110 Australian Government to Addison
Cablegram 92 CANBERRA, 25 February 1946
IMMEDIATE SECRET
Your D.91 and D.92 Saving. [1] Modification of Italian Armistice terms.
Australian Government finds the United States proposals for modification of Italian Armistice terms objectionable for several reasons:
(a) As we have previously stated the exclusion of active participants like Australia and New Zealand from original armistice was indefensible. However, having accepted the armistice we cannot agree to its terms being amended unless we take full part in negotiation of amendments.
(b) Substantial amendments such as those suggested by the United States are bound to affect the terms of the peace treaty and would thus undoubtedly limit the scope of our participation in the Peace Conference.
(c) Adoption of United States proposal would certainly tend to postpone further the negotiation of a treaty of peace. We agree with you that this is undesirable.
We hope that you are in agreement with our general attitude and that you will, therefore, reject the American suggestion.
We feel that other Governments (particularly the Soviet Union) would resent interference with the procedure and timetable which were only settled after difficult discussions at MOSCOW. [2]