Summary
Title: Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II
Author: William Tittman III
Publisher: Image Books
ISBN: 0385511299
Pro:
• Provides an insider's perspective rarely available
• Has first-hand information on how people in the Vatican reacted to World War II
Con:
• I wish it had been longer
Description:
• Insider's account of what happened in the Vatican during World War II
• Diplomat's memoirs are juxtaposed with the memories of his son who also spent time there
• Explores how Roman Catholic officials reacted to the prospect of war as well as the war itself
Book Review
There aren’t many who can say, but there is one American who saw and experienced more than most: Harold H. Tittman, Jr., a World War I veteran who rose to the rank of Career Ambassador and who spent four years inside the Vatican. Tittman was, in fact, a vital source of information for various books about the actions of the Vatican during World War II, such as Hitler’s Pope. Now his son has edited Tittman’s memoirs and presents to the world his father’s own accounts of what happened along with his personal memories of the time.
Tittman‘s position was largely “unofficial” - Protestants in America wouldn’t have approved of giving Roman Catholicism special treatment by having any sort of official ambassadorial presence there, so Tittman had to work as an unofficial liaison paid through a special fund. This led to some difficult problems once war was declared between Italy and America because Tittman was living in Rome, but without an official diplomatic status. That meant that he wasn’t technically covered by any international treaties governing the treatment of diplomats, so he had to make a hasty move to within the Vatican walls, something strongly protested by Mussolini.
Early on, before he was forced to move within the Vatican's walls, Tittman's mission was simply to help the pope keep Mussolini out of any European conflict. Roosevelt was determined to aid Britain against Nazi Germany and he felt that in the long run this would be easier without having to fight Italy as well. Tittman quotes from a letter written by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, to Myron Taylor, who in 1939 was the unofficial liaison to the Vatican:
- “[Mussolini should be restrained from] the feeling he is believed to entertain that the Allies' aim is destroying the Fascist Regime in Italy as well as the Nazi Regime in Germany. It would... be helpful... [to] suggest to the President that he might impress upon high circles in Italy the fact that we are in friendly relations with many countries which are governed by an authoritarian regime and that the kind of regime prevailing in other countries is no business of ours.“
Such comments are very interesting in light of current events. Even during the build-up to World War II, when the American government thought it likely that it would have to go war against fascism, it was willing to entertain the possibility of not going to war and destroying all fascist regimes. The total war against fascism was not inevitable — it could have simply been a war against some fascism.
