DEPARTMENT OF STATE Memorandum of Conversation
Date: December 5, 1949
Subject: Land and Fiscal Reform in Italy
Participants: The Secretary The Italian Ambassador Mr. Achilles, WE
Copies to: S/S, EUR, Embassy Rome
During a discussion with the Ambassador on various subjects, I expressed interest in learning the progress his Government was making in the matter of land reform.
He referred to the legislation now pending in the Italian Parliament for land reform in Calabria. The primary difficulty was financial, since it was necessary to find funds not merely to compensate the present owners but for roads, houses and irrigation on the large undeveloped areas of poor land involved. The total amount for land reform in all Italy would not be less than 500 billion lire. His Government and particularly the Prime Minister were fully conscious of the importance from the political as well as the economic point of view of effective action.
I reiterated the importance which this Government attached to such action and cited the failure to find a solution of this problem in China as one of the major reasons for the present plight of that country.
The Ambassador also spoke optimistically of the progress so far made in fiscal reform in Italy and of the efforts which his Government was making to secure even more effective action.
Dean Acheson
EUR:WE:TCAchilles:ca