original scientific article	UDC 327(497.1)"1944/1961":929Broz Josip
received: 2014-07-28
JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA 1944-1961 *
Vladimir PETROVIČ
Institute of Contemporary History, Trg Nikole Pašica11/IV, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia e-mail: vladimir.lj.petrovic@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The article scrutinizes the dynamics of Yugoslav summit diplomacy from the end of the Second World War until the First Conference of Heads of Governments of the Non-Aligned Countries (1961), in order to outline the evolution of a paramount role that Josip Broz Tito played in shaping Yugoslav foreign policy.
Key words: Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, summit diplomacy, international relations, Cold War
la diplomazia apicale di tito e le relazioni internazionali della jugoslavia socialista 1944-1961
SINTESI
L'articolo tratta lo sviluppo della "diplomazia apicale" jugoslava dalla fine della Seconda Cuerra Mondiale fino alla prima conferenza dei Paesi non allineati, con l'intento di analizzare l'importanza del ruolo svolto da Josip Broz Tito nella nascita e la diffusione di questo indirizzo della politica estera jugoslava.
Parole chiave: Jugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, diplomazia apicale, relazioni internazionali, guerra fredda
This article evolved from a research conducted within the project Konflikti i krize - saradnja i razvoj u Srbiji i regionu u 19. i 20. veku (br. 47030), financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. All photographic material derives from the Documentation Center of the Institute of Contemporary History, Belgrade.

Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
INTRODUCTION
Summit diplomacy holds a special place in the foreign policy of socialist Yugoslavia, not the least due to the peculiar personality of its leader, Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980). From 1944 until 1980, Tito made 169 official visits to 92 countries. He also hosted 175 heads of the state, as well as 110 prime ministers, 200 ministers of foreign affairs, and over 300 heads of political movements.1 His role in maintaining contact with the leaders of other countries evolved into a central feature of Yugoslav diplomacy during his long rule. To that end, Tito spent abroad almost 1.000 days, approximately 1/10 of his long rule. The longest of these trips lasted for three months.
In today's globalized world, where summits are a matter of daily routine, these nomadic habits do not stand out. However, six decades ago, travelling was much more complicated and stressful, and statesmen were much less ready to journey. Summit diplomacy was thus far from the standard of communication in international relations. Great enemies or allies, like Napoleon and Alexander of Russia, met only twice in their lifetimes; Hitler and Stalin, never. Foreign policy was conducted by state representatives - ministers of foreign affairs, ambassadors, or special envoys. Diplomatic exchange did not seem to suffer from the absence of personal contact between heads of states. As a rule, such professionals were rather wary of such occasions, shown during the Paris peace conference of 1919. Personal meetings between world leaders scandalized their own diplomats, such as seasoned French diplomat Paul Cambon, who saw summits as a source of "worthless schemes and improvised ideas" (MacMillan, 2003, 274). His younger British colleague, Harold Nicolson, was more tactful. In his view, summits raised expectations and led to misunderstandings and confusion, since their participants lacked the time to discuss matters patiently and calmly (Dunn, 2002, 4). The interwar period seemed to confirm this concern. Early elations, such as a 1926 Nobel for French and German statesmen Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresseman awarded for fostering mutual relations between their countries, were overshadowed by later blunders, like the failure of Neville Chamberlain to contain Hitler's territorial ambitions. Following Munich, a rather unfavorable light was cast on summitry.
This landscape was altered by the tectonic shift of the Second World War, which intensified the contacts between world leaders. Among the first globetrotters were Winston Churchill, who had flown over 100,000 kilometers during the war, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although very sick, Roosevelt remained faithful to his attitude that "if five or six heads of the important governments could meet together for a week with complete inaccessibility to press or cables or radio, a definite,
useful agreement might result or else one or two of them would be murdered by the others! In any case it would be worthwhile from the point of view of civilization" (Leuchtenburg, 2009, 211-212). Summit diplomacy therefore peaked by the end of the war through the institutionalization of the cooperation of the Great Three (first Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, then Attlee, Truman and Stalin). After the war, with growing polarization between the two blocks, the statesmen changed routes, but their mileage continued to mount. On the one hand, heads of what was to become NATO (1949) began to meet frequently. On the other, leaders of the communist parties and states of the Eastern Bloc were organizing both individual and joint consultative meetings in Moscow, which were turning into true pilgrimages to the Kremlin, as a suspicious Stalin was hesitant to leave Moscow, let alone the territory of the USSR.
