860H.01/806: Telegram

The Ambassador to the Yugoslav Government in Exile ( MacVeagh ) to the Secretary of State

Yugos 73. Colonel Robert Weil59 an … officer on special assignment with Tito has just come out from Yugoslavia and has already sent his principals in Washington a telegraphic report of his mission. [Page 1356] He is also preparing an extended written report and after a long conversation with him I believe the Department will be interested in both.60 His contacts with Tito have been unique so far as American experience has gone to date and he appears to me to have gathered some valuable material on the Partisan military situation and future plans. On the political side while he seems unable to add anything essential to what the Department already knows he does provide information from Tito’s own mouth of a desire for wider political contacts with the Allies. In this connection he is the bearer of a letter from Tito to the President61 which the former hopes may be the beginning of a correspondence similar to that which he has already been enjoying with Mr. Churchill and also as he says with Marshal Stalin. Colonel Weil is personally in favor of our establishing such contact along with the British and Russians basing himself on his belief that Partisan success would surely follow throughout the whole of Yugoslavia and on the desirability of our earning the gratitude and friendship of the Yugoslav people. But while he is a shrewd observer and expresses himself as being alive to the necessity of avoiding any bias his knowledge of Yugoslavia clearly does not extend beyond the limits of the Partisan picture as seen from Partisan headquarters and the Department may therefore feel that his interpretations lack the authority of his facts.

MacVeagh
  1. Maj. Richard Weil, Jr. The confusion over name is an apparent error; the confusion over rank probably results from an army policy of temporarily promoting officers for the duration of their tours of duty in Yugoslavia.
  2. Neither report found in Department files.
  3. Infra.