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The 1958 US Trade Mission to 
Yugoslavia and the United States' 
“Wedge” Policy 
A Technocratic Connection   
 
 
Jacob Smiley 
University of Minnesota 
 
 
Abstract 
This article examines the 1958 US trade mission to Yugoslavia through the lens of 
technocratic internationalism, which is—borrowing Gabrielle Hetch's definition of the 
term—a “less visible, but sometimes more powerful means of shaping and reshaping” 
international relations during the Cold War. This article examines how trade fairs, personal 
relationships, and international business networks functioned as sites of technocratic 
internationalism and considers mid-level bureaucrats from the United States and 
Yugoslavia who believed that expertise and technical advice in areas such as 
transportation, industrial management, travel, and marketing could bridge political 
differences between Cold War actors. The article focuses in particular on Fred Wittner, an 
important figure in American advertising who was part of the trade mission. Utilizing 
Wittner’s personal papers, housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, this article explores 
how technical expertise served as a conduit through which the United States attempted to 
strengthen ties with Yugoslavia and reveals the political importance of personal 
relationships and networks, even within a framework that encouraged seemingly 
“apolitical” information exchange and expertise.   

 
Article  
The Cold War is often imagined as a period of political rigidity and isolation, mediated 
through terse diplomatic initiatives, armaments escalation, and explosive international 
crises. Hungary 1956, the Space Race, and the Prague Spring dominate conversations about 
Europe and the Cold War, buttressed by traditional political and diplomatic histories of the 
period. In recent years, this top-down narrative has been challenged by historians who 
study the Cold War from the perspective of cultural exchange and transnational 
connection. As historian Vladislav Zubok writes, a new wave of scholars has “begun to link 
traditional political questions about the Cold War with transnational experiences,” creating 
cultural analyses that have a “renewed focus on individuals, as opposed to the emphasis on 



223 
 

the state and state structures.”1 In the same vein, historian Patryk Babiracki highlights the 
importance of transnational analysis, writing that it has become “increasingly difficult to 
understand” the Cold War “without thinking about networks of people, flows, circulations, 
and exchanges.”2 Influenced by new trends and innovations in the field of transnational 
history, this article analyzes the 1958 US trade mission to Yugoslavia and its outcomes. A 
transnational analysis of the 1958 trade mission, with a specific eye towards US foreign 
policy, sheds valuable light on technocratic information exchange and the mid-level 
bureaucrats who participated in cultural and economic diplomacy during the Cold War, 
forming a clearer picture of both the Cold War and the US-Yugoslav diplomatic 
relationship. 

To begin, it is important to briefly sketch the early history of socialist Yugoslavia and its 
unique relationship with the United States. Historian Elidor Mëhilli once wrote that the 
Cold War “created unexpected possibilities for small states to make big claims.”3 This was 
especially true of Yugoslavia, a country which, according to historian John B. Allcock, 
existed in a “constant dialectical movement between internal events and their international 
environment.”4 While this could be said of nearly every country in an increasingly 
globalized world, Yugoslavia’s unique and important place in the Cold War makes this 
claim especially meaningful. Following the country’s acrimonious break with the Soviet 
Union in 1948, Yugoslavia began to pursue a policy that the US State Department described 
as “seeking to avoid alignment with either the Soviet bloc or the Western Alliance,” taking 
independent positions on foreign policy, trade, and domestic reform.5 This policy would 
eventually culminate in Yugoslavia’s prominent role in the Non-Aligned Movement, 
founded in 1961.6 While Yugoslavia pursued this policy of informal non-alignment, the 
United States sought to strengthen ties with the country, hoping that it could “serve as a 
beacon to the satellite states” in East-Central Europe and provide the “wedge it needed to 
dislodge the Soviets’ control there.”7  

The diplomatic relationship between the United States and Yugoslavia in the early years of 
the Cold War is complicated and of exceptional importance to the history of the Cold War, 
the United States, and Yugoslavia. Scholars such as Ivo Tasovac, Lorraine Lees, and John R. 
Lampe, among others, have thoroughly investigated US foreign policy towards Yugoslavia 
during the Second World War and in the subsequent decades. Lees, in particular, has 
investigated the United States’ “wedge policy,” first articulated and studied by John Lewis 
Gaddis in his 1988 book The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War. This 

