U.S. INVITATION TO JUGOSLAVS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 7

U.S. INVITATION TO JUGOSLAVS

Military Mission To Washington (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, July 17. The United States, Britain, and France have invited Jugoslavia to send a military mission to Washington in order to discuss defensive planning and other problems with the Western Big Three Powers, says the chief foreign correspondent of the “New York Times,” C. L. Sulzberger. It is understood that Marshal Tito’s Government has accepted the invitation.

Sulzbeger says that the obvious reason for asking Jugoslavia to send a mission at this time is to speed up Balkan defence plans among Belgrade Athens, and Ankara.

He says that the invitation is not going to be popular in Italy, but it has become evident, to the United States and others of the Atlantic Alliance planners, who are eager to strengthen the Balkan front of General Alfred Gruenther, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, that the new entente among Greece, Turkey, and Jugoslavia has become stalemated on a purely military level, in spite of political and cultural advances.