25-05-2018, 03:20 PM
" Генерал Михаиловић је пристао да помогне наш план за успостављање брит. подмисија да раде у вези са његовим подмисијама и да британске подмисије одржавају независну радио везу са Британском командом на
Бликском Истоку. Михаиловић је такође пристао да помогне у прелазу наших агената у Италију, Аустрију и северно од Дунава. Међутим, у вези овога треба рећи, неповољни временски услови и врло слаба служба у оправкама авиона спречили су нас да ову сарадњу ставимо на испит." ( стр.105).
пуковник СОЕ Вилијам Бејли ( 2.2.1943.)
Шеф Британске војне мисије при ВК ЈВуО
У књизи Heather Williams
Parachutes, patriots and partisans: the Special Operations Executive and Yugoslavia, 1941-1945
страна 130
"Further fuel was added to the conspiracy theories by the Camp X graduates, but they were an altogether more straightforward group: they were communists and made no bones about it. They had been recuited in late 1941 and early 1942, by BAILEY for SOE and Captain William Stuart for SIS. One of the seemingly enduring mysteries, and a major cause of suspicion, is why BAiLEY sought out only left-wing Balkan emigres- or "radical groups" as he termed them - on his mission to New York and Canada. The various accounts seem to be contradictory at times and in some cases involve virtually every mole or spy - suspected or proven to be - in action at the time. Mike Lees even asks. "Could Bailey have been a mole?"
All agree that the British Security Council (BSC), headed by William Stephenson in New York, played a part. Bailey's "Terms of Reference in America" stated that he was to act as political adviser to Stephenson on all East European and Balkans matters, including the selection and vetting of recruits from the Balkan emigre groups for training in subversive work and subsequent return to occupied Europe. SOE in New York had already been asked to find potential recruits so BAILEY was not starting from scatch, and by the time he arrived at the end of December there were fourteen prospective agents, three Greeks and eleven Yugolsavs. In reply to an enquiry on security vetting, BAILEY told London that he had checked them out in all available British files and would do the same in American records. He also added that all fourteen had been "introduced through contact to us by DONOVAN personally.
This contact was Milton Woolf, an American Communist and Spanish civil war veteran, as were the majority of the fourteen potential recruits, which meant that they had some military experience. Spanish vterans helped to form the backbone of Tito's movement when it took on a more military aspect. Given that Donovan was personally anti-communist, his relationship with Milton Woolf is interesting in that it probably reflects the OSS chief's domestic problems, which in many respects were not dissimilar to those encountered by SOE in its early days - namely, antagonism from the establishment.
All except one of the fourteen were selected by the end of january 1942 and sent to Britain in June for further training, finally arriving in Cairo in February 1943. In May 1942 BAILEY moved on to Canada. There Kosta Todorov, of the Bulgarian Agrarian Party and an old friend of SOE, introduced him to three memebers of the Canadian Communist Party (CPC) Paul Philips; a Ukrainian and treasurer of the CPC; NIKOLA KOVACEVIC, a Montenegrin and Soviet agent, and a member of the Croatian CP. Woolf continued to advise BAILEY on "radical groups", while Tommy Drew-Brook, the official BSC representative in Toronto, also helped out: according to David Stafford he advertised for recruits in Novosti, a left-wing Serbo-Croatian journal. Officials in the Canadian Department of External Affairs were also helpful, and McClellan, head of the RCMP, provided names from his list of illegal immigrants and possible subversives. In the summer of 1942 Bailey was replaced by Robert Lethbridge who selected further groups of Yugoslavs in Canada, whom he described as "largely communist". From early 1943 all recruits were enlisted into the Canadian army, having agreed to transfer to the British army when requested.
SOE told neither the YGE nor its consul-general in Montreal what was going on. Bailey's mission to the USA and Canada coincided with the crisis in Yugoslav military in the Middle East when the YGE made a number of protests to the FO at the "unsuitable" people being returned to Yugoslavia by the British secret services. The news that SOE was recruiting communist in North America would not be greeted with enthusiasm by the YGE. Given the files full of protests which Rendel passed on to the FO Southern Department on their behalf, one would certainly expect to find something on this matter, had they known of it. Deakin tells us that the consul-general got wind of recruitment, but not of its underlying purpose.
The fact that predominantly communists were recruited a very long time before the meeting the FO on 8th August 1942, at which the possibility of eventually contacting the Partisans was agreed, also stoked the conspiracy theories. The recruits themselves thought it unusual: Kovacevic, whi became their spokesman, apparently asked BAILEY why he was recruiting them when plenty of Pro-Royalist Yugoslavs were available.
