765.84/541: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 16—3:25 p.m.]
322. Your 181, July 12, 7 p.m.; 178, July 11, 8 p.m.,49 and 175, July 11, 2 p.m. I saw Sir Samuel Hoare this morning by appointment and communicated to him the substance of your 175. He asked me to convey his gratitude for the statement you gave the press on the Abyssinian situation. He said further that while there seemed to be very slight hope of accomplishing anything with Mussolini, his Government intended to continue their efforts to prevent war; that as usual with dictators he did not believe that Mussolini ever got the facts or really knew himself what the attitude of the rest of the world is; and that he had no idea that anything he (the British Foreign Secretary) said to the Italian Ambassador in London, Signor Grandi, reached Mussolini in the form in which he had said it. For this reason the British Government sent Mr. Anthony Eden to Rome in the endeavor to give Mussolini the facts about the attitude of this Government. Sir Samuel Hoare said he hoped consideration might be given to the thought of conveying to Mussolini through the American Ambassador in Rome your statement of July 12, because otherwise he did not believe it probable that Mussolini would know what had happened.
- Neither printed.↩