Foreign Relations of the United States, Conference at Quebec, 1944

Roosevelt Papers

Draft of a Statement by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill¹

The President and the Prime Minister held further discussions Monday and Tuesday at Hyde Park, on subjects dealing with post-war policies in Europe. The result of these discussions cannot be disclosed at this time for strategic military reasons, and pending their consideration by our other Allies.

The present problems in Italy also came under discussion, and on this subject the President and the Prime Minister issued the following statement:

“The Italian people, freed of their Fascist and Nazi overlordship, have in these last twelve months demonstrated their will to be free, to fight on the side of the democracies, and to take a place among the United Nations devoted to principles of peace and justice.

“We believe we should give encouragement to those Italians who are standing for a political rebirth in Italy, and are completing the destruction of the evil Fascist system. We wish to afford the Italians a greater opportunity to aid in the defeat of our common enemies.²

“An increasing measure of control will be gradually handed over to the Italian Administration, subject of course to that Administration proving that it can maintain law and order and the regular administration of justice. To mark this change the Allied Control Commission will be renamed ‘The Allied Commission’.

“The British High Commissioner in Italy³ will assume the additional title of Ambassador. The United States representative in Borne⁴ already holds that rank. The Italian Government will be invited to appoint direct representatives to Washington and London.

“Our governments are also willing to consider a revision of the present long terms of the Italian armistice,⁵ to bring them more in line with the present realistic situation.⁶

“First and immediate considerations in Italy are the relief of hunger and sickness and fear. To this end we have instructed our representatives at the pending conference of UNRRA to declare for the sending of food and clothing,⁷ medical aids and other essential supplies to Italy.

“At the same time, first steps should be taken toward the reconstruction of an Italian economy—an economy laid low under the years of the misrule of Mussolini, and ravished by the German policy of vengeful destruction.

“These steps should be taken primarily as military aims to put the full resources of Italy and the Italian people into the struggle to defeat Germany and Japan. For military reasons we should assist the Italians in the restoration of such power systems, their railways, motor transport, roads and other communications as enter into the war situation, and for a short time send engineers, technicians and industrial experts into Italy to help them in their own rehabilitation.

“The application to Italy of the Trading with the Enemy Acts should be modified so as to enable business contacts between Italy and the outside world to be resumed on the basis of exchange of goods.

“We all wish to speed the day when the last vestiges of Fascism in Italy will have been wiped out, when the last German will have left Italian soil, and when there will be no need of any Allied troops to remain—the day when free elections can be held throughout Italy, and when Italy can earn her proper place in the great family of free nations.”

[Hyde Park,] September 19, 1944.

1. This paper bears the notation “Original Draft” in Leahy’s handwriting, and was the text tentatively approved by Roosevelt and Churchill at Hyde Park on September 19, 1944, subject to possible amendments to be worked out after it had been reviewed by Eden, who had returned to London from Quebec and to whom Churchill telegraphed the text. Concerning British suggestions for amendments, see the editorial note, infra.

2. An earlier, undated draft in the Roosevelt Papers has the following additional paragraph at this point:

   “The American and British people are of course horrified by the recent mob action in Rome [the lynching on September 18, 1944, of Dona to Carretta, former vice director of the Regina Coeli Prison], but feel that a greater responsibility placed on the Italian people and on their own government will most readily prevent a recurrence of such acts.”

3. Sir Noel Charles.
4. Alexander C. Kirk.
5. Signed at Malta, September 29, 1943; amended by a protocol signed at Brindisi, November 9, 1943. For texts, see Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series No. 1604; Department of State, Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949, vol. 3, pp. 775, 854; 61 Stat. (2) 2742, 2761.
6. This paragraph does not appear in the draft referred to in fn. 2, above.
7. The words “food and clothing” do not appear in the draft referred to in fn. 2, above.