[handwritten: "summary complete to 68"]

[stamp: "9 JAN 1968"]

MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Security
Department of State

FROM: Deputy Director for Plans

SUBJECT: Dr. Krunoslav Stjepan DRAGANOVIC

1. Per verbal request of Mr. Ora Wilson of the Department of State, the following biographic information on Dr. Krunoslav Stjepan Draganovic has been prepared based on the information contained in the files of this agency. This information is provided for your internal use only.

A. Activities Prior to April 1941:

Krunoslav Stjepan DRAGANOVIC, aka Father DRAGANOVIC, aka Dr. Fabiano, one of four children of Petar DRAGANOVIC (the others being [illegible]), was born in Brcko, Bosnia [the rest of this paragraph is largely illegible]

Following the graduation from the seminary he was ordained a priest and served in Sarajevo from 1930 to 1932. During this period he came in direct contact with Dr. Ivan SARIC, the Catholic Archbishop of Bosnia, perhaps the most rabid opponent of the Orthodox Serbs and the Yugoslav Royal family (the KARADJORDJEVIC Family), which is of Serbian origin, and a vociferous champion of the Independent State of Greater Croatia (which would include all of Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina to the Drina River in the East, and also Slavonia and Srem, i.e., the lands North of the Sava River and South of the Danube River right up to the confluence of the Sava with the Danube at Belgrade). It was under the auspices of Archbishop SARIC that he was sent to Rome in 1932 to attend the Instituto Orientale Ponteficio where he majored in [illegible] and Balkan affairs. He obtained his Doctorate in 1935 and returned to Sarajevo, where he acted as secretary to Archbishop SARIC from 1935 through 1940. In February 1941 he was appointed teacher of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Zagreb, Croatia.

B. Activities from April 1941 to mid-1945:

There are conflicting reports regarding Subject's activities during the period from April 1941 to August 1943. According to some reports, shortly after the Independent State of Croatia was established in April 1941 by the late Ante PAVELIC, the leader of the Ustasha (a Croatian political organization), via the support and approval of Nazi Germany, Subject became a leading figure in the Office for Colonization, an office engaged in engaging the property of the Orthodox Serbs living in Bosnia, Hercegovina, the Lika area of Croatia (in which lived the majority of the Serbian minority of Croatia), Slavonia and Srem, and distributing said property to the Ustashas. Subject reportedly was in the habit of travelling in the above listed areas in the uniform of an Ustasha Colonel. He was also said to have been armed while in uniform. Other reports identify Subject as a member of a Committee that forcibly converted thousands of Serbians from the Serbian Orthodox to the Roman Catholic Church. (As a result of their opposition to such forcible conversions, several hundred thousand Serbs living on the territory of the Independent Croatian State reportedly died at the hands of the Ustasha and Domobran military forces during World War II, or more specifically, while the Independent Croatian State was in existence. This resulted in many Serbs, and even many Croats who were opposed to such inhuman methods, joining the Partisan guerrilla units to fight both the Germans and the Croat State, even though they were not in favor of Communism.) Since the end of World War II, many Serbs living outside Yugoslavia have accused Subject of being personally responsible for the deaths of over 10,000 Serbs from Croatia, killed by the Ustashas as a part of their drive to exterminate the Serbs living in Croatia. Subject has denied these charges, as well as the charge that he was Military Chaplain of the Domobran and Ustasha military units. (The Ustasha military units were elite unites, while the Domobran were the actual Armed Forces of the Croatian State.) According to his own statements, Subject was instrumental in setting up a Croat-Slovene Committee for the Relief of Slovene Refugees in Zagreb in the fall of 1941, and became President of the Committee.

Subject evidently became involved in mid-1943 in a feud with Eugen (aka [illegible]) KVATERNIK, a major figure in the Government of Croatia and a close associate of Poglavnik (leader) Ante PAVELIC, the head of the Croatian State. He called KVATERNIK "a madman and a lunatic." This resulted in his "being kicked upstairs," which is to say, in August 1943 he went to Italy to represent the Croatian Red Cross on a mission to secure the release from camps or otherwise help Yugoslav internees. His sponsor was Alojzije STEPINAC, the Archbishop of Zagreb. He returned to Zagreb at the end of 1943, but returned to Rome again in January 1944, and was still in Italy when the Croatian State collapsed in mid-1945 at about the same time as the war ended in Europe.

He continued to represent the Croatian Red Cross, but was also regarded as an unofficial Charge d'Affairs of the Croatian State at the Vatican. Thus when the Croatian State collapsed, he was in the ideal position to help the many Ustashas who fled Yugoslavia, and as Secretary of an organization known as the Confraternite Croata in Italy he issued Identity Documents with false names to many Croats, primarily Ustashas who were considered war criminals, and is the individual most responsible for making it possible for the Ustashas to emigrate oversees, primarily to Argentina, but also to Chile, Venezuela, Australia, Canada and even the United States. He is alleged to have provided even some German Nazi war criminals with false Identity Cards with false Croatian names, thus enabling them to emigrate from Europe and avoid standing trial in Germany for their war-time activities. Subject and his Croatian supporters claim that Subject assisted Serbs, Slovenes and other Yugoslavs as well as Croats, and deny that he had been motivated by any but charitable and compassionate reasons in this activity.

