The Very Negation

In Rome last week, an eye-catching story splashed across the columns of the independent Il Tempo. The left-wing partisans who call themselves "Garibaldini" would wear new khaki uniforms with red neckerchiefs and visored caps at a grand parade on Feb. 18. The partisans also had arms and ammunition. Asked II Tempo: "What does Scelba think of this?"

Pudgy, bald Mario Scelba, Christian Democrat Minister of the Interior, had already thought about it a good deal. Italians would elect a Parliament on April 18. The last thing Scelba wanted was swaggering, uniformed, intimidating bands of Communists and left-wing Socialists marching the streets of Italy. Scelba wanted a law forbidding all private armed organizations. But his cabinet colleagues needed convincing. They feared a row. With a shrewd twinkle in his black eyes, Mario Scelba let scrappy Il Tempo take up the cudgels for him.

Il Tempo swung its spotlight on red-shirted Garibaldini squads in the region of Lecce, on a "liberty brigade" in Bari, on a Verona clothes factory commissioned to make military-style berets. Then the paper brought off a small coup: it ran a letter from the grandson and namesake of the Italian liberator himself. Mourned grandson Giuseppe Garibaldi: ". . .There is no law in Italy to protect . . . the portrait and name of my grandfather . . . [from being] made to represent parties which are the very negation of Garibaldian traditions of liberty. . . ."

The battle was won. At next day's cabinet meeting in Rome's Viminale Palace, Mario Scelba was dominant. The ministers approved a decree which would: 1) outlaw all armed formations; 2) allow uniforms to be worn only with police permission; 3) provide for imprisonment up to ten years for having arms illegally.

Communist reaction flared at first. Partisan General Luigi Longo sneered: What about the Boy Scouts and the uniformed Catholic girls of the Children of Mary organization? But next day the partisans executed a disciplined about-face. They promised compliance. Except when the police (i.e., Scelba) permitted, the uniforms would stay in the trunk.

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