Former Italian Legislator Forecasts World War III As Outcome of 'Stupidity, Grasping, and Suspicion'

Another world war, perhaps in six months, perhaps in 20 years, will be the inevitable outcome of the grasping, suspicious attitude hovering over the Paris peace tables, Gaetano Salvemini, 73-year-old Lauro de Bosis lecturer in the History of Italian Civilization and ex-Italian government official, said in an interview yesterday.

Calling today a "time of stupidity," he declared that the victor nations are "bewildered and discouraged. Each nation suspects its neighbor, and each endeavors to snatch everything it can from its neighbors in order to get better positions for the next world war."

The stocky, bewhiskered native of Italy, discussing world affairs in his cluttered Widener Library study, spared no nation in his general accusation. "All of them," he said, "are contemptible to the same degree. Russia's attitude is no worse than that of the United States or Great Britain."

He sees no possible way out for the peacemakers. "With human stupidity," he said, "even Almighty God is powerless."

Salvemini, author of scores of treatises on various phases of Italian history, compared the current peace conference with these after World War I. "Wilson's 14 Joints cemented discussion and solution of problems," he said. "Almost all territorial problems were solved in the best possible way. Economic problems were almost all badly solved, but, little by little during the years that followed, they were approached with a sufficient amount of common sense. Until the depression of 1929 set in, they were on the way to satisfactory settlement."

"The more we study the peace treaties of 1919 under the light of the events that followed," he continued, "the more we find they were the outcome of a successful effort of common sense and good will.

"President Wilson, with all his mistakes, will be remembered in history as a here of both common sense and good will. Today there are no heroes, either of common sense or of good will."

Turning his discussion back to recent times, Salvemini declared that "the Atlantic Charter, which should have given a lead to the present peace negotiations, was a joke put together by Roosevelt and Churchill when they needed to deceive people all over the world to support the anti-German war eeffort. Now that Germany is defeated, nobody needs to take seriously the Atlantic Charter, or any other charter."

Salvemini received his Ph.D. at the University of Florence, Italy. He was a member of the Italian Parliament from 1919 to 1921. After teaching at the University of Messina, the University of Pisa, the University of Florence, and other institutions in Italy, he came to America in 1932. Since 1933, he has been the de Bosts lecturer here, sandwiching in lectures at other universities, including Yale University and the University of Chicago. He was naturalized in 1940.