristic contentious debate inaugurated the two politicians as leaders of this epochal shift in the political history of the Republic: Aldo Moro and Pietro Nenni.74 Fanfani’s fourth government, inaugurated in February 1962, saw the Socialists pass from abstention to external support and had two leaders as actual tutelary deities. In addition to this it was based on the internal DC alliance between Moro and the President of the Council, which was also strengthened because of a certain “accordance” in foreign policy, in particular regarding the policy towards the countries behind the Iron Curtain.75 The international actions of the new Fanfani government were profoundly influenced by the change of leadership in the White House. The victory of Kennedy, who came to power in January 1961, sent off a 71

Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, 234. An assessment of the permanence of Gronchi in Moscow in I diari di Luca Pietromarchi, 285-336. 72 ASR, DF, 11 February 1960. 73 Malgeri, La stagione del centrismo, 387. 74 Paolo Mattera, “Moro e il PSI,” in Aldo Moro nell’Italia contemporanea, 179-93. Intense development of relations between the two leaders, which also overcame the narrow political environment, is evident in Pietro Nenni Aldo Moro Carteggio 19601978 (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1998). 75 Evelina Martelli, “Da Fanfani a Moro, Continuità e rotture nelle linee della politica estera italiana,” in Moro nell’Italia contemporanea, 309-36.

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wave of international idealism from which even the Italian public was unable to escape. The youth and dynamism of the new president infected in a modernizing sense all the great Western democracies. To Fanfani this appeared as another stimulus to pursue the project of the modernization of Italy that he had always cultivated since his first steps in politics.76 The climax of his governments’ activity regarding détente was a trip to the USSR, in August 1961, during which – together with the Foreign Minister, Segni – he had an in-depth exchange of views with Chruščëv.77 The results were not striking. The climate, however, turned out to be far better than when the meeting with Gronchi took place the year before: the Soviet leader showed that he had great consideration for the actions of the head of the Italian government. Nonetheless, the “discussion was fiery”.78 There was also a methodological difference. Unlike the previous occasion this visit was preceded by “careful preparation”79 – both internal and with the allies – also because of the importance of questions that were intended to be dealt with, especially the problem of Berlin. Fanfani took a firm stance on this issue and urged that unilateral decisions should not be taken. On the whole he assumed an attitude consonant with what the Western spirit was regarding relations with the Soviet Union: negotiate without forgetting you have an antagonist in front of you. In his diary, Fanfani remembers that among the first things he said to Chruščëv was that he and Foreign Minister Segni had come to Moscow “neither to be clever nor to investigate, nor to negotiate on behalf of anyone”.80 But a change in climate can also be noted from the conversations that Fanfani and Chruščëv had about the new reality of the Catholic Church that appeared with the advent of Pope John XXIII in 1958. The Italian Prime Minister, on this occasion, showed how the new wind represented by the election of the elderly pontiff – also represented by the new attitude towards Russia – would influence his policies. For the Catholic Church, slowly, the Kremlin, from mortal enemy, was turning into an interlocutor, highly problematic, but still an interlocutor. The Christian Democrat 76

Martelli, L’altro atlantismo, 11. On the figure of Kennedy see inter alia, Robert Dallek, JFK. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, una vita incompiuta (Milano: Mondadori, 2003); besides the classic Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., I mille giorni di John F. Kennedy (Milano: Rizzoli, 1965). 77 For Fanfani’s visit in Moscow, accompanied by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Segni, see Martelli, L’altro atlantismo, 287-98; Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, 473-91; Gianluca Azzoni, “Il viaggio di Fanfani e Segni in Unione Sovietica, 2-5 agosto 1961,” Storia delle Relazioni Internazionali, 2 (1993), 169-226. 78 Bagnato, Fanfani e l’Unione Sovietica, 186. 79 Ead., Prove di Ostpolitik, 455. 80 ASR, DF, 2 August 1961. Antonio Segni, Diario (1956-1964), ed. Salvatore Mura (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012), 223-6.

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statesman tried to push Chruščëv in this direction. From the observation of the latter that, up to that moment, the attempts to approach the Catholic Church had gone “badly”, arose the dialogue reconstructed by the Italian Prime Minister: F[anfani] = But what do you think, how important is it for peace, which you hold so dear, to have good relations with the Church. K[ruscev] = I would like to. But how do I do this with so many difficulties? F. = Take this issue in your own hands, it is too important to leave it to your associates. It is more important than the peace. Especially since the Church is preparing a great fact of peace.81

The “spirit of La Pira” which could be felt in the mission, was confirmed by the mayor of Florence himself, in his usual correspondence with Pope John XXIII, who had to say that the visit to Moscow was of “immense scope: providential indeed!”; but above all “what lights it will fire in the future!”.82 The tone of these expressions sounded very much like the daily records written by Fanfani himself in the evenings of his stay in the Soviet Union.83 It must be said that the mutual attitude that the Holy See and the Kremlin held during the pontificate of John XXIII was one of the great innovations in the global scenario of those years.84 Chruščëv’s sonin-law, Adjubej, visited the Vatican on 6 March 1963, and that, for example, resonated the world over.85 Absolutely outstanding, however, was the liberation, involving partially the Italian Prime Minister Fanfani as well, of the elder Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite, Slipyi. In January 1963 after a diplomatic offensive, Soviet authorities agreed on his liberation, after several years of imprisonment. This was the product of Pope John’s “policy” of dialogue that seemed to produce concrete results.86 81

ASR, DF 2 and 3 August 1961. Allusion to the ‘fact of peace’ regards the opening of II Vatican Council that took place the following year. 82 Giorgio La Pira to Giovanni XXIII, 8 August 1961 in Lettere a Giovanni XXIII, d. 66. On La Pira and the URSS see also Carteggio di La Pira con Malenkov. 83 ‘At home I pray long for Russia and for Khrushchev, such is his responsibility for world peace’, ASR, DF, 2 August 1961. 84 A specific view in Pietro Pastorelli, La Santa Sede e l’Europa centro-orientale nella seconda metà del Novecento (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2013). 85 Andrea Riccardi, Il Vaticano e Mosca (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1992) 248-53; Alberto Melloni, L’altra Roma. Politica e S. Sede durante il Concilio Vaticano II (1959-1965) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000), 166-9; general synthesis also in Giovanni Barberini, L’Ostpolitik della Santa Sede. Un dialogo lungo e faticoso (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007). 86 Also on this episode A. Riccardi, Il Vaticano, 238-46; Melloni, L’altra Roma, 164-6; on the figure of card. Slipyj see Ivan Choma, Josyf Slipyj, Vinctus Christi et Defensor

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Fanfani, in fact, believed to be succeeding in making Italy a respected interlocutor. This is also visible in the impressions of the Soviets. There is a certain importance in Gromyko’s judgment: Fanfani was preparing “carefully” before holding a meeting where he was found to be a “solid interlocutor”. “On the principle matters” he remained anchored to the “platform of NATO”; but “shunned the cliché” and never claimed that the USSR was “a threat to peace”.87 And he continued: Fanfani entered negotiations in a documented way, trying to penetrate the meaning and reasons for the Soviet positions and always examining the essence of things. He has never limited himself to restating the headlines, as unfortunately other politicians of the West do.88

Going back to the meetings in February 1961, everything was soundly refuted because of the sudden erection of the Berlin Wall, a few days after Fanfani’s return home. In this case the difference in status between interlocutors was clearly proven: Chruščëv, after all, had been in dialogue with “minor” leaders of the adversary alliance. The contemporary testimony of Ambassador Pietromarchi, clearly shows that the economic results were far better because the most important expressions of Italian private and state capitalism came into play: Vittorio Valletta’s Fiat and Enrico Mattei’s ENI could negotiate as equals with their Soviet counterparts and, together with the government’s action, they “worked as a system” and undoubtedly strengthened the Italian position in the USSR.89 This step of Fanfani’s “diplomacy” clearly revealed a platform on which he intended to build Italian foreign policy regarding détente. Italy had to “refrain from taking sensational initiatives”,90 but retained the right to “encourage the spirit of pondering and reflection”.91 The day after his return Fanfani spoke to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber, where he noticed the majority approving his views; which, it should be remembered, had not always been the case in his previous governmental experience: Unitatis (Roma: Collana dell’Universitas Catholica Ucrainorum S. Clementis Papae, 1997). 87 Andrej A. Gromyko, Memorie (Milano: Rizzoli, 1989), 215. 88 Ibid., 216. Observations of the Soviet leader were based on several occasions which he had to meet Fanfani even in later years when he was foreign minister in Moro’s II and III cabinet. 89 Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik, passim; an example of this policy in Pietromarchi, I diari, 428. See also Buccianti, Enrico Mattei, 173-208. 90 Bagnato, “Fanfani e l’Unione Sovietica,” 189. 91 Ibid.

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My reply. Overwhelming majority for the government. This is the first time this has happened. I clearly said that it is time to stop rejecting Italian initiatives, which are useful to our allies as well. I stressed the need for prompt preparation of a constructive negotiation.92

It must be said that the Soviets themselves were not always as open as Fanfani had believed. After the Berlin Wall crisis the “mess”93 happened with the letter which Chruščëv had sent directly to Fanfani on 22 August. The intention was to portray the Italian government as less rigid than its allies” and to make everyone believe that, had they followed the line traced by Fanfani during the talks in Moscow, the wall crisis would probably never have happened. The attempt to divide the enemy camp was quite obvious. But tensions immediately after the post-wall crisis put everything in a different light: American diplomacy cultivated many suspicions that the Italian government itself was struggling to refute.94 As for Fanfani, however, “a favorable opportunity”95 to enter into negotiations with the Soviet Union was one not to be wasted. Beyond the lack of political results Fanfani’s legacy was quite clear: the USSR, together with all socialist countries of Eastern Europe, was and remained a political opponent with which, however, it was necessary to establish a dialogue also with regard to general guidelines for the prevention of nuclear war. Since 1963, and even more so after the treaty which banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, a new push toward détente had been felt in the international climate.96 This evolution of the international situation definitely placed the “thaw”97 of political, and commercial, relations with all countries of Eastern Europe in the Italian diplomatic field of action. That same year, 1963, the leadership of the government, but basically of the country itself, finally passed from Fanfani’s into Moro’s hands. The latter in “continuity” with the action of his predecessor pushed to make the Italian contribution to the détente one of the distinctive elements of his foreign policy.

92

ASR, DF, entry from 12 August 1961. Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik 491. 94 Ibid., 491-502. On the Italian conduct see also Segni to Fanfani, August 27, 1961, in Segni, Diario (1956-1964), 239. 95 Martelli, L’altro atlantismo 450. 96 Marilena Gala, Il paradosso nucleare. Il Limited Test Ban Treaty come primo passo verso la distensione (Firenze: Polistampa, 2002). 97 ACS, CM, s. 3, ss. 2, UCD, Stati Esteri: Cecoslovacchia, UA 39: Appunto, DGAP, March 23, 1966. 93

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4.  Moro’s Ostpolitik: general characteristics “We talked […] in full freedom, as it should be among friendly countries, to which ideological and political diversity is not an obstacle.”98 In this way Moro summarized the results of his mission in the USSR at the end of July 1974, a few months before definitively completing his experience at the Foreign Ministry. One of the first steps of foreign policy that the Italian politician took a few months after his arrival at the helm of the government, in March 1964, was to reply to Chruščëv’s letter, in which the Soviet leader had proposed increased activity by governments to achieve the “renunciation of the use of force”. To this exhortation which – like most initiatives coming from the head of the Kremlin – clearly had a taste of propaganda, Moro replied by elaborating the main points of his conception of international life: for the Italian Prime Minister, in fact, the most “necessary” measure was undoubtedly “strengthening of the UN”.99 These first months of 1964 already show us one of the grounds upon which, according to Moro, a constructive relationship with the USSR could develop: a joint contribution to the work of the UN. However, this was all happening on the eve of great changes. In the year 1964 many sudden changes took place at the top level of Soviet Union politics. Chruščëv was replaced by a leadership that pivoted on the new General Secretary of the CPSU, Leonid Brežnev, who was less prone to making Soviet policy spectacular and personalized. This new leadership had been summoned to address enormous development problems which had begun to appear in the unbalanced and inefficient communist economy.100 The fall of Chruščëv also influenced Italian domestic political equilibrium in some way.101 Moro, in fact, welcomed this event with a 98

“Colloqui con l’Urss,” in Aldo Moro, L’Italia nell’evoluzione dei rapporti internazionali. Discorsi, interventi, dichiarazioni e articoli recuperati e interpretati da Giovanni di Capua (Roma-Brescia: Ebe-del Moretto, 1986), 496. 99 ACS, CM, Scritti e discorsi, s. 1, ss. 8, UA 104: Moro to Chruščëv, 11 March, 1964. 100 On the effects of this change on the Soviet foreign policy see inter alia. Adam Ulam, Storia della politica estera sovietica (1917-1967) (Milano: Rizzoli, 1968), 999-1078; Carlo Pinzani, Da Roosevelt a Gorbaciov. Storia delle relazioni fra Stati Uniti e Unione Sovietica nel dopoguerra (Firenze: Ponte alle Grazie, 1990); Andrea Graziosi, L’Urss dal trionfo al degrado. Storia dell’Unione Sovietica. 1945-1991 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008) 297-329; Richard Crockatt, The Fifty Years War. The United States and the Soviet Union in World Politics (London-New York: Routledge, 1995), 207234; Romero, Storia della guerra fredda 174-208; Giorgio Caredda, Le politiche della distensione 1959-1972 (Roma: Carocci, 2008), 95-104. 101 Gianni Baget Bozzo, Giovanni Tassani, Aldo Moro. Il politico nella crisi 1962/1973 (Firenze: Sansoni, 1983), 174-5.

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certain satisfaction because it weakened Fanfani, at that time antagonist to the head of government. On the eve of the 1964 presidential elections, in fact, the former secretary of the DC from the 1950s believed that he was supported by the Kremlin, and that this “would impose him on our Communists.”102 This episode, though of no great importance, shows however how the issue of relations with the USSR could not be isolated from the domestic political situation to which Moro traditionally paid very special attention. The other upheaval that took place in 1964 was the final breaking out of the Vietnam War.103 The escalation of the US presence in Indochina led to the beginning of nearly a decade of “hypnosis” in international politics: up to 1973 – even up to 1975 – there was no international forum where the war in Indochina was not among the first issues to be dealt with. The conflict – unpredictably – produced an effect of attrition not only of the relationship that the American leadership had with its public opinion, but also with much of European public opinion.104 But – and this is even more interesting for our discussion – Ho Chi Min’s “national revolution” became part of a growing crisis of international communism. After the already distant defection of Tito from the Soviets – mended in 1955 with a compromise105 – Chruščëv, from this point of view, left a disastrous legacy. The dispute with Mao Tse Tung’s China already appeared unsolvable; in the Balkans as well the “split” of Albania was only seemingly minor: it was a sign that the “internationalist” model, based on the centrality of the power of the USSR, both as a nation as well as an ideological driving force, was now in crisis because it no longer guaranteed the interests of all its supporters. The level of internationalism 102

Ibid., 175. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York, Penguin, 1997); The Pentagon Papers as published by New York Times (New York: New York Times Company, 1971). On the end of the American presence in Indochina see also Henry Kissinger, Crisis. The Anatomy of two Major Foreign Policy Crises (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2003), 419-544. 104 For an overall assessment of the relationship between the US and its European allies: Massimiliano Guderzo, Interesse nazionale e responsabilità globale. Gli Stati Uniti, l’Alleanza atlantica e l’integrazione europea negli anni di Johnson, 1963-1969 (Firenze: Aida, 2000). 105 On the Yugoslav-Soviet rapprochement, inter alia, Jože Pirjevec, Il giorno di San Vito. Jugoslavia 1918-1992. Storia di una tragedia (Torino: Nuova ERI, 1993), 288-91. See also Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (London: Constable, 1996). For an inside view of different steps of Yugoslav politics see Milovan Gilas, Se la memoria non m’inganna…Ricordi di un uomo scomodo 1943-1962 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987); Veljko Miciunovich, Diario dal Cremlino. L’ambasciatore jugoslavo nella Russia di Krusciov (1956/1958) (Milano: Bompiani, 1979); also Kruscev, Kruscev ricorda, 398416. See also “The Tito-Kruschev Correspondence 1954,” Cold War History Project Bulletin, 12-13 (2001), 315-24. 103

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of the Communist movement had never before been so low and the fall seemed unstoppable. Ho Chi Minh and his successors found their place in this crisis, taking advantage of the Chinese-Soviet dualism and, paradoxically, managed to make Vietnam almost the only unifying issue with which international communism was making an impression on the public opinion of the not aligned countries and the West.106 The International Communist movement was more a sum of parties that were paying more and more attention to their own national interest. This trend exceeded by far even the doctrine of national roads to socialism which emerged from the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU in 1956. In 1964 – but especially from 1965 – to the Chinese heresy was added another, the strategically less important, but equally significant one, which appeared in Bucharest. The Romanians, led by the new leader Ceausescu, wished to play an important part in international politics and stood out by their substantial neutrality in the conflict between Moscow and Beijing. But Romania was not a major military and demographic power like China; it had been, until that moment, part of the European “backyard” of the USSR with the aggravating circumstance of being a defeated nation in the Second World War. As recalled by a pioneer of studies on Soviet foreign policy: [Until] A few years before a scowl of a Soviet official of secondary importance was more than sufficient to obtain the resignations of the whole Romanian party’s central committee.107

The “Brežnev doctrine” was born for this reason: to strengthen the structure of socialist states by setting as limits not only the ideology, but also the political and strategic interests of the Soviet Union. This action of reconsolidation, over the following years, was also directed to communist parties of the non-socialist countries. In this case – as evidenced by the outcomes of the few PC international conferences that they were able to summon – the result was not of great importance: conclusions of these conferences were always extremely generic and seemed to reflect

106

On the beginning of the crisis: Vladislav Zubok, “The Kruschev-Mao Conversations 31 July-3 August 1958 and 2 October 1959,” ibid., 315-24. For an overall view of the question see, inter alia, Vladislav Zubok, Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War. From Stalin to Khrushcev (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). An analysis of the origin of the Soviet-Chinese break in Klaus Mehnert, Pechino e Mosca (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1964). 107 Ulam, Storia della politica estera sovietica, 991-2. On the thought of the Romanian leader v. Nicolae Ceausescu, Per un mondo più giusto, migliore (Milano: SugarCo, 1979).

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a progressive loosening of the ties between the communist parties, especially in Western Europe, and the CPSU.108 Even internally the question of the process of détente had a certain consistency. Agreement between the DC and the PSI on this issue was one of the points – as well, of course, as the launching of a plan of structural reforms – on which it was possible to achieve the convergence that had given birth to the first “organic” center-left government, in December 1963. A foreign policy less balanced in this direction could be a way for the Socialists to loosen what Nenni had called the “pressure from the left”,109 i.e. from the Communists and the PSIUP secessionists. In this sense, probably looking to the left, the new PSI secretary, Francesco De Martino said to the Central Committee, on 26 January 1964, that the party, despite having acknowledged the “reality” of the North Atlantic Treaty and “obligations” deriving from it, had not abandoned its “neutralist inspiration”. So the PSI, even though it had accepted the collaboration with the “bourgeois” parties, could not be considered a “servant of imperialism”.110 Its policy was to “influence” the government in order to “facilitate and hasten the peaceful encounter between the blocs and then to exceed them”. As evidence of “progressivism” of his political line, De Martino stressed the compatibility with the actions taken by the Kremlin which had as its ultimate goal “to secure peace through the encounter with the United States”.111 In this context, in this very year, 1964, Prime Minister Moro went to Moscow. A few days later, on 17 March, the Soviet vice Prime Minister Kosygyn went on a ten-day visit to Italy to learn more about the economic reality of the country.112 On this occasion the Christian Democratic leader, even though in an official context, was able to reiterate his vision of relationship with the great Communist power that went beyond ideological opposition and sought contact points in the economic field: In this quest for lasting and sincere friendly relations between the peoples, no doubt a factor of great importance is the deepening of mutual understanding 108

On this subject refer to Silvio Pons, La rivoluzione globale. Storia del comunismo internazionale 1917-1991 (Torino: Einaudi, 2012); regarding the PCI see Id., Berlinguer e la fine del comunismo (Torino: Einaudi, 2006), 28 et sqq. 109 Mattera, “Moro e il PSI,” 185. 110 FT, CPSI, Relazione di De Martino al CC del 26/1/1964, UA 6. 111 Ibid., 6. Other ‘milestones’ of the PSI international conception were nuclear disarmament, opposition to the ‘other national deterrents’ and ‘direct and indirect armament of Germany’, the process of European integration and multilateral environment with the enhancement of the role of the UN, recognition of the People’s Republic of China. 112 Ferraris, Manuale della politica estera italiana 1947-1993, 118.

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between the political leaders of various countries and their deeper awareness of activities and achievements of others. All this has to be a harbinger of rapprochement between their viewpoints and developments ready to benefit the welfare of the people they represent.113

With this precise direction Moro initiated a series of contacts that would, in the next decade, clearly show that he considered relations with the USSR an essential element of progress achieved by Italian foreign policy. They were an important chapter through which Moro wished to commit himself to a general renewal of the country. This action of Moro was not always favorably judged by a part of Italian historiography which put it in a period, 1964-1968, characterized by “foreign policy in a minor key”.114 Good relations with the USSR, however, had to serve to strengthen, as already mentioned above, a multilateral perspective of international relations; and then Moro intended to contribute to the more general climate of détente that was being established in the 1960s and that the fall of Chruščëv did not seem to be able to affect. It is necessary to understand beforehand that, in Moro’s perspective of international relations, ideological differences were in fact inextinguishable: in 1959, during his first congressional report as Political Secretary of the DC, he said: The international détente, if it happens and in the form in which it happens, will not mean the advent of democracy in Russia, nor the collaboration of democratic forces within the Soviet regime.115

For Moro, dialogue with socialist countries, particularly the USSR, assumed a new value that was independent of the confirmed will for membership in the Atlantic alliance and the liberal-capitalist model. These were not called into question, on the contrary, precisely at that time when, and we are talking about the 1960s, capitalism seemed to give the best of itself with the economic boom, the West – including Italy – was better able to initiate a dialogue that had lofty goals, important for the European 113

ACS, CM, s. 1, ss. 8, UA 106: Progetto di brindisi per la colazione offerta al primo vicepresidente del Consiglio dei ministri dell’URSS ing. A. N. Kossyghin, 17 March 1964. 114 Varsori, L’Italia nelle relazioni internazionali, 156. Also: Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare. Per una storia della politica estera italiana (1943-1991) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995), 163-71. On Moro, see also the memories of Roberto Ducci, I Capintesta (Milano: Rusconi, 1982), 5-59. This interpretation has been partially disproved by more recent research; see Federico Imperato, Aldo Moro e la pace nella sicurezza. La politica estera del centro-sinistra (Bari: Progedit, 2011); Id., Aldo Moro, l’Italia e la diplomazia multilaterale. Momenti e problemi (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2012); Aldo Moro nell’Italia contemporanea, 301-809. 115 ACS, CM, s. 1, ss. 3, UA 6: Discorso tenuto a Firenze in occasione del VII Congresso nazionale della DC, 24 October 1959.

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future and that transcended the most ordinary political circumstances. An observer of foreign policy rightly pointed out that Moro considered the line of détente a way capable of leading to the reduction of social, economic and technological gaps, within and between the two camps. He imagined an Italy committed to using, in a positive sense, politically, economically, socially and scientifically its participation in a large international alliance in order to try and resolve issues of internal backwardness that neither a utopian neutralism nor a reckless adherence to the Soviet bloc could direct towards a solution.116

But all this could not happen immediately. Even in relations with the USSR the road was to be taken “slowly and gradually”. “The vice” of “gradualness”117 appeared to be the golden rule of Moro’s politics, both internally and internationally. Moro’s Ostpolitik differed profoundly from Fanfani’s. Although they followed similar paths, Fanfani’s had been marked by voluntarism flavored with a certain protagonism, in some aspects also positive, a style which did not become the political figure of Moro. Even in this field Moro had a part of the “shepherd”, prudent and circumspect, attentive to the knowledge of political phenomena, careful to avoid shake-ups and sudden changes.118 His intention was to act: “with that sense of measure which should characterize any foreign policy”, as Moro himself, at that time also President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs ad interim, was able to emphasize addressing the Senate, on 18 February 1965. At the same meeting, however, the president reiterated his opposition to a “policy of immobility”. The validity of the treaties “freely” negotiated by Italy had to be reaffirmed – the reference was to the Atlantic Alliance. But this did not prevent Italian foreign policy from opening itself to dialogues with “all” countries.119 This line, however, in Moro’s mind, had some limitations: interference that could come from the European communist governments in the Italian domestic political context. In this case, the relationship would go back, as in previous years, to the traditional conflict of the Cold War. It was, for example, the case of hostile propaganda, directed at “Italian workers”, that, in the mid-1960s, was being developed by Radio Prague with transmissions broadcasted in the Italian language. On this point Moro was uncompromising and made it a reason to prevent any development of bilateral relations with Czechoslovakia. In mid-1965, faced with the 116

Di Capua, “Una presenza originale,” in Moro, L’Italia nell’evoluzione dei rapporti internazionali, 9. 117 Ibid., 10. 118 Baget Bozzo, Tassani, Aldo Moro, 559-64. 119 ACS, CM, s. 1, ss. 9, UA 176: Discorso tenuto al Senato sul bilancio del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, 18 Feb. 1965.

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proposed invitation to visit Prague, Foreign Minister Fanfani relied on his authority to give “a negative answer”, but “made the motivation clearly understood”. And then he inserted this paragraph in the most complex Italian policy towards Eastern Europe: I would like to make it clear that such conduct, for as long as it is continued, will put Czechoslovakia on the lowest level of Eastern European communist countries, with whom we also seek an improvement in the economic and cultural field.120

5.  Roots of Moro’s Ostpolitik As already mentioned, Moro came to administer the legacy of Fanfani’s neo-Atlanticism. In that framework relations with the Soviet Union had an absolutely outstanding importance. It is not to be forgotten that Moro and La Pira, both in the Dossettian wing of the DC, shared a common militancy, albeit with different accents. They, apart from the differences of tones, had in common a certain interpretation of the international reality, as we have already mentioned, where the Soviet Union, although opposing, remained an inevitable element which could not be ignored.121 This legacy is also accompanied by observation of changes in Italian society. Moro was not a politician who lived in a “bubble”, in a sectarian isolation of a ruling class elite. The thought of the Christian Democratic leader was certainly sophisticated, sometimes expressed by a tortuous and allusive phrasing, but never detached from social reality. It is enough to read the articles that he was writing regularly for Il Giorno to understand the inherent introspective capacity of his personality. In fact, he did not retreat in front of situations that went beyond the immediate political actuality, and he faced the long-term problems, like the younger generation, peace, the future of education, the fate of Europe.122 From the 1960s, but even more from the end of the decade, he understood the changes that were happening in Italian society. He could not miss the reality, only apparently contradictory, characterized by the immense economic development which, in the short period of fifteen years, had revolutionized the Italian socio-economic structure. Much of the population had undergone a real social upgrading, including the excluded 120

ACS, CM, s. 3, ss. 2, UCD. Stati Esteri: Cecoslovacchia: Moro to Fanfani, 14 June, 1965. On this see also Vera Capperucci, “La sinistra democristiana e la difficile integrazione tra Europa e America (1945-1958),” in Atlantismo ed Europeismo, ed. Piero Craveri, Gaetano Quagliarello (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003), 71-93. 122 On Moro’s collaboration with the newspaper owned by ENI, see Giorgio Acquaviva, “Vicende e protagonisti,” in “Il Giorno”. Cinquant’anni di un quotidiano anticonformista, ed. Ada Gigli Marchetti (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2007), 75. An example in “La pace viene avanti,” Il Giorno, 17 January 1973. 121

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part which was desperately trying to close the gap through collective union action or extreme choices such as emigration.123 The financial support of the US, which had contributed significantly to reconstruction and laid the foundation of the economic boom, along with the beneficial effects of the first phase of the process of European integration, had completely transformed the country.124 Italy, in 1947, had been on the brink of famine, while at the eve of the 1960s, i.e. only a dozen years later, it assumed the role of a globally significant industrial power. And all this changed Italian society’s behavior and aspirations, culture and political views. The Great Proletariat, according to Pascoli’s definition, was quickly turning into a nation with capitalist and bourgeois attitudes. The ideology of the middle class, or aspiration to become a part of it, began to dominate the old peasantproletarian mentality which had also survived the cataclysm of the Second World War. Possession of goods, however, did not transform the Italian people into a bulwark of conservatism. Left-wing parties, in particular the PCI, gradually gained consent while traditional models of life, especially related to religious practice, began to stagnate. Italians became richer, in fact, but also moved more to the left, especially younger generations.125 And to them, as is well known, Moro devoted some of his most accurate analyses at the end of the 1960s.126 Even the DC itself, as already mentioned while talking about Fanfani, was forced to look at a “progressive” social policy so as not to lose touch with the changes of public opinion.127 123

On changes in Italian society in the postwar years, inter alia see Guido Crainz, Storia del miracolo italiano (Roma: Donzelli, 1997); Id., Il paese mancato. Dal miracolo economico agli anni Ottanta (Roma: Donzelli, 2003); Craveri, La Repubblica, 85-92; Paul Ginsborg, Storia d’Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi. Società e politica 1943-1988 (Torino: Einaudi, 1989), Vol. I, Dalla guerra alla fine degli anni Cinquanta; Silvio Lanaro, Storia dell’Italia repubblicana. Dalla fine della guerra agli anni novanta (Venezia: Marsilio, 1992), 221-307. On migration in Europe see Federico Romero, “L’emigrazione operaia in Europa (1948-1973),” in Storia dell’emigrazione italiana, ed. Piero Bevilacqua, Andreina De Clementi, Emilio Franzina (Roma: Donzelli, 2001), 397-414. 124 On Marshall Plan see Mauro Campus, L’Italia, gli Stati Uniti e il Piano Marshall (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2008); for the contribution that the process of European integration gave to Italian development see Antonio Varsori, La Cenerentola d’Europa? L’Italia e l’integrazione europea dal 1947 a oggi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010). 125 Interesting final remarks by Giuseppe Carlo Marino, Le generazioni italiane dall’Unità alla Repubblica (Milano: Bompiani, 2006), 819-22; see also Sante Cruciani, “Dalla ricostruzione al miracolo economico: identità e movimenti,” in Dalla trincea alla piazza. L’irruzione dei giovani nel Novecento, ed. Marco De Nicolò (Roma: Viella, 2011), 341-58. On this see also Pietro Scoppola, La repubblica dei partiti. Profilo storico della democrazia in Italia (1945-1990) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991), 279-311; see also: Gianni Borgna, “I giovani,” in VV. AA., Dal ’68 a oggi. Come siamo e come eravamo (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1979), 369-427. 126 On this subject, see: “Il bene non fa notizia ma c’è,” Il Giorno, 20 January 1977. 127 Moro’s reconstruction of the center-left in the years 1963-1968 in “Un programma preciso nelle cifre e nei tempi,” Il Giorno, 29 April 1973.

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6.  Moro’s Ostpolitik between the PCI and the USSR The PCI appears as a fundamental topic in Moro’s international reflections. Its every change was considered important and closely tied to the vision he had on relations with the socialist countries. In De Gasperi’s age, the PCI was presenting itself as the main anti-systemic force exactly because of its link with the USSR.128 After Stalin’s death, with Chruščëv’s contradictory evolution, everything was slowly changing. The PCI remained an alternative political organization, but less and less antisystemic, due to well-known international reasons. There were, however, some less remarkable changes, but which undoubtedly convinced Moro of the increasing reliability of the PCI. One change was generation change. Much of the Communist ruling class that had been tied to the Comintern, exiled in the USSR and France, fought in Spain and finally led the resistance, was progressively being marginalized from the actual guidance of the party, for different reasons and in different circumstances. Secchia, Scoccimarro, Sereni, Terracini, Colombi, Spano, Montagnana, Vidali129 and others gave way to a generation that had known Resistance only as simple soldiers, when they had participated in it. For many of these “young people” it was first and foremost an uprising against foreign invasion, participation in a national war; they were a generation that could take part, in short, – to put it in the “symbolic” definition of Paolo Spriano – in constructing the “new party” with a reduced dose of the “duplicity” that

128

On this see Elena Aga-Rossi, Victor Zaslavsky, Togliatti e Stalin. Il PCI e la politica estera staliniana negli archivi di Mosca (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997); Victor Zaslavsky, Lo stalinismo e la sinistra italiana. Dal mito dell’URSS alla fine del comunismo 1945-1991 (Milano: Mondadori, 2004); Silvio Pons, “L’URSS e il PCI nel sistema internazionale della guerra fredda,” in Il PCI nell’Italia repubblicana 1943-1991, ed. Roberto Gualtieri (Roma: Carocci, 2001), 3-46. 129 Sergio Bertelli, Il Gruppo. La formazione del gruppo dirigente del PCI 1936-1948 (Milano: Rizzoli, 1980); Paolo Spriano, Storia del Partito comunista italiano (Torino: Einaudi, 1975), Vol. V, La Resistenza, Togliatti e il partito nuovo; Renzo Martinelli, Storia del Partito comunista italiano, Vol. VI, Il “partito nuovo” dalla Liberazione al 18 aprile (Torino: Einaudi, 1995); Paolo Spriano, Le passioni di un decennio 1946-1956 (Milano: Garzanti, 1986); Id., Intervista sulla storia del PCI (RomaBari: Laterza, 1979); on individual leaders of the PCI see, inter alia: Nello Ajello, Intellettuali e PCI 1944-1958 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1979) and Id., Il lungo addio. Intellettuali e PCI dal 1958 al 1991 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1997); Massimo Caprara, Quando le Botteghe erano Oscure. 1944-1969: uomini e storie del comunismo italiano (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1997); Miriam Mafai, L’uomo che sognava la lotta armata. La storia di Pietro Secchia (Milano: Mondadori, 1983); Archivio Pietro Secchia 19451973, ed. Enzo Collotti (Milano: Annali della Fondazione Feltrinelli, 1979); Lorenzo Gianotti, Umberto Terracini. La passione civile di un padre della Repubblica (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 2005); Vittorio Vidali, Diario del XX Congresso (Milano: Vangelista, 1974); Aldo Agosti, Palmiro Togliatti (Torino: UTET, 1996).

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had characterized the actions of their predecessors.130 All this was mainly due to the action of the most important character of the “old” leading group, Palmiro Togliatti, whose goal was to form a new party leadership. The death of Togliatti, also in the fatal 1964, seemed to release these energies which he himself had accumulated. Under the protection of Luigi Longo, a true post-Togliatti regent, they – just to name a few – Berlinguer, Napolitano, Macaluso, Iotti, Barca, Bufalini, Chiaromonte, Ingrao, Alicata, Reichlin, Lama, Cossutta, Pecchioli, Rossanda131 grew under the supervision of the two most authoritative leaders of the middle generation, real survivors of the antifascist age: Pajetta and Amendola.132 The most important contribution of this “group” – to use a term borrowed from Sergio Bertelli – appears to be the fact that they made the PCI an “Italian party”.133 With this generation the PCI permanently ceased to be a branch of international communism, which no longer even existed. The PCI did not break its links with the USSR – especially financial –134 but it distanced itself politically, especially in the proposed social and cultural model. For much of the Communist ruling class the lack of pluralism in the USSR began to be an embarrassing problem that made the political proposal of the PCI less presentable to the Italian public which was growing more leftist, yes, but was already accustomed to parliamentary democracy.135 Among Communist leaders of the 1960s and 130

On this see also: Pietro Di Loreto, Togliatti e la “Doppiezza”. Il PCI tra democrazia e insurrezione (1944-1949) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991). 131 Francesco Barbagallo, Enrico Berlinguer (Roma: Carocci, 2006); In compagnia dei pensieri lunghi. Enrico Berlinguer venti anni dopo, ed. Umberto Gentiloni Silveri (Roma: Carocci, 2006); Giorgio Napolitano, Dal Pci al socialismo europeo. Un’autobiografia politica (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2005); Id., Intervista sul PCI, ed. Eric J. Hobsbawm (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1976); Emanuele Macaluso, 50 anni nel Pci (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003); Luciano Barca, Cronache dall’interno del vertice del PCI (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2005); Paolo Bufalini, Euromissili, Polonia e la nostra discussione con il Pcus (Roma: Spada, 1982); Gerardo Chiaromonte, Col senno di poi. Autocritica e no di un uomo politico (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1990); Pietro Ingrao, Volevo la luna (Torino: Einaudi, 2006); Vittorio Foa, Miriam Mafai, Alfredo Reichlin, Il silenzio dei comunisti (Torino: Einaudi, 2002); Armando Cossutta, Una storia comunista, in cooperation with Gianni Montesano (Milano: Rizzoli, 2004); Rossana Rossanda, La ragazza del secolo scorso (Torino: Einaudi, 2005). 132 Giancarlo Pajetta, Il ragazzo rosso (Milano: Mondadori, 1983); Giorgio Amendola, Una scelta di vita (Milano: Rizzoli, 1976). 133 Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano. 134 Gianni Cervetti, L’oro di Mosca (Milano: Baldini & Castoldi, 1999); on the question of Soviets funding the PCI see also Valerio Riva, Oro da Mosca. Finanziamenti sovietici al PCI dalla Rivoluzione d’Ottobre al crollo dell’URSS (Milano: Mondadori, 1999). 135 On the issue of individual freedom in the USSR, for example, see the discussion that took place at the meeting of the PCI Executive Board 12 February 1965, AFG, APC, verbali Direzione, 12 February 1965, mf 29.

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1970s a growing intolerance for positions of the USSR could be sensed. It was not just the issue of the invasion of Czechoslovakia;136 it was rather the concept coming from the international communist movement which rigidly ruled in Moscow. The problem was the absence of alternatives: on the other side there was the United States – still a leader of world capitalism – which waged war on the Vietnamese “comrades”. So the Soviet Union, despite all its limitations, still appeared as the only anti-imperialist bulwark to hold on to. It is interesting to follow the almost unconscious search for political and ideological models that the PCI conducted from the late 1960s at the international level in an attempt to supplant Soviet centrality: ranging from Tito through newly independent socialist countries up to an increasingly closer relation with Willy Brandt’s social democracy, especially in its internationalist and Third World version.137 But one important side of this “nationalization” of the PCI was cultural policy. Consideration should be given to the political and cultural action that revolved around heritage of the thought of Antonio Gramsci. It was presented as the intellectual base of the “new party”, a party and an intellectual figure both fully “Italian”. Beyond the manipulations that, especially after the war, his writings went through, the diffusion of Gramscian thought – especially after replacing the proletarian dictatorship concept with the seemingly less “Bolshevik” concept of hegemony – connected culture and the PCI action with the traditional instruments of parliamentary and pluralistic democracy. Therefore, democratic conquest of consensus, not revolutionary solutions, became an important part of the political battle. Gramsci was not presented as an anti-system intellectual, but as the final stage of an evolution which was in continuity with all the “high” moments of Italian national history and culture. The PCI itself

136

On this see Francesco Caccamo, “Il PCI, la sinistra italiana e la Primavera di Praga,” in Primavera di Praga, risveglio europeo, ed. Francesco Caccamo, Pavel Helan, Massimo Tria (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2011), 145-70; see also, Maud Bracke, Quale socialismo quale distensione? Il comunismo europeo e la crisi cecoslovacca del ’68 (Roma: Carocci, 2007). 137 Antonio Rubbi, Il mondo di Berlinguer (Roma: Napoleone, 1994); Id., Con Arafat in Palestina. La sinistra italiana e la questione mediorientale (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1996); Marco Galeazzi, Il Pci e il movimento dei paesi non allineati 19551975 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2011); Paolo Borruso, Il PCI e l’Africa indipendente. Apogeo e crisi di un’utopia socialista (1956-1989) (Firenze: Le Monnier, 2009); Luca Riccardi, L’internazionalismo difficile. La “diplomazia” del PCI e il Medio Oriente dalla crisi petrolifera alla caduta del muro di Berlino (1973-1989) (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2013).

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wanted to be presented as the final confluence of the secular desire to change of Italians belonging to all social classes.138 Gramsci, over the years, became an unassailable figure for both the Left and the Right. Anti-fascist martyr, but also anti-Stalinist, silent cellmate of socialist Pertini because he had been repudiated by his party colleagues loyal to Stalin. His writings slowly become part of the ordinary life of Italian culture in the 1960s and 1970s. High school students in those years found some of his passages dedicated to Italian literature in anthologies which had been adopted by their teachers. Unlike other Christian Democrat leaders – like Fanfani who hid a progressive involution policy behind his traditional “activist conception”139 – Moro noticed all of this. Evolution of the PCI, closely linked to relations with the socialist countries, was the heart of the “hard speech”140 that he gave during the meeting of the DC National Council, on 18 January 1968, that he later repeated, with even more determination, during a meeting of elder Christian Democrats in Rome on 21 February of the same year. This went down in the history of Italian politics for the proposal of a “strategy of attention” towards the Communist Party.141 Later we will examine it closely in some of its main concepts. There is a further political and social element on which Moro’s Ostpolitik was based: the “policy” of the Catholic Church. The pontificate of John XXIII, as we have already mentioned, was characterized by continuous openings towards Eastern Europe. Roncalli’s successor, Paul VI, institutionalized this trend of dialogue with the East. In 1964, the undersecretary of the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, 138

Palmiro Togliatti, Gramsci, ed. Ernesto Ragionieri (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1967); Paolo Spriano, Gramsci e Gobetti. Introduzione alla vita e alle opere (Torino: Einaudi, 1977); Giuseppe Fiori, Vita di Antonio Gramsci (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1966); Hugues Portelli, Gramsci e il blocco storico (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1976); Massimo L. Salvadori, Gramsci e il problema storico della democrazia (Torino: Einaudi, 1972); Giuseppe Galasso, Croce, Gramsci e altri storici (Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1967); Eugenio Garin, Intellettuali italiani del XX secolo (Roma: Editori Riuniti 1996 – I ed. 1974), 289360; Maria Antonietta Macciocchi, Per Gramsci (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1974); Guido Liguori, Gramsci conteso. Storia di un dibattito 1922-1996 (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1996). Giuseppe Vacca, Vita e pensieri di Antonio Gramsci 1926-1937 (Torino: Einaudi, 2012); Luciano Canfora, Gramsci in carcere e il fascismo (Roma: Salerno, 2012); Id., Spie, URSS, antifascismo. Gramsci 1926-1937 (Roma: Salerno 2012). 139 Baget Bozzo, Tassani, Aldo Moro, 334. 140 ACS, DF, entry from 18 January 1969. 141 ACS; CM, s. 1, ss. 13, UA 467: Intervento al Consiglio Nazionale DC, 18 January 1969; ibid., UA 469: Intervento ad una riunione della DC, 21 February 1969. For Fanfani it was ‘wide openness to the PCI’, ACS, DF, entry from 18 January 1969; Giovanni Maria Ceci, Moro e il PCI. La strategia dell’attenzione e il dibattito politico italiano (1967-1969) (Roma: Carocci, 2013).

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Msgr. Agostino Casaroli negotiated an agreement with the Hungarian government of Janos Kadar on the appointment of new bishops. This was the prelude to the resolution of the Mindszenty case, which would happen a few years later, in 1971.142 This negotiation represented a compromise: the party agreed to give some space for the social presence of the Church, especially in education, in exchange for easing Catholic opposition to the government. It should be noted that this agreement was followed by successive rapprochements to other socialist countries like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, with mixed success.143 These developments marked Moro’s opinion on the relationship with Eastern Europe. In addition to this there was certainly the particular relationship between Moro and the new pope, Paul VI. Both of them, obviously from very different positions, had participated in the founding of the DC whose former prelate of the Secretary of State was a true protector in the Vatican.144 The new Pope, following his predecessor, eased the tension with the communist countries on the doctrinal level as well. In the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, again in 1964, there is a change of tone on the subject of communism: but in this case the Church appeared more as a victim than as a judge and “very judiciously managed to maintain a balance between traditional continuity of papal teaching about communism […] and John’s ‘openings’: the conviction did not fall, nor did it prejudicially close itself to the negotiation.”145 The progressive concurrence of Moro’s and Montini’s policy towards Communist Europe is also noticeable in other political choices. First, less obvious but certainly not irrelevant, there was, in 1974, a reception of Moro, Minister of Foreign Affairs, in person, in the Polish Embassy at the Quirinal, by the diplomatic staff that was going to form a real working section dedicated to relations with the Holy See.146 Then there was the convergence between the Holy See and Italy on the Helsinki process in which – contrary to traditional neutrality – Vatican diplomacy actively participated by assigning the dossier to one of the most brilliant diplomats 142

Agostino. Casaroli, Il martirio della pazienza. La Santa Sede e i paesi comunisti (19631989) (Torino: Einaudi, 2000), 77-122; see also, Giovanni Barberini, La diplomazia di mons. Agostino Casaroli (Tricase: Libellula, 2009); on the figure of card. Mindszenty see József Mindszenty, Memorie (Milano: Rusconi, 1975); besides see also Pastorelli, La Santa Sede, 113 et sqq. 142 Casaroli, Il martirio della pazienza, 123-249. 143 Ibid., 123-249. 144 Giovagnoli, Il partito, 31-40; Andrea Tornielli, Paolo VI. L’audacia di un Papa (Milano: Mondadori, 2009). See also Renato Moro, “La formazione politica di Aldo Moro,” in Aldo Moro nell’Italia contemporanea, 27-48. 145 A. Riccardi, Il Vaticano, 269. 146 Ibid., 332.

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who in those years worked in the Secretariat of State: Msgr. Achille Silvestrini.147 Moro’s timeline, in a certain sense, coincided with the timeline of the Church. Formigoni has rightly noted that Moro believed that the CSCE “was a starting point, which initiated processes in European relations that were supposed to mature slowly over time.”148 Moro, in foreign as well as in domestic policy, did not believe in sudden turns, but in negotiation of long duration leading to compromise and which could sometimes even exhaust the opponent. He believed in the CSCE and stabilization of borders which were formed as the outcome of the Second World War. Italy did not participate in the development of the Helsinki spirit only by negotiations held by the Italian delegation in the years 1972-75 or by the speech given by Moro at the Conference; its indirect consequence was the decision to finally close almost thirty years of border disputes with Yugoslavia by signing, on 10 November 1975, the Treaty of Osimo. With this act came the stabilization of the border which had been, triggered by the events of the Second World War, again, at least theoretically, contested. A certain part of Italian public opinion and some politicians painted this as an act of cowardice. The bitterness, which turned into condemnation of the government action and which was expressed by those who had suffered the forced exodus from the lands included in the so-called Zone B, and by the political Right, that had preferred to keep an illusion alive for years, was clearly understandable. Moro, along with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Rumor, intended to “sacrifice” an Italian interest – actually an uncollectible debt, assuming it could be considered a debt – because of a higher European interest; application, in other words, even in the Adriatic context, of the Helsinki spirit.149 Another source of Moro’s Ostpolitik can certainly be found in the profound change of the Italian position in relations with the United States. With certain frankness – but not without effectiveness – a scholar, 147

On the Holy See and the CSCE see Giovanni Barberini, Pagine di Storia Contemporanea. La Santa Sede alla Conferenza di Helsinki (Siena: Cantagalli, 2010). On Italy and the CSCE, Luigi Vittorio Ferraris, Testimonianze di un negoziato. Helsinki – Ginevra – Helsinki 1972-1975 (Padova: Cedam, 1977). 148 Guido Formigoni, “L’Italia nel sistema internazionale degli anni Settanta: spunti per riconsiderare la crisi,” in L’Italia repubblicana nella crisi degli anni Settanta. Tra Guerra Fredda e distensione, ed. Agostino Giovagnoli, Silvio Pons (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003), Vol. I, 271-98. 149 On this see Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (1945-1999) (Roma: Aracne, 2008), 45-81; see also Id., “Aldo Moro e l’Italia nella Westpolitik jugoslava degli anni Sessanta,” and Luciano Monzali, “I nostri vicini devono essere nostri amici,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Massimo Bucarelli (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2011), 115-60, and 89-114.

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who belongs to the political Left, has defined the evolution of ItalianAmerican relations in the 1960s and 1970s as: “reducing the role of a client and increasing the role of an ally.”150 There is no doubt that the Nixon administration had underestimated the role of Europe in the unfolding of bipolar relations, resulting in misunderstanding, at least at the beginning, of the giant German Ostpolitik phenomenon. This, to a lesser extent, also happened to the Italian positions.151 Most of the attention of the American administration was reserved for domestic policy and not so much for the international action of the Rome government.152 In Washington, in those years, Italy was considered primarily an object rather than a subject of international politics. It was precisely this situation that Moro wanted to overcome, continuing Fanfani’s efforts.153 Moro followed German action and tried to formulate a policy towards socialist Europe that would liberate its ability to contribute to European stability and détente, while keeping Italy in its traditional political alliances. Moro realized that the Vietnam War, paradoxically, had rebalanced the Western alliance. But this had not happened only as a result of what is called the Vietnam “hypnosis”. There was also a new economic reality. Brandt’s Ostpolitik and Moro’s autonomy – in proper proportion of importance – were the manifestation of political initiative of major economic powers that were already considered independent from the financial currents coming from overseas. It was the underlying economic development that allowed the extension of the range of action of a policy more suitable for national and continental interests.154 This was also the manifestation of a sense of liberation from the Soviet threat that loomed until the second half of the 1950s over the democracies of European countries. However, paradoxically, this new situation 150

Carlo Pinzani, “L’Italia nel mondo bipolare,” in Storia dell’Italia repubblicana, Vol. II, La trasformazione dell’Italia. Sviluppo e squilibri, part. I (Torino: Einaudi, 1995), 7-194. 151 Valerio Bosco, L’Amministrazione Nixon e l’Italia. Tra distensione europea e crisi mediterranee (1968-1975) (Roma: Eurilink, 2009). 152 Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, L’Italia sospesa. La crisi degli anni Settanta vista da Washington (Torino: Einaudi, 2009); Id., L’Italia e la Nuova Frontiera. Stati Uniti e centro-sinistra 1958-1965 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998); Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a sinistra, passim. 153 Agostino Giovagnoli, “L’impegno internazionale di Fanfani,” in Amintore Fanfani, 39-53. 154 On Moro’s support of Brandt’s policy, not always supported by other leaders of the DC, see Guido Formigoni, “Democrazia Cristiana e mondo cattolico dal neoatlantismo alla distensione,” in Un ponte sull’Atlantico. L’alleanza occidentale 1949-1999, ed. Agostino Giovagnoli, Luciano Tosi (Milano: Guerini, 2003), 141-67. Baget Bozzo, Tassani, Aldo Moro, 392; On West Germany’s Ostpolitik: Willy Brandt, Memorie. La storia di un uomo che intuito l’Europa del futuro (Milano: Garzanti, 1991), 196-254.

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was the product of a successful policy that the United States itself had implemented in the 1940s in Europe, particularly in Italy and in the Federal Republic of Germany. It was no coincidence that on many houses built across the peninsula using ERP funds there was a sign: “GIFT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. WELL-BEING STRENGTHENS FREEDOM”. This economic well-being achieved by some European countries, which freed them from the threat of internal communist subversion or, as in the case of the FRG, even from an external threat, allowed governments to pursue a foreign policy distinct from the policy of their former benefactor, who was now their most important ally. To relations with communism Moro devoted the already mentioned important reflections which he poured out in his speeches given in January-February 1969. It was a critical moment in his political career. The center-left underwent a major crisis, which first of all involved the main party of the coalition, the Christian Democratic party. As a result, a new government was formed under the leadership of Mariano Rumor, Moro’s successor to the DC secretary from 1964 to 1968. An unprecedented alliance that had been formed between several factions inside the majority party contributed to the formation of this new government: Fanfani tied himself to the Dorotei – his former mortal enemies – and from the seat of the chairman of the Senate he was directing the party through his young proconsul from Marche, Arnaldo Forlani, who had assumed the secretariat of the DC after the brief interval of Flaminio Piccoli.155 All this put Moro in the internal opposition of the party. One of the reasons for this was the contradictory outcome of the general elections of 1968. Rumor – giving the physical image of the concept which was named the “dorotei” – claimed that the elections had been won by the DC, but lost by Moro’s government.156 But political solutions identified by the “winners” were weaker than one might think; and the breakup of the Socialist Unity Party, with the consequent formation of two separate parties, which again depended more and more on the elder leaders Nenni and Saragat, established a state of chronic instability within the governing coalition. Beside this the possibility had disappeared of creating a large Socialist party which would have had the task of inducing the government 155

Craveri, La Repubblica, 346, 419-21; Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano, 134-5. Arnaldo Forlani, Potere discreto. Cinquant’anni con la democrazia cristiana (Venezia: Marsilio, 2009), 119-68; Colombo, Per l’Italia e per l’Europa, 113-6. 156 Mariano Rumor, Memorie 1943-1970 (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, 1991), 354-5. Moro’s ‘bitterness’ because of the election results is in Moro to Nenni, 21 May 1968, in Nenni-Moro, Carteggio, 119-20; Agostino Giovagnoli, “Moro democristiano dalla Domus Mariae alla solidarietà nazionale,” in Aldo Moro nell’Italia contemporanea, 69-80, 76-8.

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to make more reformist moves and, at the same time, by virtue of government success, to withhold votes from the PCI.157 Moro caught the precise significance of the result of the elections in May 1968: a shift to the left that made the PCI an absolute novelty on the Italian map of power, a novelty that would definitely be administratively rooted in the results of the regional elections of 1970. Moro was attentive to the increasing importance of the PCI – unlike Fanfani and Rumor who insisted on the relationship with the increasingly fragmented and competitive Socialists – and to it he dedicated the speech with which he inaugurated the so-called “strategy of attention.”158 It has been noted that this was Moro’s first attempt at preventing the decline that he could see approaching the DC; a way to create a “party of ideas” that would make “understanding of things” the main instrument of its political battle.159 From that moment on Moro opened strategic horizons that, until then, had been completely hidden from the view of the Christian Democratic leadership. The reasoning in the speech started from observation of the PCI Congress outcomes in Bologna in 1969. During the congress, a generation change almost definitely occurred with the appointment of Enrico Berlinguer as deputy secretary cum iure successionis of the unstable Luigi Longo. With balance and prudence Moro emphasized aspects of novelty and continuity in communist politics. For him, the Congress “[had] never fundamentally changed the outlines” of the PCI; it was confirmed impossible to have “a collective administration of power” as well as any “reversal” of alliances of the DC. At the same time “the disagreement with the events in Czechoslovakia, although viewed as part of a shrewd tactic of the Congress, [could] be considered sincere” despite repeated internationalist solidarity with the position of the Soviet Union. Moro acutely noted, however, that the latter was an act, albeit significant, of a political strategy, not entirely consistent and ready to draw logical conclusions from the accepted principles. Ultimately the coexistence of the two political directives [could] pose a problem of choice, for which the Communist Party [showed] itself to be unprepared.160 157

Pietro Nenni, I conti con la storia. Diari 1967-1971 (Milano: SugarCo, 1983), 182350. At that stage the old Socialist leader spoke of the PSU that gave ‘a daily spectacle of organizational and political disintegration’, ibid., 339. On Saragat, see Federico Fornaro, Giuseppe Saragat (Venezia: Marsilio, 2003), 287-302. 158 ‘[…] Moro leader of the Left! Moro sparked off a raging debate with the Dorotei! Such a thing was unthinkable even a few months ago’ wrote Nenni on 30 June 1969. Nenni, I conti, 346. On Moro’s passage to the internal DC ‘opposition’ see also Giovanni Galloni, 30 anni con Moro (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 2008), 149-58. 159 Giovagnoli, Il partito, 135. 160 Intervento a una riunione, 21 February 1969.

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Moro, in short, noted a growing contradiction inside the PCI regarding harmonization with the international strategy of the USSR, especially in the field of relations with other communist parties. In terms of Italian foreign policy, the Christian Democrat leader proposed again vigorously the line that he (and previously Fanfani) suggested to successive governments over the years: It remains valid, as well as a serious pursuit of European unity, by itself a reason to ease tensions and enrich political dialogue, to find a policy of peace and cooperation, such as Italy has carried out, is carrying out and continue to carry out. It is guaranteed by the dense web of relationships that we have with the East, some Italian initiatives for the evolution of international relations […].161

All this was the premise for a new stage of “useful relations between majority and opposition” that had as its direction the “importance”, as defined by Moro, of the Communist opposition. This step, tinged with some polemical allusion, was an introduction to a real recognition of the importance of establishing the PCI in Italian society: This is not a case of disguised or initiated collective administration of power. It is, however, as I said, although inexplicably misunderstood by some, the case of competing in the democratic process which also helps to interpret the country. This strategy of attention is not, for its fairness and clarity, a strategy of misunderstanding, but the real way of being of the democracy.162

All this was happening, according to Moro’s reconstruction, in response to a new socio-political situation that was shaping “pressures and requests to participate and which, due to their complexity, could not effectively reach the political threshold, if not by passing through channels of opposition”. Moro presented these movements as a challenge of “a suspicious and reluctant society” to a political world that seemed to have progressively moved away from it. For the Christian Democrat politician these reflections were not a product of “opportunistic intents and adventurous intentions”, but the attempt to draw a wider strategic horizon for Italian democracy. In this sense, the attitude towards the socialist countries was crucial for creating a new international scenario that would favor a process of “normalization” of communism understood in the broadest sense.

161

Ibid. Ibid.

162

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7.  Return to government He took this path when, in 1969, he arrived at the Foreign Ministry and by the end of 1974, he returned to Palazzo Chigi. It has been rightly noted that for Moro treaties were only one element of international stability; they were an integrated part “expressing a more trusting coexistence, a desire to enrich international relations with innovative initiatives”.163 Hence the commitment to the founding and development of the CSCE which, in his mind, was supposed to be a regulatory instrument of the new European reality that seemed about to occur. The connection with the socialist-led Ostpolitik of FRG, for Moro, was essential. For this reason he encountered the diffidence of the majority of the Italian political world, but not of the PSI which always remained a staunch defender of Brandt’s policy. According to the new head of Italian diplomacy, this could create “new opportunities and areas of thaw”.164 Moro liked this policy because it was eminently European, freed from the United States which was stuck in the mud of Vietnamese jungles and for which Moro had a very tepid liking.165 Thanks to Brandt, therefore, Western Europe, in a way, gave birth to its own continental policy detached both from the US and from de Gaulle’s vain para-hegemonic ambitions, already archived along with the resignation of the General in April 1969. Moro’s activity at the Foreign Ministry was therefore aimed at “realistically”166 evaluating, thus supporting, German propensities. It is very interesting to see how Moro strenuously sought convergence with some socialist countries on extracontinental matters. First of all, on a more than ten-year-long crisis in the Middle East where, since the Third Arab-Israeli war of 1967, thanks to Fanfani, Foreign Minister at that time, significant points of contact were found, especially with Romania.167 These convergences focused on the common approval of the need to maintain a friendly attitude towards the needs of the Arab peoples, especially towards the one that in the late 1960s became a cornerstone of Moro’s (and Fanfani’s) policy: the political 163

Di Capua, “Una presenza originale,” in Moro, L’Italia nell’evoluzione delle relazioni internazionali, 13. 164 Ibid. On the socialist position cf. FT, CPSI, Relazione di De Martino al CC del 5 giugno 1974, s. 6, UA 22. 165 Egidio Ortona, Anni d’America. La cooperazione 1967/1975 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989). 166 Di Capua, “Una presenza originale,” in Moro, L’Italia nell’evoluzione delle relazioni internazionali. 167 Luca Riccardi, Il “problema Israele”. Diplomazia italiana e PCI di fronte allo Stato ebraico (1948-1973) (Milano: Guerini, 2006), 230; Id., “Fanfani e la crisi,” 96-7; Giuliano Caroli, La Romania nella politica estera italiana 1919-1965. Luci e ombre di un’amicizia storica (Milano: Nagard, 2009).

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problem – not only humanitarian – of the Palestinians.168 Alongside this, however, there was repudiation of a more radical Arab nationalism that demanded the destruction of the State of Israel, whose existence was, for Moro, a constant of the international scene. Resolution 242 from November 1967 – which provided a solution based on the so-called “peace for territory” exchange – became, for Moro, almost an article of faith. In his talks with the Soviets, beyond the dialectical skirmishes, he had always found a complete identity of views on this very subject.169 In short, ideological and social-organizational differences were not necessarily an obstacle to identify common interests of the alliances, or of their individual member countries. This was one of the favorite topics that Moro used in his intention to bring closer the leaders of the European communist governments. Gromyko remembers him with sincerity, and while painting a profile of Moro – an Italian politician whom the Soviet leader “knew better than anyone else” – he does not find it hard to define him as affectionate.170 The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Helsinki Act appeared to Moro as steps towards a better political future. His determination to reach the goal was an important hallmark in relations with the Soviets. Leonid Brežnev himself, in a conversation they had in July 1974, recognized the role of Italy in that process.171 Moro, in previous years, had been the determining factor in forming the direction of Italian foreign policy. Despite the formality of this occasion, Moro’s address to the great assembly gathered in the Finnish capital was a realistic testimony of the difficulties that had arisen during the negotiation process. The complex diplomatic operation that at that time was reaching completion was maybe momentous, but the achievement of its ultimate success was far from expected: But Italy – he said to the representatives of the 35 participating countries – has always been convinced that we must give to the evolution, gradual and not always slow, of the détente, a new and more substantial content, beyond the necessary agreements between the Governments.172 168

Ferraris, Manuale della politica estera italiana, 169. On relationship that Moro had with the Soviets regarding the Middle East issues: Riccardi, Il “problema Israele”, 237-9. See also “Relazioni con l’URSS,” in Moro, L’Italia nell’evoluzione delle relazioni internazionali, 486. 170 Gromyko, Memorie, 212-5. 171 “Colloqui con l’Urss,” in Moro, L’Italia nell’evoluzione delle relazioni internazionali, 496. Also: Formigoni, “Democrazia Cristiana,” 166. 172 ACS, CM, s. 1, ss. 19, UA 662: Intervento a Helsinki alla conferenza per la sicurezza e la cooperazione in Europa. 169

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He reiterated that he was willing to work with “realistic enthusiasm”, well “aware of the weight which existed due to differences of ideological and political, economic and social structures”. In Moro’s speech, as in his thought, there was no shallow formal and unconvincing reconciliation, but the exhausting and at the same time positive search for the “joyful points of convergence”. The Helsinki Final Act was not seen as the ultimate goal, but as “a stepping stone to the future”. To put it in Moro’s language, access to the third stage,173 this time at the international level, which could gradually change international, in particular East-West, relations. Already for many years, Moro had been convinced that consolidating the overall security situation could benefit the bilateral relations between Italy and the socialist countries, particularly with the most important of them, the USSR. After his meeting with Gromyko in Rome, on 10 November 1970, he could not fail to notice the “largely complementary economic character of the two countries.”174 If one reflects on the role that the FRG economy began to develop in those years in Eastern Europe, one can understand the size of the change that was taking place in the two European blocs. Economic data certainly cannot be overlooked. Previously we have been introduced to the world of economic relations between Italy and the Soviets: from the beginning of the 1960s they did not affect only the aforementioned manufacturing giants. A number of Italian companies, large and small, began to appear on the Soviet market. The onset of the economic crisis in the 1970s made the Soviet Union even more attractive by diminishing, at least in practice, any kind of ideological precondition. As Moro noted during his aforementioned last visit to the USSR as Foreign Minister, everything was revolving around the activity of the town of Togliatti, a large automotive complex, and its partnership with 180 Italian companies.175 In the eyes of the Soviets Aldo Moro had become a point of reference for a policy of friendship towards the West. In its own way in those years Italy had become a model: a government (as well as a country) which, as Moro said in 1965, spoke to “everyone”, with no exceptions.176 This interpretation was also blessed by the “holy Fanfanian” Giorgio La Pira, who, in 1970, looked with great interest at the “strategy of attention”. His approval was so deep that he did not hesitate to criticize his mentor and friend Fanfani for not, at that stage, completely sharing 173

A thorough examination of this subject typical for Moro’s political thought in Giovagnoli, “Moro democristiano,” 78-80. 174 “Dialogo con l’Urss,” in Moro, L’Italia nell’evoluzione delle relazioni internazionali, 245. 175 “Colloqui con l’Urss,” ibid., 496. 176 Discorso tenuto al Senato, 18 February 1965.

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it.177 Moro’s international actions regarding socialist countries and his stance on communism produced conflicting opinions about his actions. Kissinger’s severe judgment on Moro’s policy is known and abusively quoted, a policy that would “bring the Communist Party one step away from the levers of power”;178 to the most authoritative exponent of the Nixon Administration this attitude seemed aggravated by the substantial disregard that the Christian Democrat leader had for foreign policy which he viewed only as an appendix to Italian internal squabbles.179 However, perhaps surprisingly, the memory of Gromyko opposes this assessment for he believed Moro to have been “one of the most competent politicians in Italy in terms of foreign affairs.”180 In fact, the political history of Moro, appears to confirm the opinion of the former Soviet Foreign Minister.

177

AFG, CB, b. 135, UA 128: Corrispondenza Berlinguer-La Pira: Nota su un incontro con Giorgio La Pira, by Alberto Scandone enclosed in Tatò to Berlinguer, 30 June 1970. 178 Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979). 179 Ibid. 180 Gromyko, Memorie, 214.

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Aldo Moro, Italian Ostpolitik and Relations with Yugoslavia1 Luciano Monzali 1.  Aldo Moro and relations between Italy and Yugoslavia During the first phase of his life and political career2 Aldo Moro did not show great interest in the problems of international politics.3 In the period 1



This essay is a reworking of a text, “I nostri vicini devono essere nostri amici. Aldo Moro, l’Ostpolitik italiana e gli accordi di Osimo,” published in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Massimo Bucarelli (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2012), 89-114. 2 Born in Maglie in Apulia, Moro spent his adolescence in Taranto and then in Bari, where he studied at the University and began his political activity in Catholic associations; Bari remained his electoral base, even after his final transfer to Rome for reasons of becoming a university professor, and for his political career. In 1939 he assumed the position of National President of the Italian Catholic University Federation (FUCI), preserved until 1942. After the armistice of September 1943 he undertook some lively journalistic and political activities that led him to a successful career within the Italian Christian Democracy. For information on the political biography of Aldo Moro at this stage of his life: Renato Moro, “La formazione giovanile di Aldo Moro,” Storia contemporanea, 1983/4-5; Federico Imperato, Aldo Moro e la politica estera italiana (1945-1968), PhD Thesis in History of International Relations and Organizations (Lecce: University of Salento, 2008). 3 On Aldo Moro’s views on foreign policy: Aldo Moro, Scritti e Discorsi (Roma: Cinque Lune, 1978-1990), 6  Vols.; Id., L’Italia nell’evoluzione dei rapporti internazionali. Discorsi, interventi, dichiarazioni e articoli (Roma-Brescia: Ebe del Moretto, 1986); Id., Discorsi parlamentari (Roma: Camera dei Deputati, 1996) 2  Vols. On Moro’s and Italy’s foreign policy: Federico Imperato, Aldo Moro e la pace nella sicurezza. La politica estera del centro-sinistra, 1963-1968 (Bari: Progedit, 2011); Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare. Per una storia della politica estera italiana (19431991) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995) 163 et sqq.; Gianni Baget Bozzo, Giovanni Tassani, Aldo Moro. Il politico nella crisi 1962/1973 (Firenze: Sansoni, 1983) 387 et sqq.; Antonio Varsori, L’Italia nelle relazioni internazionali (Bari-Rome: Laterza, 1998), 156 et sqq.; Id., La Cenerentola d’Europa? L’Italia e l’integrazione europea dal 1947 a oggi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010); Mario Toscano, Storia diplomatica della questione dell’Alto Adige (Bari: Laterza, 1968) 677 et sqq.; Sergio Romano, Guida alla politica estera italiana da Badoglio a Berlusconi (Milanoo. Rizzoli, 2002) 167 et sqq.; Luciano Monzali, “La questione jugoslava nella politica estera italiana dalla prima guerra mondiale ai trattati di Osimo (1914-75),” in Europa adriatica. Storia, relazioni, economia, ed. Franco Botta, Italo Garzia (Bari-Rome: Laterza, 2004) 15 et sqq.; Federico Imperato, Luciano Monzali, “Aldo Moro e il problema della

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that came after the crisis of fascism and lasted until the early 1960s, Moro focused mainly on domestic issues instead of on the issues of foreign policy.4 In June 1946 Moro was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly.5 After the elections of 18 April 1948, he became part of the fifth cabinet led by Alcide De Gasperi as Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs with a special responsibility for emigration. This first government experience was certainly not pleasant, marked by disagreement with De Gasperi on the issue of Italian membership in the Atlantic Alliance, while the Apulian politician was close to the dissident positions of Dossetti,6 hostile to Italian participation in a Western military alliance. His experience as Undersecretary, which ended traumatically with his dismissal from government following De Gasperi’s decision in 1950, however, served to familiarize Moro with the diplomatic environment7 and gave him his first real international experience, helping to start the process of the de-provincialization of his political vision. From 1953, after the political decline of De Gasperi, Moro gradually acquired a central role in Italian political life. When reading his speeches, which rarely dealt with issues of international politics, it is noticeable how Moro had gradually moved away from the isolationist and neutralist positions of Dossetti and had embraced the doctrine of foreign policy outlined by De Gasperi and Sforza after 1948, i.e. the centrality of choice for republican Italy to participate in the Atlantic Alliance and the European integration process.8 In March 1959 Moro became national secretary of the Christian Democrats. In this capacity, representing a major component of the party (the dorotei), a skilled negotiator and cooperazione adriatica nella politica estera italiana 1963-1978,” in, Istria e Puglia fra Europa e Mediterraneo, ed. Fulvio Šuran, Luciano Monzali (Roma: Studium, 2011), 21-61; Aldo Moro nell’Italia contemporanea, ed. Francesco Perfetti, Andrea Ungari, Daniele Caviglia, Daniele De Luca (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2011). 4 Moro did not properly express himself in foreign languages, with the exception of a very imperfect French: Roberto Ducci, I Capintesta (Milano: Rusconi, 1982), 46. 5 In those years Moro’s political and journalistic writings enunciated quite generic and obvious international positions, from refusal of exasperated nationalism to the theory of internationalism founded on Christian humanism and the principles of freedom. For example: Aldo Moro, “Al di là della politica,” Studium, 1945, also in Id., Al di là della politica e altri scritti. “Studium” 1942-1952 (Roma: Studium, 1982), 82 et sqq.; Aldo Moro, “Fiducia nella pace,” Studium, 1947, also in Id., Al di là della politica e altri scritti, 115. 6 Cf. Guido Formigoni, La Democrazia Cristiana e l’alleanza occidentale. 1943-1953 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 283, 327. 7 It was during those years that Moro met Luigi Cottafavi and Gianfranco Pompei, diplomats he later worked with very closely: Ducci, I Capintesta, 17-18. 8 For Example: Aldo Moro’s speech, 29 September 1954, in Id., Discorsi parlamentari. Volume primo (1947-1963), 324-5.

