Rome, March 19, 1940.
 
     According to the agreement that we had made before
 
Count Ciano left Rome to accompany Mussolini to meet 
 
Hitler and Ribbentrop at the Brenner Pass, I lunched 
 
with Count Ciano privately at the Golf Club today so as
 
to avoid any undue publicity with regard to our meeting.
 
     Count Ciano talked to me alone for about five minutes
 
before lunch with the Ambassador present, and for about
 
half an hour after lunch with just the two of us taking
 
part in the conversation.
 
     Count Ciano said that he would tell me with complete
 
frankness everything that had transpired at the meeting
 
except that portion of the conversation at the Brenner
 
Pass which had to do with purely internal questions af-
 
fecting the Axis relationship, and while he did not specify
 
the nature of these "internal questions", he gave me to
 
understand very clearly that they were primarily economic
 
in character since he mentioned coal as one of the sub-
 
jects that came up for conversation.
 
     Count Ciano said that, notwithstanding what the offi-
 
cial German statement had contained, the Brenner meeting
 
had not been arranged at the time Ribbentrop was in Rome
 
last week, but had been arranged, as he had previously
 
told me, two days ago by telephone from Berlin upon the 
 
initiative of Hitler some twelve hours before my arrival
 
in Rome.
 
     He said that the exact time and place had not been
 
decided upon until after my first conversation with him
 
in the Foreign Office on March 16th. He said that one
 
of the reasons mentioned by Hitler for requesting the
 
                              meeting