Soon enough, contact on the highest level between East and West practically died out, in an early manifestation of the Cold War. The absence of such communication aggravated every crisis between East and West, since important decisions were made in the absence of sufficient information, thus raising the risk of future escalations and bringing the confrontation to the brink of war (during the 1949 Berlin crisis) or indeed, over it (in Korea 1950). Therefore an attempt to re-institutionalize summitry was bound to appear. It was voiced by Winston Churchill, who in February 1950, called world leaders to what he named "a parley at the summit", giving hence a name to this already established practice (Reynolds, 2007, 3). Despite understandable skepticism, the idea of overcoming hostilities through meetings and other forms of personal contact between statesmen was again on the agenda. Although primarily directed toward the Great Powers, the reinvention of summitry opened a new space of diplomatic interactions for the leaders of smaller countries, and they took up this challenge with different degrees of vigor, scope and skill. Within the context of this diplomatic maelstrom, Josip Broz Tito emerged. The remainder of this article explains how he navigated and shaped this terrain during the formative period of his reign.
DEBUT (1944-1953)
Unlike many other postwar leaders, Tito entered the world stage already during the Second World War, through his efforts to fortify international recognition for the partisan movement he was leading. His initial steps were clumsy. During the final stages of war, in early August 1944, Tito flew to Italy from the island of Vis, disembarking in Caserta to meet General Henry Wilson, the head of the Allied operations in the Mediterranean. The communist leader, surrounded by armed and suspicious bodyguards, projected none of the easygoingness and
1 AJ, KPR, Popis zemalja koje je posetio Josip Broz Tito; Prijemi stranih delegacija kod Josipa Broza Tita.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
charm which later was to become his trademark. Only after the meeting with Winston Churchill in Naples, on August 12, he stopped behaving as if on enemy territory. The photo from this meeting shows a relaxed Churchill in a summer white suite, and Tito dressed in a bricolage uniform hastily invented for that purpose. "Later I entertained Tito for a dinner", wrote Churchill: "He was still confined in his gold-lace strait-jacket. I was so glad to be wearing only white duck suit" (Churchill, 1985, 84). Upon returning to Vis, Tito wasted no time to quickly and clandestinely fly to Moscow to meet with Stalin in September 1944, enraging Churchill who was said to have commented that Tito fled as a gambler without paying his poker debt. In the USSR, Tito completed this tour of rubbing elbows with the famous, proceeded to Romania, and returned to Yugoslav soil to take part in the final fights of autumn and winter 1944 (Petranovic, 1987, 6).
With the end of the fighting, came the change of the regime, completed by the end of 1945, when Yugoslavia became a republic, and Tito elected as its Prime Minister. He also retained the role of supreme commander of the armed forces and the function of the Chairman of the all-powerful Communist Party. During this period
of transition, foreign policy was technically conducted through the State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs (DSIP), headed by prewar diplomats Ivan Šubašic (1943-1945), Josip Smodlaka (1945) and Stanoje Simic (1946-1948). However, the "old" diplomacy was out, and its representatives were not trusted (Petkovic, 1995, 18-37). The true conduct of international relations was determined in the Politburo of the Communist Party, and much of diplomatic exchange was conducted by Tito himself, through his official visits. His itinerary left no doubts about his ideological and geopolitical leanings: he avoided the West and cruised the East. In 1945, he visited the USSR, then Poland and Czechoslovakia (1946), the USSR again in 1946, then Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania the following year (Petranovic, 1987, 5-29; Sovilj, 2007, 133-153). His chief press secretary recollects that "the visits were conducted according to the patterns of the times. Public speeches were mentioning the countries of people's democracies, which have 'a great friend in the USSR, invincible country of socialism'. They were completed with the signing of a treaty of friendship, mutual help and cooperation, according to the template of the same treaty signed before all oth-
Fig. 1: Tito and Churchill in Naples, August 1944. Sl. 1: Tito in Churchill v Neaplju, avgust 1944.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
Fig. 2: Tito, Stalin and Molotov in Moscow, September 1944. Sl. 2: Tito, Stalin in Molotov v Moskvi, september 1944.
ers with the USSR. The visits went in the atmosphere of extended victory feast, saddened by the memories of great victims and sacrifices" (Mandic, 2006, 9). One key purpose of these visits was to demonstrate Yugoslavia's belonging to the Eastern Bloc, and particularly its close ties with Stalin's Soviet Union.