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peacemaker, Moro was one of the architects of the opening to the left towards the Socialist Party and the establishment of the first center-left organic government. Aldo Moro’s interest in international problems increased after he took over the leading role in the Italian Government at the end of 1963. Moro presided over various leaders of the center-left between 1963 and 1968,9 but he certainly was not the central protagonist of the foreign policy of his governments, which had as their foreign ministers strong personalities such as Saragat and Fanfani, who were more experienced and entrenched in international politics.10 As pointed out by Federico Imperato, international politics of the center-left was “a foreign policy of multiple voices”.11 Moro left plenty of space and autonomy to his foreign ministers, but always reaffirmed his role in international politics, emphasizing that the ultimate responsibility for the final decisions in foreign policy fell on him as the Prime Minister. Moro was a shrewd politician and he understood the importance of international problems: he had some personal influence especially on those issues that had major repercussions on the domestic plan. He used his great qualities as a negotiator and mediator to prevent international problems from disturbing the internal equilibrium of government coalition.12 9

Piero Craveri, La Repubblica dal 1958 al 1992 (Torino: UTET, 1995), 57 et sqq.; Guido Crainz, Il Paese mancato. Dal miracolo economico agli anni Ottanta (Roma: Donzelli, 2003); Simona Colarizi, Storia dei partiti nell’Italia repubblicana (BariRome: Laterza, 1994); Silvio Lanaro, Storia dell’Italia repubblicana. Dalla fine della guerra agli anni Novanta (Venezia: Marsilio, 1992), 307 et sqq.; Michele Marchi, “Aldo Moro segretario della Democrazia Cristiana. Una leadership politica in azione (1959-1964),” in Aldo Moro nella storia dell’Italia repubblicana (Milano: Angeli, 2011), 105 et sqq. 10 Federico Imperato, “L’Italia del centro-sinistra e l’alleanza atlantica (1963-1968),” Clio, 2008/4, 569-606; Varsori, La Cenerentola d’Europa? 191 et sqq.; Id., “La scelta europea,” in Le istituzioni repubblicane dal centrismo al centro-sinistra (1953-1968), ed. Pier Luigi Ballini, Sandro Guerrieri, Antonio Varsori (Roma: Carocci, 2006) 281 et sqq.; Luciano Monzali, Mario Toscano e la politica estera italiana nell’era atomica (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2011), 171 et sqq.; Luciano Tosi, “Sicurezza collettiva, distensione e cooperazione internazionale nella politica dell’Italia all’ONU,” in Le istituzioni repubblicane dal centrismo al centro-sinistra (1953-1968), 189-211; Luca Riccardi, Il “problema Israele”. Diplomazia italiana e PCI di fronte allo Stato ebraico (1948-1973) (Milano: Guerini, 2006). 11 Imperato, Aldo Moro e la pace nella sicurezza. 12 Hence, for example, his constant attention to the events related to Alto Adige, regarding which he sided with the decision in favor of an agreement with the South Tyrolean People’s Party (Südtiroler Volkspartei – SVP) that would satisfy most of the requirements of the South Tyrolean Germans. In this regard Berloffa’s testimony: Alcide Berloffa, Gli anni del Pacchetto. Ricordi raccolti da Giuseppe Ferrandi (Bolzano: Raetia, 2004), 63 et sqq. For Moro’s views on the Tyrolean issue see his parliamentary speeches, such as those given in September 1966: Aldo Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol. IV, 2179-239.

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The two primary directives of center-left foreign policy were trans-atlantic cooperation and strengthening the process of European integration.13 Between 1963 and 1968 one of the foreign policy issues on which Aldo Moro insisted was to improve relations with neighboring and bordering states.14 He decided to pay a visit to Yugoslavia in November 1965, becoming the first Italian prime minister to visit the communist state, and began to think of solutions and political or legal formulas to improve bilateral relations and to overcome border disputes between the two states. In a speech a few days after the trip to Yugoslavia, Moro explained the significance of the visit and of Italian policy towards their neighboring country. In the opinion of the Apulian politician, geographical position attributed to Italy a duty to try all the “possibilities for collaboration, particularly in the economic field, with Eastern Europe”. It was in the Italian and Western interest to keep alive contacts with the socialist countries “in order to accommodate its tendencies towards more accentuated forms of international collaboration”.15 The priority of Italian foreign policy, in Moro’s opinion, had to be to ensure conditions of peace and cooperation on our eastern border and to create friendly relations with neighboring states.16 The Apulian politician clearly indicated a desire to support the strengthening of Tito’s government, hoping for the success of economic reform in Yugoslavia and noted with enthusiasm “the Yugoslav desire to establish some connection with the EEC and to become an effective member of the GATT.”17 Moro’s speech showed that Italy’s goal was economic and cultural penetration in Yugoslavia: to this end Italian diplomacy was trying to get a cultural institute opened in Belgrade, to conclude an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation and one on the abolition of visas in order to make the border between the two countries one of the most open in Europe.18 After the experience of being the President of the Council between 1963 and 1968 and becoming Foreign Minister in 1969, Moro intensified 13

Cfr. L’Italia e l’Europa (1947-1979), ed. Pier Luigi Ballini, Antonio Varsori (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2004), Vol. II, 305-18; Id., “Europeismo e mediterraneità nella politica estera italiana,” in Il Mediterraneo nella politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra, ed. Massimo de Leonardis (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003), 23-46; Id., “L’Italia e la costruzione europea negli anni del centro-sinistra: una proposta interpretativa,” in Nazione, interdipendenza, integrazione. Le relazioni internazionali dell’Italia (19171989), ed. Federico Romero, Antonio Varsori /Rome: Carocci, 2006), 271-88. 14 Ducci, I Capintesta, 27 et sqq. 15 Aldo Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol.  III (Roma: Cinque Lune, 1986), 1936-7, speech delivered on 19 November 1965. 16 Ibid., 1937. 17 Ibid., 1935-6. 18 Ibid., 1936-7.

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his political action towards Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In the speech he gave in the House on 21 October 1969, Moro clearly showed understanding of the relations with Yugoslavia as a sort of pattern that was to inspire the development of relations between Italy and other European communist states. The border with Yugoslavia, in the opinion of the Apulian Minister, was one of the most open borders in the world: This statement, however, justifies an underline. The other Italian frontiers are open as well and relations with our neighbors are excellent. These are, however, borders with countries that have similar regimes, while the one with Yugoslavia is a border between countries with different socio-political structures and in the past divided by a bitter dispute. That is the reason why our relationship is a meaningful example in Europe and in the world. It is therefore possible, whenever there is a constructive political will, to establish, between neighboring peoples, although governed by different systems, a sincere and friendly cooperation, beneficial for both parties.19

According to Moro, Italy pursued a foreign policy “aimed at making the Adriatic the sea of peace and working cooperation.”20 For the Apulian statesman, improved relations with neighboring states and the permanent closure of border controversies constituted a crucial moment of the international strategy aimed at the creation of a new role for Italy as a bridge between Western and Communist or non-aligned countries. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1971 Moro strongly reaffirmed the centrality that the improvement of relations with neighboring states had in the international action of Italy, which was inspired by the principle that “our neighbors have to be our friends” and could be seen in Italy’s efforts to have friendly relations with all countries of the Mediterranean region, which was a specific Italian contribution to the establishment of a better international order.21

2.  Moro and Italian Ostpolitik towards Communist Countries in Europe Italian policy towards former Yugoslavia can be fully understood only if studied in a broader perspective, taking into account the evolution of the European political balance and the development of relations between republican Italy and the Communist states of Europe: i.e. the relations between Italy and Yugoslavia are an important part of what might be simply described as the Italian Ostpolitik. It is this subject of the relations 19

Aldo Moro, Discorsi parlamentari (1963-1977) (Roma: Cinque Lune, 1996), 1392, speech delivered on 21 October 1969. 20 Ibid. 21 Aldo Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol. V (Roma: Cinque Lune, 1988), 2886.

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between republican Italy and the European communist countries that, with some exceptions,22 has been rather neglected by historians. There has been careful historical research into the relationship between some Italian political parties and the European communist bloc,23 but there has been a lack of interest in the history of political and diplomatic relations of the Italian state with the Communist countries. Foreign policy of republican Italy had the ambition of playing an independent and original role in the international arena. One of its most interesting characteristics was the constant search for good relations with the Soviet Union and the so-called minor communist European countries. It is true that De Gasperi and the centrist ruling class were able to skillfully take advantage of the emergence of the Cold War in order to side with the United States and its allies and accelerate the transformation of Italy’s status from former enemy to Western ally, gaining international recognition and political space within the Western block. But, at the same time, republican Italy always tried to keep alive relations with Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union for economic reasons (the search for markets and raw materials) and because it needed Soviet goodwill to resolve in its favor the outstanding problems of the peace treaty. The emergence of rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Cold War, produced a progressive and dramatic political and economic isolation of the allies and friends of the Soviet Union compared to the rest of Europe. Such separation and isolation were certainly not wanted and desired by Italy. In fact we can say that from the end of the 1940s republican Italy has not accepted as a permanent fact the division of Europe into two separate and opposed blocs and has striven to keep alive cultural and economic unity among European nations. 22

Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Garzia, Monzali, Bucarelli, passim, Bruna Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik. Politica ed economia nella strategia italiana verso l’Unione Sovietica (1958-1963) (Firenze: Olschki, 2003); Roberto Morozzo Della Rocca, La politica estera italiana e l’Unione Sovietica (1944-1948) (Roma: La Goliardica, 1985); Giorgio Petracchi, “Italy and Eastern Europe, 1943-1948,” in The Failure of Peace in Europe 1943-1948, ed. Antonio Varsori, Elena Calandri (London: Palgrave, 2002), 174-93; Id., “L’Italia e l’Ostpolitik,” in La politica estera dell’Italia negli anni Ottanta (Manduria: Lacaita, 2003), 293-318; Fabio Bettanin, “Le relazioni fra Italia e Urss nella prima fase della distensione,” Mondo contemporaneo, 2009/2. 23 Silvio Pons, Berlinguer e la fine del comunismo (Torino: Einaudi, 2006); Maud Bracke, Quale socialismo, quale distensione? Il comunismo europeo e la crisi cecoslovacca del’68 (Roma: Carocci, 2008); Valentine Lomellini, L’appuntamento mancato. La sinistra italiana e il dissenso nei regimi comunisti (1968-1989) (Firenze: Le Monnier, 2010); Francesco Caccamo, Jirí Pelikán. Un lungo viaggio nell’arcipelago socialista (Venezia: Marsilio, 2007); Elena Aga Rossi, Victor Zaslavsky, Togliatti e Stalin. Il Pci e la politica estera staliniana negli archivi di Mosca (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997); Victor Zaslavsky, Lo stalinismo e la sinistra italiana (Milano: Mondadori, 2004).

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Especially at the end of the 1950s, when the development of détente between the Soviet Union and the Western block created a generally favorable context, Italy re-launched with determination its efforts towards intensification of political, cultural and economic relations with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries of Europe. Also because of its geographical position as the border area between the blocs, Italy wanted to be among the leaders of the process of détente.24 The Rome government gave importance to the organization of state visits as an instrument of Italian Ostpolitik.25 The symbolic date when this policy began was the visit of the President of the Republic of Italy Gronchi to Moscow in 1960. In the subsequent years it was followed by numerous visits of Italian ministers to the Soviet Union and the capitals of Communist Europe, returned by officials and Communist ministers traveling to Italy: to limit ourselves to the first half of the 1960s, Fanfani, President of the Council, traveled to Moscow in 1961, followed by Moro in 1964. Saragat went to Poland in 1965, Fanfani in 1966. Kosygin was in Rome in 1964, while the Romanian Foreign Minister Manescu visited Italy in September 1966. Visits were often the occasion for concluding trade and cultural agreements: in this respect one should remember the economic agreements between Italy and the Soviets, the agreements concluded by ENI and FIAT with the Moscow government, the treaties to open or keep open the Italian cultural institutes in the Communist block and develop bilateral cultural cooperation. While trying to define some characters of Italian Ostpolitik one notices, first, the plurality of its protagonists, sometimes with multiple, different and even conflicting objectives, which gave a certain incoherence to the Italian eastern policy. The economic motivation, i.e. the desire to sell Italian goods and products to the Soviets and the Communist countries, was of great importance as the trade was very convenient for businesses in the Peninsula. Large State-owned enterprises and private companies (ENI, IRI, FIAT, etc.) especially pushed to intensify trade relations with the markets of communist Europe, often making contracts and agreements with them while leading the way for initiatives of politicians and diplomats. The motivations of Italian officials were, however, of a different nature. Good relations with the Soviet Union and the Communist countries were very useful for domestic politics: they served to remove arguments of the Italian Communist Party regarding the anti-Western and anti-Atlantic propaganda by showing Italian openness and friendship towards the Communist bloc; and then there was the hope of weakening the close 24

Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol. III, 1934. Manuale della politica estera italiana 1947-1993, ed. Luigi Vittorio Ferraris (RomaBari: Laterza, 1996), 118 et sqq.

25

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relationship between the Italian Communist Party and the Soviet Union and of decreasing Moscow’s interest in interfering in Italian domestic politics by presenting Italy as a non-hostile power. Personalities such as Saragat, Nenni, Fanfani, Colombo and Moro also had a strong ideological motive, i.e. the belief in international cooperation and cultural unity of the European continent. Also the main Italian diplomats at the time, Pietromarchi, Cattani, Gaja, Ducci, Quaroni, Sensi, Malfatti di Montetretto and Manzini, although convinced anti-communists, were supporters of the détente of relations with the Communist bloc. Some of them, Pietromarchi for example, believed that détente offered opportunities for the increase of Italian international weight through enhancement of its geopolitical position as a “hinge state” between the Mediterranean, the Balkans and Central Europe. For others, such as Quaroni, Italian Ostpolitik could serve to weaken the Soviet hegemony in Central and Eastern Europe: the special effort that Italy put into building bilateral relations with the minor Communist states served to encourage them to be more autonomous and independent from Moscow;26 the presence of Italian culture in the communist regimes was used to popularize in Eastern public opinion a social model which would be different and alternative from the dominant one and to stimulate the emergence of non-communist forces and trends. Italian Ostpolitik was intensified during the 1970s and Moro played a starring role as Foreign Minister. There were, in those years, on the one hand, stimuli coming from the initiatives of western Germany,27 and on the other, impulses caused by the evolution of Italian domestic politics: détente toward the Communist block was an element on which to build a platform for international politics able to obtain the consent of the Italian Communist Party and of the government parties for the strategy of historic compromise and inclusion of the Communists in the government.28 Since 1970 the number of exchanging visits and agreements with the Communist 26

Pietro Quaroni, “Coesistenza e pace,” Affari Esteri, 1969/1, 67 et sqq. On Moro’s attention to German Ostpolitik: AAPBD, Year 1967, doc. 140; Year 1968, doc. 40; Carla Meneguzzi Rostagni, “La distensione italiana negli anni settanta,” in Osimska Meja. Jugoslovansko-italijanska pogajanja in razmejitev leta 1975, ed. Jože Pirjevec, Borut Klabjan, Gorazd Bajc (Koper: Založba Annales, 2006), 61 et sqq. 28 Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol. V, 2664-66, speech given on 21 February 1969. Alexander Höbel, “PCI, sinistra cattolica e politica estera (1972-1973),” Studi Storici, 2010/2, 403-59. On Italian foreign policy in the 1970s: Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare. Per una storia della politica estera italiana (1943-1991) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995); Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, L’Italia sospesa. La crisi degli anni Settanta vista da Washington (Torino: Einaudi, 2009); Mario Del Pero, “L’Italia e gli Stati Uniti: un legame rinnovato?,” in Nazione, interdipendenza, integrazione. Le relazioni internazionali dell’Italia (1917-1989), Vol.  I, 301-15; Valerio Bosco, L’amministrazione Nixon e l’Italia. Tra distensione europea e crisi mediterranee (1968-1975) (Roma: LINK, 2009). 27

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states was becoming larger. The Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko came to Rome in 1970, in 1974 and 1975. Of particular importance was the agreement between Italy and the Soviets on economic, industrial and technical cooperation which was signed by Moro on 25 July 1974 in Moscow. Relations with minor communist states were also intense. Just to mention a few examples, Ceausescu came to Rome in 1973, while in June 1975, president Todor Živkov was the first to make a visit to the West as a head of state of communist Bulgaria.29 Italian Ostpolitik was effective and obtained results. Italy became, along with the Federal Republic of Germany, the main western trading partner of the Communist bloc countries. Cultural relations between Italy and the Communist countries also intensified. For example, from the early 1950s, after the rise of the Cold War, only one Italian cultural institute had been active throughout communist Europe, the one in Budapest. However, due to Italian Ostpolitik new cultural institutes were opened in Warsaw and Belgrade (1965), in Bucharest and Sofia (1970) and in Prague (1971).30 Italy, then, played an important role in the multilateral process of détente in Europe, which would culminate in the conclusion of the Helsinki Accords in August 1975.31 Moro, as already mentioned, was one of the great protagonists of Italian Ostpolitik. The Apulian politician enunciated various reasons that, in his view, existed for intensifying relations between Italy and the European communist countries. According to Moro, the détente could be the key to facilitate a normalization of relations between the two blocks and create an international dialogue that would allow the definition of 29

Manuale della politica estera italiana, 237; Testi e documenti sulla politica estera dell’Italia. 1975, ed. Ministero degli Affari Esteri (Roma: Ministero degli Affari Esteri, 1976), 134 et sqq. Giulio Andreotti, L’Urss vista da vicino (Milano: Rizzoli, 1988). 30 Lorenzo Medici, “La diplomazia culturale della Repubblica italiana nell’Europa adriatica e balcanica,” in Lezioni per l’Adriatico. Argomenti in favore di una nuova euroregione, ed. Franco Botta, Giovanna Scianatico (Milano: Angeli, 2010), 123 et sqq. 31 Testimonianze di un negoziato. Helsinki-Ginevra-Helsinki 1972-75, ed. Luigi Vittorio Ferraris (Padova: Cedam, 1977); The Helsinki Process. A Historical Reappraisal, ed. Carla Meneguzzi Rostagni (Padova: Cedam, 2005); Angela Romano, From Détente in Europe to European Détente: How the West Shaped the Helsinki CSCE (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2009); Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, Christian Nuenlist, Origins of the European Security System: The Helsinki process revisited 1965-1975 (London: Routledge, 2008); Oliver Bange, Gottfried Niedhart, Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York. Berghahn, 2008); Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Many documents published on the Helsinki negotiations in the collection of German diplomatic documents: AAPBD, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975. See also: DBPO, s. III, Vol. 3; FRUS, 1969-1976, Vol. XXXIX.

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political solutions to serious conflicts existing in the world community.32 Creation of the Western alliance had a positive function of keeping the peace in Europe and giving stability to the continent. However this did not mean that it wasn’t necessary to try to deepen its contacts and relations with all states, beyond ideological and political differences. The alliance with the United States was compatible with the search for good relations with the Soviet Bloc: My Government – Moro declared in May 1967 – while still considering imperative the continued strengthening of relations with the United States of America in the framework of the Alliance and the existing arrangements, postulates and supports the opening of more trustful dialogue with the countries of Eastern Europe, and not only for the intensification of interchange, economic and commercial, but for the opportunities for human contact that it will provide, that is, as a key element in the development of the peace and détente to which we are dedicated.33

Italian foreign policy was not aimed at a rapid dismantling of blocs, because it was believed that the Atlantic Alliance had a protective and defensive function in Europe and it was feared that an indiscriminate dissolution of existing alliances would create disorder and instability, putting at risk the peace in Europe. The détente, in the Apulian politician’s opinion, would have had to have two phases. The first phase was to lead not so much to the dissolution of alliances as to a political rapprochement between the two political systems.34 At a later time the reasons which had led to the birth of the blocks had to be removed, but “without creating confusion, without causing imbalances, marking instead a real peace settlement and spreading traditional active friendships and the resulting communities of interests and ideals.”35 Moro also had a vision of intensifying the relations with Eastern Europe as a way to promote economic development of the South of Italy. The development of the South, in the Mediterranean, was conditioned by the peace and prosperity of this geopolitical area, meeting point of great civilizations: Our development is thus linked to the development of these peoples friends, as long as peace returns. Moreover, an opening to Eastern Europe, in conditions of security, widens the breath of our country which also revives 32

Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol. III, 1783 et sqq., speech delivered on 18 March 1965; Id., Scritti e discorsi, Vol. V, 2660-61, speech delivered on 31 January 1969. 33 Ibid., Vol. IV, 2339. 34 Moro, Discorsi parlamentari (1963-1977), Vol. II, 1415, speach given on 28 October 1969. 35 Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol. IV2459.

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to a certain extent the peculiar function of Southern Italy… A fair and farsighted foreign policy is an essential component of our own domestic politics and development.36

Moro contested the argument of those who claimed that Italy was not a power able to be an international player and who thought it was better to adopt a passive foreign policy and wait. Republican Italy, in his view, was an influential state and had an important international role to play: It is true, we are not a great power, we do not hold in our hands the keys to peace and war. We are not important in the military field, but we are important in the economic, political and historical field. We have an influence in this respect, substantial, and our friendly and balanced intervention is accepted and I would say wanted. In reality, these critics have a mediocre vision which is exceeded by the reality of the world today, and which has made sensible steps in the way of democratization of international relations. The great Powers count and it is in our interest that they be in equilibrium and talk to each other. However other powers also count and emerging countries are in evidence. They speak to Italy with absolute confidence and Italy will appeal to them with loyalty, sympathy and friendship. A characteristic of today’s international society is that countries, economically strong and politically influential, have an important part in establishing balance in the world and contribute to the fulfillment of constructive developments in the tangled mass of relations between states. This means of course economic and technical cooperation, to the extent in which one is able to offer it. It’s not just about this, but this, too. And besides, what one gives, returns in terms of economic development and political influence.37

The belief that international dialogue was the only way to build an effective strategy for world peace and the importance attached to the role of small and medium-sized powers were two qualifying and consistent aspects of Italian policy towards the Communist bloc. Certainly Moro did not have a static vision of European politics, which he considered to be a dynamic and changing structure, with a plurality of subjects and protagonists, in which Italy was to be an active factor. However, he was presenting Italian Ostpolitik primarily as a stabilizing factor of the European status quo, which did not threaten the interests of the Soviet Union and international communism. For the Apulian politician “the policy of roll back” [,] the “pushing back” of communist frontiers, which was professed, albeit in words and to cope with Russian aggressiveness, by Foster Dulles in the 1950s, was no longer realistic and achievable.38 Moro considered a fundamental condition for the improvement of 36

Ibid., Vol. V. 2844 et sqq., speach given in Bari in June 1970. Ibid. 38 Ibid., 2757, speech delivered in June 1969. 37

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relations with Communist countries mutual acceptance “of the complex political, and not just territorial, realities that constitute the connective tissue of today”:39 of course this meant Italian recognition of the political legitimacy of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and a certain loss of interest in the movements of dissent that had been developing in various countries of the Soviet Block since the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968. Certainly, according to the Italian statesman, in order to have a successful détente it was essential to have respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in all European states: during the negotiations on European security, which led to agreements in Helsinki in 1975, Moro and Italian diplomacy fought in order that cultural freedom and respect for individual freedoms were included among the rules that were supposed to regulate relations between the European powers.40 The Apulian politician publicly stated his ideal solidarity with those who fought for the rights of individual freedom in the communist bloc: but was that sympathy compatible with the conclusion of international agreements with the oppressing communist regimes? Moro justified the Italian foreign policy declaring he was convinced that the détente between the two blocks favored internal liberalization in communist countries helping to strengthen moderate currents within the communist parties.41 In fact, however, the acquiescence to the political repression of the communist regimes against dissidents gave to Italian politics considerable ambiguity, which certainly opened the way to allegations of the critics who denounced the connivance of Italy with totalitarian and oppressive regimes; moreover, this ambiguity was perhaps inevitable and indispensable in order to create economic and cultural space for Italy within the communist countries. The strategy of Ostpolitik had the advantage of meeting some of the requirements of domestic and foreign policy of the ruling demo-Christian class. Overcoming the territorial and political disputes with neighboring states would strengthen Italy, making it more autonomous at the international level. This willingness of Moro to win greater autonomy for Italy could be explained in part by the evolution of the Apulian statesman’s view on international politics from the end of the 1960s. In his vision, the international political system was changing and the division of the world between two blocks was coming to crisis while new centers of power were arising which facilitated evolution of multi-polarity in the world.42 The Apulian politician was increasingly suspicious and intolerant towards US 39

Moro, Discorsi parlamentari (1963-1977), Vol.  II, 1451, speech given on 23 July 1971. 40 Moro, Scritti e discorsi, Vol. V, 3098 et sqq., speech delivered on 27 September 1973. 41 Ibid., 2760, speech given in June 1969. 42 Ibid., Vol. IV, 2604, speech delivered on 21 November 1968.

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foreign policy: Moro believed the United States a “country in decline”, which was losing more and more of its prestige.43 Italy, therefore, also due to the absence of the leadership role of the United States, was forced to a growing international activism, which had as its primary objectives the strengthening of European political cooperation, enhanced political cooperation with neighboring countries, “although neutral and nonaligned”, such as Austria and Yugoslavia, détente with the Soviet block and a close proximity to the nations of the Mediterranean.44 In keeping with his ideas Moro undertook to close the territorial disputes between Austria and Yugoslavia, with concrete results such as the Italian-Austrian agreement of Copenhagen in 1969 and the agreements of Osimo in 1975, and to lay the foundations for close collaboration between Rome, Vienna and Belgrade, the first step to overcoming the division of Europe into antagonistic military blocs.

3. Aldo Moro and Reconciliation with Communist Yugoslavia: the Osimo Agreements International aspirations of Moro and the ruling class of the CenterLeft were in tune with some ideas and projects which were long present in the vertices of Italian diplomacy. Moro’s strategy could allow our country to regain part of the economic and political influence in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean that had been lost after the Second World War. A policy of friendship with Belgrade and the search for an agreement on the border issue with Yugoslavia were also used, and this element was very much present in Italian diplomacy, to finally get the international confirmation of Italian sovereignty over the old Zone A of the unborn Free Territory of Trieste, of which, even at the end of the 1960s, Italy had only de facto possession. Certain diplomats and officials believed it was possible, in the long term, to change the national structure in the province of Trieste to the detriment of the Italian element: hence the belief that it was urgent to permanently close the question of the Free Territory of Trieste and ratify the international sovereignty of Italy in Zone A.45 From this fear of a possible weakening of Italian influence in the Province of Trieste came the deliberate intention to use the conclusion of new treaties with Belgrade for setting aside a final legal and cultural protection which agreements in London in 1954 had guaranteed to the Slovenian minority in Zone A.46 43

Egidio Ortona, Anni d’America. La cooperazione 1967/1975 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989), 284. 44 Moro, Scritti e Discorsi, Vol. IV, 2762; ibid., Vol. V, 2884-87, 2906-07. 45 Paolo Emilio Taviani, I giorni di Trieste. Diario 1953-1954 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998). 46 TNA, FCO, 28/2804, Charles L. Booth, “Italian-Yugoslav Agreement,” 6 October 1975, attached to Booth to the British Foreign Office, 7 October, 1975.

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After an interim phase, marked especially by Tito’s visit to Italy in 1971, negotiations between Italy and Yugoslavia for the definition of the boundaries began seriously in 1973.47 At the beginning of 1973, Medici, Foreign Minister in the Andreotti – Malagodi government, and Minić, the head of the Yugoslav diplomacy, met in Dubrovnik and gave the green light to extensive secret talks for a final settlement of all issues opened between the two countries, conducted by the Director General of Political Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, Milesi Ferretti, for Italy, and Perišić for Yugoslavia. Conversations between Italy and Yugoslavia were abruptly interrupted in the summer of 1973. This caused irritation in the Yugoslav government, which in the following months unleashed a political and press campaign against Italy. The diplomatic crisis was overcome through the use of a secret channel created by Medici and Minić in 1973.48 After clarification of mutual intentions, the negotiations, in which Šnuderl and Carbone were assisted by career diplomats, resumed and continued for about a year, and then found a positive outcome in 1975 when Moro was president of the Council. The Apulian politician assumed political responsibility for definitively closing the Italian-Yugoslav border issue by deciding to conclude the treaties that would ultimately sanction the partition of the Free Territory of Trieste between Italy and Yugoslavia. From the existing Italian memoirs we can see that the government of Rome, and Moro in particular, were aware of the likely negative reactions that the agreement with Yugoslavia would arouse in Venezia Giulia and among the Italian exiles from Istria and Dalmatia.49 The leader underestimated the depth of the wounds still open after the Second World War and the exodus from Italian Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia. The government decided to respond to possible criticism and negative reactions from Yugoslavia by trying to get some economic concessions

47

Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava”, passim; Viljenka Škorjanec, “Neuspeh jugoslovansko-italijanskih diplomatskih pogajanj v letu 1973,” Zgodovinski Časopis, 2003/1-2, 147-62; Ead., “Die Verträge von Osimo zwischen Italien und Jugoslawien (1974/75). Ein schwierigen Verhandlungsweg,” Südost-Forschungen, 2006/2007, Vol. 65/66, 394-404; Ead., Osimska pogajanja (Koper: Založba Annales, 2007). 48 As noted by the ambassador Maccotta, at the meeting in Dubrovnik the two ministers “had designated, unbeknownst to all, two personal “emissaries” for the case where it proves necessary to intervene in order to prevent the tension following the failure of negotiations. […] The emissaries were the Director General of the Ministry of Industry Eugenio Carbone and former Federal Minister Šnuderl, Slovenian, with perfect knowledge of Italian language and things, and he was also an expert on economic issues”: Giuseppe Walter Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” Rivista di studi politici internazionali, 1993/1, 63. 49 Corrado Belci, Trieste. Memorie di trent’anni (1945-1975) (Roma: Morcelliana, 1990), 161 et sqq.

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in favor of Gorizia and Trieste, to overcome in these cities the sense of encirclement in which they lived from the end of the Second World War: In this frame – said Roberto Gaja – the Italians proposed a constitution in Yugoslav territory, between the valley of Muggia and industrial areas, of a special territory, which would have allowed the extension of the same industrial area of ​​Trieste and the formation of deposits and of industrial and commercial enterprises. The indicated area, all in Yugoslav territory, had no lines of communication which would connect it to Yugoslav hinterland and would be external, according to our proposals, to the Yugoslav customs line. In a later stage of negotiations … our proposal was completely changed. Belgrade rejected our proposal of a free zone in the Yugoslav territory. The suggestion was, however, that the zone should be established partly in the Italian and partly in the Yugoslav territory and indicated Karst, an area in the north-east of Trieste. With this, the meaning of our proposal was distorted. The area, instead of representing a broader breath for Trieste, was to further limit its space and to provide a fixed basis for Yugoslav penetration in the Italian territory. Why Yugoslav counter-proposition had not been rejected by the Italian side and why negotiations have been continued can easily be explained if taken into account the political atmosphere of the time and the pressures in parliament – and in the press – which were exercised in order to reach the agreement with Belgrade in any way as soon as possible.50

To publicly justify the agreement with Yugoslavia, Moro decided to connect the Italian-Yugoslav treaties with the conclusion of the Helsinki Accords, signed in August 1975. Shortly after the signing of the Helsinki agreements, which committed the counterparties to comply with the existing European borders and not to try and change them by the use of force, the Italian Government had the press spread the news about the next conclusion of the Agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia.51 Before signing, the leader decided to seek the consent of the Chambers: on 1 October Mariano Rumor, Foreign Minister, and Moro, President of the Council, explained to Parliament the results of negotiations with Yugoslavia and the reasons for the conclusion of new agreements. According to the Apulian politician, Italy obtained a number of advantages from the territorial agreement with Belgrade. First of all, “explicit recognition and legally relevant boundary line which, after the artificial contrivance of the Free Territory of Trieste, assigns, without any reservation, the Giulian city to Italy”.52 There was also a need to strengthen Yugoslavia:

50

Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare, 217-18. Fabrizio Balzer, “Il trattato di Osimo (II),” La Rivista dalmatica, 1981/3, 159 et sqq. 52 Moro, Discorsi parlamentari, Vol. II, 1546-50. 51

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It is in Italy’s best interest – declared Moro – that Yugoslavia be independent, integrated, peaceful. Under these conditions, we are not exposed, but defended on the eastern frontier.53

Finally, the end of the dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia was a contribution to peace and détente in Europe: It is necessary to remove – of course always in the protection of legitimate national interests – every reason for frictions. Peace is built by eliminating the causes of current or even potential tensions. In uncertainty and emotionality formidable reasons for dispute are accumulated. … It’s important that, starting from realism, … a true peace is built based on trust rather than on the balance of terror.54

The Government’s argument found wide consensus in the main political forces, and was challenged by some Christian Democrat deputies from Trieste or of Istrian and Dalmatian origin and by the Movimento Sociale parliamentary group.55 In the end the Chamber approved the actions of the government with 349 votes in favor, 51 against. In Senate there were 211 votes in favor of the government, and only 11 against.56 With a broad parliamentary consensus in Italy, which included not only the parties of the center-left but also the Communist Party, Rumor and Minić signed the treaty between Italy and Yugoslavia in Monte S. Pietro, near Osimo, on 10 November 1975.57 In one statement for Yugoslav television in February 1977 Moro repeated the reasons that prompted him to the conclusion of the Osimo Agreements.58 In his view, the temporary arrangement on the border established in Venezia Giulia in 1954 created discomfort and problems 53

Ibid. Ibid. 55 Particularly significant was the intervention of Paolo Barbi, president of Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia and Neapolitan democrat Member of Parliament, a native of Trieste but whose family came from Hvar: Barbi disputed that the renunciation of Italian sovereignty over Zone B would strengthen the existing Yugoslavia and it would secure Italy for the period after Tito; then he judged as insufficient counterparts that the government obtained with the new agreements. However, Barbi, a Democrat leader, did not participate in the vote on the agreements: Balzer, “l trattato di Osimo (II),” 166-7. 56 Ibid., 175-6. 57 The texts of the agreements between Italy and Yugoslavia signed at Osimo were published in Manlio Udina, Gli accordi di Osimo: lineamenti introduttivi e testi annotati (Trieste: Lint, 1979), 83 et sqq. For some reflections on the meaning of the Treaty of Osimo: Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava”, passim; Romano, Guida alla politica estera italiana, 199 et sqq. 58 ACS, CM, s. 1, Scritti e discorsi, ss. 21, year 1977, UA 728: Aldo Moro, “Dichiarazione per la televisione jugoslava sugli accordi di Osimo,” 24 February 1977. 54

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in bilateral relations between Italy and Yugoslavia. It was, therefore, appropriate to stabilize the boundaries with new agreements that did not result in a new situation, but gave “chrism of right and formal agreement to territorial arrangements that were already in place and that could not, in any case, be changed”. This decision came to mature slowly in Italy for sensitivity and solidarity with the “feelings, worthy of all respect, of those who had abandoned those lands, retaining deep emotions from that detachment. And of course the Italian people were participating in that”. However, in Moro’s opinion, it was time to look at the reality and the future: A policy is wise if it knows how to control moods, however desirable and respectable, and face the reality, at the right time, with courage. And the reality is the already achieved and durable integration of the Zone B in Yugoslavia. And the reality is the importance of correct, friendly, undisturbed relations between the two countries, as well as commitment, implemented with the agreement of Osimo, to détente and cooperation in Europe.59

With the concluding of the Osimo Agreements, the Apulian statesman was convinced that he had protected important Italian interests and pursued significant political objectives, one of which was the development of relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, which was, in his view, an important contribution to peace and cooperation in Europe.

4. Conclusions The Osimo Agreements were one of the key moments in the policy of republican Italy towards the European communist countries. By building a friendly relationship with Belgrade, Italian governments hoped to secure an increasingly important role in European and Mediterranean politics, focusing on its own ability to act as an element of mediation and meeting between the Western alliance, pro-Soviet block and neutral or non-aligned states. At the same time, at the heart of this strategy of opening towards their Adriatic neighbor, there was an attempt to contribute to the solution of the difficult problem of the future of Yugoslavia after the death of Tito, the charismatic leader whose political myth was the true unifier of the various peoples in the federation: Italy tried to act towards Yugoslavia as an element of attraction that favored the progressive integration of this State to the European Economic Community and its possible transition from communist authoritarianism to liberal democracy. Aldo Moro, repeatedly Prime minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1963 and 1978, was one of the most determined and convinced creators and leaders of this Italian policy of “reconciliation” with the peoples of the 59

Ibid.

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Southern Slavs. The Italian strategy of reconciliation proved to be partly failure and foolishness: the upsurge of Soviet-American conflict on a global plain made these Italian ambitions to become a bridge between the blocs unrealistic and the friendship between Rome and Belgrade after 1975 did not escape the fate of the later dramatic disintegration of the Yugoslav communist state. In any case, the positive effects of the policy of Osimo should also be highlighted: through it and the “open” border which was created between Italy and Yugoslavia, Slovenes and Croats avoided the dramatic isolation of other European communist societies and could maintain close relations with Western Europe – a factor that proved crucial in the subsequent defense of their national specificity with respect to Yugoslav centralism and the struggle for political selfdetermination. Finally, the “expansionist” dimension, seen from an Italian perspective, should not be forgotten, a dimension which was inherent in the strategy of reconciliation with Yugoslavia and in the Osimo Agreements. Definitively renouncing territorial claims towards Yugoslavia, the ghost of Italian Adriatic imperialism was dissolving in front of the prejudiced eyes of Slovenian and Croatian nationalism and the government of Rome laid the foundations for the gradual overcoming of barriers and obstacles that the communist regime had built to prevent the return of Italian cultural and political influence in the eastern Adriatic territories. With Osimo, in short, Italy was renouncing the territories lost decades ago that were by that time irrecoverable, but it laid the conditions for a future recovery of the economic, cultural and national presence of Italy in Istria, Kvarner, Dalmatia and Montenegro, and, more generally in all Yugoslav territories:60 with the 1975 agreements the seeds were sown and from them developed the current close economic and political cooperation between Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Serbia, and the rebirth of a national, cultural and linguistic presence of Italy on the coasts of the eastern Adriatic.

60

There are some interesting similarities between the Italian political strategy towards Yugoslavia and policy implemented by Moro and Gaja towards Libya in the early 1970s, the latter based on the renunciation of a difficult and sterile controversy on Italian nationalized goods and search for building a relationship with Tripoli that would allow the re-establishment in a new form of Italian economic influence in the African country: on the issue Arturo Varvelli, L’Italia e l’ascesa di Gheddafi. La cacciata degli italiani, le armi e il petrolio (1969-1974) (Milano: Dalai, 2009); Massimiliano Cricco, Federico Cresti, Gheddafi. I volti del potere (Roma: Carocci 2011).

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Détente in the Adriatic Italian Foreign Policy and the Road to the Osimo Treaty Massimo Bucarelli 1.  The Question of Trieste and the Italian-Yugoslav Uneasy Relations after the Second World War During the 1960s the political lexicon used by the Yugoslav ruling class regarding the state of relations with Italy seemed to combine innovative – if not revolutionary – concepts and expressions to describe the turbulent and painful history of relations between the two Adriatic nations in the first half of the 20th  century. Within the political and diplomatic circles of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in order to underline the positive nature of relations with Italy, it was customary to define such bilateral relations as a “model of peaceful cooperation between two countries governed by different social and political systems belonging to the same geographical area”; the Italian-Yugoslav border was presented as “the most open border in the world”, while the presence of an Italian national minority on Yugoslav territory was no longer considered a source of tensions and worries, but a political opportunity, a real “bridge” between the two peoples.1 Yet it is widely known that, until the beginning of the 1960s, Italy’s political strategy in the Adriatic as well as the role played by the Italian 1



AJ, APR, KPR (I-3-A), b. 144, Memorandum of Conversation between President Josip Broz Tito and the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Segni, Vanga (Brioni Islands), 1 July 1961; AJ, APR, KPR (I-3-A), b. 145, Memorandum of Conversation between President Josip Broz Tito and Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pietro Nenni, Belgrade, 28 May 1969; Briefing Memorandum for the Meetings with the Italian President Giuseppe Saragat, prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Staff, “Top Secret,” 17 September 1969; Memorandum of Conversation between President Josip Broz Tito and the Italian President Giuseppe Saragat, in the presence of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aldo Moro, Belgrade, 3 October 1969. Also: ACS, CM, b. 141, Memorandum of Conversation between the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aldo Moro, and the Yugoslav Ambassador Srdja Prica, Rome, 27  February 1970. Furthermore: Giuseppe Walter Maccotta, “La Iugoslavia di ieri e di oggi,” Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 1988/2, 232; Alberto Cavagliari, “Jugoslavia: ricordi di un’ambasciata (1977-1980),” in Professione: diplomatico, ed. Enrico Serra (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1990), 45.

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minority in Yugoslavia, in the Istria and Dalmatia regions, had been perceived and considered quite differently in Belgrade. As is known, after the Second World War, political and diplomatic relations between Italy and Yugoslavia were characterized by misunderstandings, hostility, and polemics, due mainly (though not exclusively) to the Trieste question, which was a long suffered cause of territorial disputes that had divided the two Adriatic countries for decades. After Italy had been defeated in the Second World War and after Yugoslavia had tried to take possession of Trieste and most of Venezia Giulia, the Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947 stated that the whole Italian territory to the east of the Tarvisio-Monfalcone line was assigned to Yugoslavia, with the exception of a narrow coastal belt which included Trieste (Zone A), occupied by the Anglo-Americans, and Koper (Zone B), under Yugoslav occupation. Under the Treaty, this coastal area would constitute a buffer state, the Free Territory of Trieste, to be formally created through the appointment of a governor by the UN Security Council.2 However, the division of Europe into opposing political blocs, resulting from the break-up of the coalition that had defeated Nazi-Fascism and from the ensuing confrontation between the two major powers of the coalition, the United States and the Soviet Union, made the constitution of FTT

2



Antonio Varsori, “Il trattato di pace italiano. Le iniziative politiche e diplomatiche dell’Italia,” in La politica estera italiana del secondo dopoguerra (1943-1957), ed. Antonio Varsori (Milano: LED, 1993), 140 et sqq.; Luciano Monzali, “La questione jugoslava nella politica estera italiana dalla prima guerra mondiale ai trattati di Osimo (1914-1945),” in Europa adriatica. Storia, relazioni, economia, ed. Franco Botta, Italo Garzia (Roma – Bari: Laterza 2004), 36 et sqq.; Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (1945-1991) (Roma: Aracne, 2008), 15 et sqq. As regards the Trieste question, a great number of studies have been published; among them, see: Diego De Castro, La questione di Trieste. L’azione politica e diplomatica italiana dal 1943 al 1954 (Trieste: LINT, 1981), 2 Vols.; JeanBaptiste Duroselle, Le conflit de Trieste 1943-1954 (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Institut de Sociologie de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1966); Anton Giulio De Robertis, Le grandi potenze e il confine giuliano 1941-1947 (Bari: Laterza Giuseppe Edizioni, 1983); Massimo de Leonardis, La “diplomazia atlantica” e la soluzione del problema di Trieste (1952-1954) (Napoli: ESI, 1992); Bogdan C.  Novak, Trieste 1941-1954. La lotta politica, etnica e ideologica (Milano: Mursia, 1996); Roberto G.  Rabel, Between East and West. Trieste, the United States and the Cold War, 1941-1954 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1988) 52 et sqq.; Raoul Pupo, Fra Italia e Jugoslavia. Saggi sulla questione di Trieste (1945-1954) (Udine: Del Bianco, 1989), 25 et sqq.; Bojan Dimitrijević, Dragan Bogetić, Tršćanska kriza 1945-1954. Vojno-politički aspekti (Beograd, Institut za Savremenu Istoriju, 2009), 11 et sqq. As regards the domestic and local consequences, see: Nevenka Troha, Chi avrà Trieste? Sloveni e italiani fra due Stati (Trieste: Istituto regionale per la storia del movimento di liberazione nel Friuli Venezia Giulia, 2009); Anna Millo, La difficile intesa: Roma e Trieste nella questione giuliana 1945-1954 (Trieste: Edizioni Italo Svevo, 2011).

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impossible. Cold War and bipolar logic transformed the Trieste question from a local problem into the Adriatic version of the Iron Curtain. In the light of the containment policy adopted by the Washington government in response to the power policy of the Soviets and to the expansion of the communist movement, the defense of Trieste took on a new importance: the Adriatic city was becoming a sort of Western shield intended to contain any communist infiltration into Northern Italy. The United States and Great Britain decided to obstruct the birth of the FTT which was too exposed to the double risk of firstly military pressures from Yugoslavia (as happened in September 1947 when Yugoslav troops crossed the border and created territorial pockets within Italian boundaries) and secondly of becoming a sort of Soviet outpost thanks to the active propaganda of local communists (both Italian and Slovenian). It was for this purpose that the governments in London and Washington postponed the appointment of the governor of the FTT by the UN, subordinating it to the agreement between Rome and Belgrade, a hypothesis, at that time, which was virtually impossible to realize.3 However, a few months after the ratification of the Peace Treaty, a new variable was added to the already complicated framework of ItalianYugoslav relations: a political (rather than ideological) breakup occurred during 1948 within the communist world between Tito and Stalin, with Yugoslavia moving away from the Soviet orbit and subsequently Belgrade coming closer to the Western bloc, which from that moment became the main source of economic and military aid to Tito’s regime.4 Yugoslavia started playing an important role in the eyes of the Americans: breakup with Moscow did not only have a great ideological and propagandistic significance because of the strike given to the Soviet hegemony in the European communist countries of the Danube-Balkan region, but it also represented a great strategic advantage because it eased the Soviet pressure on the Southern borders of the Atlantic Alliance and turned Yugoslavia into 3



4



Carlo Sforza, Cinque anni a Palazzo Chigi. La politica estera italiana dal 1947 al 1951 (Roma: Atlante, 1952), 327 et sqq.; Duroselle, Le conflit, 258 et sqq.; De Castro, La questione di Trieste, 673 et sqq.; Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare. Per una storia della politica estera italiana (1943-1991) (Bologna: Il Mulino 1995), 81-82. Milovan Djilas, Se la memoria non m’inganna, … Ricordi di un uomo scomodo 1943-1962 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987), 169 et sqq., 191 et sqq.; C. G. Stefan, “The Emergence of the Soviet-Yugoslav Break: a Personal View from the Belgrade Embassy,” Diplomatic History, 1982/6, 400 et sqq.; Jugoslovenski-sovjetski sukob 1948. Godine. Zbornik radova sa Naučnog Skupa, edited by Institut za Savremenu Istoriju (Beograd: ISI, 1999); Rinna E. Kullaa, “Origins of the Tito-Stalin Split within the Wider Set of Yugoslav-Soviet Relations (1941-1948),” in The Balkans in the Cold War, ed. Voijslav G. Pavlović (Belgrade: Institute for Balkans Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2011), 91 et sqq.; Jože Pirjevec, Tito in tovariši (Lubiana: Cankarjeva založba, 2011), 223 et sqq.

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a sort of a buffer State between the Adriatic and Balkan branches of the two blocs.5 The realignment of Yugoslav policy could not remain without consequences to the evolution of the Trieste question: given the importance of Belgrade for the political and military strategies of Washington and London and seeing that giving life to the FTT had remained impossible because of unbridgeable differences between Italy and Yugoslavia, the Anglo-Americans decided to favor a solution of compromise verified by the London Memorandum on 5 October 1954. Italy would replace British and American authorities in the administration of Zone A of the FTT, while in Zone B the Yugoslav military administration would be replaced with a civil one. So, de facto partition of the FTT was outlined, which was in accordance with the desires of the Anglo-Americans who had the intention of ridding themselves of the responsibility to administer Zone A and of eliminating at the same time the cause of a dispute which was considered harmful for the Western bloc.6 However, neither the Yugoslav rapprochement to the West, nor the settlement of the Trieste question in 1954 helped to significantly improve the political relations between Rome and Belgrade. Quite the contrary. The Yugoslav break with the Soviet Union seemed to exacerbate misunderstandings between the two Adriatic countries, because the antiYugoslav policy followed by the centrist government (marked by the predominant role of the Christian Democrats, with the participation of social democrats, republicans, and liberals) was also followed by the Italian Communist Party, in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Soviet leaders in Moscow, so that the anti-Yugoslavism became

5



6



Central Intelligence Agency. The Trend of Soviet-Yugoslav Relations, 18 November 1948; Central Intelligence Agency, Memorandum, Soviet-Yugoslav Relations, 22 August 1949; Intelligence Memorandum No. 232, Subject: Significance of Recent Intensified Soviet Action against Tito, 5 October 1949; Central Intelligence Agency. National Intelligence Estimate. Probability of an Invasion of Yugoslavia in 1951, 20 March 1951, in US Diplomatic Records on Relations with Yugoslavia during the Early Cold War, 1948-1957, ed. Nick Ceh (New York: East European Monographs, 2002), 54-60, 103-4, 116-18, 268-70. On Yugoslavia’s rapprochement with the West, see: Egidio Ortona, Anni d’ America, Vol. II, La diplomazia: 1953-1961 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986), 31 et sqq.; Beatrice Heuser, Western “Containment” Policies in the Cold War. The Yugoslav Case 1948-1953 (London: Routledge, 1989); Lorraine M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat. The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); Dragan Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad 1952-1955. Jugoslovensko približavanije NATO-U (Beograd: Službeni list Srbije, 2000); Ivan Laković, Zapadna vojna pomoč Jugoslaviji 19511958 (Podgorica: Istorijski Institut Crne Gore, 2006). Duroselle, Le conflit, 406 et sqq.; De Castro, La questione di Trieste, vol. II, 797 et sqq.; de Leonardis, La “diplomazia atlantica”, 393 et sqq.; Pietro Pastorelli, “Origine e significato del Memorandum di Londra,” Clio, 1995/4, 607-9.

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common heritage of the major parties in Parliament.7 There were not any concrete signs of a détente even after the signing of the London Memorandum. In Belgrade and in Rome diametrically opposed opinions developed on the meaning and scope of the newly reached agreement. For the Italian government, it was a temporary solution, which did not involve a permanent transfer of sovereignty and which left intact a theoretical Italian aspiration to return all the territories allocated to the FTT, and not only Trieste and Zone A.8 In contrast, for Belgrade the 1954 Agreement represented the de facto closure of the territorial dispute. For Tito and the Yugoslav leadership, sacrifice of Trieste, although it implied the renunciation of territorial claims proposed with such insistence and strength at the end of the Second World War,9 was necessary to stabilize the western border and strengthen national security. Despite being convinced that Trieste belonged to the Slovenian ethnic and economic space, the Yugoslav leader believed it was impossible to obtain the city, because Italy could count on the alliance with Western powers and because Yugoslavia needed Anglo-American support to resist the threats and pressures of the Eastern bloc. Tito did not consider it possible to recover Trieste by agreement, or by force, because “nobody in the world” would give the “moral support” for such an operation.10 Time had come, therefore, to 7



AJ, CK SKJ, KMOV (48/1-57-131), b. 2, f. 72 and 85, Anton Vratuša to the Central Committee of the YCP, Rome, 9 July 1948; The Yugoslav Minister in Rome, Mladen Iveković to Tito and Kardelj, Rome, 25 March 1949, “Top Secret” Report No. 28/49; AJ, APR, KMJ (I – 3 – d), b. 23, f. 70, Memorandum of Conversation between Mladen Iveković and the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlo Sforza, 22 April 1950. Also. Maurizio Zuccari, Il dito sulla piaga. Togliatti e il PCI nella rottura tra Tito e Stalin 1944-1957 (Milano: Mursia, 2008), 169 et sqq.; Patrick Karlsen, Frontiera rossa. Il PCI, il confine orientale e il contesto internazionale 1941-1955 (Gorizia: LEG, 2010), 198 et sqq. 8 ACS, CM, b. 77, f. 215/1, Note on Trieste’s “Status” (Zone A and Zone B), Manlio Castronuovo’s “Strictly Confidential” Memorandum, Rome 11 January 1964, attached to Castronuovo to Giovanni Fornari, Rome, 11 January 1964. 9 AJ, APR, KMJ (I – 3 – d), b. 20, f. 23, 24, and 27, Démarche From the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Belgrade, 4 September 1945; Démarche From the Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia to the Government of the Soviet Union, Belgrade, 5 September 1945; Memorandum Presented by the Provisional Government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia on the Question of the Julian March and of the Other Yugoslav Territories in Italy, 6-7 September 1945; Ljuba Leontić to Edvard Kardelj, London, 9 July and 15 August 1945, “Top Secret” letter; Kardelj to Tito, London, 22 September 1945, Report. 10 AJ, APR, KPR (I-3-A), b. 144, Memorandum of Conversation between President Josip Broz Tito and a Delegation of Slovenian Representatives from Zone A of the FTT, in the presence of Edvard Kardelj, Belgrade, 8 November 1953. Also: Bogetić, Jugoslavija i Zapad, 124 et sqq.; Nevenka Troha, “Yugoslav Proposal for the Solutions of the Trieste Question Following the Cominform Resolution,” in Yugoslavia in the

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close the dispute, to eliminate any source of tension on the Western Front, strengthen the factual possession of Koper and turn attention towards the Eastern bloc; these steps were deemed necessary by Tito to complete the construction of the Yugoslav road to socialism and to strengthen the regime in the country. In Tito’s reasoning, there was obviously another side of the coin: if Yugoslavia was to acknowledge that it could never gain control other than in Zone B, in the same way it would never be possible for the Italians to hope for anything beyond control in Zone A. For Belgrade, there was a reciprocal relationship between the Yugoslav and Italian waivers: the Belgrade sacrifice of Trieste had to be matched by the Italian sacrifice of Koper and any change in the demarcation line was to be made on the basis of fair territorial compensation.11 The reciprocity of territorial sacrifices and compensations, however, was a principle that Italian politicians and diplomats were not yet ready to accept. During those years of diplomatic contacts, Italian proposals did not suggest the partition of the FTT along the demarcation line, but the annexation of the entire territory in exchange for numerous and advantageous concessions in Trieste harbor area, economic compensations and “slight territorial changes along the ethnic line”.12 The ruling classes of the two countries were, therefore, well anchored on their positions: on the one hand, the government in Belgrade wanted Italy to formally recognize the conclusion of the dispute and the extension of Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B; on the other hand, the government of Rome emphasized the practical and temporary nature of the 1954 Memorandum, in the hope – or rather the illusion – that it would later be possible to recover a greater portion of the FTT.13 However, the 1954 Agreement, and its deliberately ambiguous interpretation, helped to lower the intensity of the dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia.14 Behind the mask of the provisional border arrangement,

11



12



13 14



Cold War, ed. Jasna Fischer et al. (Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, 2004), 161 et sqq. AJ, APR, KPR (I-3-A), b. 144, Memorandum of Conversation between Tito and a Delegation of Slovenian Representatives. DDI, s. XI, Vol.  IV, docs. 111, 309, Tarchiani to Sforza, Washington, 10 April 1950; Martino to Sforza, Bled, 5 July 1950; AJ, APR, KMJ (I – 3 – d), b. 23, f. 76, Memorandum of Conversation between the Yugoslav Ambassador Marko Ristić and the Italian Ambassador Antonio Meli Lupo di Soragna, Belgrade, 17 August 1951. Also: Sforza, Cinque anni a Palazzo Chigi, 383-4; Duroselle, Le conflit de Trieste, 325 et sqq. ACS, CM, b. 77, f. 215/1, Note on Trieste’s “Status” (Zone A and Zone B). AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 245, Memorandum on Negotiations with Italy, “Secret No. 1646,” prepared by the Directorate General for Economic Affairs of the Ministry

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there was a process of partial normalization in some areas of bilateral relations, with a series of agreements such as the agreement of Udine in 1955, which regulated the traffic of people and goods between the region of Trieste and the surrounding areas, the Agreement on fishing in the Adriatic in 1958 and numerous protocols of cooperation in the field of culture and science. These agreements, despite frequent controversies, represented the prelude to the intense development of economic and cultural relations between the two countries which occurred in the 1960s. With the growing internationalization of economic processes, the separation between the two Adriatic coasts became increasingly artificial without meeting the interests of both countries. These mutual economic ties, so strong in some regions, such as the Adriatic, so close and complementary, were the first to open a hole in the Iron Curtain between Italy and Yugoslavia. The revival of trade relations was a direct consequence of the new political climate in Italy regarding relations with Belgrade which was in favour of the complete separation of economic and political issues: this was an approach strongly supported by some economic and industrial groups, interested in benefiting from the proximity of the two Adriatic coasts; and also shared by Yugoslav policymakers, who did not want to give any negotiating advantage to the Italian leaders, fearing that the government of Rome would gain a position of greater strength or attempt to take advantage of the difficulties of Yugoslav relations with the Soviet bloc countries.15 In those years, there were several political contacts, even at the highest level. There were many meetings and exchanges of views among some of the highest political authorities of the two countries,

of Foreign Affairs, Belgrade, 19 September 1955; Memorandum of Conversation between the Under-Secretary of State, Anton Vratuša, and the Italian Ambassador, Gastone Guidotti, Belgrade, 2 July 1957. 15 AJ, APR, KPR (I-3-A), b. 144, Information Memorandum on Italy (without date, but presumably in October 1958); AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 246, Memorandum of Conversation between the Under-Secretary of State, Veljko Mićunović, and the Italian Ambassador, Francesco Cavalletti, Belgrade, 11 February 1960; ACS, CM, b. 85, Report on Yugoslavia (without date, but presumably between 1967-1968). As for the economic relations between Italy and Yugoslavia after the Second World War, see: Michele Capriati, “Gli scambi commerciali tra Italia e Jugoslavia dal dopoguerra al 1991,” in Europa adriatica, 165-73. For overall analyses, see: Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare, 166-67; Massimo Bucarelli, “A Belated Friendship: Italian-Yugoslav Relations (1947-1990),” in Italy’s Balkan Strategies (19th-20th Century), ed. by Vojislav G. Pavlović (Belgrade: Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2014), 257-9.

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which in this way created conditions for the delicate transition “from the stage of normal to good neighborly relations”.16 Over the course of several meetings between representatives of the two governments, which took place between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, in addition to highlighting the excellent development of economic and trade cooperation, attention was drawn to the contribution that Rome and Belgrade were actually making to peace and stability in Europe.17 However, the results of this intense political and economic activity were not sufficient to inspire the ruling classes of the two countries to make that decisive step, which could lead to closing the border dispute, overcoming problems belonging to the past and establishing a lasting peace between the peoples of the Adriatic. There was a clear feeling that Rome and Belgrade had made a virtue out of necessity, and a decision was reached to elaborate on matters and issues on which there was unanimity of views and intentions, and whose development would be immediately useful and beneficial to both ruling classes. But the solution of the major problems was deliberately postponed, waiting for time to create and ripen favorable conditions.18

2.  Italian Rapprochement with Yugoslavia during the 1960s It was only in the 1960s, after the formation of a center-left government in Italy with the participation of the Socialist Party, that dialogue returned to Rome and Belgrade in an effort to deepen political cooperation and to break the deadlock on the questions of Trieste.19 Inside the cabinet, the 16

ACS, PCM – UCD, b. 27, Memorandum for HE the Minister (Antonio Segni), prepared by Giovanni Fornari (Directorate General for Political Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Rome 28 July 1961. 17 ACS, PCM – UCD, b. 27, Memorandum of Conversations between the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Segni, and the Yugoslav Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Koca Popović, Rome, 2-3 December 1960. Also: Massimo Bucarelli, “Aldo Moro e l’Italia nella “Westpolitik” jugoslava degli anni Sessanta,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Massimo Bucarelli (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2011), 123-6. 18 ACS, CM, b. 77, f. 215/1, Berio to Saragat, Belgrade, 31 March 1964, tel. No. 1102. 19 AJ, APR, KPR (I-3-A), b. 144, Information memorandum on Italian politics, Rome, 3 January 1964, “Viewed by Tito”. Also: ACS, CM, b. 77 f. 215/1, and, b. 66, f. 2, Ducci to Saragat, Belgrade, 16 June and 25 July 1964, tel. No. 2128 and tel. No. 2638. As to the foreign policy of the Italian center-left governments, see: Federico Imperato, Aldo Moro e la pace nella sicurezza. La politica estera del centro-sinistra 1963-1968 (Bari: Progedit, 2011); Luciano Tosi, “Per una nuova comunità internazionale. La diplomazia multilaterale di Aldo Moro,” Luca Riccardi, “Appunti sull’Ostpolitik di Moro (19631975),” Giuseppe Vacca, “Aldo Moro e la politica estera italiana. Continuità e discontinuità nell’azione internazionale dell’Italia fra prima e seconda Repubblica,”

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positions on Yugoslavia of new political figures and forces coincided, all attentive to the achievements and progress of Yugoslav socialism, and sensitive to the security and economic needs of the nearby Federation. Italian socialists and social democrats (especially their leaders Pietro Nenni, Deputy Prime Minister, and Giuseppe Saragat, Foreign Minister in the first center-left government) were convinced that the originality of the Yugoslav economic and social experiment, based on self-management and decentralization, and the central role played by Yugoslavia in the non-Aligned movement deserved to be observed more carefully and with greater interest by Italian government.20 Even more important, for the rapprochement between the two countries, it was the belief that the time had come to close the territorial dispute and finally stabilize the border issue, once and for all, by recognizing the territorial implications arising from the London Memorandum of 1954.21 However, the real news in Italian politics was the presence in the center-left government of Aldo Moro, Prime Minister and leader of the largest party in the coalition, the Christian Democrats. Before the formation of the center-left government and his appointment as Prime Minister, Moro had not had an original program of foreign policy, nor had he ever demonstrated any particular interest in the problem of relations with Yugoslavia. The Christian Democrat leader had some reference values and some guiding principles (peace, international solidarity, and dialogue between peoples) which he tried to convey in general directions of foreign policy. Without giving up on his Atlanticism and pro-Europeanism ideas, his vision of international relations in his years of government was constantly turned towards the search for peace through East-West dialogue and cooperation between the peoples, in a frame, however, which would guarantee international security and balance: to sum up, “peace in security”, supporting the process of détente and preserving the European status quo, with no concessions to neutralism or to disengagement.22

Emilio Colombo, “Aldo Moro e la politica estera italiana. Una testimonianza,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, 15 et sqq. Also: Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i popoli del mediterraneo, ed. Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Federico Imperato (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2013). 20 Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare, 170; Giuseppe W. Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 1993/1, 56-7. 21 Bucarelli, “Aldo Moro e l’Italia nella ‘Westpolitik’ jugoslava degli anni Sessanta,” 126 et sqq. 22 Roberto Ducci, I Capintesta (Milano: Rusconi, 1982), 37. Also: Imperato, Aldo Moro e la pace nella sicurezza, VIII-IX, 13-16; Tosi, “Per una nuova comunità internazionale,” 15 et sqq.

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Practical application of Moro’s basic principles meant, among other things, closing the outstanding issues with Yugoslav and Austrian neighbors. Moro was convinced, in fact, that it was necessary to go beyond the patterns of the old policy of power, to set up an international society based on the values of solidarity, equality, and peace in which economic, cultural and military balances could be restored. In this larger and more complex process, Italy too could play a role and make a contribution, by dedicating itself to the resolution of the long-standing political and territorial disputes with its neighbors and by initiating a closer political cooperation with them – the first step to overcome the political and ideological barriers which kept Europe divided.23 In setting as the ultimate goal of the Adriatic policy of the centerleft government the reconciliation between the two peoples and the effective cooperation between the two governments, Moro shared the suggestions of some Italian diplomats, whose political considerations and assessments reached him through the Prime Minister’s diplomatic councilor, Gianfranco Pompei. The new center-left government was faced with invitations from Belgrade to take charge of the final closure of the dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia in the name of a stronger and more sincere friendship and Italian diplomacy was called upon to express opinions and make proposals for the settlement of border and other issues that still separated Rome and Belgrade.24 The response of Italian diplomats, involved at various levels and in various capacities in Adriatic affairs, was almost unanimous: the Yugoslav position was substantially correct and the solution to the problem of Trieste in the 1954 London Memorandum should now be considered final; it was not “lawful”, in fact, to throw it all away or postpone the acknowledgment of the formal division of the FTT due to legal and formal reasons, such as the failed formation of the Free Territory and the absence of any Italian reference to transfers of sovereignty in the 1954 Agreement; it was not possible, in essence, to try and “sell for the second time what had already been sold”; in addition, in the absence of Yugoslav consent, it was definitely unthinkable to try and change by force the arrangements established in the London Memorandum, because no individual with a “democratic consciousness” would ever be able to support such a possibility. It was necessary to accept, therefore, that even that part of western Istria, included in Zone B of the FTT, was going to be added to the list of 23

Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare, 181-2, 216-17; Antonio Varsori, L’Italia nelle relazioni internazionali dal 1943 al 1992 (Roma-Bari: Laterza 1998), 190; Monzali, “La questione jugoslava,” 53-5. 24 ACS, CM, b. 77 and 78, Ducci to Saragat, Belgrade, 25 July 1964 and 23 November 1964, tel. No. 2638, and tel. No. 33707/749 “Secret. Absolute Priority. Viewed by the Prime Minister”; Ducci to Moro, Belgrade, 3 November 1965, tel. No. 5759.

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territories lost as a result of war and defeat. It was also necessary to be able to widely revise the policy towards Yugoslav followed until then by Italian governments, and finally to understand that national interests could be defended in another way: not by territorial expansion, but by trade, economic presence, cultural influence; not by fueling the sense of insecurity in the Adriatic area, but by projecting stability and ensuring peace; not by remaining antagonistic towards a country that had given up being a “reckless power”, but by working with a country that pursued “successful policy on every continent and in every scenario”. Indications from Italian diplomacy suggested a desire to enter into negotiations for the closure of any dispute with neighboring Yugoslavia and to find a “comprehensive solution”, which would not only take into account the boundary and territorial aspects, but also provide measures to ensure tangible economic benefits for the Italian border populations and boost local development, the only possible compensation for the permanent loss of Zone B.25 Moro fully shared these suggestions, which coincided with his desire for peace, dialogue and stability. Of course, the Christian Democrat leader reworked such ideas in the light of his political sensibility, always filled with extreme caution and prudence, caring for the needs of domestic politics, at odds between the pro-Yugoslav positions of the socialist and social democrats, the resistance and the hindrance of the Christian Democrats in Trieste (forced to deal with local public opinion convinced of the temporary nature of the 1954 solution), and the noisy opposition of the extreme right.26 Moro, therefore, decided to respond positively to Yugoslav requests to deepen relations between the two countries and to consider the ultimate resolution of the several outstanding disputes, accepting the invitation of the Yugoslav Government to pay an official visit to Belgrade. However, the DC leader did not put at the center of these new contacts the negotiations on the border arrangements, but the improvement of political and economic cooperation, considering it 25

ACS, CM, b. 77, f. 215/1, Memorandum From Castronuovo to Pompei, 30 January 1964; Berio to Saragat, Belgrade, 31 March 1964, Letter From Giustiniani to Pomepi, Rome, 27 November 1964; ACS, CM, b. 66, f. 3, The Question of Yugoslavia, memorandum of a conference held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 20 January 1965, under the chairmanship of the Secretary General, Attilio Cattani, with the participation of a number of Italian diplomats in charge of the Italian-Yugoslav relations; ACS, CM, b. 85, f. 248, Pompei to Moro, letter, Rome 31 December 1967; Ducci to Fanfani, Belgrade, 3 October 1967, “Secret” Report, in Roberto Ducci, edited by Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Servizio storico e documentazione (Roma: 1989), 103-10. 26 Ducci, I Capintesta, 27-29; Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava”, 45-61; Luciano Monzali, “‘I nostri vicini devono essere nostri amici’. Aldo Moro, l’Ostpolitik italiana e gli accordi di Osimo,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, 89 et sqq.

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necessary to establish a climate of good and trustful political relations at all levels, as a premise and preparation for a just settlement of territorial disputes.27 He was anxious not to have an immediate success being turned into the aggravation of relations with Yugoslavia due to the reactions of the public opinion which was still intoxicated with the “passionate” and “sentimental” factors, which were not to be neglected. It was necessary, according to the Prime Minister, not to present the agreement with Yugoslavia as an Italian concession, because Italy could not give up something that had not belonged to it since the war, but as the definitive acquisition of a political and economic advantage through a global solution which would permanently return the city of Trieste within national borders and revive the partnership between Italy and Yugoslavia.28 The approach of the Prime Minister towards relations with Yugoslavia (which were to remain substantially unchanged up to the Osimo agreements of 1975) was brought to the attention of the Yugoslav leadership by ambassador Ducci, in the early months of 1965, during preparations for Moro’s visit to Belgrade. According to the DC leader – as reported by the Italian diplomat – the arrangement of the territorial issues could only take place “in the context of a package of resolutions for outstanding issues” (renewal of the agreement on fishing, cultural, economic, financial, commercial agreements, etc.): only in this way, would the Italian public “swallow the bitter pill” of the division of the FTT and the permanent loss of Zone B.29 The road proposed by the Italian government, which provided for the improvement of the political climate as a prerequisite to defusing tensions arising from territorial issues, was substantially accepted by Belgrade. This decision served as a starting point for a long and winding march, whose first and most important step was Moro’s trip to Yugoslavia, in November 1965, and the trip to Rome of the head of the Yugoslav federal government, Mika Špiljak, in January 1968. During the two visits, in line with the approach desired by the DC leader, the issues of the border were not dealt with, but only those issues useful to strengthen cooperation in the economic and cultural field and to stabilize cooperation on major international policy issues 27

ACS, CM, b. 77, f. 215/2, Memorandum of Conversation between Moro and the Yugoslav Ambassador, Ivo Vejvoda, drafted by Pompei, Rome 22 September 1965. Also Ducci, I Capintesta, 28-9; Imperato, Aldo Moro e la pace nella sicurezza, 103. 28 Bucarelli, “A Belated Friendship,” 262-3. 29 AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 246, Memorandum of Conversation between the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marko Nikezić, and the Italian Ambassador, Roberto Ducci, Belgrade, 16 February 1965; Memorandum of Conversation between the Assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dušan Kvader, and the Italian Ambassador, Roberto Ducci, Belgrade, 15 March 1965, “Viewed by Tito”.

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(Vietnam, Middle East, East-West relations, disarmament), to seal the “commonality of interests and intentions” between the two countries in many political and economic areas. Undoubtedly, the formation of the center-left government gave a strong impetus to the rapprochement with Yugoslavia, due to the presence of political leaders supportive of constructive discussions with the Belgrade authorities and more willing to initiate a dialogue for a broader political cooperation. However, the improvement of bilateral relations, although certainly a matter of great importance, was still partial and incomplete. Without closing the question of Trieste and other disputes bequeathed by the conflict, it was not possible to transform the co-existence between the two countries into a real détente, able to overcome the aftermath of the long postwar period in the Adriatic area and remove the last obstacle to Italian-Yugoslav peace.

3.  Italian-Yugoslav Secret Exploratory Talks in the Years of Détente International events and Yugoslav domestic affairs in the second half of the 1960s accelerated the rapprochement of the two Adriatic nations. It is known, in fact, that the “Prague Spring” of 1968 and the consequent enunciation of the “Brežnev doctrine” put the Belgrade government on alert, struggling as it was with the re-emergence of national and internal problems and worried about the possible application of this doctrine in the case of Yugoslavia.30 The Soviet Union’s violent solution to the Czechoslovakian crisis and the statement of the CPSU General Secretary about the need to subject the interests of each socialist state to those of the international communist movement aroused concern among Italian policymakers, interested in preserving and strengthening the role of the Yugoslav Federation as a necessary territorial and political bulwark between Italy and the countries of the Warsaw Pact. For this reason, on 2 September 1968 Giuseppe Medici, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Christian Democratic Government led by Giovanni Leone, informed the government in Belgrade that Italy would not attempt to derive any benefit from any possible movements towards the eastern boundaries of

30

Veljko Mićunović, Moskovske Godine 1969/1971 (Beograd: Jugoslovenska Revija, 1984), 17 et sqq.; Zdravko Vuković, Od deformacija SDB do Maspoka i liberalizma. Moji stenografski zapisi 1966-1972 (Beograd: Narodne Knjige, 1989), 11 et sqq., and 236 et sqq.; Marko Vrhunec, Šest godina s Titom (1967-1973) (Zagreb: Globus, 2001), 57 et sqq., and 251 et sqq.; Pirjevec, Tito, 527 et sqq. Also: Leonhart to Rogers, Belgrade, 13 March 1970, in FRUS, 1969-1976, Vol. XXIX, Eastern Europe; Eastern Mediterranean, 1969-1972, doc. 218.

