SOVIET EXPANSION

Grey River Argus, 27 August 1946, Page 5

SOVIET EXPANSION

TITO’S ROLE IN WEST New York Times Estimate (Rec. 8.15). NEW YORK, Aug. 26. The New York Times', in an editorial, comments on Marshal BrozTito’s compliance with the United States ultimatum. It says: “Russia’s urae for expansion finds its most critical and its most dangerous expression in this puppet, Tito’s' whole attitude in the Trieste dispute, in which nothing has been settled. There has been an ostentatious dismissal of M. Litinov, which, to the outside world, is the weathervane of Russian policy. The dismissal is Russia’s notice that there will be no abatement of the expansionist drive. It behoves the American Government, in these circumstances, tn keep its own policy under constant review. There can be no departure from America’s firm resolve to seek peaceful settlements by agreement, and to use to the utmost all international authorities for that purpose. But it is also becoming more and more evident that the present situation, at least in part, is the result of the United States’ own past policies, of one-sided concessions, which have only fed the Russian appetites, and which, incidentally, put Tito in power. A more realistic policy is no win odder. One of the very first steps toward such policy must be a review of the possibility of recovering the existing Lend-Lease material and to scrutinise all of the current shipments to Russia and to her satellites, of both U.N.R.R.A. goods and LendLease goods', so as to make certain that they will not be used, either directly or indirectly, against us.” LONDON, August 25.

The Government of Yugoslavia is providing an aerial and military escort and a guard of honour for the funeral cortege of the men who perished when the second United States transport plane was shot down on August 19. The United States' Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Mr Patterson, stated that the leader of a Yugoslav military patrol which found the American plane brought down on August 19 north-west of Bled, said the wreckage contained two bodies with parachutes. The remains of other bodies indicated that five or six persons were killed. An assistant American military attache at Belgrade, Qolonel Stratton, said a cavalcade of Yugoslav military vehicles will pick up the bodies from their present burial place near the village of Kropivnik, taking them to Ljubljana. The vehicles' carrying the caskets, draped with American flags, will be followed by others carrying ranking officers of the Yugoslav Fourtji Army. The Yugoslav guard of honour will stay with the coffins at Ljubljana until they are placed on Mr Patterson’s private plane, which will be escorted by a squadron of Yugoslav fighters to Belgrade. The American State Department representative at Bled commented that the Yugoslav arrangements were entirely satisfactory. Moscow radio, quoting Pravda’s foreign editor, to-day said: It was due to statesmanlike wisdom of little Yugoslavia that the incident over the shot-down planes was not further aggravated. The United States had sent an impossibly sharp worded Note. The incident, nevertheless, was’ an instance of pressure by a big Power on a small Power. It showed clearly that the Anglo-Saxon bloc intended to revert to power politics. The Yugoslav Government declared that 110 British and American military planes had flown over Yugoslav territory since the two incidents in which American transport planes were forced down by Yugoslav fighters.

In a letter to the United Nations the Government of Yugoslavia charges the Allied military authorities with failing, without valid reason, to restore to her 167 barges and other vessels which the German army removed to the Upper Danube during its retreat from Yugoslavia early in 1945. Yugoslavia asks that the question should be placed on the agenda at the next meeting of the Economic and. Social Council of the United Nations-. The United States controls the Upper Danube zone, in which the vessels are alleged to be held. It is pointed out that Yugoslavia sent her letter before the current tension over the shooting down of American planes.

Intimidation at Trieste ALLIES POLICE SHIPYARD (Rec. 10.15) TRIESTE, Aug. 26. The Allied Military Government here has officially announced that a joint detachment of military and civil police has been placed in the Monfalcone shipyard “to maintain law and order, aftei’ numerous recent instances of the intimidation of the workers.”