In Italy's Chamber of Deputies, cries of crook, assassin and Fascist come so often from the Communist benches that they no longer get a rise. Last week the tables were reversed, and the result was an uproar. A right-wing Christian Democrat named Giuseppe Togni, who has always supported the government, took the floor and said: "This government has not conducted a sufficiently energetic anti-Communist policy. Italy is not trusted abroad. It is considered defiled by Communism."
Catcalls from the left began. Togni stood his ground. "I fought for Italy," he shouted, "when many of you Communists were serving in Mussolini's Fascist militia and in the Fascist Party." That set off a ten-minute outburst of invective. When it quieted down, Togni resumed: "I would like to know how many ex-Fascists are in your ranks. Also, I would like to know how many ex-spies of the OVRA [Mussolini's secret police] there are."
At that, more than 100 Red Deputies and their Nenni Socialist allies rushed into the well of the Chamber to start a brawl. Togni got little help from his fellow Demo-Christians, who stayed in their seats. But neo-Fascists and Monarchists met the Reds with swinging fists. Six Deputies, all right-wingers, had to be treated at the Chamber's first-aid station.
Education of Sogno. This was the first time that such strong charges had been aired in Italy's Parliament—which explained the Communists' wrath. But millions of Italians had been talking about the accusations in recent weeks, as the result of a systematic campaign to dish out the true dirt on the Reds. The campaign is the work of slight, natty Edgardo Sogno, 39, who was one of Italy's top resistance heroes in the war. Toward the end of the war, when the Germans were still holding on in the north, Sogno smuggled so many refugees out and so many agents in that he became known as Italy's Scarlet Pimpernel. But he saw clearly that the Communists were trying to get control of Italy's liberation movement, not for Italy's good but for their own power. He developed an admiration for their skill and an abiding hatred of their purposes.
In Paris, after the war, as a member of the Italian foreign service, Sogno became impressed by the posters and publications of Jean Paul David's anti-Communist Paix et Liberté movement (TIME, Nov. 13, 1950). After the heavy blow to Italian democracy in the 1953 elections, Sogno returned to Rome and started an anti-Communist monthly called Pace e Libertà. For his editor Sogno chose a formidable man: square-jawed Luigi Cavallo, an ex-Communist and ex-editor of the Red daily L'Unità. To dish the dirt on the Reds, Cavallo drew on extensive files, a long memory and sources inside the party.
Recent tidbits from Pace e Libertà:
¶ Giacomo Pellegrini, presently sitting in the Parliament as a Communist Senator, slipped into Italy from France in 1938, was caught almost immediately by the OVRA, saved his skin by offering to spy for Mussolini's police. He betrayed half a dozen underground comrades. This story was told in great detail, with names, dates, places and documentary excerpts.
¶ A full account of a recent closed Communist meeting in Turin. Since its publication, the Turin comrades have been looking at each other with suspicion.