ROME, March 16, 1940.
 
     The Duce received me at the Palazzo Venezia at
 
six o'clock this evening. Count Ciano again served as
 
interpreter and the Ambassador was present at the in-
 
terview.
 
     I found Mussolini looking far better physically
 
than when I had seen him two weeks before and I did
 
not sense the same feeling of mental or nervous oppression
 
under which I thought he was laboring in our conversation two
 
weeks ago. He received me with the utmost cordiality and in a very
 
friendly personal way.                                        .
 
     At the outset of our conversation he said that he would
 
be glad to answer any questions which I cared to put to him, as 
 
he said he would be glad to do when I last left Rome, but that 
 
he would appreciate it if I would give him my impressions of
 
my recent visits to Berlin, Paris and London.
 
         I replied by saying that, as the Duce knew, I had made
 
a definite commitment wherever I had gone that the views
 
expressed to me by heads of governments or by other prominent
 
officials would be regarded as strictly confidential for the
 
sole information of the President and the Secretary of State.
 
I said that I had so regarded the earlier conversation which
 
I had the privilege of having with him, and that I had only
 
felt at liberty in my visits to the other European capitals to
 
say that I had been encouraged by the impression I had obtained 
 
from Mussolini that he believed that the establishment of a 
 
just and durable peace was still possible. Mussolini interjected
 
at this point to say that that was entirely correct.
 
     I then said that I had been very much struck with one
 
important point, and that was the confidence I had found on
 
all sides in the sincere desire of the Duce and of Count Ciano
 
                                                  to do