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The Web of Disinformation: Churchill's Yugoslav Blunder

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Martin provides much need insight into this poorly understood theatre of World War II - the Balkans. Using recently declassified British intelligence documents and radio transmission transcripts from the field, Martin builds a strong case for the defense of General Draza Mihailovich, the Serbian guerilla leader who was abandoned by the British in favour of the Communist leader Tito. British field documents show that Serbian Chetnik forces carried out large scale attacks against German and Croat Nazi units up to 1944 - long after they stopped getting Allied aid. Importantly, they continued rescuing downed Allied airmen, culminating in the rescue in June, 1944 of more than 500 US and British airmen who were evacuated by US Airforce aircraft from Serbia in an operation codenamed "Halyard" - the largest rescue in US Airforce history. All round a tremendous contribution to WWII history. I might add, that just last year, more than 50 years after the fact, the official British archives have admitted that Communist moles working for SOE (Special Operations Executive) manipulated and falsified field transcripts from the Serb Chetniks thereby resulting in official British support switching to Tito. Martin's thesis has been proven correct. Nicholas Tintor Toronto

At the close of World War II, David Martin, then a Canadian-born, American-bred Socialist (read: Social Democrat)journalist investigated the sordid tale of the abandonment of Drazha Mihailovich, the great Serb Patriot and anti-Nazi fighter in his chilling "Ally Betrayed" - the uncensored story of Tito and Mihailovich.

Martin's well-researched work showed how a combination of factors, including alledged collaboration with the Nazis on the part of Mihailovich and his deputies, (some of his associates DID indeed collaborate with the Italians - in order to save Serbian lives, and some - in extreme cases may have also worked with the Nazis but not Mihailovich nor his immediate entourage)a sense of impatience on the part of Winston Churchill believing that Mihailovich was "doing nothing" to aid the Allied war effort, stubborness on the part of Mihailovich in refusing to undertake risky operations when the lives of Serbian civilians was at stake - plus the romantic image of Tito and his Partisans caused the Allied Powers - the United States and Britain to abandon Mihailovich in favor of Tito.

In this earlier work Martin too offered the suggestion that Leftist American and British officers also worked against Mihailovich, preferring a Socialist - read Communist - state in Yugoslavia and an end to monarchy at war's end. Martin didn't - or couldn't name names then.

45 years on, the end of the Soviet bloc and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, plus the accessbility of the Intelligence archives of Britain and the United States, Martin was finally able to paint the full picture of the Mihailovich betrayal - and how the "End Justifies the Means" philosophy of the British Communist James Klugmann, an acolyte of the traitors Donald McLean and Anthony Blunt, and himself a key officer on the Balkan desk of SOE (British Intelligence) Cairo, and his sidekick, the fellow travelling Basil Davidson, alledgedly falsified reports of Chetnik resistance and sabotage operations against the Nazis and gave credit to their beloved Tito and his Partisans. One of these operations, the successful assault and destruction of the Visegrad bridge, was witnessed by British liaison officers with the Chetniks who heard on the BBC the very next day that Tito and his Partisans were responsible for that action.

The end justified the means, as both Klugmann and Davidson wanted and worked for a Socialist (read: Communist) Yugoslavia.

Furthermore, Klugmann and Davidson made sure that allied airdrops to the Chetniks were minimal, or of equipment that didn't work, or tropical military dress to men fighting in the bitter cold mountains of Bosnia and Montenegro. On the other hand, Klugmann and Davidson made sure that Tito got the best - including tanks and artillery pieces by the time Mihailovich got the boot by Churchill and Roosevelt in 1944.

Even with this betrayal, Mihailovich continued to rescue American and other Allied personnel forced down in Yugoslavia - close to 1000 in total - and 500 in one operation alone, Operation Halyard. Furthermore the OSS officers and Colonel Robert McDowell who were flown into Chetnik territory witnessed how the Chetniks, abandoned by the U.S. and Britain, continued to fight the Nazis - while being stabbed in the back by Tito and his Communist-dominated Partisans. McDowell, fellow officer Gus Musulin, rescued Airman Richard Felman, and other rescued Allied personnel came home and testified on behalf of Mihailovich, but to no avail.

In the end, the Chetniks were annihilated - those who escaped to Austria were handed back by the British to Tito to be slaughtered in the pits of Kocevje. 15,000 fortunate Chetniks were able to escape to Italy, where the British surprisingly allowed them to remain, perhaps because by then Churchill too, was having doubts, too late, about his friend Josip Broz. Mihailovich too, ended up judicially murdered by Tito in 1946.

Martin not only updates "Ally Betrayed" in "Web of Disinformation", he is also able to point fingers at Klugmann, Davidson, and other officers both British and American who helped to engineer Tito's rise to power, like George Wucinich, an OSS officer who had fought in Spain with the Lincoln battalion, and if not a Party member, was as close to them as Davidson was - you might say they were cheating Marx of his dues.

This is not a pretty story, and it can be said that with history's hindsight, we might have been better off with a Mihailovich-ruled Yugoslavia than the totalitarian, one-party state of Tito, that despite his aversion to his former friend Stalin, led straight to the Milosevics and the Tudjmans who brought further pain and bloodshed and massacre to a country that had had its fill - and to a Serb people that saw 2 million men, women, and children slaughtered by the Nazis and their allies, especially the Croat Ustashi, but also Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Bosnian SS led by the notorious Grand Mufti, and after all of this sacrifice to fighting Hitlerism - ended up unhappily ruled by a Broz who chose more murder upon taking power than practicing benevolence towards his opposition. But after all, the end does justify the means...

"Web of Disinformation" is a must read to those who wouldn't believe that Allied officers would put their Communist beliefs over the future of a people already battered and bloodied, or why Yugoslavia has turned out to be the bloody, strife-ridden, broken entity it is today.