Important changes to this pattern occurred only through a chain of events which pushed Tito into open conflict with Stalin. With the onset of this crisis, Tito himself did not head Yugoslav delegations to Moscow anymore; he left that to his most trusted colleagues, Milovan Dilas and Edvard Kardelj (Dilas, 1990). As the crisis intensified, Kardelj also became a minister of foreign affairs (1948-1953), symbolizing the intent of the party to tighten its grip over this sector. Stalinists were purged from diplomatic service, replaced by trusted Yugoslav communists, their loyalty to Tito checked by the political police (Uprava državne bezbednosti - UDBA), an omnipresent force in the State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs (Petkovic, 1995, 116-122). Whereas daily diplomatic exchange was conducted through DSIP, party leadership was still setting its guidelines, and the Central Committee also had a Committee for International Relations which was maintaining the connection between the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, other communist parties, and 'progressive movements'. Additionally, the Yugoslav Federal Assembly had an active Committee for Foreign Affairs. The cleavage between de jure state-
run diplomacy and de facto party-driven foreign policy was only too obvious: "From the constitutional point of view, ministers of foreign relations were conducting the policy set by the Assembly and operationalized by the government. However the unparalleled arbiter in the realm of foreign policy was Tito himself" (Petkovic, 1995, 16). His influence did not derive so much from the constitutional provisions, but from the centrality of the role he assumed in the system of socialist Yugoslavia, being at the helm of both state and party leadership (Petranovic, 1991, 234). Researchers agree that his personality overshadowed institutional cacophony: "His ministers of foreign affairs were mostly figureheads from early on until the end of his life, Tito was connecting all the webs of foreign policy and considered international activity of Yugoslavia as his personal sphere" (Petranovic, 1991, 216). Seasoned high ranking diplomats like Veljko Micunovic tended to agree: "President Tito was leading foreign policy of Yugoslavia. Whenever there was a word on major issues from that area, the President made the calls" (Micunovic, 1984, 24).The most autonomous among these ministers, Koča Popovic who was running a foreign service for a dozen years (1953-1965), was of the opinion that "with his posture, Tito used his personal and absolute primacy in making capital decisions" (Nenadovic, 35, 1989).
How did Tito use this exceptional position? It definitely helped him bridge the greatest challenge of his
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
career - confronting Stalin. After Yugoslavia's initial phase of proving communist loyalty to the USSR, mainly through foreign and inner policy in 1948, distrust of the Eastern Bloc spread, stemming from an awareness of the inevitability of its breakup, as well as the fear of Soviet intervention and domestic Stalinist sympathizers. Relying on his local following, Tito clamped down hard on the Stalinist opposition and purged the ranks of Yugoslav communists (Banac, 1988). Consequently, after this complete fallout with the USSR and the Eastern Block, Yugoslavia faced isolation. That was not a unique case in the Cold War, during which other countries assumed similar position of renegades, like China, which dumped USSR in order to form its own global center of revolution, or Albania, which after a longer period of stumbling, isolated itself totally.
In the early 1950s, Tito was on a similar crossroad, but his response was completely different. Labeled by Stalin as agent of capitalism, Yugoslavia took the challenge and openly attacked the USSR's imperialist ambitions; such a move bought her gradual support and even sympathies from the West, which quickly seized an opportunity, deciding to "keep Tito afloat" (Lis, 1997). The logic was simple - not only that the West could support a new enemy of their enemy, but it could also promote Yugoslavia as a model for further disintegration of the Eastern bloc. To that end, the state's sustainability proved vital for the West. Yugoslavia used financial aid, which flowed abundantly from the West, to stabilize its positions without renouncing socialism, furthermore promoting its own path to communism. In the USSR, almost overnight, Tito evolved from darling disciple of Stalin to no more than a hired gun of Western capitalists, whereas in the West he was depicted as a fearless freedom fighter, against Hitler and Stalin alike. He made it to the front pages in Time and Life magazines. Yugoslav propagandists did their best to utilize on this ray of fame. Tito's official biography, written in 1952, was hurriedly translated in English, and was a success in the West (Dedijer, 1953). Accordingly, Western diplomats gradually stop treating Belgrade as one of the capitals from the other side of the Iron curtain, and likewise, Belgrade begun to perceive them as more than imperialistic spies.
ICEBREAKING (1953-1956)
Tito himself was at the forefront of this shift. He was ready to step out of isolation. "For entire five years, from 1948 until 1953, Tito was in a cage of a sort. He did not spend a single day outside Yugoslavia, nor he was invited anywhere by anyone" (Simic, 2009, 8). However, during the same period, he received many official and unofficial visits of Western journalists, diplomats and public figures, whose numbers and ranks steadily grew. The peak of this trend was a visit from Anthony Eden, foreign
secretary of United Kingdom, who visited Yugoslavia in 1952. In his memoires he expressed the joy of being the first Western foreign minister to visit Tito (Eden, 1960, 180). During the visit, he also forwarded Churchill's invitation to Tito for a return visit.2 That was a precedent in diplomatic practice, which at that time accommodated for meetings between socialist and capitalist leaders only in outstanding circumstances. Slight unease about the whole business is detectable in the manner in which Tito informed his colleagues in Yugoslav Party Politburo: "Tito expresses he needs to go to England. He explains that Eden put it on the table and that it was not possible to refuse. The English government officially laid it out and we accepted. He thinks it could be a useful journey" (Bekic, 1988, 445). In fact, Tito was overjoyed to accept the invitation, and the preparations started right away to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of this strange, icebreaking endeavor, the first for a postwar communist leader to visit a Western country.
