Italian Public Opinion in the Atomic Age: Mass-market Magazines Facing Nuclear Issues (1963–1967)

Abstract

Through the analysis of a wide range of Italian mass-market magazines and a selection of public opinion surveys, this essay investigates widespread images and perceptions about nuclear issues in Italy during the Sixties. It considers the views of Italians about nuclear weapons within foreign policy debates, as well as the wide range of fears expressed about the atomic bomb. The article also analyses the image of anti-nuclear movements, as well as Italians’ views on disarmament and the easing of international relations after 1962. Deeply influenced by ideological divides and filtered through the mechanisms of mass culture – which tended to trivialise the bomb – these widespread representations of nuclear issues offer a unique perspective on Italians’ beliefs, fears, and hopes during a time of deep socio-economic change and shifting political equilibriums in the country.

Keywords:

• Atomic culture
• nuclear weapons
• Italian public opinion
• Italian illustrated magazines
• disarmament
• trivialisation

Notes

¹ Leopoldo Nuti, La sfida nucleare. La politica estera italiana e le armi atomiche, 1945–1991 (Bologna: il Mulino, 2007), 7.

² Elisabetta Bini and Igor Londero (eds.), Nuclear Energy in the Twentieth Century: New International Approaches, Contemporanea, 18, no 4, (2015), 618.

³ Nuti, La sfida nucleare, cit., 8.

⁴ For a survey of recent developments of historical research on nuclear issues in Italy see the essay by Bini and Londero.

⁵ See above all Dick van Lente (ed.), The Nuclear Age in Popular Media. A Transational History, 1945–1965 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

⁶ Lawrence S. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb. A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 442–448.

⁷ Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press) 1994, XI. For a different interpretation and periodization see for example Margot A. Henriksen, Dr. Strangleove’s America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age (Berkley: University of California Press, 1997) and also Scott C. Zeman and Michael A. Amundson, ‘Introduction’, in Atomic Culture. How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, ed. Zeman and Amundson (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2004).

⁸ Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, cit., 355. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, cit., 447.

⁹ Ignazio Weiss, Il Potere di carta (Torino: UTET, 1965), 428.

¹⁰ Nello Ajello, ‘Rotocalco,’ in Dizionario universale della letteratura contemporanea (Milano: Mondadori, 1962). Paolo Murialdi, Storia del giornalismo italiano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996), 250.

¹¹ Ajello, ‘Il settimanale d’attualità’, in La stampa italiana del neocapitalismo, ed. Valerio Castronovo and Nicola Tranfaglia (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1976), 205.

¹² Francesco Pistolese, ‘Carta e matita agli scienziati’, Vie Nuove, 31 October 1963, 18.

¹³ Ajello, ‘Il settimanale di attualità,’ cit., 202 and 218.

¹⁴ Ibid., 203–204.

¹⁵ Ibid., 218–219.

¹⁶ La bella addormentata. Morfologia e struttura del settimanale italiano (Parma: Istituto di Storia dell’arte, 1972), 105.

¹⁷ For 1963 figures see the letter of Amerigo Terenzi dated 11 December 1963, Archivi Partito Comunista (APC), Segreteria, 31 January 1964, mf 028, pp. 1235-1240, Istituto Gramsci (IG), Rome. For 1966 figures see the data mentioned by Armando Cossutta during a Direzione of the party in July 1966 (APC, Direzione, 6 July 1966, mf 018, p. 00700, IG) and also the pamphlet ‘Conferenza nazionale della stampa comunista. Rapporto di Emanuele Macaluso. Intervento di Luigi Longo. Risoluzione. Roma, 16-17 dicembre 1966’ (APC, Sezione stampa e propaganda, mf 0530, p. 2436, IG). On Vie Nuove see Stephen Gundle, Between Hollywood and Moscow. The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943-1991 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000).

¹⁸ For the circulation of the periodicals here analysed (except Vie Nuove) see Ajello, ‘Il settimanale di attualità’, cit., 173–249; Laura Lilli, ‘La stampa femminile’, in La stampa italiana del neocapitalismo, cit.; Mario Marazziti, ‘Cultura di massa e valori cattolici: il modello di ‘Famiglia Cristiana’’, in Pio XII, ed. Andrea Riccardi (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1984), 307–333; La bella addormentata, cit.

¹⁹ Van Lente, ‘Introduction,’ in Id., The Nuclear Age in Popular Media, cit., especially 5–6.

²⁰ Ajello, ‘Il settimanale di attualità,’ cit., 223.

