Hopkins Papers: Telegram
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to Marshal Stalin 1
most secret
Quadrant
, [August 19, 1943.]
President and Prime Minister to Marshal Stalin. Most Secret and Personal.
- 1.
- On August 15th. the British Ambassador at Madrid2 reported that General Castellano had arrived from Badoglio with a letter of introduction from the British Minister at the Vatican.3 The General declared that he was authorized by Badoglio to say that Italy was willing to surrender unconditionally provided she could join the Allies. The British Representative at the Vatican has since been furnished by Marshal Badoglio with a written statement that he has duly authorized General Castellano. This therefore seems a firm offer. We are not prepared to enter into any bargain with the Badoglio Government to induce Italy to change sides. On the other hand, there are many advantages and [in?] the great speeding-up of the campaign which might follow therefrom. We shall begin our invasion of the mainland of Italy probably before the end of this month, and about a week later we shall make our full-scale thrust at Avalanche (see our immediately following telegram). It is very likely that the Badoglio Government will not last so long. The Germans have one or more armoured divisions outside Rome, and once they think that the Badoglio Government is playing them false they are quite capable of overthrowing it and setting up a Quisling Government of Fascist elements under for instance Farinacci. Alternatively, Badoglio may collapse and the whole of Italy pass into disorder.
- 2.
- Such being the situation, the Combined Chiefs of Staff have prepared and the President and Prime Minister have approved, as a measure of military diplomacy, the instructions which are given in our immediately following telegram. They have been sent to General Eisenhower for action.4
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
- Sent to the War Cabinet Office in London as Churchill’s telegram No. Welfare 217 and forwarded to the British Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Clark Kerr), who combined the message contained in this telegram and that contained in telegram No. Welfare 218, infra, into a single message for Stalin. See Stalin’s Correspondence, vol. i, pp. 144–147; vol. ii, pp. 79–82. Although the messages as received in Moscow contained a garble and were not entirely complete, Clark Kerr delivered the best available text on August 20, 1943, and transmitted a corrected text on August 22. See ibid., vol. i, p. 388, note 44; Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. ii, p. 354.↩
- Sir Samuel Hoare.↩
- Sir D’Arcy Osborne.↩
- For the paragraphs of this message omitted here, see post, p. 1091.↩