Evening star., 1947-03-16

to personalities. State Department
career men who backed the Roose-
welt policy have been convinced by
the course of events that it simply
won't work. Once they were loathe
to believe that Moscow would give
large-scale support to Communist
groups fighting to set up minority
relationships in the face of such
pledges as made at Yalta. Re-
Iluctantly, they have changed their
minds in view of what actually has
happened in Greece and several
other countries.
Greece has been kept in turmoil
by armed rebel bands. American
officials are convinced that the rebel
activities are CommuIfist-controlled
and part of master plan to sepa-
rate Macedonia from Greece and
make all Greece subservient to
Russia.
The Greek civil strife has long
history. Indications of Moscow in
terest in keeping it stirred up goes
back at least to the period when
Nazi occupation forces were being
driven out of the country.
There was fertile ground for Com
munist operations in Greece. King
George II was disliked for authoriz-
ing establishment of the Metaxas
dictatorship IN 1886. Maintained
until the German invasion in 1941.
this dictatorship was cordially hated
by the mass of the Greek people.
During the German occupation,
the Communist dominated EAM
(National Liberation 'FRONT.', with
it's military arm, the ELIAS (Na-
tional Popular Liberation Army be-
came the most effective resistance
organization. Its chief rival was
EDES (National Democratic Greek
League), headed by Gen. zervas
with strong British support. The
British also aided EAM, which at
tracted wide popular following de-
spite its Communist leadership.
Unity Government.
King Georges government-in-
exile rejected for a long time EAM
demands for representation of re-
sistance groups in the cabinet and
for a pledge that the King would
not return to the country before
plebiscite was held. There was an
abortive attempt to bring the royal
government and the resistance
groups together in a national
unity front in the fall of 1943. 1t
was only on September 2, 1914, on
the eve of the liberation of Greece,
that EAM representatives finally
were sworn into a national unity
government.
A few weeks later, with the Ger
mans evacuating the country, the
new unity government went into
Greece with British occupation
forces. It was agreed that all guer-
rilla forces in Greece should be put
under the Greek government, which
then placed them under orders Of
the British.
EAM-ELAS forces exercised &C
tual control over much Of the coun-
try as the Germans left.
Iofnrn tho Eharo-
ton an incident occurred which
may have been significant. The
Red Army had token force at
Bari, Italy, operating with British
American air forces engaged in fer
rying supplies by air to resistance
forces in the Balkans. The Russian
flyers were supposed to operate un-
der co-ordinating orders of British
officers. One day Soviet plane
took off on what had been cleared
as routine training fight. Ac-
tually, some Russian officers were
dropped at EAM headquarters.
They remained several days. Their
mission, undertaken secretly in de-
fiance of agreement for co-ordinat-
ing all such operations with the
British, never was explained salts
factorily. Some have wondered If
postliberation EAM tactics were
charted then.
Churchill Intervenes.
Bloody civil war broke out In
Greece early in December, 1914.
Dispute over procedure to be fol-
lowed in disbanding the resistance
forces led to resignation of the EAM
representatives in the government
on December l. An EAM-ELAS
demonstration in Athens December
was fired on by police. More-than
score were killed and more thsn
a hundred wounded.
Winston Churchill, then British
Prime Minister, charged in the
House of Commons two days later
that there had been "an attempt
to impose by violence a Communist
dictatorship without the people be-
ing able to express their wishes"
He pledged the British Army would
be used to maintain law and order
until the Greek people were in po-
sition to decide their form Of gov
ernment for themselves. Mr..
Churchill also reaffirmed then that
whether the Greeks wanted mon
archy or republic, government OF
the right or left, was for them to
decide.
The United States Government
was keeping "hands of" at that
time. Although the occupation
force for Greece had gone out from
Allied Force headquarters in Italy
it was entirely British. Only about
80 American officers were attached
to the British forces, for the sole
duty of assisting in administering
the pre-UNRRA civilian relief pro-
gram in Greece.
The American aloofness was erl-