Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce and the evolution of psychological warfare in Italy

Abstract

Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce (Italy, 1953–56) exemplified American arrogance and intrusiveness in allies' domestic affairs. Connected to the inner circle of ‘psychological warriors’ in the Eisenhower administration, she was also a catalyst for action from Washington. This archival-based article shows how Luce's frontal attack on communist power, while often counterproductive, was also balanced by her discerning use of diplomacy, which deeply influenced the interplay between Italy's domestic and foreign policies. Luce also critically reassessed the effects of US mass culture in Italy. In political as well as intellectual circles, she did not exclusively favour Italy's unconditional supporters of the United States. Reflecting Washington's renewed flexibility, she also dealt with political and cultural leaders who nurtured autonomy and mild criticism of the United States. This flexibility, often going beyond Luce's will or expectations, helped counteract the most virulently anti-American representatives of Italian Marxism.

Notes

Alessandro Brogi, Associate Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, has written extensively on US Cold War relations with Western Europe. His most recent book is titled Confronting America: The Cold War between the United States and the Communists in France and Italy (University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

 [1] Four women had preceded Luce in the role of US chiefs of mission: Ruth Bryan Owen (Denmark, 1933–36), Florence Jaffray Harriman (Norway, 1937–41), Perle Mesta (Luxembourg, 1949–53), and Eugenie Anderson (Denmark, 1949–53). Cf. Nash, ‘Ambassador Eugenie Anderson’; Nash, ‘A Woman's Touch’.

 [2] Mistry also shows this transcendence in ‘The Case’, and ‘the Dynamics’.

 [3] See especially Del Pero, ‘American Pressures’; Del Pero, L'alleato scomodo; Guasconi, L'altra faccia della medaglia; Rabel, Between East and West; De Leonardis, La ‘diplomazia atlantica’; Romero, ‘La scelta atlantica’; Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti. For an analysis of Italian historiography on this period see esp. Varsori, ‘Cold War History’, 161–71.

 [4] Eisenhower in Gaddis, Strategies, 152.

 [5] See e.g. National Archives College Park, MD (hereafter NA), Record Group (hereafter RG) 59, 865.00, Intelligence Report in desp. 4352 Key (Rome) to Sec. State, 22 November 1946; NA, RG286, FRC accession 53A441, ‘S10b Country Submissions’, ‘Italy: ERP Program for April–June 1948’, 30 April 1948; Miller, The United States, 191–3; Harry S. Truman Presidential Library (hereafter HSTL), Staff Members and Office Files (SMOF), PSB, Box 11, Memo ‘French and Italian Elections’, 6 July 1951.

 [6] FRUS, 1947, III, Dunn to Secretary of State, 3 and 7 May, 1947, 889–92 and 895–7, second one also in Mistry, ‘The Case’, 307 (cf. this account also on definition of ‘political warfare’).

 [7] Memo ‘French and Italian Elections’, 6 July 1951, cit.

 [8] HSTL, SMO, PSB, Psychological Strategy Board, ‘Notes on a Grand Strategy for Psychological Operations’, 1 October 1951, also in Del Pero, ‘The United States and Psychological Warfare’, 1305; Lilly, ‘The Psychological Strategy Board’, 363 ff.; Hixson, Parting the Curtain, 16–19; DDRS, 1996, 2901D. On OPC reassignment: HSTL, SMOF, PSB, Box 31, Memo Davis, 24 October 1951; NA, RG59, PSB Records, Box 1, Bruce to Secretary of State, 27 December 1951; NA, RG 59, 751.00, Bonbright to Webb, 19 September 1951; HSTL, SMOF, PSB, Box 23, Memo by LENAP Committee (coordinating the two plans), 23 July 1952.

 [9] On this point see esp. Mistry, ‘Dynamics’.

