Office of the Historian

500.A15 a 1/236: Telegram

The Ambassador in Italy (Fletcher) to the Secretary of State

Rome, May 17, 1927—11 a.m.
[Received May 17—9:39 a.m.]

66. I have just received a memorandum from the Foreign Office in reply to our memorandum of March 14th35 which, after referring to the antecedents, states:

“The Royal Government deeply appreciates this attention of the American Government and, while thanking it, has to state that the negotiations at Geneva will be followed with the greatest attention by the Italian Government and public opinion even if an official ‘observer’ shall not be sent to participate in the Conference.

Nevertheless, the Royal Government, depending upon the development of the negotiations and the probable results thereof, reserves the right to send one or more naval experts to follow closely these negotiations, not excluding that these experts may, at a given moment, assume the specific character of ‘observers’ at the Conference itself.”36

Fletcher
  1. See telegram No. 18, Mar. 12, 4 p.m., to the Ambassador in Italy, p. 30.↩

  2. On June 4 (telegram No. 75, not printed) the Ambassador in Italy telegraphed the Department that Under Secretary Grandi had informed him that the Italian Government had appointed Commander Prince Favrizio Ruspoli and Lieutenant Commander Marquis Cugia di Sant’Orsola as unofficial observers to the Conference (file No. 500.A15al/260).

    A French Mission d’Information also attended the plenary sessions of the Conference; see S. Doc. 55,70th Cong., 1st sess., p. 20.

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