740.00119 ACI/117: Telegram
The Consul General at Naples (Brandt) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 11—5:10 p.m.]
13. From Kirk. I called today on Secretary General of Italian Foreign Office as a former acquaintance and at end of conversation [Page 1107] which dealt with personalities and generalities he asked to take me to see Badoglio. Although I assumed that it would be merely a courtesy visit the Madyal [Marshal?] took the occasion to make the following observations and affirmations:
After rehearsing the developments of events affecting Italy beginning with the short term armistice operative on September 8 through the period of collaboration which followed and the period of cobelligerency initiated by the declaration of war on Germany Badoglio referred to the letter which he addressed to the President in February [January]36 through General Donovan37 and the reply thereto38 which he stated was to effect that consideration of matters set forth in that letter should remain in abeyance pending formation of a truly democratic government in Italy.
The Marshal then said that such a government had now been formed 4ind a decision would have to be taken on the status of Italy. He explained that he had done everything in his power to prove his friendship for the Allies and his sincerity as an Italian patriot, although he had encountered grave difficulties and had experienced great disappointments, especially in the failure to use to advantage the Italian officers and men who were eager to fight with the Allies against Germany. In spite of these efforts and the assistance which he had received from within the country and from the Allies, he was now confronted with the situation in which he needed [headed?] a government without real power but responsible to the country and in which the Allied Control Commission disposed of all the elements of power but had no responsibility before the country. This state of affairs should not continue and he had written in explanation to the President in early April.39 As matters now stood, he continued, a representative government had been formed which, in his view, answered condition in the President’s reply to his first letter. The Italian people, he stated, who in spite of their suffering had supported him up to now could no longer endure a continuance of the hopeless state in which they found themselves and the government itself would not last more than a month or two at the most. The time has come, the Marshal concluded, when a decision must be taken: Either Italian Government must be given an equal status with Allies in their fight against Germany or face consequences which present bondage will inevitably produce.
I fully realize that any comment which I might make on foregoing statement might be questioned on basis of a lack of opportunity to evaluate factors involved and acquaint myself with course of developments [Page 1108] which have preceded but cannot on that account withhold my views. I do not propose to evaluate the concatenation of circumstances and events which have resulted in present situation in this operational theater. I have lived too long in Italy in the past to hold any illusions as regards the qualities or capacities of the Italians. Furthermore, I view with warranted cynicism the hopes which may be prompting the aims which Badoglio in all sincerity is implying and I am not blind to complications which their satisfaction may entail. I submit, however, that in absence of countervailing considerations of a strictly military nature, of which I may be unaware, it would be preferable to accord now to the Italian Government satisfaction of its request for a status of formal equality with the Allies than to run risk of being jockeyed into a position where we would be accused of creating by a refusal consequences of extreme gravity to government. [Kirk.]