 
1  Patryk Babiracki and Kenyon Zimmer, eds., Cold War Crossings: International Travel and Exchange across 
the Soviet Bloc, 1940s-1960s (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014), 1. 
2 Patryk Babiracki, “Interfacing the Soviet Bloc: Recent Literature and New Paradigms,” Ab Imperio 4 (2011): 
380. 
3 Elidor Mëhilli. From Stalin to Mao: Albania and the Socialist World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017), 9. 
4 John B. Allcock, Explaining Yugoslavia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 240. 
5 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1958-1960, Eastern Europe; Finland; Greece; Turkey, vol. X 
part 2 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958-1960), 474. 
6 For an analysis of the history of the Non-Aligned Movement, see Jürgen Dinkel, The Non-Aligned Movement: 
Genesis, Organization and Politics (1927-1992) (Boston: Brill, 2018). 
7  L. M. Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat: The United States, Yugoslavia, and the Cold War (University Park: 
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 235. 



224 
 

wedge policy, as Lees writes, “was the focal point of an attempt by the United States to 
promote fissures within the Communist world,” receiving “its most sustained application in 
U.S. policy towards Yugoslavia.”8 At face value, the policy seems contradictory at best and 
self-defeating at worst. Following the 1948 Tito-Stalin split, both the Truman and 
Eisenhower administrations, buttressed by the likes of George F. Kennan and John Foster 
Dulles, sought to encourage the independent-minded Tito in an attempt to “sustain the 
damage” that the 1948 split left in its wake.9 In a case of sublime Cold War irony, the United 
States sought to contain the spread of Soviet communism by encouraging the growth and 
development of another communist state. This policy, as Lees writes, “raised questions 
about the ties that could exist between communist, noncommunist, and neutral states,” a 
fact that finds evidence in the complicated outcomes of the 1958 trade mission.10  

As a fundamental component of the wedge policy, economic relations between Yugoslavia 
and the United States “broadened significantly” in the early 1950s, as Yugoslavia became a 
major recipient of monetary aid, foodstuffs, and loans from the United States.11 Total trade 
between the two nations saw consistent growth throughout the decade, though it fell as a 
percentage of total Yugoslav imports and exports.12 As a part of the United States’ wide 
ranging efforts to improve economic and diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia, trade 
missions were sent in the years 1956, 1957, and 1958 to provide technical expertise to the 
country’s burgeoning heavy and light industries. These trade missions, though ultimately 
serving the United States’ interests, operated under the mystique of technocratic 
internationalism, something that historian Gabrielle Hecht describes as a “gesture toward 
transcending Cold War politics.”13 In other words, advocates of technocratic 
internationalism believed that cooperation in issues such as transportation, industrial 
management, and marketing could bridge political differences between Cold War actors.  

The case of American trade missions and the expertise they provided are examples of—to 
build on Hecht’s observations—“less visible, but sometimes more powerful means of 
shaping and reshaping” international relations during the Cold War.14 Though archival 
information on the 1956 and 1957 missions has proven to be elusive, the two missions’ 
main objective was to provide technical expertise regarding the development of 
Yugoslavia’s heavy industry.15 This article focuses on the 1958 trade mission, which took 

 
8 Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat, xiii. 
9 Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat, xiii. 
10 Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat, xv.  
11 John R. Lampe, Russell O. Prickett, and Ljubiša S. Adamović, Yugoslav-American Economic Relations since 
World War II (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 73-75. 
12 The period following the Tito-Stalin split saw an entrenchment of central planning and a turn towards a 
policy of “extreme self-reliance” as Yugoslav economists sought to bolster domestic industry in the face of 
political and economic isolation (See Lampe, Prickett, and Adamović, Yugoslav-American Economic Relations). 
Workers’ self-management, which can be seen as a reaction to the failure of these semi-autarkic policies, 
helped open the Yugoslav economy to international competition. Thus, from the mid-1950s onwards, there 
was a fairly large expansion of foreign investment and trade with both Europe and the United States.  
13 Gabrielle Hecht, “Introduction,” in Entangled Geographies: Empire and Technopolitics in the Global Cold War, 
ed. Gabrielle Hecht (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011), 9. 
14 Hecht, “Introduction,” 3. 
15 “Report of the 1958 U.S. Trade Mission to Yugoslavia,” Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 4, Wisconsin 
Historical Society, Madison.  



