261. Memorandum From the Secretary of State to the President1

Remembering our conversation of August 11,2 when I reported that we felt that there was some need to take some new soundings in Yugoslavia, these have been completed. The results are encouraging.

As far as Tito is concerned personally, Murphy found that his attitude on the subject of continuing cooperation with the United States was more clearly expressed than at the time of the Trieste negotiations. In reply to your letter, Tito has sent you the enclosed letter of September 30.3 He spoke of your indisposition with unaffected sympathy. This may have been accentuated due to the fact that he himself at the moment was suffering from an acute attack of rheumatism, for which he is now undergoing a cure.

The difficulties which prevailed between our personnel in Yugoslavia and the local military authorities on the subject of our military aid program have been resolved. The Country Team, the European Command, and the Defense Department are agreed on the resumption of deliveries of military equipment. There will be deliveries of a few items which have been delayed and which are immediately available. At the same time, the entire program is being reexamined [Page 679] in the belief that we can affect substantial economies without interfering with our political objectives in the area.

We have resumed our negotiations with the Yugoslavs regarding economic aid which they urgently need and want. It is Murphy’s opinion that recent Yugoslav negotiations with the USSR on the subject of economic cooperation have carried with them a certain disillusionment for the Yugoslavs and a better appreciation on their part of the manner in which we have extended economic aid to them. We ourselves should have no illusions regarding the possibility that the future may bring more intensive relations between the Party apparatus in Yugoslavia and that of the USSR. It is our belief that the Cominform type of international communism, at least as far as Yugoslavia is concerned, is finished.

[1 paragraph (51/2 lines of source text) not declassified]

I enclose a memorandum outlining Murphy’s discussions at Belgrade.4

[3-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] I may be able to visit Belgrade during the course of the forthcoming Geneva talks. Should an invitation to him at that time appear to be useful, I will report further to you.

John Foster Dulles
5
  1. Source: Department of State, S/PNSC Files: Lot 62 D 1, Yugoslavia. Secret. Drafted by Robert Murphy on October 7. A typed notation on the source text, initialed by Murphy, indicates that Dulles said that he would use this memorandum “as a talking paper” with the President. Dulles met with the President on October 11 at Fitzsimmons Hospital in Denver. In his memorandum of their conversation, dated October 11, Dulles noted: “I said that Bob Murphy had come back from Belgrade and had had a most successful visit with Tito and his principal aides. I thought that he had pretty well cleared up the concrete points of friction between us. The President said he was happy with this result. He said he had a high regard for Murphy and his ability to deal with problems of this kind. I said that Murphy had brought back a letter from Tito to him (the President) which I was leaving with Sherman Adams, together with a draft of a possible reply, both of which the President would want to consider at his convenience. There was no rush about the matter.” (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers) The letter from Tito, dated September 30, is supra; Eisenhower’s reply is infra.
  2. See Document 253.
  3. President Eisenhower’s letter is printed as Document 256; President Tito’s reply is supra.
  4. The memorandum did not accompany the source text; the October 1 memorandum of understanding reached during the Murphy visit [2 pages of source text] was not declassified. (Department of State, Central Files, 110.13–MU/10–355)
  5. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.