860h.00/10–3045: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 30—5:30 p.m.]
11358. See Deptel 9488, Oct. 26. British Ambassador to Yugoslavia this afternoon saw Bevin and immediately afterwards Stevenson told us that a cable was going today to British Embassy in Washington along following lines:69 British Govt is opposed in general to further interference in internal affairs of other nations and feels that in case of Yugoslavia it would prefer to point out effect on relations between Yugoslavia on the one hand and British and US on the other hand should elections be held which expressed only the view of one section of Yugoslav opinion.
Insofar as parallel communications to Tito and Subasic, as set forth in Deptel under reference, are concerned, British would restrict communications to Tito alone. They agree to contents of paragraphs 1 and 2. Regarding paragraph 3, British feel that to ask for postponement of elections would not improve situation as there are no guarantees that subsequent elections would not be held in same manner. They feel therefore that it would be preferable to point out that elections held according to present plan of Yugoslav Govt would result in election of an Assembly which would not represent accurately the feelings of the Yugoslav people with consequence that relations of any such newly elected Govt would suffer from lack of prestige internationally.
British feel that paragraph 4 of proposed communication should be omitted as Tito undoubtedly already knows Russian attitude and it would serve only to underline differences between three principal Allies.
Sent Dept repeated Moscow as 371 and Belgrade as 35.
- A paraphrase of this cable was communicated to the Department by the British Embassy in a note of October 30, 1945; not printed.↩