stairs with our packages—there was nornelevator —we found Aunt Vida, alongrnwith her youngest son and wife and smallrnchild, as well as Danica. Danica’s husband,rnAndrija, a riverboat captain, wasrnaway. It was winter, and the apartmentrnwas cold because of heating fuel shortages.rnIn all, the atmosphere was a far cryrnfrom the society that l3anica had praisedrnin her letter.rnAfter some brief greetings. Aunt Vidarnsaid, “Alex, I am glad to see you, but I amrnnot happy that you have come to work inrnthe American Embassy.” At that time,rnrelations between our countries couldrnnot have been worse. In the previousrnyear, the Yugoslavs had shot down twornAmerican military planes that hadrnstrayed over Yugoslav territory on theirrnway from Ausfria to Italy—by mistake orrndesign, I do not know. In any case, tensionrnbetween our countries had led to arnconfrontation with my own relatives.rnWith scarcely time for anyone to sayrnanything in that tense atmosphere, Vidarnpoured out her sad tale of how Mihailovic’srnChetniks had murdered herrnother two sons. Shortiy, the embassy carrncame and we parted in an extremelyrnstrained atmosphere, though theyrnthanked us for the food items we hadrnbrought.rnAfter the break between Belgrade andrnMoscow in 1948, I felt I could oncernagain visit my aunt. Somehow we hadrnM O V I N G ?rnTo assure uninterruptedrndelivery ofrnCHRONICLES,rnplease notifyrnus in advance. Send changernof address and thernmailing label fromrnyour latest issue to:rnCHRONICLESrnSUBSCRIPTION DEPT.rnP.O. BOX 800rnMOUNT MORRIS, IL 61054rnfound out that Danica’s two young childrenrn(whose legs were bowed, an obviousrncase of rickets due to a vitamin D deficiency),rnneeded cod-liver oil, which wernordered from the United States and subsequentlyrndelivered to her. Years laterrnshe was to tell us that we had saved herrnchildren’s lives.rnThose were tense times. The Yugoslavrnauthorities had asked the UnitedrnStates to close down its USIS (UnitedrnStates Information Service) activities followingrnthe contioversy over the downedrnAmerican planes. Subsequently, whenrnthey agreed that we could reopen thernUSIS library and exhibit room, they insistedrnthat we refrain from activities thatrnwould be critical of Yugoslavia or its socialistrnsystem.rnMy instructions from AmbassadorrnCavendish Cannon were that we shouldrnbe careftjl not to give the Yugoslavs a pretextrnfor closing down our operationsrnagain. This meant that we could not displayrncopies of Time or Newsweek, whichrnhad anti-Yugoslav or anti-Soviet pieces inrnnearly every issue. Other current magazinesrnalso had to be looked at carefully,rnand sometimes I found “offending”rnitems in unlikely places. One day, Irnpicked up a copy of Chemical Engineering,rnand there in an international supplementrnwas a piece sharply critical of thernSoviets. One of our library staffers suggestedrnwe simply rip out those pages. Irndecided that I was not going to censor anrnAmerican publication; either the issuernwas to be displayed intact or not at all.rnThe ambassador agreed.rnBut back to Vida. In an effort to learnrnmore about her and her family, I turnedrnto Jovo Jovanovich, a Serb from Montenegrornwhom I met soon after my arrival.rnJovanovich was secretary of thernPress Club, by then defunct. A burly,rnpartially bald man (although not yet 40),rnhe told me that he was employed by Putnik,rnthe official government tiavel agency.rnI later learned that one of Jovo’s assignmentsrnwas to keep tabs on me andrnmy activities.rnNot long after, I visited him in his Putnikrnoffice to complain about Yugoslavrncitizens being picked up and held forrnquestioning after they had visited thernUSIS library (particularly those who hadrnattended recorded music concertsrnthere). He pleaded ignorance, but I usedrnthe occasion to ask him if he knew arnMontenegrin Serb family by the name ofrnKontich. He did.rnI told Jovo of my Aunt Vida’s mourningrnover the death of her two sons, killedrnby the Chetniks. To my great surprise,rnhe said that they were not killed by Chetniksrnbut by their own Partisan comrades,rnwho accused them of misappropriationrnof funds.rnI was eager to confront Aunt Vida withrnthis new information, and sometime afterrnthe Tito-Stalin break I visited her andrntold her what I had found out. Understandably,rnher grief was as real as ever,rnbut she quickly pointed to a framed letterrnfrom Tito that was hanging on the wall,rnin which he offered sympathy and regretsrnand said that the boys had been innocentrnand wrongly executed.rnAfter I learned that one of Jovo’s jobsrnwas to spy on me, we invited him to arnfamily picnic and to our house. Hernseemed uneasy, but accepted. When thernStalin-Tito break came, he providedrnsome interesting insights. In his one andrnonly visit to my office, he shocked me byrnasserting that he thought that Stalin wasrnright. I accused him of trying to provokernme, that I knew that he was a loyalrnTitoist, that he had always told us thatrn”Tito and the Party are the same thing.”rnHe said that his statement was true,rnadding, “and therein lies the tragedy.”rnBefore long he was arrested, along withrnother Cominformists, and sent to the infamousrnprison on “Naked Island” in thernAdriatic.rnIn May 1950, we returned to the UnitedrnStates; I had accepted a teaching positionrnat Vanderbilt University. My immediaternboss in the embassy, R. BordenrnReams, had tried unsuccessfully to getrnme to make a career in the foreign service,rnbut my wife and I wanted to see ourrnthree children grow up in an Americanrncommunity, just as we had done.rnIn the summer of 1952, I returnedrnto Belgrade to complete research on myrnfirst book, during which time I sawrnmy aunt and family. My book, Tito’srnPromised Land: Yugoslavia (1954), wasrnsharply critical of the communistrnregime. After that there was no returningrnto Yugoslavia. The result was a huge hiatusrnin my contacts, not only with my familyrnbut also with others. 1 did not wantrnanyone to suffer as a result of their ties tornme.rnBy the mid-60’s, some of my friendsrngot word to me that a visit to Yugoslaviarnwould now be virtually risk-free. In thernsummer of 1966, my wife and I pickedrnup a Volkswagen in Germany and drovernto Belgrade. I was working on a book onrnthe development of parliamentary gov-rn44/CHRONICLESrnrnrn