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the Yugoslav troops stationed along the border with Italy.31 Facing the instability of the neighboring Yugoslav Federation, Italy was obviously concerned about the possibility of seeing Warsaw Pact troops enter Yugoslav territory under the “Brežnev doctrine” and of finding itself directly neighboring the Soviet bloc, bringing the Iron Curtain near Gorizia and Trieste. Full Italian support was granted during the officilal visits to Yugoslavia, in May and October 1969, by Nenni, who was appointed Foreign Minister for a few months, between December 1968 and August 1969, in the first Rumor government, and by Giuseppe Saragat elected President of the Republic in 1964, the first Italian head of state to visit Belgrade. The Italian politicians were both convinced of the need to help the socialist and non-aligned Yugoslavia to remain independent, because the real Italian eastern border was the Yugoslav border with the neighboring People’s Democracies and not the one that ran along the river Soča/Isonzo.32 The atmosphere changed so much that Rome and Belgrade proceeded with concrete negotiations also on the question of Trieste and the northern border, following the decision of the Leone-Medici government to start new bilateral negotiations in October 1968.33 The assignment to conduct “secret exploratory talks” was given to the Italian Ambassador Gian Luigi Milesi Ferretti, Deputy Director of Political Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, and the Yugoslav Ambassador Zvonko Perišić;34 the choice was determined by the particular role played by the two diplomats, both being in charge of their delegations within the Italian-Yugoslav Joint Commission for the application of the Statute of minorities (as required 31

AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 247, Prica to Tepavac, tel. No.  578 (copy) “Viewed by President Tito,” Rome, 2 September 1968; ACS, CM, b. 127, f. 5, Italo-Yugoslav Relations and Disputes, Memorandum attached to Preparatory Materials for President Saragat’s Official Visit to Yugoslavia, 2-6 October 1969, “Confidential”. Also: Maccotta, “La Iugoslavia di ieri e di oggi,” 231-2; Id., “In ricordo di Giuseppe Medici e Giovanni Fornari,” Affari Esteri, 2001/159, 185; Saša Mišić, “Jugoslovenskoitalijanski odnosi i čehoslovenska kriza 1968. godine,” in 1968 – Četrdeset godina posle, edited by “Institut za Noviju Istoriju Srbije” (Beograd, 2008), 293 et sqq. 32 For Nenni’s and Saragat’s official visits to Yugoslavia, see: AJ, APR, KPR (I-3-A), b. 145, f. 44/43 and 44/46, Memorandum of Conversation between President Josip Broz Tito and the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pietro Nenni, Belgrade, 28 May 1969; Stenographic Transcript of the Conversations between the Yugoslav Delegation and the Italian Delegation, Belgrade, 3 October 1969. Also: Pietro Nenni, I conti con la storia. Diari 1967-1971 (Milano: SugarCo, 1983), 222, and 542; Vrhunec, Šest godina s Titom (1967-1973), 62 et sqq. 33 AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 247, Memorandum of Conversation between Pavičević and Trabalza, “Top Secret – Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 17 September 1968, Memorandum of Conversation between Nikezić and Medici, New York, 10 October 1968. 34 AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 247, Memorandum of Conversation between Nikezić and Trabalza, “Top Secret – Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 29 October 1968.

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by the 1954 Memorandum); there was a feeling, therefore, that within such a bilateral organism Italian and Yugoslav representatives could submit proposals without arousing particular clamor. Reversing in part the policies of previous Italian governments, the Leone government accepted the connection between border demarcation, elimination of pockets and final partition of the failed Free Territory of Trieste. However, they asked the Yugoslav side to accept the Italian request to insert the territorial issue into broader political and economic negotiations – a request made in the hope of obtaining real benefits in exchange for an agreement that a part of Italian public opinion would inevitably perceive as a relinquishment.35 The Italian proposal in 18 points (regarding all of the unresolved issues: 1) final setting of the northern border; 2) restitution of pockets; 3) transformation of the 1954 demarcation line in the State border; 4) agreement on the issue of Italian properties in Zone B; 5) economic cooperation etc.), was welcomed by the Yugoslav government, and became the starting point of the negotiations that were intended to lead to a definitive agreement between the two countries;36 long and difficult negotiations, which the short-lived Leone-Medici government, followed by the equally short Rumor-Nenni one, failed to accomplish. It was, therefore, only in the second half of 1969, after the appointment of Moro as Foreign Minister within Rumor government, that the secret exploratory talks started. Moro agreed to continue negotiations with Yugoslavia, more and more convinced that the territorial settlement established by the London Memorandum now “could not be changed by force” and “could not be changed by agreement”.37 For Moro, the situation set by the London Memorandum had to be respected without making any changes and the deriving “territorial spheres” (which constituted the de facto partition of FTT) were “out of question”. The missing step for the stabilization of the common border was the transformation of the demarcation line between the Italian administration of Zone A and the Yugoslav administration of Zone B into a State border. Naturally, Moro realized that a quick and sudden solution of the Trieste question through the recognition of the de facto partition of the FTT would raise a number of adverse reactions, both locally (even within the Christian Democratic Party of Trieste itself), and at national level, in the extreme

35

AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 247, Memorandum of Conversation between Pavičević and Trabalza, “Top Secret – Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 9 and 21 October 1968. 36 OMPP, Memorandum From the Director-General for Political Affairs, Ducci, to Moro, “Top Secret,” 5 December 1970. 37 Aldo Moro, Discorsi parlamentari (Roma: Camera dei deputati, 1996), Vol. II, 1547; Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” 65.

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right, which could provoke accusations, protests, and violence, just at a time when Italian political life was going through a rather delicate and turbulent phase. Therefore, he continued to believe that there was a need to gradually reach a comprehensive solution capable of solving the territorial problem and at the same time bringing secure political and economic benefits, through the revival of friendship between Italy and Yugoslavia.38 As expected, the talks turned out to be quite complex and difficult, since it was impossible to overcome in a short time misunderstandings and distrust caused by decades of conflicts and hostility. The secret conversations continued for nearly two years, until the autumn of 1970, when – on November 21 – the two officials concluded their work with a report, which consisted of a few points of agreement and many points of divergence. The point of greatest contrast was the Italian claim to tie the recognition of Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B to political and territorial compensation, that would go beyond the return of pockets created by Yugoslav troops in 1947; for Belgrade, however, there was a reciprocal relation between the Italian recognition of Zone B and the Yugoslav recognition of Zone A, because not approving of the first concession would imply not approving of the second concession, calling into question the Italian jurisdiction over Trieste: in essence, if for Rome the demarcation line was not definitive, then nothing could be regarded as definitive, not even Trieste belonging to Italy. Yugoslav representatives made it clear that the legal arrangement of the former FTT was not only a Yugoslav issue, but also an Italian interest, because a hypothetical reopening of the peace treaty provisions would lead to the questioning of the status of both zones: for Belgrade the recognition of Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B was now a simple act of declaration and could not be taken as a justification or a pretext for requesting compensation.39 Difficulties and complications were the result not only of the considerable distance between the Italian and Yugoslav positions, but also of frictions among the Italian diplomats involved in the negotiations. According to the Director of Political Affairs, Roberto Ducci (ambassador to Belgrade from 1964 to 1967), it was necessary to accept the realistic scenario that had emerged after the agreement of 1954 and formalize the de facto borders now existing, including the demarcation line between 38

ACS, CM, b. 131, f. 61 Memorandum of Conversation between Aldo Moro and the Yugoslav Ambassador, Srdja Prica, Rome, 12 December 1970; OMPP, Moro to Trabalza, Rome, 15 December 1970, tel. No. 279. 39 ACS, CM, b. 131, f. 61, Trabalza to Gaja, Belgrade, 8 December 1970, “Top Secret” Note; OMPP, Memorandum From the Director-General for Political Affairs, Ducci, to Moro. See also Perišić’s Notes and Memorandum in AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 247.

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Zones A and B. On the other hand, Milesi Ferretti (with the support and consent of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Roberto Gaja) believed that the recognition of Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B should have a “price”, not only in the restitution of the territorial pockets, but especially in the extension of Zone A towards the south and the change of the maritime boundary in the Gulf of Trieste, in order to give Trieste two-thirds of the Gulf itself.40 This amounted to a diversity of views and approaches that influenced the course of negotiations, making it even more difficult to achieve the final goal, a definitive and comprehensive agreement between Rome and Belgrade. The conclusion – actually not very encouraging and positive one – of exploratory talks was followed by a new crisis in the relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, accompanied by political controversies. Between the end of November and early December of 1970, in fact, negotiation difficulties were further aggravated by the resistance of Trieste politicians and by the strong criticisms made in Parliament by the leaders of the extreme right against the actions of the government; criticism and resistance due not only to the announcement of Tito’s visit to Italy (scheduled for December 10 to reciprocate the state visit made by Saragat the previous year), but also to the press publications about the ongoing contacts between the two governments (whose secrecy was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain). On November 28, in the Roman newspaper “Il Tempo”, an article appeared entitled “Italy to give up on the Zone B of Trieste”. It brought “disturbing” news” from “well informed” diplomatic circles, and announced the possible conclusion of an agreement for the cession of Zone B to Yugoslavia during the upcoming visit of Tito.41 The article provoked protests and controversies, culminating in a series of parliamentary interrogations presented by Members and Senators of the MSI and DC, which questioned the government about the “news circulating in diplomatic circles” and “rumors in the press” on matters relating to Italian sovereignty over Zone B of the failed Free Territory of Trieste. In response, Moro insisted that during his and president Saragat’s recent visit to Yugoslavia unresolved territorial issues were not addressed and that the same would be true of Tito’s stay in Italy; the Foreign Minister, then, gave assurances that the government would not consider 40

Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” 57-8. “L’Italia rinuncerebbe alla ‘zona B’ di Trieste,” Il Tempo, 28 October 1970; “La visita di Tito offende gli italiani; Vibrante adunata dei giuliano-dalmati contro la politica rinunciataria del governo; L’Italia non dimentica la ‘zona B’ di Trieste,” Il Secolo, 2, 8 and 9, December 1970. Also: Nenni, I conti con la storia, 541-3; Giovanni Cavera, “Gli accordi di Osimo e la crisi politica italiana, italiana degli anni Settanta,” Nuova Storia Contemporanea, 2006/3, 24 et sqq.

41

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“any relinquishment of legitimate national interests”.42 As is known, this last sentence provoked a clear hardening of the Yugoslav position, giving rise to animated protest especially in Slovenia and Croatia. As Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Mirko Tepavac, stated during an interview with the Italian ambassador, Folco Trabalza, Moro’s declarations were considered “harmful” to Yugoslav interests, because they had been given in response to a “specifically irredentist” question. The Italian Government had shown no disposition to move away from content and tone of these declarations, which was the reason why, according to the Belgrade government, “acceptable” conditions for Tito’s visit to Italy no longer existed.43 Actually behind the episode of the cancelled visit of the Yugoslav leader to Italy, there was the failed attempt of the Belgrade regime to force the secret contacts in progress. In the preparatory talks for the journey of President Tito, in response to the Yugoslav request to include border issues in the topics for the talks, both Moro and Ducci made it clear that the formalization of the exploratory talks would not be appropriate: the possible reaction of the media and of other members of Parliament increased the Italian leaders cautious attitude in the interests of the success of the meeting; they decided it would be more advisable to maintain maximum discretion regarding the confidential talks already underway and include in the agenda of the presidential trip only problems of international politics which interested the two countries.44 Despite the Italian impression that the Yugoslav leaders had substantially adopted Italy’s point of view, in November 1970, on the eve of the visit, Tito’s associates made another attempt at including the territorial problem in discussion topics. The reason Belgrade seemed to backtrack was identical to that of Rome: the needs of domestic policy. In a double interview between Ducci and Anton Vratuša, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, held in Milan between the afternoon of November 30 and the morning of December 1, in the presence of the Yugoslav ambassador Srdja Prica, Belgrade representatives said they fully understood the internal difficulties which the Italian government had to face (at the same time engaged in discussions on the question of South Tyrol, “another highly unpopular topic”); however, they could not fail to point out that the Yugoslav government had to deal with their own public opinion,

42

AP, Senato della Repubblica, V Legislatura, Risposte scritte a interrogazioni, Vol. V, 5 December 1970, 2443. 43 ACS, CM, b. 131, f. 61, Trabalza to Moro, Belgrade, 8 December 1970, tel. No. 1097, “Top Secret – Very Urgent”. 44 OMPP, Secret Note on the Conversation between Ducci and the Yugoslav UnderSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Pešić, 10 September 1970; Moro to Saragat and Colombo, New York, 23 October 1970, tel. No. 771 “Secret”.

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especially Slovenian and Croatian. In Ljubljana and Zagreb in fact, Italian procrastination was not well understood and people began to suspect that Rome intended only to “beat about the bush”, without wanting to come to any actual conclusion. In the face of ongoing disputes with Bulgaria regarding the Macedonian question and never ending Albanian pressures regarding the problem of Kosovo, the Belgrade regime, under pressure for fear of the re-emergence of internal national conflicts, wanted at least the Adriatic border to be formally recognized. Italy had spontaneously declared itself in September of 1968 to be concerned with the survival, integrity, and prosperity of the Yugoslav Federation. For this reason, Yugoslav representatives needed “some form of assurance”, by which the Italian side would confirm their intention to solve and not to put aside the problem, accompanied by “some concrete evidence of good will”. To this end, Vratuša and Prica showed two proposals to the Director of Political Affairs: the first involved a commitment – that could be taken by the two Foreign Ministers during Tito’s visit, through an exchange of verbal notes – for the continuation of secret talks aimed at the closure of border issues, necessary for any global solution of bilateral questions; while the second involved the decision of the two governments to study and provide, by 1971, a series of measures to improve the welfare of populations at the border. At the end of the conversation, Vratuša also mentioned the possibility of concluding a treaty of friendship and cooperation, in which the Italian government could recognize “with appropriate formulations” the existing territorial status quo without immediate stipulation and registration of a formal document.45 The same proposals were at the center of further talks, held in early December, between the Yugoslav representatives and the Italian ambassador Trabalza.46 The response of the Italian government, however, continued to be essentially negative, not meeting the main Yugoslav demand, i.e. quick formalization of the secret talks between the two countries; the Italian side, in fact, was completely willing to continue with the secret exploratory talks and to consider preparing some measures to be applied even before the final agreement, but only after President Tito’s return from Italy. During the presidential visit, however, Italian

45

OMPP, Memorandum From the Director-General for Political Affairs, Ducci, to Moro. Also: Saša Mišić, “Poseta Josip Broz Tita Italij 1971. Godine,” in Tito – viđenja i tumačenja. Zbornik radova, ed. Olga Manojlović Pintar, Mile Bjelajac and Radmila Radić (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije – Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2011), 508-12. 46 ACS, CM, b. 131, f. 61, Trabalza to Moro, Belgrade, 4 December 1970, tel. No. 1076 “Top Secret,” in OMPP; Trabalza to Gaja, Belgrade, 8 December 1970.

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willingness would not go beyond “hearing with due courtesy” the Yugoslav standpoint on various outstanding issues.47 Therefore, Italian reluctance caused Yugoslav leaders to harden their position and take advantage of the reply given by Moro in Parliament to get out of the awkward situation in which they had been put: in need of international success over a particularly sensitive issue for the Slovenian and Croatian populations (those same people who seemed to want to challenge the internal structure of the Yugoslav regime, demanding greater autonomy and implementation of democratic and liberal reforms), the Yugoslav representatives tried to impose conditions on Rome as to when and how talks would take place, putting Tito’s visit under conditions that had not been mentioned when the invitation was accepted. Probably, to the Belgrade government, postponement of this visit seemed the best way out, not so much to escape a diplomatic failure, but to avoid further internal complications, reaffirming their strong defense of the interests of Slovenia and Croatia, that felt threatened by Moro’s claims. This crisis, however, was quickly overcome in the next few weeks, as the situation was clarified thanks to a conversation between Moro and Ambassador Prica, during which the foreign minister clearly stated that the Italian side had no intention of calling into question or challenging the de facto situation created by the Memorandum of 1954; however, the formal definition of this situation presented a “complex and difficult” problem for the Italian government, which could only be resolved in global negotiations producing an agreement satisfactory to both sides. The complexity and difficulty of the negotiations pushed the government in Rome to dismiss any correlation between President Tito’s visit and discussion on territorial questions, which certainly would not be solved during his short stay in Italy.48 A considerable diplomatic effort was made in drafting a joint communiqué and on 21 January 1971 Moro’s explanations given to the Yugoslav ambassador were released through a statement made by the Christian Democrat leader in the House of Representatives: while addressing the Parliament, the foreign minister stressed that the Yugoslav policy followed by the Italian government was based “on the most sincere respect for treaties and agreements in force, including of course the 47

OMPP, Moro to Trabalza, Rome, 5 December 1970, tel. No. 265 “Top Secret”; ACS, CM, b. 131, f. 61 Moro to Trabalza, Rome, 8 December 1970, “Top Secret – Very Urgent”. 48 ACS, CM, b. 131, f. 61, Memorandum of Conversation between Aldo Moro and the Yugoslav Ambassador, Srdja Prica, Rome, 12 December 1970; AJ, APR, KPR (I-248), b. 90, Prica to Tepavac, letter “Viewed by Tito,” Rome, 9 December 1970. On the Italian-Yugoslav diplomatic crisis of December 1970, see: Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava”, 52 et sqq.; Mišić, “Poseta Josip Broz Tita,” 508 et sqq.

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1954 London Memorandum, and the resulting territorial situation”. On January 28, after the settlement of frictions had been confirmed, the Italian Foreign Minister’s statement was followed by a similar one from Tepavac before the Council of Nationalities: just like the Italian government, the Yugoslav government too – said Tepavac – deemed it necessary to further develop bilateral relations, “in the most consistent compliance with the agreements and treaties, including the Memorandum of 1954, as well as its territorial implications”.49 After settling the crisis, Rome and Belgrade decided to revive the dialogue through a meeting between the two Foreign Ministers, held in Venice on 9 February 1971. Moro insisted on full compliance with the London Memorandum, acknowledging that the 1954 agreement no longer had “any provisional character”. At the same time, however, he pointed out once again that the agreement should be reached without causing disturbances in Italian public life, and for this reason, he considered it necessary to find a comprehensive solution to all outstanding issues (pockets, boundary adjustments, economic and customs agreements) rather than just the problem of Trieste and Koper, through broad, gradual, and above all, secret negotiations. Tepavac, on the contrary, having the absolute need to obtain an international success he could use in front of the Slovenian and Croatian public, continued to push for a quick resolution of the negotiations, or at least for their formalization, which would clearly prove the willingness of both parties to reach a final agreement. The Yugoslav minister asked, therefore, that 18 points in the Italian document, hitherto accepted by Belgrade as a basis for negotiation, be abandoned, and that some minor issues which could be solved immediately should be left out (Sabotin road, Soča basin etc.) for the benefit of the people at the border. The most important outstanding issues (borders, the assets of Zone B, citizenship, special Statute for the minorities), however, would be the subject of formal negotiations. In an attempt to find a compromise that could revive negotiations without creating embarrassment to the two governments, Moro and Tepavac decided it would be appropriate to continue with the secret exploratory talks and, at the same time, agreed on a set of “packages” ready for implementation, for solving the most urgent problems of interest to local people. The two foreign ministers also stated that the two experts, Milesi Ferretti and Perišić, appointed to resume negotiations on the basis of these new assumptions, were to be 49

AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 247, Memorandum of Conversation between Tepavac and Trabalza, “Secret – Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 24 and 30 December 1970; AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Memorandum of Conversation between Tepavac and Trabalza, “Secret – Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 8 January 1971. Also: Mišić, “Poseta Josip Broz,” 515 et sqq.

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supported by their ambassadors in Rome and Belgrade, Trabalza (later replaced in June 1971 by Giuseppe Walter Maccotta) and Prica.50 Once the misunderstandings were resolved and bilateral talks resumed, it was also possible for Tito to visit Italy. The trip of the Yugoslav president, which took place on 25 and 26 March 1971,51 was preceded by a careful diplomatic preparation on the Italian side, in order to make it clear to Belgrade leaders that it would not be appropriate to return to the problems already addressed in Venice “with frank and detailed exchange of views”, which ended with “mutually satisfactory arrangements”. Obviously – as stated by the Italian representatives – no one had anything against Tito touching on these issues during private conversations, if he so wished and found useful.52 On the eve of his departure for Rome, the Yugoslav president confirmed that he was aware of the positive results of the meeting in Venice, as well as of the fact that the Italian government would face serious difficulties if certain issues were raised during the visit; therefore, taking this into account, he imposed a condition that, “in private conversations”, satisfaction with the achieved results should be expressed and that determination to reach a settlement as soon as possible should be manifested.53 During the stay of the Yugoslav leader, there were no surprises or unexpected situations: both governments stressed with enthusiasm the convergences between the two countries on many issues of international politics, without scrutinizing bilateral issues regarding borders and minorities, apart from confidential talks between Tito and Saragat, during which the two Heads of State agreed to take as final the territorial situation already defined after the 1954 Memorandum.54 Tito’s journey was undoubtedly extremely positive, especially in light of what had happened in December. However, the renewed friendship 50

ACS, CM, b. 147, f. 14, Memorandum of Conversation between Aldo Moro and the Yugoslav Foreign Affairs Minister, Mirko Tepavac, “Secret,” Venice, 9 February 1971; AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248 Memorandum of Conversation between Tepavac and Moro, “Top Secret”. 51 As to Tito’s official visit to Italy in March 1971 see the preparatory materials in ACS, CM, b. 133, f. 74. Also: Nenni, I conti con la storia, 578; Cavera, “Gli accordi di Osimo,” 29 et sqq. 52 OMPP, Trabalza to Moro, Belgrade, 23 February 1971, tel. No. 220 “Top Secret”; Gaja to Trabalza, Rome, 10 March 1971, “Top Secret”; Moro to Trabalza, Rome, 10 March 1971. 53 AJ, APR, KPR (I-2-48), b. 90, Memorandum of Conversation between Vratuša and Tito, “Top Secret,” Belgrade 12 March 1971; Memorandum of Conversation between Mandić and Brigante Colonna, “Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 11 March 1971; OMPP, Trabalza to Moro, Belgrade, 12 March 1971, tel. No. 290 “Top Secret”. 54 AJ, APR, KPR (I-2-48/1), b. 90, Memorandum of Conversation between President Tito and the Italian President Giuseppe Saragat, Rome, 23 March 1971.

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between Italy and Yugoslavia left the impression of two weak and unstable political realities that needed reciprocal concessions in order to survive. Both undergoing deep internal divisions and troubled by severe political crises (ethnic and national in Yugoslavia, economic and social in Italy), the two countries almost seemed to want to support each other or even, in some cases, become stronger at the expense of the other. Tito and his collaborators were pressing for the quick closure of the territorial issue through the division of the FTT, hoping to regain Slovenian and Croatian support, increasingly uncertain and wavering. Moro, together with those who shared his political view of openness towards the Italian Communists, saw in close cooperation with Yugoslavia, a socialist but non-aligned country, possible common ground for the creation of a stable and lasting relationship between the DC and the PCI, the only way to overcome that phase of rising political instability and strong social opposition. With the weakening of the center-left government, whose activity was based on collaboration between Christian Democrats and Socialists, Moro found it necessary to include more parties in the governing process by gradually co-opting the Italian Communists and giving life to the era of “national solidarity”. In this context, cooperation with Belgrade could be one of the test beds (but certainly not the only one) to check the feasibility of a possible agreement between the two major Italian parties; an extremely difficult goal to achieve, however, because of the presence of the extreme right which was very sensitive and attentive to the issues of Trieste and the eastern border, and because of the strong local political resistance, even within the Christian Democrats in Trieste. This gave rise to the need – in contrast with the Belgrade regime – to move forward gradually and secretly, hoping to find a global solution, which could convince the public of the importance of friendship and cooperation between the two peoples even at the cost of making some sacrifice.55

4.  The “Secret Channel” and the Settlement of the Trieste Question Despite the positive premises assumed in Venice and confirmed in Rome, during Tito’s visit, the work of Moro and Tepavac’s “quadrilateral group” dragged on for many months, without finding either a common solution for packages which could be quickly implemented or a global solution to the dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia.

55

Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare, 211 et sqq.; Monzali, “La questione jugoslava,” 54-5; Cavera, “Gli accordi di Osimo,” 29 et sqq.

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The meetings of the “quadrilateral group” took place between March 1971 and January 1973, a time of extreme governmental instability in Italy. The period was marked by the formation of three governments over a period of 18 months and by parliamentary elections in May 1972, and serious national tensions in Yugoslavia, culminating in the purge of many communist leaders, Croats, Slovenians, and Serbs, because they were unable to implement reforms without preventing the re-emergence of ethnic rivalries. After a positive beginning, during which two “packages” of measures regarding Gorizia were agreed, conversations did not lead to any concrete results, because the Yugoslav government did not approve of a few measures prepared by the negotiators which were to be implemented immediately. Points of disagreement remained essentially unchanged: the Yugoslav side insisted that the new arrangement should come into effect on the date of entry into force of the 1947 Treaty of Peace, in order to obtain the implicit recognition of the legitimacy of the de facto annexation of Zone B, and avoid any Italian claim for compensation; the solution proposed by Belgrade would not only exclude Zone B from the negotiations, but would affect the settlement of any compensation for assets lost by the Italians, which would be estimated according to the value they had on 10 June 1940. The Italian side, however, Milesi Ferretti in particular, was pushing for agreements to come into effect from the date of entry into force of the future Treaty. As a consequence, the compensation would be reassessed and above all this would become the basis on which a “price” for Zone B could be acquired, in a political, economic, and, according to Milesi Ferretti, even territorial sense. The difference between the Italian and Yugoslav positions was further increased by the problem of Slovenian minorities outside of the FTT. This question, raised several times by the Yugoslavs who demanded special protection for their ethnic groups, met opposition from the Italian negotiators who were against granting Ljubljana the opportunity to expand its influence in the Slovenian communities in Gorizia, Udine and the Natisone Valley. The last serious point of difference was the delimitation of the territorial waters of the Gulf of Trieste, of which – as is known – Milesi Ferretti intended to assign two-thirds to Trieste. Given the reluctance of both parties to take a step back, especially on the first point, confrontation and interruption of the meetings inevitably followed.56

56

AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Memorandum of Three Meetings Held in Belgrade on 5 and 6 June 1971, between Prica and Maccotta in the Presence of Perišić and Milesi Ferretti, “Top Secret,” Belgrade, 6 June 1971; Note on Italian-Yugoslav Relations, “Top Secret – Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 8 September 1971; NARA, Nixon Papers, NSC, CO, Europe – Italy, b. 696, Volpe to Kissinger, Rome, 22 March 1973, tel. No. 2256 “Confidential”.

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The initiative was taken up by the second Andreotti government, with the return of Giuseppe Medici to the Foreign Ministry. At the meeting held on 19 and 20 March 1973 in Dubrovnik, Medici and the new Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Miloš Minić, agreed to revive the bilateral dialogue through real, “secret and possibly quick”, negotiations on the basis of a special “negotiating platform”, which confirmed most of the 18 points of the Italian proposal of 1968.57 Aware of the negotiating difficulties, but determined to close the long territorial dispute, the two foreign ministers, during a private conversation at the margins of the official meetings, stated that, in the case of another breakdown of the negotiations, a “secret channel” would be activated by two technicians: the Director general of the Ministry of Industry, Eugenio Carbone, and the president of the Federal Committee for economic relations, Slovenian Boris Šnuderl.58 The task of conducting negotiations at the official level was assigned once again to Milesi Ferretti and Perišić, as plenipotentiaries and not simple experts engaged in exploratory talks. The negotiations, which began in April 1973 and were also supported – from July 1973 – by the subsequent Rumor-Moro government, soon came to a halt. From the first contacts it was immediately clear that the divergence between the Italian and Yugoslav positions continued to be considerable. The Italian side presented a “comprehensive package” for the solution of all the disputed points, indicating that it did not represent a point of departure, but the upper limit of Italian concessions. It provided for: 1) restitution, almost complete, except for a few minor changes, of pockets of territory illegally occupied by the Yugoslavs in 1947, with an additional correction in favor of Italy of the line established in the Treaty of peace along the banks of Soča in the Mount Sabotino pass; 2) official acknowledgement of the FTT division, with the request to use an area of 10 km2, in the Rosandra Valley and the Ospo Valley, for future expansion of the industrial zone of Trieste and for finding water resources; 3) the division of the territorial waters of the Gulf of Trieste, assigning to each party a three-mile zone along their coasts, and establishing a sort of Italian-Yugoslav co-ownership for the remaining part of the sea; 4) the appointment of ad hoc delegations for the conclusion, in the shortest possible time, of an agreement relating to

57

AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Memorandum of Conversations between Minić and Medici, 19 and 20 March 1973, “Viewed by Tito,” Dubrovnik, 20 March 1973; NARA, Nixon Papers, NSC, CO, Europe – Italy, b. 696, Volpe to Kissinger, 22 March 1973. Also: Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” 58; Viljenka Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja (Koper: Založba Annales, 2007), 49-50. 58 Škorjanec, Osimska, 50 et sqq.

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Italian goods in Zone B, which would have to ensure “free and permanent availability of an adequate and fair compensation” for those assets whose ownership would be lost or had already been lost by the owners; 5) the lease of a territorial belt in Zone B which could be used for the enlargement of the industrial area of Trieste; 6) an agreement for cooperation between ports.59 At the next meeting in May 1973, the Yugoslavs responded with a counter-proposal, which not only failed to take account of the Italian document, but also represented a significant step backwards compared to the previous negotiations. The Yugoslav document eliminated, both on land and at sea, any benefits regarding Gorizia and Trieste, even the minimum benefit which could justify the conclusion of an agreement that involved the complete Italian surrender of Zone B. In addition, Belgrade demanded the establishment of a Joint Commission in charge of dealing with the problem of minorities. As a result, a droit de regard would be introduced, in contrast with what had been established by Medici and Minić at the meeting in Dubrovnik. They had agreed that it was desirable to simply make “solemn declarations” on the issue, leaving it to each government to act unilaterally on the domestic level. The Belgrade counter-proposal was followed by a very negative reaction from the Italian side, and at the last meeting in December 1973 Milesi Ferretti underscored the radically different nature of the two texts: the Italian one was conceived as a point of arrival, in order to avoid long and exhausting negotiations; the Yugoslav text, however, was clearly an initial platform, so that, if the Italians presented a document representing a similar starting point, it would require years of negotiating to reach an agreement.60 Despite the fact that the Italian ambassador reaffirmed the absolute “good will” of Rome to achieve an equitable solution (an initiative which was followed a few days later, on 9 January 1974, by an equal reassurance given to the new Yugoslav ambassador in Rome, Pavičević, by Moro, who returned to the Foreign Ministry in the fourth Rumor government),61 it was clear that the negotiations had suffered a new setback, making increasingly evident the enormous difficulty of concluding negotiations,

59

AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Memorandum of Conversations between Perišić and Milesi Ferretti, “Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade 16 April 1973. 60 OMPP, Italian-Yugoslav Talks. A General Overview (memorandum without date, but presumably from 1974); NARA, Nixon Papers, NSC, CO, Europe – Italy, b. 696, Volpe a Kissinger, Rome, 10 May 1973, tel. No. 3703 “Confidential”. 61 AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Memorandum of Conversation between Pavičević and Moro, “Top Secret – Viewed by Tito,” Rome, 9 January 1974.

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which in six years – 1968-1974 – had not achieved a single concrete step towards resolving the long dispute between Italy and Yugoslavia.62 Yet another failure of negotiations caused a new controversy fuelled by the decision of the Yugoslav authorities in the spring of 1974 to force the deadlock reached in negotiations by adding the words “Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Socialist Republic of Slovenia – State border”, to road signs at transit points between Zone A and Zone B. The negotiations had lasted for several years already and in Yugoslavia there was an increasingly feeling that the Italian side was only looking for a dilatory solution, waiting for a favorable moment, such as the internal weakening of the Belgrade regime or an international act, such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia, to take up the entire Zone B. Hence the decision of the Belgrade government to break the deadlock with a fait accompli, and push the UN and the powers signatory of the London Memorandum to ask the Italian and Yugoslav governments to close the dispute in a realistic way, which, for Belgrade, meant on the basis of the status quo implemented since 1954. This was especially relevant as there were preparatory works going on for the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, among whose guiding principles there were the respect for the territorial integrity of States and inviolability of their borders.63 The Italian government responded to the Yugoslav fait accompli with a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which, besides protesting about the arbitrary change of status of the demarcation line, it was added – wrongly – that the line divided the territory under Italian sovereignty, instead of zones under provisional civilian administration. Despite the Italian attempt to lighten in extremis the contents of the note, the effect in the Yugoslav government was extremely negative: the gesture was interpreted as a confirmation of the distrust of the real Italian intentions and it represented a real step backwards. Bilateral relations suffered, inevitably, a sharp deterioration, further aggravated in Yugoslavia by controversial statements and public interventions (such as Tito’s in Sarajevo on April 15 against the Italian claims and in defense of the Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B.64  At a certain point, Yugoslav policy seemed to take on the tone and content of a real anti-Italian campaign that

62

OMPP, Italian-Yugoslav Talks. A General Overview. Also: Viljenka Škorjanec, “Jugoslovansko-Italijanska pogajanja o dokončnosti meje,” Tokovi Historije, 2007/1-2, 233 et sqq. 63 OMPP, Carbone to Moro, Rome, 15 December 1974, “Top Secret” Report. Also: Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” 61. 64 Škorjanec, “Jugoslovansko-Italijanska pogajanja,” 236-7.

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culminated with the concentration of Yugoslav troops at the border with Italy.65 In order to overcome the critical situation which had arisen in the relations between Italy and Yugoslavia and pick up the thread of negotiations, it was necessary to open the informal channel as agreed at Dubrovnik by Medici and Minić. Secret negotiations began in July 1974 in a completely isolated location near the airport of Ljubljana. Šnuderl and Carbone, experts on economic issues, were assisted by career diplomats: the first one, by two former members of the Yugoslav Embassy in Rome, Minister Ratko Močivnik and Counselor Veselin Popovac, and the second one by the Counselor of legation Ottone Mattei, born in Rijeka, an Adriatic and Balkan affairs expert and proficient in the Serbo-Croatian language.66 It became clear that the initial distance between the Italian and Yugoslav positions was hardly diminished: Carbone was authorized to negotiate on the basis of decisions made at the meetings in Venice 1971 and Dubrovnik 1973 (restitution of pockets and request for political and economic concessions in exchange for Zone B); Šnuderl, however, would have to proceed taking into account the existing border and keeping in mind Tito’s statements regarding the non-negotiability of Yugoslav sovereignty over Zone B, but above all he would have to refuse to return to 18 points and the platform of Dubrovnik, as requested by Italy.67 Despite the fact that the preconditions were not encouraging – as, indeed, had been the case in all previous attempts – the negotiations ended on 21 November 1974, with agreement reached on all disputed points and the preparation of a treaty outline and economic agreement.68 The closure of the dispute became possible because the Italian government did not lay any more territorial claims to Zone B (other than minimal and symbolic), but merely insisted on economic and commercial compensations. After the failure of previous negotiations, conducted for the most part by Milesi Ferretti, Ducci’s political line prevailed within the Foreign 65

Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” 59-62. Also: NARA, Nixon Papers, NSC, CO, Europe – Italy, b. 696, Kissinger to Volpe and Toon, Washington, 25 April 1974, tel. No. 086711 “Secret”. Ortona, Anni d’ America, Vol. III, La cooperazione: 1967-1975, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1989, 494. 66 AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Memorandum on the Ongoing Italian-Yugoslav Negotiations, “Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 17 October 1974. Also: Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” 63-4; Škorjanec, Osimska, 83 et sqq., which so far has been the most accurate and analytical study on the last round of the Italian-Yugoslav negotiations. 67 AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Memorandum on the Ongoing Italian-Yugoslav Negotiations; OMPP, Italian-Yugoslav Talks. A General Overview. 68 AJ, APR, KPR (I-5-B), b. 248, Letter From Minić to Tito, “Top Secret – State Secrets – Viewed by Tito,” Belgrade, 3 December 1974; OMPP, Carbone to Moro, Rome, 15 December 1974.

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Affairs Ministry, favorable to the formalization sic et simpliciter of the division of the unborn FTT, in the belief that the revival of friendship between Italy and Yugoslavia could bring major political and economic benefits. The “comprehensive proposal” of the agreement developed by Šnuderl and Carbone provided for: 1) the restitution to Italy of pockets, illegally occupied by Yugoslav troops or, alternatively, the exchange of equivalent areas; 2) partition of the Free Territory of Trieste along the demarcation line fixed by the 1954 Memorandum, which thus became the State border, with a Yugoslav commitment to put at the disposal of Trieste industry the water resources in the Rosandra and Ospo Valleys, including an area of 14 km2 to be used as a free zone for the industrial expansion of Trieste; 3) the division of the territorial sea of the Gulf of Trieste in compliance with the rules of the Geneva Convention, giving Italy a zone of deep water for the free passage of supertankers; 4) degradation of the 1954 Memorandum and its Annexes, maintaining, only in the province of Trieste and in Zone B, a level of protection of respective ethnic groups, similar to that provided for in the Special Statute for minorities; 5) lump compensation, considered fair by both parties, for all assets confiscated since 1945 until the date on which the opportunity for the population of Zone B to opt for Italy would end; 6) conclusion of an agreement for economic cooperation in many sectors of operation (raw materials, water and energy resources, construction activities, agricultural, tourist, and freight collaboration).69 The creation of a free industrial zone, located in Karst in the north-east of Trieste, between Basovizza, Opicina and Sežana, and extended mostly into Yugoslav territory, but subject to the commercial regime of the free zones of Trieste, was the real compensation Carbone obtained for the local Italian population, which – according to him – could greatly benefit from such an opportunity. Reviewing the agreement in a lengthy report to Moro in December 1974, the Director General of the Ministry of Industry stated that, in order to properly appreciate the value of the proposed solution, it was necessary to bear in mind that the main goal to achieve was to ensure the economic future of Trieste. For Carbone, beyond the territorial issues, it was the economic survival of Trieste that needed to be safeguarded: “Trieste has an economic importance, even more today than yesterday, – the Italian official explained  – only if it can become the base for traffic and primary processing of goods for Central and Eastern Europe and, even better, if it becomes a point of departure towards the East”.70 To establish a

69

OMPP, Carbone to Moro, Rome, 15 December 1974. Ibid.

70

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far-reaching “socio-economic” center – Carbone claimed – it was not enough to simply enlarge the “limited local activity”; therefore, the availability of very limited lands, such as the Rosandra and the Ospo Valleys, which were referred to in the early stages of negotiations, could not be sufficient. Upon closer examination, through surveys and prospecting routes, the two areas south of Trieste were considered by both parties altogether unsuited for the establishment of a large industrial zone. The Director General of the Ministry of Industry believed that the creation of a large manufacturing district was essential to direct the main industrial activities of the richest areas of Yugoslavia (mainly located in Slovenia) to the port of Trieste and nip the potential competition of Koper and Rijeka (possible terminals of the waterway that would link the Adriatic, the Danube and the Black Sea) in the bud. The rebirth of Trieste, as a trading terminal with a large industrial area, would allow port activities to be revived, exploiting the resumption of Mediterranean trade with Africa and the East due to the reopening of the Suez Canal. Therefore – according to Carbone – to jump-start the economy, it was necessary to bring the Italian and Yugoslav industries closer to Trieste, as it was the only way to force Yugoslavs and those trading through Yugoslavia with Danubian and Balkan Europe, to make the area of Trieste their exclusive center of land, sea and inland waterways traffic.71 After a series of adjustments of the text proposed by Šnuderl and Carbone (a process which, however, took several months), the negotiations finally came to an end leading to the final draft of the agreements signed in Osimo, 10 November 1975, by Minić and Rumor, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the fourth Moro government. The Treaty, therefore, offered a solution to three key issues: 1) settlement of the Yugoslav-Italian border, 2) improvement in bilateral relations and 3) protection of minorities of the former FTT. Rome and Belgrade recognized de jure territorial arrangements of the London Memorandum, making them the definite boundary between Zones A and B. Representatives of the two countries declared that they wanted to improve neighborly relations with a “quality leap in economic and cultural cooperation”, establishing a free zone, which could favor the possible inclusion of Yugoslavia in the European Common Market and the inclusion of Italy in the space of Balkan and Eastern European economies. The two governments finally committed themselves to maintaining a level of protection of their national minorities in the former zones A and B according to the rules of the special Statute, annexed to the London Memorandum, whose overall content, under the new agreement, was doomed to decline.72 71

Ibid. See the text of the Treaty in Manlio Udina, Gli accordi di Osimo. Lineamenti introduttivi e testi annotati (Trieste: Lint, 1979), 83 et sqq.

72

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The Osimo agreements had a positive impact on Italy’s general political and economic interests and contributed to great improvement in bilateral relations between Rome and Belgrade “so that it can be pointed out as an example of relations between the countries with different regulations and belonging to different political systems”.73 For the first time in the history of Italian-Yugoslav relations, a true friendship was attained. It was characterized by several important economic, commercial and financial agreements and underlined the crucial role of Yugoslavia in the Balkan and Adriatic political strategy of Italy which aimed at preservation of regional settlements, both political and economic, capable of insuring national interests.

73

Maccotta, “La Iugoslavia,” 232-3; Cavagliari, “Jugoslavia: ricordi di un’ambasciata,” 45.

247

A Difficult Reconciliation on the Adriatic The Yugoslav Road to the Osimo Agreements of 1975 Saša Mišić The relations between Yugoslavia and Italy after the Second World War passed through numerous phases and changes. The aftermath of the war was marked by crises and disagreements focused on the border issue and the solution for the destiny of the territory of Julijska krajina (Venezia Giulia) with the city of Trieste as its capital. The Trieste issue was opened at the very end of the war, when Yugoslav troops entered this city on 1 May 1945. It was temporarily solved through intervention of the big powers, by agreements signed in Belgrade and Duino, on 9 and 20 June respectively, that same year, creating the so-called Morgan Line which divided Julijska krajina into two occupation zones: Zone A with Trieste, which was placed under the control of the Anglo-American allies, and Zone B, under Yugoslav control. The Treaty of Peace signed in Paris in 1947 partially drew the border between Yugoslavia and Italy, leaving unregulated however several disputable points along the entire border line from the YugoslavItalian-Austrian tri-point in the north to the Adriatic Sea in the south. Nevertheless the Treaty did temporarily solve the destiny of the city of Trieste and its hinterland by the decision to create the Free Territory of Trieste, which was put under the administration of the United Nations. Failure to constitute the FTT and permanent tensions around the border caused numerous crises, the most serious one occurring in October 1953 when the two states came to the brink of armed conflict. The crisis was solved after secret negotiations, by signing the Memorandum of Understanding in London in October 1954, which incorporated Zone A into the Italian state, while Zone B remained under the administration of Yugoslavia. Since the MOU was of a temporary character and only a provisory solution, these areas entered the composition of the above mentioned states de facto, but not de iure.1 1



Literature on the events along the Yugoslav-Italian border in the period from 1945 to 1954 is extensive. Here we quote only the most important works: La crisi di Trieste. Maggio-giugno 1945. Una revisione storiografica, ed. Giampaolo Valdevit (Trieste: Istituto Regionale per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione nel Friuli – Venezia Giulia,

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The Treaty of Peace and the MOU did not solve all disputable issues between the two states. On the contrary, they left open a set of issues, which remained to be solved in the coming period. The majority of them pertained to the areas incorporated into Yugoslavia after the Second World War, or to the frontier zone between the two states. They were divided into two groups. The first group consisted of the issues deriving from contractual obligations: final definition and demarcation of the border; the problem of ethnic minorities visible through unregulated status of members of national minorities on both sides of the border; restitution of cultural-historical and art treasures; some unresolved issues of the optants. The second group consisted of issues arising from contractual obligations: property-financial issues of the incorporated area and the former Zone B; conclusion of conventions on consular and legal assistance; conclusion of cultural convention and many others.2 The border issue was the most disputed in bilateral relations. The border line which extended from the tri-point of Italy, Yugoslavia and Austria to the Gulf of Trieste, about 216 km in length, was by its legal character and the diversity of the international instruments it rested upon divided into several sectors: north sector, from the tripoint of Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia to the tripoint of Yugoslavia, Italy and the former FTT; part of the border between the former Zone A and Yugoslavia; the border between the former Zones A and B and the border in territorial waters and in the Gulf of Trieste. At these sectors, there were several disputed points which remained without demarcation: Kolovrat (Colovrat), Sabotino (Monte Sabotino), Brda (Collio) and Gorica (Gorizia). On the other hand, the border between the former Zones A and B was regulated by the MOU,

2



1995); Diego De Castro, La questione di Trieste. L’azione politica e diplomatica italiana dal 1943 al 1954 (Trieste: LINT, 1981); Raoul Pupo, Fra Italia e Iugoslavia: saggi sulla questione di Trieste (1945-1954) (Udine: Del Bianco Editore, 1989); Giampaolo Valdevit, La questione di Trieste 1941-1954: politica internazionale e contesto locale (Milano: F. Angeli, 1986); Giampaolo Valdevit, Il dilemma Trieste. guerra e dopoguerra in uno scenario europeo (Gorizia: Libreria Editrice Goriziana, 1999); Bogdan C. Novak, Trieste 1941-1954. The Ethnic, Political and Ideological Struggle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Le conflit de Trieste 1943-1954 (Bruxelles: Editions de l’Institut de Sociologie de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1966); Nevenka Troha, Komu Trst. Slovenci in Italijani med dvema državama (Ljubljana: Modrijan, 1999); Jože Pirjevec, “Trst je naš!”: boj Slovencev za morje (1848-1954) (Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2008); Bojan Dimitrijević, Dragan Bogetić, Tršćanska kriza 1945-1954. Vojnopolitički aspekt (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2009); Miljan Milkić, Tršćanska kriza u vojno-političkim odnosima Jugoslavije sa velikim silama 1943-1947 (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2012). AJ, KPR, I-3-а/44-15, Reception of the Ambassador Alberto Berio, 5 March 1960.

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whereas there was no treaty whatsoever to regulate the demarcation of the territorial waters and the Gulf of Trieste.3 For the Yugoslav side, the border defined by the Treaty of Peace and the MOU was definite, so it attempted to treat the entire demarcation problem from the tripoint at the north to the Adriatic Sea at the south in a unique manner. Italians saw the border issue from another angle. Like the Yugoslavs, they wanted to “close” the border issue as soon as possible, but this pertained only to the border line defined by the Treaty of Peace, all the more because they thought that Yugoslavia, the Paris Peace Conference decisions notwithstanding, violently “occupied” parts of Italian territory – the so-called pockets – including the overall space of above 360 hectares.4 The attitude of Italy towards the line which divided the former Zones A and B was significantly different. For them this was not a state border, but only a demarcation line, so they insisted on its provisory nature. For Italy, these were two separate issues, without any mutual legal connection whatsoever.5 The different approaches to the state border issue and the status of the former Zone B came to the fore during the unsuccessful negotiations of 1964. Namely, after several attempts in the second part of the 1950s, the most important of which was made in 1959, Yugoslavia and Italy at the end of 1963 agreed to entrust the state border task to two plenipotentiary ambassadors. The discussions began in March 1964 in Rome and were carried out by ambassadors Riccardo Giustiniani and France Kos.6 After several months of discussions and when it seemed that the compromise and the solution were within reach, the Italians announced that during the negotiations they only had in mind the border line according to the Treaty of Peace and in the Gulf of Trieste, but not the border between the former Zones A and B of the FTT, which for them remained “provisional” so that Italy preserved the sovereignty over the entire territory of the former FTT. Due to this Italian stance, the negotiations failed. Apart from the border, an important issue of bilateral relations that had to be solved pertained to the regulation of the status of national minorities. This was particularly related to the Slovenian ethnic group in Italy. The specificity of this minority was that it lived in the territories of three Italian provinces (Trieste, Gorizia and Udine) and that their status 3



4



5 6



АЈ, KPR, I-3-a/44-46, Discussion material on the occasion of the visit of the President of the Republic of Italy Giuseppe Saragat to the SFR Yugoslavia in October 1969. There were 362 hectares under Yugoslav occupation, while Italy held 32 hectares. AMIP, PA, Italy, year 1955, b. 27, folder 2, No. 47978, Note – Italian interpretation of the provisionality of the MoU, 15 June 1955. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1964, b. 78, No. 416310, Report of the Second Directorate of the State Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, 15 April 1964.

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was differently regulated, depending on where they lived. The Trieste Slovenians enjoyed most of the rights, as they were under the protection of the Special Statute of 1954, those who inhabited the territory of Gorizia enjoyed certain rights stipulated by Italian legislation, whereas the minority members who lived in the province of Udine were in the worst position, with their national minority status not being recognized by the Italian state at all.7 The crucial breakthrough in solving the “open issues” – as all the unresolved issues pertaining to the border were most often called – came in 1968. The crisis in Czechoslovakia caused by the USSR military intervention against this country – which happened in August that year – greatly influenced the development of political relations between Yugoslavia and Italy. The disagreement of Yugoslavia with USSR politics and their condemnation of military intervention removed any doubt about the independence of its politics, which caused Italy to change its reserved and distrustful policy towards Belgrade. Moreover, Italy started to observe its relations with Yugoslavia from the angle of its own security, so that in numerous public and secret acts of its state officials it gave support to Belgrade.8 The improvement of relations in 1968 also contributed towards the solution of all those issues which so far remained unregulated. After the Czechoslovakia crisis, Italy gave impetus to the solving of these issues including the most sensitive one, which until then had not been a topic of discussion – the final “state-legal” regulation of the border drawn up by MOU, i.e. its transformation from demarcation line to state border. The initiative for solving all “open issues” was formulated by the then Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Giuseppe Medici in October 1968, as a document which listed in 18 items all the problems that needed to be solved. Yugoslavia accepted this proposal, and the task of carrying out the confidential “explorative” discussion was entrusted to two diplomats, Zvonko Perišić and Gian Luigi Milesi Ferretti.9 From the autumn of 1968, the resolution of the “open issues” corpus, although current, did not play a significant role in political relations 7



8



9



More on this: Nevenka Troha, “Položaj slovenske narodne skupnosti v Italiji in italijanske v Sloveniji med letoma 1954 in 1990,” in Na oni strani meje. Slovenska manjšina v Italiji in njen pravni položaj: zgodovinski in pravni pregled 1866-2004, ed. Gorazd Bajc (Koper: Knjižnica Annales Majora, 2004), 141-66. More details on Yugoslav-Italian relations in the time of Czechoslovakia crisis: Saša Mišić, “Jugoslovensko-italijanski odnosi i čehoslovačka kriza 1968. Godine,” in 1968 – Četrdeset godina posle, ed. Radmila Radić (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije, 2008), 293-312. Mišić, “Jugoslovensko-italijanski odnosi i čehoslovačka kriza,” 305-6; Viljenka Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja (Koper: Založba Annales, 2007), 42-3.

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between the two states, whereas in public it was almost not present at all. The confidential talks led by Milesi Ferretti and Perišić were in the shadow of the very vivid attempts of both states to deepen and expand their cooperation in numerous fields of bilateral relations. However, during 1970, the “open issues” started to gain more and more importance primarily due to deterioration of the political situation in both states. The political climate in Italy was permeated by frequent governmental crises, social and economic instabilities and strong pressure of the right wing, which often had the Trieste issue and relations with their Eastern neighbor as its topic. In Yugoslavia as well, this was the time of internal difficulties, flourishing of nationalism and attempts in the Yugoslav republics to get as much independence as possible in carrying out their foreign policies, which were to become ever more present and visible during the 1970s. The resolution of “open issues” came to the fore at the very end of 1970, at the time scheduled for the visit of the Yugoslav President Josip Broz to Italy. Due to the Slovenian pressure exercised upon the state leaders, Yugoslavia attempted to use the visit to resolve some of the disputed issues.10 Italy, on the other hand, out of respect for its own rightist and irredentist circles, which opposed this, wanted a protocol visit. The disagreement about the character of the visit brought bilateral relations into a serious crisis and resulted in its being postponed. Only after considerable effort on both sides was the crisis overcome and Tito visited Italy in March 1971.11 From then on, the resolution of “open issues” started to occupy more and more space in overall political relations of the two countries, and Yugoslavia increasingly attempted to remove the issue of the unresolved interstate border from the agenda, presenting it as an “anachronism” and a permanent source of misunderstandings and crises in bilateral relations, for the benefit of Italian irredentists, fascists and all opponents of good neighborhood relations. A hope that the “open issues” might be finally resolved was offered by the meeting of the Italian Head of Diplomacy Giuseppe Medici and the Yugoslav Federal Secretary of Foreign Affairs Miloš Minić in Dubrovnik in March 1973. The importance of this meeting was that it opened two parallel channels for negotiations. Perišić and Milesi Ferretti were to continue the official secret negotiations on the basis of the then formulated common platform, with the task of finishing the negotiation process as 10

АЈ, KPR, II-2/485, Reception of the delegation of SR Slovenia, 4 October 1970. Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (1945-1999) (Roma: Aracne, 2008), 53-61; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 44-45; Saša Mišić, “Poseta Josipa Broza Tita Italiji 1971. godine,” in Tito – viđenja i tumačenja, Zbornik radova, ed. Olga Manojlović Pintar, Mile Bjelajac, Radmila Radić (Beograd: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije – Arhiv Jugoslavije, 2011), 505-20.

11

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soon as possible and preparing a draft of a general agreement. At the same time, the ministers agreed tête-a-tête to establish another channel for negotiations about the interstate border issue. To that end they named two secret envoys assigned to preventing the failure of negotiations in the case of emergence of difficulties in the Perišić-Milesi Ferretti talks and continuing to negotiate until the final solution was achieved. The roles of secret envoy were entrusted to Eugenio Carbone, General Director of the Ministry of Industry of Italy and Boris Šnuderl, member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), that is, the Yugoslav government.12 However, after several months of negotiations, Perišić and Milesi Ferretti did not reach an agreement, while the side-channel had not been activated.13

1.  The last Trieste crisis Since from the Perišić – Milesi Ferretti negotiations led after Dubrovnik it was obvious that the Italian side interpreted the Yugoslav readiness for discussions as an exclusive interest of Yugoslavia for resolving the “open issues”, Belgrade decided to no longer initiate their continuation. On the other hand, one of their priority tasks was to somehow bring the Italians into the situation of themselves presenting their attitude on the future of the negotiations. In the event that the Italians believed that the negotiations were no longer in their interests, the Yugoslav state leaders would not allow this to damage global bilateral relations, however at the same time emphasizing that in that case it would not tolerate any event which would challenge Yugoslav sovereignty and territorial integrity, border security, rights and protection of minorities, i.e. all those acts which could be interpreted as Italian attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia.14 In November 1973 after months of waiting, the Yugoslav state leaders nevertheless made the decision to stop their existing tactics of remaining silent and waiting and to bring up the issue of a definite state border with Italy in a more decisive manner. This was because the Federal Secretariat of Foreign Affairs assessed that the Italian government – headed since the 12

Viljenka Škorjanec, “Jugoslovensko-italijanski odnosi v luči dubrovniškega srečanja zunanjih ministrov 1973,” Zgodivinski časopis, 3-4, 55 (2001), 479-87; Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava”, 63-4; Luciano Monzali, “‘I nostri vicini devono essere nostri amici’. Aldo Moro, l’Ostpolitik italiana e gli accordi di Osimo,” in Aldo Moro L’Italia Repubblicana e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia et al. (Nardò: Besa-Salento Books, 2011), 102. 13 Viljenka Škorjanec, “Neuspeh jugoslovansko-italijanskih diplomatskih pogajanj v letu 1973,” Zgodovinski časopis, 1-2, 57 (2003), 147-62; Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava”, 64-6. 14 VIRI 23, 151; Škorjanec, “Neuspeh jugoslovansko-italijanskih diplomatskih pogajanj v letu 1973,” 155.

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month of July by the Christian Democrat Mariano Rumor, with his party colleague Aldo Moro as the Head of Diplomacy – were not prepared to observe the deadline for its resolution given in Dubrovnik, and because the government in Rome was continuing to use its old prolongation tactics.15 To this end, the Yugoslavs attempted to start the discussion on “open issues” on several occasions, particularly in the time of Milesi Ferretti’s visit to Belgrade in December. At the same time, they threatened to publicize the existence of secret negotiations carried out so far.16 An additional pressure on the Italian government to finally declare itself about the Dubrovnik platform was the invitation to the Yugoslav Ambassador in Rome Miša Pavićević to come to Belgrade to report. All the above obviously yielded results, since Minister Moro on January 9th, 1974, after more than five months of prolongation, finally received Pavićević.17 This meeting did nothing to cheer up the Yugoslavs, in spite of Moro’s attempts to assure his collocutor that Italy accepted the obligations undertaken by the previous government in relation to the “open issues” and that the politics of friendship and cooperation of his country towards Yugoslavia would not change. Only two days after the meeting of Moro and Pavićević, the Collegium of the Federal Secretary for Foreign Affairs had a meeting, attended – besides Minić – by his Deputy Jakša Petrić, Zvonko Perišić, Ambassador Pavićević and the leading persons of the foreign affairs offices from Croatia and Slovenia.18 The main topic of the meeting was future action towards Italy in resolving the “open issues” within the framework of the overall political relations with this neighboring country. The general impression of those present at the meeting was that there were certain tactics and hidden intentions lying behind the behavior of the Italian government. Jakša Petrić included the Italian behavior into the framework of broader US and NATO plans towards Yugoslavia. He considered Moro’s behavior not to be a reflection of personal motives of the Minister, but a result of certain politics which were underpinned by an attempt to move the accountability for the failure to resolve the problem to 15

VIRI 23, 201. That this was not an empty threat is testified by the speech of the President of the Assembly of SR Slovenia Sergej Krajgher held on December 23, 1973 in Lipica, which the Delo daily published in full and in which the high Slovenian leader announced that the public would be informed on the border-related “open issues” by the Assembly and the Executive Council, “in a timely manner”. AMIP, PA, 1973, b. 48, f. 6, No. 456137, Cable of the Deputy State Secretary sent to the Embassy in Rome on 27 December 1973. 17 AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17, Note about the talks between the SFRJ Ambassador in Rome M. Pavićević with the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Aldo Moro on 9 January 1974. 18 For the shorthand notes from the Collegium see in: VIRI 23, 185-206. 16

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Yugoslavia. He was very precise when he said that the real goal of Italian prolonging the resolution of the “open issues” was to “create a situation where issues are not resolved and wait for a more favourable moment in which they will be able to realize their aspirations, which were territorial re-vindication”. Although he did not see the solution to the new situation in a deterioration of political relations and “opening of the battlefield” against the neighboring state, he did think that Yugoslavia should not allow itself to again become the victim of Italian “tactizing”. Therefore he proposed the implementation of the tactics of full incorporation of the former Zone B into the framework of Yugoslavia and the taking of decisive measures if Rome should try to violate and block such action. The majority of the participants at the meeting agreed with Petrić’s presentation. The Federal Secretary Minić agreed, as well, that Italian politics fitted into the broader framework of US politics, however adding that Rome also expressed a more independent initiative for a closer cooperation with Yugoslavia. In that context he presented his own view of Italy’s policy towards Yugoslavia. On the one hand there was an attempt to develop and as much as possible diversify interstate cooperation in all fields, particularly in economy. Contrary to these policies of friendship, good neighboring and development of overall cooperation stood an attempt to keep the issues pertaining to the former Zone B and the border open and to cover, by prolongation tactics, their actual “irredentist” expectations towards Yugoslav territory.19 Minić also briefly defined the essence of Yugoslav politics towards the neighboring country. It consisted of acceptance of the offered comprehensive cooperation, since that was in the interest of Yugoslavia as well and in accordance with the good neighboring policy which Belgrade particularly cared about. On the other hand, Yugoslavia attempted to negotiate the “open issues” with Italy in order not to be blamed in the international community for hampering the situation and not resolving the problems. In parallel with the negotiations, Yugoslavia attempted to fully incorporate the former Zone B. On the basis of the discussion held on 11 January, the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs in February 1974 created a report on Yugoslav-Italian relations and elaborated the platform for future policy towards the Western neighbor.20 The starting thesis was that Yugoslavia 19

In mentioning the irredentists Minić did not have in mind only “pro-fascist” circles at Italian political scene, like the party Movimento Sociale Italiano – Destra Nazionale, but claimed that such attitudes are also shared by other “very serious forces” in Italy. In a moment of the debate he underlined that irredentism is the “basis of the entire Italian attitude,” ibid., 195. 20 VIRI 23, 206-14.

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would not favor the deterioration of relations with Italy. In that sense the platform stipulated an entire series of steps for improvement and enrichment of bilateral cooperation in various fields. Where it concerned border-related issues, the first task was to “reformulate the name of the problem” in order not to call them the “open issues” anymore, but only “Italian non-recognition and non-regulation of 22 km of border according to the MOU”. The platform stipulated full incorporation of what were now called the Buje and Koper areas – instead of the term Zone B – within the Yugoslav state. This implied: fast nationalization of Italian property, expansion of the social care convention with Italy of 1956 to this area and change of the terminology of the Udine Agreement on small-border traffic of people.21 Finally, it stipulated diplomatic activity in several directions, the most important of which was to promptly react to any attempt of Italian pretensions to this area. Obviously in accordance with the Collegium’s conclusions of 11  January, the Yugoslav/Slovenian party only a few days after the meeting took the first step aimed at incorporation of the former Zone B into the composition of Yugoslavia. In order to publicly demonstrate that the line between the former Zones A and B is the definite state border, it mounted metal signs reading: “SFR Yugoslavia-SR Slovenia” at three border crossings – Pesek (Pese), Škofje (Rabuiese), and Sveti Jernej (S. Bartolomeo). This move was not a novelty, since ten years earlier Yugoslavia also put up signs between Zones A and B, however not metal, reading “State Border”.22 The difference was that in October 1964 Yugoslav authorities removed the disputed sign after official protest from Rome. In January 1974, however, they had no intention of doing so. The reaction of the Italian side related to the mounting of metal signs at the border was not long in coming. The official reaction came on 21 February, when Ambassador Pavićević was summoned to Farnesina (which was another name for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs). On that occasion the General Director for Political Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Roberto Ducci handed him a “nota verbale” dated 15 February.23 It pertained to the Yugoslav action with the signs, with a note that this was contrary to the Peace Treaty and MOU according to which “Yugoslav sovereignty has never been expanded to Italian territory labeled as ‘Zone B’ of the unrealized Free Territory of Trieste”.24 21

Ibid., 213. ACS, CM, b. 162, file 7, 3 February 1974. Top-Secret, Note for the minister. 23 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 59, f. 10, No. 462400, Notes and other materials of the SSFA regarding Italian pretensions against the Yugoslav territory. 24 Ibid.; AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 1, No. 48277, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 23 February 1974. 22

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Belgrade’s fierce reaction to the handed note followed swiftly the next day, after the Yugoslav diplomats in Rome had translated and studied its content more carefully. Pavićević requested an urgent meeting with Ducci with the explanation that the attitude from the note verbale about the Italian ownership of Zone B had so far been an irredentist attitude, and not that of official state policy. Hence he asked Ducci if there was a “mistake” in formulation or if it had now become also official Italian policy. During the meeting which took place the same morning, Ducci immediately emphasized that it was a misunderstanding which had occurred due to poor coordination at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and said to the Ambassador that they withdrew the note and considered it nonexistent. Instead he made a verbal demarche omitting the disputed claim of Italian ownership of Zone B.25 In spite of verbal withdrawal of the note verbale, and also therefore the disputed statements, the Yugoslav side was not satisfied. The Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs considered that there was no “mistake”, but a deliberate move made with an aim to “affirm” the stance of Italian sovereignty over Zone B. Therefore it requested the decision on cancellation of the note to be announced in writing.26 Instead of doing so, on 11 March the Italian side submitted a new note which only repeated the content of the previously cancelled one.27 Belgrade responded to this on 15 March, when Petrić handed to the Italian Ambassador in Belgrade, Walter G. Maccotta, a note verbale as a reply to the note which the Italian side had presented several days earlier.28 It presented two main theses which will become the basis for understanding the Yugoslav position during the crisis. It started from the attitude that Yugoslavia and Italy regulated their border with two treaties, the Treaty of Peace and the MOU, by which Yugoslavia gained sovereignty over the territory of the former Zone B, which implied that any claim of Rome speaking about the Italian character of this area in fact was an attack against the sovereignty and 25

AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 1, No. 48276, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 23 February 1974. It is interesting that among the documents preserved in Aldo Moro’s papers there is a note about Ducci’s discussion with Ambassador Pavićević of February 22. It does not mention the note verbale from the day before, but only the verbal protest. It says that Ducci requested a fast reply from the Ambassador about the motives which made Yugoslavia mount the disputed metal signs at the border and noted that he retained the right to hand him the protest in written form. ACS, CM, b. 162, f. 7, Note, Rome, 22 February 1974. 26 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 1, No. 49762, Cable from Belgrade sent to the Embassy in Rome on 28 February 1974 (also published in: VIRI 23, 216). 27 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 1, No. 410915, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 11 March 1974. 28 AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17, Note about the talks of the Deputy State Secretary J. Petrić with the Italian Ambassador Walter G. Maccotta on 15 March 1974.

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territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. Another argument pertained to the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe which at that time was in session in Geneve,29 and which was to have a much broader effect. The message of the Yugoslav note was that Italy, by its actions, “undermines the foundations” of the efforts of European countries for peace and it warned Italy not to destroy the good neighborly relations between the neighboring countries which had been built up over two decades.30 Thus in mid-March 1974 a crisis started, which was to last for several months and took the form of a “war” with notes and statements. The crisis contributed to the beginning of the last phase in the “open issues” resolution. Both sides attempted to find possible solutions which motivated the other side to take actions which worsened the situation. In an analysis of motives which might have made Rome hand in the note denying the sovereignty of Yugoslavia over the former Zone B, the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs stated several elements. The reason was searched for in the difficult international position of Yugoslavia, in which context the time congruence of this act with the “well-known Western speculations related to the SFRJ” was particularly pointed out.31 Also, it stressed numerous Italian internal political reasons, like more intensive “turmoil in the Italian ruling structure”, crisis in the relations inside the ruling coalition of the left center, conflict of democratic forces within the extreme right wing and numerous other problems. It was also speculated that there had been a possible interference of the Soviet Union due to the fact that the 29

After the meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs in Helsinki in July 1973, the Conference continued to work intermittently at the expert level in Geneve, in the period from September 1973 to July 1975. See: From Helsinki to Vienna: Basic Documents of the Helsinki Process, ed. Arie Bloed (Amsterdam: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1990), 5. 30 For the text of the note see: AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, No. 412267; ACS, CM, b. 162, f. 7. 31 AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17, Reminder about some most important issues pertaining to the most recent developments in relations with Italy, 13 March 1974. Yugoslavs were particularly upset by the attitude of the USA and the “reactionary circles” in the West in which politics towards Belgrade was assessed as showing an “open discontent”. This conclusion was grounded on the negative reactions caused by the non-aligned countries movement, particularly after its 4th conference held in Algeria in 1973, as well as by the assistance which Yugoslavia offered to Arabs in their war with Israel in October the same year. The changed US attitude was shown by the fact that the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger avoided meeting Minić at the session of the General Assembly in New York in autumn 1973 and spoke against non-aligned countries, as well as in his call to the NATO countries to reduce the level of relations with Yugoslavia. The AntiYugoslav campaign dominated by the thesis that Belgrade approached the USSR was not neglected either, and nor were the “speculations” about Tito’s poor health and the “Polarka” plan which was extensively written about in the Western press. (AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 9, No. 417 529, Elaborate “The resume of Italian pretensions to the former Zone ‘B’ and our further action”. The revised text of this report was submitted to Josip Broz on 30 April, under the title: “The resume of Italian territorial pretensions towards Yugoslavia and our further action plan,” AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17.

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beginning of the crisis coincided with the visit to Rome of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrej Gromyko during which the Soviet diplomat allegedly stated that Moscow found acceptable some smaller border corrections in Europe providing the respect of sovereignty.32 At first the Farnesina attempted to interpret the motives which led to the Yugoslavs mounting the disputed border signs. On the one hand, in that act they saw the attempts of Belgrade to force the Italian side to conclude an agreement on the “open issues” as soon as possible. Another motive might be the CSCE sitting at which the attitude of Yugoslavia, in Italy’s opinion, moved closer to Soviet attitudes. Numerous internal problems together with unstable Yugoslav relations with the USSR, should also be included.33 At the FEC session held on 20 March 1974, the Yugoslav side made decisions that would present the grounds for carrying out their policies towards Italy in the coming period.34 The action was planned to unfold in several directions. Yugoslavia intended to internationalize the state border issue by the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs instructing the Yugoslav delegation at the CSCE to inform the Conference on “Italian pretensions that are a blow to the goals of this Conference” and an attempt of “revision” of the situation created after the Second World War. Meanwhile, all diplomatic representatives of Yugoslavia worldwide were instructed to demand an explanation for the “essence of the hostile acts” of the Italian government. This particularly pertained to the USA, USSR, Great Britain and France. The United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim should also be informed on everything.35 The intention 32

AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17, Reminder about some most important issues pertaining to the most recent developments in relations with Italy, March 13, 1974. The analysis stated that the USSR and other socialist countries kept attempting to attract Yugoslavia into their camp by developing a comprehensive bilateral cooperation. When it was about the Soviet view to the foreign political relations of Yugoslavia, particularly to the politics of non-aligned countries, it was concluded that it was much more “elastic”, but motivated by understanding that this offers them concessions in global politics and derived from the belief that the non-aligned are the “strategic reserve” of socialist countries. The attitude of other socialist states in relation to the dispute with Italy was interpreted in the same manner, being assessed as restrained and reserved. The USSR’s constant support to Bulgaria in the dispute about Macedonia was neither neglected. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 9, No.  417 529, Elaborate “The resume of Italian pretensions to the former Zone ‘B’ and our further action”. 33 ACS, CM, b. 162, f. 7, 3 February 1974, Top-Secret, Note for the Minister. 34 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 4, No. 414 643, Letter of the Federal Executive Council to the SSFA on 29 March 1974. 35 Ibid.; AMIP, PA, Italy, b. 58, f. 1, No. 412478, Cable of the SSFA sent to the SFRJ Embassies in Moscow, Washington, London and Paris and to the SFRJ Mission to the UN New York, 22 March 1974.

