Office of the Historian

711.60H/27

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle) to the Secretary of State

[Washington,] September 18, 1942.

Mr. Secretary: At Mr. Elmer Davis’26 invitation I attended a meeting of the editors of the Serbian, Croatian and Yugoslav foreign language press in the United States. As you know, there are three sets of rows going on: (1) The Serbians are making trouble for the Croats—probably with some help from Fotitch; (2) the Communists [Page 816] are having a row with General Mihailovicz; and (3) there is a minor row going on which involves the Slovenes.

Being asked to make a statement, I said:

(1)
That we had no interest in these various controversies since we believed that the war had to be won by united American effort, and that these people ought to get together as Americans and leave their European differences over. What happened to Yugoslavia was a matter to be determined by a free Yugoslavia when the war was won;
(2)
That we recognized Yugoslavia and continued to recognize that country, and that that was the only nation with which we maintained any contact;
(3)
That in tribute to certain invaded countries which had carried on gallant resistance we had raised their legations to the status of embassies, commencing with Norway and running on through the list. We were just in process of doing so with Yugoslavia. This was not a recognition of the Minister or of any particular group within Yugoslavia. It was a tribute to the whole country and nothing else; and it would be a complete perversion of our policy if it were interpreted as a personal tribute to the Pan Serbs or to the individual politics of the Yugoslav Minister, or of any faction in the Government;
(4)
That while we had no interest in the politics of General Mihailovicz, so long as he was fighting the Germans we were for him, and that up to date we had had no information leading us to believe that he was doing anything but fight Germans. This had nothing whatever to do with his political views or possible later aspirations.

I said the thing to do was to forget differences and get together as Americans or intending Americans, fight the war and let European differences alone.

Elmer Davis spoke in the same sense.

A[dolf] A. B[erle], Jr.
  1. Director of the Office of War Information.↩