Editorial Note
No official record of the conversation at this meeting of Roosevelt with the Charge of the Apostolic Delegation at Cairo has been found. On December 29, 1943, President Roosevelt wrote a letter to Archbishop Spellman of New York in which the following paragraph occurs:
“When I was in Cairo I had a very nice visit from the Very Reverend Arthur Hughes. We talked about the Italian priests and also the Italian nuns who are interned or detained in Egypt and in Ethiopia, and the day I left I called the whole matter to Churchill’s attention and pleaded with him that these perfectly innocent people should be released, or at least allowed to do their work. I have not had any answer from the British as yet.”
The letter is published in F. D. R., His Personal Letters, 1928–1945, vol. II, pp. 1472–1473. See the Log, ante, p. 660.
It appears that Roosevelt also raised this subject with Eden at Cairo; see post, p. 871.