[10] HTML, SMOF, PSB, Box 24, PSB, Panel C, Sub-Committee on Present Actions, ‘Reduction of Communist Strength and Influence in France and Italy’, 26 October 1951; Idem, Box 5, PSB D-14 ‘Psychological Operations for the Reduction of Communist Power in France – ‘Cloven’’, (best version 12 December 1951); and Idem, Box 7, PSB D-15, ‘Psychological Operations […) in Italy – ‘Demagnetize’’, 21 February 1951; NARA, RG 59, PSB Recs., Box 2, Scheme of Attack, Panel ‘C’, 24 September1951.

[11] HSTL, SMOF, PSB, Box 23, Mtg. LENAP, 8 October 1952; NARA, RG59, 511.51, Dunn to State Department, 26 August 1952, 511.51.

[12] FRUS, 1952–54, VI, Dunn to State Department, 25 July 1952, 1234–35.

[13] See Miller, ‘Roughhouse’, 298; cf. Del Pero, L'alleato scomodo, 116–23; Guasconi, L'altra faccia, 65–92; Filippelli, American Labor (in general for a background on US intervention in Italy's trade unions). Best on State Department's opposition is Lucas, Freedom's War, 143–54.

[14] Formigoni, L'Italia dei cattolici, 135–49; Domenico, ‘For the Cause of Christ’; Del Pero, ‘Containing Containment’; Vezzosi, ‘La sinistra’; Pombeni, Le ‘Cronache Sociali’.

[15] Quoted in Ninkovich, Modernity and Power, 212.

[16] Quoted in Osgood, Total Cold War, 154. On the administration's efforts in ‘white propaganda’ see esp. Yarrow, ‘Selling a New Vision’, 28–40, in particular.

[17] See esp. Osgood, Total Cold War, 55, 82–8.

[18] See esp. Osgood, Total Cold War, 55, 88–93.

[19] NA, RG84, Paris Embassy Recs., European Defense Community and International Organizations Files, 1951–55, Dillon to Secretary of State, 31 March 1954.

[20] Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, KS (hereafter DDEL), Ann Whitman Files (AW) International Series, Box 30, Folder 7, Luce to Eisenhower, 11 April 1955; DDEL, John Foster Dulles Papers (JFD), Correspondence and Memoranda Series, Strictly Confidential, Box 2, Letter C.B. Luce to J.F. Dulles, 15 June 1956; Shadegg, Clare Boothe Luce, 247.

[21] Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington DC (hereafter LC), Clare B. Luce Papers (hereafter CBLP), Box X22, Luce to Henry Luce, 31 October 1954; DDEL, C.D. Jackson Papers, Box 70, Folder ‘Luce, Henry and Clare’, Luce to C.D. Jackson, 29 September 1954; NA, RG59, 765.00, Mtg. Luce-Segni (Italian Prime Minister), 24 August 1956. Cf. Ortona, Anni d'America, 151–76.

[22] DDEL, White House Office (WHO), NSC Staff, Operations Coordinating Board Central Files, Box 82, Progress Report on various Psychological Operation in France and Italy, by OCB, 23 February 1954; NA, RG59, 765.001, Memo Conversation Clare B. Luce with Sogno, 1 April 1954; on these aspects cf. Guasconi, L'altra faccia, 136–47, and Tobia, Advertising America, 223–45.

[23] On inner circle: Hixson, Parting the Curtain, 22–37; Cook, Declassified Eisenhower, 123–7; Martin, Henry and Clare, 301 ff. Cf. NA, RG59, Policy Planning Staff Recs., Lot File 64D563, Box 72e ‘Italy’, Luce to Gen. Alfred Gruenther, 11 December 1953; DDEL, Gruenther Papers, Box 1, Gruenther to Luce, 18 December 1953; Luce to J.F. Dulles, 15 June 1956, cit.; One State Department official described Secretary Dulles as ‘obsessed with his God-ordained mission to reverse the tide of international communism’: Broadwater, Anti-Communist Crusade, 114.

[24] Ortona, Anni d'America, 124–7, 130; Canavero, ‘La politica estera’, 93–6; Bedeschi-Magrini, ‘Spunti revisionistici’, 60–61.