Several elements contributed to the success of Tito's visit to Great Britain (March 16-23, 1953). Yugoslavia developed a feverish diplomatic activity which peaked in the spring 1953 with the signing of the Treaty of Friendship with Greece and Turkey, a milestone in Yugoslav relations with the West, insofar as indirectly it put Yugoslavia in close connection with the two NATO countries. The treaty was concluded just in time for Tito's departure to Britain, and Yugoslav leadership did not hide delight about Tito leaving "to London with the Balkan treaty in his pocket" (Dedijer, 1969, 443). Additionally, Eden's invitation coincided with important constitutional changes in Yugoslavia. The new constitution, declared on November 29, 1952, introduced the position of President of the Republic, who was at the same time the head of state, head of federal government, and supreme commander of armed forces. Expectedly, Tito was elected to this function on January 14, 1953, which merged his party and state functions. Hence he travelled to Great Britain in full capacity of the head of the state, increasing the significance of the visit and its visibility. Taking his time, he travelled by sea on a cadet boat called Caleb (The Seagull). This was the first among many trips on this boat which would assume iconic status in decades to come. He disembarked in London, greeted by Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill, a legend of international politics. Tito also had an opportunity to dine with Queen Elizabeth.
Beyond mere social occasions, important conversations with British leadership on joint defense were held at the famous Map Room of Downing 10 Street, incited by the sudden death of Stalin (Borozan 1997, 113-127; Petrovic, 2004, 65-80). Without a doubt, Tito left a strong impression: "Tito seems full of commonsense", wrote Churchill to Eisenhower, describing the encounter at length, and soliciting a short response from the US
2 TNA PREM, 11/316, Eden to Churchill, 2.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
Fig. 3: Tito, Churchill and Eden in London, March 1953. Sl. 3: Tito, Churchill in Eden v Londonu, marec 1953.
President: "I am much interested in what you say about Tito. I am glad that you and Anthony have been urging him to improve his relations with some of his neighbors" (Boyle, 1990, 33-34). Thrilled with the reception, upon return Tito expressed his thoughts at a huge rally in Belgrade: "In London we were considered as equals. There was no such arrogance as we noticed in some people in the East, which we found difficult to cope with" (Bo-getic, 2000, 56). Around the same time, Anthony Eden commented on the visit: "It went smoothly and none of the catastrophes which were predicted occurred" (Eden, 1960, 182). The ice was broken. For Yugoslav diplomacy, this summit was an important school of good manners, and for its leader, an important political debut in the West (Petrovic, 2002, 179-196; Spehnjak, 2001, 597-631).
The success of this trip opened a road toward other visits to capitalist countries in the region, such as Turkey and Greece in 1954. Next, Caleb soon set sail for
its first trip across the ocean, toward India and Burma (December 1954-February 1955), trips that paved the way toward the discovery of common ground with other countries also located outside of the two superpowers' blocks. Tito shaped these mutual interests by directly receiving Indian Prime Minister Nehru and Egyptian leader Nasser in February 1955 in the Suez Canal on the deck of the Caleb. The meetings were rightfully interpreted as a turning point in the creation of a new mental map of the world of Yugoslav leadership (Dimic, 2004, 27-54; Bogetic, 2001, 65-74). The wider public also partook in this leap, gulping the content of these spectacular trips through the newsreel. Long absences of the leader from the country, even at the times of inner crisis (such as the Dilas-Dedijer affair in 1954/5) attested to the stability of the regime and the popularity of Tito.
His popularity reached abroad as well. A number of officials from Western and the Third World countries visited Yugoslavia in this period. On such occasions,
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
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Fig. 4: Tito receives Soviet delegation in Belgrade, June 1955. Sl. 4: Tito sprejema sovjetsko delegacijo v Beogradu, junij 1955.
