mistaken for a Yugoslav, I can ask a question and understand an answer, and I have talked with hundreds of peasants in Yugoslavia. The present drought really begins with the month of February. Yugoslavia had adequate rainfall for the planting season last fall. Their bread grains are almost 99 percent fall-planted.

During the fall planting season and the early part of the winter they had abundant rainfall and snow, but the deficit began in February. I have since obtained some statistics from the Yugoslav Government which bear this out.

From February through May the accumulated deficit of rainfall was roughly 50 percent of normal, so that by the 1st of June the situation was one that could be described as no material damage to crops up to that time, but all crops had reached the stage of extreme vulnerability if there was an onset of hot, dry weather.

That weather began to hit about the middle of June. The result was that the bread grains were pushed into accelerated ripening; and, where the harvest would normally be the 1st of August, they began cutting wheat, barley, and rye in the first week of July, so that some of the heads of the grain did not completely fill. Much of the grain was of less than the normal weights per bushel with dry, shriveled-up kernels. Due to those factors the reduction in the bread-grain crop was not disastrous; it was in the range of 20 to 25 percent reduction in the major grain-producing areas.

However, as to the spring-planted crops-and corn occupies about three-eighths of all of the cropland area of Yugoslavia-the production of corn was caught, just as it would be here in Iowa or southern Wisconsin, in the lush growing stage, and for a 5-day period in the first week of July they had killing daytime temperatures of from 105° to 108° Fahrenheit. I went into a cornfield a short distance from Belgrade over a period of 10 days, and you could see where the tassels and the top leaves as they developed were just burned white in the course of 1 day. Many of those plants stopped growing the first week of July, and they did not do anything more than stand there until September.

I walked up corn rows and counted as many as 20 or 30 stalks in a row in which the tassel was burned dead and the silk never emerged, so that you would have the formation of what was to be the ear on the stalk, but no silk emerged, and the ear never developed. Those were, fortunately, extreme conditions, and they are not uniform.

Throughout the corn-producing areas, scattered thundershowers from about the 5th of July on through the latter part of July and August hit here and missed there. Where they missed, there is disaster; and where they hit there is some crop production, up to 60 or 70 percent of the normal crop; but for the corn-producing area as a whole my own estimate is that the corn crop and other spring-planted crops are somewhere between 60 and 65 percent of normal.

Down through the mountain districts there is a more serious deficit, and if I may I will just refer to the map.

This area [indicating on map] around Slavonia and Vojvodina are part of the Old Pannonian Sea, an ancient lake bed, and the conditions in there are almost comparable to those in our own Corn Belt-Iowa, southern Wisconsin, and eastern Missouri-with deep, fertile soil. Some of it is heavy and badly drained, but where the drainage is good it is very productive land. The main area is the plains.

The mountain areas-Old Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro, and what is called Kosmet, with a large Albanian population, Old Serbia, and Macedonia-this mountain area contains about one-third of the population of Yugoslavia, and in a normal year they produce perhaps one-fifth or one-sixth of the crops. It is not the main crop region. In fact, they are referred to always in the Yugoslav literature as deficit producing areas in terms of food. There is a certain amount of forest production and some mining and other economic activity carried on, but they depend for their food supply, in a large part, on the surplus moving down from the grain country.

Fortunately, this year, in Slovenia, this area [indicating on map], crop conditions are about 85 to 90 percent of normal. In fact, they had more damage from hail than from drought, except for up here [indicating on map] where they produce hops; that crop is about 50 percent of normal.

Over-all, in Slovenia, Slavonia, and Vojvodina, they have had 80 to 85 percent of normal crops, but as you get down into the mountain areas, all through the Lika and Kordun, they are perhaps 30 percent. Then in Bosnia anywhere from 10 to 50 percent, and similarly in Montenegro and South Serbia crop conditions are no better than half of normal, and the same with Macedonia, except that there is one small area here [indicating on map] where they must have gotten one shower that the other regions did not get where the crops are probably 75 percent of normal.

The result is that Yugoslavia has had to intensify its customary practice of moving food into these areas, and they are doing it with less than the normal amount of supplies, and they have been doing that to beat the winter to these high-mountain passes and valleys where what they get in there by the middle of December is what people are likely to have to eat up to the middle of March. They have moved their livestock off state farms and the larger collective farms out of this area [indicating on map] up to Slovenia where there is a pretty fair forage crop with which to winter the stock.

