875.00/6–845: Telegram
The Representative in Albania (Jacobs) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 9—7:40 a.m.]
35. On June 5 first Albanian fairly well known to us claiming to represent opposition came to see me. He stated that there is a large growing group of Albanians, some of whom are FNC partisans, who are opposed to present regime because its policy is to bind Albania close to Yugoslavia and to Soviet Union whereas his group feels that Albania’s ties should be with democracies of Gr Britain and US and fears that present regime will never hold secret elections to enable [Page 36] people of Albania to choose a govt they desire. He said that committee of 10 had been organized and that fairly large number of army officers was willing to join movement and take to hills if they had moral and material support of Great Britain and the United States. Caller said he wished me to communicate this information to my government and added that prospectus of movement was being prepared and copy would be given to me later if not by him by some other member as there might be wholesale arrests shortly.
As story sounded so much like rumors which Brigadier Hodgson has been talking about, inquired if caller had seen Hodgson. He replied he himself had not but that he had seen two of Brigadier’s aides and that Brigadier was aware of movement. I explained caller purpose of my mission and said that while I was interested in hearing views of opposition question of recognizing or refusing to recognize present regime was one thing and question of giving moral and material support to an opposition group was quite another which I was sure US Govt would not consider. I said that I would mention his call in my report to Dept but could give him no encouragement whatsoever.
Fearing that call might have been engineered to ascertain whether my mission was here to encourage opposition, I asked our intelligence which knew nothing of movement to see what it could learn about it and I discussed matter with Hodgson. Our intelligence has discovered something about movement which indicates either that it is “plant” or promoters are so crude in their technique that they will probably all be arrested soon. I learned from Hodgson this was group which has been supplying him with information concerning opposition and that he himself has become a little suspicious and is making further investigations. I found him not so sure of himself on question of opposition altho he still insists that desertions from army are going on in larger numbers than generally believed. Our intelligence is also aware of these desertions but we do not know whether they are due to opposition to regime or are normal, to be expected when army of about 60,000, out of proportion to small size of country, returns from actual warfare to sedentary camp life in home country.
Sent Dept as 35, rptd Caserta as 46.