GOVERNMENT ASKED TO RESIGN

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25548, 16 July 1948, Page 7

GOVERNMENT ASKED TO RESIGN

A vote of no-confidence in the Government, proposed by Communist deputies, will be discussed in the Chamber to-day. The Prime Minister (Mr A. de Gasperi) said that if he thought the Opposition was right in suggesting that the Government had the slightest responsibility for the attempted assassination it would resign immediately, but as he was convinced that it was not true, the Government would defend itself.

Mr Togliatti’s assailant is Antonio Pallante, a law student. The Rome correspondent of “The Times” says that the police have arrested a second man, said to be a close friend of Pallante. Pallante, a Sicilian, attended the chamber session on Monday with a ticket furnished him by a Sicilian deputy. He approached the chamber yesterday morning and asked to see Mr Togliatti. When this was refused he waited in a narrow street near the chamber, and fired his revolver as Mr Togliatti bent to enter his'car. Mrs Togliatti, who is a senator, rushed from the Senate when she heard the news, and Was in time to accompany her husband to hospital. Mr de Gasperi, the Speaker (Mr Bonomi) and other parliamentary leaders followed the ambulance there. Pallante claimed that he belonged to no political party, but had long

planned the attempt because “Togliatti is .an enemy of the nation.” ' Liberal Party circles say that Pallente resigned from’the party in 1946. The attack, ironically, came while the Chamber debated a Government bill to strengthen the drive to collect unlicensed arms—a bill which the Communists bitterly assailed. The announcement of the attack caused furious demonstrations in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Amid the uproar a Left Wing Socialist deputy screamed at the Minister of the Interior (Mr Mario Scelba): “You are an accomplice.” A Communist shouted: “This is what your policy of hate has brought.” A Christian Democrat Party statement said that it “renewed m these tragic circumstances its open condemnation of every form of violence.” The Cabinet adopted a resolution stating that the attack had “aroused the indignation of all Italians” and expressed its hope that Mr Togliatti would survive.

The Moscow radio *Said yesterday that Mr Stalin, had told the Italian Community Party that Russia was “indignant” at the attempt on the life of Mr Togliatti. The French Communist Party sent a message of sympathy to the Italian Communist Party. “The assassination attempt is the machination of Imperialist warmakers,” it said.