Louis Adamič's Work for the Official Recognition of Tito
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LOUIS ADAMIČ’S WORK FOR THE OFFICIAL RECOGNITION OF TITO AND THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT OF YUGOSLAVIA BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT1 Bogdan C. Novak At the time World War II began, Louis Adamic was an established Ameri can writer. His was a success story attained by very few immigrants, especialy if they came from the South Slavic lands. He arrived at the United States when he was fourteen years old and by that time his education ended. Hence, he must be regarded as a self-made English language writer, which evinces that he was a very gifted man. The writings of Adamic reveal his great concern for the working class as illustrated by his book Dynamite, and for the life of immigrants described in such works as the Laughing in the Jungle, Cradle o f Life, My America and oth ers.2 With the latter group of books he became the initiator of a new field of studies, the ethnic studies, which became prominent in recent years. The most important book of our study is The Native’s Return, published in 1934.3 The book discusses his visit to Slovenia and Yugoslavia in 1932-1933. What he had experienced in his native land had a great impact on his views and actions during World War II. In this regard, it is important to remember that in The N ative’s Return he condemned the dictatorship of King Alexander which he 1 This paper was presented at the International Symposium on Yugoslav-American Re lations 1903-1945 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, October 6 to 9, 1983. 2 Dynamite: The Story o f Class Violence in America, New York: The Viking Press, 1931; Laughing in the Jungle: The Autobiography of an Immigrant in America, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932; Cradle o f Life: The Story o f One Man’s Beginnings, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938. 3 The Native s Return: An American Immigrant Visits Yugoslavia and Discovers His Old Country, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1934. Dve domovini / Two Homelands - 9 - 1998, 67-83 68 Bogdan C. Novak described as a centralistic and unitaristic rule in favor of a Pan-Serbian ruling class. The dictatorship and the ruling class were sustained by Serbian national ism and profited from the exploitation of Yugoslav natural resources in coopera tion with the foreign capital. The main victims of this Pan-Serbian dictatorship, according to Adamic, were other national groups, especially the Croats, and the radical left-wing elements, specifically the communists. The story of the regime’s persecution of communists Adamic received directly from Edvard Kardelj, who had been introduced to him by Boris Kidrič under an assumed name.4 Only after World War II had Adamic learned who the man really was. Kardelj also wrote a report for Adamic about the persecution and the torture suffered by the commu nists in Glavnjača, the notorious prison in Belgrade. Adamic translated the re port and published it as a pamphlet under the title Struggle the same year as The Native’s Return} Because of his deep mistrust for the Yugoslav government and its ruling class, Adamic also disliked the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington, which represented, according to him, the same ruling class, and was headed by the Yugoslav Ambassador Konstantin Fotič, a typical member of this class. This negative disposition toward Yugoslav government was somewhat softened by the Serbo-Croat agreement - the Sporazum - which gave the Croats autonomy in the newly established Banovina Hrvatska in 1939. This new atti tude was reinforced when Bogdan Radica, a Croat who had been appointed as the head of Press Services at the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington in the fall of 1940, came to see Adamic in New York, bringing him a message from Vladko Maček, the leader of Croatian Peasant Party and the Vice-Premier of the new Yugoslav government formed after the Sporazum.6 In this message Maček was expressing his thanks to Adamic for Adamic’s exposure of Serbian unitarism and centralism and for his defense of Croatian national rights in his Native’s Return. And Radica, describing this event, stressed that Adamic »repeatedly asked me if my superiors [Fotič] had been informed [about Radica’s visit to Adamic]. I in sisted that they had. Aware of the previous political persecutions of leaders like Maček, he suddenly accepted the fact that conditions might have changed with 4 Bratko Kreft, Srečanje s komunisti: Spomin na Adamičev obisk v Ljubljani 1932, Delo (Ljubljana), October 16 and 23, 1981. 5 The Struggle, translated from the Yugoslav by Louis Adamic and with a Preface by the translator, Los Angeles, California: Arthur Whipple, 1934. 