They have cut bread rations; they have cut out their exports, and they have virtually abolished special privilege.

I had the pleasure the other evening of hearing a woman who is a Communist and the wife of a Communist in the Foreign Office practically cry about the fact that they did not think they were going to be able to stand it because for 3 weeks she has had to stand in line for her food like the other people.

Yugoslavia is anticipating moving substantial quantities of food down the railways and highways into these mountain districts [indicating on map].

From the first announcement that America might send in some aid, they have been basing their plans on that aid. They are depending on us to get food into these areas from the Adriatic seaboard through the various ports that have rail connections to the interior. At least one load of 600 tons of flour milled in Germany has come in, down on the Yugoslav side at Jesenice.

The vice consul from Belgrade was sent out Monday morning to Ljublania to observe the arrival of that flour. It is destined to get into these mountain areas before winter shuts off the operation.

There will also be other flour moving in from Italy by rail into Ljublania. This may amount to 35 or 40 thousand tons from Ger

anany and 35 to 40 thousand from Italy by rail, and another 35 or 40 thousand from the ports below, possibly Bari and Venice, which does not show on the map. That will be picked up by Yugoslav vessels and moved to these seaports and then by rail communication into the interior, and that movement is one which we hope can be completed by the end of December.

There is one thing which I think is very significant; and that is that, at our suggestion in the Embassy, the Yugoslavs set up a special emergency food-planning group. As a matter of fact, I told the Minister of Agriculture who we would like to have in that group, and it was set up accordingly. The chairman of the special group is the vice president of the federal planning commission. We have the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, and the Deputy Minister of Internal Trade, and among those individuals they can pull all strings in the Yugoslav Ministry of Railways, Maritime, Ports, Harbors, and Works.

We have been working out a food-distribution plan on the stopgap aid program and on the assumption that some aid will be extended out of the bill which is before this committee, and in that program we are dividing the country into contiguous areas based on the various ports of arrival and the rail facilities into the interior.

We are very hopeful that the railway from Salonika will be opened within the next few days. The railroad is finished; there is no question about it; one rail remains to be put under the fence, and the fence removed at the border. Otherwise trains can roll from Salonika up to Belgrade. The port facilities are adequate to handle all of the traffic we would need to put in by that route.

I am told that the economic breaking point for rail freight, as between Salonika and Rijeka, is just outside the outskirts of Belgrade. In other words, the economic way to put traffic into this entire area, including south and central Serbia is through Salonika. We are hopeful that the Yugoslav need for this food will be of material help in improving the political relations between Greece and Yugoslavia.

I might add one more thing, while I am at the map. The Yugoslavs have agreed to permit any American observers that may be desired to go into the country to see who gets this food, how it is distributed, and what is done with it. Our current thinking is to base the observers in the ports with railroads running into the interior. One or two narrow-gages run through these mountain valleys, and we will try to base our observers so as to give them a territory to observe in accordance with the food distribution plan itself. They will be given directions to see the food arrive, get on the trains and see where the cars are spotted, where they go, and also occasionally to dip in a random way into individual communities to see who is eating and who is not, and why not.

Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Haggerty, about what percentage of the farms are collectivized?

Mr. HAGGERTY. I am afraid I cannot answer it in those terms. Mr. VORYS. This book says 73 percent in private hands while 21 percent is collectivized. Did they get those figures from you?

Mr. HAGGERTY. That is on the basis of rural population. We have figures on acreage and on numbers of households.

Mr. CARNAHAN. I would like to have it on the basis of acreage. Mr. HAGGERTY. About 21 percent on acreage.

Mr. CARNAHAN. How are these observers to be recruited? Who will they be?

Mr. HAGGERTY. Because the food that is going in there now is under ECA auspices we have recommended that the Special Representative's office in Paris send a couple of these men in to be based at Ljubejana to cover rail shipments.

If the rest of the program goes through, observers will be recruited by the Embassy.

I believe that there is a provision in the agreement which Yugoslavia has signed that Yugoslavia will supply Yugoslav currency in dinars to cover the administrative expenses of the program. It may be that out of the dinars supplied by Yugoslavia we will pay the internal expenses of the American observers and also, I might say, the interpreters who will have to travel with them.

Mr. CARNAHAN. We will proceed now under the 5-minute rule. Mr. Burleson.

