Aid to Tito

Next Monday the American Ambassador to Yugoslavia is flying to London to discuss the "Tito Question" with the European Command of the State Department. Out of these talks should come a major decision on future American policy in Europe. Is the West content to maintain the status quo with Russia, or should it attempt to push the border back by encouraging unorthodoxy and nationalism among non-Russian communists? The U. S. is already committed to a $20,000,000 loan to Tito. The subject now is how much more help--if any--should be sent. In making up its mind, the London conference will have to consider heavy arguments on both sides.

Tito's heresy can be of great value to the U. S. Since the danger to American security today is not communism but Russian expansion, Tito's break with the Cominform is an encouraging sign of abatement in the cold war. If his venture is successful, both Eastern and Western communists may adopt his doctrine of independence.

In Eastern countries, this would mean reestablishing advantageous trade relations with the West. Austria, Germany, Italy, and France desperately need such trade. Indirectly England does too; failing to make ends meet without German competition, Britain cannot survive a flood of German goods--denied Eastern markets--pouring into the West.

In Western Europe, de-Russianized communists would be far less dangerous. And reducing the immediacy of Russian power lessens the danger of resort to the protection of such rightists as de Gaulle.

But the spread of Titoism depends on Tito's proof of its ability to survive. Because he is cut off from the East, that survival in turn depends on U. S. support. This is unfortunate for many reasons. Aid to Tito antagonizes Russia, although the likelihood of Russian attack hinges on the unknown factor of how the Soviets assess his threat to Eastern solidarity. Aid to Tito may well appear as another example of Western imperialism and alarm Eastern Europeans. Tito's regime is vigorously anti-democratic and the U. S. can have no intrinsic interest in maintaining it.

With idealistic caution the U. S. can let it die to preserve an expensive and unsatisfactory status quo. With considerable risk and some dishonesty the U. S. can uphold its existence and the vitality of its doctrine. Of the two, economic aid and backing in the U.N. offer the best hope for a workable future.