Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Eastern Europe; Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean, Volume VIII

750G.00/9–553: Telegram

No. 102
The Chargé in Yugoslavia (Wallner) to the Department of State¹

secret
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Belgrade, September 5, 1953—2 p.m.

303. Embassy telegrams 297 and 298.² Yugoslav Government has agreed to postpone military countermeasures to give three governments time to persuade Italian Government to revoke its measures.

Koca Popovic summoned three of us at noon and read aide-mémoire which opened by stating Yugoslav Government would “meet desire of three governments so that there should be sufficient time for the steps to be undertaken by three governments in Rome to lead to rapid and effective results”.

Rest of aide-mémoire was so drafted as to require one hour of conversation before we received reasonably clear interpretation.

Full details follow.³

Foreign Secretary proposed and we agreed to tell press only that we had met last night and this morning.

Wallner

1. Repeated for information to Rome, Paris, London, and Trieste.
2. Telegram 298 is printed as Document 97. Telegram 297 is described in footnote 2, ibid.
3. In telegram 304 from Belgrade, Sept. 5, the Embassy transmitted the verbatim text of the aide-mémoire from the Yugoslav Government. (750G.00/9–553) In telegram 305, also Sept. 5, Wallner summarized the questions which the three Western representatives had raised with regard to the aide-mémoire. (750G.00/9–553)