865.01/2254: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé at Algiers (Chapin)
935. For Reinhardt. Your 1010, March 27, 4 p.m.19 Murphy will depart by plane April 2 barring delay in flight schedule. He can be in Naples by April 6. If you can postpone the meeting of the Advisory Council until that date, he and the Department would consider it desirable. Furthermore, it would seem inadvisable to inform Bogomolov along the lines suggested in the Department’s paragraph 3, telegram 890, March 24, midnight, unless you are satisfied that MacFarlane will follow Macmillan’s instructions to speak to the Italian Government along the lines indicated. When MacFarlane raised the question of the basis of his authority to make representations to the Italians along the lines indicated in the Department’s 890, General Wilson referred his inquiry to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, and until the Combined Chiefs of Staff reply to General Wilson, MacFarlane may feel that he cannot make the desired representations to the Italian Government. It is hoped that the CCS will reply to General Wilson’s inquiry early next week.
With reference to your paragraph 3, telegram 1010, this Government would welcome a wholly Italian solution to the present political impasse. If a satisfactory compromise between the King and the majority of the political groups represented in the Committee of National Liberation can be worked out without our interference, it would seem desirable to support such a solution. This Government favored the proposal of the Executive Junta principally because it carried with it the promise of greater unity than any other plan. If the negotiations reported in your 101020 result in a solution enjoying similar united support, this Government would, of course, give its wholehearted concurrence.