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FOREIGN RELATIONS 517
later learned how summarily he had been disposed of, it was a terrific shock.
There was time for only a word of greeting before Alfieri came to the door and motioned for me to enter. Never shall I forget the room, or the experience, that lay beyond that door. The room seemed to be at least fifty feet wide and two hundred feet long! We started to walk east down the length of this football field— almost— at the far end of which, in front of a great mantelpiece and a little to the right of it, stood Mussolini's massive desk. I had time only to realize that we were advancing over a tiled or mosaic floor, that the indirect lighting was coming from the level of the picture molding, that there was a large light over the desk, guest chairs in front and at the left, and no other furniture. II Duce himself was standing— as a matter of fact, pacing back and forth— behind his desk, his arms behind him and his hands clasped, shoulders hunched up and chin on chest, as if he had taken over from Atlas and Caesar combined and now had the world as well as the empire on his shoulders.
Click-click went our heels as we advanced toward the goal line of his desk, Alfieri a step or two behind me. A moment later Mussolini stepped around the right end of the desk toward me. As he approached I stopped short, clicking my heels in a manner which would have done credit to any reporting officer. He smiled, cordially extended his hand, and greeted me in first-rate English, with appropriate felicitations. I sat down opposite him and he asked me to tell my story. I will say he gave me plenty of time. Without interruption, for a full half hour I told him of our necessities.
Nine days in Rome had given me time to see and hear plenty of evidence of constructive things that Mussolini had done for Italy. For one thing, he seemed to be especially interested in the youth, both in their morale and in their training. This proved to be a sympathetic approach from which I could naturally move into my interest in youth, what we were doing in motion pictures, and some of the objectives of our organized American industry, including education.
This caught his ear and he seemed quite ready to hear our story. Incidentally, I had also referred to my relations with our former Ambassador to Italy, Richard Washburn Child, and to the fact that Child had sent me the second copy, he had said, of his Life of Mussolini. And since Ambassador Phillips had assured me that one could talk plainly to Mussolini without pulling any punches, I did just that.
First I pointed out that the total Italian receipts from motion pictures was a vast amount, with many families supported by the earnings of American motion pictures, from which same source the Italian Government also received 100,000,000 lire in taxes. I think the theatre receipts on American pictures totaled about 600,000,000 lire.