BUILDING TITO LAND: HOW THE UNITED STATES LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LIVE WITH AIDING COMMUNIST YUGOSLAVIA, 1948-1963

Of the many early Cold War problems and predicaments U.S. policymakers faced, few were more complex to manage than the public diplomatic rupture between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in June 1948. Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Eastern bloc - or the Tito-Stalin split as it came to be known - stunned Washington insiders and the American citizens they served. This was the first time that Soviet communist domination had been openly defied by what many thought was the most loyal communist satellite. How Americans understood and ultimately tolerated what would become an extensive and controversial decade-long aid commitment to Yugoslavia is the broad focus of this dissertation. Setting aside the conventional logic of East- West confrontation, the study finds that the extension of aid to Yugoslavia was not merely a geostrategic exercise but also a public national encounter that confused, intrigued, and divided Cold War Americans. In shaping and sustaining an aid program, the research shows how advocates and opponents of U.S. assistance converged and clashed but nevertheless managed to stay the course of unconditional aid by publicly reinventing Yugoslavia into a progressive Cold War middle ground - a Tito Land whose cause, character, and course consistently resonated with its American benefactor.