Ivan Matteo Lombardo

Ivan Matteo Lombardo OMRI,GCIH
Lombardoc.1946
Minister of Industry and Commerce
In office 23 May 1948 – 7 November 1949
Prime Minister	Alcide De Gasperi
Preceded by	Roberto Tremelloni
Succeeded by	Giovanni Battista Bertone
Minister of Foreign Trade
In office 27 January 1950 – 5 April 1951
Prime Minister	Alcide De Gasperi
Preceded by	Giovanni Battista Bertone
Succeeded by	Ugo La Malfa
Member of theConstituent Assembly
In office 25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948
Constituency	Single national constituency
Member of theChamber of Deputies
In office 8 May 1948 – 24 June 1953
Constituency	Single national constituency
Personal details
Born	(1902-05-22)22 May 1902 Milan,Italy
Died	6 February 1980(1980-02-06)(aged 77) Rome,Italy
Political party	PSI(until 1948) UdS(1948–1949) PSU(1949–1951) PSDI(since 1951)
Other political affiliations	UDNR(1960s)

Ivan Matteo Lombardo(22 May 1902 – 6 February 1980) was an Italian politician.

Early life

Lombardo was born inMilanin 1902. A budding young journalist, from 1920 to 1922 he was editor of the labour section ofAvanti!,the daily newspaper of theItalian Socialist Party(Partito Socialista Italiano;PSI). FollowingBenito Mussolini's assumption of power he was conscripted into theItalian army,serving inLibyauntil 1925. He then spent the next twenty years engaged in "activity in trade and export business, market research, [and] management of industrial plants."In 1942 he was involved in reconstituting the PSI, which had been banned by Mussolini 16 years previously. According to his biography on theHistorical Archives of the European Unionwebsite, he was "very active" during this time in theItalian Resistance.

Political career

Hitherto a discreet industrialist, Lombardo was thrust into the limelight upon being nominated as secretary of the PSI in April 1946. Regarded as an implacable opponent of communism, he was selected for the role (without his knowledge) by the leader of the PSI's right-wing current,Giuseppe Saragat,and was accepted as a compromise candidate by the other leading factions at the party's annual spring conference in Florence. Lombardo was inWashington, D.C.as part of an official trade delegation when the decision was announced (in his capacity as Under-Secretary of Commerce and Industry inDe Gasperi's first government), and he found out about it – with much incredulity and bemusement – only after reading reports on the conference in the American press and upon receiving congratulatory telegrams from well-wishers.He served as secretary for an interim period, and in January 1947 was replaced byLelio Basso.

Following the 'Palazzo Barberini split' later that year – which established a new party led by Saragat, the Italian Socialist Workers' Party (Partito Socialista dei Lavoratori Italiani;PSLI) – Lombardo chose to remain with the PSI. Indeed, at the 1947 International Socialist Conference in Zurich he even hatched an unsuccessful plan to reunite the two parties, aided by the diplomat Francesco Malfatti and the BritishLabour PartypoliticianDenis Healey.However, when the PSI formed an electoral alliance with theItalian Communist Partyin early 1948 Lombardo founded his own breakaway grouping, theUnion of Socialists(Unione dei Socialisti;UdS). At thegeneral election in April of that yearhe and the UdS allied with Saragat's PSLI to form a joint ticket under the banner ofSocialist Unity(Unità Socialista), which gained 7.1% of the votes cast for theItalian Chamber of Deputiesand 33 seats.Lombardo later argued that his principal reason for leaving the PSI was its opposition to theMarshall Plan,as he explained toPhilip C. Brooksof theHarry S. Truman Libraryin 1964:

Since the [PSI] Convention had decided to join the Communists in the Popular Front, and feature as the fundamental issue for the incoming general elections a staunch opposition to the Marshall Plan, I had no choice but to quit the party, and I formed a group which participated in the election campaign on the same ballot with Saragat's Social Democratic Party [sic]... For many years a large section of the Italian public opinion, which was heavily influenced by Communists, was convinced that the intent of the Marshall Plan was to destroy the industrial and agricultural structure of our society.

