Office of the Historian

701.0065/7–2144

Memorandum by Mr. J. Wesley Jones of the Division of Southern European Affairs72

[Washington,] August 7, 1944.

The British Foreign Office has concurred in our draft on the representation of U.N. by consular officers in liberated Italy. Consequently the CCAC paper circulated on the basis of our draft will be approved by them on Thursday with the addition of one sentence at the end to the effect that there would be no objection to U.N. consuls general in [Page 1183] Rome having the personal rank of Minister.73 I said that we would have no objection to the, addition of such a sentence to the proposed cablegram.

The Foreign Office has further agreed to a compromise on the access of the neutral diplomats in Rome to the Italian Government. It will agree that representatives of the neutral states in Rome may have informal relations directly with the Italian Government but that formal relations should be conducted through the control machinery, that is the ACC. While this is not entirely in line with the Theater’s recommendation,741 would be willing to go along on this and let the Theater give it a wide interpretation if they so desire.

  1. Addressed to Messrs. Labouisse, Dunn, and Matthews, of the Office of European Affairs.↩

  2. The added sentence read as follows: “As in the case of M. Loret, however, if desired, Consular representatives concerned may be allowed to have personal rank of Minister.”

    After approval by the Combined Civil Affairs Committee on August 10, 1944, the draft telegram was sent on August 12 to the Combined Chiefs of Staff who agreed to it informally on August 18 when it was transmitted to General Wilson as Fan 396.

    ↩
  3. The Theater recommendations were contained in Naf 744; see telegram 2431, July 17, 8 p.m., from Algiers, p. 1180.↩