Abstract
This article deals with the international strategy of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) towards the USA: it tries to explain why, during the 1970s, the most sophisticated and well-organized Communist party of the western world misunderstood the declarations of the newly elected US President Jimmy Carter as a policy of openness towards European leftist forces. Based on primary and press sources, and unpublished interviews, research indicates that the PCI believed that establishing links with politically progressive circles in the USA would grant it sufficient credibility with Washington to influence US politics towards the PCI itself. Such belief depended on several factors: the actual existence of intellectual and political attention from prominent US scholars and certain liberal environments; the PCI's misunderstanding of the role played by American intellectuals; the fierce faith in the PCI's opportunities thanks to détente; and, last, the PCI's fascination for the ‘altra America’.
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