American Foreign Policy and the Postwar Italian Left
United States policy toward Italy in the post-World War II period has been influenced and in many cases determined by the nature of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The superpower confrontation in Europe has had a profound effect on the establishment of the boundaries within which Italian domestic political choices have been (and are still being) made. The United States has not determined policies in Italy but it has exercised substantial influence on Italian domestic politics through its political, economic, and military linkages with Italy. Given Italy's strategic position in the Mediterranean, U.S. policy has been oriented toward three aspects of Italian politics: strengthening the control of centrist forces; maintaining a market-oriented socioeconomic system; and having Italy's foreign policy objectives and military posture shaped within the organizational framework of NATO. For much of the postwar period, the accomplishment of all three of these objectives has been consistent with keeping the Left-the Socialist (PSI) and Communist (PCI) parties -from playing a role in government. The precise nature of U.S. policy toward the Italian Left can usefully be analyzed by focusing on the three most critical periods in postwar AmericanItalian relations, periods when basic choices were made in one or more of the sensitive areas cited. The first period covers the years between 1945 and 1948 when Italy's international position and postfascist socioeconomic model for reconstruction were shaped. The second period, from 1960 to 1963, was characterized by the attempt in Italy to create the international and domestic groundwork for permitting the entrance of the Socialist party into a government