Churchill and Tito: SOE, Bletchley Park and Supporting the Yugoslav Communists in World War II

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The true story of Winston Churchill’s fateful decision to side with the Communist Partisans of Yugoslavia in World War II—and seal that nation’s fate.   One of Winston Churchill’s most controversial decisions during the Second World War concerned the United Kingdom’s role in Yugoslavia. In 1943, he switched Special Operations Executive support from the Cetniks, loyal to Yugoslavia’s exiled royal government, to Tito and his Communist Partisan guerrillas. That choice led to a Communist regime in Yugoslavia that lasted until Tito’s death in 1980, and resulted in the horrific ethnic violence of the Balkan wars in the 1990s.   Until now, the story has been that SOE was infiltrated by Communists and that Churchill was duped into abandoning the royalists. However, the recently deposited papers of Sir Bill Deakin—Churchill’s former assistant and an SOE operative in Yugoslavia—reveal that the decision was based on solid evidence and made in Britain’s best military interests.   Here, Christopher Catherwood, advised by Deakin himself, has written a definitive history of the SOE in Yugoslavia. Catherwood can now demonstrate that one of Churchill’s most significant and consequential decisions of the Second World War was not the terrible mistake that historians have portrayed—but rather an absolute necessity. Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgements Preface Chapter 1 A Truly Brief History of the Balkans Chapter 2 Hail Caesar! Britain, SOE and Yugoslavia After 1941 Chapter 3 A Conspiracy in Cairo Chapter 4 The Bletchley Park Sigint Unfolds Chapter 5 MI3: The Unfolding Story Chapter 6 Bailey and the Mihailovic Bombshell Plate section Chapter 7 Mayhem and Massacre on the Mountain Chapter 8 The Maclean Mission Chapter 9 Lawrence of Yugoslavia: Slim Farish‘s Adventures Chapter 10 The Real OSS Report on Mihailovic Index