Allo, Americani

San Marino, the 38-square-mile republic which sits on three prongs of the Apennines in northeastern Italy, is the only country outside the Iron Curtain that has a Red government. A coalition of Communists (17) and Nenni Socialists (14) rules the country against a parliamentary opposition of Demo-Christians (26) and Neo-Fascists (3). The Communist coalition, which won by only 139 votes in 1951, has done its best to make of San Marino a showpiece of Socialist effort. It has built roads, houses, hotels; it has eliminated unemployment, established old-age pensions and given women civic rights (but not the vote). Where once, after years of Fascist rule, only a stony path led to San Marino, a smooth motor road now brings thousands of dollars in tourist trade every year.

The voting trick that put the Communists where they are in San Marino arises from the fact that, of San Marino's 6,700 eligible male voters, some 1,700 live out of the country, mostly as migrant laborers. By paying round-trip fares for many of these expatriates at election time, the Communists rounded up enough votes to swing into power.

This year, the Demo-Christians decided to beat the Communists at their own game. But though the Demo-Christians considered the expatriate vote in Italy, France and Belgium, their possible gain still looked too small to win, until Myriam Michelotti, daughter of the local pastry cook, had an idea: What about the San Marinese in America? Myriam, a fiery suffragette who believes that if women had the vote, the San Marino Reds would soon be out of office, flew to the U.S. and persuaded 127 San Marinese to come home to vote.

Last week all San Marino was waiting for the arrival of 70 American migrants who had chartered a plane from New York to Milan. As the returnees drove in, they found the walls plastered with posters of the Communist coalition: "Welcome, compatriot from beyond the sea. We are certain that when you leave again, you won't want to carry back with you the remorse of having betrayed your brothers who have struggled so hard to win today's prosperity." But to the locals, the Communists argued that these were interlopers whose $12,000 plane fare might better have been spent on social measures.

San Marinese greeted the prosperous-looking migrants with friendly cries of "Allo, Americani" but when the voters went to the polls this week, they voted back the Reds with a far greater majority than last time.

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