Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1944, Europe, Volume IV

860H.01/7–1244: Telegram

The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State

London, July 12, 1944—5 p.m.
[Received July 12—3:30 p.m.]

5480. For the Secretary and Under Secretary. Yesterday I asked Mr. Eden if he would prepare for me a memorandum on the Subasic-Tito question. I have just received it and am forwarding it to you herewith:

“The Yugoslav Prime Minister, immediately on his return to London after his conversations with Marshal Tito at Vis, set about the task of forming his new government. These efforts were successful and Dr. Subasic was able on the 6th July to announce the formation of his Cabinet which included two nominees of Marshal Tito, a Slovene and Serb from the Sandjak and in addition Dr. Sutej²⁶ (Croat) Dr. Kosanovic²⁷ (Bosnian Serb) and Dr. Cankar²⁸ (Slovene).

After this Dr. Subasic prepared to go to Caserta, as the guest of General Wilson, where it had been arranged that he should meet Marshal Tito and discuss various outstanding military and political questions which had been left over from the last conversations. The agenda of the discussions included the use of the Royal Yugoslav Navy, the organisation of the Army and Air Force, the despatch of supplies to the Partisan forces and the appointment of a Yugoslav military mission in Italy. At the same time Dr. Subasic hoped to put forward a scheme for the appointment of a successor to General Mihailovic in the person of Brigadier Glisic and to bring Marshal Tito and Brigadier Glisic to agree upon terms of collaboration between the Chetnik and Partisan forces under the general command of Marshal Tito. He sent a message to Marshal Tito giving him a general outline of these plans. He had also intended to broach with the Marshal the possibility of a meeting between himself and King Peter although he was inclined to think that Marshal Tito would consider that it was still too early for him to agree to this.

The dates and agenda for the conference having been satisfactorily settled, arrangements were made for all the persons taking part in the conversations to meet on July 12 at the headquarters of General Wilson who was to preside at the conference. In accordance with these arrangements, which had been approved by all parties concerned, the Yugoslav Prime Minister, accompanied by members of his staff and Mr. Stevenson, His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Yugoslav Government, left on July 10 for Caserta where they were due to arrive this evening.

This morning, however, a telegram was received from Brigadier Maclean, stating that after personally discussing with him only on July 9 the arrangements for his journey to Caserta, Marshal Tito had informed him that the National Committee and the anti-Fascist Council had decided that he should not go to Italy after all. Marshal Tito said that the reasons for this decision were that the reactions throughout the country and in particular in Croatia and Slovenia to the recent agreement with Subasic had not been favourable and that if he went abroad at this juncture it would have an even more unsettling effect on public opinion and would react unfavourably on his prestige.²⁹ He was deaf to all Maclean’s arguments that this decision would make a deplorable impression and do great harm to his cause.

Marshal Tito’s decision seems unreasonable and Mr. Churchill is sending a personal message to Marshal Tito asking him to reconsider his decision.”³⁰

Winant

26. Juraj Sutej, Minister of Finance, Communications and Industry.
27. Sava N. Kosanovich, Minister of the Interior, Social Welfare, and Public Works.
28. Izidor Cankar, Minister of Education.
29. The Consul General at Naples reported in telegram 395, July 13, 1944, 7 p.m., that “Some of Tito’s supporters according to Maclean distrust Tito’s recent negotiations with the Royal Yugoslav Government. The Russians suspect that Tito is being oriented too much toward the West at a time when they themselves are unable to strengthen their position by the supply program via Bari which they desire.” (860H.01/7–1344)
30. Ambassador Winant reported in telegram 5527, July 13, 1944, 6 p.m., that the Foreign Office was extremely annoyed at Tito. A Foreign Office official said to him: “Tito might have had the grace to have taken this decision twenty-four hours earlier so that Subasich would not have gone to Bari and thus would not be placed in the present extremely awkward position.” (86011.01/7–1344)