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FDR as a strategic analyst of the Balkans

I was reading Robert Sherwood’s Roosevelt and Hopkins, and was struck that in March 1943, President Roosevelt made a prescient observation about the future of Yugoslavia. Harry Hopkins, his close aide, quotes him as saying in a meeting with Anthony Eden that, "the Croats and Serbs had nothing in common and that it is ridiculous ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Wikimedia
Wikimedia
Wikimedia

I was reading Robert Sherwood's Roosevelt and Hopkins, and was struck that in March 1943, President Roosevelt made a prescient observation about the future of Yugoslavia. Harry Hopkins, his close aide, quotes him as saying in a meeting with Anthony Eden that, "the Croats and Serbs had nothing in common and that it is ridiculous to try to force two such antagonistic people to live together under one government."

I was reading Robert Sherwood’s Roosevelt and Hopkins, and was struck that in March 1943, President Roosevelt made a prescient observation about the future of Yugoslavia. Harry Hopkins, his close aide, quotes him as saying in a meeting with Anthony Eden that, "the Croats and Serbs had nothing in common and that it is ridiculous to try to force two such antagonistic people to live together under one government."

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

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