Office of the Historian

345. Memorandum of Conversation0

Washington, June 3, 1963.

SUBJECT

  • Call of Mr. Papaligouras, Greek Minister of Coordination, on the President

PARTICIPANTS

  • The President
  • Mr. Phillips Talbot
  • Mr. Robert W. Komer
  • H.E. Alexander A. Matsas
  • Mr. Panagiotis Papaligouras

The President indicated to Papaligouras that we don’t want to push Greek military expenditures to the point where it takes away from economic development. The President said that the threat is always there but he doesn’t anticipate any major attack on Greece or generally. DeGaulle might say that the Americans couldn’t be trusted to defend Europe but Khrushchev doesn’t know this and can’t afford to take the risk. The President was aware of Greek concerns over the Bulgar threat but said the Soviets won’t unleash the Bulgars ever if they were stronger than at present (the major danger in Greece, as in Italy, is internal). The President said Greece should concentrate on internal growth. Let’s not have a Communist resurgence in Greece as in Italy (Papaligouras indicated he fully understood the President’s views but did not regard them as incompatible with his own proposed policy of keeping the army at the present level and keeping the defense budget at a level which would allow for only a small annual growth, less than the increase in GNP. Papaligouras summarized Greek defense needs as being hardware, plus $10 million in military consumables, plus commercial credits (from Europe), plus around $20 million in externally generated resources comparable to the $23 million which Greece got last year. Papaligouras said that Caramanlis had asked him to appeal to the President personally to find ways and means of helping the Greek military budget as we had in 1963. Papaligouras also expressed interest in U.S. support of a smooth transition from a state of dependency to economic self-sufficiency on Greece’s part. He hoped we could ease this transition via further program loans and P.L. 480.

The President stated that we would take a look at all of the Greek proposals and he asked that they be brought to his personal attention (the President did not however make any commitment whatsoever on any specific Greek request).

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL Gr–US. Secret. Drafted by Komer.↩