740.00119 Control (Italy)/6–2245: Telegram
No. 566
The Ambassador in Italy
(Kirk) to
the Acting Secretary of State
2725. Gen Morgan (our 2656, June 17, your 597 of June 18 and our 2715 of June 221) returned from Monfalcone with signed copy of agreement with Yugos. On his arrival here we asked for a copy of the accord and he stated that he hoped we would not mind if he did [not] grant our request until he could call together a meeting in order to “explain” the text. The Chief of Staff presided over a meeting at 11:30 this morning at which time he went into some detail to explain how difficult it had been to negotiate with the Yugos and how it was necessary to give and take in order to “persuade” Gen Jovanović to sign the document. …
. . . . . . .
[Page 850]We have not hesitated to inform Morgan (and will do likewise with SAC on his return next week) that the agreement as he signed it will not have a good reception in Washington. We said that we regretted that he could not have negotiated a better document. We added that we could hardly recommend the accord he had signed as a satisfactory one and would point out to our government that it was our view that nothing to which he had agreed in this document should be permitted to emasculate in any way the Belgrade agreement. We informed Morgan that frankly we were most apprehensive as to the future situation in Trieste and V G and foresaw only trouble. We hoped that he would realize that the only way to deal with the Yugos was to be firm with them. Surely he could not fail to recognize that it was only because the US and Great Britain had put up a firm front that Tito agreed to sign the Belgrade accord. We deplored all the more, therefore, that he had not continued this policy in his negotiations with Jovanović. He surely had no illusions as to Partisan activities in our area of V G and he certainly must know that the Yugos Communists had established a firm hold in Trieste. They would undoubtedly be most active and we could expect incessant political chicanery there. We said that in our opinion not only should we send our best AMG people at once to this area but we should also spare no effort to increase our security forces there. And the sooner we let the Yugos know that we would not tolerate any interference from them in our zone the better it would be for all concerned. The only way to make them understand this would be to crack down on them on each and every occasion they deserved it.
The Chief of Staff who seemed a bit disturbed because of our attitude promised that he would see to it that “the Yugos are kept in their place.”
We then asked Morgan whether there had been any discussion with the Yugo Chief of Staff on the publication of the document which he had signed and he stated that he felt certain there was no intention on the part of the Yugos to publish it and that it would be regarded on both sides as a secret military accord.
For Dept’s information appendices A B2 are maps related to article 3 of the main agreement.