Office of the Historian

Editorial Note

According to the account written by the Italian Ambassador, Alberto Tarchiani, America–Italia: Le dieci giornate di De Gasperi negli Stati Uniti (Milan, Rizzoli, 1947), page 40, he and the Italian Minister of Commerce, Pietro Campilli, had a meeting on January 6 at 3:30 p.m. with the Secretary of Agriculture, Clinton P. Anderson. No American record of this meeting has been found.

Tarchiani further records (ibid., page 49) that he accompanied De Gasperi and Campilli to a meeting at 9:00 a.m. on January 7 with the Secretary of the Treasury, John W. Snyder, at which it was arranged for Campilli and Donato Menichella, Director General of the Banca d’Italia, to meet next day with experts of the U.S. Treasury Department. No American record of this meeting has been found.

Tarchiani further records (ibid., page 50) that after meeting with Secretary Snyder, he and De Gasperi went at 10:00 o’clock to the Department of State to see Under Secretaries Acheson and Clayton, at which time De Gasperi explained the situation in Italy to Mr. Acheson. No record of the discussion with Acheson has been found in the files of the Department of State.

De Gasperi also conferred with the Secretary of Commerce, W. Averell Harriman, at some time prior to 5:00 p.m. of January 7 at which time Harriman’s records indicate that he left Washington for a speaking engagement in the mid-West. This meeting with Harriman is not mentioned in Tarchiani’s book, but De Gasperi himself referred to it during his meeting with Secretary Byrnes on January 8 (see [Page 843] page 851) and it is also mentioned in the official communiqué of January 15 (Department of State Bulletin, January 26, 1947, page 165).

Tarchiani records a second meeting with Secretary Snyder on January 8 at 4:00 p.m. (America-Italia, page 65); a second discussion with Secretary Byrnes on January 14 at 11:00 a.m. (ibid., pages 123–124); and a third meeting with Mr. Snyder on January 14 at 12:30 p.m. (ibid., page 125), but no American record of any of these three discussions has been found.