C. Activities from Mid-1945 to Date:

Subject's activities in Rome were conducted from the Ecclesiastical College of San Girolamo degli Illirici, 132 Via Tomacelli, Rome. The college is sponsored by the Vatican and was used by young Croatian Catholic priests as their home in Rome while pursuing various courses of study. It also become the sponsor of the San Girolamo Asylum for the Ustasha and other Croat emigres in Rome. Rector of the College of San Girolamo degli Illirici at the time was Monsignor Dr. Juraj MADJEREC, a close collaborator of Subject's in his activities on behalf of the Croats.

In 1946, Subject defended himself on the charges that he was an Ustasha by stating that if working for an Independent Croatia meant being an Ustasha, then "I am an Ustasha. However," he added, "I disassociate myself from all other attributes of the Ustashas." He is also known to have defended the late Ante PAVELIC on the grounds that PAVELIC organized the Ustasha Movement in 1929 (this is after the assassination of Stjepan RADIC, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, in the Yugoslav Parliament by a Montengrin, i.e. Serbian deputy), as a Croat answer to the Serbian Chetnik Movement, which Subject claims had been an instrument of Serbian oppression of the Croats. He also admits that he is a proponent of an Independent Greater Croatian State and that he supports the Pan-Danubian Federation composed of Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland (sometimes referred to as a "Cordon Sanitaire" between Western Europe and the Soviet Union, or even as the Catholic Outpost confronting the Godless Communists and the heretic Orthodox States.) And finally, Subject has claimed credit for helping in the release of over 10,000 Yugoslav internees in Italy during 1943, 1944 and early 1945.

In 1949, Subject went to Argentina in the company of the late Ante PAVELIC, but he returned to Rome shortly thereafter. In 1950 he was known to be using a Diplomatic Passport, issued to him by the Vatican. In August 1951 he went to Beirut, Lebanon on orders of Ante PAVELIC in an effort to convince Djafer KULENOVIC to accept the post of President of the Ustasha Government-in-Exile, which was constituted in Buenos Aires on 10 April 1951 (the tenth anniversary of the forming of the Independent Greater Croatian State in Zagreb on 10 April 1941.) Sometime in the 1950's he had a falling out with PAVELIC, and attempted to establish [illegible] relations with the late Vlatko MACEK, who inherited the leadership of the Croatian Peasant Party after the assassination of Stjepan RADIC, but was rebuffed by MACEK. Subject then organized a movement called the Croatian Independence Movement, which was intended to assemble all Croats outside Yugoslavia. Being in opposition both to the followers of the PAVELIC Ustasha Movement and the Croatian Peasant Party of Vlatko MACEK, this new movement appealed to only a fraction of the Croats but, as an individual, Subject nevertheless continues to enjoy a position of some importance among the Croats outside Yugoslavia.

Finally, in 1952 Subject became Secretary of the "Bratovatina Relief Association" with Headquarters in Rome. His close associate, Monsignor Dr. Juraj MADJEREC, with whom he organized the Association, became president.

Subject's political activities eventually became an embarrassment to the Vatican, and in October 1958, Monsignor Djuro KOKSA, Vice-Director of the College of San Girolamo, asked him to leave the College, on order of the Secretary of State of the Vatican. He then moved to an apartment at 28 Via Oslaria, Rome. In time he moved from Italy to Vienna, Austria, and became an Austrian citizen, and it was while living in Austria that he visited Trieste, from where he disappeared around mid-September 1967, leading the Croats to conclude that he had been kidnapped by the Yugoslavs and forcibly taken back to Yugoslavia. Throughout the post-war period the Yugoslav government had labeled Subject a war-criminal and has repeatedly requested the Italian and Austrian authorities that Subject be extradited to Yugoslavia so that he could be tried for his "war crime activities."

D. Intelligence Activities:

Subject has been accused of working for the Soviet Intelligence Service. He and his friends have disclaimed such activity, and claim that he is being slandered by the Serbs and by the Communist Regime in Yugoslavia, in order to discredit him and hamper his humanitarian work. There is no proof that he has ever worked for the Soviets or any Communist intelligence Service. There are, however, indications that he had worked for [censored] Intelligence Service. Whether or not he still works for [censored] is not known.

Subject also had contact with the United States Military Intelligence during the 1950's and early 1960's, but this association was terminated by the Military "with prejudice" in January 1962. (If you require additional details of this association, please address your inquiry to the Department of the Army.)

2. It may be of interest to note that while the Yugoslav Government has officially stated that Subject voluntarily requested in writing that he be permitted to return to Yugoslavia, and that such a letter has been read over the Yugoslav Radio and TV news programs, Subject himself has not been put on display by the Yugoslav authorities, even though they claim that he is living in Sarajevo and is free to move around awaiting an official decision on whether or not he will be tried by the Yugoslav Court for his war-time activities. Subject's brother Zvonimir is or was a bank clerk in Zagreb, and his sister Danica was a teacher in Sarajevo, while his other brother, Kresimir, was reported to have been living in the British Zone of Germany in 1947. Our files contain no information which could help resolve the question of whether Subject was kidnapped by the Yugoslavs or if he returned to Yugoslavia of his own accord.

Distribution:
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