Birth of a Nuclear Base: The US, Italy, and the Cold War Path to La Maddalena

This article reconstructs the path that led the US and Italy to negotiate and eventually agree on the homeporting of a US submarine tender in La Maddalena, Sardinia, which became the defacto main US nuclear submarine base in the Cold War Mediterranean. Unlike what has been claimed by anti-base authors, according to the records of the Department of State the opening of a US base in La Maddalena in 1972 was not an achievement of a long-term US foreign policy goal, but a compromise. Indeed, the Department of Defense aimed to homeport a submarine tender in the much more strategical Augusta Bay, Sicily, while the remote La Maddalena was proposed by Italy, whose government (unsurprisingly) negotiated with the US pursuing its own national interest.