Office of the Historian

Roosevelt Papers: Telegram

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt 1

most secret
London, 4 August 1943.

403. Former Naval Person to President personal and most secret.

1.
Your number 342.2 War Cabinet have now given most careful consideration to proposals to make Rome an open city on the conditions specified. We are sure that the effect on public opinion here would be most unfortunate. What will the Russians say? It would be taken as a proof that we were going to make a patched-up peace with the King and Badoglio and had abandoned the principle of unconditional surrender. It would be taken all over the world and throughout Italy as a success for the new Italian Government who would have rescued Rome from all further danger. No doubt their greatest hone is to have Italy recognized as a neutral area, and Rome would seem to be a first instalment. Considering that Badoglio, according to all our information and especially the most secret, is giving repeated “assurances to Germany and Japan that they mean to carry on the war and be faithful to their engagements, and that they are even repeating this kind of statements on the radio, we do not think they should be given the slightest encouragement. Although in the interval it would be [Page 554] convenient to secure the conditions proposed for Rome, this advantage in our opinion is far outweighed by the political misunderstanding which would arise among our own people and the stimulus given to a hostile Italian Government.
2.
We hope that in a few months Rome will be in our hands, and we shall need to use its facilities for the northward advance. If Rome has been declared an open city by us, it will be practically impossible for us to take away its status when we want to use it and its communications and airfields. The British Chiefs of Staff say these “open city” conditions, applied to us, would paralyze the whole further campaign: and certainly the Germans would threaten Rome with bombardment if they were altered or broken. We think this a great danger.
3.
In these circumstances would it not be better for us to talk the matter over when we meet? In the interest of putting the maximum political and military pressure on the Italian people and Government as well as for strictly military reasons we are most reluctant to interrupt such bombing of the marshalling yards, etc., as Eisenhower evidently thought desirable: but if you so desire it must be postponed until you and I have met.3

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Prime
  1. Channel of transmission to Washington not indicated. Forwarded by the White House Map Room to Roosevelt, who was then at Birch Island. Information copies were sent to Hull by the White House Map Room and by Halifax on August 4 and August 6, 1943, respectively (740.0011 EW/8–343; id./8–643).↩
  2. Ante, p. 552.↩
  3. For paragraph 4 of this message, omitted here, see post, p. 664.↩