Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Council of Foreign Ministers, Volume II

740.00119 EW/11–546

The Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs (Nenni) to the Secretary of State¹⁹

[Translation]

At the time when the Foreign Ministers of the United States of America, of Great Britain, of the U.S.S.R. and of France are about to give final form to the Peace Treaty with Italy, the Government of the Italian Republic declares:

1) The draft of the Treaty on the whole is not in harmony with the principles of the Atlantic Charter nor with those more general principles which have been the moral foundation of the war waged by the United Nations against nazi-fascism. In fact it ignores Italy’s cobelligerency, though formally acknowledged in the preamble of the Treaty, nor does it take into sufficient consideration the fight that the vanguard of the Italian people has waged for twenty years against the Fascist dictatorship preparing the ground for the popular insurrection under which Fascism finally collapsed. It also ignores the loyal participation of the Italian people and of the Italian military and partisan formations in the war effort of the United Nations from September 1943 to the end of the war, and, moreover, the will of the Italian people to repudiate forever the politics, the institutions and the men who led them to war together with Hitler. This will of the Italian people was solemnly expressed in the elections of June 2nd 1946 by the decision of the people to establish the new Italian State on the principles of democracy.

2) The Treaty, in the settlement of the problems concerning the Eastern boundaries between Italy and Yugoslavia and the Western frontiers between Italy and France, is inspired by strategic and political principles which are in open contrast with the national aspirations of the populations concerned and which offer no guarantee whatsoever for the protection of minorities. In particular, the Italian Government, in the matter of the delimitation of the Eastern frontiers, insists upon the principle of the ethnic line which was adopted by the Four Powers’ Conference at London in September 1945 and upon the need of resorting to a plebiscite in the contested zone in accord with the request of the population of Istria and with the proposal made by the Italian Delegation at the Paris Conference. The Italian Government wishes to assert such principle also in the event of the creation of the Free Territory of Trieste, the borders of which should at least include the areas of Parenzo and Pola which are incontestably Italian.

3) While no indication is offered concerning the juridical status to be given to Italian colonies and the position which will be reserved to Italy, the renunciation of Italian sovereignty over the colonies contemplated in the draft of the Treaty, is in open contrast with a fair evaluation of the contribution given by Italian labour to the development of said colonies;

4) The demilitarization of the frontiers and the military clauses of the Treaty leave Italy undefended and in a state of subjection which is a threat to her independence. The mutilation of the Navy appears as a sanction which cannot be justified in view of the contribution the Italian Navy made to the United Nations fighting side by side with their Navies and in view of the severe losses suffered, jointly with the land and the air forces, while fighting against the common enemy.

5) The whole of the economic and financial burdens so far as reparations are concerned, the right of confiscation of Italian property abroad left to the discretion of each country, the confiscation of all state and other public investments in favour of some Nations, go beyond all reasonable limits of the real capacity of Italy to pay and constitute a threat to the economic independence of the country. Furthermore, Italy’s situation is made more serious and difficult by the economic and financial burdens of the occupation and the amount of the services rendered during three years of the armistice regime, as well as by the renunciation imposed upon Italy of all indemnities due from Germany for the period of cobelligerency during which Hitler’s troops have looted and raided Italian provinces.

In determining the economic burdens the Italian Government stresses the absolute necessity that substantial alleviation be granted, in order to avoid the danger of a collapse of Italian economy and of the lowering to an intolerable level of the standard of living of the working classes.

The Italian Government have already protested against the clauses of the draft of the Peace Treaty which are contrary to any principle of justice. The Italian Government once more invites the Foreign Ministers of the United States of America, of the United Kingdom, of the U.S.S.R. and of France to reconsider the proposals, submitted by the Italian Delegation at the “Conference of the 21” within the limits of the consultative procedure by which the activities of said Delegation were restricted.

The Italian Government, while reserving the sovereign right of the Constituent Assembly in the matter of the acceptance of the Treaty in the final form which it will assume after the decision of the Conference of the Foreign Ministers of the four Powers, re-affirms its most definite reservation against a unilateral and unjust decision which would not take into account the claims set forth in the present note. These claims are intended to stand in any case at their full value, inasmuch as they are dictated by the permanent and fundamental necessities of life and of development of the Italian Nation.

Pietro Nenni

Rome , November 4, 1946.

19. The source text was transmitted to the Department as an enclosure to despatch 4279, November 5, 1946, from Rome, not printed. Telegram 4141, November 5, 1946, from Rome, not printed, reported that this note had been received from the Italian Government under cover of a note which stated that Ambassador Tarchiani had been instructed to deliver the note immediately to the Secretary of State and other members of the Council of Foreign Ministers assembled in New York (740.00119 EW/11–1446). The text of this message transmitted to the Secretary of State by Ambassador Tarchiani in a note of November 4, 1946, varies slightly from the translation printed here (740.00119 Control (Italy)/11–446).