225 
 

place from August 18 to September 26 and was composed of experts in the fields of 
advertising and marketing. Of these experts, the primary focus will be on Fred Wittner, an 
important figure in American advertising who ran a successful firm in New York City. 
Before founding the Fred Wittner Company in 1939, he was the publicity manager for 
aviator Amelia Earhart and a sports journalist, contributing to such magazines as The New 
Yorker, Sports Illustrated, and The American Golfer.16 Wittner carried his lifelong passion for 
magazines and writing into the advertising industry, molding the Fred Wittner Company 
into something of a pioneer in industrial advertising by focusing on international business 
publications and technical literature, something Wittner called the “backbone of overseas 
trade missions.”17 Utilizing Wittner’s personal papers, archived at the Wisconsin Historical 
Society in Madison, Wisconsin, it is possible to analyze the functions of trade missions, 
technical expertise, and information exchange in the United States’ foreign policy towards 
Yugoslavia during the Cold War. This technical expertise served as a conduit through which 
the United States attempted to strengthen ties with Yugoslavia, amid the broader context of 
competition with the Soviet Union. This type of analysis also sheds light on the political 
importance of personal relationships and networks, even within a framework that 
encouraged seemingly “apolitical” information exchange and expertise.   

“What Happens at a US Trade Mission” 
The year 1958 was a pivotal moment for the United States’ relationship with Yugoslavia. In 
that year, international developments threatened to derail the United States’ wedge policy 
as Yugoslavia and the USSR seemed to be moving towards something of a political 
rapprochement. Domestically, criticism of the US relationship with Yugoslavia mounted, as 
some members of Congress went as far as to threaten resignation over a proposed 
Yugoslav diplomatic visit to the United States.18 It was within this context that the 
Department of Commerce sent a trade mission to Yugoslavia, tasked with the ultimate 
objective of improving economic and political relations between the two countries. For six 
weeks in the late summer of 1958, Fred Wittner, accompanied by Robert C. Gordon of Time 
magazine and several other American diplomats and businessmen, completed a trade 
mission tour of Yugoslavia. The mission visited over twenty-five cities in the six republics 
of Yugoslavia, meeting with a variety of local industrialists, government agents, and 
tourism officials. The trip followed on the heels of two previous trade missions to 
Yugoslavia, hoping to expand on the work of the preceding missions and venture beyond 
advice for heavy industry. The mission’s express purpose was to provide technical 
expertise to Yugoslavia’s growing industrial economy and tourism industry, with the hope 
of ultimately “encouraging two-way trade” between Yugoslavia and the United States.19  
It is important to understand that the US government, and non-state actors operating 
within it, crafted a very specific image of the work done by trade missions. A 1958 
Department of Commerce pamphlet described the work of these missions as a “patriotic 

 
16 “Fred Wittner of Ad Agency Dies Expert on Industrial Accounts.” The New York Times, July 7, 1972, 35.  
17 “American Business Publications Serve as Prime Support for Overseas Trade Missions Program,” Press 
Release, August 12, 1959, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 2, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.  
18 Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat, 214-215. 
19 “United States Trade Missions Overseas” Pamphlet, U. S. Department of Commerce, 1959, 1, Fred Wittner 
Papers, Box 2, Folder 4, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. 



226 
 

duty” wherein businessmen “promote world friendship and expand two-way trade.”20 Fred 
Wittner echoed these sentiments in a 1959 Industrial Marketing article entitled “What 
Should Trade Missions Do?” For Wittner, trade missions spread “goodwill of inestimable 
value,” so much so that he could “conceive of no more valuable contribution by private 
enterprise to better long-term international relations.”21 In his article, Wittner utilizes 
several foils against which he defines the value of trade missions. The first of these foils is 
ironically Americans themselves. For Wittner, American tourists often act as “illwill 
ambassadors” who are welcomed for their hard currency but end up contributing “hostility 
instead of understanding.”22 Trade missions, with their focus on sharing “knowledge and 
self-sufficiency,” correct the bad impressions that American tourists had left in 
Yugoslavia.23 Additionally, Wittner defines US trade missions as a fundamentally different 
enterprise than the missions of countries with “state-controlled industries.”24 For Wittner, 
countries with non-capitalist modes of production, acting in their own self-interest, 
emphasize import/export negotiations in their trade missions. This contrasts with US 
missions, which, as Wittner said in a 1959 speech to the Fourth Annual Circulation Seminar 
for Business Publications, “bring only information.”25 Wittner’s consistent focus on the 
spread of knowledge and information as a “patriotic duty” highlights the importance of 
technical expertise and technocratic information exchange for the United States’ policy 
towards Yugoslavia. In this regard, the focus on bringing “only information” functions as a 
way of transferring agency from United States’ diplomats onto the information and 
expertise itself. In doing so, trade missions are able to transcend the usual confines of Cold 
War politics and discourse.  

