<P> Churchill was polite about Italy, then still neutral, on 16 May by saying that Britain was "not an enemy of Italy or of Mussolini". </P> <P> An intelligence memo, undated but probably 25 May, warned the War Cabinet about the danger of submarine and air attack . Halifax formulated an appeal to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which stated that Britain "could not accept" terms that jeopardised the independence of the United Kingdom . He hoped that the United States would enter the war to prevent the conquest of Britain or France . </P> <P> On 25 May, Halifax reported to the War Cabinet that Giuseppe Bastianini, the Italian ambassador in London, had requested a meeting with him to discuss Italy's neutrality . Churchill did not think anything would come of this meeting but agreed to the meeting provided it was not made public . He believed any publicity in this matter "would amount to a confession of weakness". </P> <P> Halifax met Bastianini later that afternoon . He tried to persuade Italy to stay out of the war although the discussion soon moved from the question of Italian neutrality to that of Italian mediation between the Allies and Germany . He stated that "matters which cause anxiety to Italy must certainly be discussed as part of a general European settlement". That would have included Suez, Gibraltar, Malta, Tunis, Dijbouti, Somaliland, Corfu or perhaps even Kenya or Uganda . Halifax sent an account of this to the British Ambassador in Rome, Percy Loraine . </P>

When did second world war come to close