Yugoslavia’s Tito
* The postscript on Josip Broz Tito is a grotesque piece of sentimental nostalgia (“Ethnic Cleansing Threatens to Wipe Away Memory of Tito,” World Report, Oct. 26). Are we seeing the early stages of a “rehabilitation” of a Communist dictator? The last time we were treated to such a “rehabilitation” it involved thousands of Nazis and their murderous collaborators.
What’s next--Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Pavelic? Space limits the long list of mass murderers that The Times could dally with. With the so-called death of communism, even our own cold warriors have discarded the indefensible position of supporting anything irritable to a nonexistent Soviet Union.
No amount of rewriting can ever alter the fact that Tito, along with Hitler and Pavelic, stands as an architect of Yugoslavia’s demise. Yugoslavia died in 1941; nothing can change that. Tito’s only act of creation was the opportunistic pilfering of its name. Whatever we saw next was another chimera of the Cold War.
SLOBODAN DIMITROV
Los Angeles
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