Lombardo was secretary of the UdS until June 1949, when he was succeeded byIgnazio Silone.In December of that year the party was dissolved, and its members joined forces with the former Minister of the Interior,Giuseppe Romita,to create another new group, theUnitary Socialist Party(Partito Socialista Unitario;PSU). Soon afterwards Lombardo joined the PSLI, which in turn merged with the PSU in 1951 to form theItalian Democratic Socialist Party(Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano;PSDI).During this time Lombardo was twice a government minister, firstly as Minister of Industry and Commerce from 23 May 1948 to 7 November 1949 (De Gasperi V Cabinet), and then as Minister of Foreign Trade from 27 January 1950 to 5 April 1951 (De Gasperi VI Cabinet). He stood down as aMember of Parliamentat the end of thefirst legislaturein June 1953. Two years later, in 1955, he was appointed as President of the General Committee and of the Board of the National Council for Productivity (CNP) inRome,and in 1959–60 he served as head of theAtlantic Treaty Association(ATA) inBrussels.

Later years

Although he remained asocial democratthroughout the 1950s, Lombardo increasingly fraternised with those outside the democratic left who, like him, were discomfited by the apparent inability of the Italian state to contain the threat posed by international communism. Adamant that only a powerful, anti-communist executive and an end topartitocrazia( "particracy") could halt the instability then plaguing the First Republic, in 1963 Lombardo signed a manifesto – together withRandolfo Pacciardi,Tomaso Smith,Alfredo Morea,Raffaele Cadornaand Mario Vinciguerra – proposing the establishment of a presidential republic similar to that recently introduced in France byCharles De Gaulle.This manifesto soon evolved into a new centrist political party led by Pacciardi, theDemocratic Union for the New Republic(Unione Democratica per la Nuova Repubblica;UDNR), which made very little electoral impact but was noted for its association with figures from theneo-fascistright, such as Enzo Maria Dantini, Fabio De Felice and Giano Accame, who were attracted to the party by its emphasis on strong, personalised leadership and promises to "remake the state".Although Lombardo was described in contemporary press reports as a founder member of the new party, he seemingly never campaigned on its behalf.

Outside of these domestic intrigues, Lombardo's latter-day political activities mostly focused on his engagement with various international organisations dedicated to the defeat of communism. In the 1960s he argued that Italy was uniquely exposed to the threat of Soviet invasion due to her exposed position in the Mediterranean, describing the country as "a potential bridgehead which could become the passage into Western Europe or the passage into the African continent".He expanded on these themes at a well-publicised conference on 'revolutionary war', organised in May 1965 by the Alberto Pollio Institute for Military Studies at the Parco dei Principi Hotel in Rome, where he presented a paper entitled 'Permanent communist war against the West'.This conference, which was funded through the Institute by the Italian military intelligence agencySIFAR,has since come to be regarded as a foundational moment in thestrategia della tenzione( "strategy of tension"), and was attended by several individuals who were later involved in various neo-fascist terror campaigns.

Such interventions, and others besides, have led commentators such as Jeffrey Bale and Massimo Bonanni to define Lombardo, in these final decades, as belonging on the conservative right of the political spectrum.Although still an Atlanticist and a pro-European, his associations with extreme-right organisations such as theSalazaristConvergência Occidentalwere well known in anti-communist circles.In 1997, it was revealed by the would-be plotter and political renegadeEdgardo Sognothat, had his attempt at leading acoup d'étatin 1974 (the so-calledGolpe Bianco,or "White Coup") been successful, he would have installed Lombardo as Minister of Finance in the resulting emergency government, alongside Pacciardi, Accame and other kindred spirits (some of whom, such as the politician and journalist Eugenio Reale, were apparently unaware of what was being proposed in their name).

Death and legacy

Lombardo died in Rome in 1980, aged 77. His body is buried in theMonumental Cemetery of Milan.His collection of papers has since been deposited at the Historical Archives of the European Union inFlorence.

Awards and honours

	Knight Grand Cross of theOrder of Merit of the Italian Republic(Italy), awarded on 2 June 1955.
	Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry (Portugal), awarded on 6 December 1966.