The Tito Visit

The last time Tito left home on a big trip, he went to Moscow. That was back in 1946. Last week Tito was off again, in a different direction. No longer Communism's leading non-Russian, but now the world's leading anti-Russian Communist, he was going to London to see the Queen and her ministers. Object: a fuller partnership with the West.

He traveled on a 720-ton ex-Italian minelayer, now the Yugoslav training ship Galeb (Seagull). The royal welcome began in the Sicilian Channel, where the British destroyers Chieftain and Chevron steamed up to convoy the dictator. At Gibraltar three more British destroyers and three aircraft carriers joined up, cannon booming, and 60 planes roared past in a "flyover" (three crashed, killing four officers).

Up the coast of Europe and into the English Channel moved the tiny Galeb, beneath an umbrella of R.A.F. planes. Tito transferred to the Port of London launch Nore, passed up the Thames under London's bridges (closed off and guarded by armed police) to Westminster Pier for a grade A reception by Prime Minister Churchill, Foreign Secretary Eden, the Duke of Edinburgh, a 166-man brass band. Then a War Office armored Rolls-Royce with bulletproof windowglass whisked Tito and Churchill off to No. 10 Downing Street.

The security precautions were extraordinary. Police leaves were canceled, and specific news of each scheduled event was blacked out until it was over. Scotland Yard's Special Branch issued detailed instructions to its security forces only at the last minute, and then not by phone but by messenger. Chief constables throughout Britain were ordered to report on all Yugoslavs in their areas; special officers, working with the Yugoslav embassy, guarded all suspected individuals--monarchists, anti-Titoists, crackpots and Communists--according to "danger value."

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