Office of the Historian

740.00119 ACI/11

The Department of State to the British Embassy 14

Aide-Mémoire

Mr. Macmillan has informed Mr. Murphy of the substance of a recent Foreign Office communication regarding the organization of the Advisory Council for Italy.15

The Department agrees with the British view that the Advisory Council must be located near the headquarters of the Allied Control Commission and that it will therefore first have to establish itself at Brindisi.

Concerning the relationship between the Advisory Council and the Italian Government, the terms of reference16 (paragraph 5) provide, “The Council will advise the Allied Commander-in-Chief in his capacity as President of the Allied Control Commission on general policy connected with the work of the control”. Paragraph 4 says, “The Council will have the duty in particular of watching the operation of the machinery of control in Italy which will be enforcing the terms of surrender”. The directive for the Allied Control Commission for Italy from the Combined Chiefs of Staff to General Eisenhower defines one of the functions of the Commission as follows: “To [Page 435] be the organ through which the policy of the United Nations towards the Italian Government is conducted and the relations of the United Nations with the Italian Government are handled”. It is the Department’s view that the Advisory Council as such has no direct relationship with the Italian Government but must use the machinery of the Control Commission for any questions which it wishes to take up with the Italian Government.

While the Department agrees that it will be impossible and undesirable to prevent individual members of the Advisory Council from having personal relations with members of the Italian Government, it interprets the terms of reference and the Combined Chiefs of Staff directives to provide that, acting in their official capacities, individual members of the Advisory Council may address the Italian Government only through the machinery of the Allied Control Commission, that is, the Political Section. The Department does not agree with the British view that its member of the Advisory Council should be the channel through which the British Government will communicate with the Italian Government on matters which do not concern the other Governments represented on the Council. The Political Section of the Allied Control Commission is composed exclusively of British and American nationals and the ranking member of that Section is a British subject. While it is recognized that Messrs. Macmillan and Murphy are the principal British and American representatives in Italy, it would appear appropriate for them and the other members of the Advisory Council to make any individual official communications they may have to the Italian Government through the Political Section of the Control Commission. The advantages, during active military operations in Italy, of permitting the Italian Government to establish and maintain communication with only one United Nations body are obvious.

The Department shares the British hope that the members of the Advisory Council will be able to work out in consultation with each other the question of the chairmanship of the Council and its secretariat.

Washington, [undated.]
  1. Handed to the British Embassy on December 4, 1943.↩
  2. See telegram No. 17, November 23, 11 p.m., from the American Representative to the French Committee of National Liberation, p. 431.↩
  3. See vol. i, p. 758.↩