Office of the Historian

868.00/10–1547

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Coordinator for Aid to Greece and Turkey (Wilds)

top secret
[Washington,] October 15, 1947.

Saturday morning Mr. Lovett and I discussed further the Griswold proposals concerning our military role in Greece.1

(1)
Griswold first proposes that we urge the British to provide planning and tactical advice. In the past they have refused and may again. If that is the case, Griswold believes the United States must provide it.
a.
If the British do it, we have a draft agreement between U.S. Army Group and the British Military Mission covering the relations between them and the Greek Government.
b.
If the United States agrees to offer operational advice, Griswold proposes that his instructions be modified for Livesay, and that we send 125 to 200 additional U.S. officers as a planning staff for Livesay and tactical observers with Greek forces.
(2)
Griswold again urges that should the British withdraw their forces in Greece, U.S. troops replace them.
In reviewing these matters Mr. Lovett made the following comments: [Page 368]
1.
The United States Mission should not replace the British Military Mission.
2.
United States combat forces cannot be sent to Greece under the existing law.
3.
After McGhee and Chamberlin return, he asked me to have the Army formulate their proposals on questions 1) and 2) and put them up to the National Security Council. We should take no action until after the decisions have come over to us from the President and until after the final vote in the General Assembly on the Greek border question.
4.
It is difficult to see a need for as many as 125 to 200 officers. Perhaps 25 or 30 could be quietly fed in to Livesay as observers.
Walter Wilds
  1. Mr. Wilds had prepared a briefing memorandum for Mr. Lovett on October 11 in which he noted that “The nettle in this problem is whether to give planning and operational advice to the Greek general staff and army.” The memorandum also stated that at the meeting with military officials on September 17 (see p. 344), Mr. Wilds had “urged that if possible our decisions with respect to giving operational advice be taken in terms of a prior position on the larger issue of sending U.S. troops to Greece.” (868.00/10–1147)↩