Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Welles)25a

Participants: The President;
The Italian Ambassador, Don Ascanio dei principi Colonna;
The Under Secretary, Mr. Welles.

The President received at noon today the Italian Ambassador, whom I accompanied to the White House.

The Ambassador stated that he had requested to be received by the President by instruction of his Government in order to communicate to the President textually a message addressed to the President by Mussolini. This message, the Ambassador said, was a clarification of some of the statements which the Duce had made on the preceding day in his conversation with Ambassador Phillips in Rome. The Ambassador did not leave a written copy of the message, but read it to the President. The following are the essential points in the message.

[Here follows summary of message from the Chief of the Italian Government (Mussolini) to President Roosevelt, printed infra.]

The President then stated that he desired the Ambassador to tell Mussolini that he was gratified by the receipt of this message, and that he regarded the last paragraph as particularly encouraging. He said he felt that the influence of both Italy and the United States was very great so long as they remained out of the hostilities, and that he was particularly happy to know that Italy, like the Government of the United States, was desirous of exercising its influence in behalf of the establishment of a better and a more stable world order.

[Page 696]

The President then said that, with regard to the first paragraph of Mussolini’s message relative to the invasion of Denmark and Norway, he did not believe that there was anything to be gained by a discussion of what had taken place prior to the actual invasion of those two countries. The fact remained, he said, that the invasion had been undertaken by Germany, and that for the commission of the act itself only Germany could be held responsible.

The President said he fully recognized that interference with the commerce of neutral powers such as Italy on the high seas by the Allied nations was exasperating and created natural irritation. He called attention to the fact, however, that nations engaged in the war resorted to such measures as a part of their belligerent activities. He reminded the Ambassador that the United States itself was of course not free from such interference, and added as an illustration that American airplanes traveling from the United States to Europe and stopping at Bermuda had had American mail from the United States seized by the British authorities at that place and searched.25b As an indication of why the British authorities felt this procedure warranted, the President stated that in one lot of mail so searched the British found $234,000 in American currency destined for Germany included in correspondence dispatched in that way.

The President then went on to clarify the reasons for the belief which he had expressed to Mussolini that an extension of hostilities into the Mediterranean might result eventually in such a situation as to cause the three Americas to defend themselves. He said that if, as a result of such an extension of the scene of warfare, any one power or group of powers succeeded in extending their domination over the whole of Europe, that would inevitably result in the extension of such domination over the whole of Africa as well. As an inevitable result, every republic in the Western Hemisphere would find itself compelled to arm to the utmost extent, and such an armament race would, after a very short time, result in complete ruin for all but one of the participants in such an armament race. The exception, the President said, was the United States which, because of its population, its almost inexhaustible material resources and its preponderant financial resources, could withstand the strain longer than any power in the world. To these remarks the Ambassador nodded his emphatic agreement.

The President then went on to say that an extension of hostilities into the Mediterranean would immediately result in very grave prejudice to American trade and commerce and to the freedom of navigation of American ships in the Mediterranean area. The President [Page 697] said that he wished here to cite certain historical precedents which would be illustrative to the Ambassador of what the President had in mind. He said that in 1803, as a result of constant harassing and interference with American shipping in the Mediterranean, including even the capture of American citizens on American ships by the Barbary corsairs sent out by the Bey of Algiers, the Bey of Tunis and the Sultan of Morocco, the Government of the United States finally dispatched American naval vessels to the Mediterranean, which eventually forced the various rulers of North Africa to refrain from further interference with American shipping. When in 1815 there was a further seizure of American merchant vessels in that same region, a further naval force was sent by the United States and, as a result of these forceful measures, there had been no further interference with legitimate American trade in the Mediterranean area. The Government of the United States, the President said, necessarily had an obligation to assure full and due protection to peaceful trade interests of the United States in that area.

With regard to the efforts of the two Governments, Italy and the United States, to work for a better and a more stable world order, the President said he had already informed Mussolini, as the latter would remember, that the United States would be glad to participate in international efforts to achieve the reduction of armaments and the creation of a liberal international economic system. He could not, however, agree with the belief expressed to me in my conversations with Mussolini in Rome25c that the finding of a political agreement in Europe must precede agreements upon disarmament and a sound economic system. As the President envisaged it, the three efforts must be made simultaneously and, while the United States could not participate in the negotiations leading up to a political settlement and would limit itself to participating in the disarmament and economic negotiations, the President nevertheless thought it essential that the three negotiations be conducted simultaneously. The President here referred to the phrase used in the Far East—“face saving”. He said that very often it might be impossible for a power negotiating a political settlement to make certain concessions of a political character unless it had some quid pro quo to show to its people as a justification for such a concession and that if some economic concession or some concession in the disarmament discussions could be obtained simultaneously in the favor of such power, in return for a political concession which it might make, a solution could be obtained which could not be found otherwise.

In concluding the conversation with the Ambassador the President asked that Mussolini be assured that the President was gratified with [Page 698] the message sent to him, and that he hoped that Mussolini and himself could continue to communicate in the same manner from now on, any message the President desired to send to be transmitted through Ambassador Phillips in Rome and any message Mussolini desired to send to be communicated to the President through the Italian Ambassador in Washington.

S[umner] W[elles]
  1. Photostatic copy obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York. The original of this memorandum was transmitted by Mr. Welles to President Roosevelt under covering memorandum of May 2, 1940.
  2. For correspondence on representations to the British Government with regard to censorship of American mail, see vol. iii , under United Kingdom.
  3. See vol. i , under section entitled “Special Mission to Europe of Sumner Welles, Under Secretary of State.”