500.A15a3/1212
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Castle) of a Conversation With the Italian Ambassador (De Martino), October 87, 1930
The Italian Ambassador came to see me to read a telegram from his Government of comment on the conversations he had with the Secretary on the subject of French-Italian naval building.
[Page 151]Mussolini pointed out in the telegram that, in the last conversation with France, Italy took the initiative in presenting compromise proposals. Italy was perfectly willing to make compromises, but France was not willing to make any at all. No Italian concessions were matched by any French concessions.
I had told the Ambassador one day that it would be rather wonderful if Italy would have the courage to act alone and make an announcement that they had no intention of building before the next conference. I said that, if Italy would do a thing of this sort, it would gain the sympathy of the entire world and that France would practically be forced by public opinion to cut down its own program. Apparently the Ambassador had telegraphed this conversation also to Rome because the telegram he had pointed out, specifically referring to what I had said, that this practically was the Italian proposal of last May,62 although, of course, the naval holiday was presupposed to be on the part of both countries. Mussolini feels that a onesided declaration of this kind might be altogether too dangerous because there was no proof that France would not gayly continue its building program.