[25] See DDEL, JFD, General Correspondence Serries, Box 5, Memo Conv. Ellsworth Bunker – J.F. Dulles, 31 January 1953; DDEL, AW, Administration Series, Luce to Eisenhower, 25 August 1956; Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome, Italy (hereafter, ASMAE), Fondo Cassaforte, Box 4 (C.B. Luce), De Ferraris (New York) to Tarchiani (Washington), 6 January 1953, and tel. 3238 Rossi Longhi to Ministero Affari Esteri (MAE), 23 March 1954; on Tarchiani see: Ortona, Anni d'America, 16–17, 72–3; Gastone Guidotti quoted in Sulzberger, A Long Row, 983 (see also Nash, ‘Acid-Tongued Diplomat’ – I wish to thank Philip Nash for sharing this last source with me).

[26] See esp. Del Pero, ‘American Pressures’; Guasconi, L'altra faccia; Tobia, Advertising America; Brogi , L'Italia e l'egemonia.

[27] On Luce's speech in Milan: FRUS, 1952–54, VI, Luce to C.D. Jackson, 18 June 1953, 1612–13; LC, CBLP, box 602, folder 1, letter Luce to J. F. Dulles, 19 June 1953; on Luce and the Italian press see esp. Bruti Liberati, Words, 216–21. On contacts with anti-communist hard-liners: DDEL, C.D. Jackson Papers, box 70, folder ‘Luce, Henry and Clare (1954)’, Luce to C.D. Jackson, 29 September 1954; NA, RG59, 765.00, Mtg. Engle-Costa, 26 April 1954, Mtg. Durbrow–Stabler–Almirante–Anfuso, 29 April 1954, Mtg. Durbrow–Stabler–Anfuso–Michelini, 4 August 1954; DDEL, AW, Intl. Series, box 33, folder ‘Italy’, Luce to Eisenhower, (no date) April 1955 (quoted ‘Kerenski’).

[28] NA, RG59, 765.001, De Gasperi in Thompson to Sec. State, 26 July 1951; quoted LC, CBLP, box X22, Luce to Henry Luce, 31 October 1954; Del Pero, ‘Containing Containment’; Del Pero, L'alleato scomodo, 207–95; cf. Ferraresi, Threats to Democracy.

[29] Archivio del Partito Comunista Italiano, Istituto Gramsci, Rome, Italy (hereafter APCI) Verbali di Direzione (VD), microfilm (mf) 131, quoted ‘Risoluzione della Direzione del Partito’ 20 June 1953; see also in APCI, Meeting Direzione (Mtg. Direz.) Togliatti's intervention, 17 June 1953; Togliatti, ‘Ma come sono cretini!’ L'Unità, 20 May 1947; APCI, VD, Mtg. Direz. Pajetta, 9 December 1954.

[30] See e.g. Corsini, ‘Gli intellettuali europei’; Chiaretti, ‘Al marito dell'ambasciatrice’; Editorial, ‘Il senso unico di Alcide De Gasperi’, Vie Nuove, no. 21 (1953).

[31] Miller, ‘Roughhouse’, 303–4. Dulles quoted in FRUS 1952–54, I, Memo by Secretary of State to the President, 23 July 1953, 1462–4.

[32] ASMAE, Direzione Generale Affari Politici (hereafter DGAP), box 1093, Tel. [phone] Brosio to Martino, 29 November 1955, and Quaroni to Martino 6 April 1956; ASMAE, DGAP, box 440, Brosio to Ministero degli Affari Esteri (MAE), 22 and 29 February, 1956; NA, RG59, 765.11, Memo Elbrick (WEA) to Dulles, 29 February 1956. Cf. Brogi, ‘Competing Missions’, 755–60; Villani, ‘Un liberale’, 79–122; and, in general Brogi, ‘Fanfani’.

