711.60H/1–446: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Yugoslavia (Patterson)
26. We can understand the desirability from Tito’s standpoint of a visit to the US at this time for the purposes stated urtel 11 Jan. 4. However, we feel such a visit would create an impression in this country wholly inconsistent with views toward his regime in Yugoslavia expressed in Deptel 468 Dec 223 and would serve to excite unnecessary conflict among contending factions of Yugoslav-American opinion here. Moreover, as the US Govt does not intend to extend any financial credit to Yugoslavia until political conditions there improve, we would not be in a position to comply at this time with his desire for a loan.
The foregoing is for your background information. In your discretion you may inform interested Yugoslav Govt inquirers “semiofficially” that we do not believe a visit by Marshal Tito to this country now would serve a useful purpose and we consequently do not contemplate extending him such an invitation for the time being.
The President has approved the transmission to you of instructions in this sense.4
- Not printed; the telegram set forth the Department’s instructions to Ambassador Patterson; for text of the instructions, see Department of State Bulletin, December 23, 1945, p. 1020.↩
- The substance of these instructions was given in a memorandum of January 10 by the Acting Secretary of State to President Truman. The President’s handwritten endorsement on the memorandum is dated January 11. (711.60H/1–1046)↩