Abstract
The article aims to analyse the approach of the then Labour government, and especially of the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, to the so-called ‘Communist question’ and in particular to the potential entry, around the mid-1970s, of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), then led by Enrico Berlinguer, into the government area. The analysis, in addition to documentary sources, is mainly based on three interviews conducted by the author with David Lipsey, then political adviser to the Labour Foreign Secretary Tony Crosland, David Owen, himself Foreign Secretary after the sudden death of Crosland, and John Kerr, then Private Secretary to two Permanent Under-Secretaries for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (the equivalent of the Italian secretary general). The interviews, preceded by a brief introduction, are reported in full and accompanied by a critical section.