ROME, March 18, 1940.
 
     The Pope received me at ten o'clock this morning.
 
I was presented to him by Myron Taylor, who was present
 
at the interview. The Pope had before him a typewritten
 
memorandum in English, to which he referred throughout
 
the conversation. His English is not fluent, and, except
 
when he was reading English, which he did with facility,
 
I gained the impression that at several points in the
 
conversation he did not understand clearly some of the
 
things that were said to him by Mr. Taylor.
 
     The Pope commenced the conversation by referring to
 
his belief, which he had previously expressed to Mr. Taylor,
 
that any peace negotiations at this time would prove
 
impracticable. He asked me what my own views might be.
 
     I said that it seemed to me that a very great
 
obstacle at this time was the apparently sincere belief
 
on the part of the highest German authorities that the 
 
Allied governments were determined to destroy the German 
 
Reich and to destroy the German people. I said that I
 
had not found any such objectives when I visited London
 
Paris, nor had I found any spirit of complete
 
intransigence such as I had been told I would find when
 
I visited those capitals. I said that it seemed to me
 
that the fundamental problem at the moment was whether
 
human ingenuity could devise some form of physical
 
security, including disarmament and the abolition of
 
certain categories of offensive armaments, which would
 
relieve peoples of their ever increasing apprehension,
 
and which would assure the governments and peoples of 
 
all nations, both smail and large, that they would be
 
                                         free