On Sun, 22 May 2022 11:33:39 -0500, Rich Rostrom
<rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote:

>On 5/16/22 2:49 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 May 2022 01:18:58 -0000 (UTC), Louis Epstein
>> <le@top.put.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The Allies didn't have much issue with betraying the Yugoslav
>>> monarchists in favor of Tito.
>
>The decision on the ground was to support the Partisans
>instead of the Chetniks. This was made by Churchill on
>the basis of reports by British agents in Yugoslavia, and
>ULTRA decrypts. These showed that the Partisans were far
>more actively attacking the Germans. Meanwhile, the Chetnik
>official policy was to minimize confrontation and German
>reprisals, while awaiting Allied invasion. Also some Chetniks
>collaborated with Axis forces for various reasons. (E.g. the
>Chetniks collaborated with Italians to fight the Croatian
>Ustashe, who were the enemies of both.)
>
>> I think it was more a question of FDR being madly in love with Stalin
>> than any other factor. It's only a slight exaggeration to say he liked
>> Stalin rather more than Wallace did - but Wallace didn't have FDR's
>> pre-1940 resume so had to go.
>
>It's been noted elsewhere that Wallace's most foolish
>pro-Soviet statements came in 1948, when he was being
>managed by the Communists running his campaign; he was
>more realistic in 1944. He was dropped in 1944 for
>multiple reasons, including his vulnerability over the
>"Dear Guru" letters.

Yeah - I'm being flamed on this very subject over on Quora by somebody
whose name says Serb (which I expected as my posting was a pretty
strong Mihailovich statement) though my real feeling is more a "FDR
was soft on communism" than a pro-Cetnik rant.

And I >do< think FDR was far too tolerant of some of his staff - Harry
Hopkins showed definite pro Stalin tendencies while Harry Dexter White
appears to have gone further.

But yes - given a pro Cetnik state I did expect a Serbian flame.

Fact is by late 1943 + 1944 Stalin WAS getting pretty much everything
he asked for from FDR and had he lived through his final term "For All
Time" might not have just been a memorable SHWI scenario.

(This is why I regard Harry Truman much more highly than most here and
I'd be very interested in David Tenner's take on why he didn't run
again in 1952 - I'm pretty sure the 22nd Amendment didn't apply to
Truman)