Tito proved a gracious host, as he was an eager guest. Belgrade hosted the Belgian minister of foreign affairs and former Belgian Prime Minister Paul Henri Spaak in November 1952. From the United States, the leader of the Democratic Party, Adlai Stevenson, arrived in June 1953, followed by French former Prime Minister Pierre Mendes. In March 1954, Yugoslavia was visited by minister of foreign affairs of Burma Sao Hkun Hkio, followed by the Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie in July. (Radenkovic, 1970, 69-131). However, a real sensation occured with the announcement that the high delegation of state and party leadership of USSR would visit the country. The New York Times described the event as "Soviet Canossa", reversed insofar as the communist pope went to pay homage to the renegade king (NYT, 25 May, 1955). The Yugoslav press savored this triumph, dwelling on the details such as Tito's dignified posture at the Belgrade airport where he met Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin (Dimic, 1997, 36-68). Behind closed doors, however, tense but meaningful exchanges between the delegations attested to the increased impor-
tance of Yugoslavia in international relations.3
Tito gradually became a diplomatic attraction of a kind, and his residence at the Brioni Island a favorite destination. This is where he hosted John Foster Dulles, US State Secretary at the end of 1955.4 During their day of conversations, which he described to President Eisenhower as one of the most interesting day of his life (Lis, 2003, 237), Dulles was convinced that American aid to Yugoslavia was fully justified: "Tito's example and influence are very useful His example made Soviet satellite states drooling. This is why we give him the money" (Sulcberger, 1976, 178-179). This course of events influenced Tito's perception of his own role and prompted him to push deeper into diplomatic exchange on both sides of Iron Curtain, and beyond. In early 1956, he visited Egypt and Ethiopia, in May he was in France, and in June he was on a prolonged return visit to Soviet Union. The advent of his personal diplomacy was a constitutive part of transition of Yugoslav foreign policy in the middle of the 1950s.
Navigating the narrow path between the confron-
3
AJ, CK SKJ, 507, IX/119/I, 45-90, Tok konferencije jugoslovanske i sovjetske delegacije. Equally important was the influence of this visit to internal debates within the Soviet leadership. See: Furenko, 2003, vol. I, 47-54.
4 AJ, KPR, 837, 1 -3-a, SAD, Prijem Džon Foster Dalsa, ministra inostranih poslova SAD, 6. novembar 1 955.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
Fig. 5: Tito, Nasser and Nehru on the Brioni Islands, July 1956. Sl. 5: Tito, Naser in Nehru na Brionih, julij 1956.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
ted blocks, Yugoslavia attempted to redefine its foreign policy under the banner of "active peaceful coexistence". Tito saw himself as a possible broker in the global tensions. The curious position of a communist country outside of the Eastern Bloc, supported by the West and open toward non-European partners potentially enabled vivid diplomatic channels for potential exchanges in several directions: between USSR and Western countries, between both superpowers and other non-committed countries, and even between different non-committed countries. The role of its mobile and flexible president as an "honest broker" was seen a way to position Yugoslavia at an ambitious place in international relations, despite the meager means at her disposal, as well as an attempt to straighten out political and ideological inconsistencies arising from her peculiar position. (Petrovič, 2008, 459-472). The concept also carried certain risks. The political dynamics of the Cold War were not well disposed toward such brokering, casting doubts about the credibility of potential brokers. Tito understood that a multilateral dimension is essential for this endeavor, and its best expression was the tripartite summit of Nasser, Nehru, and Tito at Brioni Islands in July 1956, hailed unjustifiably in the Yugoslav press as the creation of a new global political grouping (Petrovič, 2007, 139148). However, as West and East stood confronted, they both looked suspiciously on the countries which strived to avoid this alignment (Bogetič, 1986, 101-128) and organize themselves outside of the bilateral framework.
A sets of crises in the second half of 1956 exposed the fragility and limitations of Tito's brokering summit diplomacy. During 1956, Tito achieved a certain maneuvering space within a general trend - his debut in the international scene coincided with the sudden rise of global summitry. Tito did not just follow this lead, but gave his active contribution, dedicating a predominant chunk of his time to foster direct contact with world leaders. His initial successes convinced him that this course was justified, as he was at the same time strengthening the position of the country in international relations and presenting himself as its indispensable representative abroad. Successful as this strategy might have been in the first years following Stalin's death, which brought the unfreezing of East-West relations, it was soon to be put to test. The erosion of Soviet influence in the Eastern Bloc, visible throughout 1956 during the crisis in Poland and the intervention in Hungary, as well as the discord among Western allies in settling the Suez crisis, narrowed diplomatic options and galvanized international relations throughout the second half of the year (Petrovič, 2007, 181-211).
Tito's response to the twin crises was congruent with his attempts to position himself in the global arena as a middleman between East and West and a promoter of active peaceful coexistence. However, against the back-
ground of mounting crises, leading to armed conflicts both in Hungary and Egypt, his policy suddenly hit a wall. Yugoslav attempts to vouch for Nasser were characterized by the British as sheer duplicity: "I hope we will tell the Yugos what we think of 'em", scribbled infuriated British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, critiquing Tito's mitigation policies.5 Even riskier was the relation with USSR regarding the Hungarian crisis. Overestimating his importance, Tito attempted another sub-genre of summitry - shuttle diplomacy with Khrushchev and the rest of Soviet leadership, exercised through sudden emergency visits in early November 1956. With the crushing of the Imre Nagy government through armed intervention, the USSR sent a dramatic message about the extent of possible liberalization within the Eastern Bloc. It also humiliated Yugoslav diplomacy, as Nagy was abducted by Soviet forces while exiting a Yugoslav embassy in Budapest, hoping for asylum in Yugoslavia (Tripkovič, 1997, 61-73). Tito was about to learn that "diplomacy made at summits not only makes more mistakes, but makes unforgivable mistakes", as expressed by Geoffrey Berridge, who lobbied for a more proactive role of professional diplomats as to act as Sherpa on "summits" (Berridge, 2008, 246). Without such Sherpa, Tito made mistakes.
