Pessimistic Persuader

"Alas," said Antonio Segni last week, "an unpleasant old age is in store for me." He meant that it was about to be crowned by the kind of success that entails work and grinding worry.

The 64-year-old Sardinian, a lean, fragile lawyer with a beaked nose and unruly white hair, had just been summoned by Italian President Gronchi to try to form a new government to replace the fallen Mario Scelba (TIME, July 4). Earnest Christian Democrat Segni, as Minister of Agriculture in several De Gasperi governments, drew up Italy's postwar land-reform program, but was less of a success at administering it.* He accepted Gronchi's commission early last week and from his paper-strewn apartment on the Via Sallustiana set about canvassing the three small center parties in hopes of recreating the coalition which has prevailed in the Italian Parliament for two years with a majority of less than 20 votes.

Segni's first problem was to persuade the bickering factions inside his own Christian Democrat Party to lay aside the differences that had brought down Scelba. After making some moves in this direction, he went to work on the Social Democrats (19 seats), the Republicans (5 seats), the Liberals (14 seats). For four days he scurried around a sweltering Rome, bargaining and counterbargaining. As courtesy required, he also paid a call on Stalin Prizewinner Pietro Nenni, who is panting to bring his fellow-traveling Socialists into a popular front. Segni rejected Nenni's offer; there are Christian Democrats who want to play footie with Nenni, but Segni is not one of them.

At the end of four days' trying, Segni still did not have the support of the Liberals, a free-enterprising party which deplores Segni's land-reform program. He asked for and got an extension of 48 hours, at the end of which the Liberals decided it was better to support him "with reservations" than risk some other Premier who might prefer to bid for Nenni's 75 votes.

Next would come Cabinetmaking, and the question was whether in naming one man or rebuffing another, Segni could hold his pledges together long enough to form a government. "By temperament I am a pessimist," said frail old Premier Designate Segni. "In this way I avoid disappointment when things go wrong."

*De Gasperi once complained: "Segni is never well enough to do his job as minister but never sick enough to resign."

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