ABSTRACT
In many Italian streets and cities, as elsewhere in Europe, we have witnessed familiar scenes of anti-nuclear protest and peace demonstrations staged by various organizations, from leftist political parties to Catholic movements. Media coverage of the peace movement in Italy sharply decreased in intensity after the beginning of cruise missile deployment in Sicily in 1983. The declared goals of the Italian Peace Movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s were first of all to avert intermediate-range nuclear forces deployment in Europe and to fight against the decision by the Italian government to deploy nucleartipped cruise missiles in Comiso. In Italian political terms, it implies, in an undefined future, the possibility to take part in a leftist Government or in a ‘National Solidarity coalition’, that is to say a new ‘historical compromise’ between the communists and the Christian Democrats. The tasks outlined for the Italian and European peace movements are by no means easy ones.