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of informing the big powers and the UN was not to seek for arbitrage or support, but to present the Yugoslav view of the dispute with Italy and demonstrate “firmness and decisiveness” in the defense of territorial integrity.36 On the domestic front, the same decision of the FEC instructed the social-political organizations to take “appropriate actions” in order to inform the general public within Yugoslavia about everything, in as much detail as possible. The first results for the FEC of “activating” the general public became visible very soon, as after only a couple of days “spontaneous” demonstrations and public protests against the Italian government began across the country. Besides this, regular briefings started in order to declaim the Italian aspirations as fiercely as possible. As early as 22 March, everything began to take the shape of a well synchronized and well led campaign. All the daily, radio and television led with the news about Italy, richly illustrated by photos from the protest rallies dominated with chants of support the state leaders. Regarding Italy, the state leadership took the stance of reacting in the fiercest manner and to ultimately “bring the matter into the open”.37 Aiming at using the “clumsiness” of the Italians, Belgrade directed the focus of its action towards the government, thus leaving an “intact” space for action of all Italian political forces which were in favor of good neighbor relations with Yugoslavia.38 In this they used the same tactics as in previous situations when interstate relations had deteriorated. While sharply attacking the government in Rome, Yugoslavs simultaneously attempted to reach, through personal contacts, the leaders of political parties and prominent individuals from political and public life, no matter if ruling or opposition, with whom they had previously developed cooperation, with the intention of directly informing them of the newly arisen dispute and explaining to them their position. In that manner they wanted to cause “diversification” inside the Italian government and thus undermine its position. Everything mentioned above was performed with an intention to force Italy to resolve the “open issues”. Yugoslavia did not only inform the domestic and foreign public and diplomats about the newly arisen dispute. Already, on 23 March, it had demonstrated force on its border with Italy. Namely, it had moved its troops towards the border/demarcation line – five infantry battalions – whereas several tanks appeared on the streets of Koper.39 The news about 36

Ibid. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 1, No. 412441, Letter of the First Directorate of the SSFA sent to the Embassy in Rome on 21 March 1974. 38 Ibid. 39 TNA, FCO, 28/2637, R.T. Jenkins to Green 27 March 1974. 37

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the tanks was published in the Italian press as well.40 The fortification works at the border and military manoeuvres in the countryside started simultaneously. The fierce reaction of the Yugoslav public and the large dimensions which the campaign gained also surprised the Italians, particularly due to the fact that the protest meetings in factories and rallies in squares and streets were most common far from the Italian borders, in an entirely different part of the country, in Serbia and Macedonia.41 For Italian Ambassador Maccotta, the entire anti-Italian campaign, by its methods and forms, resembled the one organized in Italy in the time of fascism.42 When the deteriorated bilateral political relations turned into a very serious crisis, the Italian side once more studied the possible motives which made Yugoslavia react so fiercely. In the report addressed to Farnesina at the end of March, Maccotta again stated a series of reasons of internal and foreign-political nature. The internal reasons pertained to the complex situation in the country due to a sensitive relationship between the Yugoslav republics and the federation, as well as to the increased roles of the republics in foreign policy creation, reflected in that the republics had to be informed on any decision of the Federal Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Therefore, in Maccotta’s opinion, there was no adequate reaction in federal institutions to the decision of Slovenian leaders to erect the disputed border notices, in spite of the expected negative reaction in Italy. Foreign political reasons were influential as well. The Italian note “fell” at the time of heightened sensitivity in Yugoslavia, as it felt marginalized and isolated. In relations towards the West, it considered that there was an increased lack of interest for the situation in Yugoslavia. At the same time, Yugoslavs believed that the West expected a post-Titoist period, particularly due to the speculations about Tito’s health.43 This was – in 40

The information was first published in Piccolo on 24 March, to be followed the next day by Corriere della sera by a text of its journalist Enzo Passanisi, “Perché i cari armati jugoslavi a Capodistria.” (Giovanni Cavera, “Gli accordi di Osimo e la crisi politica italiana degli anni Settanta,” Nuova Storia Contemporanea 2006/3, 34). Because of these texts Yugoslav authorities prohibited the distribution of these issues of Piccolo and Corriere della Sera. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 55, f. 1, No. 413431; ibid., No. 413508. 41 AMIP, PA, Italy, b. 58, f. 2, No.  413799, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 23 March 1974. 42 Walter G. Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” Rivista di studi politici internazionali, 60, 1993/1, 61. 43 The Federal Secretary for Information Dragoljub Budimovski told Maccotta that the Italian note of March 11 was the “crown” of the campaign created in FR Germany which came to Italy via Austria and was related to the Soviet pressures in relation to Tito’s health. (ACS, CM, b. 163, f. 2, Tel. from Maccotta to Italdip, Secret, 26 March 1974). As a first reaction a theory appeared in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that at the back of the entire “fuss” about the note there was the fact that Tito was

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Ambassador Maccotta’s opinion – the context in which Belgrade considered the Italian action related to the note which stated the former Zone B to be Italian territory. Therefore Belgrade assessed that, after numerous speculations, this Italian action was the first concrete Western act directed against the Yugoslav state, so they reacted fiercely by sending the warning message addressed to Italy, however having a much broader meaning.44 On the first days of April, the Yugoslav-Italian dispute gained a new, broader dimension and an even more serious character. The trigger was the manoeuvre of amphibian NATO forces in the area of the northern Adriatic Sea and in the northern part of Italy. On the Yugoslav side, the manoeuvres served to enhance the pressure on Italy, as well as to accuse the US and NATO tor taking the Italian side in the ongoing dispute. The intervention of Belgrade and the anti-American press campaign which followed caused a negative reaction of the US representatives both in Belgrade and in the State Department. Notwithstanding the assurances of Washington that they were against supporting any territorial pretension, Belgrade continued insisting that the manoeuvres were a part of the Western pressure on Yugoslavia. Moreover, Yugoslavia attempted to present this as a part of a much broader plan for attack against the non-aligned politics and the non-aligned countries “exactly in the period of their important activation and the need for even higher engagement in the big issues of international relations”. Therefore it requested stronger engagement from its diplomats in non-aligned countries, for obtaining “statements of solidarity” or “supportive texts” in the media of these countries. The Ambassadors in the NATO countries were expected to obtain an official dissent from such politics.45 At the end of April 1974, the Yugoslav part completed the formulation of its attitude for future actions towards Italy. It passed a detailed plan of measures that should be taken in the coming period.46 The Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs assessed that in the present situation Yugoslavia was no longer interested in the formal conclusion of a seriously ill which in fact motivated Yugoslavs to move the troops at the border and start a series of fierce protests across the country. However, Tito’s public appearance during the visit of the Egyptian President Sadat, on which occasion he appeared as a “tanned” and healthy man, confuted these rumors. TNA, FCO, 28/2637, A.J. Hunter (Belgrade) to A.F. Green (London), 29 March 1974. 44 ACS, Carte Мoro, b. 163, f. 2, tel. from Maccotta to Italdip, Secret, 20 March 1974. 45 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 58, f. 6, No. 415494, Circular cable of the SSFA sent to all diplomatic-consular offices of Yugoslavia, 2 April 1974. 46 These measures made an integral part of the already mentioned report “The resume of Italian territorial pretensions towards Yugoslavia and our further action plan”. AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17.

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border-related agreement and that it would appreciate a “statement or an official act” of the government in Rome that the border was definite. Only after this statement would Belgrade be ready to negotiate some issues discussed years ago, like the “pockets” at the northern sector of the border, maritime border, compensation for Italian property and resolution of the status of the Slovenian minority in Italy. However they would not discuss these things in a “package” nor secretly as had been done thus far.47 The primary goal of Yugoslavia was to realize, over time, the full incorporation of the Buje and Koper areas into the framework of the state, including the military presence in this area. In its relations towards Italy, Belgrade did not intend to block further development of bilateral cooperation, deciding however that each important action should be observed through the lens of the “opportunity of the moment”. Nevertheless, it was decided to temporarily terminate all protocolrelated contacts, entirely “freeze” military cooperation and terminate the consulting practice between the two Ministries of Foreign Affairs started in 1969. Regular diplomatic contacts should be continued, at the level of solving daily issues, whereas political contacts, pertaining to the programs of achieving some concrete goals, should be dealt with according to each individual case. Particular attention was paid to the position of the Slovenian minority, the problems of which should be solved through all existing channels and not only through the mixed committee for minority affairs. Finally, cooperation should be continued in the fields with visible Yugoslav interests. This above all else pertained to economic cooperation, with a note however that contacts with Italian businessmen should be used for explaining Yugoslav political attitudes related to the crisis.48 As regards foreign policy, the direct task of Yugoslav diplomacy was to get more actively involved for the sake of “isolation” of the Italian position in relation to other countries. A particular role in this sense was given to the diplomatic consular offices abroad, which should “extraordinarily and maximally” devote themselves to the explanation of Yugoslav attitudes and in that manner influence as many counties as possible to opt for the Yugoslav side in the dispute. Belgrade intended to insist in the CSCE on the definiteness of its borders with Italy and their inviolability, while after the Conference it planned to give an “interpretative statement”.49 47

Ibid. Ibid. 49 Although the quoted report stated that activity at the CSCE should depend on further development of the situation and behavior of Italy and that Yugoslavia would “keep this channel open”, the head of diplomacy Minić at the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs collegium delegated to talk about this document said that Yugoslavia would use the CSCE. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 66, f. 2, No. 420221, Summary and conclusions of the meeting of collegium of Federal Secretary for Foreign Affairs held on 26 April 1974. 48

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The policies towards other neighboring countries also gained importance, so it was insisted that during the dispute on the Western borders the relations with other countries should not be open “without an urgent need”. The action towards major powers was particularly important, especially towards the USA, as well as towards the non-aligned countries. Yugoslavia even considered referring the dispute to the UN forum, but only as the “ultimate step”.50 In early May, the relations between Belgrade and Rome were still tense; however, it became obvious that the peak of the crisis had gone. In an intention to end the dispute, Italy attempted to broadly affirm the ideal of bilateral global negotiations on the “open issues”, and therefore activated its ambassadors in numerous countries of the world in order to explain its attitude and elaborate the need for negotiations, while the same was done in contacts with the diplomatic corps in Rome. To the same end, Ducci met Pavićević on several occasions in late April and in early May.51 In these informal and “semi-official” talks he assessed as unrealistic and unrealizable the Yugoslav insistence on the government in Rome officially withdrawing the note of 11 March – on which Yugoslavia persistently insisted during the crisis – since such an act would damage the prestige of Italy as a state. Instead, he proposed a renewal of negotiations as the only way for solving all the “open issues” between the two states, particularly the problem of the former Zone B, since for Italy it was impossible to unilaterally recognize the demarcation line as the state border. Yugoslavia did not look benevolently on the Italian initiative for starting the bilateral global negotiations, as this was opposed to the publicly declared attitude that for Yugoslavia the border issue no longer existed, that it was solved, and that no talks about the former Zone B could be considered. And while the official relations of the two countries re-entered the tension, in deep confidentiality, out of the diplomatic frame and the public eye, there was fervent activity, focused on the activation of the secret negotiating channel established in March 1973 in Dubrovnik, with Boris Šnuderl and Eugenio Carbone as its main actors.

2.  Towards the Adriatic Peace The renewal of contacts came in the second half of May when Carbone visited Šnuderl in his house in Piran.52 In his words, he came to the meeting with the knowledge and approval of the leading Christian Democrats 50

AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17, “The resume of Italian territorial pretensions towards Yugoslavia and our further action plan.” 51 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1974, b. 59, f. 3, No. 421845, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 7 May 1974. 52 VIRI 23, 236; V. Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 68.

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Rumor, Moro, Giulio Andreotti and the President of the Republic Giovanni Leone, and with an “offer” to continue the “job” initiated a year before. The idea of activating the secret channel got support from the Yugoslav state leaders led by Josip Broz, who agreed with the opinion of the Federal Secretary Minić to go that way and “see” what kind of solution could be accomplished.53 The official decision to give the “green light” for the beginning of negotiations to the two secret negotiators came on 18 June at the meeting of the Presidency of Yugoslavia in Karađorđevo.54 That was how during the month of June 1974, Yugoslav-Italian relations started to develop on two tracks. While the official relations witnessed the continuation of the debate and argument which Moro was trying to solve through Ambassador Maccotta, Carbone mediated in opening the secret negotiations channel in order for the “open issues” to be finally solved. The reasons which motivated the Italians to start this dual policy were unknown to the Yugoslav administration. Minister Minić, who at the above mentioned Presidency meeting notified the attendees on the condition of Yugoslav-Italian relations, considered that such “two faced” politics was not a result of fluke, but “calculated”, and that it reflected the division at the top of the Italian state, where on one side there were the leaders of the Christian Democrats who directed Carbone to seek negotiations with Yugoslavia, whereas on the other side there was the “enigmatic” Moro considered to be the attorney of the “official line”. Minić concluded that Italy was such a country where “today one doesn’t know who to talk to and which government to talk to,” to which Tito responded: “When the government is strong it won’t [negotiate], and when it’s weak it can’t”.55 As a response to such politics, Minić suggested that Yugoslavia should use the same tactics, accept the offered secret negotiations and at the same time continue the public debate.56 The present members of the Presidency accepted this suggestion. The secret negotiations between Šnuderl and Carbone started in July in the castle of Strmol, Slovenia. Italians tried to embrace all the questions that were discussed in the previous years, and for this reason their empowerment stated that the solution should be looked for “in the spirit” of the earlier meetings of the foreign ministers of the two countries in Venice in 1971 and Dubrovnik in 1973. The Yugoslavs, 53

VIRI 23, 229. AJ, 803, b. 16, State secret, Shorthand notes from the 3rd session of the SFRJ Presidency held on 18 June 1974 in Karađorđevo; VIRI 23, 228-30; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 83. 55 AJ, 803, b. 16, State secret, Shorthand notes from the 3rd session of the SFRJ Presidency held on 18 June 1974 in Karađorđevo; VIRI 23, 229. 56 Ibid.; VIRI 23, 230. 54

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on the other hand, were interested in discussing only the solution of the border issues and the questions directly related thereto.57 The first rounds of negotiations held from the end of July until the beginning of September 1974, concentrated on considering all the delicate issues that were the theme of negotiations in the previous stage. At the beginning of negotiations, for tactical reasons, both working groups backed out of what was agreed a year before in the negotiations between Perišić and Milesi Ferretti, and previously agreed trade-offs were withdrawn. Most of the attention was devoted to demarcation, and also to the question of forming a free industrial zone, motioned during the meeting of Minić and Medici in Dubrovnik in 1973, that the Italians insisted on. The delegations managed to harmonize attitudes about most of the questions, barring a few litigious spots at the border. There was, however, one question that was not that easy to solve. It was the problem of the status of the Slovenian minority in Italy. After ending the first talks held in the second half of July, it was clear that the resolution of this problem would be the biggest challenge. The Yugoslav side persistently insisted that the future global agreement also had to contain provisions regulating the rights of national minorities. The reason for this attitude was the fear of the Yugoslav side, primarily Slovenians, that after abolishing the MOU, and therefore the Special Statute which guaranteed the rights of the Slovenian minority in Trieste, the minorities would remain without the protection guaranteed by an international treaty. In this, they wanted the future international treaty to encompass the entire Slovenian minority that lived in Italy, while the status of the German minority in South Tyrol was accented as a desirable model on which Italy could be requested to base their treatment of the Slovenian minority issue. Italians had a completely different view. From the beginning they wanted to completely exclude the minority issue from the global agreement.58 Their attitude was that this problem should be regulated in a way that after abolishing the MOU the minority issue should be solved “only on the basis of the internal Declarations of the two governments”.59 Their bitter experience with the German minority in South Tyrol here played an important role, as the government in Rome did not want to repeat it by concluding an agreement similar to the one that was signed by Karl Gruber and Alcide De Gasperi in 1946. Since the first meeting of Carbone and Šnuderl in July of 1974, the Italian negotiator considered the minority issue to be of a political nature, so that there was no place for 57

VIRI 23, 245; V. Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 72-3. Ibid.; VIRI 24, 69. 59 Ibid. 58

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it in an agreement that should primarily treat the border.60 The most that the Italian side would offer at the beginning of the Strmol negotiations was that the minority issue should be mentioned in the preamble of the agreement, while the details of a resolution of the minority issue would be addressed in unilateral statements that governments would give before their parliaments. After exhaustive negotiations, the Italian side in the final phase of the Strmol negotiations did at least agree that the future treaty should contain an article pertaining to the minorities. In accordance with the Yugoslav suggestion, it had two paragraphs. The first one defined the minority situation in the whole territory where the Special Status from 1954 was in force. This stipulated that Yugoslavia and Italy should “maintain enforced” all the provisions passed during the implementation of the Status, but also should provide the level of security provided for by this international act. The second part was even more important. It stated that the two countries would “independently carry out their maximum protection policies” for minorities guided by international enactments such as the UN charter. It was also envisaged that the two governments give ceremonial declarations to their parliaments in which they would more specifically define their policies towards minorities.61 The significance of this stance and the declaration was that it was related to the minorities that lived out of the area where the Special Statute was in power, principally to the Slovenians who lived in the provinces of Gorizia and Udine. During the October and November of 1974, delicate border issues were also solved in Strmol. The draft of the treaty suggested drawing the north sector border in such a manner as to keep the majority of the delicate “pockets” within the framework of Yugoslavia. The most delicate point was the Kolovrat reef, because of its strategic importance. After long negotiations, during which military leaders of both countries were being consulted, the solution that the demarcation line should go along the reef so that both countries are present in that point was accomplished.62 The solution was also found for the demarcation in the Gulf of Trieste. Although the border was defined according to the Yugoslav suggestion of 1973, the Italians got a “minor” reclamation at the exit of the Gulf.63 This 60

VIRI 24, 32; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 92. AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17, Report about the course of negotiations with Italy about border and other issues sent to the President Tito by the SSFA on 25 November 1974. 62 Ibid. Considering the fact that under the provisions of the Peace Treaty Italy could not build its military fortifications less than 20 km from the border, the strategic position of Yugoslavia was safe. 63 AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-17, Report about the course of negotiations with Italy about border and other issues sent to the President Tito by the SSFA on 25 November 1974; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 108. 61

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enabled big ships to float into the Trieste port without disturbance. The negotiations also decided that Italian war ships could sail along the inner side of the Palagruža islands in a convoy of the NATO navy.64 That is how at the end of November, six months after the first meeting, Carbone and Šnuderl ended the negotiations in Strmol. The wording of the agreements about the “open issues” and about certain questions on economic cooperation, such as a free industrial zone, were harmonized and closed. According to the pre-agreed procedure, the negotiators had to initial them and submit them to the foreign ministers for signing. However, the signing was conditional on the prior approval of the political leaders of both countries. For the Italian side it was by no means easy task, due to the unstable political and economic situation in which the entire country found itself throughout the whole year of 1974. Frequent spats within the ruling coalition of the left center that in several cases brought the government to the brink of collapse culminated on 3 October when the Mariano Rumor cabinet resigned. The political climate was additionally poisoned by the violent actions of the extreme right wing with bomb attacks, kidnapping and murders, and imbued by numerous scandals and conspiracies the biggest of which was the one related to the arrest of the ex-intelligence chief on suspicion that he was involved in the plotting of the coup d’état in 1970. The unstable political situation was accompanied by considerable economic difficulties deepened by the oil crisis that struck Italy, which was a big importer of this energy, with its full force.65 Yugoslavia also had domestic troubles, with additional difficulties foreign affairs caused by a problem arising with Austria, due to the minority issue.66 After the end of December 1974, when Yugoslav state leaders positively assessed the negotiations held in Strmol, a positive evaluation from Rome was impatiently expected as well. But weeks were passing, and there was no reaction. Meanwhile Yugoslavia attempted to keep political relations frozen inasmuch as it tried to avoid any kind of public expression of good neighborly relations based on which it could be concluded that the relations between the two countries were back to normal. Unlike the Yugoslav stance, it seemed that Italy wanted explicitly to show by some 64

Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 108. Italy was particularly affected by the oil crisis considering that it was getting 80% of its energy demands from import. TNA, FCO, 33/2721, Italy: annual review for 1974. 66 In October 1974 Yugoslav relations with Austria seriously deteriorated, with the issue of the Slovenian and Croatian minority in this country being at the center of the  dispute. Yugoslavia opened the minority issue, considering that Austria hadn’t met the regulations from the 1955 Austrian State Treaty that guaranteed minority rights to the Slovenian and Croatian population. Belgrade therefore handed a note to Austria in order to exercise political pressure upon this country. 65

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external manifestations how bilateral relations were back on a positive footing.67 Finally, on 30 January 1975, the Italian side asked via Maccotta for a new Šnuderl-Carbone meeting with a note for a need for some minimal changes to what was agreed in Strmol. These were supposed to be of procedural character, but there was no precise detail about what they were relating to.68 While awaiting the scheduled meeting, the Yugoslav side attempted to uncover the real Italian reasons for convoking the new meeting. As some weeks passed without a response, it was not at all sure whether it really was just about changing parts of the treaty or if it amounted to a crucial change of Italian approach to the resolution of this issue, i.e. that Italy was giving up on the resolution of this issue, within the set of a wider US and NATO strategy towards the Yugoslav state. The possibility of finding anything out in Rome was quite limited. The regime of strict confidentiality of negotiations, the limited number of those who were involved in them and in addition were ready to talk about it, were almost insurmountable obstacles for Yugoslavs. Therefore everything was limited to assumptions about the possible motives. All these assumptions were ended by a new meeting of negotiators that occurred on 12 March 1975 in Dubrovnik, more than three months after the last meeting held in Strmol. Suspicion of the Yugoslav side that the Italians had a lot more than an editorial proofreading of the agreement in mind was shown to be true during the first meeting of negotiators. Namely, Carbone presented a whole set of remarks that Italian state leaders had regarding the draft of the Strmol treaty. Besides minor correction of the text, that did not essentially change what was agreed, the Italians asked for a few major changes. The agreement about the mainland and maritime border was not challenged, but changes were requested regarding minorities, free goods and citizenship. Italian negotiators justified these demands by saying that they were exposed to severe criticism from state leaders, who accused 67

An obvious example for this was the endeavor of the Italian side to obtain, on the occasion of the quinquennium of the publication of the Ital-jug journal, official statements of some Yugoslav and Italian leaders about bilateral relations. The Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs rated this as a famous tactics of Rome to, by the means of “certain manifest actions before the public of the two countries and the world create an illusion of successful unfolding of cooperation, while at the same time postponing the resolution of fundamental issues between the two countries that are under the jurisdiction of the government”. АMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 53, f. 9, No. 41483, Note of the First Directorate of the SSFA of 20 January 1975. 68 АЈ, KPR, I-5-б/44-18, Note from the talk between the Vice President of the Federal Executive Council and the Federal Secretary of International Affairs M. Minić with the Italian Ambassador G.W. Maccotta, upon request of the Ambassador, 30 January 1975. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 53, f. 11, No. 44716, Cable of the SSFA sent to the SFRJ Embassy in Rome on 31 January 1975; VIRI 24, 91-3.

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them of being too permissive in negotiations, especially regarding the minority article.69 This especially became emphasized at the meeting of Moro, who in late 1974 had taken over as Prime Minister, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs Rumor and representatives of the parties that supported the government in the parliamentary session held during February. At the meeting, due to the insistence of the Prime Minister, a request came to exclude from the article about the minorities the second paragraph pertaining to the minority that lived outside the area regulated by the Special Statute.70 Yugoslav negotiators, with Minić’s approval, refused the request for the amendment to the minority-related article as unacceptable; however, the Federal Secretary for Foreign Affairs ordered the delegation not to quit negotiations, but to attempt to find out if the Italians would offer some result that would keep the essence of the earlier agreed solution. After some hesitation, Carbone offered a possibility to move the controversial article about minorities to the preamble of the treaty. After two days of negotiations and under pressure from Šnuderl, he also suggested the text of the clause that should be put into the preamble, along with the reservation that it exceeded the authorization that he had and that he would have to ask for the government’s consent.71 The remaining controversial issues were resolved more easily and with minimum trade-offs from both sides. The Dubrovnik meeting was concluded on 15 March, with an agreement to continue the contacts and to wait for the necessary final approval from Rome regarding the Dubrovnik solutions. Carbone conveyed the approval of the Italian side that the treaty could be initialized in a relatively short period of time, but that its signing must wait until the end of the regional and local elections scheduled for mid-June. Once again he repeated that Rome was not fond of the idea that the whole thing be finalized before the CSCE session, because they did not want an impression to be given that the Conference had forced the two countries to enter into an agreement.72 After the seemingly well done job in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia was expecting that the Italian state leaders would give a positive response to the minority-related article and that finally the harmonization of the texts and the initialization of the treaty would be approached. During this time the Yugoslavs stayed consistent in their decision to maintain slackness in political relations at the government level. However, they sought to develop relations in all those areas of international cooperation where in 69

VIRI 24, 103; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 124. AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-18, Information on the results of the talks with Italian delegation about new Italian proposals (in Dubrovnik, 11-16 March 1975). 71 VIRI 24, 108-9; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 132. 72 Ibid. 70

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their assessment there were “on-going problems”. Special attention was dedicated to the revival of economic cooperation. Besides the economy, the accent was also put on developing and deepening the contacts with relevant political parties and organizations, such as the Communist Party of Italy, left wing trade unions and veteran organizations. Hence it was not surprising that the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of Italy held in the second half of March attracted a lot of attention from the Yugoslav public, together with the visit to Belgrade of the Head of the Italian communists Enrico Berlinguer that occurred at the end of the same month.73 Besides the above, there was an insistence upon developing and diversifying the border and regional cooperation and working towards accomplishing and respecting the rights of the Slovenian minority in Italy. In this manner, special attention was dedicated to the revival of mixed bodies in charge of minorities and economic conditions, for which sessions had been awaited for a long period of time. That was particularly true for the Mixed Committee for Minorities that hadn’t met since December 1973, and of which Yugoslavia persistently insisted on a session being held during the spring of 1975, especially after Slovenian Silvo Devetak was appointed the Chair of the Yugoslav part of the Committee.74 Farnesina accepted with “bewilderment” the insistence of the Yugoslav side on the meeting of the Mixed Committee, along with the interventions related to some irredentist excesses in Trieste,75 because of bringing the controversy into international relations, and as a “sidepricking” at the time when the discussions about signing the final treaty were coming to an end.76

73

During a harsh debate about signing the Yugoslav-Italian treaty, certain members of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano  – Destra Nazionale emphasized that the agreement about the border was accomplished after the Tito-Berlinguer meeting and discussion in March (Marina Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale 1866-2006 Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007, 341-2). However, from reading the minutes from the TitoBerlinguer meeting it can be concluded that the border issue was not the topic of the discussion. On the talks Tito-Berlinguer see: AJ, KPR, I-3-a, Visit of the PCI Secretary General Enrico Berlinguer, 29 March 1975. 74 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 54, f. 2, No. 422154, Note in relation to the situation about the meeting of the Mixed Yugoslav-Italian committee for minorities on 7 May 1975. 75 Yugoslavia made demarche through the advisor of the Rome Embassy Vitomir Dobrila because of the participation of local representatives of civil and military authorities at the celebration of “refugee day” that was marked in February in Trieste. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 52, No. 419 135, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 16 April 1975. 76 Ibid.

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Meanwhile, the news came from Rome in the first days of May regarding the secret negotiations. Carbone notified Šnuderl that one more meeting of the working groups would be needed, in order to resolve all the “open issues” and initial the final text of the treaty. He, however, rather vaguely mentioned that even after the initializing Rome would keep a reserved attitude towards the border drawn around the Sabotino and would leave its definite resolution for the final meeting of the two ministers and the final signing of the treaty.77 The new meeting of the negotiators was held from 21 May until 8 June in Strunjan near Piran. On this occasion Carbone announced that the Italian side accepted that the section of the minority-related article should be moved into the preamble of the future treaty, but with correction of the remaining text of this article, and also with changes to the text of the letters that the two ministers were to exchange regarding the declaration on minorities. This solution was, however, conditional on getting territorial concessions at the Sabotino. That is how in Strunjan the central place of negotiations was held by the minority article issue and the Sabotino border, while other smaller questions that remained after Dubrovnik were solved without any special difficulties and with concessions made on both sides.78 To convince the officials in Belgrade that requests for Sabotino were the last they had and that after this there would be no new changes to the treaty, the Italians on 24 May, while the negotiations in Strunjan were underway, officially informed Pavićević through the Secretary General of Farnesina Roberto Gaja.79 Gaja also suggested the scenario of further moves after ending of negotiations between Šnuderl and Carbone. The Italian government planned to notify the parliament right after the regional and local elections scheduled for 15 June on its readiness to resolve all the controversial issues with Yugoslavia through negotiations. This would be followed by negotiations, but only of a formal character.80 Formal negotiations were necessary to the Italians for internal reasons, as the government had until then denied that negotiations were even being held. For Yugoslavia, formal negotiations would represent only a “façade” to sign what was already agreed upon.81 77

VIRI 24, 116; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 139. AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-18, Report about the final talks with Italians in Strunjan from 21  May to 8 June 1975; VIRI 24, 137-138. More details about the negotiations in Strunjan: Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 144-55. 79 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 2, No. 425904, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Miloš Minić on 24 May 1975; VIRI 24, 129; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 150. 80 Ibid. 81 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 2, No.  424173, Cable from Belgrade sent to the Embassy in Rome on 19 May 1975. 78

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This official communication between the two Ministries naturally encouraged the Yugoslavs, demoralized by constant Italian requests for new concessions, to believe that the ending of negotiations was really in sight. That is why in Belgrade it was decided that as a “political gesture and a gesture of goodwill by the Yugoslav government in the interest of friendly cooperation between the two countries in the future” they would agree to make a territorial correction at Sabotino.82 Finally on 8  June Šnuderl and Carbone initialed the texts of the treaty thus marking the end of the long negotiation process. The newly-initialed treaty faced its first temptation in mid-June. Confusion was again brought about by the unstable situation in Italy. Namely, 15 June saw the holding of the above mentioned election in this country. The election showed further improvement for the parties of the left wing and a fall in support for the Christian Democrats. With 33.4% of the vote, the Communist Party of Italy was less than 2% short of the Christian Democrats who won with 35.3%. Moreover, the other leftist parties also improved their performance, so in total they had as many as 46.8% of votes.83 The poor election results caused confusion in the ranks of the ruling Christian Democrats and jeopardized the survival of Aldo Moro’s government formed six months earlier. The first measure they carried out was the removal, during July, of Party Secretary Fanfani who was pronounced the main culprit for several failures of the Party, from the defeat at the divorce referendum in May 1974, to the bad results at the election held on 15 June 1975.84 As the CSCE session was coming closer, scheduled to begin on 30  July, tension was rising among the Yugoslavs, because despite the initialing there was no sign of signing the treaty, as was provided by the “scenario” agreed in Strunjan. Suspense about realizing the envisaged “scenario” was the subject of the discussion of the Yugoslav Presidency held on Brioni on 11 July.85 The present state leaders made a decision to tell the Italians in advance that at the CSCE Yugoslavia would have to give an “interpretative statement about the character of the border in Europe having in mind the Yugoslav-Italian border” if by the beginning 82

In this way Italy got the Sabotino peak and 32 hectares of land. AJ, KPR, I-5-b, Report about the final talks with Italians in Strunjan from 21 May to 8 June 1975; VIRI 24, 138. 83 Giorgio Galli, I partiti politici italiani (1943-2004) (Milano: BUR, 2006), 168-9; Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy. Society and Politics 1943-1988 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 372-3. 84 Amintore Fanfani was replaced at the fore of the Party by Benigno Zaccagnini. 85 AJ, 803, f. 28, Shorthand notes from the 36th session of the SFRJ Presidency held on 11 July 1975 (Part of shorthand notes related to Italy was published also in: VIRI 24, 140-2).

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of its session the treaty was not officially signed.86 Only after Rumor’s “appeal” that this should not be done and assurances that the agreement would be initialed immediately after the end of the Conference, Yugoslavia gave way on the “interpretative statement”.87 The realization of the scenario agreed upon in the second half of July started after the end of the conference in Helsinki. In accordance with the provided calendar of activities, the Italian delegation led by Carbone arrived in Belgrade on 6 August. On the same day, he and Šnuderl initialed the treaty. Although the whole procedure was performed in the presence of photographers, it was agreed that everything remained under a strict embargo and was labeled as a state secret.88 August saw the preparations for announcing the achieved agreement with Italy. This implied detailed elaboration of all the steps that needed to be taken in order to introduce political structures in Yugoslavia with its content. The timeline stipulated the informing, before everybody else, of the officials in the republics of Slovenia and Croatia, as well as of the core leadership of the municipalities in those republics which shared a border with Italy, about ten days before the announcement of the treaty in the SFRJ Assembly. After them came the other republics and provinces, and a couple of days before the performance in the Assembly, the broader party membership in borderline municipalities should be informed as well. The plan stipulated that the ambassadors of the USA, USSR and Great Britain should be informed of the achieved agreement immediately before Minić’s speech in the Assembly. Finally, a couple of hours before the speech, a briefing would be held, in order to inform the domestic press and television.89 In the following weeks, both states coordinated and planned the finalization of the negotiation process down to the smallest detail. Yugoslav state leaders at the sitting of the SFRJ Presidency held on 15 September made a decision to start with realization of the scenario of informing republican and provincial party members about the achieved agreement with Italy, as it was planned in the late August and early September. To that end on 20 September a reminder was distributed, which was previously harmonized with the leaderships of Slovenia and 86

АMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 2, No. 434585, Cable of the SSFA sent to the Embassy in Rome on 15 July 1975; VIRI 24, 146. 87 АMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 52, No.  435863, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 24 July 1975; VIRI 24, 149. 88 AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-18, Note about initialing the contractual instruments between the SFR Yugoslavia and the Republic of Italy performed at the Federal Secretariat of Foreign Affairs in Belgrade, on 6 August 1975; VIRI 24, 158-9; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 165-8. 89 VIRI 24, 160-1; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 170-1.

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Croatia,90 which elaborated in detail all the steps that should be taken in order to achieve optimal acquaintance with the content of the treaties initialed with Italy.91 Two days after the session of the Presidency, the Deputy of the Federal Secretary for Foreign Affairs Lazar Mojsov informed the ambassadors of the USA, USSR, Great Britain and France about the achieved agreement.92 Reactions of the ambassadors of the Western countries were very positive, while the only dissonant tones could be heard from Soviet ambassador Stjepakov. He too greeted the agreement with the words “big success”, adding however that it was a “relief” for the Yugoslav state.93 Finally, the achieved agreement was publicized on 1 October when the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both countries stepped before their parliaments and announced the most important items of its content. The simultaneous presentations of Rumor and Minić were the result of very detailed discussions and harmonization between the two Ministries of Foreign Affairs, in which care was taken regarding every detail, starting from the time of holding the speeches to the subject matter that both Ministers would talk about to the MPs.94 News about the achieved agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia caused divided reaction at the international level. As stated above, ten days before Yugoslavia publicly announced the agreement, it officially informed the ambassadors of the mentioned states of its existence. The Italian side did this only a couple of hours before Rumor’s and Moro’s presentations in the parliament. The official reaction of the USA came on 2 October when the State Department representative Robert L. Funseth at the press conference said that the agreement “reflects a statehood approach” of the leaders of Italy and Yugoslavia and was important not only for the regulation of relations between the two neighbors, but also

90

AJ, 803, f. 29, Shorthand notes from the 38th session of the SFRJ Presidency held on 25 September 1975 in Belgrade. 91 Text of the reminder published in: VIRI 24, 172-5. 92 AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-18, Information on reactions of some Ambassadors to the results of the talks with the representatives of the Italian government regarding the resolution of the complexity of bilateral relations. 93 Ibid. 94 This is corroborated by the fact that Minić’s presentation was originally planned for morning hours, while Rumor intended to speak in the afternoon. After urgent intervention of the Italians it was agreed that both ministers would speak at the same time. AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 4, No. 446712, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 1 October 1975.

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for “stability and security in this part of Europe”.95 The reaction of state officials overlapped in the main with what appeared in the US press. Similar reactions came from other countries of Western Europe as well. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean Sauvagnargues, congratulated both sides on the achieved agreement,96 while satisfaction with the agreement was also expressed by officials from Bonn and London. The press in these countries also published a large number of positive articles, emphasizing that “the last trouble-spot in this part of the world” was extinguished, that the agreement was achieved in the spirit of the positively ended conference in Helsinki and that it bore a broader importance for peace in Europe. Dissonant tones could be read in right-wing journals, like French Aurore. In Belgrade it was noted that the journal of the Communist Party of France L’Humanité gave the smallest space to the agreement in comparison with other French newspapers.97 The situation in Eastern European countries was entirely different. Despite the fact that the first reaction of the Ambassador to Belgrade Stjepakov was positive, the state leaders of the Soviet Union did not say anything. In the first week of October there were only two items of news about the agreement by the TASS state agency. Moscow’s silence must have worried Yugoslav diplomats, who discussed it at the Collegium of the Sector for Europe and North America of the Federal Secretariat of Foreign Affairs held on 6 October and concluded that they would inform the general public about it.98 Their reasons for worry were in the fact that political relations with the Soviets at that time were undergoing a period of crisis. Besides a series of other reasons, the most relevant was the affair related to anti-Yugoslav action of the Cominform groups which Yugoslavs considered to enjoy the official support of Moscow.99 Additional upset was caused by certain statements of Soviet state officials about the Yugoslav-Italian treaty which came from Belgrade. Thus the Italian Minister of Foreign Trade Ciriaco de Mita conveyed to Ambassador Pavićević the statement of Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin whom he met in Moscow in early October. Kosygin asked 95

AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 6, No. 448154, Information No. 1: First reactions in the world to the agreement of the SFR Yugoslavia and Italy about consensual resolution of the border and other issues, 7 October 1975. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid. 98 AMIP, PA, 1975, b. 63, f. 8, No. 448226, Summary and conclusions from the meeting of the Collegium for Europe and North America held on 6 October 1975. 99 Action of “internal enemy” with particular accent on activity of Cominform groups was discussed at the 14th session of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia held on 15 October in Karađorđevo. AJ, KPR, II-3-a-1/285.

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“shocked” de Mita: “is it true that you will give Trieste to Yugoslavia?”.100 Italians assessed this Soviet behavior as negative, however understandable, since the logic behind it was: “the fewer problems Yugoslavia has, the less favourable it is for the USSR”.101 The situation was the same with other socialist countries. While state officials did not speak, the public media provided little information about the achieved agreement, so that in Bulgaria this was done only by Radio Sofia, while in Czechoslovakia there was no news about the treaty whatsoever. The situation was slightly better in Poland, DR Germany and Hungary. Only the Romanian press gave extensive coverage.102 Positive reactions from the East started to arrive only from midNovember, when the treaty was officially signed. First the President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Nikolai Podgorny on 18 November, on the first day of the visit of the Italian President Leone to the USSR, in a toast to the Italian President presented his positive attitude towards the treaty.103 This was followed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gromyko and his letter addressed to Minić on 24 November, also expressing his satisfaction with the signed treaty.104 Although of bilateral character, the achieved treaty also had its broader dimension, since it abolished the Memorandum of Understanding. Likewise, the issue of the appointment of the governor for the Free Territory of Trieste was to be removed from the UN agenda. Thus Kurt Waldheim was informed as well. He welcomed the agreement of the two

100

AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 7, No. 451682, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 31 October 1975. 101 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975. b. 55, f. 9, No. 455625, Letter of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 20 November 1975. 102 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 6, No. 448167, Foreign press about the Yugoslav-Italian agreement, 8 October 1975; ibid., No. 448154, Information No. 1: First reactions in the world to the agreement of the SFR Yugoslavia and Italy about consensual resolution of the border and other issues, 7 October 1975. 103 Podgorny stated that Yugoslav-Italian treaty was a “significant contribution” to practical realization of principles agreed at the CSCE in Helsinki, l’Unita, 19 November 1975. See also: AJ, 803, f. 31, State Secret, Shorthand notes from the 44th session of the SFRJ Presidency held on 5 December 1975 in Belgrade; AMIP, PA, Italy, b. 55, f. 9, No. 456766, Cable of the Embassy in Moscow sent to Belgrade on 25 November 1975. 104 AMIP, PA, b. 55, f. 9, No. 456318, Letter of the Second Directorate of the SSFA sent to the Embassy in Moscow on 21 November 1975. More than a month long silence of the Soviets was commented in Belgrade as an expression of distrust of the USSR leadership towards the politics held by the Yugoslav side. AJ, 803, f. 31, state secret, Shorthand notes from the 44th session of the SFRJ Presidency held on 5 December 1975 in Belgrade.

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states while positive reactions came from diplomatic circles of the United Nations.105 When it seemed that the treaty had gained broad support of the public of both countries and was accepted with approval at the broader international level, following its official signing, another surprise came from Italy in the form of new requests for the achieved agreement to be revised and some new concessions to be made. The announcement of such developments could have been seen already during the debate in the Italian Senate. Some senators, such as Christian Democrats Amintore Fanfani and Giuseppe Pella, and liberal Manlio Brosio, stated their requests for the change of certain provisions of the treaty that would make it more acceptable for Italy. This initiative provoked Carbone’s intervention. In his meeting with Šnuderl on 19 October in Belgrade he presented all the reserves which the proponents of this initiative had and asked the Yugoslav side to “meet” some of the stated requests adding that positive solutions “would be of extreme importance for the creation of a more favourable situation regarding the ratification of the treaty in the Italian parliament”.106 Completely unexpectedly for the Yugoslav side, a Slovenian added his request to the existing Italian ones. This was an MP of the Communist Party of Italy in the Italian Parliament Albin Škerk. On 22 October, he addressed a letter to the minister Rumor in which he expressed concern for the destiny of a certain road in his constituency, the municipality of Duino-Aurisina, which was cut by the state border and thus the life of the local population would be hampered. He requested that, for practical reasons, the part of Yugoslav territory through which that road was passing be joined to Italy.107 Although Škerk’s proposal for border correction was rejected as “non-opportune”, the Yugoslav side nevertheless showed good will by saying that they would consider the possibility of accepting certain requests of the Italian government which did not affect the newly defined border. To this end Minić instructed Šnuderl to carry out consultations with Slovenian leaders.108 It turned out, however, that there was no need for them, since the Italian side itself gave up on almost all its requests. 105

AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 6, No. 448154, Information No. 1: First reactions in the world to the agreement of the SFR Yugoslavia and Italy about consensual resolution of the border and other issues, 7 October 1975. 106 The list consisted of nine requests. Italians, among other things, requested expansion of the free industrial zone, correction of the border line at certain points, preservation of functioning of the small-border traffic agreement and some economic concessions. VIRI, 198-9; Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 187-8. 107 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 56, f. 19, No. 450384, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 24 October 1975. 108 Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 191.

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The next meeting of the two delegations was held in Belgrade on 30  October. The occasion was the Italian statement that the EEC Commission accepted the protocol on a free industrial zone. On that occasion the Italian side submitted a proposal to exchange several confidential letters which in some way modified certain provisions of the achieved agreement. Yugoslavia accepted the proposed letters and in that way fulfilled at least one of the requests submitted by Carbone on 19 October.109 By accepting the Protocol on the free industrial zone by the EEC Commission and harmonization of certain items of the treaty at the meeting held on October 30th, all obstacles to a final signing of the treaty had finally been removed. The signing occurred on November 10th in castle Leopardi Dittaiuti located in the vicinity of the small seaside town of Osimo 15 km from Ancona. The selection of this location for singing the treaty was Italian. Judging by the explanation of the high official in Farnesina Plaia, the intention of Italy was to sign it in a place on the Adriatic coast in order to emphasize in a symbolic manner the importance of the achieved agreement for the two Adriatic neighbors.110 Yugoslav state leaders thought that signing the treaty with Italy in Osimo was of great international importance and a contribution to the strengthening and consolidation of the Yugoslav foreign political position, particularly in relation to certain neighboring states with which the Belgrade government still had numerous unresolved issues.111 This primarily pertained to Austria and Bulgaria, who started to put additional effort into improving their relations with Yugoslavia. Both mentioned states, which until then had not enjoyed a good relationship with Yugoslavia, requested just before and in the aftermath of the signing of the Treaty of Osimo contacts with the Belgrade government. Bulgarians did so through their Minister of Foreign Affairs Petar Mladenov who was on an official visit to Yugoslavia from 11 to 13 November. On that occasion he handed over a draft of the declaration on development of 109

AJ, KPR, I-5-b/44-18, Note about the talk between Yugoslav and Italian delegations, 30 October 1975. 110 AMIP, PA, Italy, 1975, b. 55, f. 7, No. 451784, Cable of the Embassy in Rome sent to Belgrade on 1 November 1975. 111 On this the best testimony is the session of the Presidency of Yugoslavia held on 12 November in Belgrade. On that occasion Josip Broz stated that the Treaty has a tremendous international importance. Minić continued by saying that comments in the world are “huge, very extensive and positive without exception”, and that this is a “big event which presented Yugoslavia in world dimensions as even more expressive constituent actor of stability and consolidation of peace”. Member of the Presidency Lazar Koliševski briefly added that the Osimo Treaty is “the brightest point after Helsinki”. AJ, 803, f. 30, State Secret, Shorthand notes from the 42nd session of the SFRJ Presidency held on 12 November 1975 in Belgrade.

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relations between the People’s Republic of Bulgaria and the SFRJ which proposed resolution of the majority of open issues in interstate relations. The assessment of Yugoslav state officials was that one of the motives for this initiative was a “positive echo” which the Treaty of Osimo had created.112 The same thing happened with Austria. The chancellor of this republic Bruno Kreyski requested an urgent meeting with Yugoslav state leaders, since – in Minić’s words – he was “entirely under the pressure” of the Yugoslav agreement with Italy and “all eager about coming to Yugoslavia”.113 Kreyski secretly arrived in Yugoslavia and in Strmol castle talked with Kardelj on 28 and 29 December, and on 29 December he met Josip Broz as well.114 The signing of the Treaty of Osimo in November 1975 finally closed the “open issues” which for three decades were a hindrance to the full development of relations between Yugoslavia and Italy. A new phase in the development of overall bilateral cooperation could begin, without the burden of the unresolved issues related to the interstate border. It started, however, only a year and a half later which was the time that elapsed between the signing of the treaty and its ratification in the parliaments of both states. Finally, the parliaments of Yugoslavia and Italy ratified the treaty in March 1977, and the treaty entered into force on 3 April 1977.115

112

114 115 113

Ibid. Ibid. AJ, KPR, I-3-a/6-29, Reception of the Austrian Federal Councilor Bruno Kreisky. Manlio Udina, Gli accordi di Osimo. Lineamenti introduttivi e testi annotati (Trieste: LINT, 1979), 207. For more details on the period between the signing of the Treaty and ratification, see: Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, 207-41.

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Section III The Local Reactions

The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty Viljenka Škorjanec Introduction In the history of (Yugoslav) Slovene interstate relations with Italy (up to 1991), the complex of negotiations for the delimitation of the interstate border between Italy and Yugoslavia (1974-1975) related to the signing of the Osimo Treaty and its annexes represents the fifth and, for the time being, last chronological milestone.1 This study focuses on the analysis of the negotiation process which, through the signing of contractual documents, led to the successful resolution of current open issues with neighboring Italy. The origins of the negotiation constants that characterized the relation with neighboring Italy in the 20th century go back as far as the year 1915, when, after signing the Pact of London, Italy joined the Entente forces and gained considerable advantages in later negotiations. They therefore represent a significant starting point for understanding Italy’s negotiating positions and its conduct in the 20th century.2 The 1947 Paris Peace Treaty and the 1954 London Memorandum of Understanding did not finally resolve all outstanding issues between the two countries. The state border as determined in the TP was not demarcated in certain parts. At that time, Yugoslavia occupied approximately 362 hectares of land across this borderline, and Italy 32. After the TP, the Italian side accelerated emigration and encouraged the exodus of Italians from the territory that was transferred to Yugoslavia. 1



2



The article is based on original Yugoslav diplomatic documents that were given to the author for scientific purposes by the then Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miloš Minić, and the authorized negotiator, Boris Šnuderl. 256 documents held in the Author’s personal archives have been published in: VIRI 23, 1-270; VIRI 24, 1-259; VIRI 25, 1-231 On the Italian side documents of authorized negotiator Eugenio Carbone were not available to the author. Uroš Lipušček, “Sacro egoismo. Slovenci v krempljih tajnega londonskega pakta 1915,” Dnevnik (Ljubljana), 25 August 2012, 19; Jože Pirjevec, “Slovensko-italijanski odnosi od leta 1915 do danes,” Annales 8 (Fall 1996), 9; Janko Pleterski, “Osimo v zgodovinski perspektivi soseščine Italijanov in Slovencev,” in Osimska meja, ed. Jože Pirjevec, Gorazd Bajc, Borut Klabjan (Koper: Annales, 2006), 44.

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Its intention was to focus the attention of the international public on the unjustly seized territory, and thus create a suitable atmosphere for its demand for the return of Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste to Italy. The pressures of “optanti” (Italians who chose to leave Yugoslavia) and reactionary circles in Trieste, boosted by neo-fascist propaganda, created a negative climate for negotiations with Yugoslavia among the Italian public. Italy’s disregard of contractual obligations is also evident in the LMOU initialed in 1954, when it equivocated that the situation involving Zone B of FTT was only temporary and delayed final resolution of the border issue. It demanded further minor corrections along the border, which had already been clarified under TP. Italy gave assurances that its government de facto recognized the border under LMOU, but claimed it was necessary to de iuri find another legal name. At the same time, the Italians spread a myth about preserving their own sovereignty in Zone B of FTT, thus helping Italian public opinion accept LMOU more easily. Such actions were influenced primarily by border political structures, as well as the influences and conduct of Italian state bodies, in particular the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Italian Government in Rome also sought protection by political and diplomatic means, failing to present LMOU to its parliament for ratification. The Italian administration, particularly MFA, prepared proposals for political parties and the Government in order to stall and delay resolution of the open border issue. The reason for this was that 10 years after losing the war, the Italians found it difficult to open wounds and renounce their rights in connection with FTT according to the theory of sovereignty. During this period, a number of secret meetings were held between diplomats on the level of special ambassadors, but with the sole purpose of demonstrating Italy’s on-going negotiations with Yugoslavia. On the Yugoslav side, such conduct triggered doubts as to the trustworthiness of Italy’s intentions until the actual ratification of  OT, with the same situation recurring upon Slovenia’s attainment of independence.

1.  Package of Eighteen Points The intervention of the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and fear of Brežnev’s doctrine led to the realization that relations with Yugoslavia could become a crisis area in Europe. The Cold War, and particularly the advanced age of President Josip Broz, contributed to the Italian Government’s decision that it was necessary to resolve all open issues with Yugoslavia. Consequently, in 1968 Italian Foreign Minister Giuseppe Medici proposed a package of eighteen points, under which the demarcation line as defined by LMOU would be transformed into a state border with territorial provisions. 286

The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty

2.  Meeting of Foreign Ministers in Dubrovnik The package of eighteen points3 was accepted as a negotiation platform for further dialogue at a meeting of ministers Medici and Minić held in Dubrovnik in March 1973. This represented a qualitative shift in interstate relations, with the Italian side suggesting that two mandatories be nominated in Dubrovnik in place of the previous experts, whose task would be to prepare a draft of the final agreement. At the same time, concrete deadlines were fixed for the fulfillment of obligations.4

3.  Parallel Second Channel Alongside the official secret diplomatic channel, the two ministers privately agreed on another special, unofficial parallel channel for the secret negotiations of political mandatories as an alternative should the official secret diplomatic negotiations fail to progress. From the Italian side, Eugenio Carbone, then Director General of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, working with Boris Šnuderl who, after having served as justice minister of Yugoslavia, was the Yugoslav federal executive for economic relations with the West. They knew each other and Carbone officially requested Šnuderl as his counterpart. President Tito was informed directly about the unofficial parallel channel, one week before the then foreign minister Minić.5 The political leadership of Italy, particularly the Christian Democratic Party, wanted to use this other channel to establish direct dialogue parallel to the interstate relations directed by official diplomacy. Although Minić had already assessed in Dubrovnik that the Italian initiative for the work of secret political negotiators was the only realistic option for reaching an agreement, the unproductive negotiations of diplomatic representatives continued until the end of 1973. Despite the expertise of its participants, the negotiations did not bear fruit, as the two mandatories were granted very narrow maneuvering space by their governments, and so their work was destined to fail from the onset.6

3



4 5



6

VIRI 23, doc. 1, 76. Viljenka Škorjanec, “Jugoslovansko-italijanski odnosi v luči dubrovniškega srečanja zunanjih ministrov 1973,” Zgodovinski časopis, 3-4 (Fall 2001), 465-487. VIRI 23, doc. 47, 163-165; VIRI 23, doc. 50, 168. Viljenka Škorjanec, “Neuspeh jugoslovansko-italijanskih diplomatskih pogajanj v letu 1973,” Zgodovinski časopis, 1-2 (Fall 2003), 147-162.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

4.  Preparations for the Yugoslav/Slovene-Italian Negotiations Faced with the possibility that the Yugoslav side would internationalize the issue, Italian Foreign Minister Aldo Moro invited Yugoslav Ambassador Miša Pavićević on a visit in January 1974, after a severalmonth-long wait.7 It was not until 1974 that Moro signed, under the influence of the DC Party, an authorization for Eugenio Carbone to take part in a concrete special mission, which Moro had nevertheless wished to place under the narrow supervision of his ministry.8 Such a stance taken by Moro leads to the question of why the other channel had not been activated sooner, i.e. in 1973. The Italian negotiator Carbone and his Yugoslav counterpart, Šnuderl, maintained occasional contacts, but the other channel was not yet active in this period, with all developments following its establishment having come to a yearlong standstill.9 After increasing bilateral tensions, poignant diplomatic notes, and President Tito’s speech, a positive shift finally occurred on the Italian side. In his speech given in Sarajevo on 15 April 1974, Tito stressed that Yugoslavia wanted to have good relations with Italy, that many in the West did not want to attain European security, and that they did not need to yield to anyone or give any concessions.10 Following international assessments of the situation between the two countries, Giulio Andreotti, President of the leading Italian political party, the Christian Democrats, gave a speech in Udine in May 1974, in which he publicly announced Italy’s intention to reach an adequate agreement with Yugoslavia. According to Il tempo, at a meeting of the Alpini mountain infantry corps held on 5 May 1974, Andreotti gave a statement in connection with Yugoslav-Italian relations which subsequently had a positive effect on Yugoslavia’s gradual acceptance of Italy’s initiative for negotiations. In view of the forthcoming session of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe to be held in Helsinki, as well as the fundamental principle of the finality of state borders, the leadership of the Christian Democrats assessed that the unresolved border issue was compromising global Italian politics. Following a correction of the Italian mandate and the arrival of the Italian delegation at Strmol in July 1974, the

7

9

VIRI 23, doc. 58, 185-206. VIRI 23, doc. 5, 41. VIRI 23, doc. 75, 236; AVŠ, Šnuderl, Delovni dnevni zapiski (Daily notes), 19731974. 10 VIRI 23, doc. 64, 220-222. 8

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The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty

Yugoslav side subsequently accepted the Italian proposal for negotiations between special political mandatories.11

5.  Genesis of Negotiations at Strmol 1974 The negotiations were conducted in complete secrecy, with some intermissions, at Strmol from July until November 1974.12 It soon became evident that there was no real consensus in the Italian Government at that time either. When speaking to Minić at a UN General Assembly session in New York, Moro equivocated that he had not been informed of the initiative to work on a second secret channel, and expressed his disagreement with such a method of resolving a disputable issue without the participation of the MFA staff. Nevertheless, the negotiations at Strmol continued, with on-going parallel attempts at obtaining political consensus in Rome. Italy’s intention was to carry out the cession of Zone B of FTT and thereby present the final confirmation of the border between the two countries in the light of the best possible solution for both countries which would enable the industrial zone for political reasons to extend into Zone B of FTT. The Italian side initially proposed that the zone be located along the coast, later suggesting Osp or Socerb.13 For Italy, the demand for the zone was condicio sine qua non for the final agreement. Moreover, a number of other major economic projects were also foreseen (navigation channel on the Soča-Sava rivers), energy generation facilities, water management, and various forms of economic cooperation in the interests of the local population – road links, new border crossings, etc.14 The negotiations also comprised certain corrections of the state border under TP aimed at ensuring functional connections and provisional arrangements, e.g. at Kolovrat, Sabotin, regarding the villages in the Brda hills, and Gorica. The Yugoslav side insisted that the border could not be corrected in any place where Yugoslav citizens lived.15

6. Negotiators Given the decisive role of President Tito and Foreign Minister Minić, Slovenia carried the greater weight in the negotiation process on the Yugoslav side. The authorized negotiator was a Slovene, who also consulted with the Slovenian leadership on all key issues, primarily 11

13 14 15 12

VIRI 23, doc. 68, 225-227; doc. 70, 228-230; doc. 87, 251; doc. 89, 255; doc. 90, 256. VIRI 24, doc. 21, 63; doc. 32, 84-91. VIRI 24, doc. 5, 34-35. VIRI 24, doc. 7, 37-40; doc. 8, 40-41. VIRI 24, doc. 6, 37.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

with Edvard Kardelj and Sergej Krajgher.16 Even Minić had to rely entirely upon the Slovene party executives.17 Alongside the authorized negotiator Šnuderl, another Slovene member of the negotiation team was responsible for border issues, Radko Močivnik, a diplomat from the Federal Secretariat of External Affairs (FSEA). And even the experts who occasionally cooperated with the team in connection with specific issues were usually Slovenes. The Yugoslav negotiation team was a permanent body, whereas on the Italian side only Ottone Mattei, a diplomat of the Ministry of External Affairs and the son of refugees from Rijeka, was a permanent member alongside the authorized negotiator Carbone, while other experts participated on an ad hoc basis, as the need arose.

7.  Negotiation Triad The negotiation triad represented the essence of negotiations. The fact that Italy conditioned the finality of the border issue with the establishment of an industrial zone, which would be also useful for the Yugoslav/Slovene side because of exports to EGS, led the Yugoslav side to support the demand for expanding the provisions of the Special Statute of 1954 to cover the territory outside the former Zone A of FTT, where the Slovenian minority lives in Italy. Yugoslavia’s relentlessness prolonged the path towards an agreement for several months, as it was unwilling to conclude negotiations without the provision of a special minority clause. Italy did not favor the idea of having such a provision in the contract, as this would represent an international commitment, but would have preferred to resolve the issue of minority protection through unilateral obligations (preamble, international universal declarations, parliamentary solemn declaration). Yugoslavia’s demand for a minority clause led to a temporary suspension of negotiations. However, after a brief crisis, Italy’s leading political parties generally consented to a minority clause whose contents would apply for the Slovenian minority in Italy.18 The President Tito supported negotiation efforts on the minority question.19 With respect to the maritime border, at Strmol the Italian side demanded changes in the starting points for the division of territorial waters in connection with the draught of heavy tankers during navigation into the ports of Trieste and Tržič. (It soon became obvious, however, that they were primarily seeking to acquire larger fishing areas on the 16

VIRI 23, III, 24-25; doc. 51, 121. VIRI 23, II, 19-20. 18 More on the genesis of the minority clause VIRI 24, doc. 12, 46-48; doc. 13, 48-49; doc. 14, 49-50; doc. 15, 50-51; doc. 16, 51-54; doc. 23, 65-67; doc. 24, 69; doc. 38, 100-101; doc. 40, 106; doc. 41, 106. 19 VIRI 24, doc. 32, 90. 17

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The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty

Slovenian side, which has a more abundant fish population.) The Yugoslav side rejected this argument and approved a corridor through its own sea (from the cape of Savudrija past Debeli Rtič).20 This concession was subsequently confirmed by the Republic of Slovenia. At Strmol, the two sides jointly prepared the wording of an agreement on all open issues between the two countries, and could have ended the negotiations then and there.21

8.  Negotiations in Dubrovnik 1975 Instead of confirming the agreement, the Italian side demanded a second phase of negotiations in March 1975 in Dubrovnik, despite having initially requested only a formal meeting of a procedural nature between the mandatories. Yugoslavia was consequently forced to accept the trimmed contents of the minority clause, and a part of its contents was transferred to the preamble.22 Dubrovnik was symbolically chosen so that Croatia would also appear in the work of the mandatories.23 In spite of the Italian mandatory’s assurances that all Italy’s demands had been met, they nevertheless attempted to change the agreed contents in April in Rome, where the final texts were being edited.24

9. Diplomatic negotiations in Strunjan This all notwithstanding, the Italian side made no further attempts to change the agreed contents of the agreement in the third phase of negotiations between the mandatories in Strunjan in June 1975. The Yugoslav side accepted only the territorial correction at Sabotin to Italy’s benefit, thus enabling the initialing of texts in the agreement. In Strunjan we were therefore already witnessing official diplomatic negotiations in which both political mandatories became the heads of their respective government delegations (the authorizing documents granted to both mandatories by their political leaders were written at a later date). The nature of negotiations was changed into diplomatic negotiations, and concluded with the initialing of an international treaty in the French language. Negotiations were still being conducted in utmost secrecy in the Protocol building of the Executive Council of Slovenia. Strunjan

20

22 23 24 21

VIRI 24, doc. 22, 64-65; ibid., photo No. 10, 69. VIRI 24, doc. 25, 72; doc. 26, 73-74. VIRI 24, doc. 51, 120-122. VIRI 24, doc. 42, 108-109. VIRI 24, doc. 50, 118-120.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

was selected because it fell under Zone B of FTT. The documents were initialed in Strunjan on the official paper of both foreign ministries.25 For the duration of work performed by the mandatories, the Yugoslav side proceeded with caution. It was not entirely convinced that the Italian side was not merely using the tactic of stalling for time and then, at a given moment, they would blame Yugoslavia for any failure in negotiations. Such reflections were also burdening the work in Strunjan, where a lack of trust led to a crisis in the Yugoslav working group. The method of work employed points to thorough preparations for negotiations and accurate analyses of identifying the tactic of deferment and taking one step forward and two backward between individual meetings of the mandatories.

10.  Official Initialing in Belgrade On the Italian initiative, in the next few months the previously foreseen phase of diplomatic negotiations was cancelled and replaced in August 1975 by the official initialing of contractual documents regarding the international agreement at the Federal Secretariat of External Affairs in Belgrade in the presence of Yugoslav Minister of External Affairs, Minić, and Italian Ambassador, Giuseppe Walter Maccotta.26 At first, the Yugoslav side did not understand why the texts of the treaty had to be initialed once again when this had already been done in Strunjan, or why they were not signing the agreement. Following debates in the Yugoslav Assembly and in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, where the Minister of Foreign Affairs was authorized to sign the agreement, the Italian side repeatedly attempted to subject the signing of the agreement to the condition that corrections be made in the already agreed border line and the industrial zone expanded.

11.  Signing of the Osimo Treaty A crucial turning point occurred with Carbone’s arrival in Belgrade at the end of October 1975, where he stressed Italy’s willingness to sign the agreement as soon as possible. Owing to the possibility that the foreseen pension reform in Italy might trigger a new government crisis, Prime Minister Moro and Foreign Minister Mariano Rumor were intent on signing the agreement with Yugoslavia without due delay. Carbone offered a final opportunity for signing the agreement on 10th, 13th or 14th November; the Yugoslav side opted for the first date. In the opinion of Italian representatives, the signing of the agreement in Rome could lead 25

VIRI 24, doc. 60, 140-142. VIRI 23, doc. 6, 42; VIRI 23, doc. 7, 43; Giuseppe W. Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” Rivista di Studi politici Internationali, 237 (Fall 1993), 55-67.

26

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The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty

to unpleasant complications. Immediately before signing the agreement, the Italians requested that two changes be made in terminology, which the Yugoslav side accepted.27 In a manor house made available for this purpose by Count Leopardi at Castel del Monte San Pietro in Osimo near Ancona, the ministers signed the contractual documents28 in the Hall of Arms in the presence of the Italian and Yugoslav press. The reason for a solitary villa chosen for its supreme view of the Adriatic Sea, may have been to prevent civil unrest given the opposition to the Treaty by Italian nationalist political forces. On this occasion it was particularly emphasized that upon the ratification of the agreement in their respective parliaments, both governments would read the declaration on the minority policy. The circumstances surrounding the signing of the OT did not bring any noteworthy surprises.29 The two countries had finally attained a bilateral agreement that represented a significant change when compared to the negotiations that led to LMOU in 1954. Until the ratification of OT and its annexes in 1977, the Italians were perpetually returning to previously agreed and reconciled positions and making new demands, but without success. Prior to the ratification of OT, President Tito awarded distinctions to the Yugoslav negotiating team that had reached an agreement between the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Italy. This revealed the existing commitment of political leaders to official diplomacy; namely, in first place on all the lists of recipients of such distinctions, as published in major newspapers of the time, was the former Yugoslav Ambassador to Italy and a then member of the Federation Council, Miša Pavićević, who for quite some time was not even aware of the existence of these negotiations, which were conducted outside the institutionalized framework. President Tito also concurrently honored some other officials and employees of the Federal Secretariat of External Affairs “for exceptional merit in the work, preparations and cooperation of the SFRJ delegation in connection with CSCE, held last summer in Helsinki”. The distinctions were conferred by Minić at a special ceremony held on 20  September 1976 at FSEA. The President’s order was not published by the Official Gazette of the SFRJ until 17 June 1977, when the agreement with Italy had already been ratified for several months. 27

VIRI 24, doc. 77, 195; doc. 78, 197-200; doc. 79, 202-203; doc. 83, 205. VIRI 24, doc. 85, 208; doc. 86, 209; doc. 87, 210; doc. 88, 211; doc. 89, 211; doc. 90, 212; doc. 91, 212; doc. 92, 213; doc. 93, 213; doc. 94, 213; doc. 95, 214; doc. 96, 214; doc. 97, 215; doc. 98, 215-217; doc. 99, 217-219; Osimski sporazumi, ed. Črtomir Kolenc (Koper: Založba Lipa, 1977), 338-471. 29 VIRI 24, doc. 100, 219-222; Sergij Premru, “Pot, ki so jo nakazali pred 30 leti, še ni do konca prehojena. Spomin na lov za krajem podpisa zgodovinskega sporazuma,” Primorski dnevnik (Trieste), 11 November 2005, 5. 28

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

Distinctions were also received by some experts who ad hoc occasionally participated in negotiations.30 At the signing of the OT the Italian foreign minister Rumor said: “We have made a significant contribution and demonstrated that the method of direct talks must, and can, lead to the resolution of dramatic situations.”31 When commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of OT at a scientific conference on Osimo, the prevailing opinion, based on an assessment of the analysis of preparations and the signing of the agreement, was that this case provides an excellent example of how, despite almost irresolvable open issues, the negotiators, concealed from the public eye, were able to reach commendable international agreements, on a bilateral level, through the willingness and good will of both sides.32

12.  Osimo Treaty from its Ratification to the Present Following the ratification of OT in 1977, committees were formed in both countries with the task of monitoring and implementing the agreements. Coordinators were appointed to these committees both by FSEA and the Italian Ministry of External Affairs, as well as on the level of the republics of Slovenia and Croatia. In Yugoslavia, the subsequent implementation of OT was the fruit of the skills of Slovene negotiators. The border issue, which served as a condition for all other issues, was finally resolved under OT. In practice, the state border was delineated in its entirety. The issue of citizenship for persons whose status after the end of the Second World War was disputable due to the undefined border line between the countries in FTT was resolved. The issue of compensation for Italian nationalized real estate was resolved and property was returned. Agreement on the mutual recognition of university degrees was signed. On joint defense against hail (weather conditions) was also signed. Roads were constructed on Kolovrat and below Sabotin, and the Udine Agreement was amended.33 The Soča-Sava navigation channel 30

VIRI 25, doc. 3, 33; TANJUG, “Odlikovanje za delovni prispevek,” Delo (Ljubljana), 21 September 1976, 2; TANJUG, “Tito odlikovao grupu jugoslovenskih funkcionera,” Politika (Beograd), 21 September 1976, 1; “Odlikovanja. Ukaz predsednika SFRJ, No. 68, 20.07.1976,” Uradni list SFRJ (Beograd), 31/408, 17 July 1977, 1315. 31 Osimski sporazumi, 78. 32 Dimitrij Rupel, “Uvodni nagovor (Opening address): Osimo – mednarodne in lokalne razsežnosti ob 30-letnici sporazumov,” Paper presented at the international scientific conference, Ljubljana, Koper, 10-11 November 2005, Glasnik 7, 13; Viljenka Škorjanec, “Ob tridesetletnici Osimskih sporazumov,” Zgodovinski časopis, 3-4 (Fall 2006), 437-446. 33 VIRI 25, doc. 53, 184; doc. 54, 185-187; doc. 61, 201-206; G. Paolo Parovel, Velika prevara na slovenski zahodni meji – dosje Italija (Kamnik: Slava, 1996), 94-99; Tone

294

The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty

was an enormous project that was not economically justified.34 All other negotiating issues specified in the contract and its annexes are binding for both sides.35 The Slovene minority protection, although never enacted by the Italian regional government in Trieste (where it should have been implemented), was a triumph for the Yugoslavs (and today the Slovenes) since it was acquired at no cost, and giving an argument to press the Italian government for failing to comply, what was ratified in Osimo. In their interviews, both Šnuderl and Minić admitted, that the Yugoslavs were ready to accept the OT even though it was limited only to the border settlement.36 At the 35th anniversary of the signing of OT, Šnuderl confirmed once again that for our side the minority question had been of major importance since the beginning of the negotiations and they wanted to resolve it in the best way possible.37 The final result is a minority clause.38 In 1981 the Assembly of SFRJ passed two laws on free zones. These were supported by the Macedonian delegation, which saw its opportunity in the establishment of a similar industrial zone on the border with Greece, while the Croatian delegation voted against the two laws and confirmed its disagreement, which it had already expressed in the course of the Osimo negotiating process.39 The death of president Tito in 1980 weakened the Slovene position in the Federation and the Italian opposition to the free zone fell on fertile ground since the Croats were envious of the substantial advantages it accorded to Slovenia.40 The free industrial zone, presented by the Italian side as a condition for adoption of the final agreement, was never constructed, partly due to the negative impacts of public opinion, though its location had been selected (Sežana). The Italian Government withdrew from its realization.41

34



35 36



37 38



39



40



41

Poljšak, “Trideset let kasneje. Organiziranost Jugoslavije in Slovenije za izvajanje Osimskih sporazumov,” Svobodna misel, 21 (Fall 2005), 9-10. VIRI 25, doc. 55, 187-189. VIRI 25, doc. 30, 117-129; doc. 31, 129-136; doc. 32, 136-137; Osimski sporazumi, ed. Đurović, Dragoljub (Novi Sad: Knjižnica skupštine SFRJ, 1977), 4. Viljenka Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja (Koper: Annales, 2007) 293, 306. VIRI 23/III, 27; Viljenka Škorjanec, “35 let Osimskega sporazuma: Intervju Boris Šnuderl,” Dnevnikov Objektiv (Ljubljana), 13 November 2010, 13. More about interpretation of minority clause 8 in OT in Ernest Petrič, Mednarodnopravni položaj slovenske manjšine v Italiji (Trst: založništvo tržaškega tiska, 1980), 78, 80, 87. AVŠ, Šnuderl, Delovni dnevni zapiski, marec-april 1981; AVŠ, Rokopisna beležka o sestanku slovenskih predstavnikov glede cone. Ibid. VIRI 25, doc. 57, 189-191; doc. 60, 201.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

After the ratification of OT, the Italian-Yugoslav Friendship Association Ital-Yug, formally presided over by the former Italian Ambassador to Belgrade and the then Ambassador to Moscow, Giuseppe Walter Maccotta, but headed by longstanding ANSA correspondent in Belgrade, Luigi Saporito, author of numerous books and articles about Yugoslavia, introduced in 1980, on the fifth anniversary of the signing of OT and with the consent of the Italian political leadership, a five-year diploma, the so-called Gold Osimo award. This award was to be granted bi-annually to various personalities in both countries with the aim of improving mutual relations in different areas of socio-political activity. In 1980, the bestowal of Gold Osimo medals was organized in Rome with the presence of high officials and politicians of the Italian government and the Yugoslav Embassy. The awards were bestowed by former ministers Medici of Italy and Minić of Yugoslavia as a symbolic remembrance of their first meeting in Dubrovnik in March 1973, which in reality signified an important milestone for later successful negotiations, for it was in Dubrovnik that the two had mentioned the option of conducting negotiations via a second channel, which finally led to the signing of OT. Medals were also received by the two negotiators and active participants in the OT implementation process, Carbone and Šnuderl.42 Despite being bestowed on a single occasion, the Gold Osimo award symbolized a positive launch into interstate relations. Italy recognized the continuing validity of OT with the newly formed states of Slovenia and Croatia as well. OT was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Italy on 8th September 1992, whereby it became a legally valid international instrument between Italy and Slovenia. From October 1992 onwards, however, the repeated activities of extreme rightwing forces in the Province of Trieste repeatedly began to intensify. In their opinion, by officially recognizing Slovenia as the successor of OT, Rome had wasted the opportunity to obtain more in the new circumstances. The Italian side, however, did not fulfill its obligations towards members of the Slovene minority in Italy. Right-wing forces in Italy placed demands for negotiations on the topic of compensation for abandoned and nationalized property, and for the restitution of real estate to “optanti” from the former Zone B. And although the free industrial zone never became operational, they even demanded that it be deleted from the contents of OT. They demanded protection of the entire Italian minority living in the two newly established states of Slovenia and Croatia. Even Rome raised its voice with the statement that the agreements needed to be modernized, claiming 42

Viljenka Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja, medal on cover page. The original copy held in AVŠ is on display at the permanent exhibition on Slovenian history, Ljubljana Castle 2010.

