A question of self-esteem: The United States and the Cold War choices in France and Italy, 1944-1958

This dissertation argues the impact of prestige considerations on French and Italian foreign policy in the early Cold War period. In particular it shows how those considerations affected the Atlantic Alliance and how the United States tried to manipulate them. The main purpose of this work is to demonstrate the importance of U.S. psychological strategies in stabilizing politics in both countries, and, more broadly, to analyze some of the less apparent reasons behind NATO's enduring stability, despite frequent disagreements among allies. The comparison of America's relations with France and Italy is long overdue in Cold War historiography. The focus on prestige is also significant: France and Italy were, among the Western European allies, the most sensitive to matters of status, since the second World War had severely damaged their self-esteem as great powers; furthermore, international prestige and domestic political equilibrium were interrelated in these two countries as for no other member of the Western Alliance.; Using a case-study approach, this dissertation concentrates on the following themes: France's and Italy's parallel attempt in 1944 to gain leverage toward the Anglo-Americans by establishing diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union; American reactions to the nationalist appeal of the Communist parties in both countries; the debate on the European Defense Community and on a “European Third Force;” French colonial decline in North Africa, Rome's attempts to mediate between Arab countries and the West, and Washington's response to France's and Italy's competing claims for prominence in the Mediterranean in the late 1950s; the American response to Charles de Gaulle's return to power in 1958 and the parallel search for a charismatic leader in Italy.; This work also re-evaluates the “empire by invitation” thesis of historian Geir Lundestad, highlighting the manipulative more than the submissive nature of most Western European leaders' promotion of American hegemony in the West. Generally, France and Italy, like the other major European nations, competed for a privileged partnership with Washington. Status concerns contributed to the persistence of intra-European rivalries. Several European and American statesmen however emphasized mastering European integration as an alternative path to international prestige.