For Better Terms

Badoglio said that it was all Mussolini's fault. He said that the Duce explained plunging Italy into the war with the words: "In September everything will be over, and I need some thousands of dead to be able to sit at the peace table as a belligerent." Badoglio said that Mussolini had not consulted anyone before writing Hitler at the end of May 1940 that he would declare war by June 10.

The old Marshal wanted the record straight. To make sure, he gave an interview last week to the New York Times's Herbert L. Matthews, the Baltimore Sun's Mark S. Watson and a correspondent of the London Times. He told them that Mussolini had sought to dissuade Hitler from war in 1939, but that the swift advance of the Germans through Belgium and France in May 1940 changed his mind. In placing the blame, Badoglio omitted to mention King Vittorio Emanuele's signing of the declaration of war.

Turning to the future, Badoglio again proclaimed his intention to invite representatives of all political parties to join his Government. Said he: "The whole life of Italy is now dominated by a single thought--to free the country from the Germans. . . . This aspiration . . . silences any difference of ideas and principles. . . . The various political parties . . . [have] sent me a declaration of sincere and complete collaboration, reserving for themselves, however, full liberty of action once the Germans have been driven from Italy." Flatly he announced that he would resign when hostilities cease.

Wrote Timesman Matthews at the end of the interview: "But one could see where [Badoglio's] heart lay when the writer reminded him of our last meetings in Addis Ababa . . . in 1936. 'Those were better times for Italy,' he said. . . . 'Do you remember Termaber Pass,' he asked eagerly, 'and those three days we waited while . . . the Negus [Haile Selassie] fled?' " And as a soldier Badoglio scorned Il Duce's folly in dispersing his army so that only twelve divisions were in Italy when the invasion came.

For Moral Purification. Two days later Matthews talked with Count Carlo Sforza, newly landed in Italy after 16 years of exile by Fascists, heard the white-bearded onetime (1920-21) Foreign Minister declare a need for a "moral purification [of] the whole Italian atmosphere." Said Sforza: "What is dangerous and morally intolerable is the malicious whispering carried on by Fascist-minded persons who have been kept in official positions by the Badoglio Government or by Allied authorities. . . . I am sure [Badoglio] hates and loathes Fascism. The evil comes mainly from . . . 'court circles' where everything is tried . . . to set the stage for a general acquittal of Fascists."

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