Mr. BURLESON. Mr. Haggerty, I am aware of the fact, of course, that you are giving a factual report in reference to physical conditions in Yugoslavia, but it seems to me you should also be very well qualified to give us an appraisal of the consciousness on the part of the rural people toward political aspects, and whether or not they have any competent leadership or concerted action and influence toward the Government.

Mr. HAGGERTY. Mr. Burleson, I would say that the vast majority of the Yugoslav people are pro-American. As I have traveled around the country I have very frequently taken my wife with me, and sometimes my two children as well. The longest trip we took was 17 days, where we lived off the country-camped out, and what not. I have yet to get into a corner of Yugoslavia where the statement that "I am an American" does not open all doors to me.

That has not been true of the Government, as you know.

During the honeymoon with the Cominform they followed the typical Communist line of American imperialism and all of that rot, but since their break with the Cominform, and particularly the economic blockade, as they have had to look at their hole cards, they have realized that, after all, America was the only country to which they could turn for economic aid and, on a sound basis, I might say, to help accomplish their economic development.

As the effects of this truth then became apparent they have had to swallow quite a bit of their propaganda. They have had to get down to cases, and I would say that they have turned to America as a dying man will turn back to the God of his childhood. It gets down to what they really do believe. I do not believe it is possible to exaggerate the political significance of the fact that the Yugoslav Government has turned to America in its time of crisis.

Mr. BURLESON. Do you feel that any part of that stems from an ideology of which they are conscious?

Mr. HAGGERTY. I think as far as the people in control in the Government are concerned they have had to set their ideology aside and look at the facts of life, and I must say that the people of Yugoslavia, the ones I have had an opportunity to contact, have welcomed with a vast relief first, the fact that Yugoslavia has appealed to the United

States, and second, based on the press releases some weeks ago, the fact that the American Government was sympathetically disposed, and my own feeling is that those facts-the knowledge or the assumption that aid will come from America-have already had a very material effect in reducing the psychological and political tension which could blow the country all apart, and every shipload of food we deliver will contribute further to that effect.

Mr. BURLESON. Inferentially, then, I gather that you feel the Government is aware of the plight of the people and that the people in the rural areas who actually produce food do have some influence with the Government?

Mr. HAGGERTY. Very much so. The attempt at socialization of the peasants has already slowed down substantially more than a year ago. On the basis of the record and statistics they have leveled off at about the beginning of the calendar year 1950.

We are not prepared to believe, as yet, that that means any reduction in their attempt to socialize, but they have had to stop and take stock and perhaps consolidate their position. The fact that they have stopped is going to create a very great obstacle toward getting the thing under way again. My own feeling is that with this aid program and by the degree it is implemented-if it is successful, if we pull this country through the winter without an upheaval, disorder, and anarchy, which could benefit only the Cominform countries, if we pull them through to the next harvest-all Yugoslavia will be thinking very much closer to the West and, particularly, the United States; that we will have established a very real basis for meeting them on some common ground through which they can achieve their basic purpose of economic advancement and at the same time change their social and political system to a point where we can tolerate it.

I think we have an unprecedented opportunity to influence the country and the people and its government. I think there is room in the world for our country to live as a capitalistic country and help Yugoslavia as a Socialist or, perhaps, a semi-Socialist country to achieve its economic objectives without destroying the human values that go with civil rights and individual liberties.

Mr. BURLESON. Would you say, Mr. Haggerty, that there is an element of democracy present even though it is within a dictatorship? Mr. HAGGERTY. It is latent. The Yugoslav people have never subdued themselves. They have never bowed, really, to this thing. They bowed with the wind, you might say, but they still have the will to resist; just as they resisted the Turks for 500 years and they resisted the Germans during the recent occupation, they are now resisting the Communists. That is why I say they have accepted with great relief the fact that there has been this turn to America; they expect a great deal from it.

Mr. BURLESON. There exists also, I take it from that, a national spirit, even with the sectionalism which exists in the country? Mr. HAGGERTY. That is true.

Mr. BURLESON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. RICHARDS (presiding). Mr. Andrews.

Mr. ANDREWS. I can give you these figures you asked about. There is what they call a peasant work cooperative which might be a collective farm or it might be just a cooperative of some kind. Eighteen percent of the rural households are in that, and 21 percent of the