Word: titos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...summarize the easy arguments for giving aid to Tito. We are told it will show anti-Russian (nationalist) groups in other Iron Curtain countries that the U. S. is willing to be friends, to play the kindly uncle to Stalin's stern father. This may or may not help these countries cast off Russian control, but it is a step in the right direction-we may hope for eventual Russian departure from the area...
...Tito will show Russia that we do not like her expansionist tendencies (this, by some idiot logic, is said to lower the tension of the cold war). It will also, if the Iron, Curtain countries cooperate, stimulate trade between East and West which will help Europe get on its economic feet and help break down the barrier now existent between the two regions...
These arguments come down to this: there is a breach in the Iron Curtain; it would be weak, criminal, to pass up such an opportunity of strengthening ourselves at Russia's expense. We must do this right away because otherwise Tito will succumb to Stalin's blockade, have to fall back into line. We are taking risks--that war may somehow come out of this, or that we may lose face or money--but all policies, especially strong ones, involve some dangers. At any rate the status quo is unsatisfactory and if we do run a little risk in trying...
There are a few people who support aid to Tito because they believe that the loan dollars are non-political dollars, not aimed at Stalin. One cannot score many points for refusing them, but their reasoning shows important parallels with that of most other Americans and the State Department. These people, then, perceive the obvious economic fact that the $20,000,000 loan is financially feasible, and ignore the fact that it is motivated by political interest (witness the inescapably political timing of the project in the midst of Russian-Tito controversy...
...think one can observe the same type of blinkered reasoning in the orthodox pragmatic argument for aid to Tito, as outlined above, admitting from the beginning that the move is political. Adherents to this view think in terms of immediate political prospects in Yugoslavia, and by extension bring into the picture both nearby Iron Curtain countries and Western European communists. Essentially they are trying to reduce the complex issue to a simple, individual case that can be solved upon consideration of a few elementary facts. Just as the people who believe he aid is non-political fail...