1893-1976
Eastern Europe
(372) documents
North America
Western Europe
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1923-
1916- 2009
1913- 1994
May 29, 1984
Part of Foreign Ministry's documentation about the Ministerial Session at the NATO council meeting in Washington, May 1984. It dicusses strategic parity, current state of alliance, and its cohesion vis-à-vis Warsaw Pact.
May 30, 1978
Minister of Defense Attilio Ruffini's notes to Prime Minister Andreotti regarding NATO's proposal for a long-term defense program. Italy faces pressure to increase its economic contribution, but for the time being cannot make a binding commitment.
June 28, 1974
Reflections on the current state of transatlantic relations and Kissinger's foreign policy from Italian perspective. The meeting in Ottawa revealed that the US-Europe relationship is not one of harmony and concord, but that Kissinger sees himself as a peace builder in East-West relations, viewing them in strictly bilateral terms.
July 4, 1974
Italian Ambassador to London, Raimondo Manzini, writes to Foreign minister Moro in the aftermath of the 1974 Ottawa Declaration. He discusses the British interest in reviving the Special Relationship with the US and its effects on European politics, and suggests that through intensified dialogue and cooperation, an Anglo-Italian solidarity could function as a counterweight to the close Franco-German relations.
May 1, 1973
Cagiati analyzes Kissinger's speech from April 23 in light of conversations between Nixon and Andreotti. The US efforts to emphasize the importance of transatlantic relations and Europe's role in advancing democratic ideas could create an opportunity to relaunch the process of European integration.
June 27, 1973
Summarizes the first comments from Min. Foreign Affairs on the agreement Soviet-American for the Prevention of Nuclear War. It is said that the philosophy of this agreement appears to have contradictions with regard to the classic strategy of NATO and diminish the credibility of the latter. Conceptions NATO military will have to be updated in light of recent agreements and ongoing trends around the Russian-American bipolarity. Just because you are at a "secondary" compared to the two supergrandi, Europeans should take the opportunity arising from this new trend to seriously address the issue of their defense. The prospect more desirable at this stage is an acceleration of proesso European unification, including the appearance of its "independent" defense.
November 16, 1983
A memo to Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi from his Diplomatic Counselor Antonio Badini. Badini warns against the latest Soviet proposals. He suggests that agreeing to them without making any concessions regarding the deployment of American missiles would be tantamount to the realization of a long term goal of the Soviet Union, i.e. the decoupling between the Western European and the American defense system. […] He writes that the Soviet proposals “can be taken as a possible basis for an agreement is surprising. We can only hope that this fact does not imply that, from a political and psychological standpoint, the process of Finlandization of Europe is far more advanced than we believed thus far.”
1984
This memo expresses the regrets of the Italian government for the failure of the INF negotiations. According to the memo, Italy “committed itself to the normalization of the East – West dialogue” and proposed resuming Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction talks.
October 28, 1983
Some reflections on the outcome of the NATO Nuclear Planning Group meeting in Ottawa. The Italian government praised the NATO resolution to keep the INF at a minimum level of deterrence, while critiquing the Soviet refusal to compromise.
November 12, 1983
This memo to Prime Minister Bettino Craxi argues against the merging of the INF and START negotiations proposed by the Finnish government and backed by Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau. The memo suggests that the proposal could jeopardize the Geneva talks and harm European interests.