Tito's Treat

Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito, visiting in Moscow last week, had never looked more jovial. His handsome face had shed the cares of state and war. The Russian weather was raw with spring snow, but Russian hearts welcomed him with summer warmth. For the Kremlin wished to make it official: the onetime Croatian metalworker, who since 1941 has emerged from obscurity to become No. 1 man in the Balkans, is a very special friend.

Marshal Stalin lent him a huge green-windowed limousine. Foreign Commissar Molotov escorted him to the plush Bolshoi Theater, gestured to the operagoers for a round salvo of lusty cheers. The Yugoslav Embassy put on the gaudiest diplomatic reception of the season, peacock-proud with evening gowns and tails, and enlivened by an ecstatic woman correspondent who wanted to buss the great man from Yugoslavia (goggle-eyed Tito declined to kiss in public).

When the many goblets of Caucasian wine and champagne had been quaffed, Tito and Molotov--with Stalin benignly looking on -- signed a 20-year friendship treaty between their countries. It was of the stock pattern previously signed by Russia with France and Czechoslovakia. It pledged mutual aid in the present war and against future German aggression, promised cooperation in "international activities for peace" and in "the development of economic and cultural ties."

Then, with the potent new treaty in his pocket, Tito talked muscularly to the Red Army's Red Star. He demanded that Italy cede Trieste and the Istrian peninsula to his country. Since his Foreign Minister Ivan Subasich had already put in a claim for Austria's southern Carinthia, it looked as if expansive days might lie ahead for the new friend of Russia.

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