NEW BATTLE FOR ITALY

Chronicle (Levin), 8 October 1947, Page 5

NEW BATTLE FOR ITALY

(N.Z.P.A.-

— Reuter-

Struggle Between D.S. And Russia

Covu'rtQht)

(Reeeived Tuesday, 7 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 7. A new battle for Italy is on, states. the Daily Express eorrespondent lately in Eome. It has now opened in earnest between: the R-ussians and Ainericans. The Russians want to win Italy for Communism and malce her. one oi their satellite States. The Americans want to prevent this and keep- Italy a member of the western world. The Americans believe that if a proSoviet Government is established in Italy and if, in the Commission now meeting in London, the Russians manage to eapture Tripoli and Cyrenaiea either for themgelves or a satel lite Italy, then millions of dollars the ' Unitcd States is now spending in Greece and Turkey will have been wasted. Soviet d'omination of Italy and the North African shore opposite Italy would cut' the Med'iterraneau and outflank America's ne'wly established oil ; empire in the Middle East. The eorrespondent says the Conlmunists are trying to do all they can to exploit the present sifuation in Italy where the cost of living has shot up 20 per cent. in the past six months but wages have not kept pace and there is unemployment now of nearly two millions. The Italiail Government toldAmeriea that its foreign exchange and dollar resources Will be exhausted by the end of October. The Communists have been organising strikes in the industrial north and also raids by labourers and small farmers on the property af big landowners, and settling them there in ' ' squatting gangs. ' ' The main danger now that the Italian Government has defeated the Commun-" ist vote of no confidenee, he continues, is that the Communists will try the tough way of getting into the Govern ment. They may want to eonvince the Government by a series of strikes that it has no authority over the workers without them. The Americans' only weapons to iight the forces of Communist organised labour in Italy, says the corespondent, are dollars. The Rome eorrespondent for the New York Herald-Tribune deelares 'that, if Ameriea abandons Italy to the Com munists, democraey will be weakened everywhere. • The success of the Communists in every source and plaee of western culture will have an electric effect all over the rest of Western Europe. Democrats and Soeialists everywhere, and especialIv in Franee, will lose heart. If Western Europe holds firm now and-returns again to a healthy life, American foreign policy can be eontinued without risk of war. Tf Ttalv and Western Europe fail before the Soviets, however, the TTnited States will have suffered a political, strategic and diplomatic defeat of such magnitude that the very" independenee of the Western Hemisphere will hardly be maintained.