YUGOSLAVIA: In Case of Attack. . .

We have nurtured our sovereignty with the blood of our people, and no one is going to take it away from us.

--Marshal Josip Broz Tito

WITH those defiant words, Yugoslavia's President recently reiterated his country's determination to remain free and independent. As the East bloc's original heretic, who broke with Moscow in 1948, Tito is concerned that the Soviets, having acted to quash a much more recent heresy in Czechoslovakia, may also move against him.

The Russians have given him some reason to worry in the form of bitter propaganda attacks by the Soviet and Warsaw Pact press and furtive attempts to subvert Tito's control over the rival ethnic groups in his country. As a result, Tito has tightened his internal-security system and reactivated his World War II partisan system, which fought the Nazis to a standstill. In addition, he has ordered war supplies to be stashed away in the country's formidable mountains, and has massed his army along the likely invasion routes.

Suspicious Miniskirts. The Soviets are applying to Tito the same kind of propaganda and diplomatic pressure that they exerted on Czechoslovakia's Alexander Dubcek in the months before Warsaw Pact forces started maneuvers along that country's borders. The Russians are also engaging in considerable espionage and agitation among Yugoslavia's small bands of dissident nationalists. According to some reports, a suspicious number of pretty, miniskirted hitchhikers have blossomed on Yugoslav highways; in foreign accents, they ask drivers who give them lifts all sorts of unfeminine questions about Yugoslav troop deployments. Journalists from Warsaw Pact countries are more inquisitive than ever. Hungarian truck drivers carrying loads of tomatoes and paprika to Yugoslav markets wander off the main road and somehow blunder into Yugoslav troops in border regions. Tito fears that Soviet agents, working with die-hard ethnic groups, will make an attempt on his life. But both sides can play that game. Last week three leaders of an exile group of anti-Tito Croatians were found shot to death in their Munich office, and other Croatian exiles put the blame on Tito's secret service.

Prudent Exercise. There is, of course, some suspicion that Tito is overdramatizing the Soviet threat in the hope of obtaining more Western economic aid to offset his increased defense expenditures. Most Western military men regard the possibility of an attack on Yugoslavia as unlikely for two reasons: 1) Yugoslavia is not geographically vital, as is Czechoslovakia, to the Soviets' defense system, and 2) the Yugoslavs, unlike the Czechoslovaks, are obviously determined to go down shooting. At present, there are no signs of Soviet preparations for an invasion, and winter snows will soon give Tito at least a few months of safety.

Even so, the possibility of a Russian attack cannot be entirely ruled out, especially if the Soviets intend to carry to an extreme their so-called Brezhnev

Doctrine. In it, Moscow claims the right to intervene in any socialist country that departs from the practice of Soviet-style Communism. If Yugoslavia were attacked, what could and should the U.S. do? It is the kind of question that Washington does not like to answer in advance out of the understandable feeling that simply shaping a scenario may contribute to its coming true. But the surprise of the Czechoslovak invasion has made it a prudent exercise.

Pressure to Act. Since Yugoslavia is not a member of NATO, the U.S. is not bound to come to its defense. However, a Russian occupation of Yugoslavia would imperil vital U.S. interests. Greece and Turkey would be further isolated from their NATO partners. Italy's long Adriatic coast would be left uncomfortably exposed. Neutral Austria would be surrounded on three sides by the Soviets. Western Europe would be demoralized. Consequently, despite the absence of formal alliances, there would be great pressure on the U.S. to act.

The U.S. response would be influenced by how events unfolded in Yugoslavia. If the Red Army were able to occupy the country as swiftly as it seized Czechoslovakia, the U.S. could do little beyond protesting. But in the case of Yugoslavia, there would be a considerable prelude to invasion. The Soviets would first have to consolidate their position within the Warsaw Pact by bringing Rumania to heel, through either political or military means. Provided the Rumanian episode itself did not turn into war, the U.S. would have ample time to warn the Kremlin against attacking Yugoslavia.

If the Soviets invaded in spite of the warning, they would most likely strike across the flat Hungarian plains with swarms of tanks and some 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops. Armored columns would race toward the capital of Belgrade, the transportation center at Zagreb, and the vital mountain passes near Ljubljana, thus severing possible aid routes from Italy. Smaller diversionary attacks would be made along the Rumanian and Bulgarian borders. The Red Army commanders would most likely employ airborne units to seize cities where rugged terrain made the use of armor impossible.

Tito has massed all his army along the 800-mile frontier with his Warsaw Pact neighbors (troops previously stationed around Trieste were withdrawn after Italy promised not to make trouble on the border). In case of invasion, the army's mission would be simply to slow down the Red Army advance by three days or so and then slip into the mountains to join the 700,000 partisans who in the meantime would have unlimbered their weapons and formed their bands. Already, much of the army's heavy artillery and armor is cached away in the mountains, mainly around the small industrial town of Titovo-Uzice, 75 miles south of Belgrade. It was Tito's World War II partisan headquarters.

There are well-rehearsed contingency plans to transfer the country's vital government offices, bullion and important state papers to the mountains so that Tito would retain a functioning government even if the cities and lowlands were in Soviet hands.

Halt and Negotiate. In the Pentagon, defense experts are drawing up plans for getting supplies to Tito should he need them--and ask for them. In NATO planning groups, it already is a foregone conclusion that the U.S. and perhaps other NATO powers would airdrop modern weaponry and supplies to Tito's partisans.

There are two other levels of possible U.S. response. The first would be for the Sixth Fleet to ward off Russian naval activity in the Adriatic, preventing the Soviets from seizing Yugoslav ports by sea. The hope would be that during this period the U.S. could persuade the Russians to halt the invasion and negotiate before they extended their control to the western part of the country. The second level would be for the U.S. to send planes from the Sixth Fleet's two carriers and bases in Italy and Greece in support of Tito's forces. Such action, of course, could lead to dogfights between Russian MIGs and U.S. Phantoms--and the threat of World War III.

The possibility of a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union fills U.S. planners with foreboding. Doubtlessly, the prospect of becoming involved with the U.S. evokes the same response among the Soviets. This mutual feeling of apprehension may, in the long run, prove to be the most effective deterrent against a Russian move to overthrow Communism's veteran rebel.

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