C.F.M. Files: Lot M–88: Box 2111: Delegation Memos
The Italian Prime Minister ( De Gasperi ) to the Secretary of State 75
At the time when I have been called upon to take over the office of Provisional Head of the newly-born Italian Republic, I cannot refrain from addressing an appeal to you, dictated by my increased responsibility and by the conviction, confirmed by the results of the recent elections, that I faithfully interpret the public opinion of my Country.
My present concern reaches beyond the immediate Italian interest. Nature and history entrust us with an essential role in the democratic reconstruction of Europe. But I am most apprehensive of the effects that the decisions of Paris might have in preparing Italy for such a task, or in averting her therefrom. I fully realize the extreme difficulties which face the peace-making task in which you are engaged and the efforts you have made in order to achieve a better understanding and to bring together contrasting arguments. At the same time I feel that I must affirm that a peace such as the one we are led to foresee by the information so far available, would constitute such a blow to Italy as to impair her possibilities and energies as a factor in international cooperation.
The Italian people earnestly desire to represent an asset and not a burden to Europe. They have of their own free will and at the cost of immense suffering fulfilled all that was expected of them in order to separate their responsibilities from those of Germany and to bring a substantial contribution to the Allied cause. I realize that, in principle, these efforts of ours have been acknowledged. However, in order that all of the foregoing should not have been in vain, it is necessary that the consequences thereof be drawn, both constructively and farsightedly. A peace which, in addition to other burdens, would prevent Italy from devoting her labors to the further developments of her colonies; which would jeopardize her security on all the sectors of her frontiers and would jeopardize her ethnic unity and her economy (admitting these same motives only in so far as they apply to the advantage of the neighboring countries): such a peace would represent a burden of sacrifices and humiliation so unbearable as to impair the very foundations both of her democratic development and of her international role.
I trust, Mr. Secretary, that you will fully understand from this appeal that I cannot hold back this expression of my conscience which, in the midst of the deep anxieties weighing on my mind, perceives equally the necessities of my own country and the wider ones of international solidarity.
- A marginal notation, apparently written by Samuel Reber, reads as follows: “Handed to the Secretary by the Italian Ambassador June 20, 1946.”↩