For the United States Department of Commerce, trade fairs played a similarly crucial role in 
the creation of international business relationships and the establishment of new trade 
networks. US trade missions utilized these fairs to “tour the principal commercial centers 
of a country” and “confer with businessmen, public officials, and organizations.”26 These 
trade fairs could also be sites of intense Cold War competition and spectacles of 
consumption, as was the case in 1957, when the American pavilion displayed a true-to-life 
model of an American Way grocery store at the Zagreb fair.27 As for the 1958 trade mission 
to Yugoslavia, the Belgrade and Zagreb international trade fairs provided the mission with 
an avenue to disseminate information, give “group and individual consultations,” and 
answer “several hundred questions” from Yugoslav businessmen.28 At the Zagreb 
International Trade Fair, exhibitions were centered around various themes, ranging from 

 
20 “United States Trade Missions Overseas,” 1. 
21 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” reprinted Industrial Advertising article, 1959, 2, Fred Wittner Papers, 
Box 2, Folder 1, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. 
22 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” 2-3. 
23 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” 3. 
24 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” 4. 
25 Fred Wittner, “U.S. Trade Missions and Expanding World-Wide Circulations of American Business 
Magazines,” Circulation Seminar for Business Publications, Pick-Congress Hotel, Chicago, August 12, 1959, 
Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.   
26 “United States Trade Missions Overseas,” 1. 
27 Tracey Deutsch, Building a Housewife’s Paradise: Gender, Politics, and American Grocery Stores in the 
Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 192. 
28 “United States Trade Missions Overseas,” 1. 



227 
 

contemporary Yugoslav architecture to international literature and the family. Over 
twenty-five countries participated in the Zagreb International Trade Fair, several of which 
established pavilions to showcase exhibitions that were based on these themes. Most 
notably, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United 
States were all present, representing several sides of the Cold War.29 The US exhibitions 
were exceptionally popular, attracting some 70,000 visitors on one single day. These 
exhibitions were praised by President Tito for their show of “technical developments'' and 
specific “interest [in] Yugoslavia.”30 The US exhibitions at the Zagreb fair featured displays 
on the manufacturing of cellophane bags, blue jeans, and ice cream. The travel and 
recreation exhibit featured a model motel, which, according to local reports, greatly 
impressed President Tito. The Belgrade fair, taking place from August 23 to September 2, 
featured exhibits on various new technologies, including radio, television, and telephones. 
The Belgrade fair saw an overall attendance of over 600,000 and was praised by local press 
and news. The 1958 trade mission built upon the previous involvement of the United States 
in Yugoslav trade fairs, choosing to emphasize “how we produce rather than what we 
produce” and prioritizing the fields of manufacturing and tourism in their exhibits.31 A 
Yugoslav magazine, Privedni Pregled, emphasized the importance of the 1958 trade fairs in 
an article entitled “Les Foires Internationales Yougoslaves,” written by Olga Divac. 
Tellingly, Divac writes that Yugoslavia was in a moment of “economic and geographic 
bifurcation” and that international trade fairs served as a meeting place where new 
economic and ideological paths could be forged.32 A similar opinion prevailed in the United 
States, as investment in international trade fairs was solidified with the 1958 construction 
of a permanent American pavilion in Belgrade, encompassing some 45,000 square feet of 
indoor space and 20,000 square feet of outdoor space.  

