Mira Radielovic Ricardel
Mira Radielovic Ricardel
CNN and WSJ reports that the office of US First Lady Melania Trump is gunning for Mira Radielovic Ricardel, the Deputy National Security Adviser who happens to be the daughter of an Ustasha fascist.

The Wall Street Journal claims that the sparring was not just with the East Wing but directly with the First Lady herself. Some reports say Ricardel has already been sacked, others say she has time before she packs.

Reasons given appear not to be related to historic grievances in the former Yugoslavia but regarding security arrangements including seating and costs for a recent trip to Africa. However, Melania may also have a feel for who she can trust among key staff at the White House. Ricardel is described as ideologically driven and "obstinate".

This explosive development is especially intriguing towards ex-YU observers since Ricardel's father was an ex-YU Ustasha fascist. Melania Trump's father was a Slovene communist in Yugoslavia.

Born Mira P. Radielovic, she grew up in Pasadena, California, and spoke Croatian at home. Her father Petar Radielovic was part of the notorious pro-Nazi Ustasha which committed genocide during WW2 upon hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma. He narrowly escaped the Bleiburg massacre, when the various losing sides fled at the end of the war towards Austria. During the trek, tens of thousands were picked off and killed by the victorious Yugoslav partisans.

Petar Radielovic eventually left Yugoslavia in 1954 and settled in America in 1956. Mira would be born four years later.

Many have credited Mira Ricardel with a profound role in US Foreign Policy towards Bosnia from the 90s. (Her father was born in Breza, Bosnia and Herzegovina.)

Writing for the Weekly Standard, Matthew Rees denies that Ricardel exhibits any pro-Croatian bias arguing. Instead under her advice, Dole showed a hard line attitude against Serbs leadership and a supportive position towards Muslims and Albanians. That despite Ricardel receiving an Award for Excellence in Politics from the National Federation of Croatian Americans.

Julia Gorin writing in the Huffington Post takes a different position. She says Mira's father Petar Radielovic called Croatian Fuehrer Ante Pavelic "the greatest man in Croatian history. In 1985 he defended Andrija Artukovic, "the Himmler of the Balkans" at his L.A. trial. Artukovic had said, "Kill all Serbs and Jews including children so that not even the seeds of the beasts are left."

Mira Radielovic Ricardel "helped frame a 1995 Senate bill lifting the U.S. arms embargo against Croatia and Bosnia, and even advocated for the Albanian cause against the Serbs."