GREECE BROUGHT UP TO DATE
SEDGWICK, A. C.
Greece Brought Up to Date . . . . By A. C. Sedgwick By a. C. SEDGWICK ATHENS. "fvWING TO the systematic II devastation of Greece, the decimation and debilitation of her people, and...
...Stanley Ryan, the Commissions' press officer, and Gustav Gottesman, its principal deputy secretary, were among several who were swayed by communism and determined to impair the credit of the Greek cause...
...The weakening of those national forces which were-demanding a free Greece, the consequent mutiny of the Hellenic fleet in Alexandria and of the Greek brigades in the desert, the challenging of the Greek Government in Cairo, and the spread of the illusion in duped liberal minds that the issue was simple...
...The Israeli Federation of Labor will laava the Communist World Federation of Trade Unions next month but will remain "neutral...
...Kaempffert and Laurence, presented Dr...
...Meanwhile British funds, generously granted to sustain Greece, were utterly exhausted...
...tanks...
...Repeatedly, U.S...
...The Western public therefore got a bum steer which, to this day, has not been corrected...
...a a Louis Dolivet, editor of United Nations World, who last migrated from France, has been refused U. S. citizenship after many hearings before the immigration authorities...
...Best polish it up...
...The mission found the elections fair, and by use of sampling methods assessed the political abstentionists at 9.3 per cent...
...Movement now poleon Ze.fasRightist pis...
...Thus began the Truman Doctrine...
...The answer saved Greece...
...The issue as generally reported by American correspondents was, again, that on one side were the "anti-fascists" and "liberals," and on (he other, the "Monarcho-Fascists," "collaborators," and also, this time, the British...
...Doganis admitted his relations with Greek Communism — through the Daily Worker, * ? * THE DOGANIS case is apposite...
...Monarcho-Fascists" knew this...
...The Greek Government's historic letter was more than a manifesto of woe...
...colleagues...
...He continued: "One wonders what the Compass was trying to do—entertain its readers, team them of what may happen if they die under mysterious circumstances, or perhaps just make neurotics of them so they will send in their problems to the psychologist who gives advice to troubled people in the back pages of the neivspapers...
...That such complicated situations are not untypical are situations ara not untypical of Greece is dramatically lllustrsled by A. C. Sedgwick, who A C. Sedgwick, who preeenie us this wsek with one of the moat Informative artlclee on that utlve ar tic lee on that nation which we have aeen anywhere...
...Wall Street Journal, In response to a protest from the British lias "corrected" Ita bowdlarliatlon of the Allan Flanders Much Is British Labor Controlled...
...ELAS effectives crossed the northern borders to form the nucleus of a rebel force called the army of "Free Greece...
...So far, anyway...
...W»;/i the current labor shortage down under, this step will prove ineffective...
...Of course, the next day, the story was in the papers— with pictures yet...
...It was signed by Prime Minister Demitrius Maximos and Foreign Minister Constantine Tsaldaris...
...Greece, coveted by Russia, was now the main Mediterranean trysting-place for the world's fellow-travelers, and a stage for romantic ideological panfomime...
...In the April iasua of Foreign Affairs, David Dubinsky...
...Witnesses straight from Greece, including British officers, pleaded with the Middle East policymakers: "Stop giving,arms and gold to EAM-ELAS...
...It was only later, in London, that Mr...
...Ambassador Lincoln MacVeagh, dispatched to the.State Department sober and correct appraisals of the Greek situation...
...Many Greeks who reported soberly, and sometimes heavy-heartedly, that Greeks were swinging toward m o n a r ch y as the only apparent means of keeping the country out of Russian hands, were glibly classed as "reactionaries...
...The bloody struggle that followed might never have occurred had Washington then stated its position clearly...
...It was addressed to the President of the United States...
...What turn the Communist argument will take now remains to be seen...
...The Greek Communist front, under orders, abstained from voting...
