500.A15A5/673: Telegram
The Chairman of the American Delegation (Davis) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 21—2:25 p.m.]
103. In a brief talk with Grandi58 after a luncheon today he told me he doubted if in the last analysis Mussolini would agree to sign a naval agreement now. I expressed some surprise and said that since the Italians had been cooperating satisfactorily without raising any serious difficulties I had assumed they would of course be in favor of an agreement. He said that while a naval agreement was not of any particular advantage to Italy they had thought it better to have one than not. Mussolini had expected that before the Naval Conference reached a climax there would have been a settlement of the Abyssinian question. Since, however, there has been no such settlement and the British fleet was still in the Mediterranean he suspected that under the circumstances Mussolini would find it difficult to justify a naval agreement which offered no advantages to Italy to which he could point. I cannot of course tell whether the [Page 70] Italians are taking this tack to help instigate another move for the Abyssinian settlement. Eden told me yesterday that Drummond had just had a talk with Mussolini on the naval question which led him to believe the Italians would offer no difficulties as to a naval agreement but intimated that they might hold aloof from any European questions such as an air agreement until the question of sanctions is disposed of. My guess is that if and when France is ready to close a naval agreement she will persuade Italy to do so, too.
- Dino Grandi, Italian Ambassador in the United Kingdom and delegate to the Naval Conference.↩