Abstract
This chapter looks at Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1953 visit to Yugoslavia from a two-fold perspective: first, as an affirmation of the new US partnership with Yugoslavia; second, as a personal and public diplomacy initiative by Eleanor Roosevelt. The visit, indeed, represented a proactive wedge strategy policy toward Yugoslavia. The chapter also points out that by looking at the Yugoslav socialist experiment, Mrs. Roosevelt, before many others, understood the existence of different communist paths and the importance of communicating with them. This was reflected in Eleanor Roosevelt’s post-visit writings on Yugoslavia. Finally, the chapter will stress how both Eleanor Roosevelt and the Yugoslav leaders shared much UN activism, particularly on disarmament issues, which helped deepen their relationship further.
The research has been possible thanks to CERIC-ERIC and the University of Trieste financial support. All translations from Serbian and Croatian are mine.
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This research is based on the personal papers of President Tito and Eleanor Roosevelt (ER), and Yugoslav newspapers. At the moment, the ER’s digital collection alone has been investigated. For a more comprehensive view, further research needs to be carried out at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.
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Ibid.
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Spehnjak, Katarina. 2001. Posjeta Josipa Broza Tita Velikoj Britaniji 1953. godine, Časopis za suvremenu povijest 33, 3: 597–631. The Free Territory of Trieste was established by the 1947 Paris Treaty as an independent territory between Northern Italy and Yugoslavia, under the responsibility of the UN Security Council, to accommodate an ethnically and culturally mixed population and to relax territorial claims between Italy and Yugoslavia after World War II. From 15 September 1947, its administration was divided into two areas: Zone A comprising the Trieste port with a narrow coastal strip up to the north west; and the larger Zone B, formed by a small portion of the north-western part of the Istrian peninsula. The Free Territory of Trieste (FTT) was de facto split between its two neighbors, Italy and Yugoslavia, by the 1954 London Memorandum and formalized by the bilateral Treaty of Osimo of 1975, ratified in 1977. For more analysis, see Glenda Sluga, The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border: Difference, Identity, and Sovereignty in Twentieth-Century Europe (New York, NY: SUNY Press, 2001).
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Untitled. New York Times, 7 July 1953, 12.
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Roosevelt, Eleanor. 1953. My Day, 16 July 1953. The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition (2017). http://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1953&_f=md002591a. Accessed 9 November 2017. Eleanor Roosevelt stayed in Yugoslavia from 6 July to 22 July, when she departed to Vienna. This is confirmed by Yugoslav archival documents, New York Times articles, and Yugoslav newspapers. For unknown reasons, in her digitally edited papers, there is a ten-day time displacement. This means if something occurred on 6 July 1953, the digital edition quotes it as 16 July 1953.
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Roosevelt, Eleanor. 1953. My Day, 18 July 1953. In The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition (2017). http://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1953&_f=md002593a (hereafter: Roosevelt. My Day, July 18, 1953.) Accessed 9 November 2017.
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Roosevelt. My Day, 19 July 1953.
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Roosevelt. My Day, 18 July 1953. Vladimir Dedijer was a prominent Yugoslav politician, historian and visiting professor, representative at the UN, and foremost, Tito’s personal biographer, and after his support for Djilas, a dissident who was permitted to leave the country in 1959. He acted as visiting professor of history at many prestigious international universities (Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Paris Sorbonne). As a human rights activist, he chaired the Third Bertrand Russell International Tribunal on War Crimes in 1977.
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Roosevelt. My Day, 18 July 1953.
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Roosevelt. My Day, 22 July 1953.
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Roosevelt. My Day, 22 July 1953.
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Roosevelt, My Day, 26 July 1953.
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Roosevelt, My Day, 28 July 1953.
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Roosevelt, My Day, 28 July 1953.
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Roosevelt. My Day, 29 July 1953.
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Roosevelt. My Day, 30 July 1953.
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United Yugoslav Relief Fund, 000385, Folder 17, Box 32, Records of the War Refugee Board, 1944–1945, Digital Collection, FDR Presidential Library, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/wrb/wrb0943.pdf. Lees, Lorraine M. 2007. Yugoslav-Americans and National Security during World War II. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 173.
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Hitchcock, William I. 2008. The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe. New York: Free Press, 220; Kržišnik-bukić, Vera. 1988. Hirana Kao Glavni Vid UNRRA-Ine Pomoći Jugoslaviji 1943–1948. Casopis Za Suvremenu Povijest 20, 3:59–76.
