In 1919, Vatra, a pan-Albanian association functioning as something of a shadow Albanian government in the U.S., made an unprecedented request to Secretary of State Robert Lansing: Albania should become an American protectorate. Just three months later, at the Paris Peace Conference, President Woodrow Wilson rejected the Secret Treaty of London, which would have effectively erased Albania from the map as an independent state. Thereafter, in the autumn of 1946, Albania issued an ultimatum to the U.S. to withdraw its diplomatic mission, forcing its members to flee under the protection of American warships. For the next 50 years, the U.S. was branded Albania’s greatest and most dangerous enemy by the communist regime. Yet, through it all, two generations of Albanians held onto the hope that one day ‘the Americans would come to liberate the country from communism’. In 1991, Albania and the U.S. re-established diplomatic ties and today Albania is perhaps the most pro-American country in the world, as well as being the only aspiring EU member with near-unanimous support for membership.