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The Contribution of Slovenia to the Osimo Treaty

that some parts were outdated. The essence of these new demands was to start a revision of OT in its entirety by opening a single issue and then proceeding with other issues. Italy then refused to ratify Slovenia’s accession agreement with the EU, and managed to achieve changes in Slovenian legislation through the Spanish compromise. After numerous obstructions, the Italian parliament finally ratified the accession agreement between the EU and Slovenia in March 1998.43 In September 1997, after endless difficulties, a formal procedure was finally begun to approve the draft law for the benefit of the Slovenian minority in Italy. The approval process lasted from 15 July 1971 until 12  July 2000. The Protective Law was finally approved by the Italian Senate on 14 February 2001. After many long decades of living under Italy, the Slovene minority was finally legally recognized by Italy. The validity of legal international documents has opened the issue of their implementation in practice and observation of the principle pacta sunt servanda, which in the case of Italy has proved to be questionable to this very day. Despite the adoption of the Protective Law, its implementation is still being obstructed. Bilingual signs are being removed in the vicinity of Trieste, and public use of the Slovene language is more restricted not only in the city, but also in some entirely Slovene municipalities in rural areas. To this day, Italy has not drawn funds from the fiduciary account opened under the Rome Agreement, to which Slovenia paid its obligations for the restitution of nationalized property in the former Zone B of FTT. Let us conclude with the statement that OT represents the realization of the possible. Thanks to its living provisions, it will continue to represent, on the actual level, the constitution of relations between Slovenia and Italy. Italy’s decision in favor of Osimo also meant that it independently decided to renounce the imperialistic methods of the London Pact and was willing to return to the democratic principles of its own revival with respect to ethnic boundaries with states that had attained independence also by following the original Italian example.44 This model can be used to resolve very complex interstate relations in all parts of the world where the ordinary path is not possible, and where the internal circumstances allow for it. The OT is one of the major international legal instruments after the Second World War concluded between the two countries with a view to regulating bilateral relations. 43

Marko Kosin, Začetki slovenske diplomacije z Italijo 1991-1996 (Ljubljana: FDV, 2000), 300. 44 Janko Pleterski, “Osimo v zgodovinski perspektivi soseščine Italijanov in Slovencev: Osimo – mednarodne in lokalne razsežnosti ob 30-letnici sporazumov,” Paper presented at the international scientific conference, Ljubljana, Koper, 10-11 November 2005. Glasnik, 7, 21-22.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

At the 35th anniversary of OT Šnuderl said, that from the diplomatic point of view talks adopted with Italy should be considered also in future as an example of agreement and this draws attention to the need of talking into question that Italy already raised on that occasion.45

45

Viljenka Škorjanec, “35 let Osimskega sporazuma: Intervju Boris Šnuderl,” 13.

298

Croatia and Italian-Yugoslav Relations The Issues of Demarcation Line, Minority and Property Rights (1943-1983) Darko Dukovski Introduction From 1861 to 1918 Istria was integrated in the Austrian part of the monarchy (Cisleithania), in which the Italian, ethnic and city, component was privileged, although the Slavic element (Croatian and Slovenian), mainly rural, was more numerous. From the political and legal point of view, what was more disadvantageous for the Croats was the fact that this land, ethnically Croatian, had never been part of Croatia, unlike, for example, Dalmatia. Although the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-20 did not grant the acquisition of Croat and Slovenian territories directly to Italy, thanks largely to the principles set by the US President Wilson, the powers of the Triple Entente felt the obligation to support their own ally in the collection of its war efforts.1 The discord between the “Big Four” was caused by Wilson’s “Fourteen Points”, a program that included the right of self-determination of peoples and lasting peace. Italian representatives were dissatisfied with this position, which did not recognize the secret treaties, including the 1915 Treaty of London, and which reinstated ethnic and national criterion in the determination of boundaries. Italian leaders, however, especially Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino (who was succeeded by prime minister Giovanni Giolitti and Minister Carlo Sforza), tried, during the conference, to obtain for Italy the historic and strategic boundaries, insistently reiterating that the 1915 Treaty of London was still in force and that the allies had the obligation to respect all the taken commitments. Since Italian and Yugoslav diplomats in Paris were not able to agree on the land and maritime boundaries, especially after the disputes between Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George at the end of 1919, they tried to resolve their disagreements with direct negotiations. With bilateral 1



Davorin Rudlof, “Granice s Italijom u mirovnim ugovorima nakon Prvoga i Drugoga svjetskog rata,” Adrias, 15 (2008), 63.

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Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

agreements between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Italy, initialed in Rapallo in November 1920, and in Rome in January 1924, Italy greatly extended its territory at the expense of Slovenian and Croatian ethnic territories, thanks to the British and French pressure on the Yugoslav government,2 without taking into account the demands of the Croatian and Slovenian population living on those territories.3 On 12 November 1920 the border was demarcated in order to cede Istria to Italy (excluding Kastav), the islands of Cres, Lošinj, Lastovo and Palagruža and the city of Zadar with common neighboring tributaries. With the Article 4 of the Treaty, Italy and the Kingdom of SHS committed themselves to respect total freedom and independence of the Free State of Fiume (Rijeka).4 Italian territorial expansion continued with Mussolini coming to power. The Italian dictator sent to Rijeka, on 17 September 1923, Gen. Gaetano Giardino, which annexed Rijeka to Italy and assumed the role of governor. The Treaty of Rome of 27 January 1924 sanctioned, from a legal point of view, the new situation. The 1937 Treaty of Belgrade, which was to improve relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, favored all together the Italian side. For Istria this was significant, since the clause regarding persecution of the Ustasha movement members on the Italian territory was used, later, to suppress Croatian intellectuals from Istria, who continued to believe in the protection of national identity.5 Such border arrangement could not satisfy for long the Croatian and Slovenian component, even less since the Italian part did not fulfill any of its obligations towards the Croatian and Slovenian national minority. The non-Italian population was subjected, during the fascist period, to violent assimilation, and that led, of course, to resistance, which took two forms: anti-fascism on the one hand and the struggle for national freedom on the other. Therefore, any circumstance was enough to revive the issue of revision of the Italian border. The occasion was created with 2



3



4



5



Ante Trumbić, Izabrani politički spisi (Zagreb: Golden marketing – Narodne novine, 1998). Darko Dukovski, Fašizam u Istri 1918-19143 (Pula: CASH, 1998); Id., Istra i Rijeka u prvoj polovini 20. stoljeća (1918-1947) (Zagreb: Leykam international, 2010). Rapallski ugovor 12. novembra 1920: zbirka dokumenata, ed. Vojislav Jovanović (Zagreb: Jadranski institut JAZU, 1950); Svetozar Pribićević, Diktatura kralja Aleksandra (Zagreb: Globus, 1990). Branko Petranović, Istorija Jugoslavije 1918-1978 (Beograd: Nolit, 1980), 116; Jacob B. Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis 1934-1941 (New York, London: Columbia University Press, 1960), 13-17.

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the outbreak of the Second World War, with the Italian aggression on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (April 1941) and with the following organization and development of the national liberation movement. This movement spread in the Croatian and Slovenian regions under the rule of Italy, with a publicly stated goal: division of Italy and annexation of Croatia and Slovenia to the forthcoming Yugoslav Federation. The same requests for revision of the agreements between Italy and Yugoslavia were claimed by the Yugoslav government in exile, while the Independent State of Croatia was not in position to claim the same rights as an ally of Italy until its capitulation in September 1943.6 Furthermore, the Independent State of Croatia ceded to Italy, with the Treaties of Rome in May 1941, an additional territory – Dalmatia.7

1.  War Conditions of the Postwar Diplomacy (1943-1945) Regarding the revision of the borders with Italy, there weren’t, until the Italian capitulation (8 September 1943), any relevant political or diplomatic activities of the interested parties. Although Italian northern regions were, after the capitulation, under German control, Hitler tolerated the existence of the Italian Social Republic – Republic of Salò, with the recommendation not to change the Italian borders.8 6



7



8



TNA, FO, 371/30240, February 1941, Italian-Yugoslav relations, Yugoslav claims on Italian Territories, Report of the Royal Institute for International Affairs for Ministry of Foreign Affairs UK (Yugoslav claims on certain Italian territories, 5 February, 1941, Foreign Research and Press Service, Balliol College, Oxford); Ljubo Boban, Hrvatska u diplomatskim izvještajima Izbjegličke vlade 1941-1943 (Zagreb: Globus 1988); Katarina Spehnjak, Britanski pogled na Hrvatsku 1945-1948 (Zagreb: Golden marketing, 2006); Antun Giron, Zapadna Hrvatska u Drugom svjetskom ratu (Rijeka: Adamić, 2004); Mario Mikolić, Istra 1941-1947 (Zagreb: Barbat, 2003); Darko Dukovski, Rat i mir istarski: Model povijesne prijelomnice 1943-1955 (Pula: CASH, 2001); Id., Istra i Rijeka u prvoj polovici 20. stoljeća 1918-1947 (Zagreb, Leykam international, 2011); Jugoslavenske vlade u izbjeglištvu: dokumenti (1941-1943), ed. Bogdan Krizman (Beograd: Arhiv Jugoslavije, 1986), 16. Nada Kisić Kolanović, NDH i Italija: političke veze i diplomatski odnosi (Zagreb: Naklada Ljevak, 2001); Alberto Becherelli, Italia e Stato Indipendente Croato (19411943) (Roma: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2012). Michael Wedekind, Nationalsozialistische Besatzungs – und Annexionspolitik in Norditalien 1943. bis 1945: Die Operationszonen “Alpenvorland und Adriatisches Küstenland” (München: R. Oldenbourg, 2003); Karl Stuhlpfarrer, Die Operationszonen “Alpenvorland” und “Adriatisches Küstenland” 1943-1945 (Wien, 1969); Enzo Collotti, Il Litorale Adriatico nel Nuovo Ordine Europeo 1943-1945 (Milano: Vangelista, 1974); Marco Coslovich, I percorsi della sopravvivenza: storia e memoria della deportazione dall’Adriatisches Küstenland (Milano: Mursia, 1994); Stefano Di Giusto, Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland: Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pola, Fiume e Lubiana durante l’occupazione tedesca 1943-1945 (Udine: Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione, 2005).

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Given the particularities and political reasons, legal status of the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral (Operationszone Adriatishes Kustenland) was not completely defined, therefore German annexationist intentions were clearly recognized by the legal acts and the events that followed. With the establishment of the Zone, Hitler deceived both of his allies – Mussolini and Pavelić. He left to Mussolini the appearance of independence and sovereignty over this territory, while he clarified to Pavelić that the enlargement of territories of the Independent State of Croatia in Istria and Kvarner was not possible.9 Position of the government in exile of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was politically very unstable, so their insistence on the British support in the reconstruction of postwar Yugoslavia and in the revision of the borders with Italy provoked a reaction of the anti-Fascist politicians in exile like Gaetano Salvemini, Giuseppe A. Borghese, Carlo Sforza and Max Ascoli. Lord Halifax, in this sense, declared to be in favor of the Italians, and, on the other hand, he warned the Yugoslav part with a secret note not to express publicly any promises that could be misinterpreted. It seems that the British did not have any intention to go beyond mere promises of “some corrections on the border between Italy and Yugoslavia”. After this warning to the Yugoslav politicians, in the conversations of representatives of the government in exile with the Italian democratic politicians, Istria, Slovene Littoral and other disputed territories were no longer mentioned.10 Question of Venezia Giulia (Julian March), as the entire area of the eastern Adriatic coast, stopped being only a peripheral part of the strategy and policy of the Allies in the second half of 1943 – beginning of 1944.11 The British Foreign Office adjourned an already existing study, a memorandum dated 5 February 1941, which was commissioned from experts of Balliol College in Oxford University.12 The study suggested to policymakers and British diplomacy, that Yugoslavia, at an appropriate moment, using the principles of nationality as a starting point, could claim former Austrian Littoral, namely Istria (“outside of its West Coast”), Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca, as well as Zadar, Rijeka, Cres, Lošinj, Lastovo, and everything according to the Austrian census of 1910. In this regard, in the event that the Yugoslav demands were met, the authors suggested that it was preferable if Trieste would remain Italian, 9

Giron, Zapadna Hrvatska, 265. Hrvoje Matković, “Istra i Rijeka u dokumentima izbjegličke vlade (1941-1945),” Pazinski memorijal, XXIII-XXIV (1995), 265. 11 Slobodan Nešović, Diplomatska igra oko Jugoslavije 1944-1945 (Zagreb: Stvarnost, 1977); Sebastian Ritchie, Our Man in Yugoslavia: The Story of a Secret Service Operative (London, New York: Routledge, 2005). 12 TNA, FO, 371/30240, February 1941 Italian-Yugoslav relations, Yugoslav claims on Italian Territories. 10

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given its affiliation to the Italian cultural and economic space. It was further mentioned that, in case a large part of its ethnic component was not incorporated in its national space, it would be possible to apply the method of population exchange. Finally, the so-called “Wilson line of demarcation” from 14 April 1919 was recommended.13 Capitulation of Italy in Istria was transformed, in a more or less spontaneous way, in a general and massive people’s uprising, but also in a national uprising of Croats and Slovenes in Istria. Even a few members of the Italian Communist Party and some antifascists took part in the uprising. Political activity of the partisan movement culminated in the decisions reached in Pazin (13 and 26 September 1943) on cancellation of fascist laws and the separation of Istria from Italy and on the annexation of the Croatian part of Istria to Croatia.14 Command of the Slovene Liberation Front took a similar decision regarding the Slovenian part of Istria and the Slovene Littoral. Among the acts of the Liberation Front three are the most significant: the decision of the Regional Liberation committee of Istria on 13 September 1943, the decision of the State Anti-fascist Council for the People’s Liberation of Croatia on 20 September and the decision of Anti-Fascist Council for the People’s Liberation of Yugoslavia, which, as the supreme legislative organ of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Yugoslavia, on 29 November 1943 in Jajce, legalized the decision of the ZAVNOH.15 The decision of AVNOJ represented a unilateral breach of international agreements and, as such, could not have an effect ipso facto. At that time, however, political motivation regarding the proclamation of the final territorial objectives of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Croatia and Yugoslavia was more important. The decision of the Anti-Fascist Council for the Yugoslav liberation was also important from the point of view of relations with the Allies, because it coincided with the conclusions of the Teheran Conference from 28 November 1943. As for the Croatian regions in connection with the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo and the 1924 Treaty of Rome, only an international conference or a new bilateral agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia could lead to a definitive solution. But it would be illusory to expect a scenario of the latter kind from the two political parties so severely opposed and uncompromising.

13

J.R. Whittam, “Drawing the Line: Britain and the Emergence of the Trieste Question, January 1941-May 1945,” The English Historical Review, Vol. 106, issue 419 (1991), 346-370, Compare: TNA, FO, 371/30240, February 1941, Italian-Yugoslav relations, Yugoslav claims on Italian Territories. 14 Darko Dukovski, Rat i mir istarski (Pula, CASH, 2001). 15 Dušan Bilandžić, Hrvatska moderna povijest (Zagreb: Golden marketing, 1999), 155.

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By analyzing this issue, the views of the Independent State of Croatia regarding Istria cannot be ignored. Immediately after the capitulation of Italy (8 September 1943), Pavelić issued a manifesto on the union of all parts of Croatia which had been until then under the Italian rule. As for Istria, he claimed only its eastern part, up to the so-called “Wilson Line”, believing that the territories west of the border were Italian. In this sense, already on 10 September, Pavelić abrogated the Treaty of Rome,16 even though he didn’t have neither political nor military force to carry out this intention.17 Towards the end of 1943 it was evident that the three allied powers had three different opinions on the possible unification of Istria and the Slovene Littoral with Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union took the side of the People’s Liberation Movement, but did not particularly engage in agreements between the allies because this question, to Moscow, had a minor diplomatic value, and which could be solved only at the end of the war. The Americans did not want to meddle in European debates, while the British were absolutely opposed to any changes to the boundaries in south-eastern Europe, and supported Italy so that, after the capitulation of the fascist regime, it became their ally and the main point of reference in the Mediterranean.18 British interest, particularly Churchill’s, for Istria became apparent since May 1943 and, even more, after the Allied landings in Sicily and the fall of Mussolini in July of the same year. During this period, Churchill repeatedly insisted with the Secretary of War Henry Lewis Stimson, that the Allies, after an effective campaign in Italy, embark upon a new and final campaign through Trieste, Istria and the passage of Ljubljana towards Austria, preceding the Soviet armed forces. The Americans knew that Churchill, with this operation through Istria, wanted to cut the road towards the “heart of Europe” to the Soviets and, at the same time interfere in the events in the Balkans he cared so much for. However, Roosevelt did not agree with this British political and military strategy.19 At the same time, on the military plans for the Allied landing in Dalmatia and Istria,20 the Research Sector of the Foreign Office was developing 16

Bogdan Krizman, Ustaše i Treći Reich (Zagreb, Globus, 1983), 116. Fikreta Jelić-Butić, Ustaše i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska 1941-1945 (Zagreb: Liber, Školska knjiga, 1978), 84; Antun Giron, Petar Strčić, Poglavnikovom vojnom uredu (Rijeka: Povijesno društvo Rijeka, 1993). 18 Francis L. Loeweheim, Harold D. Langley, Manfred Jonas, Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (New York, 1975), 331; Elisabeth Barker, “L’opzione istriana: obiettivi politici e militari della Gran Bretagna in Adriatico (19431944),” Qualestoria, X/1 (1982), 3-44. 19 Nešović, Diplomatska igra oko Jugoslavije 1944-1945, 26. 20 Ibid., 19 and 28. 17

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what, in future, would become the backbone of the British military and diplomatic strategy towards Italy, Yugoslavia and the disputed territory of Venezia Giulia. An image of the territory “torn apart” by opposing nationalisms was created of this region. In accordance with such image, British diplomacy accepted a proposal to apply the rules of international law relating to the ethnically homogeneous areas: boundaries were drawn on the line of ethnic separation, with the possibility of population exchange. The second proposal of British diplomacy was to give the disputed territory to be governed by the allied forces and to exclude the interested parties (Italy and Yugoslavia) from any form of power in this territory until a common solution could be found.21 The concern of the British for a possible loss of Istria was not unfounded. Allied missions operating in Venezia Giulia observed in their reports that in most of the territory People’s Liberation Movement was active and that it enjoyed wide support of the local population.22 The British gave up on the project to land in Istria only at the beginning of 1945, and Marshal Alexander, in February of the same year, conducted a series of interviews with Tito regarding the coordination of the activities of the Allied forces and the Fourth Army. These talks clearly showed that a diplomatic solution was hard to reach. It was agreed that the two armies (the Allies and the Partisans), in the process of liberation of the territories, would have the right to remain in those regions in which they arrived first. Since they had lost the race for Trieste and Istria, where the Yugoslav partisans had already arrived, earning a reputation of “liberators”, the British were forced to save what could be saved, temporarily accepting the policy of Tito in those areas as a fait accompli.23 Tito’s followers in Yugoslavia, between March and April 1945, made important decisions on the future of the Italian population of Dalmatia, Kvarner, Istria and Slovene Littoral. It was decided that the Italian families who had settled in Istria before 1 January 1919, i.e. those with the Austro-Hungarian citizenship, would have the right of choice (they could, therefore, remain there as well), while those who had emigrated in Istria after the 1 January 1919 would have to leave.24

21

Francis L. Loeweheim, Harold D. Langley, Manfred Jonas, Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence, doc. 400, 546. 22 TNA, WO, 220/71: Secret Report 12.06.1944; WO, 202/205: Report by capt. F. Burnett BLO 11. Corps. Lika Croatia 1.09.1944; WO, 202/281: Intelligence report, Eastern Istria 5-25, April 1945. 23 Elisabeth Barker, “L’opzione istriana,” 42-4. 24 AJ, Fond 60, f. 1-1: Telegram to the Minister of the Interior, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Constituent Assembly, 21.03.1945, No.  194/2; Reply 9.04.1945, No. 73.

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2.  Division of Venezia Giulia into zones: the Treaty of Peace with Italy and the London Memorandum (1945-1954) Question of revision of the border with Italy, raised by the Yugoslav side, particularly by the Croats and Slovenes, was not resolved with the Yugoslav army simply occupying the disputed territories during the military operations in the last phase of the war. It was resolved gradually, first during the Peace Conference in Paris, which formulated the Treaty of Peace with Italy in February 1947, then with the London Memorandum of Understanding from October 1954, and finally with the Treaty of Osimo from November 1975.25 In all these diplomatic negotiations and all agreements, Croatia was one of the parties interested in the problems of the exodus of the Italian population, the regulation of property rights for claimants in former Zone A (Pula and surrounding area) and in Zone B, and finally, from 1947 to 1954, in the question of minority rights, demarcations at sea etc. in a part of Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste (Buje). But it was not directly involved in the decision-making process, like Slovenia. At the same time, top Croatian politicians were interested in the demarcation of internal boundaries of Yugoslavia, between the ethnic groups and the Republics of Slovenia and Croatia in Istria. Problem of the border demarcation between Yugoslavia and Italy after the Second World War and the difficulty to stabilize any legal and governmental status of this region were, during the Peace Conference in Paris, the main factor of repression of military and civil bodies of the new communist government in Croatian and Slovenian Istria. The problem became even more complex since the moment when the interests of former war allies came into conflict on the territory of the entire Venezia Giulia.26 Yugoslav, as well as Croatian, attitude regarding the issue of the Italian-Yugoslav border demarcation was conditioned by the events that preceded the end of the war.27 25

Osimski sporazumi, ed. Črtomir Kolenc (Koper: Založba lipa, 1977); Viljenka Škorjanec, Osimska pogajanja (Koper: Univerza na Primorskem, ZRS, Založba Annales, Zgodovinsko društvo za južno Primorsko, 2007); Osimska meja: Jugoslovanskoitalijanska pogajanja i razmejitev leta 1975, ed. Jože Pirjavec, Borut Klabjan, Gorazd Bajc (Koper: Založba Annales, 2006); Sandi Volk, Istra v Trstu: Naselitev istrskih in dalmatinskih ezulov in nacionalna bonifikacija na Tržaškem (Koper: Univerza na Primorskem, ZRS – Zgodovinsko društvo za južno Primorsko, 2003). 26 Darko Dukovski, “Hrvatsko-slovenski odnosi i pitanje razgraničenja u Istri (19002002),” in Slovensko-hrvaško sosedstvo: Hrvatsko-slovensko susjedstvo (Koper, 2011), 47-66; Id., Rat i mir istarski, 178-95, 218-45; Id., “Represija, nezakonitosti i zločini vojnih i civilnih organa vlasti u hrvatskom dijelu Istre 1945-1950,” in Represija i zločini komunističkog režima u Hrvatskoj (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2012), 207-68. 27 Nešović, Diplomatske igre oko Jugoslavije, 136.

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Tito was and remained convinced that, regarding Trieste and Istria, he would be tricked by the Western Allies. From the correspondence between Churchill, Truman and Marshal Alexander appears clear that the Western Allies were interested to see their military units in Trieste before Tito’s.28 Western military forces that came to Trieste after Tito’s did not immediately interfere in the activities of Yugoslav military and civilian administration. On 5 May 1945, informally and unilaterally, pro-Yugoslav forces in Trieste provocatively proclaimed the “annexation” of Trieste to Yugoslavia with the status of the “seventh republic”. This soured even more the already strained relations between the two parties.29 Rijeka and Istria had been, until 7 May, completely under control of military units and bodies of Yugoslav civil force. At the same time Harry Truman sent a message to Churchill in which he came to the conclusion that the Yugoslav occupation of Trieste would have serious consequences in the future and it would be necessary to insist that the British Marshal Alexander, commander of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean, take control of Trieste and Pula, sending Tito away from those territories.30 The first dialogues between Colonel William D. Morgan, head of command of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean, and Marshal Tito, which occurred in May 1945, did not lead to a solution of the boundary dispute, but, in response to diplomatic-military pressures by AngloAmerican diplomacy and armies, were equally accepted on 21 May. The so-called “Morgan Line” divided Istria in two parts. Next step in the solution of various border issues were the Belgrade conversations, during which, on 9 June 1945, an agreement was signed between the governments of the United States, Britain and Yugoslavia, on the creation of a provisional military administration in Venezia Giulia. Under this agreement, Yugoslav army had to retreat from Trieste and Pula on 12 June 1945, and Venezia Giulia was divided into Zone A and Zone B.31 Zone A comprised Trieste, Pula and its surroundings and was placed under the control of Allied Military Government, based in Trieste, while Zone B 28

Ibid., 128-38. Glenda Sluga, The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border: Difference, Identity and Sovereignty in Twentieth-Century Europe (New York: State University of New York Press, 2001). 30 TNA, CAB, 66/65/49: tel. to US President Harry Truman addressed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 12 May 1945 No.  34; tel. to British Prime Minister W.  Churchill, 12 May 1945 No.  45; CAB, 65/52/10: 60th Conclusions: Confidential Annex 13 May 1945: Military Situation in Venezia Giulia. 31 TNA, WO, 220/71: Top Secret Memorandum of Conversation 12 June 1944; CAB, 65/52/10: W.M. (45) 60th Conclusions: Confindental Annex 13 May 1945. Military situation in Venezia Giulia. Top Secret. 29

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included the rest of Istria and was subject to the control of the Yugoslav military administration.32 Home of the Yugoslav administration was set up, until 23 October 1948, in Opatija. Allies also wanted to occupy other parts of Istria, but waived it with Duino Agreement from 26 June 1945. This situation remained unchanged until the final decision of the Peace Conference in Paris.33 The issue of border demarcation between Italy and Yugoslavia was also the subject of work of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Before the Council started to work, in London on 26 August 1945, a provisional state delegation of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia passed a resolution which required the annexation of the Slovene Littoral, Trieste, of Istria, Rijeka and Zadar, and the islands of Lastovo and Palagruža to Yugoslavia. Memorandum of the Yugoslav government was delivered at the Conference on 15 September. The Italian government, however, first sought to take the position of a war ally, which could greatly improve its position. Western Allies were ready to accept such solution, but the Soviets blocked them with a counterproposal: to recognize the status of an ally to all the Eastern European countries which had declared war on Germany before the end of the war. Alcide de Gasperi, then Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Ferruccio Parri, presented to the Council a proposal of border demarcation following the “Wilson line”, but correcting the border for the benefit of Italy. Events related to the delivery of the Yugoslav government’s Memorandum were followed by important meetings of Croatian Communists. Problem of the border demarcation with Italy was faced for the first time at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party on 11 September 1945. On that occasion, beside Vladimir Bakarić (who was also member of the diplomatic mission at the Paris Conference and who took part in the work of the Committee for the definition of the boundaries), members of Politburo of the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party, Edvard Kardelj and Moša Pijade, were present at the meeting and made a brief report on the difficulties and prospects of the issue of Istria at the Peace Conference.34 Although it was 32

TNA, WO, 220/71: Report Top Secret 12 June 1944. (P.I.C.) Political gazetteer of Yugoslavia, No. 8 Istria; CAB, 65/52/10: W.M. (45) 60th Conclusions: Confindental Annex 13 May 1945. Military situation in Venezia Giulia. Top Secret; TNA, WO, 204/1887: Allied occupation of Pula, June-July 1945. 33 TNA, CAB, 66/65/49: telegram to US President Harry Truman addressed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 12 May 1945. No. 34; telegram to British Prime Minister W. Churchill on 12 May 1945. No. 45. 34 Zapisnici Politbiroa Centralnog komiteta Komunističke partije Hrvatske 1945-1952, ed. Branislava Vojnović, Vol. 1, 1945-1948 (Zagreb, Hrvatski državni Arhiv, 2005), 107-11.

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certain that Rijeka, Zadar, the islands of Cres, Lošinj and Lastovo were annexed to Yugoslavia, at the same time it was believed that Britain and the United States would certainly try to ensure that the Istrian peninsula, with the exception of Opatija, be annexed to Italy. At that time, only the Soviet Union supported the claims of Yugoslavia. Kardelj announced to the leaders of the Communist Croats that the Government of the Federal Democratic Yugoslavia would demand at least the re-establishment of the old Italian-Austrian border, according to which the whole of Istria with Pula and Rijeka would be united with Yugoslavia (while Rijeka would be granted the municipal autonomy). Trieste would become a free city under Yugoslav sovereignty and directly under the control of Belgrade. If the Americans and the British insisted on these requests for annexation of Trieste and western Istria to Italy, it would be possible to ask for a plebiscite. However, this issue lacked real discussion. Croatian politicians could not do anything else but to intensify their political activity on site, among the population of the disputed territories. In early October of the same year they decided to support the work of the Slavic-Italian Union for Istria, which was well received by the Italians who saw in it a guarantee of equal rights with the Croats and Slovenes. It was also felt that the idea of Trieste as a federal unit was excellent and it was received with enthusiasm by many Italians, communists or not. In early December 1945, Croatian Communist leaders were pleasantly surprised by the results of elections conducted in Zone B, where 94.5% of voters voted for the Slavic-Italian Union, considering that the elections had the character of a plebiscite, even for Yugoslavia. They concluded, therefore, that the majority of Italians had voted for Yugoslavia. Situation with Rijeka was assessed, however, as much more complex and intricate.35 Obviously, it was not possible to resolve the battle for Istria, Trieste and the Slovene Littoral without direct international arbitration. With this purpose, according to the decision of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Inter-Allied Commission for demarcation of borders between Yugoslavia and Italy arrived in Trieste on 7 March 1947. The Committee consisted of delegations from Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States, and among them were also diplomats and experts for specific issues. Besides the Committee, numerous journalists also came. Croatian and Slovenian population was well prepared for the reception of the Commission, on the directive of Slovenian and Croatian authorities. On access roads to the cities and countries which the Commission visited, the people manifested their willingness to unite with Yugoslavia. On 15 March 1946 in Pazin an exhibition of documents was organized which

35

Ibid., 131-48.

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attested to the special cultural and national identity of the Slavs in Istria, their roots, their number and strength, their autochthony. On 17 March the regional council for Istria delivered to the Commission a memorandum which, in addition to the testimonies of historical and religious importance, also included the data relating to the ethnic structure of the Istrian people according to the statistics from 1846 to 1945. Data regarding the ethnic structure of 1945 were particularly underlined. Among this information it was mentioned that the majority of Italians lived in the cities and the province was inhabited by the Croats and Slovenians. Economic data clearly showed that no city would be able to prosper without the support of its province.36 Everything was organized by the Central Committee of the Croat Communist Party of Zagreb, through its subsidiaries, paying particular attention to the city of Pula, Rovinj and Poreč and, subsequently, to all the villages of the western Istrian coast.37 As for Rijeka, situation required a great commitment to the growth of its economy as the best way to campaign against Yugoslavia.38 In this regard, Croatian Communists in Rijeka developed an intense activity for alleviating the difficult situation of the city. In particular, they tried to give a boost to the economy and reconstruction of residential buildings.39 To verify this information on site, the Commission sent to Trieste, Rijeka and Pula a special group of economics experts. All statistical data were collected and processed by the Adriatic Institute of Rijeka and published in a special edition entitled Cadastre National de l’Istrie: d’apres le Recensement du 1er Octobre 1945,40 which was given to the members of the Inter-Allied Commission. The Inter-Allied Commission also received a delegation of Croatian Catholic priests, who handed over a separate memorandum. The priests confirmed the statistical data using parish registers and described the difficult conditions in which the priests and Croat and Slovenian believers had lived during the Italian administration. These 36

HR-DAPA, ONOI, 1946, b. 1: Minutes of the Meeting, 13 March 1946. Zapisnici Politbiroa Centralnog komiteta, 183. 38 Ibid., 184; Primorski vjesnik, 3 October 1945, No. 208, 4: “Command No. 18 Military Government of Yugoslav Army for Venezia Giulia, Istria, Rijeka and Slovenian Littoral for the day 25 September 1945; Glas Istre, 4 October 1945, No.  97, 4”: “Command No. 20 Military Government of Yugoslav Army for Venezia Giulia, Istria, Rijeka and Slovenian Littoral for the day 1 October 1945”; Glas Istre, 27 November 1945, No. 122, 4: “Command No. 32. Import and export of goods from the Zone B”; Glas Istre, 1 January 1946, No. 136, 5: “Command No. 36. Military Government of Yugoslav Army for Venezia Giulia, Istria, Rijeka and Slovenian Littoral”. 39 HR-DARI, 323(JU-212), GNOR, b. 117: Joint Activities GNOR, 1945-1947, Memorandum from GNOR, 1945. 40 Cadastre National de l’Istrie: d’après le Recensement du 1er Octobre 1945 (Sušak: Edition de l’Institut Adriatique, 1946). 37

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testimonies of Catholic priests in favor of Yugoslavia represented one of the most significant arguments considered by the Inter-Allied Commission. Support for the annexation of the Croatian part of Istria and of Rijeka to the Yugoslav Croatia was also given by the Italians who were part of the Italian Union for Istria and Rijeka.41 Not all the Italian inhabitants of the Zone B were in favor of Yugoslav Istria, but their organized endeavors were systematically obstructed. However, there were also those who opposed to this possibility in a more radical way. Organized groups of 5-6 people were trying to intimidate the Croatian population and Communists in the border zones by armed actions. The objective was to create uncertainty among Croatian population and among Communists of those areas, to make sure they emigrated, so as to allow the annexation of this region to Italy. An example occurred in early November 1945, at Kaštelir, where some unknown people wrote “Long live Mussolini! We will return and burn your house” on a house wall of a villager, a Croat member of the Communist Party. That same night some thirty chickens were stolen, grenades were thrown and shots were fired at the building of the National Militia, injuring a member of the Militia.42 In contrast to the general political situation of the cities, situation in the rural areas was considered excellent, especially in the view of elections. In the city, however, there were attempts to boycott the elections, to intimidate and persuade to vote in favor of Italy, carried out largely by the clergy. In early 1946, the political situation was not at all improved.43 After travelling through Istria between interviews with prominent personalities of political, religious and cultural life, the Commission presented, in Paris on 23 April, its own Report. At the Third Congress of the Council of Ministers, held from 25 April until 16 May 1946, four proposals were identified, of which the Soviet Union’s was considered the most acceptable for Yugoslavia, while that of the United States turned out to be the least desirable. Top leaders of the Croatian Communist Party maintained a rather cautious stance on the issue of Istria and the definition of the boundaries, although Vladimir Bakarić, President of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, was a member of the mission to Paris. A final decision was not taken even after the third session of the Council of Ministers. The situation was getting worse and worse. Attitude of the political structure in Croatian Istria was clear: to fight for the annexation of Venezia Giulia and Trieste to Yugoslavia, with the help of the Soviet 41

HR-DAPA, ONOI, 1946, box 1, Memorandum III, Regional Assembly 9-10 July 1946. HR-DAPA, KNO (1945), b. 1: Note 3-15 November 1945, No. 20. 43 HR-DAPA, KNO Buie (1945), b. 1: Note, January 1946. 42

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Union. Any other possibility would be a defeat. They opposed even the organization of a referendum proposed by Ivanoe Bonomi considering it an “Italian trap”.44 The Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of London decreed on 19 September 1946 a decision on territorial boundaries which should be drawn between Italy and Yugoslavia. The decision contained some fundamental principles of demarcation and ordered the Deputy Foreign Ministers to examine and report on various solutions, given the ethnic configuration of the area. Only at the fourth session was the French proposal accepted which saw Istria divided into two parts: the northwestern part of Novigrad was ceded to the Free Territory of Trieste (FTT), while the remaining part of Istria, with Pula, was ceded to Yugoslavia. Voting for the new border between Yugoslavia and Italy took place on 28 September 1946. Final stage of drafting the Treaty of Peace with Italy was delegated to four foreign ministers who attended the conference in New York. The Ministers drafted, in December 1946, the Treaty of Peace with Italy, which was signed in Paris on 10 February 1947 by the countries involved. But that agreement satisfied neither Italy nor Yugoslavia, as both considered themselves aggrieved as well as forced by the dictates of the strongest powers even before the signing of the agreement. The days preceding the signing of the Treaty were days of great tension between the Allied forces, fearing that Yugoslavia would not sign the Treaty of Peace, and could even intervene militarily.45 Croatian political element, in the months of February, March and April, practically did not mention the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Italy and the implementation of the FTT. Croats were completely occupied by the political work in Istria, which at times turned into a real dictatorship, as evidenced by Jakov Blažević, a member of the Cabinet of CK KPH at the meeting of 13 February 1947. Finally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fell within the jurisdiction of the federal government, so the problem could possibly be presented only in the Parliament. Parliament had only established the existence of a new state and, in reference to the latter, had supported the necessary changes in legal administration in Zone B of the Free Territory, and, in particular, in the District of Buje. On 20 February the FTT with Zones A and B was actually established. Zone A was administered by the Allied military forces, while the Zone 44

HR-DAPA, ONOI, 1946, b. 1, Memorandum III, District Assembly 9-10 July 1946. TNA, FO, 371/59378, Council of Foreign Ministers (New York Meeting) Documents; ibid.: Peace Treaty with Italy: Notes on Italo-Yugoslav Frontier and the Free Territory of Trieste, 23 December 1946.

45

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B was under the VUJA administration of civil authority bodies. This condition subsisted until the legal establishment of the territory in the year 1954. With the creation of the FTT some changes were realized in the organization of civil government in the Zone B, which had been formed as a single administrative and political unit. However, this unique political and administrative area, known as the Province of Istria, remained virtually divided into two districts: Buje and Koper. Decision to establish the Province of Istria was made by mutual agreement between the Provincial People’s Committee for Liberation of the Slovene Littoral and the District People’s Committee of Istria, but with the approval of the Military Administration of the Yugoslav Army but not of the Parliament. In this sense, the civilian government was also divided. In the District of Koper authority was exercised by the Slovenes, while in the District of Buje by the Croats.46 After signing the Peace Agreement of February 1947, the phenomenon of the exodus took on larger dimensions due to the official start of the options that had been provided for by the Treaty. Climax came in 1948 and resulted in tragic events, which reflected the incompetence, intolerance, arrogance of local authorities, particularly during the first resolution of the Cominform.47 Pursuant to Article 79 of the Treaty of Peace of 10 February 1947, Yugoslavia was authorized to confiscate all Italian properties (real estate, rights and interests) of the Italian natural and legal persons, who were in the area on 15 September 1947, when the Treaty entered into force. Yugoslavia had the right to dispose of property until the achievement of Italian claims for compensation, and Italy was obliged to indemnify its citizens. The properties of claimants that had not been offered for the indemnification had been blocked, until the agreement was reached. The exiles had not been included in this group, and their properties were confiscated and nationalized. The Free Territory of Trieste was given international status. It was supposed to be led, according to the conclusions of the Conference for Peace, by a governor. In this sense, by September 1947 most of the British and American armed forces would have to withdraw from Trieste. The governor was supposed to be appointed by the UN Security Council, after consultation with the Italian and Yugoslav governments. However, the Security Council did not succeed in reaching an agreement between the two governments regarding the choice of the governor. And indeed, the governor had never been named, so they went ahead with the previous military regime. However, Zone B of the Free Territory, 46

Ljubo Boban, “Granice Istre u programima hrvatskih političkih stranaka u Drugom svjetskom ratu,” Pazinski memorijal, XXIII-XXIV, 1995, 242. 47 HR-DAPA, KNO Parenzo (1948-1951) b. 123, Optanti.

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regardless of international decisions, was annexed to the structure of the Yugoslav state, or in the structure of the Croatian state and the Slovenian State. At the same time, Zone A of the FTT was slowly assimilated into the Italian legal system. According to the VUJA order from 15 May 1952, in agreement with the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Croatian and Slovenian governments, the District of Istria stopped existing as a single entity and its jurisdiction was transferred to the District People’s Committee of Buje and the District People’s Committee of Koper. Already from April 1952, political tensions in the Croatian Istria could be felt. “Croats and Italians, deputies of the People’s Committee of the District of Pula”, in a written declaration to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Yugoslav government expressed their concern and willingness to defend the rights gained by the Treaty of Peace with Italy, convinced that the formation of the FTT “would eliminate the causes of tensions between Yugoslavia and Italy, and thus enable a winwin partnership for peace, for the people who live in these areas”.48 During Giuseppe Pella’s government, in 1953, Italy requested that the Zone A of the FTT have for Italy the same status that the Zone B had for Yugoslavia.49 This led to a rapid escalation of the conflict that culminated in the Trieste crisis. Given the critical situation that occurred between Italy and Yugoslavia, governments of the United States and the United Kingdom engaged in a diplomatic effort to reach negotiations and a compromise. Negotiations began in February 1954 and were very difficult and uncertain. The British and the Americans, moderators of the process, had given way to negotiations and decided to please Tito by offering a compromise of 25 million dollars for the construction of a major new port in Zone B, as well as a great reward in grain supplies, which were then scarce in Yugoslavia. The Anglo-American proposal of a compromise agreement was simple: taking into account the fact that, in the meantime, ethnic changes were made and examining the global reality, it was proposed that the Zone A of the FTT fall under full sovereignty of Italy, that the Zone B of the FTT fall under sovereignty of Yugoslavia and that the boundary between the two zones become the national border. Finally, on 5 October 1954, in the Foreign Office in London, Italian ambassador Manlio Brosio and Yugoslav Ambassador Vladimir Velebit signed on behalf of their governments the London Agreement, known as the “London Memorandum” (Memorandum of Understanding).50 In this 48

TNA, WO, 204/11081, AMG, Territory Subject to AC/AMG; Sept. 1946 to April 1947. Davorin Rudlof, Granice s Italijom, 75. 50 Memorandum of understanding between the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Italy, the United States of America and Yugoslavia regarding the Free Territory of Trieste. [With special statute and statement], London, 5 October 1954 (London: H.M.S.O., 1954); Cecilia Assanti, “Riflessioni 49

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way the end was put to an absurd situation, as well as very dangerous for peace in general and for the establishment of good relations between the two countries. Leaders of both sides made statements in which they mentioned that the best solution had been reached, given the time and the overall situation from a political, economic and military point of view. They also recognized the importance and the willingness to develop friendly relations and cooperation in areas of mutual interest. Special Statute, annexed to the Memorandum, provided for equality in the regulations with regards to national minorities, in order to meet their national rights and the principle of equality in all aspects. Western countries such as France, the United Kingdom and the United States signed the Memorandum, indicating it as the final solution of the problem.51 However, Italy did not give notice of ratification in the Parliament, unlike Yugoslav government that brought the document to the People’s Assembly for ratification, of course, unanimous and with great approval. According to the Resolution of the Federal Executive Council from 7 October 1954, on the territory of the FTT that belonged to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: civil administration in the territory referred to in paragraph 2 of this Decision will be implemented by the national committees and by municipalities, municipal councils and districts, as, within its rights and obligations, federal and republican bodies […] In the zone of the District of Koper and in what until then was known as Zone A of the Free Territory of Trieste, over which extends the civilian administration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the rights and obligations of the republican authorities will be carried out by the competent authorities of the People’s Republic of Slovenia, while in the District of Buje they will be carried out by the competent authorities of the People’s Republic of Croatia.52

Croatian public was informed in detail about the importance of ratification of the Memorandum, but only about those details that were to enhance the success of Yugoslav diplomacy. The Memorandum was presented as the “the final Agreement for the border planning between Italy and Yugoslavia”, although in reality it was not, and, as such, would mark the beginning of good neighborly relations between the two countries, which was acceptable. All the newspaper reports were made similar and appropriate to the official report of the Yugoslav government. Local press described the euphoria of the people, particularly of the inhabitants of the former Zone B of the FTT, their meetings, speeches politico-giuridiche su tre atti fondamentali: il Trattato di pace; il Memorandum di Londra; il Trattato di Osimo,” in Dalla liberazione agli anni ’80: Trieste come problema nazionale (Roma: Claudio Salemi tipografo editore, 1982), 57-5. 51 Ibid., 60-3. 52 Official Gazette of FNRJ, No. 13, 13 October 1954, 637.

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by party officials in Croatian and Italian language, and of course, their enthusiasm for Yugoslavia and Tito. Armed forces of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia entered, on 25 October, the districts of Buje and Koper, permanently formalizing the sovereignty of Yugoslavia on these “newly annexed territories”. In early November, the Government of the People’s Republic of Croatia expanded Croatian laws to the District of Buje, which was in that way formally annexed to Croatia.53 The Italian Union of Istria and Rijeka, during the meeting held on 9 October in Vodnjan, willingly signed the Memorandum and decided to expand its activity on the Italian national minority in the newly annexed districts. Special regulations of statutes arranged by both governments were not fully implemented, even if, at the beginning of 1960, in the Croatian part of Istria, relations with the Italian national minority began to change substantially, just as even the political approach of the Italian Union of Istria and Rijeka in Croatia to the local authorities began to change. The tone of criticism aimed at the legislature was becoming more and more obvious and more resolute on how to deal with the equality rights of the Italian minority in Croatia, with the demands for autonomy of the Italian school system in general, and with requests for the use of Italian language, beside Croatian, in those communities where Italians, Croats and Slovenes lived together.54 In the period 1965-1967, the Union established contacts with the Republic of Italy, and with local institutions, cultural and educational, such as the National University of Trieste, even before Osimo. The Union, with its ideas, was able to win the confidence of the Croatian party leaders, i.e. of the local party committees and of Socialist League of Working People of Croatia associations, as well as of those municipalities where there was a mixed population. As for equality, the Union insisted on bilingualism in those places where there were mixed populations. During 1970, the proposal to introduce bilingualism was still in the process of public debate and the political authorities of the municipalities of Istria, in principle and in accordance with the suggestions of the CK SKH, proved favorable to the issue, and in some cases encouraged such change. In the early 1970s the Croatian People’s movement (“Croatian Spring”) earned consensus so fear among the Italian minority community leaders was created. First, Italians in Istria and Rijeka were very distrustful of both the Croatian People’s movement, as well as of the reformist current in CK SKH, which, in their view, was calling into question not only the 53

Glas Istre, 8, 15 and 29 October 1954; Glas Istre, 12 and 19 November 1954. Antonio Borme, La minoranza italiana in Istria e a Fiume: scritti e interventi dal 1964 al 1990 in difesa della sua identità e della sua dignità civile (Trst: Rovinj: Unione Italiana Fiume, Università popolare di Trieste, 1992), 69.

54

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acquired national rights, but also the achievement of bilingualism on the territory of Istria, Rijeka and the Kvarner islands. However, councilors of the Municipality of Pula Assembly accepted the proposal to amend the Statute of bilingualism and the introduction of the Italian language at all school levels, as proposed by the SSRNH Commission and by the Italian Union, while, by the end of 1970 until the middle of 1971, laws on bilingualism and integral bilingualism were incorporated in legal regulations. Leaders of the Italian Union followed with attention the socalled Action program, which was created by the Joint Committee OK SKH Pula and SSRNH Pula, and was presented at the public hearing of 18 May 1970. The program included a radio program in Italian language and bilingual print for the Official Journal of the municipality. In the month of June 1971 political activists in Pula organized a broad public debate in order to obtain a comprehensive implementation of the equality program. After the demands for autonomy for the Italian schools in the end of 1970, in May of 1971 the Italian Union requested cultural as well as socio-political autonomy, but it was rejected. According to many, it was too early to talk about it.55

3.  Croatia, the 1975 Treaty of Osimo and the 1983 Rome Agreements The main purpose of the Treaty of Osimo was to resolve the question of national borders, heritage, and other issues that remained unresolved after the London Memorandum. However, the Treaty was presented as a contract of primarily political nature, which replaced the provisional London Memorandum of 1954 and “definitely” regulated the state borders and other issues concerning bilateral relations regarding the border populations, by promoting economic and technical cooperation for improvement of the living conditions of the population. While working on the Treaty, twelve commissions were established. The Treaty provided for an agreement on compensation for nationalized or confiscated property in the former Zone B of the FTT (final decision on mutual obligations referred to in paragraph 4 of the Treaty). Previous diplomatic efforts to resolve the outstanding issues had not been successful because there had not been sufficient political will, or involvement on the part of the Italian public. However, the Republic of Italy had encouraged, 55

Anamaria Perović, “Si troverà un adeguata sistemazione per la IV scuola elementare italiana di Pola e del suo asilo?,” El Clivo, 1 (1971), 4-10; La Voce del Popolo, 23 May 1971; Glas Istre, 24 June 1971; “Sulle scuole pubblico confronto,” Panorama, 30 September 1971; “Prospettive e problemi della scuola del gruppo etnico italiano,” Glas Istre, 25 October 1971; Albino Crnobori, “Croati e italiani in Istria: per una rinascita – per un’altra sfida,” Gazzetta dello Studente, 16 February 1971.

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for the duration of the provisional Treaty of 1954, economic cooperation: for Yugoslavia, in fact, Italy represented the second largest trading partner among the countries of Western Europe. Italy was also an advocate of the interests of Yugoslavia for export to the countries of the European Economic Community (EEC), approved a large number of loans for the Yugoslav national requirements and sustained industrial cooperation through Joint Commission, which was coordinated for many years by a Slovenian Boris Šnuderl, on behalf of Yugoslavia, and by the Italian Eugenio Carbone. After years of failed diplomatic negotiations, final solution on the issues of borders with Italy was ultimately the result, on the Italian side, of secret negotiations through a so-called “second channel”, consisting of two special political delegates, who were not part of the customary institutional framework of their countries. In particular, the Italian side took the initiative of a particular form of secret negotiations, outside the democratic institutional framework, according to which the States excluded Ministries of Foreign Affairs from the negotiation process. The negotiations, because of their confidentiality, were held in great secrecy in the Strmol Castle and, in 1975, Ragusa and Strunjan. In Belgrade in August 1975, the two sides made an effort to formally sign the documents. The Treaty of Osimo was signed on 10 November 1975 by Yugoslavia and Italy in the Italian town of Monte San Pietro in Ancona. In early March of 1977, agreements were proposed for ratification, and only entered into force on 3 April, after the exchange of instruments of ratification. Italian government, after signing the Treaty of Osimo, was vehemently criticized, particularly because of the lack of transparency in the negotiations and to have skipped the usual diplomatic channels and protocols. For Italian nationalists it was unacceptable to give up the reintegration of Istria, or at least parts of it. Istria had been a part of Italy for 25 years (1919-1943) and its western part was inhabited mainly by the Italian population. Some even appealed to Article 241 of the Italian Penal Code, accusing the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time of the crime of treason. The second drawback was that the Treaty did not provide for the protection of the Italian minority in Yugoslavia – as it did not guarantee the rights of the Slovenian minority in Italy. The question of the protection of minorities was regulated hereafter by specific protocols. In the group of Yugoslav negotiators were also Croatian experts but they were usually consulted only for issues of Croatian interest (legal issues on property, Italian minority, border and economic issues). A local Croatian daily in Italian, La Voce del Popolo, published, on 6  October 1975, a speech by the president of the Italian Istria and Rijeka, Luigi Ferri, that welcomed the imminent signing of the Treaty, adding that the Union 318

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since 1954 had made arrangements for the final solution of the problem. In practice, all social and political institutions and public organizations favorably welcomed the Agreement, without any criticism or doubt about the work done by the Yugoslav diplomacy. The most popular Croatian daily Vjesnik, the day after the signing, euphorically announced to the Yugoslav and Croatian public the great success of diplomacy, Yugoslav and Italian, proclaiming that “the conditions to strengthen their relationship had been created”.56 Croatian government, in principle, was pleased with the Agreement, because it had given the go-ahead for economic processes to which it aspired. For the same reason, Government of the Italian region of FriuliVenezia Giulia supported the agreement and requested to participate in the implementation of the provisions related to economic exchanges and cultural cooperation in the future free industrial zone.57 Although the Italian public opinion was critical in regard to the methods and results of the negotiations, Croatian press on every occasion stressed the “unanimity” of the Italian press, inclined to open “an extensive cooperation” after the Agreement. On those occasions the Democratic press was always cited, especially Il Popolo or Corriere della Sera, in which emerged the political realism of both nations and the outlook for the future. Democrat newspaper Il Popolo was the only Italian newspaper to publish the full text of the Treaty of Osimo, and Yugoslavia considered this an act of “political courage”, which allowed the Italian public to be aware of the contents of the document.58 Finally, the KPJ organ Komunist from 17 November 1975, therefore one week after the signing of the Treaty, gave its assessment, i.e. the “official” one, of the incident. For Yugoslav communists it was the “Final Solution”, in relation to territorial and similar issues. They pointed out that this event ended one period and opened another one, certainly better, as far as the relations between the two countries were concerned. To them it was just a logical consequence of the action, which was adopted until then, on “one of the most open European borders” in the spirit of the Helsinki Convention.59

56

Josko Palavršić, “Documento storico di pace, cooperazione e amicizia,” Vjesnik, 11 November 1975. 57 “Supporto al Trattato,” Vjesnik, 11 November 1975. 58 “Il Realismo dei vicini adriatici,” Vjesnik, 12 November 1975; “Le forze che hanno installato il fascismo non sono ancora uscite dalla scena della storia,” Vjesnik, 14 November 1975. 59 “Accordo storico: con la firma dell’ Accordo jugoslavo-italiano,” Komunist, 17 November 1975.

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In the first half of December 1976, the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Assembly of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia carefully analyzed and approved the proposed laws on the ratification of the Treaty signed at Osimo on 10 November 1975, which were later published in a report and proclaimed during the meeting of the Federal Council of the Republics and Provinces, on 1 March 1977. During the debate on the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia Miloš Minić, an Italian minority member Luciano Benussi supported the ratification of the Treaty of Osimo. Finally, Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Croatia approved the ratification of the Osimo Agreements without objection.60 Croatian public opinion carefully followed and reacted to the ratification of the Treaty of Osimo in 1977. In the Croatian newspaper articles an enthusiastic spirit could be felt, the Treaty of Osimo was considered a consequence of the general spirit of Helsinki. They announced cooperation and unity – both parties focused on the future. Bilateral dimension of the Treaty of Osimo for the Croats was multilateral.61 Press presented it as a “contract for Europe” and was presented in a similar manner by some Italian journalists, such as Dino Frescobaldi, to the Italian public opinion. And perhaps most important and prophetic was that it was considered a just and final solution. For the Croats in Istria the reaction of Italian public opinion to the Treaty of Osimo was no less important. And it was, according to the Croats sent to Trieste, generally very positive, with the exception of the Italian nationalist parties and organizations among which, although later, during general elections in Italy, appeared a very different picture of the situation. For example, the main reason for the acceptance of the Treaty of Osimo, for the majority of the people of Trieste, was the fact that they saw an opportunity for economic development of the city, which, in a short time, proved to be correct.62 The issues of compensation remained unresolved in the Treaty. In particular, with the Peace Agreement of 1947, it was decided that, as compensation for the damages of war crimes committed by Italian forces, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, Italian physical and legal properties were to be nationalized.

60

Trattato di Osimo (Koper: Založba lipa, 1977), 129-146; Miloš Minić, “Con la ratifica del Trattato la Jugoslavia e l’Italia danno il loro contributo all’allentamento, per costruire nuove relazioni tra pari,” Vjesnik, 2 March 1977. 61 Milan Rakovac, “L’origine del futuro comune,” Glas Istre, 5-6 March 1977. 62 “Il realismo dei vicini adriatici,” Vjesnik, 12 November 1975; “Commissione degli Affari Esteri del Consiglio Federale: proposta di ratifica degli Accordi di Osimo,” Vjesnik, 1 March 1977.

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In the 1975 Treaty of Osimo it was found that there were more nationalized properties than what could be considered war damage. Agreement between the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Italy on the final resolution of all mutual obligations arising under Article 4 of the Treaty of Osimo was signed in Rome on 18 February 1983. According to this agreement, Yugoslavia pledged to pay to Italy 110 million dollars for the properties that were nationalized in the former Zone B of the FTT, or in Buje and in Koper. Payments were supposed to be made in 13 annual installments amounting to 8,461,538 dollars. The first two installments of the debt, amounting to 17 million dollars, were paid in 1990 and 1991, but then, with the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and the pressure of war, subsequent payments were blocked. The remaining debt was shared between Slovenia and Croatia, republics that succeeded Yugoslavia and, therefore, are the successors of international treaties, in 62:38 percent ratio.

Afterword The Republic of Croatia is indebted to Italy 35,369,233.00 dollars compensation for property nationalized and seized from areas of Zone B of the FTT; a debt that completes the obligations arising from the 1975 Treaty and the 1983 Rome Agreement. Nevertheless, Italy has not so far provided a bank account number in order to make possible the execution of the payment by the Republic of Croatia. The Croatian-Italian Joint Commission for the exiles, founded in 2002, ceased to be active after two meetings, which shows that there are many unresolved problems, such as the issue of condition of the exiles that should be made equal to the issue of claimants in matters of legal ownership, so far unresolved. In this case, it still remains to be dealt with the problem of the rest of the exiles and properties outside of Zone B of the FTT, or with the assets of claimants in Rovinj, Pula, Vodnjan, Poreč, Labin, Santa Domenica, Opatija, Rijeka, etc. Croatia, in the next 20 years, should compensate foreigners for an amount of 138 million euro. A portion of the debt acquired from Yugoslavia should also be added. In the future a government and a parliament must seriously and responsibly take a stance on the issue, which will certainly have political and economic consequences.

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The Italian Communist Party’s Policy on Trieste as Viewed by Vittorio Vidali (1954-1975) Patrick Karlsen 1. That terrible 1955 On re-embracing Trieste in 1954, Italy celebrated the “final party of its Risorgimento”.1 But the Italian Communist Party took only minor part in the historic event and with scant desire to enjoy itself. The reasons were certainly the long series of ambiguities and misunderstandings, fratricidal conflicts, and often irreconcilable loyalties that in the post-war period had condemned the Italian communists to a “fraught relationship”2 with the “city dear to their hearts” and trapped them within an identity that was difficult to say the least.3 Furthermore, the London Memorandum came in a topical and once again “revolutionary” phase of Soviet-Yugoslav relations that caught the PCI in the midst of unforeseeable developments and forced it once again to manoeuvre in the dark. The first attempts at rapprochement with Tito were made by Chruščëv in the summer of 1954 through correspondence which the Yugoslavs successfully demanded be kept secret so as not to upset the negotiations with the Western powers on Trieste.4 The post-Stalin leadership pursued various objectives through this extraordinary reconciliation. The main purpose of the new Soviet foreign policy was to repair a system that Stalin had left close to breakdown, and therefore to mitigate international

1



2



3



4



Sergio Romano, Guida alla politica estera italiana. Da Badoglio a Berlusconi (Milano: Rizzoli, 2002), 94. Giampaolo Valdevit, “I comunisti italiani e Trieste fra guerra e dopoguerra. Un rapporto disturbato,” in Id., Il dilemma Trieste. Guerra e dopoguerra in uno scenario europeo (Gorizia: Libreria Editrice Goriziana, 1999). VV. AA., Comunisti a Trieste: un’identità difficile (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1983). For an examination of the PCI’s policy towards Italy’s eastern frontier during the war and the post-war period, see Patrick Karlsen, Frontiera rossa. Il PCI, il confine orientale e il contesto internazionale 1941-1955 (Gorizia: Libreria Editrice Goriziana, 2010). Svetozar Rajak, “The Tito-Khrushchev Correspondence, 1954,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 12-13 (2001).

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tensions.5 But besides extinguishing a hotbed of conflict in the socialist world, the peace with Tito was also intended to weaken the Atlantic alliance on its southern flank.6 By thwarting the project of the Balkan Pact, the Soviets simultaneously accelerated the process of assuring Austria’s status as a neutral country. Thus created would be a buffer zone of states (Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria, Yugoslavia) extraneous to the two blocs and such to interrupt NATO’s territorial contiguity with its southern and south-eastern allies.7 Finally, the USSR would acquire key influence in the Adriatic and be able to threaten the supply lines of the Anglo-American forces in the Mediterranean, including the Suez Canal. In short, the resumption of dialogue with Yugoslavia was one of the components of Chruščëv’s notion of peaceful coexistence. Excluding the possibility of armed conflict with the West would also serve to close ranks and reaffirm Soviet leadership in the socialist world, shifting economicpolitical balances in the global arena in favor of the USSR.8 These were the arguments on which, between 1954 and 1955, Chruščëv based his attack on Molotov as the symbol of the harmful aggressiveness of Stalin’s foreign policies and blamed as mainly responsible for the hazards that had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war: from the Berlin blockade, through the Korean War, to the sabotaging of the EDC (European Defense Community).9 From the point of view of Chruščëv and the “collective leadership”, this sequence of errors also included, unsurprisingly, the Soviet management of the Trieste question – at that time one of the causes of the strife between Stalin and Tito.10 Now that the latter had set about emitting messages of pacification and repentance, Chruščëv found it opportune to append to the second of the reparatory letters (July 1954)

5

Andrea Graziosi, L’URSS dal trionfo al degrado. Storia dell’Unione Sovietica. 19451991 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008), chapter IV; Federico Romero, Storia della guerra fredda. L’ultimo conflitto per l’Europa (Torino: Einaudi, 2009), 103 et sqq. 6 Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire. The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: The University of Carolina Press, 2009), 100-2. 7 Günter Bishof, Austria in the First Cold War, 1945-1955: The Leverage of The Weak (New York: Palgrave, 1999), 130-49; Mark Kramer, “The Early Post-Stalin Succession Struggle and the Upheavals in East-Central Europe: Internal-External Linkages in Soviet Policy Making,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. I (1999), No. 1-2-3. 8 Silvio Pons, La rivoluzione globale. Storia del comunismo internazionale 1917-1991 (Torino: Einaudi, 2012), 266-9. 9 Zubok, A Failed Empire, 102 et sqq. 10 Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito. Cominformist Split in Yugoslav Communism (New York: Cornell University Press, 1988), 17; Raoul Pupo, Trieste ’45 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2010).

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the hope expressed on behalf of the USSR that the Trieste question would be resolved “in conformity with the justified interests of Yugoslavia.”11 What did this mean? Vibrations of this profound shift in the geopolitical terrain of the Cold War soon reached both the PCI and the leader of proSoviet communism in Trieste: namely Vittorio Vidali, who anchored his leadership to implacable hostility towards Tito’s Yugoslavia.12 After 1948, the year of the excommunication that had first undermined the unity of the socialist front, the PCI’s policy on Trieste remained firmly aligned with the USSR’s demand for the Peace Treaty to be applied and the Free Territory of Trieste (FTF) be created. In its propaganda, the PCI adhered to the most aggressive cominformist anti-Titoism.13 For that matter, Togliatti saw the FTF as the solution closest to those that he himself had advocated since the end of war (internationalization in the form of an Italian-Yugoslav condominium being the one that he most preferred). It was because of his deep-rooted historicism that Togliatti was not averse to mantling the solution with a providentialist veil, depicting it as the most equitable outcome for those lands so tormented in the modern age.14 When the PCI had to take a position on the London Memorandum, therefore, it chose not to deny such a complex doctrine outright. Although the USSR, with a nod to the Yugoslavs, had notified its neutral stance, the accord that brought Trieste back to Italy was branded by the PCI the “worst” that Italian diplomacy could have obtained, yet another poisoned fruit of Italy’s enslavement to Atlantic imperialism (Togliatti missed the debate in the Chamber due to an “indisposition”).15 The backstage turmoil of Soviet-Yugoslav relations and its possible repercussions were openly discussed at a meeting of the PCI executive at 11

AJ, CK SKJ, 507/IX, 119/I, – 49, Letter (Cable) from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to Tito and Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, 24 July 1954, in Rajak, The Tito-Khrushchev Correspondence (translation of the author). 12 Patrick Karlsen, “Vittorio Vidali: per una biografia del Novecento. Stato delle conoscenze e problemi metodologici,” Annali, Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, a. XXV, 2011. 13 Karlsen, Frontiera rossa, chapter III. See also Maurizio Zuccari, Il dito sulla piaga. Togliatti e il PCI nella rottura fra Stalin e Tito (Milano: Mursia, 2008). 14 Palmiro Togliatti, “L’Italia e la guerra,” Rinascita, VII, 7 (1950); “Trieste atlantica,” Rinascita, X, 10 (1953); Id., Momenti della storia d’Italia (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1973). 15 AP, Camera dei Deputati, session of 19 October 1954; “Il peggiore degli accordi,” Dichiarazione della Direzione del PCI, l’Unità, 6 October 1954; “Il governo sovietico prende atto dell’accordo per il Territorio Libero di Trieste,” l’Unità, 15 October 1954. Giampaolo Valdevit, “Trieste, l’Unione Sovietica, la guerra fredda 1945-1954. Spunti per la messa a fuoco del problema,” Qualestoria, XXII, 3 (1994); Svetozar Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War. Reconciliation, Comradeship, Confrontation, 1953-1957 (New York: Routledge, 2011), 85-6.

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the end of October. Vidali was present at the meeting, and it was only the first of a series that saw a crescendo in his anger and frustration. Togliatti’s announcement that he had given assent to Moscow’s “consultation” on possible reconciliation was approved by a pragmatic unanimity disrupted only by the alarmed speeches of the old Carlos.16 He demonstrated a very clear idea of the meaning to attribute to the signals of agreement on Trieste emitted by the Soviets towards Belgrade. Bolstered by their support and aided by the withdrawal of the allied troops, the Yugoslavs would soon attempt “to do again what they did six to seven years ago”: regain control of the party, not only liquidating Vidali first of all but also resuming the issue of Trieste’s belonging to Italy.17 Consequently, Vidali admonished the meeting, the contents of the 1948 Cominform resolution should not be renounced for any reason, and the party in Trieste should be incorporated into the PCI as the first precautionary measure.18 But Vidali encountered the unyielding opposition of Togliatti, who had no desire to be once again embroiled in the insidious pitfalls of the eastern border. Vidali was therefore invited to consider “more calmly” the advantages of the new situation in regard to the movement’s interests, and his proposal of a merger between the two parties was rejected: it was an “error”, said the leader of the PCI, given the provisional nature of the Memorandum of London.19 The final resolution approved by the party executive went even further by stating that “recognition of the demarcation line as the state’s frontier must in no way be acknowledged or envisaged.”20 Thereafter, in regard to the autonomy of the PCTT from Rome, one observes a curious dance in which the protagonists soon unexpectedly exchanged positions. It is possible to reconstruct these often tortuous movements from a variety of sources, Vidali’s unpublished diaries, the papers of the PCI executive and secretariat; the reports of Italian intelligence on communist activity along the frontier between Italy and Yugoslavia; and the minutes of a meeting of the PCUS Plenum, which are significant for several reasons.21 The matter is important because it 16

“Carlos Contreras” was the name used by Vidali during his period of clandestinity in Mexico and Spain. After the Spanish Civil War, Commandant Carlos would become legendary (not only in a good sense) in the entire international left. 17 AFG, APC, f. M, Direzione, 28 October 1954, mf. 116. 18 “To have relations with us they must first deal with the PCI. We cannot return to 1947. Our PC must be the only one in Trieste”: ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 AFG, APC, f. M, Jugoslavia e Venezia Giulia, Risoluzione riservata su Trieste, 29 October 1954, b. 326, mf. 196. 21 This was the meeting of 9 July 1955, the first at which the members of the Presidium discussed foreign policies with the party leaders and the other state elites: Central Committee Plenum of the CPSU 9th Session, N. A. Bulganin Address, 9 July 1955,

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involves others concerning the development of internal debate and the composition of balances and interdependences within the international communist movement, as well as the fact that the problem that, at least from 1943, the Communist Party’s jurisdiction in Trieste was closely linked with the higher-level problem of the city’s sovereignty. The gist of the matter can be summarized as follows. To the extent that the concern was to withstand external pressures, Vidali found it entirely logical to seek protection in the party to which he was tied organizationally: the “older brother” with whom all policies had been agreed since the break with Tito, and with whom there was a strong (and for both parties vital) financial relationship.22 But what if those pressures became “internal”, i.e. applied by the older brother in accord with yesterday’s enemy? In that case, stout defense of small-scale but strategically precious autonomy might prove to be the most appropriate decision. According to the reports of the interior ministry’s informants – who had infiltrated the Trieste party to its innermost circles23 – this was exactly the kind of revirement to which Vidali resorted on his return from the quarrelsome executive meeting of late 1954.24 As regards definition of the hierarchical relationships between the two communist parties, there followed a stalemate, or better a long trial of strength. The matter would be resolved only at the last congress of the PCTT in 1957, and in a manner intended to make what was in substance a victory for Vidali appear to be a draw. It is difficult to say which of the two years that marked the beginning and end of the dispute was more tormented, which of them left the most scars on the skin of the jaguar.25 What is certain is that in 1956, with the congress of patricide, a world disappeared. This was an event decisive in many respects because the cornerstones of the entire system of political and psychological values underpinning Vidali’s life disintegrated, and thereafter a thick shadow of failure was cast on both the past and on what

22



23



24



25



History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, TsKhSD f. 2 op. 1 d. 173 ll. 76 ff. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org / document /111993. Valerio Riva (with the assistance of Francesco Bigazzi), Oro da Mosca. I finanziamenti sovietici al PCI dalla Rivoluzione d’ottobre al crollo dell’URSS. Con 240 documenti inediti (Milano: Mondadori, 1999); Karlsen, Frontiera rossa, Ch. III. ACS, MI, GAB, Partiti politici 1944-1966, bb. 23-24, f. 1608/85, PCTT/PCI 19551966, Prot. 04134/2 RIS, Organizzazioni clandestine del PCTT, 2/2/1956. The agents of the Trieste police headquarters had corrupted two party functionaries, as was the usual practice in these cases, unknown to each other, and one of whom was very close to Vidali. ACS, MI, GAB, Partiti politici, Prot. 200/9284, Situazione del Partito comunista del TT, 3/12/1954. Il Giaguaro was the last nom de guerre used by Vidali.

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remained of the future, both Vidali’s and that of the numerous others who shared the same illusion and the same lie.26 But for Vidali the 20th Congress was a catastrophe in some way preannounced: the funeral ceremony of a crime committed the year before when Chruščëv had gone to Belgrade to welcome Tito back into the fold. For Vidali, Chruščëv’s trip to Belgrade was a terrible blow not only because of his personal investment of energy and conviction in the battle against the rebellious neighbor and his awareness of having staked a large amount of his political fortunes on its outcome, but also because restoring Yugoslavia’s status as a “genuinely socialist” country, after the schism of 1948, equated to admitting that Stalin had been wrong and therefore that it was permissible to question the USSR’s hitherto undisputed authority to lead world communism. As also Molotov soon realized, there thus began the sunset of the Soviet monocracy and perhaps the end of communism in general.27 Indeed, when Vidali entered the Kremlin to sit in the gallery of the foreign delegates to the 20th Congress, he had already been dressed in mourning for almost a year. That the circle was tightening must have been very apparent on the occasion of Togliatti’s visit to Trieste for the First of May 1955; a visit that had distressing, and with hindsight, fatal implications. Togliatti had rarely visited Trieste previously: three times in the 1920s before the “fascistissime” (the laws of 1926 that definitively transformed fascism into a dictatorship), plus a transit through the city by car, and almost incognito, in 1946 on his return from talks with Tito on the infame baratto (wicked bargain).28 One can only conjecture as to the conflicting emotions evoked in Togliatti by the city that symbolized both irredentism and the Cold War. The anxieties of the PCI secretary caught between Stalin and Tito combined with the passion of a Turinese student fired by anti-Giolitti radicalism, and of a volunteer in the Alpine regiment in 1916 who had concluded the Great War as a senior corporal (the high official of the Third International had been this as well).29 Under the already hot spring sunshine, in front of forty thousand people thronging the terraces of the Valmaura stadium, Togliatti made his appearance hidden behind a pair of dark glasses. Beside him stood Vidali, whom the news photographs showed to be tanned but with a grimace 26

François Furet, Il passato di un’illusione. L’idea comunista nel XX secolo (Milano: Mondadori, 1995), 506-15; Pons, La rivoluzione globale, 269; Vittorio Vidali, Diario del XX Congresso (Milano: Vangelista), 1974. 27 Zubok, A Failed Empire, 100. 28 Claudio Tonel, Rapporto con Trieste (Trieste: Dedolibri), 1987. 29 Aldo Agosti, Togliatti: un uomo di frontiera (Torino: Utet, 1996), 13-5; Giorgio Bocca, Palmiro Togliatti (Bari: Laterza, 1973), 25 et sqq.

