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both parties, regrettable attacks upon the United States in the Italian press, regrettable speeches in 
 
criticism of the Italian Government in the United States, and that I felt sure the Minister would 
 
agree with me that the time had now come when in the best interests of both countries such a 
 
situation, which had no real reason for existing, should cease. Count Ciano immediately said, "I
 
fully agree: is not a question of forgetting the past, because there really isn't any 'past'', but We 
 
must at once start in with a completely satisfactory 'future'."
 
     I then went on to say that the President desired me to refer to what he himself had said to 
 
Ambassador Colonna a little while ago in expressing his own great satisfaction at the great change 
 
which had recently taken place on the part of public opinion in the United States with regard to 
 
Italy. The President wished me to emphasize the real pleasure of the American Government that 
 
the American people were viewing in so friendly a manner the efforts which the Italian 
 
Government had made to avert war, and with such favor the policy of neutrality being pursued by 
 
Italy since war had broken out. I said that this very friendly feeling in the United States towards 
 
Italy on the part of the public was fully shared by my own Government, and created, I hoped, a 
 
particularly propitious moment for an immediate return to that cordiality of relations between our 
 
two countries which for so many generations had been traditional.  At this moment, the United 
 
States, in complete harmony with the other American Republics, constituted one great neutral 
 
influence; Italy constituted the other. In the interest of civilization itself it seemed to me desirable
 
that