860H.01/579: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 15—10:25 a.m.]
2226. The Yugoslav Ambassador Simić informs me that he has virtually no communication with his Government. The Government does however meet his expenses from funds that it controls in the United States. The Ambassador is very critical of his Government which he describes as being composed of functionaries who represent no one but themselves.
The Ambassador has in the past also been critical of Mihailović for his inactivity and for his attitude toward the Partisans but he now states that much of the blame for Mihailović’s failure should be attributed to the Yugoslav Government which constantly instructed him to conserve his strength and not to take action against the Germans. The Ambassador feels that Mihailović has been badly treated by the Allies and is especially critical of the British who he says interfered with communications between Mihailović and the Yugoslav Government. He does not believe that Mihailović now has any important support. He estimates the strength of the Partisans to be about 200,000.
Simić attached great importance to the formation of the Free Yugoslav Committee and Government under Tito. He stressed the representative nature of the Government and the Parliament that had created it. He stated that he had received no indication of the attitude of the Soviet Government toward this development (this was prior to the announcement by the Soviet Government that it was sending a military [Page 1027] mission to Yugoslavia). Simić said that he had not himself had any communication with the Tito government.
Simić gives a 15-minute broadcast in Serbian from the Moscow radio once a week. He states that his text has never been censored. He has received reports that his broadcasts are clearly heard in Yugoslavia and that they are greatly appreciated. He has agreed to furnish us with the texts of these broadcasts and I shall report any significant statements to the Department. The broadcasts take the form of a commentary on world news, in the course of which he urges the need for unity among the various groups in Yugoslavia.
The following statements of the Ambassador regarding the position [composition] of the new Government may be of interest to the Department in checking information received from other sources. The Parliament consists of 216 members of whom 146 were able to attend the first meeting. To expedite the carrying on of its work the Parliament created a committee or presidium which consists of 23 Serbians, 20 Croats, 10 Slovenes, 4 Montenegrins and 3 Macedonians.
Tito is the head of the Government (presumably the National Committee) and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces with the title of Marshal. Simić admits that Tito is a Communist.
The President of the Presidium of the Parliament is Ribář, a Serb who was editor of the largest newspaper in Belgrade.
Three Deputies for Tito have been named of whom one, Montchapiady [Moshe Pijade?], is a Communist. Simić said he knew him personally and thinks highly of his ability. He spent 14 years in penal servitude for having written Communistic articles. Simić described him as possessing an extraordinary intellect. While in prison he mastered Chinese, translated Das Kapital into Serbian and gave a university course of instruction to a group of his fellow prisoners. He speaks seven languages fluently. The other two Deputies are Avgustinchik, a Croat artist from Zagreb and Russe, a Slovene who is not known to Simić.
Simić states that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Smodlaka, is a Croat who was formerly Yugoslav Minister to the Vatican and prior to that was stationed in Berlin. He was a member of the Yugoslav Committee in London during the last war. The Minister of the Interior, Zochevich, is an Orthodox priest.
While the Ambassador did not indicate what position he would take with respect to the new Government he made it clear that the movement has his full sympathy and that in his opinion the Cairo Government will have little influence upon future developments in Yugoslavia. He expressed great satisfaction with the statements made by Secretary Hull and Richard Law to the effect that the [Page 1028] American and British Governments would help any group actively opposing the Germans.68
- For statement of Secretary Hull and that of Richard Law, British Minister of State, see New York Times, December 9, 1943, p. 11, and December 11, 1943, p. 9, respectively.↩