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of tension on his face.30 The moment came for Togliatti to speak of the ongoing changes in the international scenario. “The policy of hostility towards the Yugoslav people pursued by the majority of the Italian parties and by the Italian government is wrong and absurd”, Togliatti proclaimed. He then added: “We too, the Italian communists, have in the past clashed with the men who directed and still direct the Yugoslav state, but we have no intention of being exhausted by recriminations. We therefore greet with favour every step that distances Yugoslavia from the imperialists.”31 Togliatti was then suddenly taken ill. Mario Spallone, his personal doctor, recalled that May the First as the date on which “Togliatti’s physical well-being was brusquely interrupted.”32 He was rushed to a mysterious villa in Opicina, a suburb of Trieste. The villa was the espionage center through which the Trieste PC kept the Soviet embassy in Rome informed.33 Togliatti recovered in a few days, but the illness recurred in 1964 at Yalta and caused his death.34 The Valmaura speech confirmed what Vidali had learned in Moscow in February, during a meeting with members of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and then again in April. The reunification was almost accomplished, they told him, and they sounded out his reactions to the eventuality that the Yugoslavs might resume their claims to Trieste: “We would support it. And you?” “Not us, absolutely not!”35 The Titoists saw the Soviet reversal of position as sanctioning their victory, and moreover, as ratifying the rightness of their ideological and political stance since 30

See the pictures in Vittorio Vidali, Ritorno alla città senza pace. Il 1948 a Trieste (Milano: Vangelista, 1982) and on the cover of Pietro Secchia, In memoria di Togliatti. Discorso pronunciato nella commemorazione indetta dalla Federazione del P.C.I. a Trieste il 20 settembre 1964 (Trieste 1964). 31 “In una grande manifestazione a Trieste Togliatti rinnova l’appello a lottare per la pace,” l’Unità, 3 May 1955; Il Lavoratore, 2 May 1955. 32 Mario Spallone, Vent’anni con Togliatti (Milano: Teti, 1976), 135-6. 33 ACS, PCM, f. UZC, f. II, b. 83, Vol.  I, 25/4, Centro di informazioni militari per l’Ambasciata sovietica, Prot. 4/2/23-28/56 GAB, 7/3/1956. Spallone, alerted by Nilde Jotti, arrived in the morning of 2 May on an aeroplane made available by the Italian government. He found Togliatti in bed, debilitated but conscious, engaged in discussion of Carducci’s Odi barbare with Cesare Frugoni, his other personal doctor. 34 When Togliatti briefly regained consciousness after the surgical operation, Nilde Jotti urged Spallone to reassure him: “Tell him that it’s nothing, that it’s like it was in Trieste. And then I said: ‘Palmiro, courage, it’s nothing, it’s like it was in Trieste, remember?’. He seemed to understand. But then he groaned and two tears ran down his face […] He had somehow realized that instead his end was near”: Spallone, Vent’anni con Togliatti. 35 AFG, APC, f. M, Segreteria, 7 June 1955, attachments: Note sulla discussione col PC di Trieste (riservato), author Luigi Amadesi, 5 June 1955, attachments, b. 324, mf. 194; AFG, AVV (Various Authors), Diari, 13 February 1956; Vidali, Ritorno alla città senza pace, 72-3.

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1945 towards Moscow and Trieste. They now claimed the two trophies, which according to a shrewd PCI official sent to study the situation in Trieste at first hand, they agreed should include the head of Vidali.36 They knew that they were backed by Chruščëv and by the USSR premier Bulganin. At the height of the polemic against Molotov, the two inveighed against the “erroneous” way in which the Trieste question had been handled “at the beginning and above all at the end.”37 And they knew that Togliatti was seeking to extract the positive aspects of Chruščëvian destalinization and peaceful coexistence: in particular, an innovative conceptual framework – “polycentrism” – within which to propose the theme of “le vie nazionali” in grand style.38 This was a process in which dialogue with the League of Yugoslav Communists (LYC), even though difficult, would assume strategic importance.39 It is therefore clear that part of the PCI resented the man who reacted to Chruščëv’s visit to Belgrade with a stridently vehement protest. “We are unable to solidarize with the declaration by comrade Chruščëv […] as applied to our land [by way of the Yugoslavs] it was unbridled nationalism camouflaged as socialism, adventurism, sectarianism, political and physical terrorism […] we are proud of the battles fought in recent years to reconstruct the party on the bases of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism” (emphasis added): these were only some of the phrases – and not the most trenchant ones – published by Vidali after the act of contrition made by the CPSU general secretary to an elated Tito.40 Vidali’s vehemence was probably due to his sense of encirclement, but also to his intention to 36

AFG, APC, f. M, Segreteria, 4 February 1955, attachments: Relazione sul lavoro in Jugoslavia, author Antonio Cicalini, 20 January 1955, b. 202, mf. 117. On Antonio Cicalini, one of the persons responsible for relations with Cominform and clandestine activities in Yugoslavia, see Alfredo Bonelli, Fra Stalin e Tito. Cominformisti a Fiume 1948-1956 (Trieste: IRSMLFVG, 1994), 78. 37 “God wants Tito to obtain two Triestes”: Central Committee Plenum of the CPSU Ninth Session, N. A. Bulganin Address, 9 July 1955. 38 Jonathan Haslam, “I dilemmi della destalinizzazione. Togliatti, il XX Congresso del PCUS e le sue conseguenze,” in Togliatti nel suo tempo, ed. Roberto Gualtieri, Carlo Spagnolo, Ermanno Taviani (Roma: Carocci, 2007); Svetozar Rajak, “The Cold War in the Balkans, 1945-1956,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. I, Origins, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler, Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Pons, La rivoluzione globale, 268-71. 39 Marco Galeazzi, Togliatti e Tito. Tra identità nazionale e internazionalismo (Roma: Carocci, 2005); Id., Il PCI e il movimento dei Paesi non-allineati 1955-1975 (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2011); Carlo Spagnolo, Sul Memoriale di Yalta. Togliatti e la crisi del movimento comunista internazionale (1956-1964) (Roma: Carocci, 2007). 40 Vittorio Vidali, “La dichiarazione del comp. Kruscev ed i comunisti triestini,” Il Lavoratore, 30 May 1955; “Intensificare la lotta – Respingere la provocazione,” ibid. (emphasis added).

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reaffirm his loyalties and the political strength that his political contacts in Moscow continued to ensure for him. The Soviet embassy’s military information center at the villa in Opicina worked at full pace. The recent developments had not reduced its importance, and from its referents in Moscow it had received instructions “to defend itself with firmness”.41 The PCI seized the opportunity provided by the colpo di bora – the expression used still today in Trieste to refer to Vidali’s rebellion – to launch a ferocious attack on him. It mounted a sort of political trial and sought support in the Slovenian community to oust him from leadership of the party.42 If the campaign against Vidali failed it was due, as at other times in his life, to factors beyond his control: in a word, luck. The Soviet invasion of Hungary, with which Chruščëv extinguished all the hopes of genuine renewal raised by destalinization, again altered the unstable order of relations between Moscow and Belgrade, inducing Tito to resume his equidistance between the blocs.43 For his part, Togliatti abandoned polycentrism and fell back on the milder and vaguer idea of “unity in diversity.”44 For the time being, therefore, it was not possible to create a privileged axis with Yugoslavia to make the communist movement less dependent on Soviet monolithism.45 With a delay of two years, therefore, the Trieste question came to an end also for the communists. The 6th national congress of the PCI held in December 1956 decreed the reintegration of the Triestine party

41

The center, named T1, gathered military information on the movements of both NATO troops and the Yugoslav armed forces: ACS, PCM, UZC, Prot. 4/2/23-28/56 GAB, 7/3/1956. On Vidali in Moscow in April 1955 see AFG, APC, f. M, Segreteria, 7 June 1955. 42 AFG, APC, f. M, Segreteria, 8 June 1955, b. 324, mf. 194. Togliatti was absent from the debate staged to crucify Vidali. The indecision on the Trieste party’s autonomy and the exploratory contacts between PCI and the League of Yugoslav Communists continued until the eve of the Hungarian tragedy: AFG, APC, f. M, Direzione, 25 October 1956, mf. 127 APC, 1956, mf. 127, on the visit to Belgrade by a PCI delegation unbeknownst to Vidali and the relative protests. On the plotting with dissident Slovenes see ACS, MI, GAB, Partiti politici 1944-1966; Situazione del Partito comunista del TT, Prot. 4/2-10794/55 GAB, 10/10/1955; Situazione del Partito comunista del TT, Prot. 4/211389/55 GAB, 14/10/1955. But according to Vidali, the Titoists, with the backing of Chruščëv, also wanted the head of Togliatti. VV. AA., Diari, 6 June 1956. 43 In February 1957 the tensions reached such a level that a recurrence of 1948 seemed likely: Rajak, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 178-91; Rinna E. Kullaa, NonAlignment and Its Origins in Cold War Europe. Yugoslavia, Finland, and Soviet Challenge (London-New York: I.B. Tauris), 2011. 44 Pons, La rivoluzione globale, 290-92. 45 Galeazzi, Il PCI e il movimento dei Paesi non allineati, 38; Id., Togliatti e Tito, 160-78.

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with the formula, urged by Vidali, of an autonomous federation.46 The situation returned under control, and comandante Carlos gained election to Parliament.

2. Normalization The 6th PCI Congress also served to lay the economic and political bases on which the communists, at both central and local level, intended to build their action in post-London Memorandum Trieste. From Trieste’s reunification with Italy onwards, the line taken by Vidali and others in a series of articles in Rinascita was to represent the event as a calamity: both for the city, increasingly decentralized from Danubian Europe, and for a country already afflicted by stagnation and unemployment.47 Vidali put these arguments in more articulated form to the 5th PCTT Congress held in April 1956. A year and a half after the annexation, he declared, the economic crisis gripping Trieste, far from abating, had been aggravated by a series of factors, which he listed in order thus: the city’s loss of its reference market; its peripheral position on Italian territory; and its lack of modern infrastructures.48 To remedy these problems, Vidali, and the entire PCI with him, insisted on two provisions, one economic, the other institutional: the duty-free zone, and local government autonomy. As regards the duty-free zone, this was a considerable change of mind by the PCI if one considers that it had hitherto treated the project with open suspicion as one the benefits claimed by Yugoslavia during the pre-memorandum discussions.49 It was Togliatti, in a speech of May 1955, who first proposed that Trieste be granted an economic-commercial instrument that would facilitate its integration into the national market.50 Economic goals – stimulating Trieste’s trade with the socialist countries in its traditional hinterland, attracting foreign investments in local industry – also drove the determination with which Vidali promoted the project of the freetrade zone, although in his case there was a strictly political consideration

46

“Il Partito comunista di Trieste annuncia il suo ingresso nel nostro Partito,” l’Unità, 13 December 1956. 47 “Politica italiana,” Rinascita, X, 10 (1953); Palmiro Togliatti, “Di Trieste e della pace,” Rinascita, XI, 7 (1954); Vittorio Vidali, “L’odierna situazione economica e sociale di Trieste e le sue prospettive,” Rinascita, XI, 10 (1954). 48 AFG, APC, f. M, Direzione, 29 September 1955, mf. 136. See also: “Aperto il Congresso del PC di Trieste,” l’Unità, 7 April 1956. 49 See the reports in l’Unità devoted to Trieste in the editions of 5 May and 18 June 1954. 50 “Noi comunisti riconosciamo giusta la rivendicazione che Trieste diventi, all’estremità del Mediterraneo, un porto franco,” Il Lavoratore, 2 May 1955.

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as well.51 Vidali was aware that the true, great, and still unresolved problem of the Communist Party in Trieste was that it was restricted – by its internal structure, social block of reference, and consensus base – to being a party of cadres, and had still not become the mass party that it had sought to be since 1947.52 In 1950, Vidali had suggested that a break with the old (and in certain respects obsolete) Soviet line on the FTT, and its replacement with the claim that the entire territory (Zone B included) be Italy’s, would have increased the communists’ support among middle-class Italians. However, his proposal had been rejected out of hand by the PCI leadership.53 He now maintained that the same function could be performed by the project for a free-trade zone. This he saw as the basis on which to build relations with the most dynamic sectors of Triestine society – business, crafts, commerce, and the professions – hitherto alienated by the Communist Party’s anti-national prejudice.54 Furthermore, the free-trade zone would realize all its potential if rapid implementation was given to article 116 of the Constitution for the creation of the autonomous region of FriuliVenezia Giulia, within which Trieste would be given even greater autonomy. This was the proposal approved with a specific motion by the 8th PCI congress.55 Vidali’s report also stressed the usefulness of the free-trade zone in enabling local firms to leave Confindustria.56 This was indicative of a second significance that the communists attached to the proposal: that the free-trade zone would be a body interposed – so to speak – between Trieste and an Italy still seen as “something separate.”57 For some years after the Memorandum, indeed, not a few militants refused to accept the new party cards because they were adorned with the tricolor.58 It may be that it was precisely the association between autonomy and the freetrade zone that helped the Trieste communists to increase their percentage of votes in the 1956 administrative elections, despite the disaster caused 51

AFG, APC, f. M, Segreteria, 23 July 1956, attachments: Lettera di Vidali, 18 June 1956, mf. 125. 52 Karlsen, Frontiera rossa, ch. III. 53 The episode is reconstructed in detail in ibid. 54 APC, f. M, Segreteria, 31 May 1957, attachments: Lettera di Vidali, 23 May 1957, mf. 129. It was Pellegrini who exhorted the Trieste party to “rapidly supersede its current nature as a party of cadres”. 55 Rapporto con Trieste, doc. 28. 56 “Il Partito comunista di Trieste annuncia il suo ingresso nel nostro Partito,” l’Unità, 13 December 1956. 57 Giampaolo Valdevit, Trieste. Storia di una periferia insicura (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2004), 104. 58 Comunisti a Trieste, 144.

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by the after-effects of the Twentieth Congress.59 Vidali boasted that this success was his own achievement – especially to the party comrades who only recently had tried to eliminate him politically.60 “National question”: this was the expression used at the last meeting of the PCTT (summer 1957) by Pietro Ingrao to define the magnitude of the political, economic and social emergency that Trieste represented for the rest of the country. Ingrao thus inaugurated an interpretative category which the PCI would never renounce thereafter;61 and which would also engender the parliamentary bill – entitled Istituzione della Zona Franca nel Territorio di Trieste – to which Vidali indissolubly tied his parliamentary activity (1958-1968). On presenting the bill to the Chamber on 18 July 1958, Vidali emphasized that unemployment in Trieste far exceeded the national average, and that the level would have been even higher without the mass emigration that had taken place after 1954. All this was due to the inertia or inadequacy of the policies of the republican governments. For Vidali it was necessary to recognize as the basis for every remedy that “Trieste is the natural harbor firstly for Austria and Czechoslovakia, and then for Hungary, part of Yugoslavia and other parts of Europe”. If the government had been clearly aware of this matter of fact when Italy had joined the ECM, it would not have automatically agreed to the favourable measures requested by Federal Germany in regard to Hamburg, “conditions that have enabled that port to penetrate deeply into Trieste’s specific hinterland.”62 The existence of the EMC did not preclude the creation of free-trade zones in the member-countries, and contrary to the self-interested claims of the right, there was no danger to the national integrity of Trieste; indeed, the city’s history demonstrated that trade had long been the vital source of its Italian national identity. In conclusion, Vidali argued, the provision was intended to counter the crisis of the harbor and the area’s entire economy by redirecting to Trieste the investments made by the countries of its hinterland.63

59

See the data collected in Quarant’anni di elezioni nel Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Trieste: Regione autonoma Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 1988), Vol. II. 60 VV. AA., Diari, 5 June 1956: “I look at those who until a year ago wanted a resounding declaration of self-criticism […] Beria would have been proud of the education administered”. 61 Il Lavoratore, 5 July 1957; “Vidali apre il Congresso del PC di Trieste e propone ufficialmente la fusione col PCI,” l’Unità, 29 June 1957. 62 Giulio Sapelli, Trieste italiana. Mito e destino economico (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1990), 193. 63 AP, Camera dei Deputati, III Legislatura, session of 18 July 1958.

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Throughout the 1960s, the free-trade zone – embedded in the institutional structure of the autonomous province – continued to form the basis of the PCI’s political and economic programme for Trieste. Although it was amended and augmented, its substance and purposes remained the same.64 The same accusations that Italy had impoverished Trieste were brought against the national government principally its lack of a strategic vision of development and its reliance on mere welfarism to compensate for it – as Vidali never tired of repeating to the Chamber.65 These were the lenses through which the PCI construed the protests that in 1966 filled Trieste’s streets with thousands of demonstrators against the closure of the Cantieri San Marco and the Fabbrica Macchine as part of the general restructuring of Italy’s naval engineering industry. With pure anti-Europeanist language, the communists described the closures as “a mistaken and submissive plan by the IRI, which sacrifices the interests of the nation to the decisions of the EMC.”66 These protests anticipated the even more vociferous ones mounted against the Treaty of Osimo in the following decade. Both episodes expressed the resentment of a Trieste that felt itself downgraded by the decisions of the government parties – or worse betrayed by its country.67 For the PCI the city was paying the price of a national policy that had produced nothing but empty rhetoric. Ingrao told Parliament: “Today in Trieste more than yesterday they say that this is Italy, this is where Italy is taking us […] We could fill the Chamber with all the tears that have been shed for Trieste!.”68 And a few years later Vidali wrote thus in his diary: Trieste has celebrated fifty years of life with Italy. The embrace has been so strong that the poor city has asthma, finding it more and more difficult to breathe. There have been ceremonies, speeches, illustrious visitors, luxury editions, promises, promises, and promises. Yet we are in the final light of a melancholy sunset.69 64

AP, Camera dei Deputati, III Legislatura, session 13 July 1959; “Intervento di Vidali per il porto di Trieste,” L’Unità, 14 July 1959. Vidali indicated as equally necessary the “reduction of ingoing and outgoing railway tariffs, an expansion of road linkages, an increase of shipping lines in the Adriatic through resumption of trade with the countries of Eastern Europe and Asia. 65 AP, Camera dei Deputati, III Legislatura, session of 6 October 1960. 66 Risoluzione dell’Ufficio politico del PCI, 8 October 1966, in Rapporto con Trieste; “Risoluzione della Direzione del PCI per l’avvenire di Trieste,” l’Unità, 24 September 1966. 67 Valdevit, Trieste. Storia di una periferia insicura, 108-10; Marina Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale (Bologna: il Mulino, 2007), 334. 68 AP, Camera dei Deputati, IV Legislatura, session of 10 October 1966. 69 VV. AA., Diari, 1 January 1969.

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3. Twenty years later Nevertheless, if there was anyone in Triestine communism able to express the discontent and rancor widespread in the city, it was not Vidali. He had long stubbornly adhered to view of Italy as equally parasitical and rapacious, the sponsor in Trieste of a colonial regime worse than the one wanted by the Anglo-Americans.70 Moreover, in his old age he had drawn close – also for reasons of an affective nature – to the democratic-radical culture propounded by Slataper and Stuparich and imbued with a Voceesque elitism bound to be disappointed. He was in love, not with Trieste itself, but with an idea of it, and with its more consolatory myths. In this regard, suffice it to quote the following passage from his diary: The Triestine bourgeoisie, cosmopolitan because it is bereft of a homeland, filled with that ‘patriotism’ which is often the refuge of scoundrels, has always been narrow-minded, selfish, and uncultivated. Poets, writers, journalists, and graduates must flee from Trieste if they want to have some satisfaction, to be someone. It has always been thus here. And it is for this reason that sons of Trieste like Slataper, Stuparich, Saba, and so many others have always scorned this wretched middle class: uncivil, parasitical, devoted to speculation, aged and senile, and are now leaving the void and the stench. This is the result of the Rome bureaucracy’s work as a rodent and a wrecker. A stupendous city, with a hard-working population, is allowed to die, with its unprincipled, clientelistic and venal bourgeois parties, with its polluted and deserted bay.71

Woven into this tangle of disillusionment was also Vidali’s frustration with the progress of relations with Yugoslavia at both government and party level. From the end of the 1950s to Osimo, apart from some rare and shortlived tensions, diplomatic relations between the two Adriatic countries had maintained “their cordial regularity.”72 This was terrain that nourished the endeavor within the PCI, begun by Togliatti and substantially continued by his successors, to use dialogue with the Yugoslavs to strengthen the multipolar tendencies in the communist movement. The insistence on the plurality of possible transitions to the socialism, together with the dream of a united but less hierarchical, more flexible and integrated communist movement, had been the legacies entrusted to Togliatti’s Yalta

70

“Here fascism and the state merge together. It has been so since when the Italian state arrived in November 1918. We are a military region, a frontier zone, infested by military serfs and by cheap patriotism. Judges, police officers, generals and colonels, bureaucrats: all selected on the right make their careers as they once did in Libya”: ibid., 28 January 1975. 71 Ibid., 18 February 1975. 72 Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale, 336. Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera repubblicana (1945-1999) (Roma: Aracne, 2008).

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Memoriale.73 During the 1960s, as Sino-Soviet tensions mounted, it had become customary to see the names of Tito and Togliatti side by side in the broadsides that the Chinese launched – on behalf of all the extremists of postStalin reducism, including Vidali – against the revisionists with peaceful and national policies.74 Instead, the first meeting between the Autonomous Federation of Trieste and the Ljubljana League of Communists took place only in 1962. Vidali on the one hand and Boris Krajgher on the other did the best they could with gestures of reconciliation with the former enemy, while postponing self-criticisms to an unspecified later date.75 But the furrow ploughed by Togliatti would become deeper. The imposition of a conservative and authoritarian version of détente à la Brežnev, perceived by Yugoslavia as a threat to its autonomy, only reinforced harmony between the PCI and the CLY (Communist League of Yugoslavia) especially after the Czechoslovakia crisis.76 In 1969 it was Giorgio Napolitano who conveyed cordial greetings to the Congress of the Yugoslav Communists during which the Cominform resolution of 1948 was labeled that “wretched decision”.77 This was Vidali’s reaction in his diary: It seems that the Italians knew nothing about it and that Togliatti had to accept the resolution for reasons of discipline. Instead: 1) the Italians were the most enthusiastic; 2) Togliatti collaborated on formulating and writing a fine letter to Judin78 extolling the position of the Triestine communists; 3) the PCI executive directed the illegal work in Yugoslavia with one of its offices; 4) I gave lectures on Titoism in the schools of Rome and Bologna; 5) in Rome, Mitko79 wrote a highly-praised thesis on Titofascism, for which he was elected to the CC; 6) in Italy the Titoists organized a party, the USI,80 73

Spagnolo, Sul Memoriale di Yalta; Galeazzi, Togliatti e Tito, 246; Pons, La rivoluzione globale, 308-09. 74 Pons, La rivoluzione globale, 295-306. 75 Claudio Tonel, Da Vidali in qua (Trieste: Italo Svevo, 2004), 24. 76 Both Longo and Tito expressed their support for Dubček a few days from each other: The Prague Spring 1968: A National Security Archive Documents Reader, ed. J. Navrátil (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998), docs. 29-32; Mark Kramer, “The Czechoslovak Crisis and the Brezhnev Doctrine,” in 1968: the World Transformed, ed. Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert, Detlef Junker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 111-72; Maud Bracke, Quale socialismo, quale distensione? Il comunismo europeo e la crisi cecoslovacca del ’68 (Roma: Carocci, 2009). 77 “Napolitano a colloquio con Tito e Kardelj,” l’Unità, 15 March 1969. 78 Pavel F. Judin, USSR permanent representative at the Cominform. 79 Karel Šiškovič [Mitko], La lotta contro il titofascismo: relazione tenuta al III Congresso del Partito comunista del Territorio di Trieste (Trieste 1951). 80 Unione Socialista Indipendente. See Giorgio Boccolari, Luciano Casali, I Magnacucchi. Valdo Magnani e la ricerca di una sinistra autonoma e democratica (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1991).

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which took more than 300,000 votes away from the PCI in the elections; this USI received money from Yugoslavia and from the Italian Department of the Interior […]. Napolitano should therefore have been more careful. Perhaps he had drunk too much, or perhaps he had been drugged.81

The multipolarism vs. state-leader alternative had always divided Vidali and Togliatti;82 and it continued to do so under Berlinguer. Even more deeply, the distances were marked by a different conception of the stance that the communists should take towards the Italian state: convinced loyalty to the institutions of the Republic or their radical delegitimation. Throughout his lifetime, Vidali adhered to latter position, which also heavily influenced his reaction to the Treaty of Osimo, given that it had been signed by the state which had humiliated and impoverished Trieste ever since its first “redemption”. He never shifted, either in private or in public, from a highly ambiguous position: he accepted only with reluctance the values of pacification and détente expressed in the accord; conversely, he was ready to express sympathy with the thousands of Triestines who protested against the Treaty – decided “without them, against them” – and its economic provisions.83 From national periodicals he did not hesitate to flaunt such opinions: I understand the frustration felt. Among the fifty thousand people who signed for the duty-free zone, against the Treaty of Osimo, there will have been some in bad faith, but there were very many honest, worried people. I can understand. […] Trieste has become the bazaar of Yugoslavia. There is a discouragement everywhere. In twenty years the governments have sent at least six hundred billion lire here, but not even we communists know how it has been spent. […] This sea before us would become, they told us, a sea of giants. It has become a sea of shit, perhaps the most polluted in the world. The shipyards have been dismantled, there is not even a dry dock for repairs. Although the seventh wharf for containers is efficient, it is blocked by the fact that there are no links with the railway, with the roads around the city. […] So many good people signed, Triestines and Italians. I cannot say that Cecovini, Giuricin, Fonda-Savio, Gruber-Bencos are fascists.84 They are honest, democratic, combatants.85

81

VV. AA., Diari, 14 March 1969. Valdevit, Trieste. Storia di una periferia insicura, 93. VV. AA., Diari, 30 September and 1 October 1975. The leaders of the popular mobilization: see Diego D’Amelio, “‘Peace in the Security’ and ‘Bridge Border’. The Italian Centre-Left and Jugoslavia Overcoming the Question of Trieste,” Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino 2015/1. 85 Giancarlo Graziosi, “Dovete ascoltarci: qui a Trieste abbiamo paura,” La Domenica del Corriere, 9 December 1976. 83 84 82

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Vidali evinced embarrassment only at the justifications which he had been obliged to proffer when rejecting the proposal for the freetrade zone. The project had been let drop at the end of the 1960s by the communists and had now been exhumed by a heterogeneous front – neofascists, radicals, autonomists of the List for Trieste – in opposition to the tax-exempt industrial installation on the Karst plateau envisaged by the Treaty.86 Without much conviction, Vidali called it a “mystifying proposal” in accordance with the rather superficial arguments put forward by the rest of the PCI.87 The debates within the PCI executive at the beginning of the 1970s were between two opposing points of view on the value to be given to the agreement with the Yugoslavs. One side was careful not to lose sight of the USSR’s attitudes and moods, with Pajetta as its proponent; the other was identified with Berlinguer, according to whom the privileged axis with the leader of the non-aligned countries was essential if the twobloc system was to be superseded.88 The radicalization imposed by the communists in Portugal after the Carnation Revolution (1974) united Berlinguer and Tito in harsh condemnation of the Portuguese secretary Álvaro Cunhal. Thereafter, the fear that the anachronism of a popular democracy in Western Europe would irremediably jeopardize détente induced the two leaders to tie their parties together in an “authentic strategic alliance.”89 The collaboration should have helped the League of Yugoslav Communists to foster contacts between the group of nonaligned countries and the PCI, while the latter would express Belgrade’s worries concerning Brežnev’s autocratic efforts within the communist movement.90 These issues were addressed at the meeting between Berlinguer and Tito in March 1975, during which the PCI secretary passed what seemed definitive sentence on what still remained of the unity of international communism: “Continuing to affirm the existence of a communist movement united by a shared ideology and separate from 86

Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale, 338-40. In the Chamber, Pajetta merely said: “The proposal being advanced today by the other side, which we oppose, was once also made by the communists […] at a time when the situation seemed tense, fraught, when relations between the two peoples seemed impossible, or almost […] Then this proposal of the duty-free zone seemed a possibility, a hypothesis”: AP, Camera dei Deputati, VI Legislatura, session of 17 December 1976. See also “Trieste: votata mozione unitaria in favore del trattato di Osimo,” l’Unità, 21 November 1976; M. Passi, “Campagna contro il trattato di Osimo. A colloquio con il compagno Vittorio Vidali,” l’Unità, 1 December 1976. 88 AFG, APC, Direzione, 2 February 1972, mf. 32. 89 Silvio Pons, Berlinguer e la fine del comunismo (Torino: Einaudi, 2006), 62. 90 AFG, APC, Estero, Jugoslavia, Nota per Berlinguer Pajetta segreteria, 1974, mf. 84; Estero, Dibattiti tra PC, Nota sul viaggio di Segre e Oliva a Belgrado e sulla riunione del sottogruppo a Berlino (12-13 maggio), 1975, mf. 206. 87

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the rest responds to a narrow view of the possibilities.”91 On the eve of signature of the Treaty of Osimo, therefore, understanding between the two communist parties could not have been closer. Seen in this light, one understands all the nuances of the declarations with which Berlinguer commented on the results of the negotiations. After mentioning the “great national significance” of the agreement, he emphasized that Italy had a “profound interest in developing relations of friendship and cooperation with socialist and non-aligned Yugoslavia”; Osimo was described as the “realization in practice” of the principles recently affirmed at the Helsinki Conference.92 At a superficial level, insofar as the accord ratified the location of the frontiers between the two countries, this was true. Nevertheless, implicit in Berlinguer’s statement was the intent to have the Treaty read as a hand extended by Italy to the non-aligned countries and as a step towards superseding the blocs: which was what Pajetta instead expressed overtly during the discussion in Parliament on ratification.93 This concerned the “profound interest” – the core of Berlinguer’s political design – which clashed with the conservative paradigm of the “Brežnev doctrine”: that is, with the prospect of freezing the internal equilibria of the countries on either side of the Iron Curtain by interpreting Helsinki in inflexibly bipolar terms.94 Amid this fruitful dialogue, in 1974 Vidali decided to publish his diaries compiled at the time of the Twentieth Congress.95 One reads anguished pages infested by ghosts, from which, however, there transpires an irrepressible desire to save everything possible of Stalin’s memory by reiterating the reasons for Tito’s excommunication. How else can one judge it if not as a brazenly disruptive manoeuvre? What can one think of a book that at the apogee of the honeymoon between the PCI and the

91

AFG, APC, Estero, Incontro del compagno Berlinguer con Tito (presenti Dolanc, Grličkov, Obradović e Segre) 29 marzo 1975, 1975, mf. 204; Pons, Berlinguer e la fine del comunismo. 92 “Sull’accordo fra Italia e Jugoslavia,” Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst, 3 October 1975. 93 Yugoslavia was the state “that has adopted […] the non-alignment policy that represents one of the hopes that the blocs of the great opposed powers will be superseded […] the policy that we pursue in Europe and in the world”: AP, Camera dei Deputati, VI Legislatura, session of 17 December 1976. 94 Zubok, A Failed Empire, 227-46; Pons, La rivoluzione globale, 352-3. 95 Vidali, Diario del XX Congresso.

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LCY loudly proclaimed the right to call what the Yugoslavs had done in Trieste in May 1945 “occupation”, and not liberation? All possible evil obviously – came the answer almost in unison from the opposite shores of the Adriatic.96

96

Emanuele Macaluso wrote that “the more Vidali realizes the tragic misdeeds of Stalin, the more he feels rancour towards Krusciov, with the consequence that he is unable to pass critical judgement” (Rinascita, 5, 31 January 1975). Komunist, the LCI party organ, after declaring that in Vidali’s book “one seeks in vain for a logical connection,” recalled that already in 1955 Vidali had sought, with a “stab in the back” to block rapprochement between Italian and Yugoslav communists; and that publication of the Diario was “a further attempt to halt this process […] and to salvage the remnants of an outmoded policy” (“Sarebbe questa la critica senza paura?,” December 1974).

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Imperfect Normalization The Political Repercussions of the Treaty of Osimo1 Diego D’Amelio 1. Adriatic Normalization? “Peace in security” and “a bridge border”: these were the evocative expressions used by the Democrazia Cristiana party during the 1960s and 1970s to state the goals of détente between Italy and Yugoslavia.2 Both at the center and in the periphery, within the framework of so-called “Italian Ostpolitik,”3 the Democrazia Cristiana and the center-left coalition gave 1



2



3



The paper has been written within the research project, which the author conducted at the Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico (Bruno Kessler Foundation) thanks to a “post doc” grant funded by “Provincia Autonoma di Trento”. Marco Galeazzi, Roma-Belgrado. Gli anni della guerra fredda (Ravenna: Longo, 1995); Bruna Bagnato, Prove di Ostpolitik. Politica ed economia nella strategia italiana verso l’Unione Sovietica 1958-1963 (Firenze: Olschki, 2003); Luciano Monzali, “La questione jugoslava nella politica estera italiana dalla prima guerra mondiale ai trattati di Osimo (1914-1975),” in Europa adriatica. Storia, relazioni, economia, ed. Franco Botta, Italo Garzia (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2004), 15-72; Franco. Botta, Italo Garzia, Pasquale Guaragnella, La questione adriatica e l’allargamento dell’Unione europea (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2007); Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana 1945-1999 (Roma: Aracne, 2008); Georg Meyr, Raoul Pupo, Dalla cortina di ferro al confine ponte (Trieste: Comune di Trieste, 2008); Massimo Bucarelli, Luciano Monzali, Italia e Slovenia fra passato, presente e futuro (Roma: Studium, 2009); Pia Grazia Celozzi Baldelli, La politica estera italiana negli anni della grande distensione 1968-1975 (Roma: Aracne, 2009); Federico Imperato, Aldo Moro e la pace nella sicurezza. La politica estera del centro-sinistra (1963-68) (Bari: Progedit, 2011); Italo Garzia, Luciano Monzali, Massimo Bucarelli, Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2011). For an overview, see: Pietro Pastorelli, La politica estera italiana del dopoguerra (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1987); Antonio Varsori, L’Italia nelle relazioni internazionali dal 1943 al 1992 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1988); Agostino Giovagnoli, Silvio Pons, Tra guerra fredda e distensione (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2003); Federico Romero, Antonio Varsori, Nazione, interdipendenza, integrazione. Le relazioni internazionali dell’Italia (1917-1989) (Roma: Carocci, 2005). Historians have used this expression to synthesize the dialogue between Italy and the socialist countries during the 1960s and 1970s. The objective of the Italian centerleft was certainly less ambitious than that of Germany. But it was at any rate able to reconcile traditional “Atlanticism” with a more autonomous search for roads towards international conciliation through a multipolar and Europeanist approach intended to

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great importance to pacification of relations with the neighboring socialist republic.4 The Treaty of Osimo was the outcome of this process: it formally settled the Adriatic question in the spirit of Helsinki,5 and it was presented as a crucial means to give Trieste and the eastern frontier a new function.6 The beginning of unprecedented dialogue with countries in the Soviet orbit and with non-aligned Yugoslavia had important repercussions also domestically: first, it consolidated the alliance between Christian Democrats and Socialists; second, it gave body to Aldo Moro’s “strategy of attention” towards the Partito Comunista Italiano, supported by a more autonomous foreign policy and the Partito Comunista Italiano’s shift to Europeanist and Atlanticist issues. During the 1960s, Italo-Yugoslav relations improved notwithstanding diplomatic difficulties. Such relations found solid grounding in economic cooperation paralleled by the Julian center-left’s commitment to a democratic conception of relations among national groups.7 But notwithstanding creation of “Europe’s most open border” and bilateral relations marked by great cordiality, the two states set about defining the frontier only at the end of the decade, when they began discussions which for long remained secret, and were also frequently interrupted by severe

4



5



6



7



consolidate forms of collaboration between blocs and to reduce economic disparities in the continent. On the previous tensions see Anton Giulio De Robertis, Le grandi potenze e il confine giuliano 1941-1947 (Bari: Fratelli Laterza, 1983); Roberto G. Rabel, Between East and West. Trieste, the United States and the Cold War (1941-1954) (Durham-London: Duke University Press, 1988); Raoul Pupo, Fra Italia e Jugoslavia. Saggi sulla questione di Trieste (1945-1954) (Udine: Del Bianco, 1989); Leonard Unger, Kristina Segulja, The Trieste Negotiations (Washington: The Johns Hopkins Foreign Institute, 1990); Massimo de Leonardis, La “diplomazia atlantica” e la soluzione del problema di Trieste (1952-1954) (Napoli: Esi, 1992). The Helsinki Process: a Historical Reappraisal, ed. Carla Meneguzzi Rostagni (Padova: Cedam, 2005). Giampaolo Valdevit, La questione di Trieste 1941-1954. Politica internazionale e contesto locale (Milano, Franco Angeli: 1987); Angelo Ara, Claudio Magris, Trieste. Un’identità di frontiera (Torino: Einaudi, 1987); Elio Apih, Trieste (RomaBari: Laterza, 1988); Raoul Pupo, Guerra e dopoguerra al confine orientale d’Italia (1938-1956) (Udine: Del Bianco, 1999); Storia d’Italia. Le Regioni dall’Unità a oggi. Friuli Venezia Giulia, ed. Roberto Finzi, Claudio Magris, Giovanni Miccoli (Torino: Einaudi, 2002); Giampaolo Valdevit, Trieste. Storia di una periferia insicura (Milano: Mondadori, 2004); Marina Cattaruzza, L’Italia e il confine orientale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007). The party politics of Democrazia Cristiana in Trieste were synthesised by some of the major local leaders: see Corrado Belci, La Democrazia Cristiana per Trieste: 1957-1962 (Udine: Del Bianco, 1963); Id., Trieste. Memorie di trent’anni (19451975) (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1989); Guido Botteri, Trieste, città italiana al servizio dell’Europa e della pace (Trieste: Tipografia moderna, 1967); Id., Trieste e la sua storia (Trieste, Dedolibri, 1986).

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tensions. The desire of the Yugoslav government and public opinion for rapid settlement of the dispute8 was matched by Rome’s need to obtain a result from the negotiations that would help make the accord digestible to part of the local population and counter the attacks of the nationalist right at a time of high internal political instability.9 The signing of the Osimo Treaty passed almost unnoticed by the great majority of Italians, but it had notable consequences in Trieste. In fact, it damaged the fragile bases of the Democrazia Cristiana’s consensus, in that the party was the main proponent of the project to “normalize” the region.10 In the post-war period, the Democrazia Cristiana had “defended the Italianness” of Venezia Giulia, and it had relied for its support on national demands and integration of the Istrian exiles resident in Trieste.11 The Democrazia Cristiana thus acquired primacy in local politics, although it was substantially weaker than in the prevalently Catholic areas of the country. In the 1960s, however, the opening of the center-left to the Slovene minority and the difficulty of reversing Trieste’s constant economic decline provoked an upsurge of anti-Slav fervor and collective protest by a periphery that felt impoverished and neglected by Rome. Normalization proved unable to alter either the social fabric of the city or the mood of a disappointed public which on the one hand insisted on exceptional measures, and on the other, adhered to forms of localism, if not of nationalist closure. In this scenario, the Osimo Treaty seemed the definitive betrayal of the mission which, according to many Triestines, 8



DT, AC, b. 8, f. Democrazia Cristiana 1976, Yugoslav press review. ACS, CM, s. 1, ss. 21, b. 33, f. 728, Statement on Osimo given to Yugoslavian television (24 February 1977). See also Giuseppe W. Maccotta, “Osimo visto da Belgrado,” Rivista di studi politici internazionali, 1993/1, 55-67; Ettore Greco, “Italy, the Yugoslav Crisis and the Osimo Agreements,” The International Spectator, 1994/1, 13-31; Giovanni Cavera, “Gli accordi di Osimo e la crisi politica italiana degli anni Settanta,” Nuova storia contemporanea, 2006/3, 15-44. 10 Diego D’Amelio, “Democristiani di confine. Ascesa e declino del «partito italiano» a Trieste fra difesa dell’italianità e normalizzazione adriatica (1945-1979),” Contemporanea, 2014/3, 413-439. For an overview, see Francesco Malgeri, Storia della Democrazia cristiana (Roma: Cinque Lune, 1988); Agostino Giovagnoli, Il partito italiano. La Democrazia cristiana dal 1942 al 1994 (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1996). 11 Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Le conflit de Trieste (1943-1954) (Bruxelles: Institut de Sociologie de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1966); Bogdan C. Novak, Trieste 19411954. La lotta politica, etnica e ideologica (Milano: Mursia, 1973); Diego De Castro, La questione di Trieste. L’azione politica e diplomatica italiana dal 1943 al 1954 (Trieste: Lint, 1981); Diego D’Amelio, Andrea Di Michele, Giorgio Mezzalira, La difesa dell’italianità. L’Ufficio per le zone di confine a Bolzano, Trento e Trieste (19451954) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2015); Anna Millo, La difficile intesa. Roma e Trieste nella questione giuliana 1945-1954 (Trieste: Italo Svevo, 2011). 9

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the state and political parties should pursue in the border areas: a further cost borne by a city which instead wanted compensation for the loss of Istria in 1945. The now impossible return to Zone B, the secret conduct of the negotiations, and the inclusion in the treaty of unrealistic economic reparations aroused the hostility of a front pursuing diverse goals. The political value of the treaty was criticized by the right and broad sections of the Istrian population. But it was the nature of the economic compensation and the non-involvement of the Julians that triggered an opposition movement consisting of local protest groups, economic actors, residual independentists, environmentalists, and radicals. Within Democrazia Cristiana and internally to the Catholic movement there arose a fierce controversy between the majority and a large minority opposed to the treaty. The Italian government underestimated the dissatisfaction that had accumulated in Trieste and the still bitter resentment felt by the exiles.12 The Julian Democrazia Cristiana subsequently admitted the error of have tied the political part of the treaty inseparably to its economic part, thus making it non-modifiable.13 The center-left was consequently threatened by the resurgence of the ancient municipal yearning and of the belief that Trieste’s national values had been traduced.14 In the space of a few years, the return of only dormant political traditions demolished the consensus constructed by the Democrazia Cristiana in Trieste since the post-war. The city was in some respects the forerunner of processes which spread through Italy at the end of the 1970s: the more general loss of consensus suffered by the traditional parties; the emergence of localist, anticentralist and populist tendencies; and polemics against a “partitocracy” that appeared increasingly distant from the electorate. In short, the Italian government was successful in its principal endeavor – settlement of the Adriatic question through agreement with Yugoslavia’s “Westpolitik”15 – but it failed to normalize Italy’s insecure 12

Cristiana Colummi et al., Storia di un esodo (Trieste: IRSMLFVG, 1980); Esodi: trasferimenti forzati di popolazione nel Novecento europeo, ed. Marina Cattaruzza, Marco Dogo, Raoul Pupo (Napoli: ESI, 2000); Pamela Ballinger, History in Exile. Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Guido Crainz, Il dolore e l’esilio. L’Istria e le memorie divise d’Europa (Roma: Donzelli, 2005); Raoul Pupo, Il lungo esodo (Milano: Rizzoli, 2005); Naufraghi della pace. Il 1945, i profughi e le memorie divise d’Europa, ed. Guido Crainz, Raoul Pupo, Silvia Salvatici (Roma: Donzelli, 2008); Antonio Ferrara, Niccolò Pianciola, L’età delle migrazioni forzate. Esodi e deportazioni in Europa (1853-1953) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012). 13 DT, AC, b. 10, f. Democrazia cristiana 1979, Speech to the provincial committee. 14 DT, AC, b. 8, f. Democrazia Cristiana 1976, Press review. 15 Contemporary Yugoslavia. Twenty Years of Socialist Experiment, ed. Wayne S.  Vucinich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969); Massimo Bucarelli,

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periphery. Pacification of the frontier could be delayed no longer, and Rome started along the road even at the cost of provoking the resentment of the sectors of public opinion most sensitive to the issue. However, for several years and with increasing embarrassment, the executive denied the existence of negotiations intended to consolidate the status quo of the frontier, and it eventually even excluded the periphery from decisions concerning the economic provisions of the treaty, which the Triestines perceived as an irksome imposition from above. Against this background, the focus of this article is on the debate that arose around the Osimo Treaty,16 the reactions of the Julian community, and the political consequences. The reasons for the treaty were supported with substantial unanimity by the large majority of the parliamentary parties and by the Italian press, in a political phase when public opinion was no longer mobilized (or mobilizable) on the national question.17 The same consensus was certainly not apparent in Trieste, where the treaty provoked a political earthquake.

2. National Policy and Stipulation of the Treaty An “embarrassed silence”: it was thus that, at the end of September 1975, the Trieste newspaper Il Piccolo described the government’s reaction to press revelations of a secret agreement on the eastern frontier between Italy and Yugoslavia.18 The article emphasized the anomaly of meetings held in complete secrecy and conducted, not through diplomatic channels, but with the involvement of the Ministry of Industry. The executive postponed its explanations to the 1st of October, on the occasion of an unorthodox parliamentary debate requested to obtain authorization for the imminent signature of the treaty. On the other hand, a large

“Aldo Moro e l’Italia nella Westpolitik jugoslava degli anni Sessanta,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani, 115-60. 16 Manlio Udina, “Gli accordi italo-jugoslavi di Osimo del 10 Novembre 1975,” Rivista di diritto internazionale, 1977/60, 405-41; Giorgio Conetti, “La cooperazione economica italo-jugoslava secondo gli accordi di Osimo,” Rivista di diritto internazionale, 1977/60, 442-66. 17 Gianni Baget Bozzo, Giovanni Tassani, Aldo Moro. Il politico nella crisi 19621973 (Firenze: Sansoni, 1983); Giuseppe Tamburrano, Storia e cronaca del centrosinistra (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1993); Piero Craveri, La Repubblica dal 1958 al 1992 (Torino: Utet, 1995), 1-160; Nicola Tranfaglia, “La modernità squilibrata. Dalla crisi del centrismo al compromesso storico,” in Storia dell’Italia repubblicana. La trasformazione dell’Italia: sviluppo e squilibri, Vol. 2 (Torino: Einaudi, 1995); Guido Crainz, Il paese mancato. Dal miracolo economico agli anni Ottanta (Roma: Donzelli, 2003). 18 “Imbarazzato silenzio,” Il Piccolo, 24 September 1975.

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political majority was in favor of the initiative, deemed as the final step in the construction of friendship between the two countries.19 Similar opinions had been voiced previously.20 In February 1974, for example, two Christian Democrat (and Istrian) parliamentarians had requested the government to confirm the provisionality of the Memorandum of London, which envisaged the continuation of Italian sovereignty on Zone B.21 On that occasion, the negotiations were neither admitted nor denied, although it was emphasized that after 1954 the Allies would no longer support claims to territories administered by Yugoslavia.22 Questions were also asked in parliament prior to Tito’s planned visit to Italy in 1970. The then Foreign Minister Moro had declared that the talks would not touch on the border question. He pledged that “no forfeiture […] of legitimate national interests” would be considered.23 This was a vague reply – criticized by the Partito Comunista, Partito Socialista, Partito Socialdemocratico, and Partito Repubblicano24 – which did not specify whether the national interests were territorial or of some other kind. Thus dissatisfied were both the Italian far right and Belgrade, which saw in Rome’s ambiguity the ill-concealed intent to propose the idea of Italy’s return to Zone B.25 The parliamentary debate of October 1975 removed every doubt. Prime Minister Mariano Rumor admitted the existence of agreements for the definitive settlement of the territorial and juridical dispute.26 This, he said, was a “hard decision to take,” but memory of the dramatic events on the eastern border could not prevail over the necessity to end the legacy of the fascist war and build a realistic “Adriatic peace” and collaboration with Yugoslavia. Moreover, the Osimo Treaty would restore juridical 19

“Tutti i partiti di governo d’accordo per cedere la zona B,” Il Piccolo, 1 October 1975. See e.g. DT, AC, b. 6, f. Reazioni su Ferri e su Moro 1971, Press review. 21 Manlio Udina, Gli accordi di Osimo (Trieste: Lint, 1979). Italy considered the Memorandum of London as provisional, due to the fact that it had never been ratified by parliament. However, from the outset, this interpretation had been excluded by the Allies. Nevertheless, throughout the 1960s the Italian government and diplomacy never entirely relinquished the contention that Italy had a right to Zone B of the stillborn Free Territory of Trieste. Only a minority of experts on international law supported this thesis, however: the predominant view was that Italy had lost sovereignty over the Free Territory with the entry into effect of the Peace Treaty of 1947. 22 AP, Camera dei deputati, 6th legislature, session of 18 February 1974, 2782. 23 AP, Senato della Repubblica, 5th legislature, written answers to questions, Vol.  5, session of 5 December 1970, 2443. 24 L. Bianchi, “Polemica fra i partiti e prossimo dibattito alla Camera,” Corriere della sera, 11 December 1970. 25 M. Montefoschi, “Tito ha deciso di non venire a Roma,” Il Messaggero, 10 December 1970. See also Belci, Trieste. Memorie di trent’anni, 195-6. 26 AP, Camera dei deputati, 6th legislature, session of 1 October 1975, 23599-609. 20

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certainty to the status of Trieste, which for the Italian government would be to obtain an effective territorial advantage.27 Foreign Minister Moro connected the treaty to the Conference of Helsinki: it would guarantee the border settlement, improve bilateral relations, protect the minorities and strengthen the Balkan state. For Moro, all this signified that Italy would no longer be exposed, but instead protected, on its eastern frontier in a situation become “modifiable neither by force nor by consent.” Finally, whilst expressing full sympathy for the plight of the Istrian refugees, Moro pointed out the value of the economic compensation and the importance of creating ever better relations among nations and building supranational unity among states.28 The Democrazia Cristiana had the Triestine Corrado Belci open the debate in parliament. He stated the government’s position and urged an end to the political exploitation of the suffering of the exiles. He called for “a new and complete agreement” with Yugoslavia based on economic cooperation, cultural exchanges and the protection of minorities. With excessive optimism, given the results actually achieved, Belci declared that the Osimo Treaty would give Trieste a new role in Europe thanks to the agreements on maritime delimitation in the Gulf of Trieste, water regimes, a common energy policy and the proposed construction of a waterway connected to the Black Sea. Finally, he advocated a duty-free industrial zone (Zona franca industriale a cavallo del confine, ZFIC) straddling the frontier, which would integrate with the economic area lying behind the border.29 Belci’s position was in stark contrast with that of Giacomo Bologna, the other Christian Democrat parliamentarian elected in Trieste. Although both of them were Istrians, they represented the conflicting views within the Julian Democrazia Cristiana. Relations between the opposed tendencies had been difficult for some years, and the Osimo Treaty would cause their definitive breakdown. Belci was a leading exponent of the “moroteo” group which headed the provincial Democrazia Cristiana secretariat; Bologna was instead a “fanfaniano”, and he aligned with the internal opposition not only under the influence of national factional concerns, but also because of his close connection with the associationism of the exiles.30 To be noted in this regard is that, although Amintore Fanfani was a protagonist of dialogue with Eastern Europe, he was firm on relations 27

29 30 28

Ibid. AP, Camera dei deputati, 6th legislature, session of 1 October 1975, 23609-11. AP, Camera dei deputati, 6th legislature, session of 2 October 1975, 23731-6. In the Italian political debate, the Christian Democrat followers of Aldo Moro were called “morotei”, while those of Amintore Fanfani were termed “fanfaniani”.

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with Yugoslavia, preferring solution of the border problems to dialogue on international issues and development of economic cooperation.31 Bologna announced that he would vote against the motion, and he reiterated Italy’s alleged sovereignty over Zone B.32 He criticized the secretiveness of the negotiations and the government’s deceitfulness when answering his previous questions. He claimed that the Osimo Treaty would not help to consolidate Tito’s regime, even less would it improve already vigorous trans-frontier cooperation; and that the economic returns were either illusory or insignificant. According to Bologna, it was necessary to maintain the status quo and not jeopardize unspecified future opportunities: the implicit reference was presumably to the progressive weakening of Yugoslavia, which would sooner or later work to Italy’s advantage. Identical arguments were used by a few Christian Democratic deputies, who then cast two votes against the motion with one abstaining.33 The executive was supported by all the majority parties and by the Partito Comunista. Although the Communists criticized the diplomatic handling of the Venezia Giulia question in the first post-war decade, for the first time they voted in favor of a foreign policy action by the government.34 The main opponent was the MSI whose nationalist rhetoric asserted the Italianness of Zone B and attacked the policy of détente towards communist Yugoslavia and the Slovene minority. Movimento Sociale Italiano militants created turmoil during the days of the parliamentary debate.35 The right considered the pact to be devoid of content favourable to Italy: it was nothing more than the price paid by the center-left for its accommodation with the Partito Comunista.36 The debate in the Senate followed the same pattern as in the Chamber, although objections were expressed by Fanfani, Giuseppe Pella, and Manlio Brosio, who in various capacities had been involved in Triestine affairs. Although they voted in favor, they wondered whether the treaty was the best solution and whether the trade-off was indeed advantageous for Italy. Finally, the liberal Brosio, former ambassador to UK and Italian signatory to the Memorandum of London, expressed perplexities about 31

Bucarelli, “Aldo Moro e l’Italia nella Westpolitik jugoslava,” 143. AP, Camera dei deputati, 6th legislature, session of 1 October 1975, 23679-82. 33 AP, Camera dei deputati, 6th legislature, session of 2 October 1975, 23823-4, 23770-1, 23758-64. 34 Ibid., 23724-31; ibid., session of 3 October 1975, 23833-5. 35 “Facinorosi violano il Quirinale al termine di un comizio missino,” Il Piccolo, 2 October 1975. 36 AP, Camera dei deputati, 6th legislature, session of 3 October 1975, 23682-94. 32

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the government’s handling of the negotiations and its decision to inform parliament only upon their conclusion.37 Little attention was paid during the debate to the question of the eastern border. The two chambers were semi-deserted, with the presence of only a few dozen parliamentarians: many Christian Democrats, and Moro himself, were absent when the votes were cast.38 Despite the attempt by Il Piccolo to depict this absence as “tacit dissent,”39 it was instead overt evidence that, since Trieste’s return to Italy, the frontier issue had become marginal; it aroused increasingly feeble passions in a public opinion by now ready to accept the reality. Almost all the national press was in favor of settlement of the border question for reasons of political realism. According to Il Corriere della sera, not only was the solution “mature” and “inevitable”40 but the sacrifice would be relatively minor compared with the territorial concessions made by federal Germany.41 La Stampa agreed and repeatedly criticized the Movimento Sociale Italiano opposition party, heir to the fascism that had first imposed the war on Italy and then caused its defeat.42 Il Giornale avoided references to the responsibilities of the fascist regime, preferring to dwell on the respect due to the exiles. However, it too saw the Osimo Treaty as ensuing necessarily from the defeat.43 L’Unità insisted on the need to settle the dispute,44 and it also gave the treaty significant importance in defining Italy’s international role because it demonstrated that Italy could take autonomous initiatives within the Atlantic Alliance.45 The newspapers also agreed on the treaty’s importance in consolidating Italy’s Balkan neighbor. They criticized those who wanted to wait for

37

“Zona B: scontato ‘sì’ del Senato. Fanfani critico prende le distanze”; “Le motivazioni del voto a favore. Gli interventi di Pella e di Brosio,” Il Piccolo, 10 October 1975. 38 “I disertori della zona B,” Il Giornale, 5 October 1975. 39 “La Zona B al Senato in un’aula semideserta,” Il Piccolo, 9 October 1975. The Chamber and the Senate respectively registered 230 absences out of 630 and 96 out of 322. In the Chamber, the Democrazia Cristiana for instance had 116 defections among 265 deputies: the only party to register almost full attendance was the PCI, with 146 deputies out of 165. 40 G. Sardocchia, “Perché si è atteso tanto a decidere la sorte della zona B,” Il Corriere della sera, 25 September 1975. 41 Id., “Prossima la firma del protocollo sul passaggio della zona B alla Jugoslavia,” Il Corriere della sera, 24 September 1975. 42 A. Rizzo, “Moro illustra l’accordo per Trieste e la zona B,” La Stampa, 2 October 1975. 43 I. Montanelli, “Siamo tutti istriani,” Il Giornale, 30 September 1975. 44 “Il Pci favorevole all’accordo italo-jugoslavo per i confini,” L’Unità, 3 October 1975. 45 F. Calamandrei, “Il trattato di Osimo,” L’Unità, 25 February 1977.

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the fall of Tito in the hope of the Yugoslav state’s dismemberment,46 and they underlined the importance of an independent and stable Yugoslavia increasingly tied to Europe.47 Contrary to the treaty was only Il Secolo d’Italia newspaper of the Movimento Sociale, which stigmatized the “cowardly” surrender of the rights of Italy and the refugees, while also denouncing the connection between Italo-Yugoslav détente and dialogue between the Democrazia Cristiana and the Partito Comunista.48 However, the project for bilateral pacification preceded the “strategy of attention” by some years, and one may therefore rule out that Osimo served to gratify the Partito Comunista,49 although the Italo-Yugoslav détente certainly improved the political climate, amid the progress of Ostpolitik and the Partito Comunista position change in international politics. The importance of the treaty was emphasized by Enrico Berlinguer, who found it very significant that the regularization of relations with Yugoslavia had been supported by all the democratic and anti-fascist Italian parties.50

3. Osimo and the Julians: the First Local Reactions and the Split Within the Democrazia Cristiana From the outset, Il Piccolo voiced the disquiet provoked in broad sections of Triestine public opinion by the announcement that agreement was imminent. The editor, Chino Alessi, wrote of “a humiliating surrender” decided by a “weak and inept” ruling class which had made a choice not wanted by the citizenry.51 The newspaper became an arena of strident criticism against the political class and the parties in government, which were guilty of “decades of scandals” and had fraudulently fuelled the hopes of the Julians.52 Nor did Alessi spare the treaty’s economic provisions, which the government hoped would placate local anger, but which the newspaper

46

A. Rizzo, “Realismo,” La Stampa, 2 October 1975. D. Frescobaldi, “Intesa firmata per la zona B,” Il Corriere della sera, 11 November 1975. 48 “Il compromesso passa per Belgrado,” Il Secolo d’Italia, 27 September 1975; “Elogio (slavo) della viltà,” Il Secolo d’Italia, 28 September 1975; “L’onore d’Italia,” Il Secolo d’Italia, 1 October 1975; “Alto tradimento con applauso comunista,” Il Secolo d’Italia, 2 October 1975; “Zona B: la Caporetto del compromesso storico,” Il Secolo d’Italia, 5 October 1975. 49 On the idea of a close connection between Osimo and rapprochement with the PCI see e.g. Cavera, “Gli accordi di Osimo e la crisi politica italiana,” passim. 50 “230 assenti al voto,” Il Piccolo, 4 October 1975. 51 “Una rinuncia che umilia,” Il Piccolo, 26 September 1975. 52 “Un inganno di vent’anni,” Il Piccolo, 29 September 1975. 47

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instead depicted as unrealistic.53 The letters column turned into a sort of “Speakers’ Corner” hosting opinions expressed by politicians, cultural and environmentalist associations, representatives of the exiles, economic actors, and simple citizens. There was an overwhelming presence of the treaty’s opponents, and it was mainly the latter who mobilized themselves – although they did so for diverse reasons: national (and nationalist), economic, anti-partitocratic, independentist, and environmental.54 The polemics were mainly directed against Democrazia Cristiana. The party was deemed primarily responsible for the Osimo Treaty, and, one month after its signing, a local Democrazia Cristiana branch was attacked with petrol bombs.55 The moroteo group heading the Trieste Democrazia Cristiana had for fifteen years been engaged in the difficult task of proposing a new idea of democratic patriotism which would resolve long-standing national tensions.56 Improved relations between Italians and Slovenes, in parallel with creation of the “bridge border,”57 had been one of the main goals of the center-left. In the mid-1960s it was not accomplished with the increased, albeit cautious, educational and cultural tutelage afforded to the minority,58 and with political agreements in local authorities between the Democrazia Cristiana and liberal and socialist Slovene representatives. On the Democrazia Cristiana’s own admission, ethnic tensions were still widespread in the populace.59 They involved certain first-generation Christian Democrats, and they were fuelled by bishop Santin, who was often accused of bias by the Slovenespeaking clergy and repeatedly harshly critical of the decisions taken by the new Christian Democratic majority.60 53

55 56 54

57



58



59



60



“Promesse, parole, fantasie,” Il Piccolo, 2 October 1975. DT, DT, AC, b. 8, f. Democrazia Cristiana 1976, Press review. “Grave attentato a Trieste contro la Democrazia Cristiana,” Il Popolo, 6 December 1975. Piero Purini, Trieste 1954-1963. Dal Governo militare alleato alla Regione FriuliVenezia Giulia (Trieste: Circolo Šček, 1995); Milica Kacin Wohinz, Jože Pirjevec, Storia degli sloveni in Italia (1866-1998) (Venezia: Marsilio, 1998); Claus Gatterer, In lotta contro Roma. Cittadini, minoranze e autonomie in Italia (Bolzano: Praxis 3, 1999); Sandi Volk, Esuli a Trieste. Bonifica nazionale e rafforzamento dell’italianità sul confine orientale (Udine: Kappa Vu, 2004). DT, AC, b. 7, f. Politica, Italy-Yugoslavia relationships, minority 1973, Note on the “negoziations”; DT, AC, b. 7, f. Politica 1974. ADC, Segreteria politica, b. 134, f. 3 and b. 137, f. 6: Belci to Moro; DT, AC, b. 7, f. Politica, Italy-Yugoslavia relationships, minority 1974: Tutela globale. See also: DT, AC, b. 6, f. Viaggio Jugoslavia 1972: Memorandum for the president of the council Colombo. ADC, Segreteria politica, b. 135, f. 4: Report on the national problem at the eastern border. Andrea Dessardo, “Vita Nuova” 1945-1965. Trieste nelle pagine del settimanale diocesano (Trieste: IRSMLFVG, 2010).

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The entry into the municipal executive of a Slovenian socialist alderman – an erstwhile supporter of Trieste’s annexation to Yugoslavia – provoked severe and public breakdown in relations between the bishop and the Democrazia Cristiana secretariat, added to which were the criticisms of the Istrian sectors and the objections of various leading Christian Democrats.61 A political storm erupted in Trieste, and the Democrazia Cristiana was forced to defend its actions against a campaign which collected more than forty thousand signatures for a protest petition. The next year, this crisis was followed by another one provoked by the rationalization (and consequent downsizing) of Trieste’s naval engineering industry. Violent demonstrations were mounted against the parties in government, accused of being unable to counter Trieste’s economic decline. However, these rifts had no effect on the Democrazia Cristiana’s electoral performance, which persuaded the Christian Democratic majority that it was about to win the contest against the nationalistic and municipalist sections of the community. It was not so, however. The institution in 1963 of Friuli-Venezia Giulia as an autonomous region equipped the Trieste Democrazia Cristiana with an efficient and financially well-endowed instrument to support its policy of openness towards Yugoslavia and remove the heavy constraints that the international post-war system had imposed on Trieste’s potential for growth.62 But despite the endeavor of Italy and the Region to strengthen cross-border cooperation,63 the problem of Trieste’s decline proved intractable. Not even the substantial growth of border traffic was enough to rescue the city from a stagnation exacerbated by delays in constructing the infrastructures essential for even a slight upturn in the seaport’s economic growth. However generous, public funding was unable to replace an entrepreneurship by now exhausted, in a local economic system entirely dependent on state shareholding. In the absence of a wave of socio-economic development which would shift the balance of Triestine society towards its more modern component, the Democrazia Cristiana continued to base its support on the national claims that the moroteo leadership seemed intent on superseding, and on 61

Libero Pelaschiar, “Il ‘caso Hreščak’,” in Angelo Bartolomasi et al., Cattolici a Trieste (Trieste: Lint, 2003), 176-9; Guido Botteri, “Lineamenti per una politica di ispirazione cattolica a Trieste,” ibid., 168-76. 62 Michele Degrassi, “L’ultima delle regioni a statuto speciale,” in Storia d’Italia. Le Regioni dall’Unità a oggi. Friuli Venezia Giulia, 759-804. 63 DT, AC, b. 4, f. Democrazia cristiana 1971: Meeting between the Democrazia Cristiana and Alleanza del Popolo Lavoratore della Slovenia (19 July 1971) and visit to Fiume by a Triestine delegation (21-22 July 1971); DT, AC, b. 10, f. Alpe Adria 1979. See also: “Un confine aperto,” Il Popolo del Friuli Venezia Giulia, 4 December 1969; “Una ‘regione-ponte’ per costruire la pace,” Il Popolo del Friuli Venezia Giulia, 2 May 1972.

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the anti-communism – reinforced in Trieste by the tragic experiences of the Istrian exiles – which at the end of the 1960s also seemed set to be substantially revised through the efforts of Aldo Moro. Moreover, the political risks of Adriatic normalization were evident to the Julian moroteo élite. On several occasions they requested Rome to delay definition of the frontier.64 The Treaty of Osimo therefore represented the culmination of the estrangement between the Christian Democrat leadership and its electoral base, but strong tensions also traversed the center-left as a whole. In October 1975, the regional council voted in favor of a motion expressing support for the government’s action, which the right-wing Movimento Sociale opposed, but so did also an exiled Istrian Democrazia Cristiana councilor.65 The Democrazia Cristiana also suffered defections in the provincial council, with the resignation of an alderman and the contrary pronouncements of two councilors, although they subsequently complied with party discipline.66 Finally, in the municipal council – besieged by a demonstration which united nationalists and independentists – rifts opened among the Christian Democrats and among the Socialists.67 The motion in favor of the treaty was passed without difficulty;68 although for reasons of conscience four Democrazia Cristiana councilors objected to the definitive ceding of the Istrian towns from which they originated: two abstained, but two finally toed the party line.69 The Christian Democrat leadership publicly censured the dissenters but did not ask for their resignations:70 it was well aware 64

ADC, Segreteria politica, b. 202, f. 3: Coloni a Forlani (1971). See also: “Forlani: rispetto reciproco nei rapporti con Belgrado,” Il Piccolo, 30 April 1972. The Democrazia Cristiana secretary reaffirmed in Trieste the party’s endorsement of the 1954 Memorandum. See also: Belci, Trieste. Memorie di trent’anni, 161-72. On several occasions, Belci asked to be given more time by the government officials inquiring whether it was advisable to stipulate a definitive accord, also with a view to Tito’s visit to Italy. While recognizing that the final decision was up to Roma, Belci admitted that he foresaw strong reactions in Trieste and among the Istrians, also because the government had always stated that the frontier was provisional. 65 “Sì della Regione all’accordo sulla zona B,” Il Piccolo, 8 October 1975; “La resa in zona B: peggio del diktat,” Difesa Adriatica, 9 October 1975; “L’Italia ha ceduto la zona B?,” Difesa Adriatica, September 1975. For a detailed description see Fabio Capano, “L’Associazionismo adriatico: una risposta ad Osimo,” Qualestoria, 2013/2, passim. 66 Minutes of the provincial council session, 9 October 1975. 67 “Lacerazioni nella Maggioranza sulla zona B,” Il Piccolo, 29 September 1975; “Si difende la cessione della Zona B nel municipio presidiato dai carabinieri,” Il Piccolo, 9 October 1975. 68 Minutes of the provincial council session, 8-9 October 1975. 69 Ibid. 70 “Riunione della direzione provinciale della Democrazia Cristiana,” Il Piccolo, 11 October 1975.

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of the level of dissent in the party rank-and-file, and it probably did not want to aggravate the situation any further. The deputy mayor – an Istrian socialist and refugee – assumed a very controversial stance. Although he declared himself convinced that détente with Yugoslavia was necessary, he abstained as a sign of solidarity with the exiles. Shortly afterwards he resigned from the council and then left the Partito Socialista Italiano at the end of the year, together with other members of the executive.71 Before the debate, the Partito Repubblicano Italiano convened an assembly, during which the majority of members expressed objections against the choices of the national and provincial secretariat. The Republican alderman therefore decided not to vote in favor of the pro-Osimo motion, and he too left the council and the party.72 The most significant consequences, however, concerned the Democrazia Cristiana, in which the fanfaniano and neo-centrist minority had gained important positions which would be furthered strengthened in the following years. In the period between signature and ratification of the Osimo Treaty, the internal opposition continued to criticize both its political and economic provisions. Matters came to a head on the occasion of the elections of June 1976, when the outgoing Belci – supported by the provincial secretariat – was elected behind Giorgio Tombesi, who obtained the endorsement (and preference votes) of Bologna, who had not stood for re-election after four legislatures.73 Tombesi had centered his campaign on opposition against the treaty and on the need to halt conciliation between the Democrazia Cristiana and the Partito Comunista Italiano.74 The provincial secretariat urged sanctions by the Democrazia Cristiana’s national executive against a candidate who had openly disputed the party’s official policies.75 Despite these severe internal tensions, the election results did not show any marked decrease in the Democrazia Cristiana’s support. This was due on the one hand to the coverage provided by the Christian Democratic right for opponents of Osimo, and on the other, to the lack of alternatives, since the protest movement had only just begun at the time of the elections. Moreover, the nationalist opposition to the treaty had relatively little weight if one 71

Gianni Giuricin, Trieste, luci ed ombre (Trieste: Edizioni Gruppo lista civica, 1987), 40. See also: “Replica del gruppo Giuricin all’ufficio stampa del Psi,” Il Piccolo, 4 December 1975. 72 “Dimissioni al vertice al Pri. Giunto da Roma il commissario,” Il Piccolo, 9 October 1975. 73 “Congedo ed invito dell’on. Bologna ai suoi elettori,” Il Piccolo, 30 May 1976. 74 “Incontro con gli elettori dell’ing. Giorgio Tombesi,” Il Piccolo, 13 June 1976. 75 “I Democrazia Cristiana anti-Osimo denunciati ai probiviri,” Il Piccolo, 3 October 1976.

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considers the simultaneous decline of the Movimento Sociale and the lack of a rightward shift in the electorate. Cleavages were apparent not only in the Democrazia Cristiana but also in the local Catholic Church. In 1973, bishop Antonio Santin had sent a stern letter to Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in which he opposed the cession of Zone B.76 The diocesan periodical – with articles probably written by the bishop – made its voice loudly heard. It criticized the negotiations and stressed the plight of the refugees, as well as the fact that the decision had been taken (with the support of the Communists) by a political class made up of conniving factions and deaf to the will of the electorate.77 Not by chance, it was suggested that the bishop’s resignation for reasons of age, accepted by the Holy See in precisely the same year as the Osimo Treaty, was an expedient by the Vatican to facilitate the ItaloYugoslav agreement.78 However, there were diverse currents within the Curia, as well as several officials who, although natives of Zone B, were in favor of the agreement.79

4. Toward Ratification: the Economic Agreements and the Protest In the year that passed between approval of the treaty’s signature and its ratification, the debate moved from its political content to its economic provisions and the method with which they were to be enacted. The main target of criticism was the creation of the duty-free industrial zone on the Karst plateau and straddling the border. The zone was to be established on Italian and Yugoslav territory and subject to a single customs regime which exempted from taxation the importing, processing, and exporting of goods. The protest took various forms, but the most significant of them was the resurgence of autonomist tendencies, which interwove with the Triestine municipalist tradition, dissatisfaction with the city’s economic downgrading, and anger that the periphery had not been involved in decisions taken by a center accused of humiliating Trieste and imposing clientelism and bureaucracy.80 In January 1976, socialist, liberal, republican and independent politicians set about constructing a new coalition. This opposed the 76

ASL, Archivio Giulio Andreotti, b. 338/B, Zona B. “Crisi e vergogna,” Vita Nuova, 4 October 1975. 78 Belci, Trieste. Memorie di trent’anni, 187-8. The idea of facilitation by the Vatican – which officially denied it – was also propounded by the right. 79 R. Tomizza, “Osimo tra distrazione e paura,” Vita Nuova, 7 January 1977. 80 “Zona franca integrale: presentata la proposta di legge in Cassazione,” Il Piccolo, 15 April 1976. 77

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restricted ZFIC with an “integral” zone (ZFI) which would extend across the entire province and abolish customs tariffs on incoming and outgoing goods and raw materials.81 According to its proponents, the scheme would not only reduce the cost of living but relaunch the port as well as industrial and tertiary activities.82 For that matter, already in the past there had been discussion of a duty-free zone in evident continuity with the increasingly remote past of the Habsburg free port. After the proclamations of the antifascist Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, in fact, this unlikely proposal had been revived in the 1950s and 1960s, not only by small businesses and crafts firms but also by sections of the Democrazia Cristiana, as well as the Partito Comunista, Partito Socialista, and independentists.83 Founded in March was the Comitato di Dieci, which began to collect signatures for a voter initiative bill on the province-wide ZFI. It was immediately backed by Il Piccolo, whose support was vital for the project’s viability.84 But the Comitato was criticized by political parties and trade unions mindful of the threat raised by a movement extraneous to mainstream political representation which addressed public opinion directly. By November 1976, fully 65,000 signatures had been collected, thanks also to the efforts of radicals and independentists: one in four Triestine voters supported the protest – probably more because of generic opposition to the Osimo Treaty than convinced adherence to the idea of a province-wide duty-free zone. The Comitato frequently stressed the lack of advantage for Italian firms of investment in the duty-free zone, given the greater competitiveness of Yugoslav companies able to benefit from more favourable labor laws on wage levels and trade-union activity. Hitherto, in fact, no Italian firm had applied to set up in the zone, whereas numerous Yugoslav enterprises had shown an interest. A second problem was identified in a huge influx of Slav workers, which would have penalized local labor and upset the area’s national equilibria with a large-sized settlements of migrants from

81

AS, AT, b. Gt35, f. Zona franca – Porto TS: Opuscolo del Comitato della zona franca integrale. 82 “Trieste per volontà dei suoi cittadini può ritornare a essere un grande porto,” Il Piccolo, 15 October 1976; “La vostra firma per salvare Trieste,” Il Piccolo, 1 March 1976. Also: “Le motivazioni della Democrazia Cristiana contro la Zona franca integrale,” Il Piccolo, 3 November 1976. 83 Stefano Balestra, “La questione della Zona franca nel dibattito politico a Trieste fra il 1954 e il 1958,” Quaderni del Centro studi economico-politici Ezio Vanoni, 2001/1-2. See also, the speech given in the Senate by Vittorio Vidali, member of the Communist Party in 1962, “Perché Trieste ha bisogno della Zona franca integrale,” Il Piccolo, 13 October 1976. 84 Manlio Cecovini, Trieste ribelle (Milano: SugarCo Edizioni, 1985), 19.

