ABSTRACT
In Italy the propaganda operation got under way in the summer of 1948, its authorisation coming from a section of the European Cooperation Masterplan between the US and Italy signed in June. The head of the Information Division in Italy arrived in August. As the Cold War reachea its climax the tension between the fire-fighting priorities of the ERP in Italy and its long-term hopes almost crippled it. 1947 was the year when the hiatus ended and when the Americans stepped decisively into the situation. The process began in Italy, however, not in Washington. General B. Marshall himself was quoted as saying ‘Everyone who comes back from Italy remarks upon the vitality of the people, their will to work and their very real attachment for democracy’. Ten million letters and cables were sent from individual Italian-Americans ‘to relatives and acquaintances in Italy begging them to vote against the Communists’.