²¹ On Settimana Incom see Augusto Sainati (ed.), La Settimana Incom. Cinegiornali e informazione negli anni Cinquanta (Torino: Lindau, 2001).

²² The surveys carried out in Western Europe here taken into consideration were coordinated and initiated by USIA, but carried out by polling agencies of the individual Western European countries involved, with no indication given to interviewees of any American connection with the survey, to reduce the likelihood of any biases in responses. On the data gathered by the USIA international survey program in Europe and their use in academic research see Richard L. Merritt and Donald J. Puchala (eds.), Western European Perspectives on International Affairs. Public Opinion Studies and Evaluations (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968).

²³ ‘Public Opinion about NATO and Nuclear Issues in Western Europe’, July 1963; Box 15, R-91-6 thru R-135-63, folder R-100-63; US Information Agency (USIA), Office of Research, Research Reports, 1960-1999, Record Group 306; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (NARA).

²⁴ ‘West European attitudes towards U.S.-Soviet Relations and Recent Disarmament Developments (World Survey Series)’, September 1964; Box 21, R-111-64 through R-150-64, folder R-142-64; USIA, Office of Research, Research Reports, 1960-1999, RG 306, NARA.

²⁵ ‘West European Attitudes on the Outcome of the Cuban Crisis’, July 1963; Box 15, R-91-6 through R-135-63, folder R-102-63; USIA, Office of Research, Research Reports, 1960-1999, RG 306, NARA.

²⁶ Giorgio Pecorini, ‘Le sorprese dell’atomo’, L’Europeo, 8 September 1963, 36–39.

²⁷ Sennuccio Bennelli and Franco Fedeli, ‘Dalla massa alla qualità’, Tempo, 25 November 1964, 36–37.

²⁸ See Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, cit., 237.

²⁹ ‘Memorandum for the President, Public Opinion in Italy Prior to the Elections’, 5/8/63; Box 20, S-56–62 through S-36–63, folder S-33–63; USIA, Office of Research, Special reports (S), 1953–1997, RG 306, NARA.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ ‘West European public opinion on disarmament’, July 1963; Box 15, R-91-6 thru R-135-63, folder R-103-63; Office of Research, Research Reports 1960-1969, RG 306, NARA. See also for earlier evaluations ‘Current West European opinion on some disarmament issues. Preliminary Report Based Upon Early Returns’, March 1963; Box 20, S-56-62 thru S-36-63, folder S-16-63; USIA, Office of Research, Special Reports (S), 1953-1997, RG 306, NARA.

³² Ibid.

³³ ‘West European Attitudes Toward U.S.-Soviet Relation and Recent Disarmament Developments (World Survey Series)’, September 1964; Box 21, R-111-64 thru R-150-64, folder R-142-64; USIA, Office of Research, Research Reports, 1960-1999, RG 306, NARA.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ Domenico Bartoli, ‘Torna la Guerra Fredda’, Epoca, 4 June 1967, 27.

³⁶ Giulio Andreotti, ‘Se vuoi la pace prepara la pace’, Oggi, 13 June 1963, 30–32.

³⁷ ‘Initial Media Reaction to the U.S.-U.K.-USSR Test Ban Agreement’, July 1963; Box 16, R-136-63 thru R-173-63, folder R-143-63; USIA, Office of Research, Research Reports, 1960-1999, RG 306, NARA.

³⁸ Giovanni Cavallotti, ‘C’è ancora chi ha fame di atomiche’, Gente, 9 August 1963, 3–4.

³⁹ Nuti, La sfida nucleare, cit., 317.

⁴⁰ On the debate on the national daily and party press in those months see Nuti, La sfida nucleare, cit., above all 316-317.

⁴¹ Antonio Gambino, ‘L’idillio nucleare tra Brezhnev e Johnson’, L’Espresso, 12 March 1967, 4.

⁴² Vice, ‘Anti-nucleari e arrivisti atomici’, Vie Nuove, 31 August 1967, 13.

⁴³ See for example Edoardo Amaldi, ‘Il trattato sulle atomiche potrà favorire l’industria pacifica’, Oggi, 11 May 1967, 20–22; Adriano Buzzati Traverso, ‘L’atomica in frigorifero’, L’Espresso, 5 March 1967, 10. On the public Italian debate on the NPT, and on the role played by scientists in the 1960s, see Matthew Evangelista, ‘Atomic Ambivalence: Italy’s Evolving Attitude toward Nuclear Weapons,’ in Italy's Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century. The New Assertiveness of an Aspiring Middle Power, eds. Giampiero Giacomello and Bertjan Verbeek (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011), especially 122–123. On Amaldi and the NPT see Lodovica Clavarino, Scienza e politica nell’era nucleare. La scelta pacifista di Edoardo Amaldi (Roma: Carocci, 2014), 149–161.