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Yugoslavia.85 Also emphasized were the risks of air pollution and the contamination of aquifers; risks also stressed by the University of Trieste, given that the zone would be close to an area which in 1971 had been declared a nature reserve, on the parliamentary initiative of Belci himself. Similar concerns were expressed by organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund.86 On the economic side, the Trieste industrialists’ association criticized the government for long maintaining the text of the treaty secret. It also declared its “displeasure” at the cession of Zone B.87 The industrialists did not comment further on the political significance of the treaty, and they declared themselves willing to assist with the preparatory work on creation of the industrial zone. However, a number of leading local entrepreneurs took the opportunity to express their fears: the ZFIC’s sole benefit to Yugoslav firms; the excessive inflow of foreign labor; the uninterest of Italian firms; the lack of state investment in the necessary infrastructures; and unclear regulation, given that it consisted substantially of delegated decrees.88 However, these misgivings were not shared by Confindustria, then headed by Gianni Agnelli, who extolled the economic returns which, he believed, would further stimulate “an open and osmotic frontier” and reinstate Trieste as a hub of trade and industry.89 The chorus of opposition was swelled by the Radical Party, which endorsed the political part of the treaty but opposed its ratification because it disagreed with its economic provisions. Radicals and Liberals urged the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber to interrupt its discussions so that it could hear the opinions of Triestine experts, employers’ associations, and trade unions on the delicate location of the ZFIC.90 The Radicals feared an “ecological catastrophe”, the scant interest of Italian enterprises, and damage to the social fabric of the minority living on the Karst Plateau. They also maintained that the negotiations had been conducted by “incompetents” who had no knowledge of the territory, without the on-site inspections being carried out, and without 85

D. Rossi, “La zona franca industriale sul Carso,” Il Piccolo, 24 November 1976. “Osimo: 181 professori dell’Università contro la zona industriale sul Carso,” Il Piccolo, 5 December 1976. 87 “Si delinea sul terreno e negli impegni la Zona franca a cavallo del confine,” and “L’avvio della consultazione in un incontro in Regione,” Notiziario industriale, 15 December 1975. 88 “Interrogativi ancora senza risposta”; “Zona franca industriale e commerciale: quali sono le reali prospettive per Trieste?,” Notiziario industriale, 6 December 1976. 89 “Nel responsabile intervento di Agnelli precisi indirizzi per uscire dalla crisi,” Notiziario industriale, 8 April 1976. 90 “Osimo: il Pli contrario alle industrie sul Carso,” Il Piccolo, 5 November 1976; “Il rinvio di Osimo obiettivo dei radicali,” Il Piccolo, 11 November 1976. 86

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consultation of the local authorities. The Trieste Democrazia Cristiana was attacked for having accepted the treaty sight unseen, after twenty years of profiting from the refugees on promises that the status quo was provisional.91 The Radical Party’s secretary, Pannella, used the issue for his anti-partitocratic battle,92 citing Osimo as proof of the “power pact” between the Democrazia Cristiana and Partito Comunista Italiano at all levels,93 and criticizing the concessions imposed on Trieste.94 The Slovenes took up various positions. Whilst those close to the PCI expressed approval of the treaty’s political and economic provisions, the anti-communist Slovenska skupnost opposed the creation of the new industrial area,95 fearing expropriation of Karst territory and the risk of alteration in the ethnic and environmental features of the plateau.96 The Slovene parties unanimously declared that such sacrifice would require fair indemnities and unequivocally demonstrate the minority’s attachment to the destiny of the Julian community. This was a further reason for accelerating enactment of the (too long awaited) protection law, which should encompass the entire Slovene population of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and not just that of the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia  – as instead foreseen by the minimum guarantees stated by the treaty and as wanted by the government and the Democrazia Cristiana.97 The numerous doubts expressed at local level induced the national press to be more cautious in its judgment on the Osimo Treaty’s economic part, which it had initially welcomed.98 This shift also came about in consideration of a protest movement which grew increasingly heterogeneous. The controversy on compensation, in fact, demonstrated 91

G. Ercolessi, “L’imbroglio. Il trattato di Osimo con la Jugoslavia ha un risvolto criminoso: il protocollo economico” (copy in possession of the Author). 92 “Nostra intervista con il leader radicale, Marco Pannella,” Il Piccolo, 11 November 1976. 93 “No ad una richiesta di Pannella per la pubblicizzazione del dibattito,” Il Piccolo, 16 November 1976; “Osimo: i radicali chiedono di sospendere il dibattito,” Il Piccolo, 19 November 1976. 94 “Dossier a sorpresa,” Il Piccolo, 14 February 1977. 95 Discussion on the state of relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, Region Fvg, Atti consiliari, session of 7 October 1975 6395-443; Minutes of the session of the municipal council, 8-9 October 1975; Minutes of the session of the municipal council, 19 November 1976. 96 “Anche motivi di sconcerto nei commenti degli sloveni,” Il Piccolo, 4 October 1975; DT, AC, b. 16, f. Osimo-Zfic 1981. 97 DT, AC, b. 7, f. Politica, Italy-Yugoslavia relations, minority 1973, Note on “negotiations”. 98 Radius, “Zona franca: un’occasione per Trieste,” Il Giornale, 4 October 1975; “La Camera favorevole a definire il trattato con la Jugoslavia,” L’Unità, 4 October 1975; D. Frescobaldi, “Intesa firmata per la zona B,” Il Corriere della sera, 11 November 1975.

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that opposition to the treaty was only in part due to nationalist tendencies – although they were substantial – and more to the uncertain outcomes of economic decisions taken without listening to the periphery.99 Moreover, it was still not known that the project for the ZFIC had been revised with respect to the first proposal made by Italian diplomacy, which had requested the zone not to be constructed on the Karst Plateau; it should be entirely situated on Slovenian territory without infrastructural connections with Yugoslavia.100 Il Corriere della sera urged the Democrazia Cristiana and Partito Comunista not to stigmatize the treaty’s opponents as nationalists, and to be more attentive after they had “passively” accepted the Osimo package produced by the central bureaucracy.101 Closure against the protest, however was evident in both parties, which judged it simplistic and selfreferential. Although the Christian Democrats and Communists admitted that it was necessary to examine the location and the environmental implications of the ZFIC, they criticized the anachronistic notion of the “integral” free zone – which the PCI had supported until the early 1960s – viewed as a backlash by the Triestine conservative, nationalist, and isolationist bourgeoisie against the popular and democratic project of normalizing the frontier.102 No real consideration was made of the deeplying reasons for the malaise that afflicted broad swathes of the city’s population. Only Il Secolo d’Italia persevered in questioning the political bases of the agreement, arguing that the country, and all the more so Trieste, should pay no further price for losing the war. The nationalist and revanchist groups on the right complained that the debate was by now concerned solely with economic aspects and entirely ignored the loss of a part of Italian territory.103 However, they appeared rather isolated in public opinion: such arguments, in fact, were almost exclusively employed by 99

G. da Rold, “Un triestino su quattro ha sottoscritto il dissenso al trattato italojugoslavo,” Il Corriere della sera, 22 November 1976. 100 Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare. Per una storia della politica estera italiana (1943-1991) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995), 217-18. 101 A. Todisco, “Non facciamo del Carso un altro porto Marghera,” Il Corriere della sera, 6 December 1976. 102 “Osimo: lo contrasta una ibrida coalizione,” Il Popolo, 11 December 1975; M. Passi, “Un ruolo attivo per Trieste,” L’Unità, 19 November 1976; U. Cardia, “Passo avanti della cooperazione europea,” L’Unità, 10 December 1976; “Per un dibattito sugli Accordi di Osimo,” L’Unità, 2 January 1977; “La scelta del Carso per la zona industriale,” L’Unità, 12 January 1977; F. Calamandrei, “Il trattato di Osimo,” L’Unità, 25 February 1977. See also, DT, AC, b. 12, f. Democrazia cristiana 1980. 103 “Cresce l’opposizione alla ratifica”, and “La forza della verità,” Difesa Adriatica, 17 November 1976.

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the Movimento Sociale and the associations of Istrian refugees, which pointed out the generic nature of the agreements on issues such as citizenship, treatment of the Italian minority, and indemnification of the refugees.104 These robust and multiform reactions, however, did not slow down progress towards the treaty’s ratification. Also the debate in the local authorities proceeded in predictable manner: a large majority excluded any chance of the treaty’s revision by voting for a motion tabled jointly by the Democrazia Cristiana and the Partito Comunista which described the ZFIC free-trade zone as an opportunity for development.105 The intention of the main political parties was to have the agreement approved and make any necessary amendments in the implementation phase. On 17 December 1976, the Chamber approved the bill on ratification of the Treaty of Osimo, with around one hundred absentees among the ranks of the Democrazia Cristiana.106 Votes against were cast by the Movimento Sociale, the Radical Party, and around thirty party defectors.107 The Christian Democratic Tombesi had pre-announced his opposition to the Democrazia Cristiana parliamentary groups. He urged his party to respect national sentiments in Trieste and to pay heed to the spreading, though civil, local protest. For Tombesi, the Treaty of Osimo was a unwarranted surrender and a unilateral concession notwithstanding the government’s previous reassurances. However, Tombesi demanded the relocation, not the cancellation, of the disputed ZFIC free-trade zone, although he believed that it would be of no economic benefit to the country or to the local community.108 Before the treaty’s ratification in the Senate, the latter’s president Fanfani had received representatives of the Comitato dei Dieci for delivery of the 65,000-signature petition: the president of the Chamber – the Communist Pietro Ingrao – had instead refused to receive the

104

“Non si ratifichi l’accordo,” Difesa Adriatica, 14 February 1976; “La zona B regalata alla Jugoslavia,” Difesa Adriatica, 2 March 1976; “Il Parlamento di fronte alla verifica,” Difesa Adriatica, 5 April 1976. 105 Minutes of the session of the municipal council, 19 November 1976; “Fino all’alba al Comune per un voto ormai scontato,” Il Piccolo, 21 November 1976. 106 “Osimo: la relazione del ministro degli Esteri al disegno di legge di ratifica degli accordi,” Il Piccolo, 23 October 1976; “Osimo: rapporto in commissione,” Il Piccolo, 10 November 1976. 107 “Un ritaglio di tempo per Osimo alla Camera,” Il Piccolo, 11 December 1976. 108 “Interventi contrari all’accordo di Osimo,” Il Piccolo, 13 August 1976; “Tombesi: troppi dubbi,” Il Piccolo, 14 November 1976; “Tombesi (Democrazia Cristiana): i motivi di un no,” Il Piccolo, 9 December 1976; “Alla Camera 178 assenti per il sì al trattato,” Il Piccolo, 18 December 1976.

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Comitato representatives.109 Triestine delegations were also received by the Senate’s foreign affairs committee.110 On 24 February 1977 the Senate ratified the treaty anyway, with votes in favor by the DC, PSI, PSDI, and PRI. The same parties approved a motion requesting the government to examine the plans for the ZFIC and assess its ecological consequences, economic prospects, and protection of Italian labor.111 However, there was no real reason for doing so, given that the industrial area would never be constructed.112

5. The “Lista per Trieste”: a Political Earthquake The consensus that had gathered around opposition to Osimo did not disperse with ratification of the treaty. The end of 1976, in fact, saw a broad debate on the creation of a civic list as an evolution of the Comitato dei Dieci: the Lista per Trieste was born around a year later.113 The movement sprang from a merger between lay parties – Liberals and Socialists – but it also garnered support from the right, Catholics, and the Istrians. It was also joined by the Christian Democrat, Bologna, who in the meantime had left the party for which he had been a parliamentary deputy for four legislatures. The Socialists would in any case have been marginalized over time, given the predominance of the movement’s more conservative liberal component. The heterogeneous political composition of the promoters would create not a few problems for the Lista per Trieste when it entered governance of the city’s local authorities.114 In that first phase, however, the various groupings were able to agree on a programme which gained cross-party support in the city on three main issues: the province’s autonomy within the Region, creation of the extended freetrade zone; and protection of the Karst environment.115

109

“Alla Camera le firme per la Z.F. integrale,” Il Piccolo, 30 November 1976; “Ricevuti da Fanfani i delegati dei 65 mila,” Il Piccolo, 14 January 1977. 110 “A Palazzo Madama su Osimo il primo proficuo confronto,” Il Piccolo, 3 February 1977. 111 “Un pacchetto di promesse per smorzare la protesta,” Il Piccolo, 25 February 1977. 112 DT, AC, b. 8, f. Osimo-Zfic 1977, Meeting of the joint commission to configure the ZFIC; DT, AC, b. 16, f. Osimo-Zfic 1981. 113 Manlio Cecovini, Discorso di un triestino agli italiani e altri scritti politici (Trieste: Lint, 1979); Id., Dare e avere per Trieste (Udine, Del Bianco, 1991); Id., Trieste ribelle. La Lista del Melone. Un insegnamento da meditare (Milano: SugarCo, 1995); Gianni Giuricin, Meloni, melonismo, melonaggine (Trieste: La cinigia, 1982); Id. Origini della Lista per Trieste. Storia documentata (Trieste: Italo Svevo, 2006). 114 Paolo Segatti, “La complessa stabilità di Trieste,” Il Mulino, 1997/371, 483-92. 115 M. Cecovini, “I triestini e il Comune,” Il Piccolo, 15 January 1977.

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The national press called attention to the phenomenon of a civic list which combined localist claims and criticism of the parties amid a severe crisis of the Italian political system’s capacity for representation. Corriere della sera rightly described Osimo as the cause of a malaise in Trieste originating in the distant past, and which saw the periphery preoccupied by the capital’s neglect and the economic crisis: “Today Trieste seems to regret the demise of the Austro-Hungarian empire; there is an air of nostalgia, of rebellion.”116 The Lista per Trieste aroused curiosity; above all, it seemed likely to change the Julian political scenario. Other autonomist and anti-partitocratic formations had arisen in Italy, but the Lista would achieve a success that exceeded every forecast and which anticipated the subsequent growth of autonomist and anti-system parties like the Lega Nord nationwide.117 The movement was attacked by the Communists as politically apathetic and anti-institutional,118 while La Repubblica criticized Trieste as a city wallowing in its Habsburg past and dependent on welfare.119 The Lista per Trieste platform was described as an odd mixture of nostalgia and incompatible political positions, but the Lista rapidly acquired strong support.120 The local authorities and the provincial secretariats of the center-left parties consequently grew more insistent in demanding that the feasibility of the economic accords be verified, thus diluting their initial enthusiasm. Furthermore, the administrative elections of June 1978 were won by the Lista, which gained 27.5% of the votes and had a member elected as mayor, although he headed a one-party minority executive. Hitherto, the Democrazia Cristiana’s support in Trieste had been less solid that elsewhere, given the robustness of the PCI, the strong presence of the MSI, and the influence of various independentist groups.121 The Christian Democrats had managed to obtain the electoral support of local voters by representing the two issues most important to them: namely national defense of Trieste’s Italianness and economic measures to aid the 116

A. Todisco, “A Trieste c’è un candidato in più: la delusione,” Il Corriere della sera, 20 June 1978. 117 S. Viola, “La sorpresa verrà da Trieste,” La Repubblica, 17 June 1978. Cf. inoltre S. Doglio, “L’accordo di Osimo divide Trieste,” La Stampa, 20 June 1978. 118 M. Passi, “Dietro la campagna moderata a Trieste,” L’Unità, 18 June 1978. 119 S. Viola, “La sorpresa verrà da Trieste,” La Repubblica, 17 June 1978. 120 Id., “Un altro voto di protesta,” La Repubblica, 27 June 1978. 121 Ilvo Diamanti, Arturo Parisi, Elezioni a Trieste. Identità territoriale e comportamento di voto (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991). The independentism was carried forward by very heterogeneous groups: those nostalgic for Habsburg rule, supporters of the interests of small firms, employees of the allied military government, anti-communist Slovenes, pro-Yugoslavia communists, and Cominformists.

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periphery. However, the traditional parties – both the Democrazia Cristiana and the Partito Comunista – had to reckon with the obstinate persistence of a municipalist mentality inherited from Trieste’s liberal-national past under the Habsburgs, and which was strengthened in the second post-war period by various factors: the suspension of sovereignty; distrust in Italian bureaucracy; nostalgia for the seaport’s fortunes under Austrian rule; the crisis of the local economy; belated implementation of the government’s measures; and delays in the granting of administrative autonomy. The DC thus paid a high price for Osimo. The collapse of the national party’s image corresponded to the Democrazia Cristiana as not any longer the “Italian party” but as solely a centralist party obedient to the designs of Rome without defending the interests of the impoverished city.122 The legacy of municipalism and national liberalism – which remained muted in the postwar period – thus found terrain on which they could merge into a more up-to-date form, in a climate of overlaps among the theme of the mistreated periphery, the demand for autonomy, the reaction of the exiled Istrians, general distrust in the political system, and the coolness of a largely conservative electorate towards attempted dialogue between the DC and the PCI. The Osimo crisis thus marked the birth of a political actor averse to the traditional parties; and it represented revenge by lay factions hostile to the center-left and political Catholicism. Trieste’s political equilibria were thus upset. The administrative elections marked the substantial defeat of the parties favourable to Osimo. Summing the votes of the Lista, the Movimento Sociale and the Radicals, the ballots cast in opposition to the treaty amounted to around 40 percent of the total. The Democrazia Cristiana had emerged unscathed from the 1976 elections, but the appearance of a pole attracting the protest vote meant that the party lost its control of the municipality after thirty years. In the early general elections held in 1979, only one DC candidate was elected to parliament (instead of the usual two). This was Tombesi, the strenuous opponent of the moroteo élite which had promoted normalization. The Democrazia Cristiana lost 13% of the votes that it had received in 1976: which was indicative of an electoral decline that would not soon be reversed. The Lista took votes away from all the parties – from those on the extreme right to the Partito Comunista – but without ever arousing 122

DT, AC, b. 12, f. Democrazia cristiana 1980, Motion 1 of the thirty-second provincial congress. It was the Christian Democrat leadership itself that conducted self-criticism, expressing concerns about the risk of “political marginalization” and the extinction of democratic political Catholicism, and speaking of a party become “closed party system impermeable to society” and also characterized by “past ambiguities” on resolution of the Italo-Yugoslav dispute.

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sympathy in the Slovenian minority. For a decade it remained the main political party in Trieste, receiving around one-third of votes. The crosspolitical opposition which coalesced around the Lista had the leverage necessary to halt creation of the ZFIC zone unwanted by the new municipal council, which threatened to hold a city referendum on the matter.123 The agreement would in any case be enfeebled by the excessive delays the Italian initiative, by the increasingly evident political and economic crisis of Yugoslavia – unable to undertake construction of the requisite infrastructures – and by the economic agreement stipulated between Belgrade and the European Economic Community, which removed any rationale for the duty-free zone straddling the border.124

123

DT, AC, b. 10, f. Politica locale e f. Osimo 1979, Municipal council motion against the creation of the ZFIC on the Karst Plateau. 124 DT, AC, b. 9, f. Osimo-Zfic 1978, Zona franca prevista dagli accordi di Osimo e accordo Cee-Jugoslavia. The DC would continue to defend the ZFIC, although it accepted the practical impossibility of the zone’s location on the Karst Plateau. The DC insisted on the ZFIC despite its awareness – which it concealed – that the direct agreements between the EEC and Yugoslavia had substantially diminished its economic viability and significance.

366

Resisting Détente The Associative Network and the Osimo Treaty Fabio Capano After the end of the “Trieste question” the Italian government fully embraced its new European and Atlantic impulses in foreign policy and purposed a new and friendly relation with the Yugoslav neighbor.1 The signature of the London Memorandum, indeed, relegated the unsettled issue of the ex-Zone B of the former Free Territory of Trieste to the borders of Cold War politics. Despite official statements, Trieste’s de facto return to Italy coincided with the definitive partition of the Adriatic border. As a consequence, recurrent political tensions that marked the years between 1954 and the Osimo Treaty were generally neglected and understudied.2 In particular, Trieste, after having first experienced the downsides of the emerging climate of the Cold War,3 also inaugurated a new season of political relaxation which greatly anticipated Nixon’s détente.4 In 1955, however, American observers understood that economic pressure played a crucial role in forcing Tito to accept the London Memorandum; whenever economic and military aid would become less urgent, Italian and Yugoslav relations could degenerate again.5 The territorial status of the ex-Zone B, indeed, remained a sore spot for both Rome and Belgrade, and its lingering tension echoed throughout Trieste and its national community. This chapter investigates the role played by local as well as national patriotic and émigrés associations in upholding 1

Federico Romero, “La Scelta Atlantica e Americana,” in Nazione, Interdipendenza e Integrazione: le Relazioni Internazionali dell’Italia (1917-1989), Vol. I, edited by Federico Romero and Antonio Varsori (Roma: Carocci, 2005), 166. 2 For one of the few and most exhaustive works on the subject see Massimo Bucarelli, La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (Roma: Aracne, 2008). 3 The Trieste question has been extensively studied and works from authors such as Diego De Castro and Giampaolo Valdevit provide a solid background. For one of the few works in Anglo-Saxon scholarship see Roberto G. Rabel, Between East and West: Trieste, the United States, and the Cold War, 1941-1954 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988). 4 See Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). 5 FRUS, Vol. XXVI, Central and Southeastern Europe, doc. 240, 4 April, 1955.

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Italian territorial claims over the ex-Zone B, specifically highlighting the conflicting nature of its relation with the state. It suggests that the diatribe of the ex-Zone B remained a “Cold War’s hotbed” for the Italian government and produced significant resistance to the process of diplomatic normalization between Italy and Yugoslavia. Even though a variety of associations actively mobilized in defense of the “Italianitá” of the Istrian region under Yugoslav administration, this chapter mainly focuses on the leading role played by associations such as the “Lega Nazionale”,6 “Unione degli Istriani”,7 “Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta”,8 and “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia”.9 While the first two associations became the leading voices of local patriotism and the Istrian émigrés, the latter two operated within the national community to promote the irredentist struggle and the Julian Dalmatian interests. In the 1960s, the “Lega Nazionale” restlessly defended Trieste’s “Italianità” and its unbroken moral and territorial continuity with the ex-Zone B. Instead, the “Unione degli Istriani” played a greater role in resisting the making of the Osimo Treaty, which directly undermined its own “reason d’être”. More important, throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, contrasting political orientations fueled tension within the associative network and revealed the problematic connivance between state institutions, members 6



The “Lega Nazionale” and its 45,000 members advocated the defense of Italian culture and language in the ex-Zone B as the unpronounceable preamble for successful revisions of the territorial treaties signed after the war. It benefited from the financial support of both local and central authorities. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. V, b. 9, Vol. II, sf. Lega Nazionale Trieste, “Contributions 1963-1984”. 7 The “Unione degli Istriani” was founded by dissidents of the “Comitato Liberazione Nazionale” Istria (CLN) after 1954. It maintained an irrepressible and uncompromising position over the ex-Zone B and advocated the revision of both the Peace treaty and the London Memorandum. ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani. 8 Ex-combatants and irredentists of “Costituente Adriatica” decided to recreate on 3 November 1963 the “Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta” (ANII) which later merged with the “Centro Studi Adriatici” in 1964. This association, heir of the 1877 “Associazione in pro dell’Italia Irredenta,” aimed to unify the panoply of post-war nationalist associations and, striving for the “Italianità” of the unredeemed lands, opened to members of both moderate and extremist irredentist sentiments. US, FLP, b. 37, f. Constituente Adriatica Inviti e Adesioni, “Correspondence,” 1963. 9 The “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” (ANVGD) was created in 1947 to assist the émigrés during the massive exodus from Istria and Dalmatia. It became the main representative of the Adriatic émigrés and spread its propaganda within the pages of Difesa Adriatica. Over time, changes in its leadership altered the views of the association. With the replacement of Maurizio Mandel, the association gradually aligned to the political strategy of the center-left and took a more conciliatory approach toward the border’s dispute. US, FLP, b. 36, f. ANII Polemiche con CLN, “Note to Mandel,” 10 August, 1962.

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of the associations, and right political extremism.10 Thus, in exploring the “complex relation”11 between Rome and Trieste through the lenses of the associative response to state defeatism over the ex-Zone B, this chapter tells a story of misunderstandings, conflicts, and antagonisms amid the Adriatic friendship.12 It demonstrates that the process of détente was opposed by segments of the nation who stubbornly refused to comply with the new logic of international politics and advocated the defense of the “legitimate” interests of the nation. After signing the London Memorandum of 1954, the Italian government attempted to compensate for its alleged disregard toward Trieste’s needs by reasserting Italian sovereignty on Trieste and its territory.13 The central government, indeed, drew a net distinction between the national borders and the borders of the former Free Territory of Trieste from those of the Yugoslav territory, often provoking Yugoslav resistance.14 In so doing, it greatly benefited from the support of the Catholic Church15 10

This argument was summarized in Carl Schiffrer’s article “La politica delle bandiere” in 1957. In 1956, the CLN prepared a detailed memorandum which harshly criticized the neo-fascist nature of both the “Unione degli Istriani” and the ANVGD. In particular it stressed the detrimental effect of fascist personalities such as Coceani, Sauro, or Mendel on the image and reputation of the émigrés whom were often associated to sentimental nationalists. UI, 1954-1967, b. 5, f. III/2, “Memorandum CLN,” 28 November 1956. 11 Anna Millo has recently examined the complex political relation between Trieste and Rome after 1945 in La Difficile Intesa. Roma e Trieste nella Questione Giuliana 1945-1954 (Trieste: Italo Svevo, 2011). This chapter is an attempt to extend our understanding after 1954. 12 Only a few scholars have studied the crucial role that the associative network played to maintain public interest in the issue of the ex-Zone B. This chapter, without pretending to be exhaustive or comprehensive, is a first attempt to fill this gap in historical studies and nationally contextualize the activities of the associative network by crossing its archival references. For works which reconstruct the story and activities of the “Lega Nazionale” see Roberto Spazzali, Contributi di Ricerca per una Storia della Lega Nazionale 1946: la Ricostituzione (Trieste: Edizioni Trieste Press, 1987). Also see Paolo Sardos Albertini, Lega Nazionale. Storia di un Sodalizio che Attraversa tre Secoli (Trieste: Lega Nazionale, 2011). The most complete and recent work on the subject is Diego Redivo, Le Trincee della Nazione: Cultura e Politica della Lega Nazionale (1891-2004) (Trieste: LN, 2004). For the most recent and comprehensive work on the “Unione degli Istriani” see Rino Baroni, Gli Istriani in Difesa dell’Istria Italiana: dal Memorandum d’Intesa al Trattato di Osimo (Trieste: Unione degli Istriani, 2004). 13 ACS, PCM, UZC, f. II, Trieste, b. 31, sf. Territorio Libero di Trieste Bilinguità, “Ministro Grazia e Giustizia to PCM,” 29 September 1956 and f. Fornitura Carta d’Identità, “CGGTT to PCM,” 12 October 1956. 14 ACS, PCM, UZC, f. II, Trieste, b. 3, Vol. II, “Stampa Jugoslava – Confine Jugoslavo su Carte Geografiche,” 4 January 1956. 15 The Catholic Church actively supported the Italian identity of the former Free Territory of Trieste by means of its associative network, in particular the local Italian Catholic University Federation. Pressures from leading Catholic figures, among them bishop

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which continued to uphold the unitary and indivisible character of the Triestine dioceses in Trieste and the ex-zone B.16 Moreover, in an attempt to weaken local disapproval of Trieste’s chronic economic crisis,17 the central government provided significant financial aid to the local associations whose activities promised to strengthen Italian state’s image on the border. Meanwhile, the Yugoslav government continued to perceive patriotic and émigrés’ associations as expressions of vicious Italian irredentism which, they believed, ultimately aimed to remove the Slovene minority, figuratively portrayed as a “trnj v peti” (thorn stuck in the heel) from Trieste.18 The documentation of the border office (UZC),19 also renamed “Ufficio Regioni” in 1954, provides valuable information about the contributions granted to the associative network in Trieste. In pursuing social, economic, cultural,20 or artistic goals,21 these associations actively supported Italian propaganda on the border in exchange for financial support which often increased in proximity of local and national elections. In its allocation of funding, the decisions of the central government were significantly affected by the nature of the association and political

16



17



18



19



20



21



Santin, played a crucial role in making these contributions possible which were uninterruptedly granted until 1970s. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. V, Dall’Ufficio per le Zone di Confine all’Ufficio Regioni Friuli Venezia Giulia, b. 16, sf. FUCI, “Contributions 1953-1970”. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. II, Trieste, b. 44, sf. Estensione della legislazione jugoslava alla ex zona B ed al distretto di Capodistria, “MAE to PCM: Giurisdizione Religiosa in Zona B,” 2 November 1954. Bartoli, in his speech at the Julian and Dalmatia circle in Milan, emphasized that Trieste’s problems remained unresolved after 1954 and Triestines were perceived as “whiners whom did not even know what they wanted”. These views, Bartoli added, ignored the problematic status of the city which looked like a human head deprived of its body. ACS, MI, GAB, f. Correnti, 1957-1960, b. 269, f. 15726/1 Trieste, 6 March 1957. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. IV, b. 23, sf. Passaggio di Poteri nel Territorio di Trieste, “Palamara to PCM, Confidential Information,” 25 October 1955. The office itself opposed the local Christian democrats on the future of Trieste’s local administration. The UZC aimed to appoint a bureaucrat who would continue its traditional pro-fascist policy and would be easily subjected to the political influences of Rome. Local democrats instead supported a political and autonomous figure who would be able to better understand the city’s needs and avoid the affirmation of political independent feelings. IRSMLFVG, f. Venezia Giulia, b. 31, Confidential Note 2361, “Note of Carlo Schiffrer on UZC and State Adviser Innocenti,” 1954. The association “Dante Alighieri” promoted Italian culture and language by arranging linguistic courses, conferences, students’ awards, libraries, and publications. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. V, b. 26, Vol. I, sf. Società Nazionale Dante Alighieri, “Contributions 1946-1984”. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. V, b. 24, Vol.  II, sf. Trieste Circolo della Cultura e delle Arti, “Contributions 1949-1984”.

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opportunism. Over time, this office proved particularly willing to support educational, cultural, ex-combatant, and youth associations of liberal and conservative orientations.22 Despite this significant flow of money that reached Trieste, neo-irredentist formations continued to firmly oppose the London Memorandum and Tito’s regime.23 For example, in 1956, the “Unione degli Istriani” vehemently protested against Yugoslavia’s desire to extend compulsory military service over the ex-Zone B.24 This issue, whose emotional impact far surpassed its local dimension, became a source of friction between local and national elites.25 Under pressure from local patriotic and émigrés associations, Italian authorities strongly protested to Belgrade’s intentions.26 Even though people in Trieste did not take part in any significant protests, Commissariat Palamara reported that Triestines proved increasingly frustrated with the status of the London Memorandum which they felt needed to be clearly declared either as provisional27 or conditionally definitive with amendments.28 This insecurity and anxiety among local people29 and in combination with concessions to the Slovene minority, consistently inflamed socio-political tensions that weakened popular consensus toward both the local and national Christian democrats.30 The Christian democrat subculture of the new political elites embraced a gradual and conciliatory program of center-left orientations which clashed with the

22

The case of the denial or approval of economic support to the Triestine center for political, economic, and social studies well exemplifies the logic behind the governmental decision-making. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. V, b. 24, Vol. I, sf. Trieste Centro Studi Politici Economici e Sociali, “Correspondence 1958-1967”. 23 See Roberto Spazzali, Secondo Irredentismo: tra Patriottismo Democratico e Rivendicazione Integrale dell’Italianità sulla Venezia Giulia (Trieste: Universitá di Trieste, 2011). 24 UI, 1954-1967, b. 5, f. IV/7, “Pro Memoria sul Problema della Sovranità”. 25 ACS, PCM, UZC, f. IV, b. 83, sf. Servizio Militare, “Letter from Bartoli to President of Republic,” 16 August 1957. 26 UI, 1954-1967, f. IV/6, “Confidential MAE to Unione degli Istriani,” 4 October 1956. 27 This option was supported by local DC Bologna who feared any declaration attributing the full Yugoslav sovereignty over the Zone B and suggested that its provisional status be maintained while gradually replacing the local Commissariat with the autonomous region. ASL, f. Democrazia Cristiana, Segreteria Politica, Fanfani, Uffici CentraliCorrispondenza, f. 76, sf. 7, “Bologna to Fanfani,” 6 March 1956. 28 ACS, PCM, UZC, f. IV, b. 83, f. Servizio Militare, “CGGTT to PCM, Opinione Triestina sul Memorandum,” 25 September 1956. 29 See Giampaolo Valdevit, Trieste: Storia di una Periferia Insicura (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2004). 30 AST, f. Bartoli, b. 52, “Bartoli to Fanfani,” 4 June 1956.

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city’s rooted liberal-national identity.31 As a consequence, moments of tension and antagonism toward the Slovene and communist segments of the local population lasted throughout the 1960s and 1970s.32 This process was accompanied by a net decrease in both governmental and party contributions to the ex-combatant, monarchic, and patriotic network.33 Not only financial cuts to the patriotic network but also a set of legislative proposals to enforce the use of bilinguism in local public offices and judicial proceedings sparked popular opposition in 196134 The “Lega Nazionale” depicted such a provision as a deadly threat to Trieste’s “Italianità”.35 In its propaganda, it drew a dangerous parallel between the situation in South Tyrol and possible future scenario in Trieste. Its campaign received support from religious figures such as bishop Santin,36 former mayor Bartoli and representatives of the political center-right.37 The irredentist tones of the protests and the urban violence that for four days crossed Trieste produced friction between Rome and the city as well as the Italian and Yugoslav governments.38 Local Commissariat Palamara, 31

For an accurate and detailed study see Diego D’Amelio, “Democristiani di confine. Ascesa e declino del «partito italiano» a Trieste fra difesa dell’italianità e normalizzazione adriatica (1945-1979),” Contemporanea. Rivista di storia dell’800 e del ‘900, 2014/3 . 32 From the late 1950s, Italian and Yugoslav delegations inside the mixed committee negotiated a set of unresolved bilateral issues, among them the problem of fishing in the Adriatic and the indemnities for the refugees’ properties. The talks regarding the definition of the North Eastern frontier were manipulated by fringes of both local and national public opinion in order to arouse concerns over the ex-Zone B. 33 ASL, f. Democrazia Cristiana, Segreteria Politica, Moro, Corrispondenza con il Organizzazioni Varie, f. 156, sf. 34, “Rapporto Segreto circa Situazione Amministra­ tiva,” 29 January 1960. 34 In writing Moro, local DC Belci emphasized that the Slovene minority already enjoyed Constitutional rights and benefited from the presence of public personnel with Slovenian language skills and bilingual writings. He suggested to not conceding on the use of bilingual signs for public buildings, stating it would run against Trieste’s Italian traditions and benefit the neo-fascist movement. ASL, f. Democrazia Cristiana, Segreteria Politica, Moro, Corrispondenza con gli Organi Periferici, f. 137, sf. 2, “Belci to Moro,” 9 January 1961. 35 The appointment of Muratti as head of the association and the growing number of representatives with centrist orientations inside the directive council marked a significant yet gradual shift toward more moderate positions; however, its orientations remained predominantly national liberal and conservative. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. II, Trieste, b. 68, sf. Nomina del Direttivo, “CGGTT to PCM, Lega Nazionale,” 13 April 1961. 36 LN, Segreteria Politica, f. 1961/III, “Muratti to Santin,” 19 June 1961. 37 LN, Segreteria Politica, f. 1961/1, “Bilinguismo”. 38 A set of telegrams between the Italian Embassy in Belgrade and Rome reported the vehement protests of the Yugoslav authorities in response to the offensive tone of the Triestine manifestations against President Tito and the physical violence that targeted both Slovene organizations and segments of the local population. ASMAE, tel. 1451, “Belgrade to Rome,” 10 February, 1961.

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on behalf of Christian democrat Fanfani, assured the “Unione degli Istriani” that bilinguism would not be implemented in the city.39 Moreover, within the context of the hundredth anniversary of national unification, the bombing of the local Slovene newspaper in late February and the anti-Slav manifestations prolonged tensions across the border.40 Left-wing political parties and movements accused the central government of connivance toward expressions of neo-fascism.41 Thus, both émigrés and irredentist movements understood the government’s decision to prosecute Silvano Drago, head editor of the émigrés journal Difesa Adriatica who had labeled Broz Tito as “infoibatore”, as a strategic move to appease criticism of both public opinion and the Yugoslav government.42 In addition, both the associative network and segments of the Christian democrats looked with suspicion at the political experiment of the center-left43 as the ideal preamble for the definitive settlement of Italy’s eastern border with Yugoslavia.44 Figures like Moro understood the risk of a possible “haemorrhage of votes toward the right” especially among voters who were strongly affiliated with patriotic and anti-communist associations. To prevent this, Moro requested Minister of Interior Taviani to grant financial concessions to the main patriotic association, “Alleanza Tricolore Italiana”.45 This move was intended to partially alleviate the expected antagonism of associations such as the “Lega Nazionale” and “Unione degli Istriani” which felt the city’s liberal-national tradition under threat.46 The establishment of the autonomous Friuli Venetian Julian region further inflamed the political debate. While the leftist forces portrayed it as the ideal leverage needed to overcome past disputes and 39

UI, 1954-1967, b. 1, f. 1/1, “Verbale,” 18 February 1961. ASMAE, tel. 10756, “Trieste to Rome,” 28 March 1961. 41 AFG, APC, RP, MF0479, p. 3047, “Translation Il Delo,” 2 April 1961. 42 US, FLP, b. 11, f. Gianni Bartoli, “Papo to Bartoli,” 31 May 1961. 43 See Luciano Monzali “‘I nostri Vicini Devono Essere Nostri Amici’. Aldo Moro, l’Ostpolitik Italiana e gli Accordi di Osimo,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia Repubblicana, e i Balcani, ed. Italo Garzia et al. (Nardò: Besa – Salento Books, 2011). 44 Indeed, during Prime Minister Fanfani’s visit to Yugoslavia, the Italian political adviser met with Yugoslav Ambassador Vejvoda and discretely agreed on both economic and territorial clauses to advance the borders’ negotiations. The Italian government clearly understood Yugoslav intentions to “transform the demarcation line between the Zone A and B into the state border”. ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 27, f. E47, “Conversazione con Ambasciatore Vejvoda in occasione del viaggio di Fanfani in Jugoslavia,” 31 January 1963. 45 ASL, f. Democrazia Cristiana, Segreteria Politica, Moro, Corrispondenza con Organizzazioni Varie, f. 156, sf. 34, “Letter from head of the association Bastico to vice-secretary Salizzoni,” 28 February 1963. 46 UI, 1954-1967, b. 5, f. III/7, “Unione degli Istriani to Botteri,” 7 October 1963. 40

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restore the Triestine economy, rightist forces as well as the associative network perceived it both as a threat to both the border’s “Italianità” and national unity.47 In this climate, the “Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta” advocated the creation of a single and unique national front which would include all patriotic and combatant associations and oppose the defeatism of the central elites toward the territorial sovereignty over the ex-Zone B.48 This proposal was met with a broad consensus among many patriotic and combatant associations which manifested solidarity to the irredentist cause and proved willing to coordinate with their actions.49 While advocating unity and cohesion, however, the “Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta” accused the “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” of ostracizing the activities of the irredentist network and complying with the directives of the central government.50 In 1964, Tito’s declaration in Lissa further exacerbated the anxieties of the émigrés and patriotic network. The “Lega Nazionale” closely followed the parliamentary discussion and undertook a public campaign against the Yugoslav threats to the Eastern border.51 After overcoming the opposition of both local authorities and Christian democrat factions,52 the “Unione degli Istriani” was eventually allowed to organize the first Istrian national meeting in Trieste;53 however, the absence of the pro-governmental Istrian CLN54 made evident the cleavage within the émigrés associative network.55 Interestingly, the Istrian national convention in Trieste was funded by the Ministry of Interior. In October, Foreign Minister Saragat anticipated a negative response to this event which was perceived as an expression of past irredentism by Yugoslav

47

ASC, f. Covelli, Discorsi e Scritti, b. 2, f. 117, 1963. US, FLP, b. 33, f. Associazioni Combattentistiche, “President Italia Irredenta to all exCombatant Associations,” 19 March, 1964. 49 US, FLP, b. 33, f. Associazioni Combattentistiche, d’Arma, e Patriottiche, “Correspondence,” 1964. 50 US, FLP, b. 34, f. ANVGD, “Papo to ANVGD,” 13 May 1964. 51 LN, Segreteria Riservata, f. 1964/II, “Muratti to Editor Epoca,” 8 September 1964. 52 ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani, “Mazza to PCM,” 8 October 1964. 53 US, FLP, f. 68, 36 “I Raduno Nazionale degli Istriani,” 1964. 54 The association aimed to educate the Istrian community on the values of democracy, keep it away from extremist political formations, and encouraged its members to support the Christian democrats. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. II, Trieste, b. 70, sf. Comitato Nazionale di Liberazione Istria, “CGGTT to PCM, CLN Istria,” 22 March 1960. 55 ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani, “Mazza to PCM,” 13 October 1964. 48

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authorities.56 As expected, Yugoslav public opinion harshly criticized both the Triestine manifestation of 4 November and Bartoli’s speech as an indisputable proof of its irredentist agenda.57 It is within this context that the Italian Ambassador of Yugoslavia, Roberto Ducci, first suggested to arrange a “package deal” or global negotiation with significant economic compensation to make the renunciation of the ex-Zone B more acceptable to local and national public opinion.58 This proposal somehow served as the blueprint for the Osimo Treaties and more interestingly, largely anticipated the context of international détente.59 It called for the renunciation of a tiny segment of the former national territory in order to achieve political and economic benefits and strengthen Yugoslav proximity to the Western world. Moro’s 1965 visit to Yugoslavia was therefore generally perceived as an outstanding opportunity to finally come to terms with the Adriatic dispute yet the “Lega Nazionale” emphasized the existence of widespread local opposition to a transfer of formal sovereignty to Yugoslavia.60 An article from a French left-wing newspaper, Combat, exposed secret negotiations over the demarcation line and aroused the concerns of the émigrés.61 Tension climaxed when the Christian democrat party decided to appoint Slovene socialist Hrescak as a local administrator. This decision, locally perceived as a premature political stretch,62 was opposed by mass protest and provoked local violence63 whose irredentist tones were echoed from significant fringes of national and local public opinion.64 Fully supported by the Istrian associative network,65 the “Lega Nazionale” collected 42,000 signatures to protest against Hrescak’s appointment. Even though this number did not meet its expectations, 56

ACS, PCM, Ufficio Consigleire Diplomatico, b. 58, “Unione degli Istriani,” October 1964. 57 ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani, “Italian Embassy in Belgrade to PCM,” 28 November 1964. 58 Massimo Bucarelli, “Aldo Moro e l’Italia nella Westpolitik Jugosalva degli Anni Sessanta,” in Aldo Moro, l’Italia Repubblicana, e i Balcani, 140. 59 FN, Carte Nenni, b. 60, f. C 1961-1969, “Ducci to Saragat,” 1 December 1964. 60 LN, f. 1965/II, Segreteria Riservata, “Lega to Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” 16 January 1965. 61 ASMAE, tel. 4092, Vol. 42, “Rome to Belgrade,” 6 March 1965. 62 Interview with Giorgio Tombesi, September 2012. 63 About 73 people were prosecuted and 42 absolved. ACS, MI, GAB, f. Correnti, 19641966, b. 79, f. 12010/85, Attivita’ dei Partiti, “Tel. from Mazza to PCM,” 31 July 1965. 64 ASMAE, tel. 22114, Vol. 43, “Belgrade to Rome,” 2 August 1965. 65 LN, f. 1965/II, Carteggio Nobile, “Correspondence between Piero Almerigogna, Fameia Capodistriana, and the directive council of the Lega Nazionale,” Summer 1965.

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most of the signatures came from Catholic and politically conservative individuals rather than neo-fascists or liberals. In considering that the goal of the Christian democrats had been to isolate the communist party and instead broke the unity of the Italian front, President Muratti wrote local Christian democrat secretary Botteri that “the Lega did not win but you actually lost”.66 This dispute had also made evident the problematic and publicized apolitical nature of the association which had first denounced local mayor Franzil67 and later accepted the resignation of his membership.68 Most interestingly, it created a significant rift between the party and the association and also proved the rising distance between the Christian democrat policy of the center-left and large segments of its popular base.69 After the socio-political unrest of the Hrescak case, the associative network experienced further fragmentation. While the “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia”70 perceived Moro’s visit as an opportunity to further improve diplomatic relations and reassert Italian minority rights, the “Unione degli Istriani” proved significantly concerned. It suggested that Moro request an unlikely exchange of territories on ethnic base which would result in Merano to Austria, Istria to Italy, Carinthia to Yugoslavia, and the creation of independent cities like Zara and Fiume.71 Contrarily to the wishes of the émigrés association, President Moro auspicated an acceleration of the diplomatic negotiations to definitively settle the Adriatic dispute. Foreign Minister Fanfani, however, suggested that he patiently and gradually proceed on the path of political normalization. Despite this, both leaders eventually agreed on excluding the problem of the territorial border from the planned talks with Kardelj.72 Aware of widespread popular antagonism to any change of formal sovereignty over the ex-Zone B, the central government aimed to debase local resistance and protect the Istrian community from right extremist infiltration.73 The drastic reduction of governmental contributions to the 66

68 69 67

70



71



72



73

LN, f. 1965/II, Carteggio Nobile, “Muratti to Botteri,” 10 December 1965. LN, f. 1965/I, Giunta Verbali Presidenza 1965, “Verbale 16,” 27 July 1965. LN, f. 1965/II, Segreteria Riservata, “Verbale,” 4 December, 1965. This breach resulted in the increased political isolation of the Lega Nazionale from both local and national Christian democrats who gradually detached from the liberalconservative orientations of the association. ACS, MI, GAB, f. Correnti, b. 102, f. 12010/85, Trieste e Provincia Attività dei Partiti, “Botteri to Taviani,” 14 April 1967. ACS, CM, PCM 1963-1968, b. 78, f. Visita in Jugoslavia 8-12 Nov. 1965, Telegrammi, sf. 5, “ANVGD,” 28 October 1965. ACS, CM, PCM 1963-1968, b. 78, f. Visita in Jugoslavia 8-12 November 1965, Telegrammi, sf. 5, “Unione degli Istriani to Moro,” 3 November 1965. ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 66, sf. 4, “Correspondence Moro-Fanfani,” June 1966. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. V, b. 9, Vol. I, sf. Comitato di Liberazione Istria, “Correspondence and Contributions 1965-1966”.

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“Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia”74 and instead the uninterrupted funding of the magazine Trieste75 and the CLN newspaper La Voce Giuliana fell in line with its new strategy.76 Likewise, the “Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta” also responded to Moro’s visit to Yugoslavia by mobilizing both local and national communities and arranging mass manifestations and conferences that were often led by disputable patriotic figures such as Coceani or Valerio Borghese. The activism of the association intended to convince the central government of the attractiveness of national irredentism and, especially in Trieste, overcome possible conflicts with the “Lega Nazionale”,77 the main voice of Trieste’s “Italianità”.78 People in Trieste, however, were aware of the significant depopulation of the Italian minority from the ex-Zone B and increasingly favored a definitive agreement on the Eastern frontier. Such a decision, the local government believed, would have caused tension some years earlier, would currently foment popular protests but would be ultimately accepted without excessive problems in a few years later.79 Perhaps, these views excessively underestimated the political costs of such a renunciation especially if unaccompanied by significant economic benefits. Fanfani, in commenting on the problematic issue of the Adriatic platform,80 seemed to fully understand this issue and suggested that Moro “hide the fact that the Italian government would be ready for a future formal recognition of Yugoslav sovereignty without appropriate

74

ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 49, Associazione Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia, “Fanfani to Barbi,” 13 October 1966. 75 ACS, PCM, UZC, f. VI, b. 6, sf. Spese per Zone di Confine, 1966-1967. 76 In March 1967, the organization changed its denomination into “Associazione delle Comunità Istriane” and its leadership was entrusted to Christian democrat representatives, regardless the opposition of its republican members. 77 In particular after the Franzil-Hrescak case, the Lega took an uncompromising apolitical attitude and made clear its willingness to not cooperate with elements of right orientations whose Italian sentiments were deeply doubtful; however, the association continued to being publicly considered as a right extremist association. US, FLP, b. 9, f. 70, “Confidential Bremini to Papo,” 5 November 1965. 78 The ANII failed to create a unique and cohesive nationalist front. Instead, it continued to champion the rights of the émigrés, criticized Moro’s subservience to Tito, and opposed the alleged “Slavization” of Trieste, arguments that hardly affected the agenda of the Christian democrat leader toward Yugoslavia. ACS, PCM, UCD, b.  49, Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta 1967, “Correspondence ANII-Moro,” 7-29 December 1967. 79 ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 66, sf. 5, “Note to Pompei,” 8 March 1967. 80 ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 66, sf. 5, “Ducci to Director Economic Affairs,” 3 October 1967.

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compensation”.81 This attitude exemplified the leading views of the Christian democrats and clearly drove the strategy of the Italian government which pursued the strengthening of economic relations while waiting for the appropriate moment to close the border dispute. These views and attitudes badly reconciled with the feelings of the neoirredentist, patriotic, and émigrés associative network which proved increasingly disillusioned and weakened from the lack of financial resources.82 The national government’s financial support of the massive Istrian manifestation for the fiftieth anniversary of national redemption provided another interesting example of its thrifty use of national patriotism.83 In particular in 1968, the events of the Prague Spring significantly accelerated the path to Osimo.84 Fears of a possible Soviet invasion made national elites look at Tito’s regime as a possible barrier to communist advancement.85 In such a critical moment, Italy’s reassurance of Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity was well received in Belgrade.86 This new diplomatic climate and the idea of Trieste as a bulwark to Soviet communism, made possible the beginning of new political talks that, extending to the sphere of security and cooperation in Europe, were discussed during Nenni’s visit in 1969. As confirmed by a secret telegram sent from the Italian Embassy in Belgrade, both Italian and Yugoslav delegations agreed on moving with caution and proceeding with Milesi and Perisic confidential talks on territorial unresolved issues.87 At this time, the programmatic platform of the Triestine Christian democrats also firmly aligned with the policy of center-left.88 The irredentist network responded by arranging a national convention that, led by Mandel and Borghese, auspicated the return of Istria and Dalmatia under Italian sovereignty.89 In this context, the émigrés associations interpreted Saragat’s visit to Belgrade as a signal of defeat of the Italian legitimate 81

83 84 82

85



86 87



88



89

ACS, PCM, UCD, b. 66, sf. 5, “Fanfani to Moro,” 31 October 1967. US, FLP, b. 3, f. 17, “Relazione Riservata sugli Esuli Giuliano-Dalmati,” 1967. ACS, CM, PCM, UCD, b. 49, “Pompei al Ministro Affari Esteri,” 20 April 1968. Massimo Bucarelli, Luciano Monzali, Italia e Slovenia fra Passato, Presente e Futuro (Roma: Edizioni Stadium, 2009), p. 108. ASR, f. IV, Diari Fanfani, 13 September 1968. ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 163, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, “Tel. 7694,” 30 April, 1968. ACS, CM, MAE 1969-1972, Questioni Nazionali e Internazionali, b. 148, f. 12 Telegrammi in arrivo, riservatissimi, segreti e segretissimi, “Segretissimo 42076,” 10 October 1969. DT, f. Coloni, b. 4, f. 1970. ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni 1944-1986, b. 291, Associazione Fronte Nazionale, “Report from Rome’s Chief of Police,” 13 March 1969.

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rights over the Istrian region. Such concerns were further exacerbated by the information gathered and published from the émigrés and nationalist press on the decision of Trieste’s military district to categorize Capodistria as a Yugoslav city on the official document of the call for duty.90 This issue, in combination with rumors about an imminent agreement over the ex-Zone B between Foreign Minister Nenni and Tito, provoked the vehement protests of both the “Associazione Nazionale Italia Irredenta” and the “Unione degli Istriani” which lamented the formal reassurances provided from both Fanfani and Moro.91 In refusing the logic of political realism, nationalist and émigrés associations responded to what they perceived as the decadent trajectory of the ideal of homeland by stating that fading Adriatic irredentism was the highest expression of patriotism and sacrifice.92 The news of the annexationist declaration made by the Croatian communist party and widely reported by the press agency Tanjug only fuelled the anger of the “Unione degli Istriani”. The association requested and obtained from the national government an official statement confirming the provisional territorial status of the demarcation line between Trieste and the ex-Zone B.93 Being inhabited by approximately 60,000 émigrés from Istria and Dalmatia, Trieste proved still particularly sensitive to the status of the area under Yugoslav administration. The “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” indeed, continued to assist the émigrés and advocate the defense of their property rights in the ex-Zone B.94 Even though the geo-political strategic interests of the central government and the émigrés proved increasingly irreconcilable, financial contributions to the “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” fluctuated uninterruptedly. Instead, those of other patriotic associations and in particular the “Lega Nazionale” were drastically reduced until the early 1970s, making the government’s attitudes toward breeding-grounds of local opposition to the consolidation of Adriatic friendship clear.95 These cuts in funding significantly related to the rising presence of neo-fascist and intransigent nationalists within the association, which only strained the relation with the Christian democrats. The “Lega Nazionale”, however, continued to reassert its autonomy and strongly

90

92 93 94 95 91

US, FLP, b. 3, f. 19, “Wondrich to Centro Difesa Adriatica,” 14 May 1969. US, FLP, b. 2, f. 8, “Tel. from National Secretary Borghese,” 19 September 1969. UI, 1967-1987, b. 20, f. 5/49, “Schedario Irredentismo,” 1970-1973. UI, 1967-1987, b. 17, f. 5/1/3, “Il Problema della zona B,” 27 March 1970. ACS, PCM, UZC, f. V, b. 18, sf. ANVGD, “Contributions 1970-1975”. LN, f. 1971/III, “Verbali Consiglio Direttivo Centrale 1968-1971,” Octobre 1970.

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criticized the Christian democrats’ attempt to extend party’s discipline over the association.96 In Trieste, political and popular antagonism toward the national elites and their evident willingness to finally resolve the border dispute escalated between 1970 and 1975 and was further aggravated from the context of international détente. Anticipating Marshal Tito’s visit to Italy, ex-combatants decided to symbolically celebrate their national meeting in Trieste. The irredentist tones of the manifestation undoubtedly incurred the criticism of both the Yugoslav authorities as well as segments of local and national public opinion. The ex-combatants rhetorically responded by referring Italian territorial sovereignty over Istria, the right to freely express their irredentist feelings also in a border city like Trieste, and Tito’s crimes against the Italian minorities of the Adriatic region.97 Moreover, in late November the Roman newspaper Il Tempo also announced that the Italian government was in the process of renouncing its formal sovereignty over the ex-Zone B. The “Unione degli Istriani” launched an appeal to patriotic as well as combatant associations and mobilized its local branches both throughout the entire nation and abroad, especially in the United States, Australia, and Argentina.98 It addressed a telegram to Foreign Minister Moro in which it criticized the ambiguous response of the foreign affairs service and proposed the idea of a free plebiscite for the ex-Zone B.99 Likewise, the Italian irredentist association also planned the preparation of about 50 to 60 thousands flyers which included Bartoli’s sentence “offense to whom live, outrage to whom died”. It also prepared the distribution of post cards and stamps with images recalling the Italian past of the Istrian region. Due to the national public opinion’s ostracism of the association and the international credibility of which Tito was entrusted, the association decided to adopt moderate forms of protest to not jeopardize its already crumbling popularity and consensus. As a consequence, it planned to send a set of letters and telegrams that, written in a moderate and sober tone, were addressed to the main national media and political pundits. Interestingly enough, also religious figures like bishop Santin approved the actions of the association and suggested it give Tito a “glacial welcome”.100 Both émigrés and patriotic associations 96

ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni 1944-1986, b. 338, f. Lega Nazionale, “Letter to Ministry of Interior Gui,” 11 April 1975. 97 LN, f. 1970/1, Segreteria Luglio-Dicembre 1970, “Press Release from Federazione Nazionale Arditi e Combattenti,” 10 November 1970. 98 LN, f. 1970/1, Segreteria Luglio-Dicembre 1970, “Appello agli Amici dell’Istria Italiana,” 28 November 1970. 99 ACS, CM, MAE 1969-1972, Questioni Nazionali e Internazionali, b. 149, f. Tele­ grammi in Arrivo “Tel. 50628,” 29 November 1970. 100 US, FLP, b. 3, f. 20, “Confidential Pro-Memoria per la Visita di Tito,” 9 October 1970.

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in Trieste could traditionally count on the support of the local newspaper Il Piccolo and the liberal-conservative fringes of the population.101 The meeting between Sardos Albertini and the national DC secretary Forlani confirmed the success of the campaign of the émigrés association both in attracting the attention of national public opinion and the consideration of the central elites. In this meeting, indeed, Forlani promised to promptly intervene with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and release an official communicate concerning the position of the Italian government on the issue of the ex-Zone B.102 In receiving the news of the cancellation of Tito’s visit, Albertini warned that this success did not mean Yugoslavia’s renunciation of ex-Zone B. Its fate, Albertini argued, depended on the ability of the émigrés associations to vigilantly monitor diplomatic negotiations and oppose any compromise on the Eastern border. Local Christian democrats who identified with the “moroteo” side of the party expressed their solidarity to Moro and condemned those fringes of both local and national politics that proved unable to understand the political benefits deriving from Tito’s visit.103 To contrast, members of the party who identified with the “fanfaniani” understood local protests as the outcome of eight years of failing policies that, excessively leaning toward Tito, encouraged the rise of Slav and socialist political parties.104 More important, on 14 December, Trieste vehemently responded to the neo-fascist violence105 of the previous days with a mass manifestation that not only greatly surpassed the anti-Tito protests but was also praised from Yugoslav public opinion as a proof of popular willingness to demise resurgent fascism.106 It also signed a positive relaxation after weeks of tensions and eased bilateral relations prior to the re-scheduled visit of the Yugoslav leader. In perceiving the uninterrupted and impending threat of the ex-Zone B, President Albertini denounced the practice of informal talks of high officers of the Foreign Affairs services who were taken action outside 101

ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani, “Pamphlet La Nostra Comune Azione ha Salvato la Zona B,” December 1970-January 1971. 102 UI, 1967-1987, b. 17, f. 5/1/8, “Un Primo Importante Successo,” 7 December 1970. 103 ACS, CM, Atti Personali 1964-1977, b. 177, f. 32, “Belci to Moro,” 10 December 1970. 104 ASL, f. Democrazia Cristiana, Segreteria Politica Forlani, Corrispondenza con gli Organi Periferici, f. 198, sf. 1, “Bartoli to Tombesi,” 11 December 1970. 105 ACS, MI, GAB, f. Corrrenti, b. 102, f. 12010/85, Trieste e Provincia Attività dei Partiti, “Tel. to GAB,” 8 December 1970. 106 ACS, MI, GAB, f. Correnti, 1971-1975, b. 455, f. 15250/3, Radio Capodistria, “Rubrica le Località Vicine,” 19 December 1970.

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the sovereign Parliament and supporting the annexationist goals of the Yugoslav government.107 Again, the national government, criticized for the Mayer’s case,108 deceptively denied the validity of such rumors. After the Venice’s meeting between Moro and Tepavac in 1971, the government promised to not discuss the territorial status of the ex-Zone B during Tito’s upcoming visit in March.109 The guarantees of the central government also persuaded Sardos Albertini to send a note to the members of the association in which he invited the Istrian community to accept Tito’s visit; however, fringes of the association continued to oppose it.110 Tito’s visit was generally portrayed in pro-governmental public press as a successful example of mutual understanding and cooperation between two regimes anchored to opposing ideologies which shared the goals of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.111 After the visit, the “Unione degli Istriani” decided to further strengthen its vigilance and control, creating the National Centre for the Coordination of the Committees for the Defense of the Zone B and Istria (CNC).112 The issue of the ex-Zone B re-emerged within public debate when social democrat Mauro Ferri auspicated the transformation of the demarcation line into the frontier between Italy and Yugoslavia. The “Unione degli Istriani”113 promptly advertised the dangerous nature of Ferri’s statements and sent formal complaints to the main institutional figures and political parties.114 Liberal-conservative and right wing journals wrote a firm 107

UI, f. CNC b. 3, sf. C/3, “Albertini to National Representatives,” 11 January 1971. In a set of letters to the national government, Bartoli expressed his apprehension and underlined the widespread disdain for the national campaign against Trieste. In particular, the declarations of judge Alberto Mayer, who bluntly justified the “foibe” as an act of revenge against years of fascist violence, inflamed local public opinion. AST, f. Bartoli, b. 69, f. 152, “Bartoli to President of Ministry of Justice,” 16 January 1971. 109 Moro confirmed the territorial status established in the London Memorandum and made clear that national public opinion was not prepared for a definitive renunciation yet agreed to arrange secret negotiations to be concluded at an appropriate moment. ACS, CM, MAE 1969-1972, Questioni Nazionali e Internazionali, b. 147, “Resoconto segreto Italia-Jugoslavia,” 9 February 1971. 110 ASL, f. Democrazia Cristiana, Segreteria Politica Forlani, Corrispondenza con Organizzazioni Varie, f. 218, sf. 16, “Local DC Trieste to Forlani,” 18 March 1971. 111 Paolo Berti, “Rapporti Esemplari,” Il Piccolo, 26 March 1971. 112 The committee, expressing rightist catholic orientations, was led by the leader of the Istrian émigrés Sardos Albertini. ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni 1944-1986, b.  300, f. Centro Nazionale di Coordinamento per la Difesa Zona B, “Note from Prefect of Trieste,” 29 May 1971. 113 Over the years the association expanded its membership from 10,000 to 24,000 members, a factor that boosted the confidence of the movement in advancing the interests of the émigrés. ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani, “Note from Rome Chief Police,” 31 October 1971. 114 LN, f. 1970/I, Segreteria 1971, “Unione degli Istriani,” 11 September 1971. 108

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response to Ferri’s declarations, directly opposing his arguments and accused Ferri of secretly plotting with Tito’s regime at the expense of the Julian population.115 Meanwhile, the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the “Lega Nazionale” and its initiatives to praise the epic trajectory of Adriatic irredentism poured oil on fire. These celebrations were instrumentally used by the communist party to accuse the central government of supporting a nationalist and reactionary association that was supported by fascists and wartime collaborators, such as Bruno Coceani. The government, aware of the local popularity of the association and the traditional Christian democrat orientations of its members, dismissed such accusations and rather depicted Coceani as a “respectable figure”.116 It is hardly disputable however, that Coceani’s views, loaded with nationalist rhetoric, diverged from the interests and principles of the new Adriatic friendship. In resisting the impending change in international politics, the associative network also attempted to reach out to leading international figures. For example, in anticipating Nixon’s visit to Belgrade, the “Unione degli Istriani” requested reassurance of US commitment to disregard Tito’s territorial goals on Zone B and uphold Italian sovereign rights on the basis of self-determination.117 The national irredentist association also addressed a letter to President Nixon in which it stressed the dictatorial nature of Tito’s rule and his imperialist mire toward the Italian border, warning the American President of a possible communist takeover of the Italian peninsula. To further legitimize its claims, the Association quoted a few sentences from the correspondence between President Lincoln and an Italian patriot, in which the former American President claimed the necessity to unify the entire Italian nation from Venice to Dalmatia.118 Despite these relentless and naive efforts, the appeals of these associations went unnoticed at international level. The rising financial constraints and continuous marginalization of the ex-Zone B within national public sphere, gradually yet unavoidably silenced their irredentist dreams.119 In 1972, the “Unione degli Istriani” still postulated the irrepressible position of the Christian democrats over the undisputable Italian sovereignty of the ex-Zone B, a view that from 1964 had gradually 115

Paolo Venanzi, “Lettera Aperta all’On. Mauro Ferri,” Tribuna Monarchica, 15 October 1971. 116 AST, f. Coceani, Serie 1, Documenti Personali, “Reponse to Parliamentary Motion from Ministry of Public Education,” 11 October 1971. 117 UI, 1967-1987, b. 23, f. 6/21, f. 5/21, “Albertini to Nixon,” 29 October 1971. 118 US, FLP, b. 5, f. 50, “Letters to Nixon,” Undated. 119 US, FLP, b. 1, f. 4, “Letter from President of Milan branch to Papo,” 31 December 1971.

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dashed and not only among its center-left factions. The émigrés indeed, continued to identify Fanfani as the champion of the Istrian cause and hoped his appointment as the head of government would stop possible secret negotiations over the Istrian region.120 The association reasserted the idea of the unchangeable nature of the Adriatic border on the base of the long lasting peaceful coexistence among border’s communities and the unbearable economic damages that restrictions to national territorial waters could cause Trieste’s port economy.121 This fear was inflamed when the right French journal Combat stated that between 28 and 29 February the Italian government recognized Yugoslav sovereignty over the exZone B as part of a broader agreement between Italian social democrats and German socialists in support of Brandt’s Ostpolitik.122 Despite the government’s prompt denial of the content of the article,123 it further fomented anti-governmental feelings before national elections.124 This manoeuvre effectively benefited both the political right and the Christian democrat factions who opposed Moro’s openness to the far left. Bartoli, however, expressed his personal appreciation of Moro’s heartfelt defense of émigrés rights in his activity as Foreign minister, a fact that highlights the strong political credibility and reputation of the Christian democrat leader.125 The dispute dragged on and after the statements of the Slovene vice-President about the 1954 definitive nature of the territorial border, the CNC asked Prime Minister Andreotti for an official governmental statement reasserting the unchanged status of Italian sovereignty over the ex-Zone B.126 However, the strength of the émigrés and patriotic associations as well as their public impact was adversely affected by both the general climate of right-wing political violence127 and the increased fragmentation of its network. The diatribe between the “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” and the “Ente Giuliani nel Mondo” clearly exemplified this issue. The “Associazione Nazionale 120

ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani, “Confidential Note from CGFVG to PCM,” 20 February 1972. 121 LN, f. 1972/1, Segreteria Generale, “CNC to La Stampa,” 7 April 1972. 122 “Accordo Italo Jugoslavo su Trieste,” Combat, 21 April 1972. 123 Moro wrote Bartoli that the news of Combat were completely unfounded. AST, f. Bartoli, b. 98, Corrispondenza, “Moro to Bartoli,” 28 April 1972. 124 ACS, CM, MAE 1969-1972, Questioni Nazionali e Internazionali, b. 154, “Tel. 16665,” 26 April 1972. 125 ACS, CM, Atti Personali 1964-1977, b. 177, f. 21, “Tel. from Bartoli,” 29 June 1972. 126 UI, Miscellaneous, f. Corrispondenza con Personalità del Governo 1961-1973, “Albertini to Andreotti,” 7 June 1972. 127 ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni 1944-1986, b. 53-54, Incidenti Manifestazioni Politiche, 1971-1974.

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Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” harshly criticized the “Ente” for accepting Moro’s openness in foreign policy and supporting Adriatic détente toward Yugoslavia in exchange for money from the central government and local mayor Spaccini. This behavior, it argued, was both contrary to the wishes of the majority of Julians and detrimental to the interests of the border’s “Italianità”.128 Thus, when the national newspaper Il Corriere della Sera published an article stating that “Italian and Yugoslav cooperation deserves the sacrifice of the Zone B”,129 the CNC sent a letter to Turin’s newspaper La Stampa, expressing the indignation of the émigrés. In this note, Albertini attempted to prove the fallacy of Frescobaldi’s article by stressing the downsides of the long-term friendly attitude of the Italian government toward Yugoslavia and its significant territorial renunciation after 1947. Again, these opposing and somehow irreconciliable views on the necessity to further geo-political renunciations well summarized the conflicting nature of national and international interests of the Italian elites when coping with the prickly question of the Adriatic border. The actions of the CNC found significant support in the “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” and its President Bartoli. In response to Tito’s statements in Montenegro about the irredentist nature of the émigrés associations and its detrimental influence on the Italian national government, Bartoli firmly reaffirmed the sober political conduct of the association and its respectability. In particular, Bartoli highlighted that the privileged treatment of the Slovene minority further proved the defeatist rather than irredentist nature of the national government, willing to compromise with the Yugoslav authorities in order to advance an Adriatic friendship.130 These sentiments of disillusion were also vividly expressed by ex-combatants in their correspondence with the “Unione degli Istriani”. The main themes were the perceived weakness of the national government when dealing with Tito and the strong attachment to Italian identity that still survived in the few Italian residents of the Zone B, best exemplified by phrases such as “Down with Tito”, or “We are Triestines not Slavs” that could be found on some walls in Buie. These sporadic manifestations of irredentist feelings, praised by émigrés, patriotic, and rightist press, were taken with serious consideration from the Yugoslav administration that depicted them as aggressive and revanchist.131

128

AST, f. Bartoli, b. 64, Zona B, “Letter from Migliorini,” 20 July 1972. Dino Frescobaldi, “Italia e Jugoslavia: un’Amicizia da Rafforzare,” Il Corriere della Sera, 1 December 1972. 130 US, FLP, b. 37, f. Istria Zona B, “Bartoli risponde a Tito,” 30 December 1972. 131 UI, f. CNC b. 8, f. G/2, “Varie 1972-1973”. 129

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However, the cohesion of the local and national émigrés network was further weakened by the Christian democrats’ internal strife in national politics in 1973. An internal coup of the Triestine branch of the association resulted in the appointment of Christian democrats who leaned toward Fanfani’s leadership. This manoeuvre, violating the apolitical nature of the organization and aiming to support local Christian democrats, weakened political credibility and popular support of the association. In this context, which also saw the death of former President Bartoli, the appointment of Paolo Barbi well reflected the intentions of the center-left fringes of the Christian democrats to align the association to the party discipline and proceed to resolve the Adriatic question in exchange for financial assistance.132 Throughout the year, however, Istrian personalities such as war hero Giorgio Cobolli, continued to pressure national political elites and exposed the government’s unwillingness to compromise territorial rights over the ex-Zone B.133 The “Unione degli Istriani” also required the assistance and support of parties outside the Christian democrat sphere, in particular liberal and republican political formations. Republican secretary La Malfa reassured Sardos Albertini, reporting that Minister Medici134 personally confirmed the firm stance of the Italian government against Yugoslav claims of territorial sovereignty over the ex-Zone B. La Malfa also made clear the commitment of the Italian government to protect the citizenship of its residents and the property which had been abandoned during the exodus.135 Nonetheless, the anxieties of the émigrés associations continued to rise, spiking after the Dubrovnik meeting of 19 and 20 March between Medici and Minić. According to the President of the “Lega Nazionale”, the results of the negotiations would be officially announced only after the upcoming imminent elections.136 The “Unione degli Istriani” requested that the new government appoint a new Minister of the Foreign Affairs who, differently from Moro or Medici, proved completely disengaged from former promises to the Yugoslav government.137 It also asked bishop

132

LN, f. 1973/I, Segreteria 1973, “Colpo di Mano Fanfaniano nell’ANVGD di Trieste per Rompere l’Unitá degli Esuli: Replica dell’On. De Vidovich al Vice Presidente Drago”. 133 UI, Miscellaneous, f. Corrispondenza con Personalità del Governo 1973-1976, “Andreotti to Cobolli,” 17 January 1973. 134 UI, f. CNC b. 3, f. C/3, “Medici to La Malfa,” 21 January 1973. 135 UI, Miscellaneous, Rapporti con i Partiti Politici, f. 2/6, “La Malfa to Sardos Albertini,” 7 February 1973. 136 LN, f. 1973/I, Segreteria 1973, “Muratti to Albertini,” 15 May 1973. 137 Miscellaneous, f. Corrispondenza con Personalità del Governo 1973-1976, “Sardos Albertini to Rumor,” 3 July 1973.

