Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Ambassador of Italy Alberto Tarchiani, and George W. Perkins

TOP SECKET 8166 ARCHIVES MATIONAL SERVICE'* AND DEPARTMENT OF STATE RECORDS 76 e Memorandum of Conversation 157-a DATE: June 22, 1951 SUBJECT: PARTICIPANTS: Mr. Tarchiani, Italian Ambassador The Secretary of State Mr. George W. Perkins, Assistant Secretary COPIES TO: U, G, S/ISA, NEA, EUR, WE 1-1493 The Italian Ambassador called on me this afternoon prior to his return to Rome. He said that the most important item that he had in mind was the question of the provisions of the Peace Treaty as they affected the Italian rearmament program. He cited various reasons which he had used before as to why the Italians felt that Treaty limitation should be removed. I told him that we had been giving a great deal of consideration to this question. We had now concluded that we should move forward on trying to work out some revisions in the Treaty and proposed to talk soon about this matter with the British and the French. As soon as we had our ideas crystallized we would inform the Italians and discuss the situation with them. I asked him particu- larly to preserve the utmost secrecy on this and told him that I hoped he would only communicate this information to Count Sforza personally. This he said he would do but indicated that he felt that at least he ought to let Count Sforza know by wire that he would have some news for him on this subject. The Ambassador then mentioned the question of immi- gration. He pointed out the importance that they attached to this subject. He said that although the elections had gone well in Italy and should put them in a stronger DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and S(D) or (E) position Dept. of State letter, American 5-12-26 Bart NLT He WARS Date 6.25.06 for SEGRIT