Yugoslavia: Policy of Pardon

Of all his homebred critics, Yugo slavia's Marshal Tito has known few with the prickly persistence of Milovan Djilas, his onetime Vice President, close friend and confidant. Djilas has been sniping at Communist repression since the early 1950s, and for his efforts he has spent 81 of the last ten years in Yugoslavia's dank Sremska Mitrovica prison, where he wrote the major part of two blistering books, The New Class and Conversations with Stalin, which caused something of a sensation when they were published in the West. Last week Tito granted Djilas a pardon, and the writer was free once again. For how long was anyone's guess.

In exchange for his freedom, Bel grade sources say, Djilas promised "not to make trouble" for Tito. He will keep away from Western correspondents "as much as possible" and perhaps even go into hiding for a while. But will he give up his political writing? "His life is politics," a Djilas friend once commented. "You might as well ask him to stop breathing."

Djilas' pardon was part of a new forgive-and-forget policy that the Yugoslav President suddenly seems to be favoring. Last month Tito also pardoned another former Vice President, Aleksandar Ranković, who, as the country's security chief, had not only plotted an anti-Tito conspiracy, but actually went so far as to bug Tito's home and office.