865.01/3–1444: Telegram
The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Roosevelt 76
618. Eden’s number 1783 to Halifax77 shows the kind of policy we should like to embark upon. I should be most grateful if you would read it. I am in complete agreement with you in the big objective of self determination. “Timing” is all I plead for. The ambitious wind-bags, now agitating behind our front that they may themselves become the government of Italy, I do not believe have any representative footing. We shall only have complicated the task of the armies, I fear, if we drive out the King and Badoglio at this stage.
This is also the Soviet view, I see. They are certainly realistic but of course their aim may be a Communist Italy, and it may suit [Page 1044] them to use the King and Badoglio till everything is ready for an extreme solution. That this danger is also in my mind I can assure you. My idea remains that, taking into account the opinion of the democratic North of Italy and seeking representatives from there, we should try to construct a broadly-based government. If we cannot get Rome for several months of course, we shall have to act earlier, but without the favourable conditions which will be open to us once we are in possession of the capital. Chances of finding a really representative footing will then be much better.