Амерички комитет за помоћ Југославији у борби за наставак економске помоћи Југославији 1947. године
“US Committee for the Aid for Yugoslavia” in the Struggle for Continuation of Economic Aid for Yugoslavia in 1947

Summary/Abstract: During the Cold War, economic aid was an indisputably important tool of the US foreign policy. When United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) lessened its activity in the beginning of 1947, the US side proposed a program of direct economic assistance and sent a post-UNRRA program, the aid to Greece and Turkey, as planned by Truman Doctrine and Marshall plan, being the most important aid program in the forthcoming period. In such a way, US aid had been conditioned by political motives and, to a large extent, determined by quality of relation between the US and the recipient country. In this political context, the aid for Yugoslavia, after the political confrontations during 1946, did not suit current US interests. The exclusion of Yugoslavia from the US assistance program after the completion of the main part of the UNRRA mission, despite the estimate of the international commission whether the aid to Yugoslavia was necessary, may indicate the manifestation of such a policy. The organization of Yugoslav immigrants in the USA, the American Aid Committee for the Yugoslavs, and the Yugoslav Ambassador Sava Kosanović, as factors close to the Yugoslav government, had great roles in the activities with the aim of providing further US aid due to the lesser UNRRA dispatches. Their work had been coordinated from Belgrade. By intensive propaganda in the USA, and contacts with the US officials, The US Committee for the Aid for Yugoslavia intended to occupy attention of the US public to the problem of privation and hunger that affected the population of Yugoslavia. After the official announcement to Yugoslav authorities, that Yugoslavia had not been included in the aid program, it was directed from Belgrade, that all further actions be cancelled. However, the Committee appealed to the US President himself. In spite of the considerable effort of the Committee in providing aid to Yugoslav population, the US decisions had not been changed. The cited case shows that political motives, not objective needs, were the crucial factors for the decisions about the U.S. economic aid. The absence of US aid, when there were serious problems with provisions of basic supplies of the Yugoslav population, influenced a definition of a negative Yugoslav standpoint about the participation in the Marshall Plan.

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