765.00/3–148: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Dunn) to the Secretary of State
877. Count Sforza yesterday gave me following message for you which he is also transmitting to Bevin and Bidault through their Ambassadors here. Sforza is deeply impressed not only with the developments in Czechoslovakia but by the immediately following moves by Soviets to take over Finland.1 He said we must recognize we are now in a stage of Russian expansion corresponding to Hitler’s 1938 and that 1939 inevitably follows. He said he has accepted invitation to go to Paris for meeting of 16 Western European countries2 March 15 but that something positive is needed now to consolidate Western [Page 836] European resistance to Soviet expansion. He says the only thing he sees which could be done now would be a joint declaration by the United States and Great Britain that Soviets have now reached the limit of expansion of their control and that they will not be permitted to extend their control to other Western European states. He said he feels that Italy is the next point of attack by the Soviets either by infiltration or through Yugoslav action but that it would not be desirable for electoral purposes here to mention Italy specifically in any such warning as suggested above. He said the effect would be broader and just as pertinent if it were to apply to all Western European countries.
The Minister said that the anti-Communist forces in Italy would play up the Czechoslovak grab as a warning to Italians who might think Communists could be trusted and that every advantage would be taken of this opportunity to make them the issue in Italy clear as between liberty and totalitarianism. This was done yesterday by De Gasperi, Pacciardi,3 and others in their Sunday political speeches.
The Minister stressed, however, his grave concern over the European situation and while he expressed his complete confidence in the success of the anti-Communist forces in the Italian elections he said he felt that the Communist expansion program was now about to be carried out with a complete contempt for public opinion, public expression, and the feelings of people generally. He feels that in face of the weakness of the western states some such support and encouragement as contained in the above suggested warning is absolutely essential to maintain the solidarity and resistance of Western Europe to the Soviet program of expansion.
- For documentation regarding the Communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia, see vol. iv, pp. 733 ff., and for Soviet relations with Finland, see ibid., pp. 759 ff.↩
- For documentation regarding United States relations with CEEC countries, see pp. 352 ff.↩
- Randolfo Pacciardi, PRI, Vice President of the Council of Ministers.↩