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Our Natural Basin. These ventures, accompanied by a drumfire of propaganda appealing to Italian nationalism, have made Mattei one of the most popular as well as one of the most powerful men in Italy. They have also won him the wholehearted support of ambitious President Giovanni Gronchi, who makes little attempt to conceal his restiveness with Italy's postwar policy of unswerving support for U.S. foreign policies. In Mattel's invasion of the Middle East, Gronchi and Italian Foreign Minister Giuseppe Pella see a means of winning an independent international position for Italy. The Gronchi-Pella policy, confusingly christened "neo-Atlanticism," looks forward to a day when Italy will be a major force in the affairs of the Middle East, will be able to serve as "mediator" between the West and the Arab world. "Italy's natural basin for expansion," declared the Christian Democratic Party organ Il Popolo last week, "is the Mediterranean."
Mattei was clearly undeterred by the Libyan setback. Convinced that his terms for extracting oil give him an unbeatable weapon, Mattei last week declared that Italy would expand its oil interests in the Middle East "whenever and wherever there is a chance."
* An offer far less openhanded than it sounds. Reasons: Mattei did not pay the substantial concession bonus that Iran would have got from any U.S. company, and, unlike a normal fifty-fifty deal where the oil company puts up all the capital, Mattel's agreement obliges Iran to pay 50% of the exploration and development costs if oil is discovered. Some oil experts estimate that it could take 30 years of successful production before the Iranians begin to make as much money out of Mattel's seventy-five-twenty-five split as they would out of a standard fifty-fifty split.