TITO MAY LOSE U.S. AID

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27989, 8 June 1956, Page 11

TITO MAY LOSE U.S. AID

Effect Of Moscow Reconciliation

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) MOSCOW, June 6. Marshal Tito said in Moscow tonight that he was prepared to go to Washington, if invited, to discuss Jugoslavia s relations with the United States. x ? President Eisenhower said he thought Marshal Tito s reconciliation with Russia must cause a review of the United States aid programme to Jugoslavia.

Speaking to Western correspondents at a Kremlin reception, Marshal lito said he thought his current three-week visit to Russia would improve Jugoslavia’s relations with the United States.

Marshal Tito also said that Jugoslav relations with the United States would not suffer as a result of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s current campaign to cut American aid to Jugoslavia. Questioned about Senator McCarthy’s Senate resolution yesterday proposing an end to United States aid, Marshal Tito said: “It is not important.” He added: “Our relations with the United States will not guffer—our friendship will remain as before.”

President Eisenhower told his news conference in Washington that the United States was re-evaluating its policy towards Marshal Tito and his regime. His reconciliation must cause a review of the United States aid programme to Jugoslavia. Marshal Tito was not necessarily being lost to the West, the President added. He believed that Marshal Tito had been given a big welcome in Moscow because of his success in defying the Stalin regime in 1948. He added

that Moscow had to make big concessions to Marshal Tito and these might tempt other Soviet satellites to emulate his defiance. Mr Eisenhower set forth his views in a discussion of the speech of Mr Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Communist Party chief, attacking Stalin. He said the speech clearly revealed how the Communist system subjugated the individual to the State.

Mr Eisenhower said that the Soviet Union’s new rulers continued to follow dictatorial methods in spite of their extreme attacks on Stalin. The new Soviet leaders merely were saying that the wrong individual was in power.