860h.01/4–1245: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman)
849. Reurtel 1131, April 11.55 Six members of the Subasic Government at London are included in the present Cabinet. Two of them were Tito appointees after the negotiations at Vis last summer56 and one, Kosanovic, had been the chief Tito protagonist in the United States.57 The remaining three at the time of the move to Belgrade were Subasic, Sutej and Grol, the latter two being thus the only real representatives of elements not coordinated with the Tito regime, in a [Page 1220] “United Government” of 28 members. Grol is vice premier, but without other portfolio and Sutej is one of the two Ministers without portfolio.
Of the 22 appointed at Belgrade 9 are communists, 11 are Partisans (possibly communists and probably communist sympathizers). All of the Partisans were Ministers in Tito’s Avnoj. The remaining two are regarded as Tito supporters, though nominally one is an Agrarian and one a Republican. Of the three Regents two are Partisans.
The weighting of the present Government is thus apparent. Sutej and Grol are the only members willing to take an independent line on occasion and, as noted above, neither of them holds a portfolio.
- Not printed; in this telegram, Ambassador Harriman asked the Department for a description and analysis of the Yugoslav provisional government (860c.01/4–1145).↩
- For Subasich’s account of these negotiations with Marshal Tito, see telegram Yugoslav Series No. 2, July 4, 1944, from London, Foreign Relations, 1944, vol. iv, p. 1384.↩
- Kosanovich was a former member of the Yugoslav Information Center in New York.↩