The Forgotten 500 (39 page)

Mihailovich maintained a quiet dignity as the indictment was read and responded to preliminary questions with a firm voice. When the prosecutor asked his occupation, Mihailovich replied, “General of the army.”

As the trial began, the prosecutor did not mention the possibility that Mihailovich could receive the death penalty, but he said he would “expect the court to pass severe and just sentence over these traitors and criminals.” No one doubted that Mihailovich would be executed if found guilty, and hardly anyone doubted that either. That Stalin was directing the trial through Tito was obvious to most people in the West, and besides, it was clear that Tito harbored more than enough hate for Mihailovich to guarantee a guilty verdict even without Stalin’s urging. Western observers already were forming a clear picture of Stalin and Communist Russia, including the campaigns of political repression and persecution orchestrated by Stalin in his own country beginning in the late 1930s. Stalin purged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of anyone suspected of disloyalty and persecuted unaffiliated persons, while cowing the populace with omnipresent police surveillance, widespread suspicion of saboteurs, show trials, imprisonment, and nearly random killings.

In an editorial on June 17, 1946, the
Washington Post
acknowledged that Tito was railroading Mihailovich to extract a personal vengeance on his former competitor for postwar Yugoslavia and also to denigrate the West. “Now it becomes apparent that the propaganda is being directed not so much against Mihailovich and the Chetniks as against Great Britain and the United States. For this we have our own statesmen to blame.” The editorial went on to address the most concrete of the charges brought out in the trial, that Mihailovich had secretly met with German commanders, noting that an American officer had already declared publicly that he organized the meetings on the orders of the American high command for the purpose of discussing the terms of a German surrender. The newspaper denounced the Partisans for having been more interested in taking over Yugoslavia after the war than defeating the Germans during it, and it said the country’s experience did not bode well for a future in which Communists were growing more powerful every day. The
Post
concluded by noting that neither the British nor the American governments had explained the “sudden shift of policy whereby Mihailovich was abandoned to the vengeance of his enemies. Consequently there is no American who can read with any easy conscience about how this ‘first organizer of the resistance,’ as he proudly and rightly calls himself, now stands deserted and friendless, weakened by confinement and perhaps by torture, to face his vindictive and remorseful judge.”

In a surprise to no one, including Mihailovich, the leader of the Serbian resistance was found guilty of all charges on July 15, 1946. The official transcript of the show trial includes the closing comments of the President of the Court: “By pronouncing this verdict the Court considers itself to be a faithful interpreter of the national feeling for justice and equity, and that by the stigmatization of treason against the fatherland it has remained consistent to the agelong freedom-loving traditions of our peoples, who from time immemorial esteemed liberty above everything, and treason against the fatherland as the gravest crime. Death to Fascism. Liberty to the people.”

The transcript ends with a notation typical of the way Communist governments claimed to always have the complete support of the people: “At the conclusion of the speech of the President of the Court, there was enthusiastic applause, and shouts of ‘Long live the People’s Courts.’ ”

 

 

 

Mihailovich was executed
on July 17, 1946, and buried in an unmarked grave. The next day, a four-paragraph story on page 6 of the
Washington Post
reported what everyone who had followed the trial knew would happen immediately after. MIHAILOVICH EXECUTED BY FIRING SQUAD, the headline read.

Mihailovich’s last words to the world were, “I strove for much, l undertook much, but the gales of the world have carried away both me and my work.”

Tony Orsini wept when he heard the news, and he was not alone. All over the country, men who owed their lives to Mihailovich broke down in tears of sorrow and anger, some pounding the table in frustration, others trying to comfort children frightened by their fathers’ show of emotion. The execution of Mihailovich was so unfair, Orsini thought, a stain on the honor of all freedom-loving countries.

The gales of the world left young American men stranded behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia, and now the gales of the world left them wondering how the man who had watched over them could be executed in a Communist country while the free world did nothing.

Once Mihailovich spoke his last words and took his last
breath, the press and concerned citizens of the Western world forgot him as quickly as they had learned of his plight. His show trial and ignoble death faded from the headlines within days. The world moved on to other troubles, other international threats and controversies, and Draza Mihailovich became just another casualty of World War II. Only in the years to come would he be seen as one of the first casualties of the Cold War.

The only Americans who continued to think of Draza Mihailovich were those of Serbian descent and the more than five hundred airmen and OSS agents who felt they had lost a dear friend. The rescued airmen never forgot Mihailovich, and they never gave up on the effort to clear his name. Their effort was even more difficult than before. Felman wrote more articles and letters to the editor, as did scores of other airmen, but they quickly found out that the press was no longer interested in their stories. As headlines go, LOCAL MAN STILL UPSET ABOUT DEATH OF MIHAILOVICH SIX MONTHS AGO just wasn’t the same as the ones that ran on so many stories in papers across the country while Mihailovich was on trial and there still seemed to be some chance that the airmen could influence world events. They gave it a good try, the country seemed to think, but there wasn’t any more for them to do and the world moved on.

Within two years of Mihailovich’s death, he and the rescued airmen were all but forgotten. Felman, Musgrove, Orsini, Wilson, Musulin, and Jibilian all immersed themselves in their civilian lives, followed eventually by Lalich and Vujnovich. Though they had little or no audience anymore, they continued to tell their stories whenever they could, to family and friends, to church groups, to school classes who asked what they had done in the war. They always emphasized that a great man had been the victim of a great injustice. They held out hope that one day the name of Mihailovich would be cleared and he would get the proper recognition for aiding the airmen in their time of need, but in moments of honesty, they were not optimistic.

