033.1140 Stimson, H. L./141
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation With the Head of the Italian Government (Mussolini), Rome, July 9, 6 p.m.
Mr. Leonardo Vitetti of the Italian Foreign Office, who had been with Signor Grandi during the afternoon, remained to take me to see Mussolini. We went to his office, which is in the Venezia Palace (the former Embassy of the Austrians to the Vatican; Grandi being in the former Embassy of the Austrians to the Quirinal), a very impressive building. We were taken through a series of rooms until we reached a very large room with Mussolini, sitting behind the desk at the other end. He came and greeted me as I entered the door and walked back with me to two chairs standing opposite each other to the nearer side of his desk. Vitetti remained standing throughout the interview ready to act as interpreter.
Mussolini asked me about my arrival in Italy and I expressed my appreciation of the care and kindness which had surrounded our party since we had reached Italy and told him that the ride over from Naples to Kome was one of the most comfortable and pleasant that I had ever taken. He asked how long it had taken. I told him about the visit to the battlefield at Volturno, about which he did not seem to be as much interested as I expected. I told him that I had been spending much of the day with his Foreign Minister Grandi and remarked that Grandi had said he, Mussolini, would be interested in the debt moratorium. I spoke of that.
I told him that I felt that an event had occurred since I had planned to come which made my trip more interesting and that was the debt moratorium, the proposal of Mr. Hoover. He said, “Yes, that would [Page 543] do good, but it would have been better if there had not been any delay.” I told him that I thought the effect of the French delay had been obviated by the fact that we were now agreed. He did not expatiate on it. I told him that we in America had felt that the depression was accentuated by lack of confidence and that the reaction to the President’s message indicated that we were right. He asked me whether I thought that the depression was passing over. I said I disliked to prophesy, but we felt there were indications that the bottom had been reached and that we were on the up-grade, but I said I thought it would be a long pull.
He asked me about my trip and its purpose. He asked me whether I was going to the London Conference.59 I said I was not going to the Conference of Experts,60 but my trip was unofficial, at which he raised his eyebrows; that I had come over to see my friends, Mr. Grandi, Mr. Briand and Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Henderson,61 and that I expected to make the acquaintance of a new friend, Mr. Bruening.62 He asked me if I had ever met Bruening and I said no. He then brought up the subject of the disarmament conference, and asked me whether we were in favor of it. I said very emphatically that we were, and were in favor of holding it without postponement; that we felt it would be a disaster to postpone it. He assented and said emphatically that everybody knew where Italy stood; she was for disarmament. I pointed out that even if America abolished its entire army and navy it would not alter the problems existing between France and Germany, and France and Italy, to which he agreed, and I said that therefore there must be preliminary work in Europe on their political questions.
I said that in America we felt that the coming year was likely to be a very critical one in respect to disarmament; that the world must choose whether it is going to try the new methods which we hoped would lead towards peace or whether it would drift into the old cycle of competition and war. He signified his assent to this and said emphatically that Italy stood for disarmament and peace, and I noted that afterwards when he saw the press after my departure he emphasized this part of our interview.
Mussolini then signalled to Vitetti, who called in the photographers who took photographs of us as we talked and then I withdrew and Vitetti showed me the rest of the Palace which was very impressive.
- The Seven-Power Conference of Ministers, July 20–23, on the financial and economic crisis in Germany; see pp. 263–264, 298–313, and 317–321.↩
- Held in London July 17–August 11; see pp. 164 ff.↩
- J. Ramsay MacDonald, British Prime Minister, and Arthur Henderson, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
- Heinrich Bruening, Chancellor of the German Reich.↩