500.A19/98: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy ( Phillips ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:43 p.m.]
244. Following interview given by Mussolini to William Philip Simms, foreign editor Scripps Howard, which I understand will be published today in the United States and in Italy tomorrow:
“‘If President Roosevelt would take the initiative and call an arms limitation conference in the near future the move would meet with great success.’
So declared Italy’s Benito Mussolini in an exclusive audience granted me in the famous Venezia Palace here today.
Moreover, Il Duce stated in no uncertain terms that Europe and the world must soon find some sane means of putting a stop to the frenziedly accelerating armaments contest else be prepared to face a crisis of perhaps unprecedented gravity.
Such crisis he warned might develop in either one of two directions. It could take a political turn and lead to war. Or it might assume an economic character.
Sooner or later rearmament activity must cease whereupon unemployment and kindred ills may plunge the world into difficulties as great or greater than those from which we had begun to hope we were emerging.
The alternative, the Duce said with emphasis, is to put an end to the competition before it is too late. And the statesman to assume the leadership in this great humanitarian task is the President of the United States.
The virtual invitation to the American President came as something of a surprise. First, because it has been assumed that for an indefinite time to come at least, Europe would not listen to an arms limitation proposal. Secondly, Mussolini, the European statesman [Page 656] who makes the first gesture, is precisely the one most frequently and persistently pictured abroad as one of the most stubborn leaders in the race for more armaments.
To all this the Duce has suddenly and dramatically given the lie.
‘Italy would back such an arms limitation move to the utmost’ he snapped in typical Mussolini fashion. ‘And all the other powers would come in too. They would have to. None of them can long keep up the pace they are going now and they know it. To do so means the world would wind up in war or in economic collapse with armies of jobless, perhaps in revolt, nobody can foresee what.
‘And Italy wants peace. She needs peace for a long time in which to develop the resources now at her command.
‘I am not speaking of disarmament but of arms limitation. Disarmament is impossible at this stage. Nor am I speaking of arms reduction. Already the situation has developed to point where even that is now out of the question.
‘But limitation in the future is a perfectly feasible practicable thing. And when I say future I do not mean some vague distant time ahead but in the very near future’.
So many people are now employed in the world-wide armament program, the Duce holds, that suddenly to stop the wheels and throw the workers into the ranks of the unemployed might well set the world back where it was seven or eight years ago at the beginning of the depression.
The job ahead therefore would seem to be divided into two phases. First, it would be the task of the statesmen to apply the brakes and halt the dangerous momentum as quickly as possible without upsetting the economic equilibrium. Unless this is done the consequence might easily be as terrible as war itself. Second, actually to limit armaments.”
“World peace was the keynote of the conversation once he got on the subject of Europe. The man perhaps most often pictured abroad as impulsive and bellicose showed himself a cool farseeing thinker ardently desirous of seeing early steps taken to preserve the peace. Even his plan to make Italy self contained is shown to be purely a defensive measure, not inspired by economic nationalism. Both he and his Foreign Minister and son-in-law Count Ciano are preaching wider trade relations. Like President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull they believe that the opening up of world trade routes is of utmost importance to world peace and prosperity.
Stories that Italy has ambitions in Spain, the Balearics or the Western Mediterranean, the Duce said are simply untrue. She has none. But he added with emphasis Italy is distinctly opposed to Bolshevism gaining a footing in Spain or the Mediterranean because in his belief Bolshevism is still Europe’s greatest menace. For that reason he said Italy feels it will be best for her, for France, for Britain, Europe, the United States and the world for Franco to win.
As for the peace of Europe, Mussolini does not believe it essential that all the nations enter into one great peace pact. He thinks five nations could achieve it, namely, Italy, France, Britain, Germany and Poland.
[Page 657]Duce’s position is simply this: the idea that nothing can be done about armaments is absurd. A race is on which unless stopped will wind up disastrously. Ergo stop the race.
To say that this cannot be done at present is likewise untrue. Britain, for example, would not be asked to halt construction right off but merely to state her objective and agree to limit her armaments at that point. And so on for the other nations.
At first, therefore, there would be a limitation of objectives. And afterwards limitation of armaments themselves.
An agreement limiting objectives would serve a tremendous purpose. It would put an end to the competition, remove the fever and the panic from the existing situation and so vastly lessen the danger with which Europe is now faced. Furthermore, it would give business and industry time to readjust themselves without which unemployment and associated evils are inevitable.
At present the sky is the limit for armaments. Each nation is building against the other in a mad scramble for more and more arms. None can afford the financial outlay. All face a terrible reckoning if they keep it up—as keep it up they must or feel they must lest their neighbors be in a position to crush them by sheer preponderance of arms.
The Duce is convinced all this could be changed were the President to call a conference. He doesn’t believe any great power would dare refuse to attend. Nor does he believe they would dare refuse to state their objectives and agree to limit such objectives. As the alternative to some such agreement is war or a world-wide economic collapse attended by widespread revolt, no nation would be willing before the world to take upon itself so terrible a responsibility.
And once objectives were agreed upon limitation would follow almost as a matter of course.”