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Lampe, John R. 2000. Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 241.
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American Committee for Yugoslav Relief, 1946, Series 2, Selected Digitized Correspondence from the Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, General Correspondence Series, 1945–1947, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, NY (hereafter FDR Library), http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/ergen/ergen476.pdf; and American Committee for Yugoslav Relief, 1947, Series 3, Selected Digitized Correspondence from the Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, General Correspondence Series, 1945–1947, FDR Library, http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/ergen/ergen1082.pdf
- 32.
Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman, accompanied by a memo, 15 May 1951, President’s Secretary’s File, Harry S. Truman Papers, Truman Library. Available online at: https://trumanlibrary.org
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Roosevelt. My Day, 20 July 1953.
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Jovanović, Jadranka. 1985. Jugoslavija u Organizaciji Ujedinjenih Nacija (1945.-1953.). Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 19.
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Written by Bernard Baruch, the US representative at the UN Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC), and based on the Acheson–Lilienthal Report, the Baruch Plan was a US government proposal to the UNAEC during its first meeting in June 1946. It foresaw the exchange of basic scientific information for peaceful ends, the implementation of control and inspection policies, and the elimination of atomic weapons from national armaments. At the time, it was considered too US-oriented.
- 36.
Jovanović, 167.
- 37.
Fazzi, Dario. 2016. Eleanor Roosevelt and the Anti-Nuclear Movement. The Voice of Conscience New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 54.
- 38.
Jovanović, 168.
- 39.
Fazzi, 86.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Jovanović, 171.
- 42.
Jovanović, 174.
- 43.
Jovanović, 174–75.
- 44.
Resolution n. 502 (VI General Assembly, UN), 11 January 1952, cited in Jovanović, 175.
- 45.
Fazzi, 24.
- 46.
Viktorin Carolin et al., eds. 2018. Nation Branding in Modern History. New York: Berghahn Books.
- 47.
Zabeleška o sastanku za program gdj-e Roosevelt, 1 July 1953, KPR-I-3-a/107–6, Prijem Eleonore Ruzvelt, Kabinet Predsednika Republike, Archives of Josip Broz Tito, Belgrade (hereafter AJBT).
- 48.
Dosadašnji razgovori g-dje Roosevelt u Beogradu, 8 July 1953, KPR-I-3-a/107–6, Prijem Eleonore Ruzvelt, Kabinet Predsednika Republike, AJBT.
- 49.
On the friendship between Roosevelt and Gurewitsch, see Gurewitsch Edna P. and Geoffrey C. Ward 2002. Kindred Souls: The Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt And David Gurewitsch. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
- 50.
Dopunski podaci o boravku g-dje Roosevelt u našoj zemlji, 15 July 1953, KPR-I-3-a/107–6, Prijem Eleonore Ruzvelt, Kabinet Predsednika Republike, AJBT.
- 51.
Predsjednik Republike primio gospođu Roosevelt. Vjesnik, 18 July, 1.
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Gospođa Roosevelt posjetila Zagreb. Vjesnik, July 16, 1 and 3.
- 53.
Fazzi, 46.
- 54.
Roosevelt, My Day, 26 July 1953.
- 55.
The reason Look magazine decided not to publish Roosevelt’s interview with Tito is unclear: in a letter to her son she acknowledged that the magazine asked Adlai Stevenson to write an article about Yugoslavia and that Look’s editorial director Daniel Mich apologized and refused to accept her remuneration back. See Henry, Richard. 2010. Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 50–51.
- 56.
Roosevelt, My Day, 30 July 1953.
- 57.
Yugoslavs Lauded by Mrs. Roosevelt. 1953. New York Times, 21 July, 5.
- 58.
Eleanor Roosevelt to James Roosevelt, 10 July 1953, Sarajevo, The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project – George Washington University, http://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/maps/ERtoJamesRoosevelt.htm, accessed 15 October 2017.
- 59.
Yugoslav newspapers frequently reported on events in the USA, particularly with respect to the Red Scare; My Day, 19 July 1953.
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Konta, C. (2020). Eleanor Roosevelt in Yugoslavia Between Wedge Strategy and Cold War Internationalism. In: Fazzi, D., Luscombe, A. (eds) Eleanor Roosevelt's Views on Diplomacy and Democracy. The World of the Roosevelts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42315-5_4
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