6 Bogdan Radica, Louis Adamič: An Unmeltable American, The South Slav Journal (London), vol. 5, no. 4 (Winter 1982-83), pp. 15-16. Louis Adamic’s work for the official recognition o f Tito... 69 the presence of Dr. Maček in the government.«7 Adamic’s feelings toward the Yugoslav government further improved with the coup d’etat of March 27, 1941. He expressed his enthusiasm with a telegram sent to Radica the same evening with the short exclamation »Živela Jugoslavija« (Long live Yugoslavia).8 Also his relationship with the Yugoslav Embassy in Washington improved but remained lukewarm. Fotič and his Serbian employees never forgot Adamic’s condemna tion of Pan-Serbian dictatorship {The Native’s Return was prohibited reading in Yugoslavia) and Adamic himself never completely trusted Fotič. But The Native's Return has still another importance for our study. Adamic became regarded because of it, an expert for the Balkan affairs in the government circles of Washington and this in turn opened many official doors for him, including the State Department, the Office of War Information (OWI) and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Both of the latter were the forerun ners of today’s CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). Such were the emotional attitudes of Adamic, his frame of mind, his connections - or potential connections - with the governmental agencies when World War II extended to Yugoslavia in April 1941, and eigth months later later, in December 1941 to the United States. *** The time from German-Italian attack on Yugoslavia in April 1941 and until September of 1942 can be characterized as the period during which Adamic was gathering all the available information about the situation in Slovenia and Yugoslavia. For this purpose he was eager to meet the few emigres which suc ceeded to escape from Yugoslavia and began coming to the United States during the second part of 1941. Outstanding among them were Rev. Kazimir Zakraj šek, a Franciscan priest who left Slovenia as an American citizen after the foreign occupation, Franc Snoj, minister in the Yugoslav government in exile, Dr. Boris Furlan, university professor in Ljubljana, and Ivan Marija Čok, publicist from the Slovenian Littoral - all of whom were Slovenes. But Adamic established contact also with Serbian and Croatian emigres. Among them he cultivated spe cifically close ties with Minister Sava Kosanovič, a Serb from Croatia (Prečanski Srb). 7 Ibid., p. 16. 8 Ibid., p. 20. 70 Bogdan C. Novak The following letter of November 15, 1941, written by Adamic to Rev. Zakrajšek, very well illustrated the attitudes of Adamic for this period, during which he diligently collected all the available news but did not yet commit him self to a definite program. The letter is referring to the Zakrajšek’s program of United Slovenia and reads in part: It was fine to see you the other day, and to listen to you. Now I must thank you too for sending me copies of your article. As I read them, I wished I could keep them for future reference. But since you request their return, I enclose them herewith — with the hope that you will let me have them again, either in script or type... For the time being, I shall try to avoid involvement in the immidiate polemic, lest I reduce the effectiveness o f whatever I might write later. I proceed on the assumption that the current crisis will last at least another year, probably two and possibly longer; meantime many things will happen which now are'not even imagined; and I shall try to time whatever I will do as well as I can. I shall be grateful for your advice from time to time. But please don’t wait to give it to me ‘till I askedfor it; be so good as to write to me any time...9 Exactly when Adamic learned for the first time about the existence of the Partisans and the National Liberation Front is still not firmly established. The indirect evidence indicates that he must have heard about the Partisans at least by March but definitely before August, 1942. Two letters in Zakraj Sek’s archives support this assertion. On March 12,1942, Zakraj Sek’s brother Leo wrote from New York city to Rev. Zakrajšek about the Slovenian Communists who had collaborated with the Germans until the latter attacked Soviet Russia. Thereafter, on the orders from Moscow, they have been attacking German and Italian forces. The consequence is that the Italians and Germans were burning down Slovenian villages and shooting hostages.10 In another letter, this one of June 24,1942, Rev. Zakrajšek wrote to a friend of his that he had received three letters from Ljubljana, Slovenia, dated May 23, 1942. All three letters were reporting that Communists 9 Letter from Louis Adamic to Rev. Kazimir Zakrajšek, dated November 15, 1941, in Zakrajšek Archives. 10 Letter from Leo Zakrajšek to Rev. Kazimir Zakrajšek, March 12, 1942, in Zakrajšek Archives.