⁴⁴ ‘West European public opinion on disarmament’, July 1963, cit. See also ‘Memorandum for the President’, cit. For data on Western Europe see also ‘West European Attitudes on the Outcome of the Cuban Crisis’, July 1963, cit.

⁴⁵ ‘Some worldwide attitudes towards disarmament and nuclear issues’, July 1963; Box 16, R-136–63 thru R-173–63, folder R-142–63; USIA, Office of Research, Research Reports; 1960–1999, RG 306, NARA. See also Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, cit., 447–448.

⁴⁶ Gambino, ‘La guerra per caso non c’è stata’, L’Espresso, 6 January 1963, 4.

⁴⁷ See for example Mario Missiroli, ‘Missiroli interroga l’ambasciatore numero uno’, Epoca, 13 January 1963, 32–34; Alexandre Metaxas, ‘I cento volti della coesistenza’, Gente, 9 January 1964, 3–4; ‘Difficoltà nell’Alleanza Atlantica’, Famiglia Cristiana, 26 April 1964, 29.

⁴⁸ Tempo, 2 February 1963, 79.

⁴⁹ Oggi, 25 April 1963, 15. Tempo, 8 June 1963. ‘Turbano Londra le spie della pace’, Epoca, 28 April 1963, 23.

⁵⁰ On anti-nuclear movements in these years see Wittner, Resisting the Bomb, cit., 443–462; Renato Moro, ‘I movimenti antinucleari dagli anni Quaranta agli anni Sessanta’, in L’atomica. Scienza, cultura, politica, Nuti and Emilia Fiandra, eds. (Milano: Franco Angeli, 2014), 132–134. For L'Espresso commenting on Pugwash see Buzzati Traverso, ‘Gli scienziati federati aggrediscono la guerra’, L’Espresso, 25 April 1965, 14.

⁵¹ On peace and war in the Catholic Church in those years see above all Daniele Menozzi, Chiesa, pace e Guerra nel Novecento: Verso una delegittimazione dei conflitti (Bologna: il Mulino, 2008). On Italian Catholicism and peace issues in the postwar years, to the eve of the Vatican Council, see Moro, ‘The Catholic Church, Italian Catholics and Peace Movements: The Cold War Years, 1947–1962’, Contemporary European History, 17, no 3, (2008): 365–390.

⁵² Giovannino Guareschi, ‘Gio’ ha risolto la crisi del Vietnam’, Oggi, 2 February 1967, 59.

⁵³ Silvio Bertoldi, ‘Forse l’odio di Mao è nato il giorno che vide la testa mozza di sua moglie’, Oggi, 29 June 1967, 20–23.

⁵⁴ ‘West European attitudes towards U.S.-Soviet Relations and Recent Disarmament Developments (World Survey Series)’, cit.

⁵⁵ Luigi Barzini, ‘Il fungo cinese’, L’Europeo, 30 March 1967, 60–63.

⁵⁶ Gambino, ‘Un cinese in Europa’, L’Espresso, 4 August 1963, 3.

⁵⁷ Lino Rizzi, ‘L’uomo più discusso d’Europa, Oggi, 27 February 1964, 19–20.

⁵⁸ Barzini, L’Europeo, 15 March 1964, 14–21.

⁵⁹ Gianni Toti, ‘La società anonima atomica’, Vie Nuove, 3 December 1964, 12.

⁶⁰ Vie Nuove, 14 January 1965, 14.

⁶¹ Ricciardetto, ‘Chi si oppone al trattato sull’atomica?’, Epoca, 26 March 1967, 18–19.

⁶² ‘Public Opinion about NATO and Nuclear Issues in Western Europe’, cit.

⁶³ ‘West European attitudes towards U.S.-Soviet Relations and Recent Disarmament Developments (World Survey Series)’, cit.

⁶⁴ ‘Gli infaticabili delegati di Ginevra’, Famiglia Cristiana, 20 February 1966, 31.

⁶⁵ Tempo, 6 June 1967.

⁶⁶ Gambino, ‘Johnson vuole una seconda Corea’, L’Espresso, 3 July 1966, 4.

⁶⁷ The weekly had, earlier in 1963, already castigated American nuclear policy with the headline ‘Dead and Defeated or Victorious and Dead’ (‘Morti e vinti o vincitori e morti,’ Vie Nuove, 28 March 1963, 25–59).