[33] Bazzoli and Renzi, Il miracolo, 166–76; Frankel, Mattei, 94–6, 140; Maugeri, L'arma; Tremolada, ‘Mattei, Fanfani’. On Mattei's internal activities: FRUS, 1952–54, VI, Tasca to Henry Luce, 24 August 1954, and Jones (WEA) to Durbrow, 16 September 1954, 1699–1702; Tasca to Merchant, 28 June 1955, cit.

[34] For an extensive argument on these issues and the interplay of Italy's domestic and foreign policies see Brogi, L'Italia e l'egemonia; Brogi, A Question, chap. 6; see also Brogi, ‘Ike and Italy’, and, for a general interpretation, Brogi, ‘Orizzonti’.

[35] For an analysis also emphasising Fanfani's embrace of a rather pluralist and putatively pacifist approach to foreign policy see Martelli, L'altro atlantismo, 17–26; and for a background to that approach see esp. Formigoni, ‘La rifondazione’.

[36] See e.g. Luce to Eisenhower, April 1955, cit.; ASMAE, Serie Telegrammi Ordinari (USA), Fanfani to Ortona, 13 October 1956; Shaddegg, Clare Boothe Luce, 262–5; Martin, Henry and Clare, 331–4. Quoted LC, CBLP, box 642, folder 7, Ambassador File, Subj. File, ‘State Dept. Resignation 1956’, US Embassy Rome to State Dept., ‘Official Radio Broadcast on Ambassador Luce's Resignation’, with attachment, ‘script of the RAI English Broadcast’, 20 November 1956. Eisenhower, on the occasion of Luce's failed appointment to the ambassadorship in Brazil in 1959, lavished praise on her record as ambassador to Italy: Public Papers , ‘The President's News Conference of April 29, 1959’, 344.

[37] Quoted NA, RG59, 611.65, Luce to Dulles, 10 October 1956; Memo Conv. Luce-Segni, cit.; cf. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 108–27; quoted LC, CBLP, Box X60, Memos, Interoffice 1956, Tasca to Luce, 18 February 1956; cf. Miller, ‘Roughhouse’, 306–9.

[38] Quoted DDEL, AW, NSC Series, A. Dulles in 394^th NSC Mtg., 22 January 1959; see also Idem, 395^th NSC Mtg., 29 January 1959. On this phase of the ‘Opening to the Left’ see also Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti, 62–7, and Nuti, ‘The United States’, 41–3.

[39] Quoted C.B. Luce to J.F. Dulles, 15 June 1956, cit.

[40] DDEL, Gruenther Papers, Gen. Corresp. Series, Box 11, Gruenther to C.B. Luce, 3 March 1953; DDEL, JFD Papers, Chron. Series, tel. convs. subs., box 1, Conv. Eisenhower-Dulles, 6 October 1953; LC, CBLP, Box 604, folder 6, Luce to Emmet J. Hughes, 15 July 1953; FRUS, 1952–54, VIII, Dulles to Dept. State, 24 April 1954 and Luce to Dept. State, 4 May 1954, 416–22.

[41] Quoted FRUS 1952—54, V, Luce to Dept. State, 1 July 1954, 992–4; Eisenhower, The White House Years, 409, 416; this is what occasioned Rossi Longhi's recommendation for a ‘nurturing’ approach to Ambassador Luce: Rossi Longhi to MAE, cit.; cf. Ortona, Anni d'America, 72–3, and ASMAE, Fondo Cassaforte, b. 27, Rep. 2151 Tarchiani to Piccioni, 18 February 1954; see also Rabel, Between East and West, 147–9, 157–62, De Leonardis, ‘La diplomazia atlantica’, 281–495; for different thesis, Valdevit, ‘Italia, Jugoslavia’, esp. 55. On Italy's contribution to the ‘relaunching’ of European integration see esp. Varsori, La Cenerentola, 119–58; cf. Romero, ‘L'Europa’.

