-6-                             
 
                                                            
 
 
and our confidence in overthrowing Hitlerism. (Ambassador Hayes's written   
report to yourself, and subsequent communications to me well illustrate   
how this interview did in fact mark the turning point and improvement in   
                Spanish-American relations.)                
 
                                                            
 
 
  The Russian campaign, as you will recall, was   
            at a very low level (October 1942).             
 
                                                            
 
 
I also visited again with Prime Minister   
Salazar at Lisbon. Using the same confident persuasion as with the Pope   
and Franco, I bolstered his declining faith in Allied victory. (The report   
on this meeting will also be found in your files, and will likewise, I   
lieve, be found of interest in the light of subsequent event
 
                                                            
 
 
In 1943 Italy surrendered unconditionally. You will recall our constant   
touch over the Vatican Radio from Washington with His Holiness. The first   
preparation for the extinction of Eussolini was the day that I brought to   
you the secret message, in response to one of my own regarding Mussolini's   
fall and the retirement of Italy from the wart which you characterized "as   
the first break in the whole Axis organization" and which came to me   
                   through that channel.                    
 
                                                            
 
 
 The suggestion regarding the recognition   
of the royal tradition, the unfamiliarity of the Italian people with   
                         democratic