ter joked about it, saying that Der Spiegel (which means "mirror") did not mirror Yugoslav affairs truly.
Despite the Prime Minister's light- hearted treatment of the subject, East European specialists from Vienna visiting Belgrade found a conspiratorial atmosphere there. In public, the Foreign Office dismissed the reports as beneath contempt. Early in March, before going to New Delhi on an official visit, the Yugoslav Defence Minister who is a General, told the East European correspondent of an Indian paper that the entire coup story was ridiculous. The Defence Minister's talk with the Indian correspondent was about the only clear, formal official Yugoslav statement on the coup scare. Western correspondents in Vienna and British correspondents visiting Belgrade on the eve of the Yugoslav Prime Minister's visit to Britain came back with stones of some Yugoslavs attributing the coup story to Soviet inspiration. Others heard some other Yugoslavs tracing the story to emigre Yugoslavs who are in abundance in Germany and Britain. Some others talked of Western governmental inspiration. Tito's non-aligned conference plans would, these people argued, lead to an anti- Western barrage, and not criticism of the Soviet Union. In other words, one could pick the version one liked depending on the orientation of the Yugoslav one talked to. Perhaps the most weird theory was that the reports of pressure by pro-Soviet Generals had been put out by some scheming Yugoslav government or party source so as to help Yugoslav negotiations for arms purchases from the West! The Yugoslav Prime Minister, who was accused in one British weekly of having been a secret policeman and murderer, was hosted heartily by British Ministers. President Tito too came back to Belgrade from a triumphant African tour. And the Yugoslav Defence Minister went oft to be received by Swaran Singh and got ample publicity in Indian newspapers which are specially flattering to visitors from friendly Yugoslavia.
