The Presidential Years 385
USA—would try to exploit the Croat opposition to strengthen their influence
in the country. In Belgrade no one doubted that the political émigrés enjoyed
the support of right-wing Western circles, but in the corridors of power they
also spoke openly of Muscovite help. The party leadership did not want to
make it a casus belli, but in contacts with foreign diplomats they did not hide
their belief that the Ustaša and other extremists were manipulated by “mighty
foreign secret services.”^668
The Liquidation of the Serb LiberalsDuring this period, Tito felt as though he had returned to his youth, when he
fought against the factions in the old CPY. On 21 April 1972, during a meeting
at Kumrovec with some veterans, he said that he had always overcome prob-
lems with sectarians, in 1937 and even earlier in 1928, and he would do so now.^669
It was clear that he did not have in mind just the Croats, since he also said that
he was not satisfied at all with what was going on in the other republics. He was
thinking first of all about Serbia, although it was not possible to accuse the
local group in power of nationalist deviances. During his leadership of the Serb
LC Marko Nikezić had been careful about his behavior, but also excessively
optimistic, as he was compelled to recognize later: “I thought that it was oblig-
atory to proceed in harmony with Tito, since it was useful. I thought that he
could go a lot further on the path of democracy, being untouchable. I wanted
to see him as a protector of our development. I believed that, under his umbrella,
it would be possible to take further steps and reach a more modern reality.”^670
Although in a dispatch from the beginning of 1972 British ambassador
Douglas L. Stewart described him as one of most intelligent and wise rulers
Serbia had ever had, Nikezić was late in understanding how wrong he was about
Tito.^671 The marshal was now dominated by a fixed idea, as confirmed by a
statement from “a private conversation” with a British interlocutor: “It’s hell to
govern Yugoslavia. But I never forgot the words that Churchill told me in Italy
[in August 1944] that, at the right time, what counts is power, and power again,
and power once and for all.”^672
The action against Nikezić and his “excellent team” started in March 1972,
when Tito received a “confidential and personal” report about Serbia from his
informers. It said that over the last two years he had been the object of direct or
indirect criticism from the highest representatives of the republic, who worked
against the party line regarding a “further consolidation of our sociopolitical
system.” The Serb leaders were opposed to Tito’s vision of the “class struggle,”
and disapproved of his attitude toward the Croat liberals, believing that such
methods could not be useful in solving the problems confronting the country.
They also maintained that his stress on the unity of the LCY meant that he