Eisenhower Library, Dulles papers, White House Memoranda
No. 233
Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the President1
personal and private
Subject:
- Italian Facilities Negotiations
In reply to your query concerning Ambassador Luce’s suggestion to you that we avoid putting pressure on Italy to secure base rights,2 I believe the course we are now following avoids any such appearance or fact. The present status of the Italian facilities negotiations is as follows.
Following her talk with you and in agreement with Ambassador Luce, this Department and the Department of Defense, our Embassy in Rome has been working out with the Italian Government, in an atmosphere free from pressure on our part, the remaining relatively minor open articles in the text of the agreement. It is our hope that an agreed text will be arrived at shortly.
Prior to her departure from Rome Premier Scelba volunteered to the Ambassador his assurance that he would sign the facilities agreement twenty-four hours after a Trieste settlement was reached. It is our hope that by the time the Trieste agreement is concluded, the text of the facilities agreement will be in agreed form and Scelba will perform on his promise. Should he fail to keep his word we do not intend then or thereafter to exert pressure on him but to follow the general line with him that we are not attempting to force on Italy facilities and protection which is in their own interest, and in the absence of Italian desire for these arrangements we will consider redeployment of the forces in question and arrangements elsewhere.
- Drafted by Merchant.↩
- See Document 220.↩