740.0011 European War 1939/26912/7

Memorandum by the Ambassador in Italy (Phillips)

Ciano sent for me this morning at eleven o’clock in order to give me Mussolini’s answer to the message which I presented yesterday and which has already been telegraphed to Colonna for presentation to the President. After I had read the message, I thanked the Minister for his courtesy in letting me have a copy of it.

I referred to the British move of yesterday in connection with the British merchant marine in the Mediterranean, and asked him whether he had any further explanation. He told me that he had seen Sir Noel Charles and had expressed surprise at the step the British had taken. It was a step similar to one which they had taken last September a few days before the outbreak of the war. At that anxious moment it had been natural for the British to order their merchant marine out of the Mediterranean, but why should they do so now? The situations were wholly different. Italy had no intention of going to war unless the allies attacked Italy.

According to Ciano, Charles had replied that he presumed that his Government had become aroused as a result of the anti-British campaign in the press and in public speeches. Ciano had assured him that the only spokesmen of the Government upon whom he could rely were the Duce and himself; that the remarks of individuals should [Page 700] not be taken as expressing the voice of Italy but merely independent views of their own. (I made no comment but looked the Minister straight in the eye, and I think he got me.)

I said that the intensity of the pro-German attitude of the press was nevertheless causing a great deal of uneasiness in the United States. There they did not understand the reasons for it, which living here I could understand, and it was only natural that the American public should come to feel that Italy was preparing to enter the war on the side of Germany. Ciano replied that at the outbreak of the war in September, Italy had two choices: either to enter the war on the side of Germany or to assume a position of non-belligerency with a sympathetic attitude towards Germany. The Government had chosen the latter, for obvious reasons (which he did not enumerate), but that the least they could do in the circumstances was to give to Germany a pro-German Italian press.

I then referred to my conversation with the Duce yesterday and to his statement with regard to Gibraltar. He had mentioned, I said, that there were certain problems to be settled with France, and I had regretted that I had not asked him for clarification on these points. Ciano said that it was impossible to formulate, with any definiteness, their problems with the French beyond those which had already been stated: Tunis, Djibouti, and the Canal. It was really not quite the moment to include Corsica. The point which the Duce had mentioned with regard to Gibraltar, however, was of supreme importance. Italy’s need to have a “window on the Atlantic” was to be borne in mind as of vital importance to this country.

In conclusion, he said that it was his job to keep people calm and he was endeavoring to do so. With his rather unusual friendliness, and with a certain engaging naivety he hoped that I realized that he had never told me a lie and that he never intended to do so. He would prefer to resign his position than do anything of the sort. I assured him that I had the utmost confidence in him, that it was a growing confidence, and I would always trust him. Moreover, I said, lies were stupid things because they were of no ultimate value whatsoever and were so easily discovered.

William Phillips