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execute that political programme." In the face of all the above, he ultimately announced to Mackenzie King in a private conversation at his house that he would resign. He asked the Prime Minister to find him "whatever wartime job there was available in Canada." But the latter tried to persuade him to remain in his position.75 Cankar later changed his mind, obviously also on Mackenzie King’s advice. On 2 January 1943 Jovanović reconstructed the Government, after the removal of Ninčić and other Ministers involved in open disputes over Fotić in the US: Jevtić, Kosanović, Marković, Snoj, and Čubrilović.76 Fotić himself, the generator of disputes, remained in his position. On 16 January 1943 Cankar sent a note to the State Undersecretary, Norman A. Robertson, explaining that the Government reconstruction was a necessary step towards transcending the disparities between Mihailović and the Partisans. He alerted his Canadian colleague to the escalating attacks in some newspapers of the North American Yugoslavs against Mihailović. But he dismissed as "absurd" all allegations that the latter accepted Italian liaison officers in his army and fled to the forest.77 On 18 January Cankar also warned Jovanović of the Communist propaganda offensive in newspapers, depriving the Government of its "political capital, which was immense at the onset of the resistance." Cankar called on Jovanović to make "every possible effort to prevent coordination of military forces in the state," which was apparently also demanded by high-ranking officials from the Canadian Foreign Ministry. In addition, the Government should draw up an unequivocal declaration to appease the American public opinion.78 In a letter that followed a few days later, Cankar additionally warned Jovanović that the anti-Mihailović agitation was also spreading into non-Communist circles, which might have "fatal consequences."79 There are no Jovanović’s answers to be found in Cankar’s legacy. Perhaps the Prime Minister did not consider it necessary to reply to the Envoy’s letters because he was preoccupied with other concerns. Opposition to the declaration on the agreement among the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which Cankar deemed urgent, came not only from the Greater Serbian leaders but also from the usually moderate Grol.80 As for the newspaper war in the US, another problem of which Cankar warned Jovanović, the score settling under Srbobran continued. On 26 January 1943 Cankar sent Krek another collection of newspaper
75
77 78 79 80 76
ARS, PCIC, fascicle 6, Cankar’s letter to Krek, 19 November 1942. Krizman, Jugoslavenske vlade, 94. NAC, WLMKF, MG26 J1, vol. 338, Cankar’s note to Robertson, 16 January 1942. ARS, PCIC, fascicle 6, Cankar’s letter to Jovanović, 18 January 1943. ARS, PCIC, fascicle 6, Cankar’s letter to Jovanović, 22 January 1943. ARS, PCIC, fascicle 6, Krek’s letter to Cankar, 17 January 1943.
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