but he was rarely able to exploit fully the opportunities that he created. As an anonymous Christian Democrat bigwig once remarked: "Fanfani has colleagues, associates, acquaintances and subordinates, but I have never heard much about his friends." In May 1955, Einaudi's term as president of the Italian Republic came to an end, and Parliament had to choose his successor. Fanfani was promoting for the office the liberal Cesare Merzagora, who was then President of the Senate. However the right-wing of the party, led by Giuseppe Pella and Giulio Andreotti, organized an internal coup in order to get the Christian Democrat Giovanni Gronchi elected instead. The move received the surprising support of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and Italian Socialist Party (PSI), and also of the Monarchist National Party (PNM) and the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). After a bitter battle and the final crumbling of the centrist front, on 29 April 1955 Gronchi was elected President of the Republic with 658 votes out of 883. During his secretariat, he built good relations both with United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, culminated to a state visit to Washington D.C. in August 1956. The brutal suppression of 1956 Hungarian Revolution, saw him coordinating a strong anti-communist propaganda in the country. General election in 1958 and second government In the 1958 general election, Fanfani run as secretary of the Christian Democrats and main candidate to become the next prime minister. The electoral result was similar to the one of five years before. The Christian Democracy gained 42.4% of votes, nearly doubling Palmiro Togliatti's Communist Party, which arrived second. However, the poor results of the other small centrist and secular parties kept the same problems of political instability within the centrist coalition, which characterised the previous legislature. The Christian Democracy resulted even more polarized between Fanfani's leftist faction and the opposite one which urged for a rightist policy; Fanfani relaunched his reformist agenda, advocating for a dialogue with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), which had stopped its ties with the communists after the Hungarian Revolution. However, a government between DC and PSI was probably too premature due to the strong opposition of DC's right-wing, so, on 2 July 1958, Fanfani was sworn in as new prime minister at the head of a coalition government with the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI), and a case-by-case support of the