...ing a free was mutiny orities Alexandrily a gades in lreeks Of the Gro only and the sganis duped lib...
...0 » John L. Lewis is expected to visit Wales this summer, probably July, to do some speech-making...
...That, too, was a fraud, said the Communists...
...Dixmude, would be leaving soon loaded with war equipment under the Mutual Aid Defense Pact...
...in other words, will not Join the International Confederation of Trade Unions...
...World War II was still raging...
...Later returns showed a sadly curtailed strength...
...In consequence, the King remained noncommittal on the British recommendation for several months...
...Russian-trained rebels started crossing the northern borders as early as August, 1945, to slaughter and pillage...
...a ing the ItropaZervas was the ELAS...
...American propaganda agencies not only fell for this line established by Britain, but developed it further...
...Red terror continued in the provinces...
...A year later, when the truth finally came out before a Salonika court and Polk was proved to have been a victim of a publicity-stunt murder by Cominform agents, the real facts were at best haif-told, and American opinion has still not been set right...
...on the other, the "progressive forces' of democracy," of "republicanism," and of the pure in heart...
...reek was simpl daily latter rea of reactior of collabo outsite and Gern the •progressi gnize of "repub went in heart...
...The mass murder and havoc wrought by this "Democratic Army" was set down as fiction, and all atrocities were attributed to the National Army, the "agents of American imperialism...
...signed in February, 1945, brought the "civil war" to an end...
...By tha way, there Is no myatary attached to tha Herbert Harris assignment on the magasina...
...Greece Brought Up to Date . . . . By A. C. Sedgwick By a. C. SEDGWICK ATHENS...
...They are not interested in fighting Italy or Germany...
...With few exceptions, British correspondents sided with their U.S...
...They are preparing for the big struggle to come — between communism and Western democracy...
...Liberal leader Sophocles Venizeloa has formed nlselos has formed a one-party cabinet which will lean heavily for support upon the r support upon the Right and which...
...The reason was simple: these officers were hostile to the EAM (Peoples Liberation Front) and the ELAS, its fighting arm...
...the eminent Nevuree...
...This was after the British had learned their lesson—that is, after thousands of British troops had been killed in December, 1944, in Athens, while fighting street-bystreet to liberate the capital from the very Communist elements that British policy had recently sustained...
...That was the childish reasoning...
...For the Kremlin knows that, once American interest vanishes, or is sufficiently vitiated, the frontiers between Greece and the Soviet satellites will disappear...
...Why introduce complications like the murder of nearly 60,000 Athenians, mostly workers, because they refused to comply with Communist orders...
...The first of these was that of George II, who made the fatal mistake of perpetuating the unpopular" Metaxas regime after the Greek victories over Mussolini, and inALTHOUGH GREECE'S THREE CENTERS THREE CENTER PARTIES together polled h majority of the votes in the Marcihe votes in the March 5 elections...
...The main talking point of the KKEEAM-FLAS was: "The Americans as well as the Russians are on our side...
...They were opposed by the KKE-EAMELAS...
...which It pubThe Whip...
...ower...
...Greece today, on the Cominform's doorstep, is the Greece of yesterday plus avoidable mistakes...
...Doganis to be "only a liberal...
...after thong as had been Both in Athens howstreet to runist the very 5 the British tained: d soThe issneartby Amernging again, the only "anti-fasc...
...In 1945 he published a book on published a book on Greece, Tell Sparta...
...Stabs at royal reputations, whispered libels about the German-born Queen's alleged Nazi affiliations, and all sorts of underhanded insinuations have become staple features N of Communist propaganda...
...He inquired for confirmation at an official agency, was told it was a big, whopping MILITARY secret and was asked please, forget it...
...Perhaps we have it all wrong...
...But the British authorities found Mr...
...In effect, repudiates the agreement reportedly eminent reportedly arrived at earlier with George Papandreou's Democratic Soclallats antocratic Sodallets and Nicholas Plaatlras National Center...
