At Batajnica military airfield near Belgrade early one morning last week occurred one of the strangest and least expected departures in recent political history. Like twins, in grey suits, trench coats and snap-brim hats, Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito and Russia's Communist Party Chief Nikita Khrushchev stepped smartly into a Russian Il-14. The plane took off without even any warm-up of its two engines. The destination was Yalta, the resort on Russia's Black Sea coast where the Allied leaders held their momentous war conference in 1945.
For four hours the departure was kept secret,...
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