Stalin’s Man in Belgrade
Teodoro Castro or Iosif Grigulevich? Costa Rica’s ambassador to Yugoslavia was a Soviet spy sent to kill Tito.
On the morning of 27 April 1953 Yugoslavia’s communist leader Josip Broz Tito received the Costa Rican diplomat Teodoro Castro in a simply furnished room at the White Palace in Belgrade.
Tito had split with Stalin and the Soviet Union in 1948, and the meeting with Castro was one more small step in a plan to forge new alliances across the globe and cement Yugoslavia’s status as a communist power independent from Moscow. The charming diplomat, in his late thirties, extolled Tito and hinted at rich trading opportunities: Costa Rica could sell Belgrade the best coffee and cocoa in the world, and in return it would buy cement and industrial machinery. The pair chatted in English, with a translator occasionally stepping in when Tito needed help with a word. Both men sucked at pipes with a cigarette tucked vertically into the end, Tito’s trademark smoking style, which his visitor aped out of respect.
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