280 The Presidential Years
Agency and the intelligence organizations within the Department of State, the
army, the navy, the air force, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff concurred that the
Yugoslavs and the Soviets had reached an agreement whereby the first would
support Moscow on an international level, and the second would recognize, in
return, the Yugoslav path to socialism.^87
The following autumn showed that these suppositions were not groundless.
Tito himself, in an article published by the magazine Foreign Affairs, displayed
his faith in the supposed pacifism of Soviet policy, making it clear that the
major danger for world peace was represented by the West.^88 In consequence,
in September 1957, a Polish delegation led by Władysław Gomułka visited
Yugoslavia. On that occasion, Tito recognized the contested Oder-Neisse line
as the final border between Poland and Germany and, in addition, made an
important ideological concession, mentioning “proletarian internationalism”
as a basis for relations between socialist states and parties. With this he re-
nounced the belief that he had professed until then, that this concept was just
a smoke screen that hid Soviet hegemonic tendencies. He even went so far
as to recognize the “guiding role” of the Soviet Union at a gala dinner in honor
of his guests.^89
Meanwhile, a rumor started to circulate in the embassies of Belgrade that
during the Bucharest meeting Tito had promised Khrushchev that he would
establish diplomatic relations with East Germany, although he was aware of
just how risky a move that was.^90 In order to prevent the international recogni-
tion of this Soviet satellite, Walter Hallstein, secretary of state at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) formu-
lated a “doctrine” stating that the government in Bonn would not maintain dip-
lomatic relations with states that recognized the GDR. This was meant to stress
that West Germany did not recognize East Germany as a sovereign state based
on the people’s free will, but saw it as a mere Soviet puppet. Yugoslavia had been
collaborating with the GDR on political and economic levels since 1954, but not
as closely as with West Germany.^91 Tito had concerned himself for quite some
time with the question of German reunification, one of the burning issues of
the Cold War era, proposing to achieve it through a confederation that would
respect the “administrative autonomy” of the two states created by the victors
after the war. As it became obvious that this was just wishful thinking, on 15
October 1957 he decided to recognize the GDR in spite of objections by his
closest advisers, starting with Foreign Secretary Koča Popović, who worried
about the reaction of “our Western friends.”^92 In order not to lose face, West
Germany reacted immediately by severing diplomatic relations with Belgrade
on 19 October, considering this a “hard lesson.” Indeed it was, as the Yugoslavs,