281. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Yugoslav Ambassador (Mates) and the Secretary of State, Department of State, Washington, June 29, 19561
SUBJECT
- Call of Yugoslav Ambassador on Secretary
Ambassador Mates told the Secretary that he was leaving on July 3 for a month’s consultation and leave in Yugoslavia and that before he left, his Government had wanted to let the Secretary know how much it appreciated the Secretary’s forthright public stand for the continuance of aid to Yugoslavia. The Secretary replied that he hoped he had been right in taking that stand because he had really stuck his neck out.2 Without his several talks to Congressional committees and individual Senators and without his other efforts, the prohibition of any further aid to Yugoslavia would undoubtedly have been adopted by an overwhelming vote. He added that his confidence that Yugoslavia would not take orders or guidance from Moscow or be in the Soviet camp stemmed from his talks with Marshal Tito last November.3 If he were proved wrong on this, his stock in Congress would certainly sink, so that a big risk was involved. He had asked Ambassador Riddleberger to see Tito to get confirmation that the analysis of Yugoslavia’s position made by the Secretary was correct.
The Ambassador said that he had not yet received detailed information from Belgrade about what had transpired in Moscow, but from what he knew he believed that the visit to Russia had given Tito a chance to make personal observations of Soviet developments on the basis of which Tito was now satisfied that real and seriously intended changes were in progress. The trip had also strengthened the general position of independence of Yugoslavia. To the Secretary’s question about developments in the position of independence of the satellites, Mr. Mates replied that it was the Yugoslav impression, reinforced by what Tito saw in Rumania, that more and more independence was taking hold in both external and internal affairs in those countries.
He continued that U.S.-Yugoslav relations should in no way be affected by all this and referred the Secretary to Yugoslav Vice President Kardelj’s article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs for an exposition of Yugoslavia’s views about this.4 The Secretary stated that it would help if there were some aspect of foreign policy where Yugoslavia agreed with the U.S. instead of with the USSR. Some people held this to be more than a coincidence. The Ambassador observed that the similarity was apparent, but that the Yugoslavs had long held to these positions and that it was the Soviets who had shifted in the Yugoslav direction. The Secretary reiterated that it would nevertheless [Page 735] be helpful if the Yugoslavs could review their views and find some little point—not necessarily very important—where they were not in agreement. Mr. Mates thought that since the Yugoslavs formulated their stands on the basis of their own interests, they could not be expected to change them just because the Russians seemed to have joined them. He recalled, moreover, that in the UN, the Yugoslavs had not voted with the Soviets a number of times—most recently when they abstained on the Soviet-backed Arab proposal to inscribe the Algerian question on the Security Council agenda. The Secretary noted that this was the kind of divergence he had in mind and that it was useful, since a pattern of complete coincidence might be interpreted as having been planned in advance.
Ambassador Mates said that he wished to stress that material aid was not the basis of relations between Yugoslavia and the U.S., but the Congressional minority had put the aid question into a political context and wished to sever all friendly relations between the two countries. For this reason, the Yugoslav Government welcomed the Secretary’s stand so greatly, for, as he had said, it was incredible that a country (Yugoslavia) which had sacrificed so much for its independence should now voluntarily return to a subservient status. The Secretary repeated that he drew his confidence from what Marshal Tito had said on Brioni.
Mr. Mates observed that this did not mean that the Yugoslavs thought that developments in the Eastern European countries were tending toward American or Western European style governments. The Secretary said that he agreed fully. The post-World War I idea of a cordon sanitaire of hostile states around the Soviet Union was completely outmoded. The USSR was a major power entitled to have friendly governments surrounding it, such as Finland and Yugoslavia. The situation in Europe would be much healthier if there were independent states friendly to Russia around Russia instead of servile or dependent states. The U.S. objected to the extension of virtual Soviet sovereignty to the center of Europe. Soviet frontiers, expanded after World War II, took care of all of Russia’s legitimate needs, and Central Europe needed independent governments and not the projection of Soviet sovereignty into the area. After the Ambassador agreed with this and noted that Tito had voiced similar views to the Secretary, the latter continued that he assumed Tito had not changed his feelings on this. A situation could not continue where the USSR used countries long accustomed to independence as pawns for Soviet aims. The Polish uprising was an example of how the Russians are exploiting the satellites so as to be able to make generous offers to the Middle and Far Eastern countries. The satellite peoples took pride in their traditions of independent national existence. Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary used to have higher standards of living, and an [Page 736] unhealthy situation would persist until pride and self-rule were restored to these nations. Tito had shown the way, and the countries of the area should be and, indeed, had to be friendly to Russia if a similarly unhealthy situation in reverse were not to develop.
Ambassador Mates noted that the emergence of hostile states would just create new world tensions. Tito felt that new developments in the Secretary’s sense in Eastern Europe were underway, and the world might soon see further signs of this. The Secretary pointed out, however, that if the Soviets did not alter the situation quickly enough, independence might come to the satellites under conditions in which hostility to the USSR was the dominant note. This happened when rulers held on too long and was similar to the same problem in another form, namely, Western colonialism. Britain had known when to leave India, and their relations were now better than ever before. France, however, had tried to hold on too long in Indo-China and, perhaps, in North Africa, too. The British position in Cyprus was also in peril, and the Soviets could suffer the same fate in Eastern Europe if they delayed too long. The Ambassador said that he thought the Soviets were aware of the element of timing and would act in good time.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 611.68/6–2956. Confidential. Drafted by Mark.↩
- For Dulles’ testimony on behalf of aid to Yugoslavia, see Mutual Security Appropriations for 1957: Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, 84th Cong., 2d sess.↩
- See Documents 263–265.↩
- The article, entitled “Evolution in Jugoslavia,” was published in the July 1956 issue of Foreign Affairs, pp. 580–602.↩