Nikola Tesla FBI Files - Page 217

STANDARD FORM NO. 64

Office Memorandum • UNITED STATE GOVERNMENT

TO       : Director, FBI                             DATE: November 7, 1947
FROM  : SAC, Pittsburgh
SUBJECT: SLOBODNA REC
        INTERNAL SECURITY - C
        REGISTRATION ACT

The following article which appeared in the November 1, 1947, issue of the above captioned Communist line newspaper published at 1916 East Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., is furnished for your information:

        Address of Ambassador KOSANOVICH at Banquet of 2nd Serbian Congress, Ostober 26 in Pittsburgh, Pa.

        Brothers and Sisters:

        I come among you to extend you the greetings of the peoples and the government of the Federated People's Republic of Yugoslavia, headed by Marshal Tito and to thank you for the considerable aid which you have given your brothers in the old homeland.

        By coincidence, I found myself in the period of 1941-44 in this great country where I did my best to defend the truth and contribute to the best of my ability to the thwarting of spreading untruthe on the part of the official representatives of the then Yugoslav government in exile and of all those who wanted to convince public opinion of America and its official circles of the impossibility of restoring Yugoslavia. I recall your valuable help of that time. I remember a dear friend in the person of the late Rev. KRAJNOVICH and his constant struggle, as well as of so many others of that period.

        You Americans of Serbian descent were hit the hardest. You were exposed to the greatest trials and the heaviest attacks. You had to exercise the greatest self-denial and perspective correctly to see the course of events because every effort was made to confuse you. The idea was that when Serbian Americans follow the wrong path, when chauvinism and national hatred get possession of them, when hatred toward the Croats and Slovenes and toward Tugoslav unity is aroused in them, then it will be easy for the same attitudes to work among Croatians and Slovenes as regards Yugoslav unity, giving chauvinism full sway and thus contributing to the weakening of the war effort in American and rendering impossible the struggle for the salvation and restoration of Yugoslavia and the Balkans.

        In a letter of thanks for an honor which was shown me in February, 1944, by a great number of you who are now assembled at this Serbian