ROUTINISATION OF CHARISMA (1956-1961)
Setbacks hardly discouraged Tito. However, the unforeseen course and outcome of these crises outlined the contradictions between the goals and the means of Yugoslav diplomacy and set its chief architect on a different course of diplomatic activity. Faced with the gradual decline in American aid and resurfacing conflict with the USSR in 1958, Tito searched for alternatives, which pushed him towards intensifying summits with Third World leaders. Using the growing tension between the blocks as a background for closure among states which were outside of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Tito increasingly spent his time and energy on this activity, looking for a way out by stubbornly strengthening ties with non-engaged countries. Such activity was causing suspicion. In the judgment of Committee on Un-American Activities, "Tito has been serving, and serves today, as a traveling salesman for Moscow whose mission is to lure neutral nations into the Soviet orbit" (Walter, 1957, vii). East was equally suspecting him as a Trojan horse of capitalism (Petrovič, 2010, 210).
Still Tito remained convinced that, despite political and logistical troubles, the only way to create a workable platform, was to have immediate contact with the leaders of uncommitted countries scattered across the globe. He took it upon himself to lead such a "mission of good will". Veljko Mičunovič, then deputy minister for foreign affairs, remembered the first of such ambitious
5 TNA FO, 371/124275.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592


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Fig. 6: Nehru, Nkrumah, Nasser, Sukarno and Tito in New York, September 1960. Sl. 6: Nehru, Nkrumah, Naser, Sukarno in Tito v New Yorku, september 1960.
ventures (writing in 1958): "We went aboard Caleb, whose speed was 11 knots per hour. Therefore only the first phase of the road, from Dalmatia to Indonesia, took us 23 days and nights of constant sailing. During this endless sail I said to President Tito that Christopher Columbus needed less time to reach America The joke was not well received" (Micunovic, 1977, 20). Caleb sailed from Dubrovnik at the beginning of December, reaching Indonesia by the end of the month, than continuing to Burma, India, Ceylon, Ethiopia, Sudan and finally Egypt. This was not an isolated escapade. From 1959 until 1961, Tito had spent over six months aboard Caleb. His itinerary led him mostly to the newly founded states of Africa and Asia, as Yugoslav diplomacy did not fail to perceive the importance of the process of decolonization for the future of international relations, and was hurrying to gain a foothold in these quarters of the world. Tito aimed to secure the Yugoslav position within this nascent group of non-committed countries. Gradually, he was able to boost his capacity for diplo-
matic engagement not only between the capitalist West and socialist East, but also between the poor South and rich North. The broker was thus transforming into a globetrotter (Petrovic, 2010, 165). His travels were also a branding endeavor for the country, a proactive stance advertising for the Yugoslav system and her products, in an attempt to compensate for her meager economic and geopolitical importance.
With such an agenda, Tito was heading the Yugoslav delegation at the XV session of the UN General Assembly, held in New York from September 20 until October 4, 1960. It was attended by an unexpectedly high number of heads of states, elevating its importance. Tito wasted no time, meeting with statesmen as if on the assembly line between: US President Dwight Eisenhower, Indian minister for foreign affairs Krishna Menon, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev, Indian Prime Minister Nehru and Egyptian President Nasser. He was testing the ground and pitching the idea to leaders of non-engaged countries to propose
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
Fig. 7: Summit of Non-Aligned, Yugoslav Federal Assembly, September 1961. Sl. 7: Vrh neuvrščenih v jugoslovanski zvezni skupščini, september 1961.
a resolution urging the superpowers to resume peace negotiations. To that end, Yugoslav mission in New York hosted a meeting on September 29, between Nkrumah, Nehru, Sukarno, Nasser and Tito, who announced their joint resolution in the General Assembly.6 The resolution did not pass, but it did gain visibility. The timing was right as the topic of this General Assembly session was admitting 16 African countries for membership, a trend which Yugoslavia supported wholeheartedly through the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in December 1960.
