Snafu

Italy's new Premier, gentle Ivanoe Bonomi, got a rough ultimatum from London: put ex-Premier Marshal Pietro Badoglio back in the Cabinet, or else. For Italy's anti-Fascist politicians, proud of their "pure-of-Fascism" Government, it was a grievous blow.

Their neat coup of June 9 had left the onetime Fascist Marshal out in the cold. But they had reckoned without the wrath of Winston Churchill. Only a fortnight earlier the British Prime Minister had patted the Badoglio Government on the back, given it his "every confidence" (TIME, June 5). Now the anti-Fascist Italians stood at a frustrated impasse. Such intervention, they said darkly, would be the last disillusionment for Italy's democrats, would kindle antagonism against the Anglo-American liberators.

Sitting pretty in the Italian confusion was the Communist Party, led by shrewd, Comintern-trained Minister of State Palmiro Togliatti. Three months ago Moscow had taken the United Nations lead in recognizing the Badoglio Government. Then Togliatti had taken the lead in busting the Italian anti-Fascist front; he led liberals and leftists into the royalist Badoglio Government. In the Bonomi coup, Togliatti had shrewdly trimmed sails with the wind, cruised with the majority against the Marshal. This week, after raising a feckless fuss, Britain (and the U.S.) had to approve the Bonomi Government anyhow. Now the Communists, Italian and Russian, leaned back and laughed while Italian resentment mounted against Britain and the U.S.

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