Ascanio Colonna

Ascanio Colonna served as Italy’s envoy in Stockholm before his Washington appointment. In Sweden he dealt with the aftermath of the airship Italia disaster in 1928. He described the return of survivors and contacts between Italian officers and the family of Swedish meteorologist Finn Malmgren, whose death had provoked a bitter public controversy. ¹

In Washington he dealt with the treatment of Italian merchant seamen as relations deteriorated toward war. On 14 October 1941 he told Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long that Rome would accept a proposed exchange of nationals only if it included Italians held at Fort Missoula and men imprisoned following prosecutions for ship sabotage. Long objected that the numbers and categories were unequal. Colonna agreed to relay a narrower American proposal. ²

His mission ended with the rupture of December 1941. Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano communicated Italy’s declaration of war to the American chargé in Rome. Colonna delivered no declaration in Washington; the State Department informed him that a state of war existed. ³