R0ME, FEBURARY 26, 1940 At 10 a.m. on Monday, February 26, the day after my arrival in Rome, Ambassador Phillips accompanied me to my first interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Count Ciano received me in his office in the Chigi Palace, the temporary Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the permanent Ministry being now under construction in the 1942 Exposition grounds. Count Ciano made an impression upon me quite different from that which I had anticipated. From his photographs, and from the reports which had been given me by persons who had been in contact with him, I had pictured him as overwhelmingly filled with a sense of his own importance. In my conversations with him I found him quite the reverse. He looks older than his thirty-eight years, but appears to be in exceptionally good physical condition. His manner was cordial and quite unaffected, and he could not have been simpler nor more frank in the expression of his views. He speaks easily in colloquial English. I commenced the interview by saying how much I appreciated the courtesies which had been shown me on my arrival by the Government, and how much I welcomed the opportunity of talking with the Chief of the Government and with himself in order that I might report the views so communicated to me to the President and to the Secretary of State. I said that I wished to make clear at the outset my very strong conviction that during these past years relations between Italy and the United States had been far from satisfactory. I was going to be quite frank in adding that I believed there had been misunderstandings and misapprehensions on both sides, errors of omission and commission by both |