440 Tito’s Death and His Political Legacy, 1980
Yugoslavia became “communist” (that is, if it were occupied by the Soviet
Union). In such a case, might NATO’s entire strategy in the Mediterranean be
disrupted?^45 Between the end of September and October 1972, the Americans
and the British conducted further talks about what to do if Yugoslavia was
invaded by the Soviets after Tito’s death.^46 Similar conversations were held in
the following years, spurred by the news that Tito was taking medical advice
seriously for the first time.^47 In Washington, a paper prepared by the National
Security Council Interdepartmental Ad Hoc Group for Yugoslavia from Sep-
tember 1971 suggested that if the Soviets occupied Serbia, Macedonia, and
Montenegro, the United States would ask the UN to send the “blue helmets”
to Slovenia and Croatia, “trying to force this action by making it clear that in
the absence of a UN effort the US and NATO would have no recourse but to
take steps to guarantee the continued independence and Western ori entation
of Croatia and Slovenia. In the absence of UN action, we would move into the
two northern republics.”^48
From the spring of 1973 through the summer, Tito was ill, although this was
covered up with the announcement that he was preparing for the Tenth Con-
gress of the LCY.^49 In April of that year the French ambassador reported that
he was better, but that his voice “was now that of an old man.”^50 Shortly there-
after, for health reasons not fully explained, his visit to Serbia was interrupted.
In fact, he had had a stroke, to which he was prone.^51 The following year, after
a challenging trip in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Syria, he contracted a flu
that lasted six weeks and did not allow him to attend the proclamation of the
new constitution (if, indeed, the reasons for his absence were not political). In
Western military circles they whispered that his hour had come.^52 In May 1974,
the National Intelligence Organization, which dealt with the Soviet Union and
East Europe, organized a conference of experts in Washington to discuss what
would happen in the first six months after Tito’s death.^53
In 1975 Tito suffered a painful bout of sciatica, which he had experienced a
number of times before, so much so that he had to defer the date of János
Kádár’s visit and take a painkilling injection in order to attend the parade cele-
brating the thirtieth anniversary of the victory of the Second World War. When
he was finally able to receive the Hungarian leader, he tried to deny rumors
about his declining health: “In the West, they like to speculate. How many
times have they said that I am dying? Look at me, do you have the impression
that I am finished?”^54 He could not have imagined that his entourage spoke of
the “fossilization” of Tito, mocking his speeches at banquets or visits to facto-
ries. In the last ten years, they said, he had always closed his meetings with
them in the same way: “Comrades, only brotherhood and unity will save us, will
boost our self-managed socialism, only brotherhood and unity.... We all should