ITALY: Young Initiative

Italy's powerful but ponderous Christian Democratic Party, gathered in convention in sweltering Naples last week, showed signs of new vigor, new spirit, new determination—even a new direction. In the gilt-and-red-velvet San Carlo Opera House (not air-conditioned), 703 delegates, plus party bigwigs and hangers-on, listened to some 100 speeches over the course of four days. On the top tier of boxes a huge banner read: Il Partito nella Lotta per la Democrazia (The Party in the Struggle for Democracy).

With a bit of overstatement, Defense Minister Paolo Emilio Taviani exclaimed: "We have had a real revolution here!" It was not...

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