Uomo di Equilibria

The man on the rostrum in the old papal courthouse where Italy's Chamber of Deputies fights its stormy battles had the broad, florid face of a peasant surmounted by a thatch of obstreperous, oiled-down red hair. But the voice that came out was the courtly, confident baritone of a man who, to the surprise of almost all concerned, has blossomed almost overnight into Italy's leading statesman. For two hours last week, Premier Giuseppe Pella ranged over Italy's relations with the rest of the world.

When he let drop a few kind words for Spain, deputies on the far left benches jeered and cackled in distaste. "If you'll just be patient," said Pella gently, "I will come later on to countries more interesting to you." The center and right burst into laughter. Then, taking up Trieste, he recalled how Pietro Nenni, 'now leader of Italy's fellow-traveling Socialists, had once, while in the Foreign Ministry, instructed Italian diplomats to press for a Trieste proposal that Nenni now opposed. It was a telling point, but Pella did not try to rub it in. Instead, he faced Nenni and said simply: "Those were instructions that redound to your honor."

The badly divided Chamber of Deputies responded with a vote (293 to 200) that represented a healthy show of confidence in Giuseppe Pella. Three days later he returned with his happy news on Trieste. Said a man in the press gallery: "This doesn't look like a temporary government."

New Actor. Giuseppe Pella took office last August as a "caretaker" Premier, succeeding the experienced Alcide de Gasperi, and prepared to fade away after he got his budget through Parliament. But by last week, after he had been in office only 47 days, Italians inside Parliament and out were calling robust Giuseppe Pella uomo di equilibria (man of balance). Said a parliamentary deputy: "My bet is that five years from now [when national elections will be held], it will be Premier Pella who will be presenting his record to the voters for further approval."

Born 51 years ago in a sharecropper's cottage near Biella in the Piedmont, Pella was so bright in school that his parents were relieved of school taxes. Papa and Mamma Pella worked days and nights in a Piedmont spinning mill to send their only child on to the University of Turin (finance and economics) and into the business world. At 30 he commanded big fees as a consultant to the Piedmont textile industry. He went to Rome in 1946 as a parliamentary deputy; a year later Luigi Einaudi, now Italy's President, took him into the Finance Ministry to help promote his hard-money policy. Pella took with him his boyhood concern for pennies and his businessman's love for the solid lira, and soon became De Gasperi's Finance Minister. To keep the lira stable, he fought tenaciously against many of his party who wanted vote-catching spending programs. Once, in 1951, he resigned rather than give in, bringing the government down with him. De Gasperi formed a new Cabinet and persuaded Pella to come back. In Parliament, a rightist deputy once insisted that if he would allow a little more inflation, workers' wages also would rise. "Yes," replied Pella, "But the trouble is that prices will go up by the elevator, while wages will have to climb the stairs."

Lira-Pinching. As Premier. Pella has stuck to caution in domestic affairs and well-timed excursions into foreign affairs to build his popularity in the country. Employing the almost forgotten wile of courtesy, he has so far won the support of the Monarchists and toned down enemies like Togliatti and Nenni. He still treats each lira as if it were the last of the species: he never uses the Premier's special railroad car, has dismissed his police-escort car, recently borrowed a tiny Fiat for a vacation trip instead of using his gas-greedy Alfa Romeo. With his wife and daughter Wanda, he lives in a simple apartment in Rome's newest apartment-house district, sometimes visits his old (77) mother, who still lives near Biella among the effects of a half-century ago. She consented to have a radio and a telephone in her house only because her visiting son had to know what was going on. ("I am afraid of modern things," she explains.)

As Premier, Foreign Minister and Budget Minister, Pella puts in a ten- to twelve-hour day every day except Sunday, and he even forgoes the honored Italian siesta. So far, most Italians think he has used the time well.

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