Personal and Professional Relationships  
Upon his return from Yugoslavia, Fred Wittner maintained a personal correspondence with 
several professional and private individuals that he met during the course of the 1958 
trade mission. These contacts were, as historian Igor Tchoukarine writes, part of “growing 
professional and transnational networks of tourist and advertising experts” between the 
United States and Yugoslavia.33 Among Wittner’s professional contacts were businesses 
such as Yugoslav Export, Interpublic, and Dalmacija Cement. Yugoslav Export was an 
English-language trade and business publication, headquartered in Zagreb. Wittner became 
acquainted with the commercial manager of Yugoslav Export, Gosporden D. Liebhardt, at 
the 1958 Zagreb fair. Through the next decade, Wittner maintained a correspondence with 
Liebhardt and several other staff members involved with Yugoslav Export. In these letters 

 
29 Olga Divac, “Les Foires Internationales Yougoslaves,” Privredni Pregled (Belgrade: Privredni Pregled, 1958), 
2. 
30 Sinclair Weeks, “U.S. Production Highlights Fall International Trade Fairs,” U.S. Department of Commerce, 
1958, 1, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 1, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.  
31 Weeks, “U.S. Production Highlights Fall International Trade Fairs,” 2. 
32 Divac, “Les Foires Internationales Yougoslaves,” 2. 
33 Igor Tchoukarine, “Playing the tourism card: Yugoslavia, advertising, and the Euro-Atlantic tourism 
network in the early Cold War,” in Tourism and Travel during the Cold War: Negotiating Tourist Experiences 
across the Iron Curtain, eds. Sune Bechmann Pedersen and Christian Noack, Routledge Studies in the History 
of Russia and Eastern Europe, (London: Routledge, 2019), 159. 



228 
 

Wittner provides American industrial contacts to Yugoslav Export and networks with 
advertising and tourism agents in Yugoslavia. Wittner sent American trade publications to 
Yugoslav Export, commenting that he “read[s] each issue” of their publication.34 This 
relationship, according to Yugoslav Export editor-in-chief B. Bucalo, provided Yugoslav 
businessmen with “invaluable assistance.”35 The tone of these correspondence reveals the 
personal quality of the acquaintance, as both Fred Wittner and his Yugoslav counterparts 
habitually invited one another to visit and stay in their respective countries. Wittner 
maintained similar contact with Interpublic, another Yugoslav advertising publication. 
Wittner took personal interest in establishing a relationship between Interpublic and the 
New York-based advertising agency Gotham. Wittner, in correspondence with editor-in-
chief Stipe Vojnovic, established a “gentlemen’s agreement” with Interpublic, in which both 
American and Yugoslav agencies would mail one another their “most serious” information 
and advice on prospective partners, future advertising plans, and industry data.36 Wittner’s 
relationship with Dalmacija Cement followed a similar trajectory. Wittner served as an 
intermediary for Dalmacija Cement and several American and international businesses. In 
this role, Wittner introduced Slavko Zvezdic, a head manager at Dalmacija Cement, to 
representatives of cement companies in locations ranging from New York to Belgium.37 
Wittner’s relationship to these three companies hints at a larger network and nexus of 
exchange between American and Yugoslav businesses. Wittner’s contacts emphasized the 
importance of knowledge around advertising and tourism in these exchanges. These 
relationships and the transnational exchange of information that they fostered were an 
integral part of a growing nexus of trade and exchange between the United States and 
Yugoslavia, which was a key component of the US wedge policy.  
 
Alongside these professional contacts, Wittner maintained a personal correspondence with 
private Yugoslav citizens that he met during his time in Yugoslavia for several years. Of 
these correspondences, two stand out as particularly important, one for its demonstration 
of the sometimes politically fraught nature of trade missions and another for its deeply 
personal quality. The first case is Wittner’s correspondence with Nenad. D. Popovic, a 
Yugoslav economist and statesman turned dissident and defector. Popovic was 
instrumental in several successful loan and credit negotiations with the United States and, 
in the early 1950s, represented Yugoslavia at both the International Monetary Fund and 
the World Bank.38 In 1961, he came to the United States as a visiting professor in 
international finance at Syracuse University, choosing to defect to the United States in that 
same year. Wittner had met Popovic in the course of his trade mission tour of Yugoslavia, 
visiting with Popovic in his capacity as undersecretary of state in Yugoslavia. Popovic 
corresponded with Wittner in the days following his defection, writing that he fondly 

 
34 B. Bucalo, Letter to Fred Wittner, May 14, 1959, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 2, Wisconsin Historical 
Society, Madison.  
35 Stipe Vojnovic, Letter to Fred Wittner, April 6, 1959, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 2, Wisconsin 
Historical Society, Madison.  
36 Vojnovic, Letter to Fred Wittner, April 6, 1959.  
37 Slavko Zvezdic, Letter to Fred Wittner, May 27, 1959, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 2, Wisconsin 
Historical Society, Madison.  
38 Associated Press, “Ex-Belgrade Aide Tells of Defection: Difficult Decision,” The Christian Science Monitor, 
December 29, 1962, 11. 



