Office of the Historian

267. Memorandum of Conversation0

US/MC/33
April 13, 1960, 2:15 p.m.

FOREIGN MINISTERS MEETING

Washington, D.C., April 12–14, 1960

SUBJECT

  • Tunisian Refugees

PARTICIPANTS

  • Italy
    • Foreign Minister Antonio Segni
    • Ambassador Manlio Brosio
    • Ambassador Carlo Alberto Straneo,
    • Director General of Political
    • Affairs, Foreign Office
    • Dr. Federico Sensi, Foreign Office
  • United States
    • The Secretary
    • EUR—Mr. Ivan White
    • WE—Mr. McBride
    • WE—Mr. Stabler
    • Mr. Arthur P. Allen, Interpreter
[Page 584]

Mr. Segni said that he understood that the Spanish Foreign Minister had talked to us about Spanish refugees from Morocco. Now he, Mr. Segni, wished to mention a problem which Italy had with respect to Italian refugees from Tunisia.1 The Italian Government was now drafting legislation designed to aid these refugees. He said that there were tens of thousands of these refugees who now were returning to Italy at the rate of two hundred a week. Within a year it is expected that about ten thousand will have returned. This refugee situation was increasing Italy’s difficulties. Mr. Segni implied the hope that we might be able to give Italy some assistance in this connection.

The Secretary said that in connection with the refugee problem he had received a letter from a member of his family expressing dissatisfaction with what the United States was doing for refugees. The Secretary had had a study made and had found that we were spending over seventy million dollars this year on refugees through PL 480, Palestine refugees, World Refugee Year, Algerian refugees, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, etc.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 396.1–W/4–1360. Confidential. Drafted by Stabler and approved by S on April 22. The meeting was held in Secretary Herter’s office at the Department of State. Separate memoranda of conversation were prepared covering this conversation; see Documents 268–270. Memoranda on dollar liberalization (US/MC/34), Germany (US/MC/37), and Algeria (US/MC/39) are in Department of State, Central Files, 396.1–W/4–1360.↩
  2. French raids into Tunisia in 1958 and 1959 in retaliation for Tunisian support of the Algerian national liberation movement led to a series of expulsions of Europeans living in Tunisia together with the enactment of “emergency measures” which forced Europeans out of large parts of the country. A large Italian population had settled in the country, and were now forced to return to Italy.↩