740.0011 European War 1939/28324: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 8—6:20 p.m.]
6952. To the Under Secretary. Your telegram number 6119 December 3. In this message addressed to me Ambassador Taylor asked me to reply to you with as full a statement as possible from my recollection of his conversation with the Prime Minister regarding bombing and his request that the Prime Minister issue a statement concerning the bombing of non-combatant civilians and the bombing of Rome.
These conversations took place at a dinner on October 5th at which Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, their oldest and youngest daughters, Mr. Taylor and myself were present. Part of the conversation took place when I was out of the room. I took no notes at the time and am therefore dependent on my memory as to what was said on this occasion.
We were discussing Mr. Taylor’s trip to the Vatican and I felt that he convinced the Prime Minister of the genuine friendliness of the Vatican to the United Nations cause. Mr. Taylor will remember that because of the personal character of the information he brought from the Vatican he asked that the conversation be kept confidential. During the conversation Mr. Taylor asked the Prime Minister to exclude Rome from bombing. The Prime Minister said that he felt unable to commit himself on this issue. Mr. Taylor then tried to persuade the Prime Minister to make a public statement limiting bombing to military objectives. This again Mr. Churchill seemed to feel it impossible to do. Mr. Churchill explained that he recognized that night bombing does not lend itself to accurate bombing of military objectives only and he did not therefore feel it would be honest to state that night bombing would be confined to military objectives only. He felt that he could not order the discontinuance of night bombing. Both men argued their points eloquently and with great sincerity. Sitting listening to them I could not help thinking of General Sherman’s statement that “war is hell”.