Aside from the U.S. Presidential election in 1948, the other big news story was the 1948 Italian Elections. The staunchly anti-Communist government of Alcide de Gasperi was in big fear of being toppled by a Communist led movement to upset the election. This was one of the big popularity contests between the West and Communist East and one of the big showdowns in the Cold War period. Speculation ran the gamut, as did the fear factor in the Press that a Communist led government in Italy would indicate the Soviets were well on their way to becoming a dominating force in Europe.
And so the big news also became the big story with most U.S. commentators, including this one - Clifton Utley who delivered his commentary on the upcoming Italian elections on March 18, 1948, viewing it as an epic showdown between Soviet style Communism and Western style Democracy with Italy, a country still in the grips of digging itself out of the devastation of World War 2, stuck somewhere in the middle.
The Post-World War 2 period and the Cold War era had no shortage of cliffhangers and upheavals.
