How Strong Is the Balkan Pact?

...Had Greece and Turkey delayed conclusion of the Balkan Pact until the Trieste dispute was laid to rest, it would have meant the complete triumph of Western strategy in the Balkan-Mediterranean area...

...By Bogdan Raditsa THE recently-concluded Balkan Pact, linking Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia in a military alliance, is a gain for the free world...

...As it is, a grave blunder has been committed...

...Thanks to American aid, the Greek Army is today the finest that country has ever possessed...

...Soviet-controlled Albania, isolated from the Soviet bloc since Tito's defection and torn by internal unrest, is ripe for liberation...

...Greece and Turkey, must make every effort to win for the people of Yugoslavia the same freedom that they themselves enjoy...

...The Balkan Pact must be more than merely a defensive alliance against the chief center of aggressive Communist power, the Soviet Union and its satellites...

...The latter, a four-power alliance which included Rumania, provided for joint action if any of the signatories was attacked by either Bulgaria or Albania...

...And all possible pressure should be brought on Tito to modify the totalitarian features of his regime, liquidate the remaining pro-Soviet elements in the Party and Government, and restore to good standing those men like Milovan Djilas who have sought to break out of the rigid mold of Leninism...

...It has 15 well-trained divisions, and morale is excellent...

...What we should do is insist on setting up NATO bases in Yugoslavia just as in Greece and Turkey...

...As a result, it offered no protection whatever...

...at the same time, reassure the Yugoslav people that we are their ally, not that of their rulers...

...The Turkish Army, 25 divisions strong and outfitted with American motorized equipment, has proved its prowess on the Korean battlefield...

...Not long ago, Greek opinion was shocked to learn that a Yugoslav citizen, one George Katradjeff, had been sentenced to death by the Greek supreme military court for stealing military secrets on an official mission for Tito...

...The Balkan Assembly envisaged in the Pact should include non-Communist as well as Communist representatives of Yugoslavia...

...Yugoslavia and Turkey stood by in 1940 when the Italians invaded Greece (Rumania was already under a pro-Axis regime), and the Turks did nothing the following year when Yugoslavia's turn came to be attacked...

...The new treaty has also left another open sore unhealed in Southeastern Europe...

...The prewar Yugoslav Army collapsed in the face of Axis aggression because the people were not behind it, and history can easily repeat itself...

...With the alliance completed and his position made more secure, Tito will no longer be under any compulsion to compromise with Italy on Trieste...

...Indeed, the Yugoslav dictator probably feels that he has a strong potential stake in his tiny neighbor...

...At the same time, future Italo-Yugoslav tension over this issue will inevitably cause some degree of friction between Yugoslavia's new Balkan allies, Greece and Turkey, and their NATO partner, Italy...

...military equipment to men who, despite the break with Moscow, still regard the capitalist world as the main enemy and might easily turn their weapons against Italy or Greece...

...The presence of Communist Yugoslavia is the Achilles Heel of the Balkan alliance...

...Similarly, the new pact provides for common action in the event of aggression by Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary or Albania...

...Nevertheless, several features of the new alignment are such as to arouse serious misgivings...

...Unless these things are done, the Yugoslav people will feel that the Balkan Pact is not their alliance but merely another shrewd maneuver of their Communist rulers...

...So long as Yugoslavia is ruled by a Communist dictatorship, the West should concentrate most of its power in Greece and Turkey...

...Thousands of Albanian Communists and Army officers attended Yugoslav political and military schools between the end of World War II and the Tito-Stalin break, and many of these, including some important members of the Tirana Government, are believed to be still sympathetic to Belgrade despite the massive purges ordered by Moscow...

...The desire of three Balkan nations, in a time of great international stress, to assert their independence and make common cause is to be heartily applauded...

...The Greeks pointed out, following this incident, that there no longer is a Slav population in northern Greece, so that the Yugoslavs were raising a purely manufactured issue...

...And, so long as that is true, it will not be possible to count on effective aid from the Yugoslav Army, whose commanders must today stand alert on two fronts: against a possible foreign aggressor and against the Yugoslav people...

...The fighting spirit of an old warrior nation has united with Turkey's traditional anti-Russianism to produce a redoubtable ally for the West...

...Originally published in a Macedonian Communist irredentist organ, the articles demanded better treatment for the ethnic Slav population in Greece and accused Greek King Paul of having "sold the Greek people to the aggressive American imperialists" on his recent trip to the United States...

...It does not take effect, however, if the Soviet Army should invade the Balkans or if Greece and Turkey are required to defend one of their NATO partners against Soviet attack...

...It must also provide the framework for a future United Stales of the Balkans, in which the peoples of the region will live together . in peace liberated from every form of Communist and other tyranny...

...There are many reasons why we should welcome the signing of the Balkan Pact...

...In that way, we will be able to keep an eye on Tito and...

...Another adverse feature of the new pact is that its signing did not await settlement of the vexing nine-year-old Trieste problem...

...Thus, Yugoslavia has every opportunity to remain neutral in case of a major Balkan conflagration or even, if the tide should turn against the West, to rejoin her former Soviet ally...

...Last year, at a time when negotiations for an alliance were already well advanced, the official Yugoslav news agency Jugopress distributed a series of articles to the Athens press...

...But there is one essential prerequisite to effective functioning of the Balkan Pact: The two democratic members...

...it also introduces a Trojan Horse into the NATO structure, to which Yugoslavia's two Balkan partners belong...

...Moreover, the political impact of the new treaty should not be underestimated...

...As an additional trump for possible future use, Tito has formed an "Albanian National Committee" made up of Communist and non-Communist Albanian exiles and has recruited a small armed unit among the 700,000 Albanians living in Yugoslavia...

...Yet, the Balkan Pact apparently presupposes maintenance of the status quo—clearly out of deference to Tito, who fears the contagious effects that restoration of democracy to Albania might have on his own regime...

...The Yugoslavs have also been carrying on other activities which suggest that, even as he assumes the obligations of the Balkan Pact, Tito is continuing to pursue his own political aims in defiance of his new allies...

...This new unity in the southern and western Balkans makes it possible for the West to launch an effective propaganda drive to undermine Kremlin control in Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary and Rumania...

...There is little point in handing large quantities of U.S...

...This will both serve the Soviet aim of disrupting NATO solidarity and advance one of the major goals of Yugoslav foreign policy: that of keeping Italy out of the Balkans...

...under the present regime, it constitutes a Kremlin foothold in the western Balkans and a dagger pointed at Italy...

...BOGDAN RADITSA, at present Professor of European History at Fairleigh Dickinson College, was formerly Marshal Tito's Washington press chief...

...However, the treaty did not become operative in the event of aggression by Germany or Italy, the region's major potential aggressors...

...We can now win the confidence of the Balkan peoples by championing the common interests of the Peninsula against the Soviet policy of dividing its nations and using them as pawns in the cold war...

...To begin with, the treaty shares the principal weakness of its predecessor, the old prewar Balkan Pact...