Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Europe: Political and Economic Developments, Volume IV, Part 1

No. 109

750G.00/8–2851

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State¹

secret

[Washington,] August 28, 1951.

Subject: Yugoslav-U.S. Positions on Trieste Question

Participants:	The Secretary
	Yugoslav Ambassador, Mr. Vladimir Popovic
	Dr. Mirko Bruner, First Secretary, Yugoslav Embassy
	Mr. Frederick Reinhardt, EE

The Yugoslav Ambassador came in at his request. After expressing his government’s and his own gratitude for the latest U.S. allotment for economic aid in the sum of $29.8 million,² he launched into an exposition of the Yugoslav position on the Trieste question. He said his government had concluded from recent approaches made by Ambassador Allen in Belgrade that the United States Government was very interested in this question. With this in mind, and in order to make sure that the United States Government clearly understood the Yugoslav position, he had been instructed to convey to me the following. It was his understanding that the British Government was being similarly informed.

The Yugoslav Government was fully aware of the importance of an early solution of the Trieste problem …. It envisaged three possible alternative solutions:

(1) The establishment of the present zonal boundary as the Yugoslav-Italian frontier, with the assignment of Zone A to Italy and Zone B to Yugoslavia.

(2) The establishment of autonomous areas in Zones A and B which would fall under Italian and Yugoslav sovereignty respectively. The autonomous areas might be coterminous with the present zones or somewhat smaller, depending upon the terms of the agreement to be worked out. In this alternative it would be important that Yugoslavia and Italy should coordinate the degree of autonomy to be extended to the autonomous areas.

(3) The assignment of Zone A and Zone B to Italy and Yugoslavia respectively, but with certain minor rectifications based on the ethnic principle. Under this alternative the Yugoslav Government would envisage Capodistria falling to Italy and the villages between Capodistria and Trieste, which the Ambassador described as Slovene, would go to Yugoslavia. Italy, however, would be afforded the right of rail and road communication between Capodistria and Trieste. Similarly, the Slovene villages between Trieste and Monfalcone would go to Yugoslavia with Italy being granted the same kind of transit privileges.

The Ambassador said he believed the United States could be helpful in creating the right atmosphere for Yugoslav-Italian negotiations and it was important in this regard that American representatives not give support to extremist Italian pretensions by reviving the March 20 tripartite declaration. He said it was necessary to understand that Yugoslavia had suffered greatly from the Italian Fascist occupation and that it would be of the greatest difficulty for Yugoslavia to surrender any territory with which it had come out of the war. Finally he stated that up to the present negotiations with the Italians had been quite impossible because the Italians had insisted upon basing their approach to any negotiations on the tripartite declaration of March 20.

I said to the Ambassador that the question of Trieste was a problem to which I had devoted much attention during the past two years and had sought to be as helpful as possible in assisting Yugoslavia and Italy to come to a resolution of this important problem. It was one of the last unsettled territorial questions in Western Europe and of vital importance to the establishment of enduring good relations between Yugoslavia and Italy. As long as it remained unsolved it presented a dangerous opportunity for Soviet intrigue. The strengthening of the West made imperative its early resolution. It had now become even more pressing with the impending revision of the Italian peace treaty, a revision which had to be accomplished if we were to go ahead with the strengthening of our defenses against Soviet aggression. I said I fully realized the difficulty—in fact the impossibility—of finding an ideal solution to the Trieste question. It had become clear to me that the only possible solution was one which would involve sacrifices on both the Yugoslav and Italian sides. My study of this problem had led me to the conclusion that the only road which offered the possibility of a reasonable settlement was one which was based on the ethnic principle. I was not familiar with the details of the towns and villages involved, but I was convinced that the ethnic solution was the only one, difficult as it might be for both sides, which could be justified before the public opinion of both countries. In these circumstances it seemed clear to me that it was of the highest importance that both the Yugoslav and Italian governments approach negotiations of this question with an open mind and with reasonably flexible positions. It must be apparent that if they approach negotiations with extreme fixed positions no progress could be made. I said I had occasion to speak along these lines in the past to Italian officials, notably Count Sforza, and I would hope that when the Italian Prime Minister De Gasperi is here I could inform him of Marshal Tito’s desire to reach a solution of this question.³ Furthermore I would speak to him along the line I had approached Italian officials in the past. I would say the same thing to the Yugoslav Government. Finally, I said that I had spoken to the Ambassador as frankly as I knew how and it was my earnest hope that his government and the Italian government could find it possible to resolve the Trieste question along these lines.

The Yugoslav Ambassador thanked me for the expression of my views and rather tentatively suggested that the third Yugoslav alternative would seem most closely to correspond to the point of view I had expressed.⁴

Dean Acheson

1. Drafted by Reinhardt.
2. For documentation concerning economic aid to Yugoslavia, see Documents 825 ff.
3. For documentation on Prime Minister De Gasperi’s visit to Washington, September 24–27, see Documents 309 ff.
4. The content of this memorandum of conversation was summarized by the drafter and sent as telegram 220 to Belgrade, August 29. (750G.00/8–2951) In response to this summary telegram, Dunn, the Ambassador in Italy, expressed concern that a distorted version of this conversation might reach the Italians and therefore put the United States in a position where it could be accused of bad faith. Since the Secretary of State informed the Yugoslav Ambassador that both Italians and Yugoslavs would have to make sacrifices to settle the Trieste issue, and, since this statement could easily be interpreted as an abandonment of the 1948 tripartite declaration by the United States, Dunn suggested in telegram 1039 from Rome, September 1, that the Italian Government be frankly informed of the remarks made to the Yugoslav Ambassador. (750G.00/9–151) The Department of State agreed that this should be done in strictest confidence. (Telegram 1062 to Rome, September 3, 750G.00/9–151)