[42] FRUS, 1952–54, VI, Luce to Dept. State, 7 August 1953, 1626. Quoted DDEL, AW, Adm. Series, Box 25, Memo Luce to Eisenhower, 20 August 1954; see also FRUS, 1952–54, Luce to Eisenhower, 31 August 1954.

[43] DDEL, AW, Dulles–Herter Series, Box 3, ‘Notes to discuss with John Foster Dulles’, 10 July 1954.

[44] DDRS (1989), doc. 3426, Eisenhower quoted from Mtg. Eisenhower-Dulles, 5 February 1957.

[45] Quoted ASMAE, DGAP, Box 1093, Quaroni to Martino (Italian Foreign Minister), 6 April 1956, see also ASMAE, DGAP, Box 1093, Quaroni to Martino, 17 August 1956; cf. ASMAE, DGAP, Box 1062, Quaroni to Martino, 3 October 1956; ASMAE, Fondo Cassaforte, Box 7, Quaroni to MAE, 3 August 1951; cf. DGAP, box 439, Ortona (New York) to Martino, 29 August 1956; NA, RG59, 611.65, Meeting Brosio (Italian Ambassador to Washington), Rountree, etc., 30 October 1956. Cf. Tosi, ‘Tra politica ed economia’.

[46] Ortona to Martino, 29 August 1956, cit.; ASMAE, DGAP, Box 1092, Memorandum Office III DGAP, (no date) March 1956; ASMAE, TO, Ambasciata Washington, vol. 1957, Ortona to MAE, 5 September 1957, and Tels. 1072, 1082 Brosio to MAE, 8 and 10 December1957; ASMAE, Segreteria di Gabinetto, Gab A/52, Box 119, folder 2, Annex 1 Visit Giuseppe Pella in the US of September 1957, drafted in December 1957. On this phase of Italian diplomacy see Brogi, L'Italia e l'egemonia, chaps. 4–7, and Brogi, ‘Ike and Italy’.

[47] The literature emphasising this correlation is now rather vast, but see most recently Varsori, La Cenerentola, esp. 121–56; De Leonardis, ‘L'atlantismo’, 253–61 (Quaroni cited, 257); and, for a strong emphasis on the DC's pro-Atlanticism even during Rome's pursuit of more room for maneuver, Gualtieri, L'Italia, 130–43; cf. Brogi, ‘Orizzonti’; Brogi, ‘Competing Missions’. Cf. Archivio storico del Senato della Repubblica, Fondo Amintore Fanfani, box 31, folder 2, Amintore Fanfani, ‘La crisi del comunismo e la Democrazia cristiana’, Speech at Nouvelles Equipes Internationales Conference, Arezzo, 24–27 April 1957, also in Martelli, L'altro atlantismo, 18.

[48] FRUS, 1952–54, VIII, Luce to Dept. State, 4 May 1954, 416–22; FRUS, 1955–57, IV, Dulles to Eisenhower, 5 May 1956, 75.

[49] Quoted NA, RG59, 665.80, Jernegan to Dulles, 11 September 1957; see also NA, RG59, 765.13, Earl Sohm (Rome) to State Dept., 27 August 1958; cf. Brogi, ‘Ike and Italy’, 28–9; Brogi, A Question, 237–44.

[50] DDEL, AW, Eisenhower Diary Series, Box 11, August 1955(1), Eisenhower to Rockefeller, 5 August 1955; NA, RG59, 511.51, USIS Semi-Annual Evaluation Report of Activities in France, 15 July 1952.

[51] On these aspects and the ‘instrumentality’ of US détente initiatives see esp. Osgood, Total Cold War.

[52] Del Pero, ‘The United States and Psychological Warfare’, 1330.

[53] DDEL, AW File, Adm. Series, Box 25, Luce (letter) to Eisenhower, 20 August 1954 (pp. 34–5); on Luce's flexibility and opposition to McCarthyist attacks on the State Department see also LC, CBLP, Box 605, folder 8, Luce to Joseph Martin, 19 January 1954; on US adaptation: Brogi, A Question, chap. 6.

