THE SITUATION IN YUGOSLAVIA

THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1962

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:10 p.m., in room F-53, U.S. Capitol Building, Hon. J. William Fulbright (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Chairman Fulbright and Senators Sparkman, Humphrey, Symington, Wiley, Aiken, Capehart, and Carlson.

Also present: Mr. Henderson, Mr. Newhouse, and Mr. Kuhl, of the committee staff.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ambassador, we are very pleased to have you. I hope some of our colleagues will be here, especially those who need a little information on Yugoslavia, but in any case we will make a good record, and the floor is yours. We are delighted to have you back. All reports I have had, including Time Magazine, have been most favorable and complimentary to your regime.

Senator WILEY. You have not been reading what I read, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I read Time Magazine. [Laughter.]

Senator WILEY. A fellow with his standing is expected to get smeared and get perfumed, and he gets both. Look, he hasn't lost any of his hair since I saw him last. [Laughter.]

The CHAIRMAN. He looks extremely well. The only mystery to me is that he regarded this as a vacation from the academic world. This has puzzled me very greatly.

The next thing for you to do is to run for public office and submit yourself to the electorate.

Mr. KENNAN. Then the rest of it would go.

The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead, Mr. Ambassador. We would like very much to have you give us a fill-in of your experience and about the situation in Yugoslavia.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE F. KENNAN, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO YUGOSLAVIA

Mr. KENNAN. May I ask, Senator Fulbright, whether we are on the record or off?

The CHAIRMAN. This is an executive session. It is on the record unless you find something that you think is especially sensitive and ask that it not be taken down. But the record is not to be published or given to the press.

Mr. KENNAN. Thank you, sir.

Senator WILEY. You are talking about the officials of Yugoslavia. What about the people?

Mr. KENNAN. The people, so far as I could see, could not be more friendly toward Americans or more hospitable or more kind. I have never met with greater kindness and courtesy from any people in any country I have ever lived in. The people are touchingly wellinclined toward us.

PRO-SOVIET LEANINGS

Senator CAPEHART. In case we got into a war with Russia, whose side would they be on?

Mr. KENNAN. They would try to keep out of it if they could.
Senator CAPEHART. Could they?

Mr. KENNAN. They would be more afraid of the Russians than they would be of us, and for this reason they would try to cover that flank as well as they could, and they would do everything possible to try to keep the Russians from coming into their country, even at the cost of a very considerable appeasement.

I think that the answer generally to your question is, if it comes to a war, I would expect them to try to keep out of it, but to lean to the other side if they have to lean.

TITO'S STATEMENTS

Senator WILEY. What about Tito? 1

Mr. KENNAN. Tito is more of a problem to us, perhaps, than the government as a whole, because he is an older man whose youth was spent in the Communist movement. It seems to me that he feels a need for proving to the people in the Communist orbit that his independence is not disadvantageous to them.

He hates to have it said about him that he has become the tool of the imperialists. He leans over backwards to make statements which are agreeable to the eastern side in order to try to prove that just because he is independent, this does not mean that they have a grievance against him. This is one of my great problems.

His statements have been more extreme than the views, I think, of the government as a whole. I think many other people have had their doubts about the wisdom of the things he said.

One of the complexities of my situation is that I have to deal with both things. I have to deal with his statements as head of state, and yet I have to remember that there are younger people coming along in this regime who do not see things entirely identical.

THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM

Senator CAPEHART. Mr. Chairman, is it all right to ask some questions?

The CHAIRMAN. Sure, go ahead.

Senator CAPEHART. Are the people fairly prosperous there? Are they 100 percent communistic in their economy?

1 Marshal Tito (Josip Broz), President of Yugoslavia.

The CHAIRMAN. It is available, however, to other members of the committee who are not here. They often like very much to have an opportunity to read what your report has been. So I would only suggest that you request that you go entirely off the record if it is something of a very personal nature.

Senator CAPEHART. When they read it they do not take it out of the committee room.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right. It is available for the other members of the committee only here in the committee room.

Mr. KENNAN. Thank you.

A UNIQUE COUNTRY

Well, sir, I have been out there now for about 8 months. It has been a very stimulating and a challenging job.

I do not know a single country in the world for which the problems of our policy are more baffling and puzzling and complex then they are for Yugoslavia. This country has a very peculiar position between the two worlds. It is unique, in fact. It stands between East and West, and in certain ways it also stands between its own past and its own future, so it is hard to know at any one point very often what you are dealing with.

It has not been an easy time in Yugoslavia, and I will try to tell you what some of the difficulties have been. I would like to say, though, that I have at all times been treated with great personal consideration and courtesy by everyone there, including those Yugoslav leaders with whom I have disagreed most violently and most frequently.

I have no complaint on that score whatsoever. I must say that the Yugoslav Government has been punctilious in observing all the proprieties in its dealings with our Government. I have no complaint of any rudeness, discourtesy toward myself or toward the United States.

NATURE OF DISAGREEMENTS

Senator WILEY. You mean your disagreement was with the big shots in the government?

Mr. KENNAN. I have disagreed with their policies and with their statements.

Senator WILEY. That is what I mean.

Mr. KENNAN. And I have told them so very frankly.

Senator WILEY. Then they are pro-Russian?

Mr. KENNAN. Their statements have been ones that I could not agree with. In many cases they have leaned toward the Soviet view. Sometimes they have been disagreeable to me for other reasons, too, and I think to people in this country. That is, it is not just a case of statements that seemed to lean toward the Soviet side.

Sometimes there have been statements about colonial problems, about relations between big countries and small countries which I have found ones that I had to take exceptions to. I have done this wherever I had what I thought was a favorable opportunity to do