Saturday, 22 January

Dull

British and American armies landed on Rome’s Southern bank and occupied Nettuno. This proves that the slow military progress in Italy was that they did not want to fight not that they could not. The selfishness of Britain and theUnited States should be handled with blunt means by the Soviet Union.

In the afternoon, I went to the American Embassy to watch the film “Ms. Jordan”. It was quite interesting. The British Embassy’s First Class Secretary, Crosthwaite, told Jingchen that Pravda definitely had had no correspondent in Cairo, and according to the Egypt Government, inspectors had not seen such a telegram. So this was either forged by the Soviet Government, or a rumour reported by the Soviet Embassy in Egypt.