GLI STATI UNITI E LA DESTRA ITALIANA NEGLI ANNI CINQUANTA

The context of the Fifties is essential to focus on the construction of democracy in Italy and the process of legitimation of the right, which takes place in those years. The relationship with the United States is central to understand the delicate balance between democracy, anti-communism and anti-fascism. Among the issues raised, three are the main ones. First of all, we cannot consider the United States and right as monolithic blocks. Inside there are a number of differences in cultural background and political strategy in the fight against communism. In particular, there have been conflicts between Embassy and State Department: Clare Boothe Luce was very critical of the DC and, while agreeing with the criticism of the Right, never gave any support to MSI, PNM and other movements on the right. The anti-communism, therefore, has never prevailed over the anti-fascism. Likewise, the political right was very different from the "impolitical", deeply rooted in society and nostalgic of the past regime. The second point is the substantial mutual misunderstanding between Americans and the Right. The idea that the Embassy had, in addition to non-democratic nature of MSI, was that you could create a democratic right from the monarchists. The project, however, was rejected because Covelli and Lauro feared losing their electorate. They confirmed, in this way, the choice of non-democratic. On the other hand, the monarchists, neo-fascists, the cultural right (Montanelli, for example) and some rightist businessmen had a wrong idea about U.S. According to them, anti-communism had to prevail over democracy, but the various extremist proposals were consistently declined. In the background - third and last point - there is a country considered structurally undemocratic. Underlying this belief is certainly the weight of the fascist period, that still had a certain importance in the Fifties. But there are also many rather deep-seated prejudices about Italy and the "Latin countries" in general.