176 The Postwar Period
harbored suspicions that the Boss wanted to be rid of him. At the time of his
surgery, when disagreements between Belgrade and Moscow were multiplying,
Tito tried to mollify Stalin by accepting his offer to send his very best sur-
geons—even though the operation was to be a minor one. A series of complica-
tions then arose, raising suspicions about the real intentions of the imported
luminaries. After the operation, one of the surgeons announced that he had
forgotten an instrument inside the patient and wanted to reopen the incision.
Being seriously inebriated at the time, he was prevented from doing this but
only after a furious quarrel. The tension was such that one of the doctors had a
stroke and returned home in a coffin. To top it all, the nurse who accompanied
them carried vials of poison with her. This, at least, is the version recounted by
General Žeželj, the commander of the guard, and Tito’s personal secretary,
Gustav Vlahov.^146 According to the historian Roy Medvedev, Tito sent Stalin a
letter of protest after this failed “attempt on his life.”^147 This would appear to
be backed up by an ironic letter sent to Tito by his friend Ivo Krajačić (Stevo)
on 27 May 1951, some days after a second surgery, this time for pancreatic duct
stones, which was carried out in utmost secrecy so that Stalin would not be
informed about it: “We wish you all the best for your birthday, which we cele-
brate after your successful surgery—this time, without ‘the best specialists in
the world,’ as the despotic Tsar would say.”^148 Tito himself remembered later:
“Stalin tried to kill me several times. With that surgery, too.”^149
In February 1948, to Stalin’s fury, Tito claimed to be sick and sent Vladimir
Bakarić and Edvard Kardelj to Moscow to support Djilas. As guests of the
Soviet government they were installed in a villa, which was likely bugged, so
they were careful what they said. Whispering in Kardelj’s ear, Djilas told him
of his bad feeling about Moscow, saying there was nothing more to be gained
from the Soviets. Kardelj told him about Tito’s aims for Albania. Their wari-
ness about their hosts was obvious: in the hall of their villa, they kept a radio on
day and night to obscure their conversations. When a Soviet attendant asked
why, Djilas answered: “We love music. Kardelj, especially.”^150
On 10 February 1948, during another of the nightly gatherings with Stalin
and the Bulgarians at the Kremlin, the Yugoslav troika was on the receiving
end of a number of criticisms, which boiled down to this: “The matter with you
is not your mistakes, but your opinion on issues, which is different from ours.”^151
At stake were three key points: the Bled agreement on Yugoslav-Bulgarian
federation, Dimitrov’s interview, and above all, relations between Yugoslavia
and Albania and the possible bearing this had on the Greek question. In Sta-
lin’s view, in all these instances the governments of Belgrade and Sofia had
made foreign policy decisions without Soviet consent, but in which the Soviet
Union, being an ally, was obliged to support. This was the heart of the matter: