Page 126 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 126
plex Gateways
The story was ended at the highest level of the ECA, recommending
three measures which were then all adopted. The maintenance of ERP-
related aids to Trieste would continue through Italy, the military govern-
ment would retain ownership of a part of the counterpart funds, and fi-
nally the ECA Mission in Trieste would be suppressed, but some economic
officer of the GMA would become ex officio the manager of the ECA for
the Free Territory.
Despite the insistence of the official US Political representative in
Trieste to the State Department, the Marshall Plan was suspended in
Trieste earlier than elsewhere, in June 1951. The sudden stop left behind
not only some troubles for the AMG (not only of a financial nature, but
also in relation to food supply, for example) but above all it created a weak-
ening of the local authorities, confronting the growing Italian requests
for returning Trieste to Italy as soon as possible. In March 1952, when the
Marshall Plan was over, an ECA telegram from Rome to Washington also
concluded the parable of US financial commitments in favour of Trieste.
Since our policy is one of furthering integration of Trieste into Italy
and since Italy is both willing and anxious to meet Trieste’s finan-
cial needs (in fact Amg claim Govt is too generous with result that
unnecessary and uneconomical use of resources is being continuous-
ly proposed by Itals), there does not appear to be economic justifica-
tion for further aid to Trieste with the outlay of administrative funds
to maintain a special mission. […] Allocation of the aid earmarked for
Trieste or Italy therefore would serve three very definite purposes:
(A) tie Trieste more closely to Italy; (B) give Itals an opportunity pub-
lic-relations-wise to show extent of their assistance to Trieste and (C)
utilize US aid for defense-supporting purposes.19
Alberto Berti, an observer very informed about the Trieste econom-
ic situation, but active outside the city at that time, in 1954 presented the
‘Perspectives of the Trieste economy’ in a Milanese magazine. He explic-
itly said that ‘The new administration will have to deal with a demanding
and depressed city’ (Berti 1954, 10), which in the following years would ad-
dress schizophrenic requests to political power: a greater administrative
19 NARA, RG 469, Eca, Mission to Italy, Office of the Director, Subject Files 1948–
1957, folder: Trieste 1952 (copy at IRSML, b. 76), Telegram, Eca-Rome to Eca-Wash-
ington, 22 March 1952.
126
The story was ended at the highest level of the ECA, recommending
three measures which were then all adopted. The maintenance of ERP-
related aids to Trieste would continue through Italy, the military govern-
ment would retain ownership of a part of the counterpart funds, and fi-
nally the ECA Mission in Trieste would be suppressed, but some economic
officer of the GMA would become ex officio the manager of the ECA for
the Free Territory.
Despite the insistence of the official US Political representative in
Trieste to the State Department, the Marshall Plan was suspended in
Trieste earlier than elsewhere, in June 1951. The sudden stop left behind
not only some troubles for the AMG (not only of a financial nature, but
also in relation to food supply, for example) but above all it created a weak-
ening of the local authorities, confronting the growing Italian requests
for returning Trieste to Italy as soon as possible. In March 1952, when the
Marshall Plan was over, an ECA telegram from Rome to Washington also
concluded the parable of US financial commitments in favour of Trieste.
Since our policy is one of furthering integration of Trieste into Italy
and since Italy is both willing and anxious to meet Trieste’s finan-
cial needs (in fact Amg claim Govt is too generous with result that
unnecessary and uneconomical use of resources is being continuous-
ly proposed by Itals), there does not appear to be economic justifica-
tion for further aid to Trieste with the outlay of administrative funds
to maintain a special mission. […] Allocation of the aid earmarked for
Trieste or Italy therefore would serve three very definite purposes:
(A) tie Trieste more closely to Italy; (B) give Itals an opportunity pub-
lic-relations-wise to show extent of their assistance to Trieste and (C)
utilize US aid for defense-supporting purposes.19
Alberto Berti, an observer very informed about the Trieste econom-
ic situation, but active outside the city at that time, in 1954 presented the
‘Perspectives of the Trieste economy’ in a Milanese magazine. He explic-
itly said that ‘The new administration will have to deal with a demanding
and depressed city’ (Berti 1954, 10), which in the following years would ad-
dress schizophrenic requests to political power: a greater administrative
19 NARA, RG 469, Eca, Mission to Italy, Office of the Director, Subject Files 1948–
1957, folder: Trieste 1952 (copy at IRSML, b. 76), Telegram, Eca-Rome to Eca-Wash-
ington, 22 March 1952.
126
