220 The Postwar Period
firmly and have obtained the maximum. In this situation, Trieste lost all rele-
vant significance for Italy, above all its strategic significance.”^363
About a month later, Svetozar Vukmanović left at the head of a delegation
for Washington to set up negotiations regarding American aid. During the
talks, he had an altercation with Ambassador Murphy that ended favorably
for the Yugoslavs: in addition to the 400,000 tons of wheat already promised,
they got another 450,000. They also established contacts with the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which promised to guarantee a
loan for the modernization of Yugoslav agriculture and the reconstruction of its
medium-term debts. Hence, it was clear that Washington was doing every-
thing in its power to prevent the collapse of the Yugoslav economy.^364
Stalin’s Death and the
Normalization of Relations with MoscowThe inclusion of Yugoslavia in the Western world would probably have con-
tinued if, on 5 March 1953, Stalin had not suffered a fatal stroke. He had perse-
vered in his propaganda struggle against Tito until the end and it continued by
force of inertia even after his death. After 1948, there were about forty impor-
tant trials against the “Titoists” in the people’s democracies, not to mention the
thousands of lesser personalities persecuted, arrested, and deported because
of their presumed pro-Yugoslav sympathies. In November 1952, a spectacular
trial against secretary general of the Czechoslovak CP Rudolf Slánský, former
foreign minister Vladimir Clementis, and other prominent figures accused of
Titoism, espionage, and other invented crimes took place in Prague. They were
declared guilty and were condemned to death or years in prison.^365
As long as he lived, the Boss did not limit himself to persecuting the “Tito-
ists” or staging incidents. As Soviet sources testify, he tried until the end of his
days to assassinate his archenemy. According to an FBI report, as late as January
1953, Stalin had issued orders to eliminate Tito within three months. The report
notes that “Croatians were being trained near Vienna to carry out the elimi-
nation,” adding: “Two people are available to replace Tito.”^366 Among the dif-
ferent assassination attempts planned by his agents, the most ingenuous were
those in which Josef R. Grigulevich (Max) was implicated. As ambassador of
Costa Rica in Italy and Yugoslavia (although actually one of the Soviet dictator’s
killers), he was able to approach Tito thanks to his diplomatic rank. At a secret
meeting in Vienna with his superiors, Teodoro B. Castro—that was his cover
name—proposed four different ways of assassinating the “vulture,” as the for-
mer “eagle” was at that point called. The first one was quite bizarre, but feasible,
because of the lethal weapons developed in Moscow by Laboratory 12 for “wet
work,” the name given to political assassination. During a reception, Grigu le vich