The Shepherd without Sheep. Dr Ivan Šubašić and the OSS Shepherd Project

Abstract

This paper, based almost entirely on the OSS New York Office's Secret Intelligence (SI) files, declassified only in l986, deals with the activities and affiliation of Dr Ivan Šubašić, the former Governor of Croatia and the last Prime Minister of the Yugoslav Royal Government in Exile in London, with the OSS. The original Penetration of Yugoslavia Project of September 1943, which was intended to win the Croat Home Guards (Domobrans) over to the side of the Allies to fight together with Tito's Partisans against the German invaders, was not implemented. Since 1942, Dr Ivan Šubašić kept in close touch with the OSS and in August 1943 he formally joined this intelligence service. From 17 May 1944 to 15 February 1945 a series of cables, named the Ivan Cables and later the Shepherd Cables Series #2, provides very important political information on the activities of the Prime Minister, Dr Ivan Šubašić, and King Peter II of Yugoslavia, their relations with the British, and the negotiations with Marshal Tito. This intelligence was outside the scope of the regular diplomatic activities of the US Embassy in London, and any leakage would have seriously jeopardized British-American relations.