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18     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY

[[image: photo of man in suit and tie]]
[[caption: MANLIO BROSIO]]

industrial center. At the age of eighteen, Manlio enlisted in 1915 in the Alpine Corps. He served for three years during World War I as an artillery officer. Toward the end of the conflict he was captured by the Austrians and was for a brief period a prisoner of war. His government awarded him the Silver Medal and the Cross for Valor.

Like his father, young Brosio decided to make the law his career. He was graduated from the University of Turin in 1920 with the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence. For the next twenty-two years he followed his profession in his native city. He made a reputation in the practice of corporation law. As a member of the Liberal party he was active in politics from the start of his law career. His political mentors were the philosopher, the late Benedetto Croce, and the economist who later became President of Italy, Luigi Einaudi. One of his closest associates was Piero Gobetti, then regarded as the leading writer of the Liberal party.

Brosio seved as central secretary of the Rivoluzione Liberale movement in Turin from 1922 to 1925. During this period he wrote for La Rivoluzione Liberale, the mouthpiece of the movement. He also contributed to legal and other specialized periodicals, such as Foro Italiano, and to the Turin newspaper La Stampa.

He withdrew from active participation in politics after the Fascist regime took over Italy in 1923 and spent most of his time at his legal practice. He did not, however, lose sight of his political principles or sever his contacts. He was in constant touch during the entire Mussolini era with anti-Fascist groups and their leaders, especially Croce and Einaudi. During the German occupation, he was active as a member of the underground National Liberation Committee (1943-1944).

Resuming his formal political activity after the liquidation of Fascism and the end of World War II, he was general secretary of the Liberal party in 1944 and 1945. He entered the national government as a Minister without Portfolio in the (Ivanoe) Bonomi Cabinet in 1944. He became vice-president of the Council of Ministers in the (Ferruccio) Parri government (1945). Later that year he was appointed Minister of War in the Cabinet of Premier Alcide de Gasperi.

His career in the government service took him into the field of diplomacy when he was sent to Moscow as Ambassador in January 1947l His five years in that post made him the dean of the Moscow diplomatic corps. He tried to familiarize himself with every phase of Russian life and thought. He was reputed to have arisen at seven o'clock each morning to study the Russian language. At the same time he was learning English.
Instead of returning to Italy for their leave of absence in 1947, Brosio and his wife visited the United States.  A tour of two and one-half months took them to most of the important cities from New York to San Francisco.
Brosio was transferred to London in 1952, to serve as Italy's Ambassador there.  He and Signora Brosio established a considerable reputation for entertaining.  Among their dinner guests at the Embassy was the Queen Mother Elizabeth, just before her visit to the United States in 1953.  This was regarded as a social triumph, as it is not the custom of royalty to attend embassy dinners.
While in his London post, he helped toward accomodation of the rival claims of Italy and Yugoslavia with respect ot the Free Territory of Trieste.  Brosio, negotiating in the spring of 1952 with Great Britain and the United States, secured greater responsibility for Italy in the civil administration of Zone A of the territory.  According to the Italian peace treaty of 1947, pending final settlement of the status of the territory, Yugoslavia would occupy Zone B, and the United States and Great Britain, Zone A, which included the city of Trieste.  "Without yielding anything to Italian aspirations of sovereignty over Zone A," the United States and Great Britain agreed with the Italian government on May 9, 1952 to let Italians take over civil posts in that zone.  This settlement followed serious rioting in Zone A in March 1952, in favor of the restoration of Trieste to Italy.
Settlement of the dispute over Trieste came on October 5, 1954, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Ambassadors to Great Britain, Manlio Brosio of Italy and Vladimir Velebit of Yugoslavia, and representatives of the U.S. and British governments.  The agreement called for Italy to take over Zone A, including the city of Trieste.  Yugoslavia would substitute civil administration for military occupation of Zone B, which would also include the Crevatini area of Zone A.  Yugoslavia was to have free use of the port of Trieste.
Brosio married a cousin, Clotilde Brosio, on November 1, 1936.  Like her husband, she is a native Piedmontese.  Accompanying the Brosios