428 The Later Years
the sea lion that you got in Ghana. But you told everyone that you wanted to
visit the sailors and see how they fared.” These words, spoken in the presence
of his entourage, sent Tito into a rage: “As soon as the plane comes, you will
return home immediately.” Jovanka burst into tears. They retired to their cabin
and did not come out again for two days.^198
During Tito’s last years, Jovanka, steeped in myths of Serb greatness and her
family’s tradition, began to nurture political ambitions, weaving intrigue after
intrigue. She started with Ranković. She said that she did not want to go the
way of Queen Draga, who, together with her husband, Aleksandar Obrenović,
was atrociously murdered in 1903 by a group of officers. She demanded the
removal of “Leka.” According to Kardelj’s testimony, she expressed herself in an
even more radical way, arguing that he should be killed and buried three meters
underground, like a vampire.^199 It also seems that she collaborated with Krajačić
and his technicians to reveal “bugs” under Tito’s bed. Later she boasted that
the Brioni plenum that had sanctioned Ranković’s removal was her work. The
result was so satisfying that she rewarded herself by taking a private plane to
Paris to stock her summer wardrobe.^200
After Tito’s death, his notes and other documents related to Ranković’s fall
were discovered in a washing machine where they had allegedly been hidden
by Jovanka. While she was at court, she had the keys to all of her husband’s
safes.^201 When “Comrade Marko” was liquidated, Jovanka began to manifest
her political ambitions more openly. She said that she wanted to free her elderly
husband from too many obligations and posed as his guardian: “Tito is blind.
They are plotting around him, but he does not notice anything. I am here alone,
a hen attentive to her chicks. Only I can save him.”^202 To this end, she began to
choose who could contact him and check his telephone conversations, helping
to create a siege mentality within which the pair enclosed themselves. It is hard
to say which of them was most responsible for this state of paranoia.^203
When they came to power, the Zagreb liberals tried to woo “Comrade
Jovanka,” going so far as to propose her as a representative of Croatia in the
collective presidency then in formation. When Savka Dabčević-Kučar men-
tioned this idea to Tito, he remained silent for a moment and then, after finish-
ing his glass of whisky, said: “Let’s go.”^204 With that, the proposal was quashed,
but not Jovanka’s role in the drama that was looming. Some months later, in
the heated atmosphere of the worsening Croat maspok crisis, she was sponta-
neously chosen by the Serbs in Croatia as their protector and advocate. They
overwhelmed her with letters (at one point two thousand per day) to convince
her of the existence of a “genocidal Ustaša” policy on the part of the Zagreb
leaders, which was so threatening that it prevented them from sleeping in their
homes and forced them to install guards around their villages.^205 “Madame