INTRODUCTION

American foreign policy toward Western Europe entered a decisive phase in early 1947. In March, the Council of Foreign Ministers would convene in Moscow to decide the fate of Germany. The Geneva tariff conference scheduled to begin in April would determine the future international trading order. Simultaneously, the United States strove to cover the gaping balance-of-payments deficits of Britain, France, and Italy. In the midst of these preoccupations, the British announced their imminent withdrawal from the Eastern Mediterranean.

Washington officials also faced a showdown at home, for without a breakthrough on Capitol Hill, the Truman administration saw little hope of salvaging its European position. Thus, the British announcement was both an occasion for new anxieties and an opportunity to seize. During the famous fifteen weeks culminating in Marshall's Harvard address, the administration mounted a systematic campaign to gain additional aid for Europe. During the same span of time, there emerged in high circles of the bureaucracy outlines for what later – as it turned out, much later – became the European Recovery Program (ERP).

Alcide De Gasperi watched these developments like a man adrift with his eye on a distant rescue vessel. It was apparent that major changes were underway in Washington, but the shape of these changes and their eventual consequences for Italy were vague. In late April 1947, De Gasperi was forced to confront the raging political storm.