The Foreign Service Journal, April 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2019 61 whose leadership was salivating at the prospect. And this just as Italy’s willing- ness to host U.S. medium range nuclear missiles on her soil (ironically, just a short distance from Sigonella) was absolutely critical to the later success of INF negotia- tions with the Soviet Union. I had excruciating conversations with the anguished Italian Ambassador Rinaldo Petrignani. Other doors in town were totally closed to him. Extraordi- narily, the ambassador asked me directly about the acceptability of certain top Italian political figures to Washington. I had been told only to listen and report back what Petrignani had to say, and I was on the spot to reply. I said I was without instructions but, speaking personally, I was sure the United States would respect whatever leadership decisions sovereign Italy made. I reported to superiors the despera- tion Amb. Petrignani’s inquiries reflected, that one sovereign NATO ally would seek pre-approval of another for his country’s internal leadership choices. The drama helped me make the case with my superi- ors that we had other enduring, especially NATO, interests with Italy, and that we should not allow our justified anger “to throw the baby out with the bath water.” As an Italian-American boy from Bos- ton and the grandson of immigrants from Sicily, the Italy desk job was especially meaningful for me. I approached it with humility. Helping resolve the Achille Lauro crisis brought a special sense of fulfillment. n More than just interpreting, at the White House and afterward I explained to the Americans the stress and fear in Craxi’s voice and the political backdrop in Italy. There was another mess a few days later when the Italians, for mysterious reasons, let the ringleader, Abu Abbas, go. (Abbas masterminded the plot but was not one of the four actual hijackers on the ship, whom the Italians did pros- ecute.) Everyone from the president on down was white-hot furious. The Italians reciprocated in kind and both countries embarked on ascending spirals of bitter rhetoric. There was a real risk that events would spin out of control so as to give an unprec- edented political opportunity to the large pro-Soviet Italian Communist Party,