611.68/3–250: Telegram
The Ambassador in Yugoslavia ( Allen ) to the Secretary of State
270. During conversation with Kardelj today,1 he showed anxiety to explain certain statements in Tito’s recent speech2 which he was afraid US Government might not have understood. He said Tito’s references to refusal of Yugoslavia to permit interference from West had not been due to his belief that US Government desired to interfere but to his conviction that certain publishers and groups in US were exerting pressure on administration to attach political conditions to our economic aid. Speech had therefore been timely warning to such groups that their efforts could not succeed. Kardelj said he hoped speech might have aided US administration in resisting pressure and that at least it had been intended as such.
I said that it had naturally not been pleasant for me as US representative to read Tito’s angry references to my country but that I accepted his explanation as evidence of his desire to establish solid basis for relations between our two peoples.
In friendly subsequent conversation I expressed opinion that greatest detriment to genuinely close relations between US and Yugoslavia was residual conviction in minds of most Yugoslav officials that US would support Yugoslavia only so long as useful to US in quarrel with USSR, but that in end US would turn against Yugoslavia to defeat Marxism here. Kardelj agreed that many Yugoslav officials held this view and that much patience was required to overcome it. He added that Yugoslav Government was similarly anxious to dispel conviction in minds of many Americans that socialist state would always act subversively against bourgeois governments whenever occasion offered. He believed Yugoslavs’ primary mission was to prove that socialist state could do business with anyone willing to respect its independence. He said that if Soviet Union could force Yugoslavia, by pressure, blockade or otherwise, to succumb to Western domination, Soviets would win even greater victory than by bringing Yugoslavia back under Soviet control, since our domination of Yugoslavia would demonstrate to world that any nation which wished to be friendly with US must submit to dictation from Washington.
I referred to evident Yugoslav sensitiveness to US control and said experience alone would convince Yugoslavs we had no desire to dominate. I expressed view that Yugoslavs would return to Soviet orbit at such time as they felt USSR would respect their independence more [Page 1380] than US would. Kardelj agreed but expressed confidence USSR could never respect independence another country until there was complete overthrow of “Soviet bureaucracy from top to bottom”.
Sent Department 270, repeated Paris 44, London 35, Moscow 31, Department pass Moscow.