131. Telegram From the Embassy in Yugoslavia to the Department of State0
1692. Long discussion yesterday with Yugoslav official of senior rank bears out and reinforces without exception every point made in my previous messages. People here concerned with Yugoslav-US relations felt, it was said, unable to explain to remainder Yugoslav officialdom and to public why Yugoslavia should suddenly at this point be confronted with measures of restrictive discrimination considerably more drastic and unfriendly than those which prevailed under last administration at time when US policy was ostensibly much less sympathetic to attempt of neutrals to maintain independence between the two blocs. Yugoslavs, while striving in coming period to improve commercial relations with Russia and satellites (which represented only favorable openings still available), proposed to do all in their power to maintain their political independence vis-à-vis Moscow, whether our Congress had any sympathy with that policy or not. But they were unable to understand why people in Washington wanted to go out of their way to complicate this task for them at present time or to see how this could be reconciled with US interests. They feared, and had some evidence to support this, that effect of various Congressional actions would be felt in Yugoslav relations with other possible sources of Western economic [Page 276] and financial support. They were obliged to view these actions, accordingly, as designed not just to deprive them of aid from US and to damage their trade with US but to create maximum difficulty in their economic relations with Western countries generally. Fact that this was moment of great economic distress here, when any unfriendly measure in this direction was bound to be doubly painful, was no secret to anyone. It would be difficult to persuade Yugoslav people that timing of these actions had not been selected with deliberate view to exploiting their present plight and creating maximum hardship for everyone concerned.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.68/6–2362. Limited Official Use. Repeated to Warsaw.↩