740.00119 EW/6–2846
The Italian Ambassador (Tarchiani) to the Acting Secretary of State
The Italian Ambassador presents his compliments to the Honorable the Acting Secretary of State and has the honor to inform him that President De Gasperi has just cabled that Molotoff’s proposals concerning Trieste, known to Italy through press reports, cannot be accepted, under any circumstance, by the Italian Government. In fact, they disregard completely the Italian rights and interests and are also in sharp and radical contrast with the previous decisions of the foreign Ministers at London to draw up the Italo-Yugoslav frontier according to the ethnic principle. Any possibility of an honest solution seems consequently now unfeasible.
In this situation, the best issue seems the one to postpone the whole Venezia Giulia question to a later date, maintaining the present Allied occupation.
[Page 683]The Italian Government is of the opinion that the best way of solving this problem would be to entrust it in due course to the U.N.