Sabers & Cold Iron

Cried Russian Peacemaker Andrei Y. Vishinsky at the Paris Conference last week: "Everybody knows Italians are better at running away than at fighting."

In Rome, enraged Italians promptly challenged him to duels. One challenge came from Lawyer Giorgio Mollica, 44, who has had five encounters with sword and saber on the field of honor, and wears the Italian Silver Medal for gallantry as an underground partisan behind the German lines.

Since the Armistice terms forbid Italians to commit hostile acts against citizens of the United Nations, Signor Mollica published his challenge in the Roman press, hoped that the Soviet Embassy would relay it promptly. When a U.S. newshawk called to ask questions, Signor Mollica snapped to attention, clicked his heels and asked politely: "Do you represent Signor Vishinsky?"

The other challenge was published in Good Sense, organ of Guglielmo Giannini's L'Uomo Qualunque (Common Man) Party. It appeared (unsigned) in a box usually devoted to Signor Giannini's comments. Said Good Sense: "We would like to invite people like Vishinsky to duel in the Neapolitan way, with nothing else in hand than our most noble knife, cold iron helped only by a sure forearm and stout heart and not by whole continents of seaports, mines and factories."

Said the Communist L'Unit`a soothingly of Vishinsky's gibe: "The phrase perhaps went farther than the thought."

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