216 The Postwar Period
was at loggerheads over Trieste. In spite of secret conversations Tito held in
August 1951 at Lake Bled with General Michael West, the top British officer in
Austria, and the following October with Generals Joseph Collins and Earle E.
Partridge, he did not support the idea either, sure that the presence of Western
troops in his territory would have endangered his regime.^345 During a meeting
with the US deputy secretary of state, he stated that he would remain aloof
from any bloc so that in the event of a Cominform attack, the Yugoslav people
would not blame their government for provoking the action.^346 A compromise
was therefore found, the result of complex, sometimes tense diplomatic work.
In November 1952, for instance, a meeting took place in Belgrade between
General Thomas T. Handy, chief of a “tripartite” military delegation, and Peko
Dapčević, chief of the General Staff. On that occasion, the Yugoslavs disclosed
their strategic plans, although Handy was not ready to guarantee that the West
would fight with them in case of a Soviet invasion, as previously promised.
During a session of the CC on 22 November 1952, Tito commented angrily on
this attitude, observing that “the West behaved as if we were a client state. They
want to know our plans without giving something in return.”^347
In spite of temporary coldness, the Americans kept strengthening their cor-
don sanitaire against the Soviet bloc by providing the People’s Army with two
hundred F-84 jets, training Yugoslav pilots at their bases, and sending their
military counselors to the country. The victory of the Republican Party in the
presidential elections in 1952 and the entrance of General Dwight D. Eisen-
hower to the White House did not change the attitude of the United States
toward Yugoslavia, as indicated by the visit Koča Popović paid to the future
president on June 1951, when he was still the supreme allied commander of
NATO (SACEUR). They understood each other perfectly.^348
Meanwhile, at the beginning of 1951, Tito established secret contact with
King Paul of Greece and his chief of General Staff, informing them that he
was ready to collaborate with the Athens government in defense of the Balkans.
Formal contacts with Premier Sophoklis Venizelos followed, which showed
how far the marshal was ready to go in case of a Soviet attack. In order to mount
a rear guard defense, the two states even began working out plans for a common
military occupation of Albania and its partition between them. These discus-
sions were welcomed by the Americans. In 1953 and 1954, the Eisenhower
administra tion encouraged the formation of a Balkan alliance between Greece,
Turkey—both members of NATO—and Yugoslavia.^349 Initiated by Britain,
the three countries signed an “agreement of friendship” on 29 February 1953
in Ankara, with the aim of reinforcing the Eastern Mediterranean against the
Soviets. Along with political consultations, the agreement also planned for
coordination between their respective General Staffs. After Tito’s official visits