Dear Editor
Dear Editor The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. Churchill Winston Churchill's seemingly ruthless remark that he did not...
...New York City Laszlo T. Kiss...
...While there is no reason to doubt that Churchill indeed made this remark to Mac-Lean...
...Missouri, when they invited Senator J. William Fulbright, America's most prominent appeaser of Soviet colonialism, to be their honored guest and speaker for the marking of the centennial of Churchill's birth...
...Brigadier MacLean, an MP who was Churchill's personal representative at Tito's headquarters, and the members of the Secret Operation Executive were primarily responsible for the British government's decision to abandon General Draja Mihajlovich and switch its support to the Partisans...
...The Prime Minister simply accepted and acted upon their expedient recommendations...
...During World War II he tried-with the limited authority and military power at his disposal, and without antagonizing his ambivalent allies-to save them from the onrushing winters of Stalinism...
...This writer greatly admires Mihajlov's creativity, courage and intellectual integrity, but would like to remind him that, despite this particular error in judgment, Churchill was the best Western friend the nations of Central Europe ever had...
...And his Iron Curtain speech, delivered immediately after the War, was a true statesman's compassionate farewell to those upon whom the second wave of darkness was about to fall...
...The speech was a warning and a moral lesson on genuine liberalism as well...
...Having said all this, one must add that Churchill grossly misjudged Tito's character and political intentions...
...Churchill did not believe Tito-who had lived through the War by relying almost exclusively on British supplies-would impose Soviet-type totalitarianism on Yugoslavia...
...Yet the Partisan leader acted with such speed and zeal in carrying out his maximum program that Yugoslavia was transformed into a full-fledged Communist dictatorship ahead of Poland and Rumania, the earliest victims of Stalin's ideological imperialism...
...British action in Greece clearly refutes at least the latter contention...
...Furthermore, the subsequent Yalta Declaration was a clear affirmation of the rights of Europe's liberated peoples, including those of Yugoslavia, to democratic governments...
...In practical terms that would have meant the status of Austria or Finland for these countries, i.e., Soviet influence perhaps, but by no means permanent dictatorships-independent or otherwise...
...During his visit to Moscow in October 1944, when he raised the question of spheres of influence in Central Europe with Stalin, he proposed a 50-50 arrangement for both Yugoslavia and Hungary...
...his improvised, offhand pronouncements under such circumstances should not be taken literally...
...This mistake was comparable in nature, although not in magnitude, to Franklin D. Roosevelt's optimism about Stalin's postwar conduct...
...I do question whether he actually meant he did not care about the future of Yugoslavia and the spread of Communism in the Balkans...
...How little it was understood or heeded was demonstrated last year by the academic authorities at Westminster College in Fulton...
...Churchill Winston Churchill's seemingly ruthless remark that he did not intend to live in postwar Yugoslavia, uttered to dismiss Fitzroy MacLean's suggestion that a Partisan victory would bring Communism to that country and cited by Mihajlo Mihajlov ("The Mihajlovich Tragedy," NL, February 3), should be analyzed in the context of specific wartime events and circumstances...
...Churchill had a habit of being erratic and blunt with his subordinates (the Diaries of Field Marshal Alanbrooke, the British Chief of Staff, provide endless testimony to that), especially when they tried to lecture him...
...Disregarding the General's early courageous stand and loyalty to the West, these gentlemen vehemently argued that Tito's Communist guerrillas did more damage to the Nazis than the royalist Chetniks...
...The Marshal's expulsion from the Cominform was a typically Stalinist act: totally unjustified...
...What Churchill really intended for Yugoslavia became evident 10 months after his private conversation with MacLean...
Vol. 58 • March 1975 • No. 5
