36. Memorandum From the Director of the Military Intelligence Division, Department of War General Staff (Churchill) to the Military Attaché in Rome (Buckey)1
SUBJECT
- Cooperation of Military Attachés with Committee on Public Information
1. Your attention is invited to the enclosed copy of a circular letter sent from this office to all military attachés serving in neutral countries.2 The object of this letter was to insure the complete and hearty cooperation of our military attachés with the representative of the Committee in the country in which they are located.
2. In this connection it is desired to inform you that our own relations with the Committee here in Washington are the very best that can possibly exist. General Churchill, Director of the Division, and Mr. Creel, Chairman of the Committee are both serving on numerous committees where there is a complete and satisfactory understanding and exchange of views. Our liaison between ourselves and the Committee’s Office and representatives in Washington is complete in every detail, and a very frank and agreeable exchange of information and data is carried on every day.
3. We keep one thing and one thing only in mind, and that is that we are all members of a common cause and are all working together in the interests of the United States looking towards a successful conclusion of the war in which we are now engaged.
4. A letter recently received from the Committee indicates that possibly there has been some lack of cooperation between your Office and their representative, Captain Charles E. Merriam in Rome, and we are taking the liberty of going over the various points that have been brought to our attention with a full assurance that our belief in your [Page 75] tact and judgment is so well founded that these little minor differences can easily be corrected and obviated in the future.3
5. The differences that have been brought to our attention are, that having known of available space for committee offices you did not inform the representative, although requested to do so. That you did not cooperate in the attempt to have the premises requisitioned by the Italian government. That you kept Kingsley Moses for a month as a clerk after the Ambassador had been persuaded to bring him from Foggia for Captain Merriam. That in the absence of the Ambassador, Moses was transferred to your office for work as a clerk, while he was acting as head of the Speakers Bureau there. That you declined to furnish blocks of passes to the C.P.I. representative for Y.M.C.A. and Red Cross with the result that they are inconvenienced and pay money for speakers who might take slightly different routes from those deemed necessary when starting from Rome.
6. While we do not ask for a report on the above mentioned matters, we do think that a closer cooperation would be productive probably of better results. Plainly speaking, what we want is that you and Captain Merriam get together and iron out all the difficulties or misunderstandings that may possibly exist.
7. Another report is to the effect that you did not notify the Committee’s representative of the arrival of troops at Genoa, thus preventing proper publicity and the taking of moving pictures, although requested to do so. Also that you failed to notify them of the arrival of troops from France, with the same effect, although requested.
8. With respect to these last items, it may be possible that you were acting under orders to maintain secrecy with respect to these movements, or that there may have been some other good and well founded reason for not informing the Committee’s representative. This, of course, we are unable to judge from this distance.
[Page 76]9. In closing, we do, however, wish to once again call your attention to the necessity of the very closest cooperation that can possibly be had, and by so doing you will receive and have the full support of this your Home Office.4
Brigadier General, General Staff
- Source: National Archives, RG 63, Entry 1, General Correspondence of George Creel, Box 4, Censorship Board. No classification marking. Drafted by Lieutenant Colonel Walter F. Martin (Cavalry, U.S. Army). Churchill forwarded this memorandum and the September 9 circular (see footnote 2 below) to Creel under cover of an October 2 letter. (Ibid.) Mervyn C. Buckey was the Military Attaché in Rome from February 14, 1918.↩
- Attached but not printed is a September 9 memorandum from Churchill to all military attachés stating: “The Military Intelligence Division, and Military Attachés in particular, have, however, no authority whatever to initiate propaganda nor to interfere with or criticize the work, methods or personnel of the representatives of the Committee in this field. The Committee on Public Information is absolutely its own judge as to the nature and the amount of propaganda material it shall select and the methods and avenues to be employed in the distribution of propaganda.”↩
- Telegrams documenting the Embassy’s complaints about CPI Commissioner Merriam, including Merriam’s disputes with Buckey, are in the National Archives, RG 59, Central Decimal File 1910–1929, Box 735, 103.93. An October 18 letter from Thomas Page to Lansing summarized the complaints. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Decimal File 1910–1929, Box 735, 103.93/1193) Merriam recorded his views in “A Report on Lieut. Tedeschi, Liaison Officer of Col. Buckey, American Military Attaché at Rome,” dated September 21. (National Archives, RG 63, Entry 106, Correspondence, Cables, Reports, and Newspapers Received from Employees of the Committee Abroad, Nov. 1917–Apr. 1919, Box 12, Merriam—Corres.—Oct–Dec 1918)↩
- Wilson commented on the situation in a letter to Lansing on October 5: “I know Merriam and know his quality so well that it is hard for me not to believe that there has been some misunderstanding on Page’s part.” (Library of Congress, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Series 2: Family and General Correspondence, 1786–1924, Reel 100, 1918 Sept. 17–Oct. 13)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