One thing is clear to everyone – that you work for peaceful purposes. We have no pretensions to create something that would serve the devastation and destruction of human life.
President Josip Broz Tito to Vinča scientists upon the inauguration of the first Yugoslav nuclear reactor, 17 May 1958
Yugoslavia was a crucial player in the Cold War confrontations between the Soviet Union and the United States in Europe, and even beyond. This southeastern European country situated on the Balkan peninsula, with a population of around 19 million by the late 1950s, mattered very little to the two superpowers before 1948. Then, in June, Stalin expelled the Yugoslav Communist Party (YCP) from the Cominform, accusing it of disloyalty to Marxist and Leninist ideals. In fact, as Jeronim Perović assessed, it was Tito’s expansionist ambitions concerning Greece, Bulgaria and Albania that irritated the Soviet dictator and caused the Soviet–Yugoslav impasse. Due to Soviet economic sanctions, and faced wit...