YUGOSLAVIA: Belt Tightener

Because of a drought, crops failed in Yugoslavia this year. Corn, the main harvest, was only half that of last year; wheat was down 30%, potatoes 70%. Total loss: 4,000,000 tons of foodstuffs and animal fodder. A winter famine would cut the capacity of Marshal Tito’s independent Communist government to resist Stalinist aggression.

Tito would like about $50 million worth of food on U.S. credit, but Washington has been cold to the suggestion. Negotiations with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corp. for the purchase of surplus food have come to nothing.

Last week Tito was tightening the Yugoslav belt. The third of the population which carries ration cards had its bread cut by 10%. The quotas of grain which each peasant community is required to sell to the government were sliced by an overall 43%. Reported U.S. Ambassador George V. Allen to Washington: “There will be serious starvation.”