What the airmen did not know was that the Mihailovich name was still spoken in the halls of the Pentagon. There were still active-duty military personnel, as well as OSS agents and directors, who felt as strongly as the airmen that Mihailovich had been treated unfairly not just by Tito and Stalin, but by the U.S. government. They pushed, discreetly but persistently, for the American government to somehow right this wrong. One of these advocates for Mihailovich was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944 and 1945. He would become president of the United States in 1953.

Eisenhower strongly urged President Harry Truman to correct the historical record and formally acknowledge that, despite being abandoned by the Allies in the midst of the war, Mihailovich was a true friend of the United States. In 1948, Eisenhower and the army convinced Truman that Mihailovich had done the country a great service and deserved recognition. Truman posthumously awarded Mihailovich the highest award possible for such service to the country by a foreign national—the Legion of Merit. This was no small decision, and it could not be construed in any way as throwing a bone to Mihailovich supporters. The Legion of Merit is a significant military decoration, awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. It is one of the few medals that can be issued both to U.S. military personnel and to military and political figures of foreign governments. Seventh in the order of precedence of military decorations, the Legion of Merit also is one of only two U.S. decorations to be issued as a “neck order,” meaning it is worn on a ribbon around the neck. The other is the esteemed Medal of Honor.

Created on August 5, 1942, the Legion of Merit required that the president personally approve its award to any foreign national, and non-citizens can receive the Legion of Merit in one of five degrees, the top award being “chief commander” when awarded to the head of a foreign government. Several of the OSS agents involved in Operation Halyard had received the Legion of Merit, including Musulin, whose award was presented personally by OSS director Wild Bill Donovan.

So by the time Truman was convinced that Mihailovich should be recognized for his service to the United States, the choice was obvious. At the urging of the army, Truman decided that the country would posthumously award the Legion of Merit to Draza Mihailovich as official recognition for his aid to American airmen and as an apology of sorts. In a subtle rebuke to Tito and Stalin, the Legion of Merit would be awarded at the highest level, recognizing Mihailovich as the chief commander of Yugoslavia.

On April 9, 1948, almost two years after his death, the United States of America posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit to Mihailovich. The accompanying citation stated that Mihailovich

Interestingly, Truman gave Mihailovich the Legion of Merit not just for rescuing the airmen but for his overall effort in the war. Essentially the citation said that Mihailovich did everything the British and Americans accused him of not doing—fighting valiantly against the enemy. The award was signed personally by President Truman.

 

 

 

Years after accusing Mihailovich
of failing to fight the enemy and possibly even collaborating with the Nazis, the United States acknowledged that Mihailovich was, in fact, loyal to the end and had acted heroically in helping rescue the forgotten 500.

The award would go a long way toward assuaging the anger and frustration felt by the airmen and OSS agents—if only they could know that it was given to Mihailovich. But they did not.

No one outside of the Pentagon and a few government offices would hear about Mihailovich receiving the Legion of Merit. When State Department officials got wind of the effort to award the medal, they immediately expressed concern that the award could be detrimental to current relations with Yugoslavia. Showing the same attitude toward Mihailovich that it had shown four years earlier, the State Department strongly suggested to Truman that if the Legion of Merit was awarded, it should be kept quiet. One cable from the State Department post in Rome, dated April 1, 1948, urged Truman to consider how any positive recognition of Mihailovich could antagonize not only Tito but the Italian government as well. The cable stated that, “We do not believe it would be a positive factor in Italian preelection period and might in fact be harmful to U.S. prestige in Italy. Non-Communist Italians have no great sympathy for any Yugoslav and any pro-Mihailovich elements here would be inclined to view cynically posthumous recognition of a patriot whom they might feel the Allies had abandoned in life.” State Department officials in Belgrade sent similar discouragement, and Truman agreed not to rock the boat.

A telegram from the State Department to the American embassy in Belgrade on April 21, 1948, assured the ambassador that, “No steps will be taken at this time to give publicity to this award.”

Instead of being publicized and Mihailovich’s family or other representative invited to the White House for a formal presentation, the State Department insisted that the whole matter be stamped SECRET. It was officially awarded to Mihailovich, but for the first time in history the Legion of Merit was kept secret from its recipient and nearly everyone else, including the forgotten 500. The army forwarded the violet, blue, green, and gold medal, with its violet neck ribbon and citation signed by the president, to the State Department, which put it in a drawer for safekeeping “until such time as arrangements for presentation may be made.”

No one without official clearance from the army or the State Department even knew that the Legion of Merit had been awarded to Mihailovich. Meanwhile, Tito’s Communist government continued to tell the world that Mihailovich was a traitor for collaborating with the Nazis.

The Legion of Merit awarded to Mihailovich sat in the drawer at the State Department, officially secret, for almost twenty years. It might have remained a secret if not for the work of Congressman Edward J. Derwinski of Illinois, who intervened in 1967 at the urging of airmen who had heard rumors. Derwinski insisted that the State Department make the text of President Truman’s citation public and for the first time the airmen and the rest of the world learned that the country had thanked Mihailovich for saving more than five hundred American servicemen with a grand gesture made halfhearted by the State Department’s timidity.