This book represents research conducted over a two-year period on the politico-diplomatic relations between Italy and the United States in the mid-Sixties and Seventies. Based on conspicuous archival materials from Italian, American and British sources, and on a great amount of secondary literature, it traces an accurate panorama of the Italian political, social and diplomatic developments - from the student and worker protests of 1968, to the killing of Aldo Moro in 1978, from the behind-the-scenes bargains between parties, to the fear of the Communist Party's growth - during the Premiership of the conservative Christian Democrat, Mariano Rumor (1915-1990). The volume includes an innovative comparison between Rumor's basic choices of foreign policy and those of the duo Nixon and Kissinger. From here arises the book's title, where the 'dove' is represented by Rumor, a fervent Catholic, a firm anti-Communist, a reliable Atlantist and an indefatigable Europeanist, while the 'eagle' is embodied by the Republican Administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.