Guest Column
BEICHMAN, ARNOLD
GUEST COLUMN By Arnold Beichman An Open Letter To Marshal Tito Dear Marshal Tito: May I suggest that you ignore any invitation you receive from the State Department to visit the United States. I...
...Let me point out that this feeling is not confine to "reactionaries...
...It is ironical that in Gomulka's Poland today, there is more freedom of speech and debate on fundamental issues — there are many Djilases walking as free men in Warsaw—¦ than there is in the country you rule without even the semblance of the kind of election through which Poland has just passed...
...You even believed (or did you...
...But the American people don't like you, your regime, your suppression of freedom, your unending devotion to Communist totalitarianism...
...Do you recall the unpleasant reception you received in Paris last April...
...Perhaps, we feel even more warmly toward the Yugoslav people because of their brave resistance to the Nazis even before the Soviet Union was invaded...
...your own diplomatic representatives here would tell you this if you allowed them to speak...
...Let me assure you that if you should come here, there will be the widest kind of protests from every segment of American life...
...And Poland, geographically, is in a far more dangerous position than Yugoslavia...
...I can assure you that there will be no ticker-tape parade up Broadway to City Hall, or up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House...
...Don't think that because our Government invited King Saud, a feudal slave-holder, or might invite dictator Franco to visit the U. S., somehow this would weaken opposition to you...
...But you won't...
...What is more, you have helped to mislead—or have allowed yourself to be misled—about Soviet intentions and policies...
...I know it is important for you to get such an invitation, but you would be extremely foolish to come to this country...
...Billions for defense does not mean to imply an iota of moral approbation for dictators or slaveholders...
...You're not much of an expert, are you...
...You predicted, soon after your June 1955 meeting with Khrushchev and Bulganin in Belgrade, that the Soviet Union would withdraw its troops from Eastern Europe—and now we have Hungary...
...your favor...
...But don't for a moment think that because such aid is to continue, there is any approval here of your regime...
...He is currently a trade-union journalist...
...Multiply that by 1000 per cent and you'll get an idea of what awaits you in New York...
...I doubt that you will be allowed to address a joint session of Congress and if you were, by any remote possibility, given that privilege, you would address an empty chamber...
...Liberal and trade-union opinion in America shares the same hostility to your regime, as you must know from statements made by outstanding Americans against your frameup of Milovan Djilas...
...But Moscow won't—and how much longer can you sit on the hot stove...
...You will receive only the most formal courtesies...
...that the Soviet Union would honor the right of asylum for Imre Nagy, and immediately after he left the refuge of your Budapest Embassy the Soviet Army arrested him...
...America is fundamentally opposed to any kind of dictatorship or tyranny...
...You once claimed the right to pursue an "independent" policy, but you support Russia in its destruction of Hungary's right to independence...
...You predicted a genuine de-Staliniza-tion program by Kremlin leaders— and now we hear Khrushchev saying that "Stalin was an example to every Communist [and] God grant that every Communist should be able to fight like Stalin...
...You may get an invitation to come here next spring, but I suggest that, at the last minute, you find it impossible to accept...
...I suggest that you stay away from our shores because your presence would re-open the entire question of U. S. aid to Yugoslavia, which public opinion has more or less resolved in Arnold Beichman has written for the New York Times and Post...
...You must understand that Americans admire the Yugoslav people and sympathize with them, as we do with all the peoples behind the Iron Curtain...
...You predicted that Chervenkov and Gheorghiud-dej would be removed from their posts in Bulgaria and Rumania—and there they still are...
...Very truly yours, Arnold Beichman...
...We realize that your deepest inclinations are to ally yourself with Moscow, if only Moscow would give you the opportunity on your terms...
...And, whether you like it or not, your treatment of Cardinal Stepinac is offensive to millions of American citizens...
...Yes, I would advise you to come to America if you freed Djilas and allowed him to debate publicly the issues of totalitarianism versus democracy, if you removed the ban against Cardinal Stepinac as Gomulka has done for the churchmen in Poland, if you allowed Yugoslav workers to form democratic trade unions, if you allowed a measure of civil liberties...
Vol. 40 • February 1957 • No. 5
