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Auction: 16043 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 102

Documents
Belgrade Embassy Archive
1946-47 an archive from the Information Department being duplicated copies of the B.B.C. 8 o'clock News Bulletin and the Belgrade Press Summary. The Majority being circulated to either Mr. Buehler or to Mr. Kenneth Syers both at Vlajkoviceva Ulica.



Much of the B.B.C. reporting relates to Palestine; the Jewish migration, terrorists and the British Army. The Paris Conference with many references to Ernest Bevin, De Gaulle, Molotov, Stalin and other national leaders of the day.



The summaries of the Belgrade Press are taken from "Borba"; "Politika" and "Glas", again with much on the Paris Conference; events in Yugoslavia; Tito; the Balkan States; Turkey; Italy and Ethiopia; Greece, and the religious strife in India following independence.



A remarkable and unique archive covering the period 14th August to 30th September 1946 and 22nd February to 9th April 1947.


The Paris Peace Conference 1946-47 was established to draw up the Peace Treaties between the various warring nations following the end of the 2nd World War.



M. Jean Buehler was a Swiss journalist, correspondent of the "Gazette de Lausanne" and the "Tribune" of Geneva. He was expelled from Yugoslavia in January 1946 for attempting to leave Belgrade for the Provinces without the permission of the Ministry of Information.



Kenneth Syers (suspected Russian Spy) was an M16 Agent operating in Yugoslavia during the War. He came under suspicion in 1945 because of his left wing views and contacts. Kim Philby, the infamous M16 Russian Spy, intervened to protect him, suggesting that he had simply been cultivating contacts who would be useful to him in the journalistic career he hoped to pursue once he left the service. Questions were asked in Parliament in March/April 1950 concerning the Communist Party activities in Yugoslavia by Syers and others, including Peter Wright, military attaché at Belgrade in 1947. Lord Vansittart in April 1950 (Hansard) referred to Syers as "the daisy of the bunch", who at the beginning of the War was Secretary of the Oxford Regional Committee for Education of His Majesty's Forces. Servicemen complained that they were only getting communist "stuff" and communist lectures. The suspicions led to his dismissal from the service in 1945. Syers became the eastern correspondent, based in Belgrade, for the liberal leaning News Chronicle.



Considering Syers' questionable loyalty and communist sympathies and his close involvement with Kim Philby and almost certainly with Burgess & Maclean; it is most surprising that the British Embassy were continuing to supply him with their Daily News Service at this period.

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Estimate
£500 to £600