Word: titos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Shouting Match. The revival of the bloc system brought scant comfort to one country that is perilously caught both geographically and ideologically between the two blocs. It is Yugoslavia, whose President, Marshal Josip Broz Tito, not only was the first Eastern European ruler to achieve his independence from the Soviet overlordship but also served as an inspiration to Czechoslovak Party First Secretary Alexander Dubcek in his ill-starred search to find a measure of freedom within Communism. The recent Soviet press campaign against Tito ("lover of counter-revolution") and his country is almost as bitter as the one against West...
...Soviet invasion is still considered unlikely by Western observers. Nonetheless, the Yugoslavs are preparing for the worst. Tito, fearing a Soviet-inspired attempt on his life, has taken special security precautions. Throughout the country, bomb shelters are being built. As an added touch of realism, Yugoslav airplanes drop smoke bombs on some cities during air-raid drills. Emulating the tactics of the Czechoslovak broadcasters, Yugoslav radio stations are setting up alternative facilities outside the cities so that they can keep the people informed in the event that the urban areas fall to invaders. The 300,000-man Yugoslav army, which...
...Yugoslav battle plan calls for the army simply to slow down an enemy advance for six or seven days. After that, the Yugoslavs will fall back on what they call "our own tradition" for dealing with the invaders. It is, of course, guerrilla warfare, an art in which Tito has few peers. During World War II, Tito's partisans tied down as many as 25 German divisions, succeeded in taking control of large parts of the country even before the advancing Red army marched...
...huge and populous sovereign state. As the defender of Communism, moreover, the Soviet Union long could do no wrong in the eyes of its followers the world over. The image of Russia as the ideological motherland was buffeted by the defiance of Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, the invasion of Hungary and the unseemly quarrel with Communist China-but the Soviets have up to now managed to maintain their ideological primacy. Now, after three weeks of continuing protest among Communists abroad over the invasion of Czechoslovakia, there is a serious question about how long Russia can exert that primacy...
Quiet Preparations. Wherever Ceausescu went, he assured his audiences that Rumania would fight if invaded. Though he did nothing comparable to Tito's open show of force, military preparations were quietly under way. Reserve officers were called up over the weekend for "exercises." In Bucharest, members of a newly formed militia, officially called "patriotic armed detachments of workers, peasants and intellectuals, defenders of the independence of the country," were issued guns and drilled briskly. Responding to reported shifts of Bulgarian armored units to the Danube River border, the Rumanians moved tanks within striking distance of the bridge at Giurgiu...