865.01/9–1144
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Dom Luigi Sturzo,96 who has been seeing various of the people in the Department, came in to see me to urge that a solution of the Italian problem be reached. He made three points:
1. For more than a year Italy has been in the anomalous status of being at once an enemy, and a cobelligerent; a sovereign government and a government under the control of Allied Armies. He felt that this, which affected the political and economic paralysis, ought to be [Page 1150] cleared up. The British, he said, had proposed a provisional treaty of peace leaving territorial and other similar questions for later decision; but they had given the Italian Government to understand that this arrangement had been opposed by the State Department. He said he had talked to Sir Alexander Cadogan97 about it. I inquired what attitude Cadogan had taken.
Dom Luigi said that Cadogan had told him of the British desire to rectify the situation and of their proposal for provisional peace; Cadogan had intimated or probably stated that the plan had failed because the United States objected.
Dom Luigi then said that he hoped we could get some sort of solution. It was his distinct impression that if the Americans and British, who had the primary responsibility since they were occupying Italy, did not supply a solution, some day Moscow would propose and carry out one as they had done on one previous instance. All that would be gained by that, he said, was the creation of an Italian feeling that “all good comes from Moscow”.
His second point was that some sort of economic arrangement ought to be made for feeding and providing the country. As things stood, Italy was lying in ruins and was not even able to get up. Her internal transport was so badly disorganized that one province might have plenty while famine ruled in the next and there was no way of getting the surplus from one part to another. Of course, she had no ships, and only a small amount of coal. He hoped that possibly the UNRRA would take up the matter but in any case some sort of vigorous overhauling of the situation appeared to be needed. I said the matter was having our constant study. Since his picture was not wholly overdrawn, I did not undertake a comeback to his statements very much.
His third point was that some sort of Italian mission, whether an Ambassador, a military mission, or other type of representation, ought to be opened here. He said there were 600,000 Italian citizens in the United States, and many tens of thousands of Italian prisoners of war; and that somebody ought to be here to look out for the situation.
I said that that point too had been under consideration.
(Note: I feel bound to say that Dom Luigi put up an able and impressive argument, which in the main was in line with the facts. He was appreciative of the President’s statement of the other day; but his real point was that if Italy was ever going to get up and get going, a political status and organization ought to be worked out which would let her develop her own energies; and economic assistance ought to be given at least to the point where she could make the most of her own face. He pointed out that aside from the harbor [Page 1151] of Naples and one or two other things the wreckage of war lay exactly where it had fallen with only a slight amount of cleaning up. This was perhaps slightly overdrawn, but the underlying situation is unhappily there.)