CFM Files
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. J. Wesley Jones of the United States Delegation
| Participants: | The Secretary |
| Representatives of the Italian General Confederation of Labor: | |
| Signor Oreste Lizzadri | |
| Signor Renato Bitossi | |
| Signor Luigi Morelli | |
| Marchese di Sorbello (Interpreter) | |
| Mr. Dunn | |
| Mr. Jones |
Signor Lizzadri acted as spokesman for the group of Italian labor leaders who called on the Secretary this morning at 10. He said that they were representing the single over-all Italian labor organization in Italy, the CGIL (General Italian Confederation of Labor), which included all labor activity in Italy and which was directed by representatives of the three main political parties. He introduced himself as the Socialist representative and Morelli and Bitossi as the Christian Democrat and Communist representatives, respectively. The Labor delegation, he said, formed a part of the Italian Delegation to the Peace Conference. He thanked the Secretary on behalf of the CGIL for all the assistance which the United States had given to the Italian people since the surrender and explained that the labor delegation was calling on him to present its views on behalf of the Italian working man with respect to the draft peace treaty.
We reviewed the great hardships which the Italian laborers had endured during and following the war and referred briefly to the excessive cost of living and the slow rise in wages in Italy. He handed the Secretary a memorandum outlining the labor delegation’s views on four articles of the treaty; namely Articles 66 to 69 inclusive.12
The Secretary said that he would give the memorandum to his representative on the Italian Economic Commission for study. He then reviewed some of the problems which he had had in the CFM and was now facing in the Paris Conference in obtaining a just peace for Italy.
The Secretary said that he had been surprised at the bitterness felt by some of the Delegations at the Conference toward Italy and particularly those who had [not?] suffered materially from Fascist aggression. He said that the total reparations claims over and above the [Page 338] $100 million claimed by the U.S.S.R. was somewhere, he believed, in the neighborhood of $15 billion which he pointed out was obviously a ridiculous figure and could not possibly be paid by Italy. He said that the U.S. Government was determined that it would not furnish economic assistance to Italy for that country’s economic rehabilitation only to have it paid out to third powers in the form of reparations. He reminded the Italian Delegation that it had been at American insistence that the reparations clauses of the U.S.S.R. included provisions that raw materials must be furnished Italy for any goods taken out as reparations. He pointed out the difference between restoring United Nations property in Italy with lira and Italian labor and material which would all remain in Italy and reparations claims which took foreign exchange or material out of Italy. The Secretary said that with regard to Italian assets in the U.S. only a portion of them would be used to meet the claims of American citizens and that the balance would undoubtedly be returned to Italy. With regard to Italian assets in other countries, particularly the Balkans, he surmised that most of them had already disappeared or been dissipated and that very little or none of these assets would ever be returned to Italy.
The Secretary then referred to the long and arduous work of the CFM in arriving at a decision on Trieste. He said that Mr. Molotov had been determined that this area should go to Yugoslavia and that the Ministers had finally only been able to reach agreement on the establishment of a Free Territory for Trieste. He said that the alternative to this settlement would have been not one treaty but two with conflicting claims for the territory reflected in the treaties submitted by the western powers on the one hand and the eastern countries on the other, thus placing Italy in an impossible dilemma. He referred to his conversation with the Italian Prime Minister on this subject several weeks ago immediately after Signor De Gasperi’s presentation of the Italian case before a Plenary Session of the Conference.13 The Secretary added that he thought that De Gasperi had made an effective and courageous statement before the Conference on behalf of his country without giving offense to any nation. He concluded that he was aware of the difficulty and discouraging problem facing the Italian people but that he had faith in their stout hearts and recuperative capacity.
Signor Lizzadri thanked the Secretary for receiving them and for nil the United States had done through American Relief to Italy and [Page 339] its great contribution to UNRRA without which the mortality rate in Italy would have been overwhelming. He added that the Italian labor delegation had already seen M. Molotov and were planning on seeing Mr. Bevin and M. Bidault before their departure from Paris.