865.01/438
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Sir Ronald Campbell55 came to see me, at his request.
He said that Mr. Cannon56 had spoken to Mr. Donald Hall57 about the possibility of Count Sforza to go to North Africa. He wished to ask about this. I said that this was true. I talked the matter over with Secretary Hull and we had determined that it was best to permit him to go to North Africa in a purely private capacity and on his own responsibility. This did not indicate that the Government was sponsoring his trip. I said that the British, of course, were entirely within their rights in refusing to let him go to London; but we should have very great difficulty in explaining to several million Italians here why we were preventing him from leaving the country and going to a point near Italy. I observed that Count Sforza had succeeded in attaining the respect of this very large group of Americans of Italian ancestry; that he had been consistently anti-Axis and [Page 404] had been helpful; and that we should have great difficulty in explaining why he was not permitted to say what he had to say to the Italians, in his native country, as and when the opportunity arose.
I added that we could, of course, say that the British declined to permit Sforza to go but that I thought the British would not desire this. Sir Ronald agreed.
He then asked whether the directive to General Eisenhower58 might not provide that Count Sforza should be permitted to enter into no political activity whatsoever.
I said that point was open to consideration but that my own idea would be that the directive should state that Count Sforza’s activities should be subject at all times to such limitation as might seem necessary in the military interest.
Sir Ronald said that he was glad to have this explanation because he wanted to be able to state it to his Foreign Office.
I did not debate the question of sending Count Sforza along but to state it merely as a decision we had already taken based on reasons of our own. I added that in certain other matters we had had to bear criticism because we had acquiesced in some of the British ideas and I thought that in this case we could afford to take account of our own position. Sir Ronald took this with entire grace.