130 World War Two and the Partisan Struggle
English offer of flying to the Italian capital, preferring a car with an armed
escort, bears witness to how suspicious he was of his hosts. Even more than the
British, however, he feared Ustaše or Chetnik émigrés and German agents,
who were numerous in Rome. He even wanted to enter Saint Peter’s Basilica in
the company of his two heavily armed bodyguards, which Vatican security tried
to prevent. A compromise was reached and the guards left their machine guns
at the entrance. Tito himself was allowed to visit Saint Peter’s tomb with his
pistol belt. The visit was not without some minor incidents: in the basilica
he was recognized by a priest who tried to approach him, apparently to show
him some monuments. He was, of course, promptly blocked and sent away.^421
Despite it all, the marshal was pleasantly surprised by an enormous banner
with the words “Evviva Tito” (Hurray for Tito) hung on the Coliseum. Pity
though that he was not able to enjoy the delicacies of Italian cuisine; he did not
dine in the hotel where he was lodged for fear of poison, eating mostly hard-
boiled eggs.^422
The meeting in Naples on 12 and 13 August between Churchill, in a light
jacket, and Tito, in his “magnificent blue and gold uniform,” more suitable to
a Russian than a Mediterranean climate, was no more successful than those
with Wilson and Alexander. The British prime minister, whose son Randolph
had miraculously survived an air crash in Croatia, was emotionally stirred but
also full of aristocratic irony, and not just with regard to Tito’s attire and his
excessive diffidence. He wrote later in his memoirs: “The Marshal, who was
attended by two ferocious looking bodyguards, each carrying automatic pistols,
wanted to bring them with him in case of treachery on our part. He was dis-
suaded from this with some difficulty, and proposed to bring them to guard
him at dinner instead.”^423 It seems, however, that although Tito was aware of
Churchill’s sarcastic attitude, he was touched by the fact that, when Churchill
received him, there were tears in his eyes when he mentioned his son and
said: “You are the first person from occupied Europe I have had the chance
to meet.” But he was also affected by Churchill’s remark that he would like
to come to Yugoslavia, if he were not too old and heavy to jump by para-
chute.^424 In spite of the skepticism of his comrades, Tito did not hide how
much he appreciated Churchill’s reception. Although he was not completely at
ease during his debut in the highest international political circles, he did not
lose his head and judiciously defended his interests. In general terms, the two
agreed on a possible military collaboration in Istria in the North Adriatic
Sea, which did not allay Churchill’s suspicions that Tito wanted to avoid his
meddling in Yugoslav affairs. In spite of the latter’s assurances that he was not
going to introduce Communism in Yugoslavia, his hostile attitude toward the