Decolonization brought much more than just a new angle to the policy of nonalignment. Noting the increasing pool of possible allies, Tito embarked on another "peace travel", commencing on February 14, 1961 in the shadow of the crisis in the Congo. The voyage to its first destination lasted over 10 days, during which tensions grew. "As we were reaching Ghana, the patience was melting and it was almost gone", remembered Blažo Mandic, press secretary of the Chancery of the President of the Republic (Mandic, 2005, 29-50). The imperial style of a 72-day long trip was described by Dobrica ČosiC, a delegation member: "A more ambitious and pompous journey could hardly be imagined Although I was aware of the luxuries in our leadership, this was the point when I experienced a true socialist court". About and his relation toward
the protocol, he wrote: "Everything around him and for him was supposed to be extraordinary, precise and luxurious. Dozens and dozens of people worried that 'The Old man' should feel as comfortable and special as possible they say that only Spanish court had such strictly regulated protocol from dressing and timing, till treating the other statesmen. Everything was in the function of some sort of higher mission of his in this world. In such authoritarian and hierarchical form, he was impressing not only his surrounding, but also all the foreigners he was meeting" (Dukic, 2002, 5762). And indeed, from Ghana to Togo, Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Morocco and Tunisia, the atmosphere was cordial. Topics of conversation were generic. They included discussion on the global state of affairs, with Tito pitching the idea of closure for non-engaged countries, for which he got support from the President of Ghana, Nkrumah and the King of Morocco, Hassan II. (Bogetic, 349-363). In his enthusiasm, Tito was getting ahead of himself regarding the possibility of a larger multilateral meeting. He did not hesitate to prematurely inform the Yugoslav press that such a conference is at hand, and even announced that it could be located in Belgrade. The counterproductive potential of this haste was soon felt as a "misunderstanding, which we caused in talks with President Nasser and his delegation during the cruise through Nile", remembered Veljko Micunovic.
6 AJ, KPR, 83 7, I-2, k. 44, Put Josipa Broza na XV zasedanje Generalne skupštine, 22-28. septembar 1960.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
Fig. 8: Tito with the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade, September 1961. Sl. 8: Tito z voditelji gibanja neuvrščenih v Beogradu, september 1961.
Nasser got the impression from Tito that everything is set for a conference and that Indian leader Nehru would co-sign an invitation letter with the two of them. However, Nehru did not agree yet, as Micunovic discreetly reminded Tito. Therefore Tito had to convince Nasser that the two of them should coauthor an invitation, persuading Nehru to join in later. Although conceding, Tito did not forgive to Micunovic this intervention into his personal diplomacy, which ended with a heated quarrel between the two (Micunovic, 1984, 22).
Regardless of this gaffe, on April 26, the Presidents of Yugoslavia and Egypt drafted the letter and together with the President of Indonesia, dispatched it to Burma, Cambodia, India, Ceylon, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Guinea, Ghana, Mali, Morocco, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil and Venezuela.7 The majority of invited countries agreed to take part in a preparatory meeting in Cairo in June 1961, where they finalized the details for the Conference of Heads of States or Governments of Nonaligned countries. There they decided that the conference should be held in early September 1961 in Belgrade (Bogetic, Dimic, 2013). Hosting this conference was undoubtedly a triumph for Yugoslav summit diplomacy and for its key representative, marking the beginning of the new period of Yugoslav foreign political engagement.
THE PLACE OF TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN YUGOSLAV FOREIGN POLITICS
In 1960, an elderly Churchill was cruising the Mediterranean aboard the yacht of Aristotle Onassis. Tito did not lose an opportunity to greet him in the Yugoslav port of Split. The photo showing Tito escorting Churchill
shows little semblance with the guerilla leader he met in Naples over fifteen years ago. The transformation of his style was striking, and it demonstrated, as Andrej Mitro-vic once nicely put it, "that Tito lasted long and showed many faces". Between 1944 and 1961, Tito was heading 21 delegations abroad, visiting 53 states.8 He hosted with the same ease people as different as Che Guevara and John Foster Dulles, Anthony Eden and Gamal Abdel Nasser. Tito's hospitality extended from politicians to celebrities like Neil Armstrong and other cosmonauts, as well as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who played his character in a state-sponsored movie, Neretva. Escorting Churchill back to the yacht, Tito joined its owner, Aristotle Onassis, confirming hence his strange fusion of Communist leader and member of the global jet-set community. Even as unsympathetic commentator as Chairman of the Committee on Un-American Activities stressed that "Tito does not fit the image one usually draws of a hardened Bolshevik. Even his severest critics have observed that he is an affable man, with devastating personal charm, magnetism, and a ready wit Tito is a proletarian with the tastes of a bourgeois. A wor-dly man, who thoroughly enjoys worldly pleasures, he lives in splendor and elegance reminiscent of the court of a potentate" (Walter, 1957, 1).
