Changes

"The aim of Italy's foreign policy," says Harold Nicolson, British M. P., essayist, novelist, onetime diplomat, "is to acquire by negotiation an importance greater than can be supplied by her own physical strength. It is thus the antithesis of the German system, since instead of basing diplomacy on power she bases power on diplomacy. It is the antithesis of the French system, since instead of striving to secure permanent allies against a permanent enemy, she regards her allies and her enemies as interchangeable. It is the antithesis of the British system, since it is not durable credit that she seeks for, but immediate advantage. Her conception, moreover, of the Balance of Power is not identical with the British conception; for whereas in Great Britain that doctrine is interpreted as opposition to any country who may seek to dominate Europe, in Italy it is desired as a balance of such equipoise that her own weight can tilt the scale."

Last week Italy not only suddenly removed six Cabinet members but went a long way toward changing allies when Il Duce violently shook up the Fascist hierarchy. The side-changing had been hopefully expected by Great Britain and France for some weeks, but few had supposed so many big Government heads would roll in accompaniment.

A favorite phrase among Italian Fascisti is "changing of the guard." It refers to a supposedly fixed policy of rotating the Party's big men in the State's big jobs; actually it is usually used to make crucial political shifts seem casual and routine. Last week, when Italy's hierarchy was violently shaken up, the phrase was shouted loud on Rome's seven hills. But no amount of inspired pooh-poohing could make the changes unimportant.

Out went:

>Lieut. General Achille Starace, Secretary of the Fascist Party, who for eight years has stood close enough behind Benito Mussolini to tickle his shoulder blades with a stiletto. With sense of humor zero and self-confidence unlimited, Fascist Starace earned the nickname "Pantherman" by feats of physique--jumping a horse over a car, pole vaulting, diving over parallel bars, plunging through rings of fire. In his gaudy office, where he is protected by an always-loaded, pearl-handled revolver and by a solid gold Virgin, he has thought up many a mystic fetish, many a fiendish thuggery. He abolished the handshake in Italy. He designed the black Fascist uniform. He is generally supposed to have been one of the inventors of the castor-oil technique of punishing political recalcitrants. And he has been one of the most important nuts keeping Rome tightly screwed to the Axis.

>Minister of Public Culture Oboardo Dino Alfieri. One of the founders of Fascism, a friend of Mussolini since World War I, smoothie, trouble shooter, woman-charmer (Italians say he could make an Englishwoman feel beautiful and an Ethiopian feel important), he consistently boosted the Axis in the Italian press--until the war began.

>General Alberto Pariani, Chief of Staff of the Army and Under Secretary for War. He helped make the Versailles Treaty, was one of the planners of the Ethiopian campaign, introduced the goose step and forebade swearing in the Army, believes in lightning warfare. Pro-Axis, at least outwardly, he conferred with Germany's Chief of the High Command Wilhelm Keitel just before Italy took Albania.

>Edmondo Rossoni, Minister of Agriculture, gentlest Cabinet Minister, who used to see everybody, promise everything, do nothing. Stanch friend to Soviet Ambassador Boris Stein, he had hoped that the Moscow-Berlin and Rome-Berlin Axes might mesh.

>Minister of Corporations Ferruccio Lantini, Minister of Trade Felice Guarneri, Minister of Communications Antonio Stefano Benni, Minister of Public Works Giuseppe Cobolli-Gigli, Under Secretary of State Giuseppe Medici del Vascello.

This castor-oil operation may, as the Italian press claimed, merely have removed faithful servants so that other faithful servants might have their hour. But foreign commentators could not help noticing an obvious common denominator: the important purgees were strongly pro-Axis. Only ministers left were Foreign Minister Count Ciano, popular Minister of Justice Dino Grandi, Premier Mussolini himself (War, Navy, Air, Interior), and three others--the neutrality bloc. Italy, it seemed, wanted no entangling alliances.

After removals, the jigsaw puzzle was only half there. What would the picture be when the new pieces were put in?

Many of the new ministerial appointments seemed routine enough. But two key jobs--Secretary of the Fascist Party and Chief of Staff of the Army--fell to men with plenty of significance. Italy would be neutral but strong, isolated but ready. Two of the toughest bambinos in Italy came in:

>The biggest political job was given to a man with no political but plenty of military fame, a 37-year-old child of iron named Ettore Muti. Signor Muti marched with Poet-Hero Gabriele D'Annunzio when he seized Fiume in 1919, by 1922 had let enough blood in the province of Ravenna so that it was ready to be healed by Fascism; dropped bombs on Ethiopia and Spain--until, today, his is known as the most decorated chest in medal-rich Italy. He is handsome, slim-waisted, athletic, merciless. If Starace was a panther, he is a tiger.

>The military plum fell to one of the grimmest, crudest men in Italy, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani. His family motto is: "An enemy forgiven is more dangerous than a thousand foes." He ruthlessly subdued Libya in 1921-29, led the murderous southern campaign in Ethiopia. Nicked by a would-be assassin's hand grenade in Addis Ababa in 1937, he had 1,600 natives slaughtered. When Mussolini chided him, he is said to have answered: "Mild measures never retained conquered soil." Shortly afterwards he returned to Italy because of "ill health."

These were not leaders to give Italy merely a negative neutrality. Freshly-manned, Italy turned at once to the Balkans: conversations led to an exchange of warm letters with Greece, notes which had the actual effect of a pact of friendship. Thus Italy took step No. 1 in the widely heralded effort to dominate the Balkans. Next step: talk with Bulgaria. This week Premier Mussolini's conference with his new Under Secretary of War, General Ubaldo Soddu, embraced "certain instructions to prepare and to enlarge" the Army..

All this naturally worried Germany. The official German view: it all means nothing. But nervousness was evident in the war's most roundabout dispatch: Rome's Lavoro Fascista heard from Milan that "it is reported from Amsterdam that The Netherlands press publishes an item dated Berlin, according to which Field Marshal Goering will go to Rome next Tuesday." Berlin denied the report. Perhaps it was not necessary for Marshal Goering to go to Rome to find out that Italy was playing this war every man for himself.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.