My dear Ambassador,
I have your Secret minute 74/48 of the 3rd June¹ about the forthcoming visit of Messrs. de Valera and Aiken to Rome. I informed the Minister at once of its contents, as well as of the contents of your Secret and Confidential letter of the same date on the same subject.²

As I told you on the telephone, the Minister is quite definite in the decision that the visitors should not stay at the Embassy. The considerations adduced in your letter do not cause him to waver to the slightest degree in his decision. His point of view remains as I explained it to you on the telephone - that what is essential from the point of view of the established local usage, you should do (i.e., meeting on arrival, arranging audience, etc.), but that your activity in connection with the visit should not go further. This is the underlying principle of the instruction sent to you by telegram yesterday.³ Similar instructions were sent, at the same time, to MacWhite.

This being the decision, you can easily imagine that the Minister was much upset by the report in yesterday morning's 'Irish Press' that the visitors would be staying at the Villa Spada. The news item announcing this bore all the marks of having been supplied to the 'Irish Press' by the visitors themselves. The Minister would like to have an assurance that they had no communication from you, prior to the telegram of the 2nd June from Mr. Aiken referred to in your letter of the 3rd June, which would justify the visitors in making such an announcement. Will you please let us have a note about this.

I hope that the instructions in yesterday's telegram are sufficiently comprehensive and clear, but, in any case of doubt, the Minister would, I think, prefer you to err on the side of the strict observance of the general principle referred to above rather than otherwise.