Evening star., 1942-09-10
Author Fears Error
In Presidents Talk
May Hurt YugosIavs
Louis Adumic Fears
'Serbio' Reference
Muy Hurt Allies
BY BLAIR BOLLES.

to right an error in United Nations
political geography made by Presi-
dent Roosevelt in his speech last
week to the International Student
Assembly here, it was learned today.
The request came from Louis Ada
mic, noted American author of
| YugoSlav birth
Because the President spoke of
resistance to the Axis in Serbia"
instead of in "Yugoslavia, Mr..
Adamic reported to the White
House that the speech may have
serious negative effect upon guer-
rilla warfare in Yugoslavia and con-
ceivably in the Russian govern
ment, which, gather from various
sources, is more than casually in
! terested in that warfare"
This chronological apprehension
is taken out of the trif1e class by
the fact small group of Serbs,
adherents of what is known as the
Pan-Serbia movement, aim at set
ting up postwar Serbian domina-
ton over the other nationality
groups included in the kingdom
of Yugoslavia as it existed at the
time of the German invasion.
Denial of Charter.
Opponents of the Pan-Serbia
movement fear that high official
reference to Serbia" rather than
to "Yugoslavia" assist the intrigu-
lists, who are active in the United
States among Serb-American
groups.
The effect of the slip was made
apparent yesterday by Ruth Mitch
ell, the sister of the late Gen. Will
liam Mitchell, who has been fight
ing with the guerrillas in Yugo-
slavia, when she said in New York
that the end of Yugoslavia has been
conceded now by the highest au-
thority. She spoke at a luncheon
meeting of the Friends of Yugo-
slavia, arranged by Thomas j. Wat
son, president of the International
Business Machines Corp.
The State Department, the Office |
of War Information and the Office /
of Strategic Services have all sought |
to discourage the men who are ac-
tive in the attempt to arrange that |
Serbs shall be supreme in Yugo-
slavia over the Croats and Slovenes |
after the Axis withdrawal. OFF, |
cially, this is regarded as denial
of the thesis of the Atlantic Char |
ter, which implies equality of ma
tionality groups.
The main stress of the Pan Serbs !
is that the Croatians under the
Quisling Ante Pavelich are working /
against the Allies and are murder |
ing Serbs. This point is made again |
and again in the two newspapers
which are the leading Pan-Serbia
organs-the Novo Vreme of Bel
grade, in occupied Yugoslavia, and |
the American Srbobran, Serb Ian
guage paper of Pittsburgh.
Repercussions Here.
The Srbobran achieves it's aim by |
ignoring that the Serbs have pro-
duced Quisling in Milan Nadic, !
that the fight of Gen. Draja Mi
hailovich is being conducted in the
Croatian and not the Serbian re- |
gions, that Vladimir Machek, the |
symbol of the political resistance to |
the Germans and Italians in Yugo-
slavia, is a Croat and that Croats, !
Slovenes and Serbs are banded to-
gether under Gen. Mihailovich.
The intrigue has caused convul- |
sions within the Yugoslav govern
ent-in-exile. The Yugoslav min
isters of state, whose headquarters |
are in New York, recently proposed |
to their colleagues in London the
recall of Constantine Fotitch the |
Minister Plenipotentiary here and a |
cousin of Nadic, on the ground that |
he was active in Pan-Serbia circles. |
According to the owl, the chief
American eXponents of the Pan
Serbia idea are two citizens of Ser
bian descent, Louis Christopher,
printer in Gary, Ind, and Branko
Pekich, the editor of Srbobran. The
agency for spreading the idea of
Pan-Serbia in the United States is
the Serbian National Defense Coun-
Gil To press home his point that
the Croats are assassins of Serbs, |
Mr.. Christopher wrote to another
Serb American:
"The memorandums which are
coming show the correctness of
Srbobran's writing, as we'll as the
Serbian National Defense Council.
Everything will be proved d. that
the Srbobran, the Serbs, Serbian
National Defense Council, Duchich,
Fotich, etc, are on the right road"
The "Duchich" mentioned with
Minister Fotitch is Iovan Duchich,
a former Yugoslav diplomat, who is
in the United States on a visitors
visa.
The Owl has followed a policy