Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Europe: Political and Economic Developments, Volume IV, Part 1

No. 102

750G.00/8–651: Telegram

The Charge in Italy ( Thompson ) to the Secretary of State ¹

top secret

Rome , August 6, 1951—7 p.m.

634. Believe approach outlined in Deptel 605, August 4, 3 p.m.,² very useful subject to following observations. PriMin expects to leave Rome on holiday about 10 days from now and will not return until beginning of Sept. Since he presently plans to proceed to Ottawa meeting³ by boat and has many problems to face in connection with formation new govt he will have little time to devote to this problem after next week.

Our proposed action is tantamount to pressure on Ital Govt and if negotiations are to have any prospect of success we believe pressure should be brought on Yugoslav Govt. It would be helpful if in taking the action outlined in reftel we could at least inform Ital Govt that we are urging Yugoslav Govt to reach a settlement on Trieste problem with Italy.

Political director of FonOff informed me that he had discussed with Sforza the conversation with Mallet reported in Embdesp 257 of July 31.⁴

Sforza’s comment was that he had tried to reach a settlement but that no Ital Govt could make an agreement giving up more Italians. Also stated that De Gasperi could not go as far as he could in this matter.

We believe that in negotiations Itals would insist upon obtaining all the Ital coast towns but they probably be willing to make economic or other concessions to Yugoslavia. In our opinion Itals are more anxious to reach a settlement than are Yugoslavs but state of public opinion and vulnerability of govt on this issue leave Itals little freedom of action.

Thompson

1. Repeated to Belgrade, Trieste, London, and Paris.
2. Supra.
3. The Seventh Session of the North Atlantic Council was scheduled to meet in Ottawa on September 15; for documentation on this session, see vol. iii, Part 1, pp. 616 ff.
4. Despatch 257 summarized a discussion between Sir Victor Mallet, British Ambassador in Rome, and Pasquale Janelli, Political Director of the Italian Foreign Ministry, during which Mallet berated the Italian press for its nationalistic campaign concerning the Trieste issue. (750G.022/7–3151)