When the conflict became public in 1948, Stalin embarked upon a propaganda campaign against Tito. The Soviet allies blockaded their borders with Yugoslavia; there were 7,877 border incidents. By 1953, Soviet or Soviet-backed incursions had resulted in the killing of 27 Yugoslav security personnel. It is not clear whether the USSR planned any military intervention against Yugoslavia after the split. Hungarian Major General Béla Király, who defected to the United States in 1956, claimed that there were such plans, but recent research has concluded his claims were false. It is also possible Stalin was dissuaded from intervening by the United States's response to the outbreak of the Korean War. Yugoslavs believed that Soviet invasion was likely or imminent and made defensive plans accordingly. A message Stalin sent to Czechoslovak President Klement Gottwald shortly after the June 1948 Cominform meeting suggests that Stalin's objective was to isolate Yugoslavia—thereby causing its decline—instead of toppling Tito.