Word: balkanize
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...days before the Balkans became greyed over by Communism, writers of mystery and history made intrigue the chief occupation of the southeast corner of Europe. Even Communism cannot break all,old habits; it merely regularizes the worst ones. Last week Rumanian Communist Premier Chivu Stoica, rising from deserved obscurity, set a bright little intrigue going. He invited five neighbors-Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey-to a conference to form a Balkan nonaggression alliance. Obviously, Communist Premier Stoica is by definition incapable of independent thought. Then...
Soviet satellites Bulgaria and Albania immediately accepted the invitation. So far, predictable. Yugoslavia's Comrade Tito called the proposal "very useful," but did not immediately accept. He indicated that he wanted to consult with Greece and Turkey, his partners in the dormant anti-Kremlin Balkan pact of 1954. It now became obvious that the proposal came as no surprise to him, and must have grown out of Tito's meeting with Khrushchev in Rumania last month. But it was considerably less clear who fathered the scheme, and who stood to gain most by its acceptance or rejection...
Tito has long dreamed of a Balkan federation dominated by Tito: his ambitions in this direction were one cause of the 1948 quarrel with Stalin, who never tolerated the notion of "many roads to Socialism." Tito also is a man who talks of the need to break up the rival Eastern and Western blocs, though he makes a good living by playing one off against the other. He thus becomes a potentially useful middleman. In his old worrisome days, he sought the help of capitalistic Greece and Turkey against Moscow. Now Khrushchev would like to revive this moribund Balkan pact...
...west in endlessly repeated waves, the Danube basin had already been overrun and evacuated by dozens of conquerors before Arpad arrived. To ensure their own survival, fierce Magyar expeditionary forces soon extended their realm far over the mountains to cover what is now most of Russia's Balkan satellite empire...
...good-will visit, Greek Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis warmly clasped the proletarian paw of Marshal Tito. The inconsistency was more apparent than real: Greece's alliance with Communist Yugoslavia is designed to protect them both from Russian attack. Reaffirming Greek-Yugoslavian solidarity, Karamanlis admitted that the Balkan Pact which links Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey is currently "sleeping"-and will continue to slumber until Turkey and Greece are able to settle their differences over Cyprus...