860H.01/9–1644: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the United States Political Adviser on the Staff of the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theater (Kirk)
167. Reurtel 407 September 16.54 At the time they severed their connection with the Yugoslav Embassy here, Knezevich and Todorovie55 [Page 1409] requested the War Department to assist them to join the ranks of one of the Allied armies, and specifically, if it should be possible, to transport them to the area controlled by General Mihailovic. The War Department attached considerable importance to this request. It was felt that considering the particular attentions given by General Mihailovic to American aviators forced down in Yugoslavia while in operations against the enemy and the arrangements then being made for bringing them out, support should be given to the request for the return of these two Yugoslav officers to Mihailovic territory. The Department agreed, subject to the prior consent of the theater commander.
As reported in Murphy’s 157 August 18,56 AFHQ gave this consent without any condition whatsoever. Their travel from the United States was arranged on the understanding that these officers would proceed onward at the earliest opportunity.
The Department cannot believe that AFHQ could have been under any misapprehension concerning the officers in question, and it is quite incomprehensible to us that AFHQ, having found on reconsideration that they did not like the arrangement, should have sought a solution by referring the matter to Marshal Tito. Your position on this point as reported in your 30857 is fully approved.
As we see it here, the refusal to carry through the agreement, and the delay resulting from the consultations with Tito and Gavrilovic have converted this military transaction into a political problem. It could well have been handled as an arrangement for sending to General Mihailovic two Yugoslav officers desiring to fight the enemy in exchange for the 225 Americans who were being returned from Mihailovic territory. We have no commitments and are under no obligations requiring clearance with Marshal Tito in matters of this kind.
It is important to keep in mind that although these officers were officially relieved of their functions at the Embassy, no action was taken to withdraw their commissions as officers of the Royal Yugoslav [Page 1410] Army. We see no reason moreover for trying to interpret the King’s recent declaration as classifying them as “traitors” (your 407 September 16) since that declaration, apparently by design, used equivocal language, and Mihailovic himself, so far as we know, is still a Yugoslav general. This is another example of the heavy political weighting of all Yugoslav military matters, demonstrating again the advantages, from the point of view of the American policy of keeping out of Yugoslav politics, of restricting military questions to their proper level.
From the foregoing it is clear that we expect AFHQ to hold to the arrangement approved in the field before the officers in question were permitted to leave the United States. In view of the development of military events within Yugoslavia during the time that these officers have been detained in Italy it may now indeed be difficult to deliver them to their destination. We should like to have verification of this, specifically whether there is now a Mihailovic controlled area of sufficient consistency, with facilities for communication, to make such an operation practicable. If not, we expect these men to be considered as Allied officers ready for active duty, until such time as they can be released for service of their own choosing. We do not consider that the proposed arrangement for covering Yugoslav military into the Partisan forces, alternatively for interning them at Elarish, Sinai (see MacVeagh’s 54 September 958) would be in any way a proper method of disposing of these men.59
- Not printed.↩
- Lt. Col. Zivan Knezevich, Military Attaché, and Capt. Borislav Todorovich, Assistant Military Attaché at the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington, refused to recognize the new government of Yugoslavia and in July requested the War Department to transport them to Mihailovich territory. They left the United States in the latter part of August and were taken as far as Bari, Italy, where Allied Force Headquarters was to arrange their removal to Yugoslavia.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Dated September 6, 1944, 10 p.m. It revealed that the British Minister Resident, Macmillan, was strongly opposed to sending Knezevich and Todorovich to Yugoslavia because they had a long history of political subversion and were certain to make difficulties once there. The King and Tito would be very suspicious of Allied motives in sending two such people to Mihailovich. The British had consulted both Tito and the Yugoslav Government in London on the matter and were at present arranging with the Yugoslav Government an agreement to return no Yugoslavs to Yugoslavia without its prior consent. Mr. Kirk countered that these objections should have been raised earlier while the two men were still in the United States. (860H.20/9–644)↩
- Not found in Department files.↩
- Knezevich and Todorovich after being refused permission to enlist in the United States Army, were finally returned to the United States.↩