Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Ambassador of Yugoslavia Vladimir Popovic, Mirko Bruner, and Frederick Reinhardt

SECURITY 1066-s/s E. . O. 11632, Sec. 1,E) and 5-12-31 ()) or DECLASSIFIED DEPARTMENT OF STATE 85 of State letter, AUG ARCHIVES 'NATIONAL SERVICE** RECORDE AMD Bs Dept. NLT- HV. NARS Date 6-28-76 Memorandum of 26 Conversation DATE: August 28, 1951 SUBJECT: Yugoslav-U.S. Positions on Trieste Question PARTICIPANTS: The Secretary Yugoslav Ambassador, Mr. Vladimir Popovic Dr. Mirko Bruner, First Secretary, Yugoslav Embassy Mr. Frederick Reinhardt, EE COPIES TO: EUR s/s WE EE American Embassy Belgrade American Embassy Rome 1-1493 The Yugoslav Ambassador came in at his request. After expressing his government's and his own gratitude for the latest U.S. allotnent for economic aid in the sum of $29.8 million, he launched into an exposition of the Yugoslav position on the Trieste question. He said his government had concluded from recent approaches made by Ambassador Allen in Belgrade that the United States Government was very interested in this question. With this in mind, and in order to make sure that the United States Government clearly understood the Yugoslav position, he had been instructed to convey to me the following. It was his under- standing that the British Government was being similarly informed. The Yugoslav Government was fully aware of the importance of an early solution of the Trieste problem, recognizing that it offered an excellent opportunity for Soviet intrigue designed to weaken the West, and the Yugoslav Governnent was desirous to bring about a solution of this problen as soon as possible. It envisaged three possible alternative solutions: (1) The establishment of the present zonal boundary as the Yugoslav-Italian frontier, with the assignment of Zone A to Italy and Zone B to Yugoslavia. (2) The establishment of autonomous areas in Zones A and B which would fall under Italian and Yugoslav sovereignty respectively. The autonomous areas might be coterminous with the present zones or somo- what smaller, depending upon the terms of the agreement to be worked out. In this alternative it would be important that Yugoslavia and Italy should coordinate the degree of autonomy to be extended to the autonomous areas. (3)