Where is Signor X?

Almost 21 years of Fascism has taught Benito Mussolini to be shrewd as well as ruthless. Last week he toughened the will of his people to fight, by appeals to their patriotism, and by propaganda which made the most of their fierce resentment of British and U.S. bombings. He also sought to reduce the small number pf Italians who might try to cut his throat by independent deals with the Allies.

The military conquest of Italy may be no easy task. After the Duce finished his week's activities, political warfare against Italy looked just as difficult, and it was hard to find an alternative to Mussolini for peace or postwar negotiations.

No Dorlans. The Duce began by ticking off King Vittorio Emanuele, presumably as insurance against the unlikely prospect that the sour-faced little monarch decides either to abdicate or convert his House of Savoy into a bargain basement for peace terms. Mussolini pointedly recalled a decree of May 10, 1936, which elevated him to rank jointly with the King as "first marshal of Italy." Thus the King (constitutionally Commander in Chief of all armed forces) can legally make overtures to the Allies only with the consent and participation of the Duce.

Italy has six other marshals. Mussolini last week recalled five of them to active service.* Most of these men had been disgraced previously to cover up Italian defeats. Some of them have the backing of financial and industrial groups which might desert Mussolini if they could make a better deal. But on active duty, whether they like it or not, they must share with Mussolini the burdens and onus of final disaster. The five:

>Egg-bald, bocce-loving Marshal Pietro Badoglio, generally accounted Italy's best soldier, loyal supporter and honorary "cousin of the King." After taking the blame for the debacle in Greece, Badoglio was allowed to retire to his red-haired Russian mistress and his gaudy palace in Rome.

>Rough, tough Rodolfo Graziani, second Viceroy of Ethiopia, who was chased by Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell across Egypt and Libya during the winter campaign 1940-41.

>Marshal Enrico Caviglia, World War I hero of Vittorio Veneto, a spokesman for such industrialists as Count Volpi di Misurata.

>Stubby-legged, barrel-bellied Marshal Ugo Cavallero, who succeeded Badoglio in Greece, was dismissed after Tripoli fell. Before the war he accumulated a fortune while he was Under Secretary in the War Ministry.

>Aged (77) Marshal Emilio De Bono, a bumbler who was the first Army general to join Mussolini's "March on Rome." He was head of Government police when Italy's socialist martyr, Giacomo Matteotti, was murdered just 19 years ago.

Feeble Alternatives. Only a few non-Fascist political figures, liberal or conservative, have survived Mussolini's more than 20 years of one-man rule. Among the few in Italy are Vittorio Orlando and Ivanoe Bonomi, both pre-Mussolini premiers; bearded Count Dino Grandi, onetime Ambassador to London, and intellectual Giuseppe Bottai, former Minister of Education. All are ineffective and out of touch with the Italian people.

In Italian jails are probably 30,000 political prisoners, including impassioned Pietro Nenni and Cipriano Facchinetti, who were picked up recently in France and returned to Italy. Both have a popular following in northern Italy at the moment, but they are as useless to the Allies as are Italy's underground leaders, or Italians outside the homeland.

There are two leading "Free Italy" spokesmen in the U.S.: scholarly Count Carlo Sforza and fiery, crusading Don Luigi Sturzo. Sturzo represents the remnants of the outlawed Christian Popular Party. Sforza, Italian Foreign Minister after the Treaty of Versailles, is more widely known. But in the U.S. and at a conference in Montevideo Aug. 14-17, 1942, Sforza has failed to gain any mass following. Like other exiles concerned with Italy's future, he is unknown by the Fascist-born generation at home.

Anonymous underground leaders have made some surprising showings of strength (TIME, May 3). But they face difficulties: in decentralized and provincial Italy, their propaganda seldom spreads beyond their own localities; to date they have received little or no support from Allied propaganda. From one of the three main underground parties--Socialists, Liberal-Republicans, Communists--a Signor X might arise as a national leader. But he could show himself only after a successful Allied invasion.

*The other: General Giovanni Messe, who was made marshal after his surrender in Tunisia.

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