Tirelessly visiting and hosting foreign statesmen, Tito asserted himself not only as a creator, but an extremely active conductor of foreign politics of socialist Yugoslavia - its spokesman, symbol and emblem. He consciously considered himself a sort of a super-ambassador. Over time, Tito's influence on foreign politics grew into its privatization. Therefore all the successes and failures of Yugoslav foreign policy are attributed to him. His hobby, writes Ranko Petkovic "was foreign
7	AJ, KPR, 837, I-4-a, Pripremni sastanak za Prvu konferenciju.
8	AJ, KPR, Popis zemalja koje je posetio Josip Broz Tito.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
Fig. 9: Tito and Churchill in Split, July 1960. Sl. 9: Tito in Churchill v Splitu, julij 1960.
policy. Once the time comes for deepened historical judgments over Tito, one of the remarks will probably be that he directed too much attention and energy to foreign policy, enjoying the fame, and disregarding the inner problems which resurfaced with a vengeance after his death" (Petkovic, 1995, 16). Blažo Mandic is of opposite opinion: "It is critically remarked that Tito loved travelling. Indeed he did but that has never influenced his plans", which in his view, exemplify a "brilliant philosophy of foreign policy" (Mandic, 2005, 615). Such polarized understandings of Tito's role in foreign policy present one of the lasting legacies of his epoch which stretch until today. Todor Kuljic's is of the opinion that "Tito's foreign policy is a rare example of a relatively successful and independent breakthrough in hierarchical relations in international order through overcoming the inevitable peripheral subordination of a small state to the interests of great powers. It was unusually active and successful diplomacy in particular historical circumstances" (Kuljic, 2004, 297). On the other hand, Predrag Simic is evaluating Tito's diplomacy by
its final result, in which Yugoslavia found herself in paralysis, and ultimately on the "wrong side of history" (Simic, 2008, 216).
The jury is still out. Much is unsettled in the growing literature devoted to Tito's personality and place in history, but it has become clear that Tito has built an acute awareness of global trends in international relations, navigating skillfully within the constraints (Markovic, 2012; Manojlovic Pintar, 2012). This skill, formed in the first, formative period of his rule, became doctrine in the later part of his reign. After his death, Yugoslavia clung to the facade of continuity under the formula of "following Tito's road". Paradoxically, this rigidity eventually led to the demise of recognizable traits of Tito's personal diplomacy. Lacking his authority, Yugoslav politicians actually stopped learning from their mistakes, and lost the flexibility and imagination needed to adjust to global changes. Without a new content, in the changed global circumstances of the late 1980s, Yugoslav foreign policy was turning into a self-centered anachronism which outlived its founder only for one decade.
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
titova "summit-diplomacija" in mednarodni odnosi socialistične
jugoslavije 1944-1961
Vladimir PETROVIČ
Institut za savremenu istoriju, Trg Nikole Pašica 11, 11000 Beograd, Srbija e-mail: vladimir.lj.petrovic@gmail.com
POVZETEK
Članek obravnava vlogo Josipa Broza Tita pri razvijanju jugoslovanske "summit-diplomacije". Titovo delovanje in srečanja s svetovnimi voditelji so prikazana od prvih medvojnih sestankov s Churchillom in Stalinom, prek sodelovanja in razkola z vzhodnim blokom, premagovanja izolacije in navezovanja stikov z zahodnimi državniki, do oblikovanja ekvidistance med blokoma in odpiranja k blokovsko neangažiranim deželam. Obenem je analizirana tudi sprememba jugoslovanskih diplomatskih strategij, od prvih korakov v svetovni areni, prek poskusov posredovanja med nasprotujočimi si akterji hladne vojne, do oblikovanja globalne zunanjepolitične strategije. Očitno je, da je bila redka stalnica te vijugaste politike usodno pomembna vloga Josipa Broza Tita. "Summit-diplomacija" je v prvo vrsto postavljala šefe držav in je bila neprecenljivo orodje jugoslovanske diplomacije. To se je najprej pokazalo v Titovih posamičnih kontaktih s svetovnimi državniki, kmalu pa je poleg bilateralnih dobila tudi multilateralno komponento, ki se je izrazila v Titovih "potovanjih miru" in v spodbujanju skupinskih sestankov, ki je doseglo vrhunec s prvo konferenco neuvrščenih držav. Titov pogajalski stil se je tem okoliščinam vseskozi prilagajal, hkrati pa je Tito postajal vrhovni arbiter jugoslovanske zunanje politike in relevanten dejavnik v mednarodnih odnosih v hladni vojni.
Ključne besede: Jugoslavija, Josip Broz Tito, summit-diplomacija, mednarodni odnosi, hladna vojna
Vladimir PETROVIČ: JOSIP BROZ TITO'S SUMMIT DIPLOMACY IN THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ..., 577-592
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