Foreign Relations of the United States, Conferences at Washington and Quebec, 1943

J.C.S. Files

Memorandum by the Secretaries of the Combined Chiefs of Staff

secret
C.C.S. 185/4

[Washington,] 22 May 1943.

Policy for Coming Operations Regarding Propaganda and Subversive Activities

The enclosure is a proposed reply to the request of General Eisenhower contained in C.C.S. 185/3.¹ It has the approval of the U. S. Chiefs of Staff and the President.

H. Redman
J. R. Deane

Combined Secretariat

Enclosure

Draft Telegram From the Combined, Chiefs of Staff to the Commander in Chief, Allied Force Headquarters (Eisenhower)²

secret

[Washington, undated.]

Proposed Telegram to General Eisenhower

The President has expressed the following views on psychological warfare for Husky . The Prime Minister concurs: Reference your telegram of 17 May on the subject.³

“Most certainly we cannot tell the Italians that if they cease hostilities they will have a peace with honor. We cannot get away from unconditional surrender. All we can tell them is that they will be treated by us and the British with humanity and with the intention that the Italian people be reconstituted into a nation in accordance with the principles of self-determination. This latter would, of course, not include any form of Fascism or dictatorship.”

Accordingly, the existing approved statement of policy, transmitted in our Fortune 111 of April 16,⁴ will be adhered to in your planning for psychological warfare.

1. See ante, p. 326, footnote 1.
2. During the meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff with Roosevelt and Churchill on May 19, 1943 (ante, p. 122), the President stated that he had sent a message to Marshall regarding Eisenhower’s proposals on pre- Husky propaganda. Marshall explained to the meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff on May 22, 1943 (ante, p. 163) that he had prepared this draft telegram to Eisenhower on the basis of Roosevelt’s views, At their meeting on May 23, 1943 (ante, p. 180), the Combined Chiefs of Staff were informed by Ismay that Churchill had agreed to this draft telegram, the text of which was then sent by the Combined Chiefs of Staff to Eisenhower in Algiers as telegram Fan 127, May 24, 3943. At a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on June 8, 1943, Marshall stated that “the original proposal from General Eisenhower’s headquarters, which had included the phrase ‘peace with honor’, had been sent without the personal knowledge of General Eisenhower.” (J.C.S. Files) Cf. Eisenhower Papers, pp. 1161–1162.
3. Ante, p. 326.
4. See footnote 2 to Eisenhower’s telegram of May 17 to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, ante, p. 326.