366 The Presidential Years
This murky atmosphere was exploited by “centralist forces” in a plot to force
the resignation of Miko Tripalo and Savka Dabčević-Kučar, as well as Vladimir
Bakarić. The conspirators spread rumors that the Croat leaders were secretly in
touch with Munich-based Branko Jelić, the chief of the Ustaša migration, and
that they were preparing Croatia’s secession from the federation “after Tito.”
According to information from the Romanian intelligence agency, the Securi-
tate (Departamentul Securităţii Statului), the Jelić group nurtured pro-Soviet
sympathies and was under KGB protection.^558 And its paper, Hrvatska država
(The Croat state), affirmed in February–March 1971 that the Warsaw Pact
would defend the independence of Croatia and recognize it with a status simi-
lar to that of Finland.^559
The Croat leaders were furious at these rumors: they tried to curb their
indignation in their public utterances, but not behind the scenes, and expected a
formal inquiry from Tito to discover who was plotting against them. The mar-
shal named a commission headed by Stane Dolanc, a former officer in military
intelligence who had moved up the ladder over the past two years thanks to
family connections, from secretary of the Communist University Committee in
Ljubljana to secretary of the Executive Bureau of the CC. On 23 March 1971,
the Dolanc Commission reached its conclusions. According to the commis-
sion, some functionaries of the state security service were so involved in the
Jelić organization that it was impossible to distinguish which action was whose.
All the conspiracy threads seemed to converge at the secretariat of foreign
affairs, headed by a member of the liberal current, Miko Tepavac. Although, in
this way, Tepavac, being responsible for that department, was indirectly involved
in the affair, the Serb leaders tried to stay calm, convinced that the plot had
been born neither in Zagreb nor in Belgrade, but at Brioni, under the supervi-
sion of Tito himself.^560
In contrast the Croats, convinced that the Serbs were trying to diminish the
importance of the affair, lost their heads. Although the Executive Bureau de-
cided that the Dolanc Report should be confidential, the Croat CC published
it anyway, on 6 April 1971, provoking outraged cries in Croatia and Serbia, obvi-
ously for different reasons. Miko Tepavac threatened to resign, while the dec-
larations by Miko Tripalo, the Croat member of the Executive Bureau, were,
according to the British consul in Zagreb, “breathtaking for their irresponsibil-
i t y. ”^561 This already tense atmosphere was further inflamed by the news of an
atrocious Ustaša attempt against the ambassador in Stockholm, the Montene-
grin Vladimir Rolović (a former OZNA colonel), on 16 April 1971. In Serbia
and Montenegro a hue and cry was raised against the Croats, further ampli-
fied by two Ustaša terrorist attacks at a railroad station and a cinema in Bel-
grade. It was even said that the KOS (military counterintelligence service) had