[54] Luce to Eisenhower, 20 August 1954, cit.

[55] DDEL, White House Office Files, NSC Staff Files, PSB, Box 14, PSB D-37, 9 February 1953, ‘Evaluations of the Psychological Impact of U.S. Foreign Economic Policies and Programs in France’. Cf. Sartre, ‘Individualism and Conformism’, 110–11.

[56] Eisenhower quoted in Osgood, Total Cold War, 54 (also 57). For a comparison, see also Caute, The Dancer.

[57] The heavy Soviet funding of the PCI in general has been documented, especially in Riva, Oro.

[58] Quoted Caute, The Dancer, 6—8; cf. Zubok, A Failed Empire, 103–4; Flores, L'immagine, 343–74.

[59] Letter Luce to J.F. Dulles, 15 June 1956, cit. For a good collection of essays on this theme see Craveri and Quagliarello, L'antiamericanismo.

[60] Quoted in Scott-Smith, The Politics, 43.

[61] Quoted in Wreszin, A Rebel, 254–5.

[62] Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism, 3. Eisenhower quoted in Domenach, ‘Le Modèle américain’, 1364.

[63] Ellwood, ‘Il cinema’, 25–6; NA, RG59, 511.51, Semi-Annual Evaluation of Cultural Activities (by Leslie S. Brady), 31 May 1950. For a summary of Italian Americans' complaints: DDEL, JFD Papers, Gen. Corresp. Series, Box 5, Letter John N. La Corte to J.F. Dulles, 17 February 1953; cf. NA, RG59, 511.65, Progress Report by Lloyd A. Free (director USIS Italy) to State Dept., 24 February 1953, and C. Burke Elbrick to William F. Clark (Asst. Director for Europe), 24 July 1956; for a background on US style in propaganda, and their impact on the PCI: Ellwood, ‘The Propaganda’.

[64] APCI, VD, mf 191, Salinari, ‘Promemoria sul lavoro culturale’ to PCI Secretariat, in Mtg. Direzione 11 July 1951. Cf. Trevisani, ‘La cultura popolare’. On the PCI's confrontation with American mass culture see esp. Gundle, Between Hollywood and Moscow; Guiso, La colomba e la spada, 517–28; Lazar, ‘The Cold War Culture’, 221–2; Portelli, ‘The Transatlantic Jeremiad’; and essays in D'Attorre, Nemici. For general context see De Grazia, Irresistible Empire; Teodori, Maledetti americani.

[65] APCI, VD, mf 117, Alicata in Mtg. Direz. 18 March 1955. On Togliatti's role in the cultural field see esp. Vittoria, Togliatti.

[66] NA, RG59, 511.65, Lloyd A. Free to State Dept., with ‘1954–55 IIA Prospectus for Italy - Program Statement’, 13 May 1953. On this evolution see esp. Tobia, Advertising America, 183–222, 268–80; cf. also Bruti Liberati, Words.

[67] E.g. NA, RG84, Entry 2783, Rome Emb. Recs., Recs. of C.B. Luce 1955–57, Box 8, Semi-Annual USIS Report for Italy, January–June 1955, 20 July 1955; but also contradictions in Luce to Dulles, 15 June 1956, cit.

[68] Free to State Dept., 13 May 1953, cit.; cf. Tobia, Advertising America, 261–8.

[69] NA, RG84, Entry 2783, Rome Emb. Recs., Recs. of C.B. Luce, USIS to USIA, ‘Italy Country Action Plan’, 30 August 1955.

[70] Quoted Pells, Not Like Us, 69; see also Berghahn, America; Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy; Saunders, The Cultural Cold War; Scott-Smith, The Politics.

[71] As argued in Scott-Smith, The Politics.

[72] For a critical assessment of this definition see esp. Berghahn, ‘The Debate’.

[73] John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston, MA, President's Office Files, Countries Files, Box 119A, Memo Schlesinger for President (visit Fanfani), 10 June 1961.

[74] For the best thorough account on these developments see Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti.