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Funeral for Face. There is no real evidence that Tito is going to fall into the trap set for him by his old comrades. In fact, the Soviet Communists, by making a number of concessions to him, made his visit to Yalta seem highly successful. In Hungary, the Communists ordered the disinterment and state reburial of former Foreign Minister Laszlo Rajk and three other top-ranking Communists who were all hanged seven years ago as Titoists. The Hungarian state Cabinet and some 200,000 Hungarians marching behind the black coffins were, in effect, a tribute to Tito's new importance in that country. A delegation from the Hungarian Communist Party, led by Erno Gero himself, prepared to pay court to Belgrade. A delegation from the Italian party, the most powerful outside the Iron Curtain, was already on Tito's doorstep. Rumania was sending a delegation, and also the French Communist Party, hitherto cool towards the Yugoslavs. Pravda reported that differences between the Yugoslav and Soviet Communist Parties had "considerably lessened" and were "continuing to diminish."
Cautious not to read too much into these "face" maneuvers, Western experts were of no mind to write off Marshal Tito as a son returned to the tight Red fold. In Washington, Secretary of State Dulles said he had no reason to think that Tito had changed his policy, which was "that the now satellite countries should have a greater measure of independence." To get at the truth of Tito's position, virtually every Western and Communist diplomat in Belgrade (including U.S. Ambassador James W. Riddleberger, back in Belgrade from vacation) was lined up for official interviews with the Yugoslav President. Tito, for the moment at least, was letting them twiddle their thumbs and—as he perhaps was doing too—wonder just what it is all about.