Three Profound Bows

While Britain and Italy spat at each other last week over German coal shipments (see above), and Germany and Britain waited with different emotions for the end of the Russo-Finnish war (see p. 19), Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop suddenly announced a visit to Rome. According to one version, it was so sudden that not even Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano knew the Germans were coming until the day before they arrived. Herr Ribbentrop has a bad habit (for the Allies) of signing world-shaking treaties and pacts when he appears in foreign capitals. British diplomats quickly patched up a deal with Italy over the coal, and thus took the wind out of the Ribbentrop sails before he had passed the Brenner.

Almost at the frontier Herr Ribbentrop's imposing delegation was suddenly reduced from 30 experts to twelve (not counting the Gestapo men who accompanied him). By the time he saluted his old friend Count Galeazzo Ciano on Rome's station platform Italian newspapers were once more busy declaring that Italy intended to remain "nonbelligerent" at all costs, that the Germans' visit was simply repaying the call Count Ciano made at Berlin last November.

Italians breathed more easily. Italy is not pro-Ally. But she is even less pro-German. In his pro-German Axis policy Dictator Mussolini represents virtually a one-man minority in Italy. A much more popular figure of the moment is King Vittorio Emanuele, who went Ally last time and who received a great ovation at the Roman opera last week.

The German Foreign Minister saw Mussolini twice, Count Ciano several times, paid his respects to His Majesty. His visit would have been a complete frost had he not also had a pre-arranged date with Pope Pius XII. Vatican and Nazi relations have long been just about as unfriendly as they could be. They have been even more unpleasant than usual since the Nazis' harsh treatment of Catholics in conquered Poland. The Pope, moreover, has made it pretty clear that on the moral issue he is with the Allies.

Before the audience took place, the Holy See, in an unusual Sunday communique, let the world know that it was Herr Ribbentrop and not the Pope who sought the meeting. German sources in Rome predicted that the Foreign Minister would not discuss Poland; Vatican sources retorted that it is not the visitor who decides what will be discussed at a Papal audience but the Pope himself. Age-old protocol sternly prohibits a visitor from bringing up new subjects before His Holiness.

Nevertheless, the Ribbentrop-Pius talk was unprecedentedly long -- 65 minutes. Known results of the meeting: Herr Ribbentrop was : 1) not required to kneel and kiss the Papal ring; 2) did not give the Nazi salute to the Pope as he once did to Britain's George VI; 3) greeted His Holiness with "three profound bows." Most extraordinary surmise as to the text of Pope and Minister's secret conversation came from Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times. He thought the German had proposed an anti-Bolshevik crusade.

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