ITALY: The 49th State

It was wacky and it was wistful, like a beggar's dream. Cried sallow Santi Paladino, Italy's newest peddler of political nostrums: "With a federation of the United States, Italy and some other nations, and a lot of atomic bombs, there would be no wars. This would solve all of Italy's problems."

For almost two years Paladino had preached a simple discourse to his nation's harried little men. In a big-power world, he said, the lesser powers must gravitate toward the U.S. or toward the U.S.S.R. Communist partisans everywhere were working toward union with...

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