Бликском Истоку. Михаиловић је такође пристао да помогне у прелазу наших агената у Италију, Аустрију и северно од Дунава. Међутим, у вези овога треба рећи, неповољни временски услови и врло слаба служба у оправкама авиона спречили су нас да ову сарадњу ставимо на испит." ( стр.105).
пуковник СОЕ Вилијам Бејли ( 2.2.1943.)
Шеф Британске војне мисије при ВК ЈВуО
У књизи Heather Williams
Parachutes, patriots and partisans: the Special Operations Executive and Yugoslavia, 1941-1945
страна 130
"Further fuel was added to the conspiracy theories by the Camp X graduates, but they were an altogether more straightforward group: they were communists and made no bones about it. They had been recuited in late 1941 and early 1942, by BAILEY for SOE and Captain William Stuart for SIS. One of the seemingly enduring mysteries, and a major cause of suspicion, is why BAiLEY sought out only left-wing Balkan emigres- or "radical groups" as he termed them - on his mission to New York and Canada. The various accounts seem to be contradictory at times and in some cases involve virtually every mole or spy - suspected or proven to be - in action at the time. Mike Lees even asks. "Could Bailey have been a mole?"
All agree that the British Security Council (BSC), headed by William Stephenson in New York, played a part. Bailey's "Terms of Reference in America" stated that he was to act as political adviser to Stephenson on all East European and Balkans matters, including the selection and vetting of recruits from the Balkan emigre groups for training in subversive work and subsequent return to occupied Europe. SOE in New York had already been asked to find potential recruits so BAILEY was not starting from scatch, and by the time he arrived at the end of December there were fourteen prospective agents, three Greeks and eleven Yugolsavs. In reply to an enquiry on security vetting, BAILEY told London that he had checked them out in all available British files and would do the same in American records. He also added that all fourteen had been "introduced through contact to us by DONOVAN personally.
This contact was Milton Woolf, an American Communist and Spanish civil war veteran, as were the majority of the fourteen potential recruits, which meant that they had some military experience. Spanish vterans helped to form the backbone of Tito's movement when it took on a more military aspect. Given that Donovan was personally anti-communist, his relationship with Milton Woolf is interesting in that it probably reflects the OSS chief's domestic problems, which in many respects were not dissimilar to those encountered by SOE in its early days - namely, antagonism from the establishment.
All except one of the fourteen were selected by the end of january 1942 and sent to Britain in June for further training, finally arriving in Cairo in February 1943. In May 1942 BAILEY moved on to Canada. There Kosta Todorov, of the Bulgarian Agrarian Party and an old friend of SOE, introduced him to three memebers of the Canadian Communist Party (CPC) Paul Philips; a Ukrainian and treasurer of the CPC; NIKOLA KOVACEVIC, a Montenegrin and Soviet agent, and a member of the Croatian CP. Woolf continued to advise BAILEY on "radical groups", while Tommy Drew-Brook, the official BSC representative in Toronto, also helped out: according to David Stafford he advertised for recruits in Novosti, a left-wing Serbo-Croatian journal. Officials in the Canadian Department of External Affairs were also helpful, and McClellan, head of the RCMP, provided names from his list of illegal immigrants and possible subversives. In the summer of 1942 Bailey was replaced by Robert Lethbridge who selected further groups of Yugoslavs in Canada, whom he described as "largely communist". From early 1943 all recruits were enlisted into the Canadian army, having agreed to transfer to the British army when requested.
SOE told neither the YGE nor its consul-general in Montreal what was going on. Bailey's mission to the USA and Canada coincided with the crisis in Yugoslav military in the Middle East when the YGE made a number of protests to the FO at the "unsuitable" people being returned to Yugoslavia by the British secret services. The news that SOE was recruiting communist in North America would not be greeted with enthusiasm by the YGE. Given the files full of protests which Rendel passed on to the FO Southern Department on their behalf, one would certainly expect to find something on this matter, had they known of it. Deakin tells us that the consul-general got wind of recruitment, but not of its underlying purpose.
The fact that predominantly communists were recruited a very long time before the meeting the FO on 8th August 1942, at which the possibility of eventually contacting the Partisans was agreed, also stoked the conspiracy theories. The recruits themselves thought it unusual: Kovacevic, whi became their spokesman, apparently asked BAILEY why he was recruiting them when plenty of Pro-Royalist Yugoslavs were available.