768.5/10–2051: Telegram
The Ambassador in Yugoslavia (Allen) to the Secretary of State 1
526. Mrs. Vilfan who acted as translator during Collins–Djilas conv (Embtel 512, October 182) tells me Djilas was “much bolder” [Page 1856] than she would have dared to be in talking with Collins. According to her Djilas admitted USSR had brought word “communism” into such ill repute that Yugo Govts greatest propaganda job was to convince rest of world communism cld be divorced from aggression and thereby elicit west support from Yugo experiment.
For further reports on the Collins trip and U.S. relations with Yugoslavia in the fall of 1951, see U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Selected Executive Session Hearings of the Committee, 1951–56, vol. XV, European Problems (Washington, 1980), pp. 107 ff. and 131 ff., and U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Mutual Security Act of 1952, Hearings … (Washington, 1952), pp. 23, 384–385, and 804–805.
Djilas implication was that Yugo Govt was determined convince world of this distinction and make world accept it. Zilliacus is clearly urging Yugos to hold line on this point. I am inclined believe, however, that more and more Yugo leaders, perhaps including Djilas himself, are gradually coming to realize neither communism nor any other form of totalitarian regime will ever achieve admiration or support in west world. I have expressed frank opinion to several Yugo leaders they can never make word “communism” smell sweet in US and shld face realities of life.
- Repeated for information to Paris and London.↩
- Telegram 512 summarized, inter alia, a conversation between General Collins and Djilas which Ambassador Allen described as “intense but friendly” during which Djilas advanced the current Yugoslav party line that American support for Yugoslavia was based too much on Yugoslav defiance of the Soviet Union and not enough on the social and industrial progress which Yugoslavia was trying to achieve internally. In response, General Collins explained the necessity for Yugoslavia to gain public support in the United States in order to justify Congressional aid covering a broader range of needs. (711.5868/10–1851) Two other brief telegraphic reports on Collins’ talks (telegram 489, October 15, and telegram 90, October 22) and Collins’ memorandum to the JCS on the trip, November 13, were not cleared for publication when this volume went to press. (768.5/10–1551; Paris Embassy files, lot 58F53, 350 Yugoslavia; Department of Defense files, respectively)↩