⁶⁸ ‘La morte arriva ridendo’, L’Espresso, 15 August 1965, 14.

⁶⁹ Alfonso Gatto, ‘Il diluvio con la bomba a neutroni’, Vie Nuove, 23 June 1966, 26.

⁷⁰ David Stiles, ‘A Fusion Bomb Over Andalucía: U.S. Information Policy and the 1966 Palomares Incident’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 8, no 1 (2006): 52–53.

⁷¹ Sandro Viola, ‘Stranamore in Andalusia’, L’Espresso, 30 January 1966, 3.

⁷² On atomic popular culture in the United States see for example Zeman and Amundson (eds.), Atomic Culture, cit., especially A. Constandina Titus, ‘The Mushroom Cloud as Kitsch’, 101–123.

⁷³ See Laura Ciglioni, ‘Le guerre italiane nei rotocalchi degli anni Sessanta’, Mondo Contemporaneo, 1, 2010, 121–164.

⁷⁴ Roger Hilsman, ‘Una misteriosa telefonata scongiura la guerra per Cuba’, Epoca, 30 August 1964, 60–65.

⁷⁵ ‘È cominciata la gara per le fortezze spaziali’, L’Espresso, 5 September 1965, 9.

⁷⁶ Toti, ‘Cucina erotico-crudele’, Vie Nuove, 13 January 1966, 22.

⁷⁷ Edgar Morin, L’industria culturale. Saggio sulla cultura di massa (Bologna: il Mulino, 1963), 113–114.

⁷⁸ On the public debate, from the relative ‘apathy’ of the mid-1940s to a broader public discussion in the late 1950s and then in the 1960s see Evangelista, ‘Atomic Ambivalence’, cit., 119–120. See also Massimo De Giuseppe, ‘Gli italiani e la questione atomica negli anni Cinquanta’, Ricerche di storia politica, 1, 2000, 29–51.

⁷⁹ Marie-Hélène Labbé, La grand peur du nucléaire (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2000), 48–59 and 129–130.

⁸⁰ Hugh Berrington, ‘British Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons’, in Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons, eds. Catherine Marsh and Colin Fraser, (London: MacMillan Press, 1989), 34.

⁸¹ As Catherine Marsh and Colin Fraser note in their book on public opinion and nuclear weapons, public opinion is not only ‘what people can be found voicing in public’, that is ‘actively-aired public views’, it is also ‘organised opinion’, i.e. the political agenda, the positions of parties or other groups, as portrayed by mass media, may result at times more relevant than just issues in determining choices and attitudes of the mass public, and, in particular, in determining the salience of an issue (‘Nuclear Issues and the Nature of Public Opinion’, in eds. Marsh and Fraser, Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons, cit., 11–15).

⁸² On the ability of ‘nuclear images’ to ‘resonate with universal anxieties and hopes’ see Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear. A History of images (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 424.

⁸³ See Dolores Augustine and Dick van Lente, Conclusion: One World, Two Worlds, Many Worlds?, in ed. van Lente The Nuclear Age in Popular Media, cit.

⁸⁴ ‘Public Opinion about NATO and Nuclear Issues in Western Europe’, cit.

⁸⁵ On Life facing nuclear issues see Peter Bacon Hales, ‘Imagining the Atomic Age. Life and the Atom,’ in Looking at Life Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001) and Scott C. Zeman, ‘”To see… Things Dangerous to Come to”: Life Magazine and the Atomic Age in the United States, 1945–1965’ in ed. van Lente, The Nuclear Age in Popular Media, cit. On French public discourse on the atom more in general see Gabrielle Hecht, The Radiance of France. Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998) and Beatrice Heuser, Nuclear Mentalities? Strategies and Beliefs in Britain, France and the FRG (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1998).

⁸⁶ See Nerio Minuzzo, ‘Il bottone dei Polaris’, L’Europeo, 17 March 1963, 12-18; Livio Caputo, ‘Se un Titan partisse per errore’ and ‘E questi sono i missili russi’, Epoca, 22 August 1965, 16–25; Marc Heimer, ‘Ecco i mostri del cielo’, Epoca, 21 November 1965, 48-52; ‘Parla la spia russa che sapeva tutto sull’arma assoluta sovietica’, L’Europeo, 7 November 1965, 26–34.

⁸⁷ Emilio Gentile, La Grande Italia. Ascesa e declino del mito della nazione nel ventesimo secolo (Milano: Mondadori, 1997), especially 324–373.

⁸⁸ Evangelista, ‘Atomic ambivalence,’ cit., 115–119.