Storm over the Adriatic

With a bold stroke of power diplomacy, the U.S. and Britain last week set out to break the eight-year-old stalemate over Trieste. The decision required careful readings of a complex and impassioned situation.

The problem they faced:

Italy, which lost Trieste by the World War II peace treaty, claims the entire territory, and its claim was formally backed by the U.S., Britain and France in 1948. Trieste, a stirring emotional symbol to all Italians, threatened to fray Italy's ties to the Western coalition and block her participation in the proposed European Army. But diplomatic soundings in Rome suggested that Italy might now be persuaded to settle.

Yugoslavia, trading hard on its cold war value to the West, wants all the Free Territory except the city of Trieste for itself, demands that the port be internationalized to keep it out of Italy's control. But diplomatic soundings in Belgrade suggested that Marshal Tito, though he would squawk, might be brought to settle for an arrangement that would leave him in control of the less populous Zone B part of the divided Free Territory of Trieste.

The Western Powers could not cajole Italy and Yugoslavia into a friendly bargain. To continue to do nothing would be to let the tension increase. The U.S. decided on action, persuaded the British to go along. Their decision was to help Italy's cause and to risk Tito's ire.

One day last week, the U.S. and British ambassadors in Rome and Belgrade delivered messages to the Italian and Yugoslav governments. "As soon as practicable," said the notes, the U.S. and Britain will withdraw their occupation troops from Trieste Territory's Zone A and hand it over to Italy's control, leaving Yugoslavia in command of Zone B.* "[We] trust," said the Big Two, "that it will provide the basis for friendly and fruitful cooperation between Italy and Yugoslavia." With each in control of a zone, Italy now had the "parity" it has long demanded as a prerequisite to further negotiations. It might, for example, offer the Yugoslavs port facilities in exchange for the return of predominantly Italian towns on the Istrian coast.

The ambassadors went back to the embassies to wait for the repercussions. They did not have long to wait.

In Italy, a voice broke into the scheduled program of the government radio. "This is a special announcement." Italians thrilled at the news. Newspapers, except those of the far left, broke out their big type to proclaim AN ACT OF JUSTICE. Wrote Italy's leading daily, Corriere della Sera: "What happened has been to a great extent the work of a woman, of Mrs. [Clare Boothe] Luce, and it is right and necessary that the Italian people know it . . . Perhaps one day we will learn with what patience, intelligence and diplomatic tact Mrs. Luce succeeded in bringing this arduous task to a happy end." But Ambassador Luce, in a press conference, attributed the plan's adoption to the concerted efforts of Anglo-American embassies and foreign offices.

Calmly waiting to make sure that the public reaction was good, the new Cabinet of Giuseppe Pella met to vote its "unanimous pleasure," and. to thundering cheers, Premier Pella announced the Cabinet's acceptance to the newly convened Italian Parliament. It was a big boost for Pella (see below). Still, he was careful to regard the offer as only a down payment on Italy's claims. "I can declare in the most formal way," said Pella to Parliament, "that acceptance of ... Zone A does not imply any abandonment of Italian claims on Zone B."

Horse Artillery. Across the Adriatic in the land of Tito, the reaction was more violent and menacing than the Western powers had anticipated. Yugoslavs rolled onto the streets of Belgrade swinging placards (WE WILL GIVE OUR LIVES, BUT NOT AN INCH OF TRIESTE! TRIESTE IS OURS!) and chanting slogans ("Trieste or death!" "Down with Britain and America!"). At the U.S. and British embassies and the Italian legation, crowds cascaded stones and bricks through windows and doorways.

At first, hardheaded Marshal Tito reacted with comparative mildness. The Anglo-American plan was, in fact, almost identical to one the British say Tito approved privately less than a year ago in talks with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, except that the new plan does not try to freeze the division of territory. Tito called on his cops to quiet the street crowds, but the marching, chanting demonstrations spread. In his manipulation of the touchy Trieste issue, Tito had apparently whipped his people to a higher emotional pitch than he recognized, and intermixed the issue with his own prestige --a serious mistake for a dictator caught precariously between a people he is not sure of, a Soviet government that hates him for a heretic, and cautious Western friends who mistrust him for being a passionate Communist. The public reaction now stirred Dictator Tito to a more dangerous course.

Belgrade rushed troops, tanks and horse artillery to Zone B. Before a rally of 100,000 Yugoslavs, Tito fired tempers further: he demanded a different Trieste solution--one which would entrust to Italy only the city and give all the rest to Yugoslavia--and warned that, unless it is accepted, "there will be no peace in this part of Europe." "We would give up [Western] aid," said Tito, "but we will never give up these interests." Then he vowed that if Italy sends in troops to occupy Zone A, Yugoslavia will consider it "an act of aggression" and send the Yugoslav army to drive them out.

Tito's Deputy Foreign Minister, Koca Popovic, rushed to Washington from the United Nations to discuss the situation with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, told reporters that the matter looks "very grave." Moscow chimed in with formal notes to Washington and London calling the Trieste move a "grave violation" of the six-year-old Italian peace treaty.

Admittedly worried by the violence of Yugoslavia's reaction and the limb Tito had climbed out on, Western diplomats nonetheless held fast, figuring that, given time. Tito will cool himself and his people down. They do not believe, in other words, that the dictator of Yugoslavia is willing or able to go to war for Trieste.

* Zone A covers 86 square miles, includes 246,500 Italians, mostly in the city of Trieste, and some 63,000 Slovenes in the hinterland. Zone B, 199 square miles, holds 43,000 Slovenes, some 30,000 Italians living mostly in Italianized coastal communities.

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