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Santin138 to support the action of the association by directly approaching the national elites, in particular Rumor and Fanfani, and advertising the strife for the defense of Istria’s “Italianità” within the pages of the Catholic magazine Vita Nuova.139 The fall of the Andreotti’s government, depicted as an indefatigable defender of Italian interest on the border,140 further endangered the hopes of the émigrés associations.141 Interestingly, in a recent interview Giorgio Tombesi also recalled Andreotti’s position in the dispute over the Eastern border in a very positive light. At the same time, however, Tombesi also pointed out that Andreotti himself used to say “you all forgot that we were the losers, Tito was the winner”.142 This statement suggests that, regardless of personal orientations and individual feelings toward the disputed status of the border, political realism was prominent also among these fringes of conservative Christian democrats. After Moro’s appointment to the foreign affairs, the national government clearly stated that any new information regarding the negotiations for the settlements of the border was not only untruth but also detrimental to diplomatic relations. Again, the national government deceitfully reasserted its commitment to preserve the formal territorial sovereignty of the Istrian region and conveyed a positive image of its defense of the border’s “Italianitá”. While the national government saw the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe143 as an outstanding opportunity to consolidate Adriatic friendship and finally settle the disputed border, the émigrés associations perceived it as a threat to the status quo over the demarcation line. President Albertini, in a note to both the local and national governmental authorities, displayed his concern that also fringes of the Christian democrats who traditionally opposed any defeatist hypothesis would be unable to resist international pressure.144 To prevent such a

138

For an accurate biography of bishop Santin see Ettore Malnati, Antonio Santin: un Vescovo tra Profezia e Tradizione 1938-1975 (Trieste: Mgs Press, 2003). 139 UI, 1967-1987, b. 23, f. 6/6/1, f. 5/6, “Confidential Albertini to Santin,” 3 July 1973. 140 LN, f. 1973/I, Segreteria 1973, “Unione degli Istriani,” 5 July 1973. 141 UI, Miscellaneous, f. Corrispondenza con Personalità del Governo 1973-1976, “Unione degli Istriani,” 9 July 1973. 142 Tombesi’s Interview, March 2012. 143 For an analysis of the role of the CSCE within post-war Italian foreign policy see Roberto Gaja, L’Italia nel mondo bipolare. Per una storia della politica estera italiana (1943-1991) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1995). Also see Sergio Romano, Guida alla politica estera italiana: dal crollo del fascismo al crollo del comunismo (Milano: Rizzoli, 2002). 144 ACS, MI, DPS, Cat. G, Associazioni, 1944-1986, b. 363, f. Unione degli Istriani, “Letter from Sardos Albertini to CGFVG and PCM,” 2 August 1973.

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scenario, the association mobilized its members both at home and abroad.145 Émigrés supported the defense of the formal territorial “Italianità” of the ex-Zone B by means of propaganda and financial contributions to the activity of the CNC.146 Albertini’s fears proved partially founded. In a note written by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the summer of 1974, local leaders such as Belci and Coloni, with the support of local experts, prepared a plan for global negotiation that covered the main issues related to the frontier economy, the territorial borders, the minorities, and the abandoned property. The note confirmed that plans had accelerated after the Dubrovnik’s meeting between Medici and Minić.147 In particular, during the June 1973 regional elections, Andreotti himself approved the plan.148 This document reveals that also Christian democrat figures like Andreotti, traditionally depicted as an intransigent defender of Italian national interests in foreign policy, metaphorically signed the “blank check” for the ex-Zone B. As Massimo Bucarelli has exhaustively examined, negotiations were conducted outside of the traditional diplomatic channels. Interestingly, the Yugoslav authorities believed that a center-right government would have had more possibilities to settle the issue of the Zone B rather than a center-left government, stating that it would require the latter an additional ten years to resolve it.149 The deceptive behavior of both the progressive and conservative fringes of the Christian democrat elites highlights the significant political costs of the renunciation of the ex-Zone B. Contrarily to claims that the issue was politically irrelevant to both domestic and national politics, it suggests that in the international context of détente the central government eagerly embraced the opportunity to finally settle the issue. In particular the associative network, regardless of the declining attractiveness of Adriatic irredentism within the national community, strove until its last breath to defend the territorial status quo and cultural Italian identity of a tiny piece of land that functioned as a both a bridge and wall between the Adriatic neighbors. In January 1974 the Yugoslav government installed signs about thirty meters from the demarcation line, in which “S.F.R. Jugoslavija145

UI, f. CNC b. 5, f. D/20/4, “CNC to Director of Local Newspaper Il Globo,” 5 September 1973. 146 UI, f. CNC b. 5, f. D/20/5, “Benedetti to Albertini,” 3 October 1973. 147 Massimo Bucarelli, “Il problema del confine orientale nella politica estera di Aldo Moro,” in Aldo Moro nell’Italia Contemporanea, ed. Francesco Perfetti, Andrea Ungari, Daniele Caviglia, Daniele De Luca (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2010), p. 504. 148 DT, f. Coloni, b. 7, f. Politica 1974, “Note of a Global Plan 1974”. 149 ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 162, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, “Macotta to Moro,” 14 September 1973.

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S.R. Slovenija” was written, signaling to the Italian government that it intended to definitively close the issue within the favourable context of the Helsinki talks.150 The CNC sent notes of formal protest to leading political personalities, among them Christian Democrats Rumor, Moro, and Fanfani,151 as well as the national delegations at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The national government sent formal notes of protest both in February and March, stressing that Yugoslav sovereignty had never extended over the ex-Zone B. Viewing the statements as fascist and irredentist, the Yugoslav government unsuccessfully requested to be withdrawn. On 15 March the Yugoslav government reiterated that the London Memorandum sanctioned the partition of the former Free Territory of Trieste reaffirming Yugoslav territorial sovereignty over Zone B. It believed that, if the territorial status of the Zone B had to be questioned, the same would have to be done for Trieste.152 Throughout March and April, the re-emergence of the Adriatic dispute won broad international public attention153 and was echoed within the pages of the American press.154 The American Intelligence also closely followed the evolution of the events, stating that the current dispute over the Zone B “will probably continue to be noisy and sharply worded” and that “Tito is not expected to compromise because this might encourage other neighbors to raise similar irredentist claims”.155 The CNC depicted popular manifestations both in Capodistria and Slovenia as clear expressions of annexationist ambitions. The “Associazione Nazionale Venezia Giulia e Dalmazia” in a note entitled “Disdain and Perplexities among the Adriatic émigrés” strongly supported the criticisms of the CNC and depicted these manifestations as indisputable proof of Yugoslavia’s revanchist ambitions over Trieste.156 Also national and local public opinion criticized both the widespread antiItalian Slovene protests. In particular, Italian public opinion warned that such protests could undermine the good standing of Italian and Yugoslav relations, especially when paralleled by unnecessary demonstrations of 150

ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 162, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, “Secret Report to Moro,” 3 February 1974. 151 UI, f. CNC b. 7, f. F/3/1, “CNC to Fanfani,” 25 January 1974. 152 ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 162, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, “Note from Belgrade,” 30 March 1974. 153 ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 163, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, Incoming Secret Telegrams March-April 1974. 154 Malcolm W. Browne, “Yugoslavs and Italians Rekindle Trieste Dispute,” The New York Times, 27 March 1974. 155 NARA, CREST, Central Intelligence Bulletin, Yugoslavia-Italy, 22 March 1974. 156 UI, f. CNC, b. 7, f. F/3/1, ANVGD, “Sdegno e Perplessitá degli Esuli Adriatici,” 16 April 1974.

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force along the border. In an interesting entry, “Il Corriere della Sera” depicted this outcry of nationalism as a clear signal of rising Yugoslav fears of Soviet threats to its territorial integrity and predicted Italy’s willingness to definitively recognize Yugoslav sovereignty.157 Tito’s speech in Sarajevo further reiterated the accusations of imperialism against the Italian government and its Atlantic allies.158 These statements were further echoed within the Yugoslav public campaign against the revanchist and proto-fascist ambitions of the Italian government which was unwilling to renounce its territorial pretexts.159 As diplomatic tension publicly escalated, the most conservative fringes of the Christian democrats continued to defend Italy’s territorial right over the Zone B160 while also fully recognizing Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity.161 The firmness of the national government, indeed, was echoed within the pages of the émigrés press and the communication of the CNC. Again, the behavior of the national elites inflated the hopes of the émigrés, patriotic, and nationalist associative network.162 In spite of the triumphant statements of émigrés and patriotic associations, this new diatribe further fragmented and divided the associative network. The “Lega Nazionale” harshly criticized the Triestine ANVGD for its excessive acquiescence toward the compromising attitudes of the national government which, they believed, endangered the interests of the Istrian community over the ex-Zone B.163 This diatribe enhanced a sense of uncertainty and discouragement that well transpired from the lines of the letter that an ex-Army officer addressed to the “Unione degli Istriani”. In this letter, he accused the national elites of thirty years of defeatism and submission to Tito’s will which resulted in the death of national patriotism. This was most evident in the attention publicly paid to international issues such as Vietnam, Chile,

157

FBIS, 28 March 1974. ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 162, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, “Tito’s speech in Sarajevo,” 15 April 1974. 159 ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 163, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, “Tel. 20262,” 24 April 1974. 160 Paolo Emilio Taviani, Politica a memoria d’uomo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), 367. 161 UI, Miscellaneous, f. Corrispondenza con Personalità del Governo 1961-1973, “Andreotti to Cobolli,” April 1974. 162 The enthusiastic tone of the communication issued from the CNC praised the initiative of a group of parliamentary representatives who requested the end of Yugoslav occupation over Istria and exemplified unchanged illusions and hopes. UI, f. CNC b. 3, f. C/3, “Note from CNC,” 14 May 1974. 163 LN, f. 1974, Segreteria 1974, “Unione degli Istriani, Italia Centro Meridionale,” 16 July 1974. 158

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Greece, or Spain and the public silence over the disputed fate of the Istrian region. These arguments, which strongly echoed neo-fascist propaganda and called for a violent overthrown of the Republic, attributed to the impending leftist orientations of the national government the nation’s apathy and indifference.164 As this letter suggests, some segments of the national community still embraced extremist, revanchist and nostalgic attitudes whose political relevance, however, were completely marginal. More importantly, both irredentist and émigrés associations, which had reduced in size due to generational change and the aging and death of its members, refused to accept the rising anachronism of their struggle.165 In particular, most of the liberal-conservative national and local public opinion contested Tito’s statements and political moves on the basis of the international provisions outlined by the peace treaty and London Memorandum. While auspicating a continuous improvement of economic and diplomatic relations with the Yugoslav neighbor, it also defended the formal territorial rights over the ex-zone B. After tensions eased and while secret negotiations continued over the summer, General Director of Political Affairs Roberto Ducci received an interesting telegram from Ambassador in Belgrade Maccotta,166 who positively depicted the status of Italian national public opinion toward the border issue and defined Yugoslav concerns for Fanfani’s statements as completely unjustified. Indeed, the secrecy and good status of the negotiations were known only to him and three other members of the Yugoslav Foreign Affairs.167 In addition, local democrat pundits such as Coloni believed that people’s political orientations in Trieste were gradually shifting from a traditional Christian democrat to a socialist and communist majority in the mid-1970s.168 As a consequence, the local Christian democrats needed now to undertake a further vigorous shift toward leftist politics. This ultimately meant to abandon formal claims on the provisional status of the demarcation line and implicitly recognize its definitive nature, a step that had been repeatedly opposed by the massive presence of the émigrés, who had been unwilling to accept the death of Adriatic irredentist dreams. At the same time, the Yugoslav campaign against “cominformist” segments of the party and the threats to territorial integrity coming 164

UI, f. CNC b. 7, f. F/3/1, “Letter from ex-officer to Unione degli Istriani,” 23 April 1974. 165 US, FLP, b. 5, f. 47, “Ritagli Stampa sul Trattato di Osimo,” 25 November 1974. 166 See Walter Maccotta, “Osimo Visto da Belgrado,” Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 1993/1, 55-67. 167 ACS, CM, MAE 1973-1974, b. 162, Jugoslavia Questione Territoriale, “Secret Notes from Maccotta to Ducci,” 16 and 31 October 1974. 168 DT, f. Coloni, b. 7, f. Politica 1975, “Notes from Coloni”.

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from both Bulgaria and Macedonia additionally fostered the nationalist sentiments of the Slovene Communist Party in Ljubljana.169 To alleviate such concerns, the Triestine communist party felt the need to definitively settle the border issue by formally recognizing the status quo. It is noteworthy that during its regional convention, the Triestine Partito Comunista Italiano implicitly sent a message to the Christian democrat elites in which it lamented the downsides of the dispute related to the ex-zone B on both the process of political relaxation and the historical compromise between communist and democrats in Italian politics.170 In addition, the replacement of liberal-conservative high level officers at the Foreign Affairs, the news of bishop Santin’s resignation and the prospective separation of the dioceses of Capodistria from Trieste aroused a sense of powerlessness among the Istrian émigrés.171 The reconstruction of the CNC which had been disbanded in 1974 represented a last desperate attempt to avoid the loss of the ex-Zone B. With the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, the meeting between Tito and American president Ford, and the resignation of Ambassador Giurati for personal contrasts with the foreign policy of Moro’s government, the summer of 1975 signaled the coming of Osimo.172 In this context, the émigrés associations, aware of the untenable nature of national sovereignty over the ex-zone B, stressed the unbearable economic blow that the creation of the frontier would potentially provoke to the Triestine economy.173 The formal announcement of the Osimo Treaty174 was received with anger and resignation from the émigrés associations which portrayed the agreement as a “dirty business”.175 In particular, it provoked a political hailstorm that was neither unpredictable nor unexpected and erupted in political localism.176 The Triestine local council experienced a significant fragmentation among the parties of the 169

In a note to Berlinguer, Vidali criticized the nationalist tones of the Slovenian communist party which claimed that it had been the object of discrimination by both DC and PCI. AFG, APC, RP, MF0204, p.  324, “Vidali to Berlinguer,” 18 February 1975. 170 ACS, MI, Schedario Fascicoli Classificati, Partiti-Movimenti Politici 1971-1975, f. 3, sf. 160, p. 187, PCI Trieste, “Report from Local Prefecture,” 7 March 1975. 171 Baroni, Gli Istriani in Difesa dell’Istria Italiana: dal Memorandum d’Intesa al Trattato di Osimo, 667. 172 Ibid., pp. 670-75. 173 UI, 1967-1987, b. 21, f. 5/55, “Movimento Giovanile dell’Unione degli Istriani,” 25 September 1975. 174 For a detailed description of the terms of the Osimo Treaties see Manlio Udina, Gli Accordi di Osimo: Lineamenti introduttivi e testi annotati (Trieste: Edizioni Lint, 1979). 175 “L’Italia ha Ceduto la Zona B,” Difesa Adriatica, 1975. 176 Angelo Ara and Claudio Magris, Trieste. Un’Identitá di Frontiera (Torino: Einaudi, 2007), 181-6.

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governmental coalition whose irreconcilable views on the nature and terms of Osimo later led to the emergence and affirmation of the “Lista per Trieste”.177 At national level, Foreign Minister Rumor presented the global agreement as an opportunity to grant Trieste its traditional role as a crossroads between people and cultures. Rumor claimed that Osimo made possible the definitive return of Trieste and a favourable border adjustment in the North-east (the return of the Sabotino mountain peak) which ended any residual attrition with Yugoslavia.178 Prime Minister Moro received numerous letters from Istrian groups which were filled with disillusion, anger, and disdain toward a national political class who had repeatedly lied and ignored the fate of the nation’s natural borders. They continued by saying that Osimo was an offense to the memory of the martyrs of national redemption. For the authors of these letters, the parliamentary government had transformed from a natural Italian mother into a wicked stepmother, deserving now and forever only the contempt of the Istrian community and the Redipuglia’s deaths.179 In government’s views, however, Osimo made possible the creation of a free trade zone, a more efficient use of Adriatic resources, and the improvement of people and goods’ mobility throughout the border. During the political debate that in a nearly emptied Parliament180 paralleled the ratification of Osimo, Moro began his intervention making clear that the Yugoslav administration in Zone B “was neither alterable with force nor with consensus”.181 This agreement was a valuable instrument that, even though painful and understandably opposed by the Julian community, finally buried the residual tension that had remained from the Second World War and fostered international peace. Parliamentary opposition harshly criticized the central government for the secrecy that had accompanied its formative stages, the lack of significant economic benefits, and its contribution to the advancement of international communism.182 All of these arguments were certainly loaded 177

See Manlio Cecovini, Trieste Ribelle. La Lista del Melone. Un insegnamento da meditare (Milano: SugarCo, 1985). Also see Gianni Giuricin, Origini della Lista per Trieste. Storia documentata (Trieste: Edizioni Italo Svevo, 2006). 178 FBIS, 4 October 1975. 179 UI, Miscellaneous, f. Corrispondenza con Personalità del Governo 1973-1976, “President of an Istrian association to Moro,” 10 October 1975. 180 For a detailed overview of the reaction of national public opinion to Osimo see Valentina Picariello, Politica estera e opinione pubblica. Il Trattato di Osimo. Master Thesis (University of Milan: 1996). 181 Aldo Moro, Senato della Repubblica, VII Legislatura, 23 February 1977. 182 See Carlo Montani, Il Trattato di Osimo (10 novembre 1975) (Firenze: Risma, 1991).

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with nationalist rhetoric yet highlighted some of the main flaws of the Osimo Treaty. Trieste’s Christian democrat Bologna in his intervention contested the idea of Osimo as unavoidable, necessary and useful.183 He argued that the London memorandum had over time fostered mutual cooperation, peace, and had created the most open border in Europe. Osimo was therefore unnecessary and could be explained only as the outcome of hostile and political pressure that was exercised by the Yugoslav neighbor which violated rather than magnified the Helsinki’s spirit. In 1977, after failing to stop its parliamentary ratification,184 the CNC wrote President Leone an appeal to refuse the signature of the Osimo Treaty and stressed its elements of doubtful constitutional legitimacy as well as its violations of international law.185 In spite of this, the treaty was formally ratified and celebrated as a constructive model for an Adriatic bridge.186 Similarly, Yugoslav public opinion presented Osimo as the outcome of long negotiations that had been embedded in the Helsinki Final Act and established an ideal bridge over the Adriatic border.187 To conclude, this chapter has emphasized that the Osimo Treaty represented the end point of the irredentist ambitions of both émigrés and patriotic associations. Over time, the idea of imposing a frontier by formalizing the separation established in London was increasingly opposed not simply on the basis of mere territorial claims but rather because it divided the ideal moral, cultural, and economic continuity that made of Trieste and Istria a unified entity within the nation’s imagined community. After years of promises and political deception, the national elites were accused by the associative network of having sold Nazauro’s dreams only to be left empty-handed. They had agreed to impose an unnatural and artificial border on a tiny and historically borderless segment of the Adriatic region. For most of the national community, however, Osimo was the final step in the partitioning of the border that faced the communist threat, had already been lost, and swept away the ghosts of past nationalism.188 The emotional reasoning of the associations vehemently clashed with the rationality of the central government and 183

Giacomo Bologna, A Salvare la Patria c’ero anch’io. Forse (Trieste: Italo Svevo, 2001), 115. 184 This goal informed the strategy of the émigrés associative network after the announcement of Osimo. “Né Disperati, né Velleitari, una Linea per l’Irredentismo,” Difesa Adriatica, 1975. 185 See Centro Nazionale di Coordinamento per la Salvezza di Trieste nell’interesse della pace. Il trattato di Osimo (Trieste: Centro Culturale G.R. Carli, 1976). 186 FBIS, 25 February 1977. 187 FBIS, 3 April 1977. 188 See Corrado Belci, Trieste Memorie di Trent’anni (1945-1975) (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1989).

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its Christian democrat elites. Ultimately, the imperatives of international politics and détente created the ideal context for ending Adriatic dispute. More importantly, it provided the associative network an opportunity to remove Julian patriotism from past nationalist demonization and contribute to the shaping of a new European identity which would somehow heal the wounds that Osimo had created between the city and its state.189

189

In 1975 the vice-President of the “Lega Nazionale” Guido Nobile expressed this concept while reflecting on the meaning of Osimo: Redivo, Le Trincee della Nazione: Cultura e Politica della Lega Nazionale (1891-2004), 159-162.

395

Biographical Notes of Authors Ivan Laković (PhD) is a senior scientific researcher and Head of the Department for general history in Historical Institute of the University of Montenegro. His field of expertise is history of military-diplomatic relations between Yugoslavia and Western countries during the first decades of Cold War. So far, he has published one book, Zapadna vojna pomoć Jugoslaviji 1951-1958 (2006), and a number of articles on themes related to military and political aspects of Yugoslav-Western relations after the Second World War. Aleksandar Životić (PhD) is Associate Professor at the Department for the History of Yugoslavia in the Faculty of Philosophy of the Belgrade University. He is the author of several monographs on Yugoslavia’s foreign policy in the Cold War years and of a great number of articles in national and foreign journals, and collection of papers. He was visiting fellow in Moscow, Ljubljana, Athens, Prague, Sofia and London and visiting professor in Moscow, Kursk and Ljubljana. Stanislav Sretenović (PhD) is the Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, Serbia. His fields of work and scientific interests are the International Relations, Franco – Italian – Serbian and South Slav relations in the XX Century, Diplomatic history of European States, Cultural History and War Studies. Visiting Professor at Université Paris X, he is the author and editor of several monographs and numerous scientific papers published in France, Serbia and abroad. Gorazd Bajc (PhD) has been a scientific fellow and assistant professor for 11 years at the University of Primorska (Koper/Capodistria), and, since 2014, at the Institute of Nova Revija for Humanities (Ljubljana) and at the Institute IRRIS (Koper/Capodistria). Since 2015, he has been lecturer at the University of Maribor for European History and History of the Balkans. His main fields of research and teaching are Diplomacy and International Relations, particularly the History of Intelligence. He is the author and editor of several monographs, books and scientific papers. He has been member of the board of editors (since 2005) and editor (since 2014) of the scientific journal Acta Histriae and editor (since 2014) of scientific journal Annales – Series historia et sociologia. Alberto Basciani (PhD) is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Roma Tre and is specialist in History of East-Central Europe. He is also Scientific Secretary of Associazione Italiana Studi di Storia dell’Europa Centrale e Orientale, and member 397

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

of several scientific societies: Associazione Italiana di Studi del Sud-est Europeo, Centro Romeno Italiano di Studi Storici, and Società Italiana per lo Studio della Storia Contemporanea. He also writes for the following scientific journals: Nuova Rivista Storica, Mondo Contemporaneo and Holodomor Studies. He is also memner of scientific committee of Journal of Diplomacy. An Eastern European Perspective, Nuova Rivista Storica and Krypton. Potere Identità Rappresentazioni. Luca Micheletta (PhD) is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Rome “Sapienza”. He has written widely on XX  century Italian foreign policy, including: Italia e Gran Bretagna nel primo dopoguerra. Le relazioni diplomatiche tra Roma e Londra 1919-1923 (1999); L’Italia, il Kosovo e la dissoluzione della Jugoslavia 1939-1941 (2008), and Diplomazia e democrazia. Il contributo dell’Italia alla transizione dell’Albania verso la libertà (2013). He is also Professor of International History at the Italian Society for International Organization (SIOI). Raoul Pupo is Associate Professor in Contemporary History at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Trieste. His research interests are related to the History of Italian Foreign Policy in the XX Century, the History of the High – Adriatic Regions in the XIX and XX century, the forced Displacements of Population in Europe in the Contemporary Age, the Italian military Occupation of the Balkan area after the First and during the Second World War, and the Border Studies. He has been member of the Historical-Cultural Italian  – Slovenian commission (1994-2000) and of the scientific Board of the Istituto nazionale per la storia del movimento di liberazione in Italia. He is author of several monographs and scientific papers: Il lungo esodo (2005); The Italo-Slovenian Historic-Cultural Commision, in Contemporary History on Trial. Europe since 1989 and the Role of the Expert Historian (ed. Harriet Jones, Kjell Őstberg, Nico Randeraad, 2007); Il confine scomparso (2007); Naufraghi della pace. Il 1945, i profughi e le memorie divise d’Europa (2008); Trieste ’45 (2010); La vittoria senza pace. Le occupazioni militari italiane alla fine della Grande Guerra (2014). Luca Riccardi (PhD) is Full Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Cassino and Lazio Meridionale. His previous publications include many books and essays on Italian foreign policy in the XX century. Luciano Monzali (PhD) is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the Political Sciences Department in the University of Bari “Aldo Moro”. He is co-director of Nuova Rivista Storica, vice-president of the Società Dalmata di Storia Patria of Padova-Venezia and member of the scientific committee of Annali 398

Biographical Notes of Authors

della Fondazione Ugo La Malfa. Storia e Politica and Qualestoria. He is author of many studies on Italian foreign policy in the XIX and XX  Century. Among them: The Italians of Dalmatia. From Italian Unification to World War I (2009); Il sogno dell’egemonia. L’Italia, la questione jugoslava e l’Europa centrale (1918-1941) (2010); Mario Toscano e la politica estera italiana nell’era atomica (2011); Un re afghano in esilio a Roma. Amanullah e l’Afghanistan nella politica estera italiana (1919-1943) (2012). Massimo Bucarelli (PhD) teaches History of International Relations and Diplomatic History at the Department of History, Society and Human Studies, of the University of Salento (Lecce). He is member of the scientific committee and editorial board of the following scientific journals: Nuova Rivista Storica, Qualestoria, Istorijski Zapisi, and Itinerari di Ricerca Storica. He is author and editor of several monographs, books and scholarly articles on Italian-Yugoslav relations in the XX  Century. Among them: Mussolini e la Jugoslavia 19221939 (2006); La “questione jugoslava” nella politica estera dell’Italia repubblicana (1945-1999) (2008); Italia e Slovenia fra passato e futuro (2009); Aldo Moro, l’Italia repubblicana e i Balcani (2011). Saša Mišić (PhD). he has been Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade since 2013. His academic interest focuses on research about Yugoslav foreign policy, particularly political and economic relations with Albania and Italy. So far he has published a monograph, Albanija: prijatelj i neprijatelj. Jugoslovenska politika prema Albaniji u periodu od 1924-1927. godine (2009), as well as a number of academic papers. Viljenka Škorjanec (PhD) has been a scientific fellow and Assistant Professor for contemporary history at the Department of History at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana since 2008. She teaches history in high school Gimnasium Bežigrad in Ljubljana. The focus of current research is based on European diplomatic history and on Yugoslav/Slovene-Italian relations in the XX century in particular. She is the author and editor of several monographs, scientifc papers and scholarly articles. Darko Dukovski (PhD), is Full Professor of Contemporary History and Military History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Rijeka, where he is currently Head of the Department of History. He is the author and editor of a great number of monographs and books. He also authored more than 160 scientific and professional papers and essays in local and foreign scientific journals, and chapters of books published in Croatian, Italian, German, English, Slovenian, and Macedonian. Among them: Repression, Crimes and Wrongful Acts of the Military and Civilian Authorities in the Croatian Part of Istria 1945399

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

1950 (2013); The Foibes (2012); Croatian Spring in Istria: conflict of Croatian and Italian national reformation concepts 1970-1972 (2010); The attitude of the Croat, Slovene, and Italian Communists Toward the National Liberation Movement and the Constitutional Status of Istria 1941-1945 (2009). Patrick Karlsen (PhD) is a post-doc research fellow at the University of Trieste. His main research fields focus on the history of communism, the origins of totalitarianism, the role of intellectuals in shaping political cultures, the European borderlands in the XX  century. He authored a great number of publications, including Frontiera rossa. Il Pci, il confine orientale e il contesto internazionale 1941-1955 (2010). Diego D’Amelio (PhD) currently conducts research at the Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico-Fondazione Bruno Kessler of Trento. He is editor of the journal Qualestoria published by the Istituto Regionale per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione nel Friuli Venezia Giulia. His research interests concern the history of frontier areas – with particular regard to Italy’s eastern border – and the history of political parties and organizations. He is author and editor of several scholarly works. Among them: La difesa dell’italianità. L’Ufficio per le zone di confine a Bolzano, Trento e Trieste (1945-1954) (2015); Democristiani di confine. Ascesa e declino del “partito italiano” a Trieste fra difesa dell’italianità e normalizzazione adriatica (1945-1979) (2014). Fabio Capano (PhD) is an independent scholar who specializes in Cold War borderlands, specifically examining the politicization of the Trieste question in post-war Italy. He has taught at George Mason University, American University, and George Washington University. He has presented at numerous national and international conferences and he is currently preparing a book manuscript of his dissertation as well as scholarly articles for academic journals, among them a special edition on the evolution of Italian nationhood for Nationalities Papers.

400

Index of Names B  Baget Bozzo, Gianni  160, 177, 182, 188, 191, 199, 347 Bagnato, Bruna  163, 167, 168, 169, 171-173, 175-176, 204, 343 Bajc, Gorazd  7, 75, 82, 206, 252, 285, 306, 397 Bakarić, Vladimir  308, 311 Balestra, Stefano  358 Ballinger, Pamela  346 Ballini, Pier Luigi  159, 201, 202 Balzer, Fabrizio  213-214 Banac, Ivo  143, 324 Bange, Oliver  207 Barbagallo, Francesco  186 Barberini, Giovanni  174, 189, 190 Barbi, Paolo  214, 377, 386 Barca, Luciano  186 Barker, Elisabeth  304, 305 Baroni, Rino  369, 392 Barthou, Jean Louis  139 Bartolomasi, Angelo  354 Battiscombe, Cristopher C.R.  96 Bebler, Aleš  83 Becherell, Alberto  301 Bekić, Darko  25 Belci, Corrado  153, 212, 344, 348349, 353, 355-357, 359, 372, 381, 388, 394 Belovski, Dimče  83 Benediktov, Ivan  40 Bentley, William (Bill)  84 Benussi, Luciano  320

A  Acheson, Dean  28, 147 Aćimović, Ljubivoje  62 Ackley, Hugh Gardner  128 Acquaviva, Giorgio  183 Adamović, Ljubiša S.  25 Aga Rossi, Elena  185, 204 Agnelli, Gianni  359 Agosti, Aldo  185, 328 Ajello, Nello  185 Alatri, Paolo  135 Alberti, Mario  134 Alessi, Chino  352 Alexander (Karađorđević), King of Yugoslavia,  139 Alexander, Harold  305, 307 Alicata, Bruno  186 Allen, George  29 Almirante, Giorgio  88 Amadesi, Luigi  329 Amanrich, Gérard  57 Amendola, Giorgio  186 Andreotti, Giulio  109-113, 207, 212, 241, 266, 288, 357, 384, 386-388, 390 Anton, Mioara  101, 104 Antonsich, Marco  153 Apih, Elio  138, 148, 344 Ara, Angelo  344, 392 Ascoli, Max  302 Assanti, Cecilia  314 Azzoni, Gianluca  173

401

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

Bérard, Armand  54 Beria, Lavrentij Pavlovič  334 Berio, Alberto  224, 227, 250 Berlinguer, Enrico  82, 110, 180, 186187, 193, 198, 204, 272, 338-340, 352, 392 Berloffa, Alcide  201 Berstein, Serge  51 Bertelli, Sergio  185, 186 Betea, Lavinia  105 Bettanin, Fabio  204 Bevilacqua, Piero  184 Bianchini, Stefano  141 Biasutti, Adriano  157 Bilandžić, Dušan  303 Bilandžić, Vladimir  35 Bishof, Günter  324 Bjelajac, Mile  31, 82, 235, 253 Bloed, Arie  259 Boban, Ljubo  301, 313 Bocca, Giorgio  328 Boccolari, Giorgio  337 Bogetić, Dragan  23, 25, 28-29, 3132, 34-35, 40, 218, 220-221, 250 Bologna, Giacomo  349-350, 356, 363, 371, 394 Bonelli, Alfredo  330 Booth, Charles L.  93, 96-98, 211, 378-379 Borghese, Giuseppe A.  302 Borghese, Valerio  377-379 Borgna, Gianni  184 Borgogni, Massimo  116 Borme, Antonio  316 Borromeo, Giovanni  123-127 Borruso, Paolo  187 Bosco, Valerio  191, 206 Botta, Franco  153, 199, 207, 218, 343

Botteri, Guido  153, 344, 354, 373, 376 Bottoni, Stefano  102 Bracke, Maud  187, 204, 337 Bradley, Omar  30 Brandt, Willy  44-45, 63, 64, 187, 191, 195, 384 Breccia, Alfredo  140 Brežnev, Leonid  10-11, 37-38, 4142, 44-46, 48, 108, 118, 127, 129, 154, 177, 179, 196, 229-230, 286, 337, 339-340 Brimelow, Thomas  78, 80, 81 Brogi, Alessandro  165 Brooke Turner, Alan  88, 93 Brosio, Manlio 162, 166, 167, 279, 314, 350-351 Brown, Judith  94, 96, 97, 98 Bucarelli, Massimo  7-8, 75, 81, 82, 105, 106, 109, 116, 127, 134, 136, 139, 153, 154, 157, 163, 190, 199, 212, 214, 217, 218, 223-225, 227228, 253-254, 336, 343, 346, 350, 367, 375, 378, 388, 399 Buccianti, Giovanni  163, 175 Budimovski, Dragoljub  262 Bufalini, Paolo  186 Bulganin, Nikolaj Aleksandrovič  326, 330 Bullard, Julian L.  78-81, 84, 88 Burgwyn, Henry J.  135, 141-142 Burin des Roziers, Etienne  57-58, 61-68 Burns, David A.  79, 80, 87, 88 C  Caccamo, Francesco  134, 142, 187, 204 Calandri, Elena  204 Calchi Novati, Giampaolo  163 402

Index of Names

Cereghino, Mario José  82 Čermelj, Lavo  138 Cervetti, Gianni  186 Chaban-Delmas, Jacques  68 Cheetham, Nicolas J.A.  30 Chiari, Bernhard  117 Chiaromonte, Gerardo  186 Chiriţoiu, Mircea  101, 103 Choma, Ivan  174 Chruščëv, Adjubej  174 Chruščëv, Nikita S.  34, 37, 102, 123, 162, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181, 185, 323-324, 325, 328, 330, 331 Churchill, Winston L.  304, 305, 307, 308 Ciano, Galeazzo  140 Cicalini, Antonio  330 Ciobanu, Gheorghe  100, 102-103 Clark, T. Jery  96 Clemenceau, George B.  299 Clewing, Konrad  117 Coceani, Bruno  369, 377, 383 Colarizi, Simona  159, 161, 201 Collins, Joseph Lawton  28 Collotti, Enzo  136-137, 185, 301 Colombi, Arturo  185 Colombo, Alessandro  153 Colombo, Emilio  47, 160, 192, 206, 225, 234, 353 Coloni, Sergio  355, 388, 391 Colummi, Cristiana  346 Conetti, Giorgio  347 Constantiniu, Florin  101 Conti, Davide  170 Cornish, James E.  87 Coslovich, Marco  301 Cossutta, Armando  186

Callaghan, James  81, 86, 88, 91-93 Campbell, Alan H.  95 Campus, Mauro  184 Canavero, Alfredo  159 Canfora, Luciano  188 Capano, Fabio  8, 355, 367, 400 Capogreco, Spartaco  142 Capperucci, Vera  161, 183 Caprara, Massimo  185 Caprara, Maurizio  104 Capriati, Michele  153, 223 Carbone, Eugenio  212, 241, 243-246 254, 265-267, 269-271, 273-275, 279-280, 285, 287, 288, 290, 292, 296, 318 Caredda, Giorgio  177 Carney, Robert B.  28, 32, 34 Caroli, Giuliano  102, 120, 195 Cartledge, Bryan G.  79, 91, 92 Casali, Luciano  337 Casaroli, Agostino  189 Castelli, Mario  164 Castronuovo, Manlio  221, 227 Catalan, Tullia  153, 345 Cătănuş, Dan  102 Cattani, Attilio  206, 227 Cattaruzza, Marina  55, 135, 144, 146, 148, 272, 335, 336, 339, 344, 346 Cavagliari, Alberto  217, 247 Cavalletti, Francesco  223 Cavera, Giovanni  233, 238, 239, 262, 345, 352 Caviglia, Daniele  160, 200, 388 Ceauşescu, Nicolae  104-113, 207 Cecovini, Manlio  338, 358, 363, 393 Ceh, Nick  220 Celozzi Baldelli, Pia Grazia  343 Čepič, Mirko  97 403

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

De Nicolò, Marco  184 De Robertis, Anton Giulio  218, 344 Degrassi, Michele  354 Del Pero, Mario  206 Deletant, Dennis  100 Dessardo, Andrea  353 Devetak, Silvo  272 di Capua, Giovanni  177, 182, 195 Di Giusto, Stefano  301 Di Loreto, Pietro  186 Di Nolfo, Ennio  116, 151 Di Stefano, Mario  168 Diac, Cristina  105 Diallo, Thiemo  63 Diamanti, Ilvo  364 Dimić, Ljubodrag  35, 40 Dimitrijević, Bojan  23, 218, 250 Dini, Sergio  138 Djerdja, Josip  56-57 Djilas, Milovan  219 Dobrila, Vitomir  272 Dogo, Marco  148, 346 Dolanc, Stane  69, 340 Donno, Antonio  166 Dossetti, Giuseppe  160-161, 200 Douglas-Home, Alec  80, 81 Dubček, Alexander  105, 337 Ducci, Roberto  80, 90, 92, 181, 200, 202, 206, 224-228, 231-232, 234235, 244, 257-258, 265, 375, 377, 391 Dukovski, Darko  8, 299, 300, 301, 303, 306, 399 Dulles, Allen  162 Dulles, Foster  167, 209 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste  218-220, 222, 250, 345

Costache, Brândusa  103 Cottafavi, Luigi  200 Cox, Geoffrey  144 Crainz, Guido  149, 184, 201, 346, 347 Craveri, Piero  159, 161, 169-170, 183-184, 192, 201, 347 Craxi, Bettino  111 Crean, Velleda  87-88 Cresti, Federico  216 Cricco, Massimiliano  216 Crnobori, Albino  317 Crockatt, Richard  177 Cruciani, Sante  184 Culshaw, Robert N.  97 Cunhal, Álvaro  339 Cvetković, Dragiša  140 D D’Amelio, Diego  8, 338, 343, 345, 372, 400 D’Angelo, Augusto  164 Dallek, Robert  173 D’Annunzio, Gabriele  135, 136 Danylow, Peter  119 De Castro, Diego  146-147, 149-150, 218-220, 250, 345, 367 De Clementi, Andreina  184 De Gasperi, Alcide  26, 32, 116, 120, 146, 150, 159-161, 185, 200, 204, 267, 308 de Gaulle, Charles  51, 57, 61-63, 195 de Leonardis, Massimo  23, 117, 149151, 163, 202, 218, 220, 344 De Luca, Daniele  160, 166, 200, 388 De Martino, Francesco  180, 195 De Michelis, Gianni  157 De Mita, Ciriaco  277-278

404

Index of Names

E Eden, Anthony  92 Eisenhower, Dwight D.  28, 34, 166167 Elisabeth II (The Queen of the United Kingdom and the Other Commonwealth Realms)  81 Ercolani, Antonella  116

Formigoni, Guido  160, 162, 190, 191, 196, 200 Fornari, Giovanni  221, 224, 230 Fornaro, Federico  193 Francfort, Pierre  52-53, 55-57, 5961, 64 Franchetti Pardo, Giorgio  89, 91-92 Franzina, Emilio  184 Frescobaldi, Dino  320, 352, 360, 385 Frugoni, Cesare  329 Funseth, Robert L.  276 Furet, François  328

F Fanfani, Amintore  7, 16, 42, 51, 5758, 60, 65, 126, 153-154, 159, 160-176, 178, 182-184, 188, 191195, 197, 201, 205-206, 227, 274, 279, 349-351, 356, 362-363, 371, 373, 376-379, 384, 386-387, 389, 391 Fasanella, Giovanni  82 Favaretto, Tito  157 Ferenc, Tone  140 Ferrajolo, Ornella  118 Ferrara, Antonio  149, 346 Ferrara, Massimiliano  138 Ferrari, Aldo  153 Ferraris, Luigi Vittorio  119-120, 122, 129, 159, 180, 190, 196, 205, 207 Ferri, Luigi  318 Ferri, Mauro  348, 382-383 Fini, Gianfranco  145 Fink, Carole  337 Finzi, Roberto  344 Fiori, Giuseppe  188 Fischer, Bernd Jürgen  116 Foa, Vittorio  186 Fogar, Galliano  142 Fonda-Savio, Antonio  338 Ford, Gerald R.  36, 392 Forlani, Arnaldo  95, 109-110, 192, 355, 381-382

G Gabrici, Tristano  123-124, 126, 127 Gage, Ryan  122 Gaja, Roberto  181, 199, 206, 213, 216, 219, 223, 232-233, 235, 238, 273, 361, 387 Gala, Marilena  176 Galasso, Giuseppe  188 Galeazzi, Marco  187, 330, 337, 343 Galli, Giorgio  274 Garin, Eugenio  188 Garvey, Terence W.  83, 84 Garzia, Italo  81, 105, 129, 153, 190, 199, 204, 218, 224, 225, 254, 343, 373 Gassert, Philipp  337 Gatterer, Claus  353 Gelade, Serge  62 Gentiloni, Silveri Umberto  162, 165, 186, 191, 206 Gheorghiu-Dej, Gheorghe  101, 102, 104, 107 Gianotti, Lorenzo  185 Giardino, Gaetano  300 Gibijanskji, Leonid J.  145

405

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

H Handy, Tomas T.  27, 30 Hanhimäki, Jussi  207 Harrison, Geoffrey W.  31 Haslam, Jonathan  330 Helan, Pavel  187 Heuser, Beatrice  147, 220 Hitler, Adolf  138, 167, 301, 302 Ho Chi Minh  179 Höbel, Alexander  206 Hoptner, Jacob B.  300 Hoxha, Enver  52, 115, 116, 118-119, 122-128

Gigli Marchetti, Ada  183 Gilas, Milovan (see: Djilas, Milovan)  178 Ginsborg, Paul  184, 274 Giolitti, Giovanni  120, 135-136, 299, 328 Giovagnoli, Agostino  159, 162, 190, 191-192, 197, 343, 345 Giron, Antun  301, 304 Giscard D’Estaing, Valery  71 Giuricin, Gianni  338, 356, 363, 393 Giustiniani, Riccardo  227, 251 Gobetti, Eric  138, 142, 188 Gombač, Boris M.  142 Gore-Booth, Paul H.  76 Gorenc, Silvo  110 Gori, Francesca  145 Gramsci, Antonio  187, 188 Grassi Orsini, Fabio  166 Graziosi, Andrea  177, 324 Graziosi, Giancarlo  338 Greco, Ettore  157, 345 Green, Andrew F.  79, 80, 83, 85-87, 261, 263 Griffith, William E.  122 Grličik, Aleksandar  108 Gromyko, Andrej A.  37-38, 41, 175, 196-198, 207, 260, 278 Gronchi, Giovanni  153, 163, 169173, 205 Gruber Bencos, Aurelia  338 Gruber, Karl  267 Gualtieri, Roberto  185, 330 Guaragnella, Pasquale  343 Guderzo, Massimiliano  178 Guerrieri, Sandro  201 Guida, Francesco  101 Guidotti, Gastone  223

I Imperato, Federico  129, 181, 199, 201, 224, 225, 228, 343 Ingrao, Pietro  186, 334-335, 362 Iotti, Nilde  186 Iuso, Pasquale  138 Iveković, Mladen  221 J Jackson, Charles D.  26, 33, 34 Jelić-Butić, Fikreta  304 Jobert, Michel  70 John XXIII (see: Roncalli, Angelo Giuseppe)  173, 174, 188 Johnson, Lyndon B.  38, 76, 178 Jonas, Manfred  304, 305 Jovanović, Vojislav  300 Judin, Pavel  337 Junker, Detlef  337 K Kacin Wohinz, Milica  138, 353 Kadar, Janos  189 Kalc, Aleksej  138, 140 406

Index of Names

Laković, Ivan  7, 23, 25, 220, 397 Lalaj, Ana  122 Lama, Luciano  186 Lampe, John. R.  25, 129 Lanaro, Silvio  184, 201 Langley, Harold D.  304, 305 Ledeen, Michael A.  135 Lederer, Ivo  134-135 Lees, Lorraine M.  25, 147, 220 Lefebvre D’Ovidio, Francesco  116 Leffler, Melvyn P.  76, 330 Leone, Giovanni  70, 229-231, 266, 278, 394 Leonhart, Florence  128, 229 Leontić, Ljuba  221 Lewis Stimson, Henry  304 Liguori, Guido  188 Lipušček, Uroš  285 Ljubičić, Nikola  91 Lloyd George, David  299 Lloyd, John Selwyn B.  92, 121-122 Loeweheim, Francis L.  304, 305 Lomellini, Valentine  204 Longo, Luigi  186, 193, 337 Lorenzini, Sara  144 Luce, Claire Boothe  26, 32-34

Karamanlis, Konstantinos  110 Kardelj, Edvard  29, 221, 281, 290, 308-309, 376 Karlsen, Patrick  8, 143, 145, 221, 323, 325, 327, 333, 400 Karnow, Stanley  178 Katzenbach, Nicholas  76 Kennedy, John F.  51, 172-173 Kersevan, Alessandra  142 Kesselring, Agilolf  117 Khrushchev, Nikita S. (see: Chruščëv Nikita S.)  Kisić Kolanović, Nada  301 Kissinger, Henry A.  35, 87, 178, 198, 207, 240-241, 244, 259, 367 Klabjan, Borut  82, 206, 285, 306 Kola, Paulin  123, 129 Kolenc, Črtomir  293, 306 Koliševski, Lazar  280 Kornijenko, Georgiy  38 Kos, France  251 Kosanović, Milan  35 Kosin, Marko  297 Kossyghin, Aleksej N. (see: Kosygin, Aleksej N.)  Kosygin, Aleksej N.  180-181, 205, 277 Krajgher, Boris  337 Krajgher, Sergej  255, 290 Kramer, Mark  118, 324, 337 Kreyski, Bruno  281 Krizman, Bogdan  301, 304 Kulla, Rinna E.  219, 331 Kvader, Dušan  228

M  Macaluso, Emanuele  186, 341 Macciocchi, Maria Antonietta  188 Maccotta, Giuseppe W.  152, 212, 217, 225, 230-231, 233, 238, 241, 243244, 247, 258, 262-263, 266, 270, 292, 296, 345, 391 Maček, Vladimir “Vlado”  140 Mafai, Miriam  185, 186 Magistrati, Massimo  121 Magris, Claudio  344, 392

L  La Pira, Giorgio  164, 166, 172, 174, 183, 197-198 Labanca, Nicola  136 407

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

Medici, Lorenzo  207 Mehnert, Klaus  179 Melchionni, Maria Grazia  134 Meli Lupo di Soragna, Antonio  222 Melloni, Alberto  174 Meneguzzi Rostagni, Carla  206, 207, 344 Meyr, Georg  150, 157, 163, 343 Miatović, Cvijetin  112 Miccoli, Giovanni  344 Micheletta, Luca  5, 7, 115, 116, 118, 126, 398 Miciunovich, Veljko (see: Mićunović, Veljko) Mićunović, Veljko  45, 178, 223, 229 Mihai, Florin-Răzvan  105 Mihailović, Dragoljub “Draža”  142 Mijatović, Cvijetin  97, 112-113 Mikolić, Mario  301 Milano, Rosario  153 Milatović, Arso  105 Milesi Ferretti, Gian Luigi  212, 230, 233, 237, 240-242, 244, 252-255, 267, 378 Milkić, Miljan  23, 250 Millard, Guy E.  89, 90, 92, 93, 94 Millo, Anna  218, 345, 369 Mindszenty, József  189 Minić, Miloš  70, 72, 91-92, 94, 96, 212, 214, 241-242, 244, 246, 253, 255-256, 259, 264, 266-267, 270-273, 275-276, 278-281, 285, 287-290, 292-296, 320, 386, 388 Mišić, Saša  8, 31, 82, 152, 230, 235237, 249, 252, 253, 399 Mladenov, Petar  280 Močivnik, Ratko  244, 290 Mojsov, Lazar  90-91, 276

Malagodi, Giovanni  212 Malcolm, Noel  117, 120, 130 Malenkov, Georgij  164, 174 Malfatti di Montetretto, Francesco  206  Malgeri, Francesco  159, 160-161, 170, 172, 345 Mallet, Ivo  29-30 Malnati, Ettore  387 Mandić  238 Mănescu, Corneliu 105, 205  Manojlović Pintar, Olga  31, 82, 235, 253 Mantelli, Brunello  138 Manzini, Raimondo  206 Mao Tse Tung  178-179 Marchi, Michele  201 Marchiori, Carlo  123-124, 126-127 Marino, Giuseppe Carlo  184 Martelli, Evelina  166-167, 169, 172173, 176 Martin, Graham A  35,  128 Martinelli, Renzo  185 Martino, Gaetano  120, 163, 222 Mastny, Vojtech  207 Matthews, Freeman H.  27 Matković, Hrvoje  302 Mattei, Enrico  163, 164, 166, 175 Mattei, Ottone  244, 290 Matteotti, Gianmatteo  82, 128 Mattera, Paolo  172, 180 Mattina, Liborio  145 Mattiussi, Dario  142 Maugeri, Leonardo  163 Maurer, Ion Gheorghe  105 Medici, Giuseppe  43, 61, 69-70, 212, 229, 231, 241-242, 244, 252, 253, 267, 286-287, 296, 386, 388 408

Index of Names

Molotov, Vyacheslav  37, 324, 328, 330 Mondello, Mario  122 Montagnana, Rita  185 Montanelli, Indro  351 Montani, Carlo  393 Montesano, Gianni  186 Montgomery, Bernard L.  121 Montini, Giovanni B.  189 Monzali, Luciano  5, 7, 81, 105, 116, 120, 129, 135, 137, 142, 153, 154, 156-157, 190, 199, 200, 201, 204, 218, 224, 225-227, 239, 254, 343, 373, 378, 398 Morgan, William D.  307 Moro, Aldo  7, 16, 42, 51-58, 64-68, 71, 81, 84, 105, 106, 110, 128, 129, 153, 154, 156, 159, 160, 170, 172, 175-185, 188-217, 224-228, 231-232, 234-239, 241-246, 254, 255, 258, 266, 271, 274, 276, 288292, 343, 344, 347-351, 353, 355, 372-373, 375-382, 384-389, 392393, 398, 399 Moro, Renato  189, 199 Morozzo della Rocca, Roberto  130, 204 Mosele, Philip  28 Mura, Salvatore  173 Murphey, Robert  151 Mussolini, Benito  116, 134, 136, 137-141, 300, 302, 304, 311, 399

Nešović, Slobodan  302, 304, 306 Niculescu Mizil, Paul  102 Niedhart, Gottfried  207 Nikezić, Marko  43, 57, 61, 228, 230 Nitti, Francesco Saverio  135 Nixon, Richard M.  35, 45, 128, 191, 198, 206, 240, 241, 242, 244, 367, 383 Novak, Bogdan C.  23, 147, 218, 250, 345 Nuenlist, Christian  207 Nuti, Leopoldo  165, 168, 191 O  Orlando, Giulio  129, 134 Orlando, Vittorio E.  299 Ortona, Egidio  87, 167, 195, 211, 220, 244 Ostermann, Christian F.  122 Owen, David  96 P  Pacepa, Ion Mihai  105, 110 Pacetti, Massimo  138 Pajetta, Giancarlo  186, 339-340 Palavršić, Josko  319 Pannella, Marco  360 Parisi, Arturo  364 Parovel, G. Paolo  294 Parri, Ferruccio  308 Pascoli, Giovanni  184 Passanisi, Enzo  262 Pastorelli, Pietro  116, 137, 159, 164, 174, 189, 220, 343 Paul VI (see: Montini, Giovanni B.)  59, 64, 67, 188, 189 Pavelić, Ante  138, 141, 302, 304 Pavičević, Miša  230-231, 242, 255, 257-258, 265, 273, 277, 288, 293

N  Napolitano, Giorgio  186, 337-338 Nasser, Gamal Abdel  165, 166, 167 Navrátil, Jaromír  337 Nenni, Pietro  43, 51, 62, 161, 172, 180, 192-193, 206, 217, 225, 230231, 233, 238, 378-379 409

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

Pop, Adrian  101 Popovac, Veselin  244 Popović, Koča  28, 224 Poropat, Liviana  153 Portelli, Hugues  188 Premru, Sergij  293 Preoteasa, Grigore  102 Pribićević, Svetozar  300 Prica, Srdja  43, 217, 230, 232, 234236, 240 Prickett, Russel O.  25 Privitera, Francesco  141 Procacci, Giuliano  100 Pupo, Raoul  7, 54, 133, 141, 142, 144, 148-153, 218, 250, 324, 343, 344, 346, 398 Puppini, Marco  138 Purini, Piero  353 Puto, Artan  52

Pavlović, Voijslav G.  100, 127, 219, 223 Pecchioli, Ugo  186 Pelaschiar, Libero  354 Pelikán, Jirí  204 Pella, Giuseppe  32, 150, 162, 279, 314, 350-351 Pellegrini, Giacomo  333 Perfetti, Francesco  160, 200, 388 Perišić, Zvonko  212, 230, 232, 237, 240-242, 252-254, 255, 267, 378 Perović, Anamaria  317 Pertini, Sandro  188 Petelin, Stanko  144 Petkov, Dimităr  108 Petracchi, Giorgio  204 Petranović, Branko  300 Petrič, Ernest  295 Petrić, Jakša  81, 255-256, 258 Pianciola, Niccolò  149 Picariello, Valentina  393 Piccioni, Attilio  167, 171 Piccoli, Flaminio  192 Pietromarchi, Luca  121, 168-169, 172, 175, 206 Pijade, Moša  308 Pinzani, Carlo  177, 191 Pirjevec, Jože  76, 82, 138, 178, 206, 219, 229, 250, 285, 353 Pitassio, Armando  108 Pizzigallo, Matteo  116 Pleshakov, Constantine  179 Pleterski, Janko  285, 297 Podgorny, Nikolai  278 Pompei, Gianfranco  200, 226-228, 377-378 Pompidou, Georges  63 Pons, Silvio  145, 180, 185, 190, 204, 324, 328, 330-331, 337, 339-340, 343

Q  Quagliarello, Gaetano  183 Quaroni, Pietro  125, 206 R  Rabel, Roberto G.  23, 344, 367 Radaelli, Riccardo  153 Radi, Luciano  161, 170 Radić, Radmila  31, 82, 235, 252-253 Rainero, Roman H.  151 Rajak, Svetozar  323, 325, 330-331 Rakovac, Milan  320 Ranković, Aleksandar  52 Redivo, Diego  369, 395 Reichlin, Alfredo  186 Rennie, Peter  79 Riccardi, Andrea  164, 174, 189 Riccardi, Luca  5, 7, 159, 164-165, 167, 187, 195-196, 201, 224, 398 410

Index of Names

Richard, Robert  68 Richetti, Franco  153 Ridley, Jasper  178 Ristić, Marko  222 Ritchie, Sebastian  302 Riva, Valerio  186, 327 Romano, Angela  207 Romano, Sergio  133, 199, 214, 323, 387 Romero, Federico  171, 177, 184, 202, 324, 343, 367 Roncalli, Angelo Giuseppe  164, 188 Roselli, Alessandro  116 Rossanda, Rossana  186 Rubbi, Antonio  187 Rudlof, Davorin  299, 314 Rumici, Guido  148 Rumor, Mariano  72, 92, 95, 190, 192-193, 213-214, 255, 266, 269, 271, 275-276, 279, 292, 294, 348, 386, 387, 389, 393 Rupel, Dimitrij  294 Rusinow, Dennison I.  136

Saragat, Giuseppe  53, 58, 63, 64, 66, 192-193, 201, 205-206, 217, 224-227, 230, 233-234, 238, 251, 374-375, 378 Sardos Albertini, Paolo  369, 381382, 386-387 Sauvagnargues, Jean  71, 277 Scandone, Alberto  198 Scelba, Mario  163 Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M.  173 Schumann, Maurice  63, 68-70 Scianatico, Giovanna  207 Scoccimarro, Mauro  185 Scoppola, Pietro  184 Sebilleau, Pierre  64-72 Secchia, Pietro  185, 329 Segatti, Paolo  363 Segni, Antonio  126, 160, 163, 170173, 176, 217, 224 Segulja, Kristina  344 Sensi, Federico  206 Šepić, Dragovan  134 Sereni, Emilio  185 Serra, Enrico  217 Seydoux, Roger  58 Sfetas, Spyridon  108 Sforza, Carlo  120, 135-136, 160, 200, 219, 221-222, 299, 302 Shehu, Mehmet  122, 124, 127 Shtylla, Behar  126 Silvestrini, Achille  190 Šiškovič, Karel  337 Škerk, Albin  279 Škorjanec, Viljenka  8, 15, 82, 90, 212, 241, 243-244, 252-254, 265273, 275, 279, 285, 287-290, 294296, 298, 306, 399 Slataper, Scipio  336 Slipyj, Josyf  174

S  Saba, Umberto  336 Sadat, Muhammad Anwar  263 Sadkovich, James J.  138 Saija, Marcello  163 Sala, Teodoro  136-138, 142 Salvadori, Massimo L.  188 Salvatici, Silvia  149, 346 Salvemini, Gaetano  302 Santin, Antonio  353, 357, 370, 372, 380, 387, 392 Santoro, Stefano  104 Sapelli, Giulio  334 Saporito, Luigi  296 411

Italy and Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Age of International Détente

T  Tamaro, Attilio  134 Tambroni, Fernando  170, 172 Tamburrano, Giuseppe  161, 347 Ţăranu, Liviu  104 Tarchiani, Alberto  222 Tassani, Giovanni  177, 182, 188, 192, 199, 347 Taviani, Ermanno  330 Taviani, Paolo E.  150, 211, 373, 376, 390 Tepavac, Mirko  66, 68, 230, 234, 236-239, 382 Terracini, Umberto  185 Thompson, Llewellyn E.  31 Timeus, Ruggero  134 Tito, Josip Broz  3, 5, 9-12, 25-28, 31-32, 33-36, 40, 45, 47, 52-54, 58, 61-72, 75-89, 91, 93, 98, 100107, 110-113, 117-121, 124-125, 127, 129, 142, 143, 145, 147, 150, 154, 178, 187, 202, 212, 214-215, 217, 219-222, 224, 228, 230-231, 233-244, 253, 259, 262-263, 266, 268, 272, 287-290, 293-295, 305, 307, 314, 316, 323-325, 327-328, 330-331, 337, 339-340, 348, 350, 352, 355, 367, 371-374, 377-383, 385, 387, 389-392 Ţiu, Ilarion  105 Togliatti, Palmiro  185, 186, 188, 325, 328, 332 Tomažič, Pinko  138 Tombesi, Giorgio  356, 362, 365, 375, 381, 387 Tonel, Claudio  328, 337 Tonini, Alberto  163 Toon, Malcom  128, 244 Tornielli, Andrea  189 Toscano, Mario  120, 140, 199, 201, 399

Sluga, Glenda  307 Šnuderl, Boris  212, 241, 244-246, 253-254, 265-269, 271, 273-275, 279, 285, 287-288, 290, 295-296, 298, 318 Sonnino, Sidney  134, 299 Soutou, Georges-Henri  51, 58 Spagnolo, Carlo  330, 337 Spallone, Mario  329 Spano, Nadia  185 Sparrow, Bryan  76, 77, 79, 81, 84 Spazzali, Roberto  148, 156, 369, 371 Spehnjak, Katarina  301 Špiljak, Mika  57-59, 228 Spriano, Paolo  185, 188 Sretenović, Stanislav  7, 49, 52, 397 Stabler, Wells  128 Stalin, Iosif Vissarionović Džugašvili  9, 10, 24, 30, 37, 42, 52, 54, 102, 103, 118, 119, 143, 144, 152, 164, 171, 179, 185, 188, 204, 219, 221, 323, 324, 325, 328, 330, 337, 340, 341 Stallone, Settimio  116-117 Stanciu, Cezar 102  Stefan, C. G.  219 Steiner, Johan  101 Stendardi, Mario  104 Stewart, Dugald L.L.  77-80, 84-85, 88-90, 92-94 Stewart, Michael  76, 78-79 Stjepakov, Vladimir  276, 277 Stojadinović, Milan  139, 140 Strčić, Petar  304 Stuhlpfarrer, Karl  301 Stuparich, Giani  336 Šuran, Fulvio  200 Swain, Geoffrey  143 412

Index of Names

Violante, Luciano  145 Vitale, Alessandro  153 Vivarelli, Roberto  135 Vlahović, Veljko  29 Vojnović, Branislava  308 Volk, Sandi  306, 353 Volpe, John A.  240-242, 244 Vratuša, Anton  221, 223, 234, 238 Vrhunec, Marko  229-230 Vrsaj, Egidio  153 Vucinich, Wayne S.  346 Vuković, Zdravko  229

Tosi, Luciano  162, 163, 167, 191, 201, 224-225 Trabalza, Folco  64, 230-232, 234-238 Tranfaglia, Nicola  347 Tremolada, Ilaria  164 Tria, Massimo  187 Troha, Nevenka  218, 221, 250, 252 Truman, Harry S.  119, 307,  308 Trumbić, Ante  300 U  Udina, Manlio  86, 155, 214, 246, 281, 347, 348, 392 Ulam, Adam  177, 179 Ungari, Andrea  160, 200, 388 Unger, Leonard  344 Uvalić, Radivoj  60

W  Waldheim, Kurt  260, 278 Wallner, Walroof  33 Wedekind, Michael  301 Wenger, Andreas  207 Westad, Odd Arne  76, 330 Whittam, J.R.  303 Wilson, Thomas Woodrow  135, 299, 303, 304, 308 Wood, A.M.  94 Wood, T.C.  84 Wright, Jerauld  28

V  Vacca, Giuseppe  188, 224 Valdevit, Giampaolo  23, 86, 144-148, 150-151, 156, 249, 250, 323, 325, 333, 335, 338, 344, 367, 371 Valletta, Vittorio  175 Varsori, Antonio  117, 157, 159, 163, 181, 184, 199, 201, 202, 204, 218, 226, 343, 367 Varvelli, Arturo  216 Vedovato, Giuseppe  164 Vejvoda, Ivo  228, 373 Velebit, Vladimir  314 Venizelos, Sophocles  123 Venizelos, Eleftherios  123 Verginella, Marta  138 Verrocchio, Ariella  138 Vickers, Miranda  117, 129 Vidali, Vittorio  8, 15, 185, 323, 325341, 358, 392 Vigezzi, Brunello  151, 162 Villani, Angela  163, 167

Z  Zaccagnini, Benigno  274 Zago, Moreno  153 Zaniboni, Tito  138 Zannoni, Fulvio  153 Zaslavsky, Victor  185, 204 Žikić, Mihailo  35 Živkov Todor  108, 207 Zogolli, Ahmed  137 Zoli, Adone  168 Zubok, Vladislav  179, 324, 328, 340 Zuccari, Maurizio  221, 325 Zurlo, Teodoro  140 413

“International Issues” Studies in international relations, particularly historical, stem from the changing face of diplomacy over time, where the deeper forces at play, such as those once defined by Pierre Renouvin, are taken into account. Individual states, and those who define and implement their policies, are placed at the heart of global life. According to this concept, countries pursue a course of action by taking advantage of the most diverse range of tools they can rely on, such as economic or cultural resources, which act alone or interact with others. The study of international relations grew into different fields of analysis during the twentieth century, but it is now subject to a new scrutiny in this era of globalisation. This concept, which coincides with the development of neo-liberal analysis since the 1980s, reveals a new awareness about the increased number of actors – NGOs and multinational companies, for example – but also the large autonomy they enjoy when it comes to action. This series aims to portray these new perspectives and their impact on current research. Without casting aside studies in international relations that focus on states, it tries to better understand the diverse range of factors that play out on the world stage and how they relate to each other – from the high stakes in sport to the use of colonial memory. This series targets academics and analysts who wish to apply twentieth century history to contemporary thought.

Series Editors M. Éric BUSSIÈRE, Professeur à l’Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne M. Michel DUMOULIN, Professeur à l’Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), responsable du Groupe d’études d’histoire de l’Europe contemporaine Mme Geneviève DUCHENNE, Docteur en histoire de l’UCL, chercheur qualifiée de l’UCL M. Sylvain SCHIRMANN, Professeur d’histoire contemporaine, directeur de l’Institut d’études politiques de Strasbourg

Published Books N° 1 – Catherine Lanneau, L’inconnue française. La France et les Belges francophones (1944-1945), 2008, ISBN 978-90-5201-397-8 N° 2 – Frédéric Dessberg, Le triangle impossible. Les relations franco-soviétiques et le facteur polonais dans les questions de sécurité en Europe (19241935), 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-466-1 N° 3 – Agnès Tachin, Amie et rivale. La Grande-Bretagne dans l’ima­ginaire français à l’époque gaullienne, 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-495-1 N° 4 – Isabelle Davion, Mon voisin, cet ennemi. La politique de sécurité française face aux relations polono-tchécoslovaques entre 1919 et 1939, 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-496-8 N° 5 – Claire Laux, François-Joseph Ruggiu & Pierre Singaravélou (dir./eds.), Au sommet de l’Empire. Les élites européennes dans les co­lo­nies (XVIe-XXe siècle) / At the Top of the Empire. European Elites in the Colonies (16th-20th Century), 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-536-1 N° 6 – Frédéric Clavert, Hjalmar Schacht, financier et diplomate (1930-1950), 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-542-2 N° 7 – Robert JAblon, Laure Quennouëlle-Corre et André Straus, Politique et finance à travers l’Europe du XXe siècle. Entretiens avec Robert Jablon, 2009, ISBN 978-90-5201-543-9 N° 8 – Alain Beltran (ed.), A Comparative History of National Oil Company, 2010, ISBN 978-90-5201-575-0 N° 9 – Sarah Mohamed-Gaillard, L’Archipel de la puissance ? La poli­tique de la France dans le Pacifique Sud de 1946 à 1998, 2010, ISBN 978-90-5201589-7 N° 10 – Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci, Anne Dulphy, Robert Frank et Pascal Ory (dir.), Les relations culturelles interna­tionales au vingtième siècle. De la diplomatie culturelle à l’accul­tu­ration, 2010, ISBN 978-90-5201-661-0 N° 11 – Yves-Marie Péréon, L’image de la France dans la presse améri­caine, 1936-1947, 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201-664-1 N° 12 – Léonard Laborie, L’Europe mise en réseaux. La France et la coopération internationale dans les postes et les télécommunications (années 1850-années 1950), 2010, ISBN 978-90-5201-679-5 N° 13 – Catherine Horel (dir.), 1908, la crise de Bosnie cent ans après, 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201-700-6

N° 14 – Alain Beltran (ed.), Oil Producing Countries and Oil Companies. From the Nineteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century, 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201711-2 N° 15 – Frédéric Dessberg et Éric Schnakenbourg (dir.), Les horizons de la politique extérieure française. Régions périphériques et espaces seconds dans la stratégie diplomatique et militaire de la France (XVIe-XXe siécles), 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201-717-4 N° 16 – Alya Aglan, Olivier Feiertag et Dzovinar K évonian (dir.), Huma­niser le travail. Régimes économiques, régimes politiques et Organi­sa­tions internationale du travail (1929-1969), 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201-740-2 N°  17 – Pierre Journoud & Cécile Menétrey-Monchau (dir./eds.), Vietnam, 1968-1976. La sortie de guerre / Vietnam, 1968-1976. Exiting a War, 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201-744-0 N° 18 – Louis Clerc, La Finlande et l’Europe du Nord dans la diplomatie française. Relations bilatérales et intérêt national dans les considérations finlandaises et nordiques des diplomates et militaires français, 1917-1940, 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201-750-1 N° 19 – Yann Decorzant, La Société des Nations et la naissance d’une conception de la régulation économique internationale, 2011, ISBN 978-90-5201-751-8 N° 20 – Lorenz Plassmann, Comme dans une nuit de Pâques ? Les relations franco-grecques 1944-1981, 2012, ISBN 978-90-5201-769-3 N° 21 – Alain Beltran (dir./ed.), Le pétrole et la guerre / Oil and War, 2012, ISBN 978-90-5201-770-9 N°  22 –  Valentine Lomellini, Les relations dangereuses. French Socialists, Communists and the Human Rights Issue in the Soviet Bloc, 2012, ISBN 97890-5201-843-0 N° 23 – Martial Libera, Un rêve de puissance. La France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942-1949), 2012, ISBN 978-90-5201-859-1 N° 24 – Séverine Antigone Marin, L’apprentissage de la mondialisation. Les milieux économiques allemands face à la réussite américaine (1876-1914), 2012, ISBN 978-90-5201-853-9 N° 25 – Claire Sanderson & Mélanie Torrent (dir./eds.), La puissance britannique en question. Diplomatie et politique étrangère au 20e siècle/ Challenges to British Power Status. Foreign Policy and Diplomacy in the 20th Century, 2012, ISBN 978-90-5201-892-8 N° 26 – Elena Gretchanaia, « Je vous parlerai la langue de l’Europe… ». La francophonie en Russie (XVIIIe-XIXe siècles), 2012, ISBN 978-90-5201-885-0 N° 27 – Alfred Wahl, Histoire de la Coupe du monde de football. Une mondialisation réussie, 2013, ISBN 978-2-87574-046-5

N° 28 – Catherine Fraixe, Lucia Piccioni et Christophe Poupault (dir.), Vers une Europe latine. Acteurs et enjeux des échanges culturels entre la France et l’Italie fasciste, 2013, ISBN 978-2-87574-047-2 N° 29 – Danièle Fraboulet, Andrea M. Locatelli & Paolo Tedeschi (eds.), Historical and International Comparison of Business Interest Associations. 19th-20th Centuries, 2013, ISBN 978-2-87574-079-3 N° 30 – Annie Guenard-Maget, Une diplomatie culturelle dans les tensions internationales. La France en Europe centrale et orientale (1936-1940 / 19441951), 2014, 978-2-87574-169-1 N° 31 – Catherine Horel (dir.), Les guerres balkaniques (1912-1913). Conflits, enjeux, mémoires, 2014, ISBN 978-2-87574-185-1 N° 32 – Bruno Dumons et Jean-Philippe Warren (dir.), Les zouaves pontificaux en France, en Belgique et au Québec. La mise en récit d’une expérience historique transnationale (XIX e-XX e siècles), 2015, ISBN 978-2-87574-274-2

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