229 
 

remembered meeting Wittner in Yugoslavia, and inviting him to Syracuse for a visit.39 
Popovic’s rationale for defecting from Yugoslavia was complicated and mainly based on an 
ideological opposition to Communism, reflecting that “in a Communist country, one feels 
that he should not be allowed to have personal integrity,” as “the only rule of behavior is to 
always conform.”40 In 1968, Popovic published a scathing critique of Yugoslav politics in a 
monograph entitled The New Class in Crisis, taking much inspiration from Milovan Djilas’s 
1957 work, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System. In his critique, Popovic 
writes that Tito’s government had “produced a mutilated, servile, and pliable pseudo-
democracy in its politics” and had “formed a moral vacuum everywhere.”41 Though Popovic 
never explicitly connected his defection and critique of Yugoslavia with his contacts in the 
United States and Western Europe, his relationship and later correspondence with Wittner 
reveal that, for as much as the wedge policy sought to avoid explicitly political diplomacy, 
contacts between the United States and Yugoslavia nevertheless came with political risks. 
High-profile defection, followed by ruthless and public critique, posed a risk to the United 
States’ attempt to strengthen ties with Yugoslavia. Additionally, Wittner and Popovic’s 
friendship is especially interesting, as their written correspondence occurred some three 
years after the trade mission, providing insight into the length and substance of the 
relationships and networks that the trade mission helped create.  

The second important case is Wittner’s correspondence with Aleksander “Sasha” Ozerovic, 
a Yugoslav citizen working for the United States Information Service (USIS) in Belgrade. 
Throughout their correspondence, Ozerovic and Wittner discuss the quality and 
performance of Yugoslav tourism and business publications. What is remarkable about this 
correspondence is its personal and candid nature. In his correspondence, Ozerovic writes 
about the kind and “gentle” nature of his relationship with Wittner.42 Additionally, Ozerovic 
frequently confides in Wittner as a friend, often writing about his grief. In several letters 
Ozerovic describes his attempts to receive compensation from the West German 
government and his “tragic memories” of the Holocaust, in which his father and ten others 
in his family were murdered.43 These relationships speak to the type of personal 
connections that were forged between Americans and Yugoslavs during the 1958 trade 
mission. Some of these contacts were friendly and genial, falling under the “apolitical” 
category of technocratic internationalism. Others, such as Wittner’s friendship with 
Popovic, reveal that for as much as US policy attempted to avoid it, complicated and public 
political negotiations were also taking place.  
 
Within the Cold War Framework 

 
39 Nenad Popovic, Letter to Fred Wittner, October 24, 1961,  Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 4, Wisconsin 
Historical Society, Madison.   
40  “Ex-Belgrade Aide Tells of Defection,” 11.  
41 D. J. R. Scott, “Reviewed Work: Yugoslavia. The New Class in Crisis by Nenad D. Popovic,” Soviet Studies 21, 
no. 1 (July 1969): 121-122. 
42 Aleksander Ozerovic, Letter to Fred Wittner, December 14, 1959, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 4, 
Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison.  
43 Aleksander Ozerovic, Letter to Fred Wittner, June 29, 1961, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 4, Wisconsin 
Historical Society, Madison.  



230 
 

Despite a professed interest in “information alone,” the US relationship with Yugoslavia and 
the 1958 trade mission were inextricably tied to the broader conditions of the Cold War. In 
an article published in the American business magazine Industrial Marketing, Fred Wittner 
asked a question that he thought may be on the minds of many Americans: “Why should the 
United States send a trade mission, at taxpayers’ expense, to a Communist-controlled 
country such as Yugoslavia?”44 Wittner’s answer to this question was complex, portraying 
Yugoslavia as a country that occupied a unique position within the framework of the ever 
heightening Cold War. For Wittner, Yugoslavia was “not behind the iron curtain” but was a 
country in which Communism could be molded and adapted, unlike the “monolithic 
structure” of other Eastern European countries.45 Yugoslavia was of tremendous strategic 
importance to the United States, offering an “important window” from which the West 
could “watch the satellite bloc.”46 In this regard, Wittner’s statements mirror almost the 
exact same language as the US State Department. As historian Lorraine Lees writes, “the 
United States had a large investment in Tito,” and senior members of the State Department, 
such as Secretary of State John Dulles, believed that Yugoslavia could “lead the satellite 
states to a greater degree of independence.”47 Wittner’s statements shed valuable light on 
his perspective towards the 1958 trade mission and more broadly on his perspective 
towards Yugoslavia itself. In addition to the country’s strategic importance, Wittner writes 
that Yugoslavia’s people were, among other things, “markedly brave” and “tenacious,” 
always responding to Westerners with “surprise and pleasure.”48 
 
