611.68/2–2450

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Officer in Charge of Balkan Affairs ( Campbell )

secret

When Ambassador Kosanovich was here in connection with another question,1 I asked him about Tito’s speech at Uzice on February 182 He said that the fundamental point in this speech was that Yugoslavia belongs to no bloc, Eastern or Western. I said that Tito’s speech seemed to be directed to the West as well as to the East and to the Yugoslav people. I asked him, insofar as it was directed at the West, what he believed had occasioned Tito’s rather strong statements. The Ambassador replied that, for one thing he believed the recent series of anti-Tito articles in Time, The Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere, had been taken seriously and with some annoyance. He said that he, having lived here a long time, understood the Western press and probably took such articles less seriously than his Government would. More important than this factor, the Ambassador continued, was what he understood to be a proposal concerning Yugoslav participation in the Marshall Plan. It was his understanding that Sir Charles Peake3 and Ambassador Allen had mentioned the subject to Deputy Foreign Minister Popovic some time within the last few weeks. He, Kosanovich, found it difficult to believe that such proposal could have been made seriously, but apparently Popovic had received that impression, and this may have been a factor in causing Tito to speak as he did on February 18. I said that I was sure that Yugoslav participation [Page 1375] in the ERP had not been proposed and that probably there was a misunderstanding (see Belgrade’s telegram 170, February 114). The Ambassador said that he would not expect the Department to make such a proposal and that he hoped we would consult him if we had any intention of making it. He gave it as the firm view of his Government that for political reasons it was out of the question of Yugoslavia to consider participation in ERP. This, he said, would destroy the position which the Yugoslav Government had publicly taken in its controversy with the Cominform countries and would give the Russians the greatest propaganda opportunity they have yet had.

I asked the Ambassador whether the question of Indo China had played any role in the background of Tito’s speech. He said that probably it had but he did not know whether Ambassador Allen had talked to the Yugoslav Government about it, as the Washington Post had said. I said that the US views had been given to the Foreign Office by the Embassy but not, I believed, by Ambassador Allen himself. He said that the Yugoslav Government would have held off action and probably done nothing about it if it had not received a direct letter from Ho Chi Minh requesting recognition. Having received this letter the Yugoslav Government thought that it presented a real chance to striking a blow at the Soviets and that they must seize it. Ambassador Kosanovich did not appear to be aware of the fact that we had, in giving the Yugoslav Government our views on recognition of Ho, coupled this question with that of economic aid.

[John C. Campbell]
  1. See footnote 2, p. 1359.
  2. Regarding the speech under reference here, see telegram 215, February 19, from Belgrade, p. 1370.
  3. The British Ambassador in Yugoslavia.
  4. Not printed. It reported that during a dinner conversation at Ambassador Allen’s residence the previous evening, British Ambassador Peake asked Yugoslav Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Popović what the Yugoslav Government currently thought of the Marshall Plan. Popović apparently concluded, erroneously, that he was being asked whether Yugoslavia would wish to participate in the Marshall Plan. He replied that it would be politically impossible for Yugoslavia to participate directly since such participation would be regarded as definite adherence to the Western bloc and would play into the hands of Cominform propagandists (868.00/2–1150). Ambassador Allen subsequently related aspects of this dinner conversation and its possible connection to anti-American remarks in Tito’s Uzice speech in a talk with Cyrus L. Sulzberger, chief foreign correspondent of the New York Times visiting Belgrade. For his recollections of the conversation with Allen, see C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles, pp. 497–498.