Eurocommunism was an ephemeral and even somewhat contradictory phase in the rise and fall of West European Communist parties. In the mid-1970s, in different ways, Eurocommunism affected the Italian, French, and Spanish parties, all of which seemed to converge on a model of Communism adapted to Western democracy, but on a far from solid or shared platform. Each party moved in this direction in its own way, as the burgeoning number of studies dedicated to the topic have shown. Still, Eurocommunism attracted a great deal of attention and interest in Western diplomacy at the time because it seemed to hold out the possibility of Communists’ participation in government in some Western countries and therefore to require more flexible means of “containing” Soviet influence.
Frédéric Heurtebize examines the U.S. government's attitude toward that challenge, focusing mainly on the French and Italian parties. The Spanish case would have been interesting to compare...