For Wittner, the specter of the Cold War weighed heavily upon his understanding of the 
trade mission to Yugoslavia and of Yugoslavia itself. In an unpublished article entitled “Two 
Americans look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” written shortly after 
his return from Yugoslavia, Wittner expounded upon his view of the atypical socialist 
country. The title of the article itself is revealing in its language of the Cold War, and in it, 
Wittner and Robert C. Gordon, a sales manager at Time magazine who would later become 
director of corporate relations for the Council on Foreign Relations, analyze both the 
advertising industry in Yugoslavia and their own personal experiences on the trade 
mission. Throughout the article, Wittner and Gordon associate “salesmanship” with 
American values and capitalism. The authors were pleasantly surprised to find evidence of 
these “American” values throughout Yugoslavia. With the exception of portraits of Marx, 
Lenin, and Tito, Wittner and Gordon compliment the lack of “Communist propaganda” in 
Yugoslavia.49 Here, Wittner and Gordon echoed a rising sentiment within the popular press 
in the United States. Just one day prior to the trade mission’s arrival in Yugoslavia, The New 
York Times published an article that seemed to challenge traditional Cold War narratives 
about the country. In an article entitled “Yugoslav Laxity Surprises Visitor,” Paul 
Underwood wrote that, to his surprise, Yugoslavia exhibited no “evidence of a police 

 
44 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” 2. 
45 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” 4.  
46 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” 4.  
47 Lees, Keeping Tito Afloat, 223.  
48 “What Should Trade Missions Do?,” 4-5.  
49 Robert C. Gordon and Fred Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist 
Country,” unpublished manuscript, 1958, 1-2, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 3, Folder 11, Wisconsin Historical 
Society, Madison.  



231 
 

state.”50 Despite the fact that the Communist party “dominates every aspect of Yugoslav 
life,” the average citizen attended “Western plays, operas, and movies” and bought 
“Western books, newspapers, and magazines… freely.”51 This article is of interest for 
multiple reasons, not the least because it highlights a change in American cultural 
representation of Yugoslavia. The article also represents an understanding of freedom 
based on consumption, especially of “Western goods”—something that Wittner and Gordon 
consider a highlight of Yugoslavia.  
 
Wittner and Gordon continue along similar lines in their assessment of Yugoslavia’s 
tourism industry. The industry was ripe for development as the “average tourist from the 
West must constantly remind himself … that he is not in a Western democratic country.”52 
In fact, in the eyes of Wittner and Gordon, Yugoslavia had spent the last decade trying to 
“emulate and identify” with the West.53 A robust advertising industry was already in 
existence. Posters were found throughout the six republics advertising soft drinks, soap, 
and electronic devices. State-controlled radio and news media were laden with 
commercials for consumer products and some 10,000 television sets were found 
throughout the country. Cooperation with private companies in the United States, like RCA, 
promised to greatly expand this growing industry.54 There was even evidence of market 
competition in the advertising industry, with window dressings being adapted to public 
interest and demand in Sarajevo and Belgrade.55 Hotels, “built to Western tastes,” were 
being constructed in Belgrade, Macedonia, and Croatia.56 These hotels featured air-
conditioning, night clubs, and fine architecture, “comparing favorably to the most luxurious 
new Miami Beach hotels.”57 Mirroring the “Westernization” that was occurring in the 
economic sphere, the average Yugoslav citizen found themselves identifying more and 
more with the West: listening to rock music, learning “American-style dancing,” and 
mingling with US Marines.58  

For Wittner and Gordon, Yugoslavia’s tourism and advertising industries were making 
impressive developments and strides in the right direction. Advertising agents in 
Yugoslavia were moving in the direction of “salesmanship and competition,” basing their 
product design on popular demand and quality.59 This behavior was in sharp contrast to 
the previous method of “simply having labels with general instructions concerning use, 
content, and quality.”60 Wittner and Gordon trace these changes back to the early 1950s 
economic reforms in Yugoslavia towards the establishment of workers’ councils and 

