852.00/8185: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Phillips) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 5—9:14 a.m.]
165. Embassy’s 160, June 29, noon. The British Ambassador told me last night that his conversation with Count Ciano on Saturday had been rather discouraging. Mussolini had rejected flatly any suggestion for a truce as well as the proposal for a unilateral withdrawal of a certain number of volunteers as a preliminary to putting the Anglo-Italian agreements into effect. The Duce had also instructed Ciano to inform Lord Perth that there was no possibility of renewing the negotiations with France until after the Anglo-Italian agreements were in operation.
Perth said that Ciano was still insistent that Italians had fulfilled their obligations with respect to Spain when they agreed to make the London Non-intervention Committee plan effective and could go no further. Ciano seemed to feel that the British had not done their share and that the value of the agreements was being lost by the delay.
Perth admitted that he was somewhat disheartened at this turn of events as he saw no immediate solution and remarked that considerable bitterness had been displayed by Ciano with reference to the French. He agreed that the Italian attitude had probably been affected by the stiffening of the Loyalist resistance in Spain.
I expect to see Ciano shortly.