Skepticism in Italian and Romanian Character

"After the war, for instance, everybody tried hard to find a suitable answer to the puzzling problem:  why was the United States showering billions of dollars on their country?  Communists were certain that it was part of a master-plan to impoverish, starve, enslave, and destroy the Italian proletariat.  Non-communists could not make up their minds.  Were the Americans mad?  Many possible explanations were debated and discarded.  At the end, most people said:  'Why should they, who won the war, enrich us, who lost it?  They must have their own reasons.  Whatever they are, there is no doubt the Americans are serving their own interests.  Therefore, there is no need for us to be grateful to them.'  There is a large part of reality which the realistic Italians never really grasp;  there are many things they do not see for being too clear-sighted." (ibid, p. 167.)

"The Russians (the story goes) one day suddenly attacked Western Europe with overwhelming forces.  Local defences were immediately pulverized.  The United States naturally were unprepared to offer ready help.  They needed the usual number of years to make up their minds, manufacture the equipment and train the men. [How things reversed by the time of Persian Gulf War II came around!]  The Russians therefore easily went unopposed from the Elbe to Gibraltar in a few days, conquered the British Isles, and organized all the occupied territory according to their political prejudices.

"They set up Communist regimes and exterminated all anti-Communists.  In due time, years later, the Americans landed, defeated the Russians and liberated Europe.  New free governments were organized, who proceeded to shoot all Communists.  At the end, the continent was practically uninhabited.  Only handfuls of Britons, Frenchmen, Germans, Dutch and so forth were left in the vacant spaces and the empty cities.  Italy alone was overcrowded.  In Italy almost fifty million people were left  alive.  They had obviously remembered one of their old proverbs, which says 'Brave men and good wines last a short time.'" (ibid, p. 225.)

"When dealing with an Italian it is always prudent to know exactly where his loyalties lie, to what clique, association or party he belongs, who protects him, who are his friends, and from whom he derives his power.  Naturally there are no handbooks listing such indispensable information.  The man will often hotly deny his allegiance.  Some bodies (the Masons of old, the democratic parties under the Fascist regime, a few financial combinations today) are secret.  Nevertheless, the information is not usually difficult to ferret out.  Everybody knows." (ibid, p. 221.)

"This must be kept in mind by anybody trying to fathom the real reasons for some puzzling Italian decisions, or to foresee some future Italian move.  Like all statesmen, after Italians have realistically gauged the relative weight of conflicting parties, they fight a weaker enemy and join a winner.  Such rules of conduct make conflicts of all sorts last a shorter time in Italy than elsewhere.  The number of worthy and heroic people willing to go on fighting on the side which they believe is right but which public opinion knows will succumb in the end is necessarily small.  The rules make some decisions, turning points in history, or revolutions inevitable much too soon, when they could still be avoided, prevented, or deflected.  It also often makes their results superficial, unstable and insincere." (ibid, p. 188.)