 
50 Paul Underwood, “Yugoslav Laxity Surprises Visitor,” The New York Times, August 17, 1958, 29.  
51 Underwood, “Yugoslav Laxity Surprises Visitor,” 30.  
52 Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 3 
53  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 3. 
54  “Yugoslavia finds ads are a capitalistic ‘must’ even in a Communist nation,” Printer’s Ink, October 31, 1959, 
2, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 2, Folder 4, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison. 
55 For more on this issue, see Patrick Patterson, Bought and Sold: Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist 
Yugoslavia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011).  
56  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 5. 
57  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 5. 
58  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 3. 
59  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 9. 
60  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 7. 



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workers’ self-management. For Wittner and Gordon, this “complete break from the Soviet 
version of Communism” allowed for the creation of markets and competition in 
Yugoslavia.61 Velimir Kovacic, manager of the advertising agency, Ozeha, agreed with 
Wittner and Gordon, writing that though “living with workers’ councils … hasn’t always 
been easy,” it has increased the “interest in the processes of advertising, publicity, and sales 
promotion.”62  

Conclusion 
Ultimately, in their final report, representatives from the trade mission presented 
Yugoslavia’s tourism industry as suffering mainly from an image problem. The largest 
obstacle that this “Western-facing” country came up against was the popular image they 
possessed in the United States and in the West at large. Despite Yugoslavia’s developing 
consumer culture and growing advertisement industry, Americans, by and large, saw 
Yugoslavia as “behind the Iron Curtain.”63 Members of the Department of Commerce sought 
to solve this problem by creating “a greater understanding” between citizens of the United 
States and of Yugoslavia.64 The answer to these problems lied in the creation of a new 
“mind picture of today’s Yugoslavia,” a country that, “although Communist in ideology, has 
dedicated itself to sharing the American traditions of independence and friendliness with 
other peoples.”65 To achieve this goal, the trade mission laid out a series of steps for 
Yugoslavia to take, from the rehabilitation of existing hotels to the establishment of a 
ground floor tourist office in New York City.66 These recommendations were not 
unexpected or out of the ordinary. As historian Igor Tchoukarine writes, “the increasingly 
interconnected world of tourism favoured the creation of networks and spaces,” which is 
reflected in the emphasis on solidifying ties between American and Yugoslav business 
ventures.67 These networks and spaces were important to the members of the 1958 U. S. 
trade mission and were an integral part of technocratic internationalism. Professional 
contacts between publishers in the United States and Yugoslavia, such as those between 
Interpublic and Gotham, serve as just one example of a broader trend. Personal contacts, 
such as the relationship between Wittner and Popovic, highlight the sometimes politically 
fraught nature of international development and trade projects between socialist and 
nonsocialist nations during the Cold War. 
 
Furthermore, the 1958 US trade mission to Yugoslavia enriches understandings about the 
role of technical expertise and information exchange in the United States’ policy towards 
Yugoslavia. The trade mission accomplished several of its goals through the establishment 
of professional ties between advertising agents and industrialists in Yugoslavia and the 
United States and personal connections between local Yugoslavs and private American 

 
61  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 9-10. 
62  Gordon and Wittner, “Two Americans Look at Economic Propaganda in a Communist Country,” 10. 
63 “Report: The 1958 United States Trade Mission to Yugoslavia, August 18-September 26, 1958,” United 
States Department of Commerce, 1958, 9, Fred Wittner Papers, Box 3, Folder 4, Wisconsin Historical Society, 
Madison.  
64 “Report: The 1958 United States Trade Mission to Yugoslavia,” 1.  
65 “Report: The 1958 United States Trade Mission to Yugoslavia,” 2. 
66 “Report: The 1958 United States Trade Mission to Yugoslavia,” 9. 
67 Tchoukarine, “Playing the tourism card,” 166.  



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citizens. Trade fairs, as well as exhibitions and production displays, were also reaffirmed as 
an important vehicle for the transnational circulation of expertise and information. As 
explored in this article, the trade mission, and especially the experience of Fred Wittner, 
provides insights into the changing nature of US-Yugoslav relationship and showcases the 
oftentimes personal and political nature of international trade and information exchange 
during the Cold War. 

 


