Upon handing this document to me, he said his Government had asked him
informally to stress the difficult position in which it finds itself.
The Government of Greece is fighting for the very life of Greece; the
struggle is desperate; the enemies of Greece know no restraint and do
not hesitate to resort to any tactics which might give them an
advantage. The Greek Government, on the other hand, is handicapped.
Greek officers are increasingly hesitant to take decisive actions of a
nature called for by the situation because of pressures brought to bear
upon them by the representatives to Greece of Great Britain and the
United States. The officials of Greece are losing confidence in
themselves and the officers of the Greek Army hesitate to give the
proper orders. The morale of the soldiers is suffering because they
believe that the guerrillas with whom they are fighting will in any
event be granted some kind of an amnesty and therefore will not have to
suffer for their crimes. The guerrillas, on the other hand, are
encouraged by the thought that if they win, they will have Greece; if
they lose, they will have an amnesty.
He said that it was hoped that the American Government would carefully
review the situation in which Greece finds itself and would issue
directives which would permit the Greek Government to take such measures
as it might feel necessary in order to save Greece without fear that the
officials who give the orders for the taking of such measures would be
subjected to censure by the British and American Governments.
He said that he would appreciate it if he could have the reaction of the
American government to the points made in the aide-mémoire after the Department had had an opportunity to
study that document.
[Annex]
The Greek Embassy to
the Department of State
secret
No. 3618
Aide-Mémoire
It becomes daily clearer that it is not simply an internal rebellion,
widely organized and systematically supported from outside, with
which Greece is confronted. The case is far different: Greece finds
herself in a veritable state of war, an undeclared war, which, in
its present phase, she is compelled to wage alone and unaided. The
war was initiated under the pretext of an ideological crusade on
behalf of the allegedly oppressed sections of the population; today
it clearly appears, and is avowed, to be an aggressive operation,
openly aimed at the suppression of Greece’s independence.
The Soviet Union’s attitude during the Moscow Conference, together
with that of the Slav bloc in general toward the Security Council
and the Commission of Investigation, establishes certain facts: (1)
The new orientation given to American policy in the Eastern
Mediterranean through President Truman’s initiative in Greece and
Turkey has not proved a restraining influence upon Soviet
aggressiveness, such as might have been anticipated from the
experience of analogous circumstances, in Argentine [Azerbaijan?] and Iran in 1946; (2) on the
contrary, Soviet policy in spite of the Truman Doctrine has been of
a highly provocative order in the Eastern European sector, as is
shown by events in Hungary, by the indications of increased pressure
against Turkey and intensified maneuvering in Arab countries, and
above all, by the Soviet Union’s undisguised designs against the
very existence of Greece as an independent state. Those designs are
made manifest by the systematic campaign of abuse against Greece’s
representatives in Moscow and Belgrade, by the undermining of
Greece’s position in every quarter, and most of all, by the
intensification of the war on her northern frontiers, where the
attacks recently launched against Florina and Kilkis have shown that
the guerrilla activities have now been transformed into full-scale
modern warfare, in which not only are the most up-to-date equipment
and material made available to the insurgent forces but, as is
commonly reported, an international brigade is making its way to the
front-line by way of Yugoslavia and Albania.
In spite of the gravity of the situation Greece’s efforts still
remain unsupported; indeed those efforts are constantly being
hampered. It is not merely a question of the long interval between
the virtual cessation of British and the arrival of American aid.
Almost every day the
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Greek
Government receives insistent representations from the United States
or British Governments to the effect that it should follow a certain
line of action, avoiding this measure or adopting that. The result
of these representations can only be to discourage those who are
fighting for their country’s independence and to embolden Greece’s
enemies, whose leaders are at work, actively and with impunity, in
the heart of Athens.
To cite but a few instances: Urgent requests are made to the Greek
Government to suspend the execution of traitors at the very moment
when a parallel recommendation is made for the execution of members
of the Eight who have engaged in vendetta activities. At other times
intervention takes the form of a request for a fresh amnesty or—as
in recent weeks—of insistent pressure against the implementing of a
decision to raise the strength of the Gendarmerie by 6,000 men and that of the Army by 35,000,
though an assurance had been given that nothing would be done
without the assent of the United States Government.
The Greek Government has repeatedly drawn attention to the impending
perils, only to receive the reply that its reports concerning
growing military concentrations in Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria
are either exaggerated or unfounded, although there is accumulating
proof that there is substance to these reports; while, to counter
its natural anxiety, recommendations are made for “greater patience
and optimism”.
In these circumstances the Greek Government is compelled to continue
its efforts under the double handicap of inadequate means and a
disturbed public opinion; it faces a foe who is able to act
officially and without hindrance through the Communist party.
Conversely, the Government is precluded, by reason of the
afore-mentioned counsels, from adopting even such measures as have
already been authorized in the great democratic countries such as
the United States.
It will readily be appreciated that under such conditions the Greek
Government is unable to foresee how long the situation can be kept
under control or how long a collapse of the army’s morale can be
averted. The Government’s endeavors in both these directions are
based upon the expectation that the Security Council will take
effective steps to safeguard Greece’s independence. Should those
steps prove inadequate, however, and Greece remain unaided, her
Allies will bear sole responsibility for future events which will
not be confined to the Eastern Mediterranean alone and to the loss
of Greece’s independence but will involve the complete disturbance
of the present political balance, to the advantage of the Slav
bloc.
It may be stressed in this connection that a disaster in the Near
East may arise in either of two ways: (a) The
present offensive against
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Greece may have as its exclusive purpose the subordination of Greece
to a unified Balkan bloc, or (b) The Soviet
attitude toward Greece constitutes a factor of negotiation and
bargaining in the Soviet policy toward the United States. In either
eventuality the consequences of Greece’s destruction would be
equally dire, and for that reason it is imperative that her Allies
should make a single uniform approach to the Greek problem.
Furthermore, it is hardly credible that, in disregard of the
experience of the years 1935–39 and 1944–45, the situation could be
allowed—through dilatoriness, excessive optimism or a policy of
appeasement envisaging a reversal of Soviet policy—to develop into a
fresh disaster, of which the eclipse of Greece would be but the
opening phase.
But were such an event to materialize, it could not at any rate be
argued that the Greek Government had failed to give timely
warning.
Washington,
June 7,
1947.
