Edvard Kardelj

Edvard Kardelj (27 January 1910 – 10 February 1979) was a Slovenian-Yugoslavian journalist, and one of the leading members of the Communist Party of Slovenia before World War II. During the war he was one of the leaders of the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People and a Slovene Partisan, and after the war a federal political leader in communist Yugoslavia. His offices included Depute Prime Minister (1946-1963) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1948-1953).

Edvard Kardelj in The Hot War
Foreign Minister Edvard Kardelj represented Yugoslavia, a nation which had remained neutral in World War III and thus had diplomatic relations with both the People's Republic of China and the United States of America. For this reason, Kardelj was sent to Philadelphia, the provisional American capital, to negotiate a peace between the two giants in 1952. Kardelj and President Harry Truman agreed to an arrangement of status quo ante bellum in Asia, and drank a toast of Yugoslav slivovitz, which Kardelj insisted was superior to the Hungarian variety, which he said tasted like paint thinner. Kardelj also took the occasion to praise Marshal Tito's policy equal-opportunity employment for all Yugoslav groups, in contrast to the Serb tyranny of the Monarchists, and the Croat tyranny of the Ustaše.