740.00119 Control (Italy)/9–2845
The Italian Embassy to the Department of State
The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Signor De Gasperi, has pointed out in writing to Admiral Stone and to the American and British Ambassadors in Rome, the danger underlying the policy announced to the press by Col. Bowman, Chief of the Military Administration of Trieste, of “not making any limitation to the number of those who are returning to their homes in Venezia Giulia”.
Now the Yugoslavs sustain that during the Fascist regime 70,000 Slovenes were obliged for political reasons to abandon Venezia Giulia. Although it is true that a political emigration took place, it was nevertheless of very modest proportions as the majority of Slovenes which abandoned those territories did so of their own free will and for completely [Page 1204] different motives that were connected with professional and personal interests.
Signor De Gasperi heartily recommends that most detailed investigations and severe controls be applied to establish the rights of the Slovenes now settling in Venezia Giulia, especially because at present a great number of them are daily being brought to Trieste and to the other Venezia Giulia localities on Yugoslav trucks. What is taking place, therefore, is a movement of population that has all the characteristics of an artificial immigration accomplished for purely political reasons with the intention of modifying today’s natural proportion of Italians and Yugoslavs inhabiting those regions.