Canadian Report on Yugoslav Recruiting Arrangements

S.F. "Saul" Rae of the Department of External Affairs and Canadian military liaison officers investigated the effectiveness of a Yugoslav recruitment mission in Windsor, Ontario. They judged that Colonel Dragutin Savić (spelled Savich or Savitch in the documents), a conspirator in the 1941 Yugoslav coup d’état, was “badly miscast in his present role as recruiting officer.” He was a Serbian nationalist rather than a believer in the Yugoslav ideal. Savić intensely disliked Croats and distrusted Slovenes, which narrowed the pool of potential recruits for special operations in the Balkans. The Canadians concluded that Savić “would be more useful blowing up bridges in Yugoslavia than recruiting a handful of Yugoslavs in Canada” (CDYS00014). This assessment was of considerable interest to BSC personnel and mutual “London friends” (CDYS00016).