The Fulbright Conspiracy

"The Fulbright Network - American Scientific Foundation as Sponsor of Special War Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" is the headline of an article with which the Belgrade daily "Politika Ekspres" started a serial last week. The author is A. Vojvodic. The story could end sadly - not because Vojvodic is right, because he's not (the text is full of mistakes and paranoid Stalinist constructions), but for a much more banal reason: indiscretion.

"A Course for Spies" - this is the headline of the article in "Politika Ekspres" which says how the Services knew from the beginning that the Fulbright business was a dubious affair, and that they "tried to prove with the competent state organs that among numerous Yugoslavs and Americans who had the opportunity of becoming Fulbright scholarship recipients there were those who could become indoctrinated with Western politics and the philosophy of the new world order" (the jeans and Coca-Cola syndrome). This interpretation assumes that "our counter-espionage service" to which the assessment is attributed, was so incapable that it questioned the existence of a very useful program of cooperation, just because someone "could be" recruited by jeans and Coca-Cola and the "philosophy of the new world order". It is a fact that the bilateral Yugoslav-American Fulbright program survived until 1992, when it was put on ice because of sanctions, and that there is a mutual readiness to continue work as soon as relations between the two countries are normal again.

Had Vojvodic consulted Obren Djordjevic's "Security Lexicon" (Belgrade, 1986), he would have found very precise and interesting views on the subject of the Fulbright Foundation. Djordjevic says that the matter concerns a foundation that Secretary of State James William Fulbright proposed to Congress in 1946 for the purpose of scientific-technical cooperation and exchange with other countries. The American Government finances the Foundation with money from military and other aid and the sale of agricultural surpluses. The otherwise suspicious authors of the "Security Lexicon" are very restrained with regard to Fulbright's Foundation. The furtherest that they are willing to go can be found in the following passage: "As in other fields of international cooperation and exchange, security risks and abuse are possible. There were cases when Americans, Fulbright scholarship recipients in Yugoslavia were engaged in research work which wasn't in accordance with the program of their visit. Several of our recipients of Fulbright scholarships were influenced by reactionary circles during their stay in the USA. They were subjected to indoctrination and received offers not to return to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". And that's it. Djordjevic doesn't have anything else to say on the subject.

What other proof does Vojvodic offer on the "course for spies"? Three cases, of which two have nothing to do with the Fulbright Foundation, and a lot of misinformation. The first case, under the headline "Attack on Poet" boils down to the fact that a certain Danijel Bajc, poet, was sent packing from the USA in March 1982, even though he was "a Fulbright scholarship recipient"; there was no attempt at recruiting him, nothing. There is no evidence of a Danijel Bajc in any Fulbright Foundation list of scholarship holders. The second case, a certain professor Fred Vorner can't be found on the scholarship lists either. The third case concerns Jane Sugarman, and her "espionage activities" boil down to free-lancing for foreign TV stations and newspapers during the 1981 events in Kosovo, after which her scholarship was discontinued, but she wasn't asked to leave the country. There is misinformation concerning the fire in the bilateral committee's rooms, when certain papers got burned rather unselectively, not just the "American part" of the archives; then there are accusations that the selection of candidates was unfair and "done without the participation of our institutions"; and finally the Salzburg seminar and the Fulbright program are linked together incorrectly.

What was it that the villainous Fulbright recipients could have done to their fatherland, after being recruited, given their tasks and infiltrated back into Yugoslavia? The field where they could have made their mark and wrought the greatest harm, according to "Politika Ekspres", is the field of social sciences. "Social intelligentsia could be used much more effectively in their own country (SFRY), especially if they hadn't changed their political commitments" (this probably means that they weren't suspect in that case).

Namely, according to Vojvodic, "it was taken into consideration that socio-politically educated scientists could be used more easily in so-called special warfare. It was believed, for example, that they were 'blinded' by the affluence of American society, and that this could result in doubts with regard to their political commitments on returning to the SFRY with new ideas and even opposition behavior."

And that's what it's all about, and things become much clearer. These scientists in the field of social sciences were recruited and infiltrated, and they succeeded in their "opposition behavior" as can be seen from a cursory and incomplete run through of a list of all Fulbright scholarship recipients in the former Yugoslavia. We'll leave the scholarship recipients in the natural sciences aside, regardless of the institutions they worked in, even though some of them were interesting from the security point of view: the "Boris Kidric" Institute (nuclear science and the Serbian A-bomb), the "Rudjer Boskovic" Institute (nuclear science and the Croatian A-bomb), the "Joze Stefan" Institute (laser technology, night binoculars, sights); the firms "Iskra" (military telecommunications), "Rudi Cajavec" (military telecommunications and rocket tracking systems), "Petar Drapsin" (explosives), the Military Technical Institute, the Military Medical Academy, the Federal Directorate for Special-purpose Goods (arms), the Public Auditing Office and state-political officials.

No, let's get back to scientists and distinguished figures in the field of social sciences as the most dangerous ones. In alphabetical order:

Ljubisa Adamovic, Belgrade School of Economics;

Dragoslav Andric, translator;

Dimitrije Bogdanovic, SANU (Serbian Academy of Arts

and Sciences) - one of our greatest Byzantinists;

Radomir Damjanovic, free lance artist - recital artist;

Milovan Danojlic, Serbian writer;

Dimitrije Djordjevic, SANU;

Milorad Ekmecic, historian;

Jovan Hristic, playwright and Faculty of Drama professor;

Pavle Ivic, SANU, linguistics and head of the project for the linguistic unification of the Serbs;

Vladeta Jankovic, top Democratic Party official;

Zoran Jovanovic, caricaturist in "Komunist" and satirical spearhead of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia;

Miroljub Labus, Democratic Party vice-president;

Ivan Lalic, Serbian poet;

Ivan Maksimovic, SANU, one of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's top economic advisors, and another Serbian mainstay;

Mihailo Markovic, philosopher, dissident - member of the Praxis group, Socialist Party of Serbia vice-president;

Mihajlo Nedeljkovic, RTV Beograd;

Biljana Plavsic, Republic of Srpska Presidency member, biologist and "humanitarian worker";

Branko Petranovic, historian;

Nikola Rackov, editor-in-chief of Radio Beograd 2. program;

Milos Radulovic, Federal Assembly Council president (two scholarships: 1973/4 and 1979/80);

Radoslav Stojanovic, law professor, Democratic Party of Serbia official;

Ljuba Stojic, currently NIN deputy editor-in-chief;

Slobodan Sijan, film director;

Balsa Spadijer, President of the Serbian Constitutional Court;

Ivan Vujacic, economic advisor and Democratic Party deputy;

Bozidar Zecevic, Serbia's spearhead in the Film Museum.

When the "network" of Fulbright Foundation infiltrations in Yugoslavia is seen, it turns out that we didn't fare too badly: the Serbs and Montenegrins have some public figures, scientists working in sensitive fields, poets-patriots and only two-three important political figures. The Slovenians, Croats and Bosnians have however, two foreign ministers (Dimitrije Rupel and Zvonimir Separovic), one Presidency member (Ejup Ganic - he got the scholarship in Belgrade, which makes him doubly suspect); while the Macedonians only have Vasil Tupurkovski, and got the best deal once again.

Now that "Politika Ekspres" has accused so many distinguished figures of possible espionage activities (because that's what "special war" means), what is there to be done? VREME has learned that Federal PM Radoje Kontic's cabinet recently sent the Yugoslav Association of Fulbright Scholarship Recipients which represents the former bi-lateral committee and the American side, letters expressing readiness to continue with the Fulbright program - as soon as relations are fully established and on condition that "Politika Ekspres" approves.