Italian Communist, Ugo Pecchioli, reports on his trip to Cuba. He discusses: the relative international situation of Cuba; meetings with Fidel Castro; the profound divergence that exists (in his opinion) between the Chinese Communist Party and the great majority of the other communist parties; the development of the struggle for democracy and socialism in different Latin American countries; and Italian and Cuban communist party relations.

A letter from Italian Communist Journalist Carmine de Lipsis to Senior Italian Communist Giancarlo Pajetta regarding an interview with Che Guevara. De Lipsis also includes detailed reading notes on this meeting to augment the rest of the letter.

A memorandum of a conversation between PCI official Giuliano Pajetta and Antonio Nunez Jimenez, Director of the Cuban National Institute for Agrarian Reform [INRA] and member of the Cuban PC (Popular Socialist Party [PSP]). They discuss the various problems relating to the internal and external politics in Cuba and the solidarity that the PCI can provide to the Cuban liberation movement.

In the early pages of the chapter, Ducci describes how by 22 October 1962, he had just arrived in Brussels as member of a delegation which included the top echelons of Italian foreign policy: Foreign Minister Attilio Piccioni, Undersecretary Carlo Russo, Secretary General of the Ministry Attilio Cattani, and a number of other key dignitaries, including himself, who at the time was at the head of the Italian delegation which negotiated the possible accession of the United Kingdom to the European Economic Community. They had all gone to Brussels for a week of meetings between the Six members of the EEC, and were engaged in a preparatory meeting for the work ahead, when the news spread that the situation between the US and Cuba was deteriorating and that President Kennedy was about to give an important speech.

The few excerpts about Cuba are a good example of the importance of the diaries: not only do they make clear Fanfani’s sense of danger and his willingness to search for a peaceful solution of the crisis, but the bits about his exchanges with Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlo Russo, with the Italian Ambassador in London Pietro Quaroni, or with the USSR Presidium member Frol Kozlov, help frame the Italian position during the crisis in a broader context.