...Time* attorney Louis Loeb wrote a formal letter wh ch advised the Guild that "at no time will we accept any advertising on this...
...Americans are just beginning to know something about them, and to become aware of what cunning propaganda can accomplish...
...Albert Einstein with a beautiful cake by the St...
...Greece, purposely maligned, methodically castigated, continues to be held suspect by all too many people in the West...
...e o ft For his recent birthday party, the science editors of the New York Times, Messrs...
...Australia will not officially ban the Communist party but will refuse to allow unions with CP officials to be registered as unions...
...The greater part of the Greek armed forces—which had not rebelled on Communist instructions were automatically put down as "Monarcho-Fascist...
...Responsible Greek Army officers, older men, in many cases bitter opponents of the Metaxas regime, and Republican by persuasion, were regarded with suspicion by the British...
...The influential position which Britain had traditionally held in the Near and Middle East was assumed, with all its weight of responsibility, by the United States...
...Behold, it came to just about 9.3 per cent...
...Hence the bloodshed...
...It is a build-up for a primary Bght against a T-H Republican Congressman...
...The "MonarchoFascists" were herded into detention camps...
...The who tional form-ious...
...The "Monarcho" prong of the "Monarcho-Fascism" thrust was top valuable to be put aside...
...For British propaganda in the Middle East, refusing to recognize communism's real designs, went on encouraging it to assume power...
...Perhaps the Compass just has a premonition...
...If democratic forces don't start to realize that they are breathing in carbon monocide fumes from the engine of the mighty Soviet propaganda machine, then the day of democracy is done —not only in Greece hadHeard on the Left THE NEW YORK TIMES, which is facing a strike among its Newspaper Guild employees, rejected a paid advertisement from the union which sought to present the Xcts of the dispute to Times readers...
...The writer first heard the now common smear, "Monarcho-Fascist," from Theodore Doganis, a radio disseminator of Allied propaganda in Jerusalem, as early as the fall of 1941...
...Or the forced march of thousands more hostages...
...When the first results of the March 5, 1950, elections indicated a striking Communist success, it became fashionable to assert that the polling was fairly conducted, as indeed it had been...
...Regis chef the top layer of which had, in sugar icing, the most famous Einstein formulas and equations...
...Doganis was on the British payroll as a radio commentator...
...fvWING TO the systematic II devastation of Greece, the decimation and debilitation of her people, and the destruction of her economy through four invasions and protracted enemy occupation, as well as disturbances in the wake of war . .." Thus began a letter...
...deed after Metaxas' death...
...AND WHAT WERE the fruits of this policy of coddling communism...
...A Harvard grad...
...And, crowning horror: Britain is using U.S...
...Douglas Edwards, the new CBS Reviews the Pressman (taking Don Hollenbeck's place), did a murderous jeb on the Daily Compass recently for a series of revolting articles on the City Morgue, parts of tohich, said Edwards, "won't bear repeating at dinner time...
...His use of ihe Marxian dialectic, plus his constant exhortations to the "Left" to kill the "Right," made some Greeks who wanted neither tyranny, suspicious...
...The unstinting loyalty and affection since shown by the great majority of Greeks toward their new king, Paul I, and his queen, Frederika, has been supremely discomforting to the Communists...
...S is on was excus comrxian AND wortaof this po the nism...
...Roy Brewer and the Hollywood Film Council see in Flannary a possible Congressional voice for tha movia unions...
...writing about the ICFTU, s»ys: "No organisation dedicated to the struggle for human rights and social justice can be above the battle when freedom and peace ara ao gravely endangered...
...end formsr Associated i former Associated Press correepondenL Mr...
...The fiction of "rigging" became widely accepted...
...of courae...
...onetime CBS Berlin correspondent who authored Last Train Out of Berlin, is going to be a radio commentator again on a general news program on the Wast Coast, the cost to be underwritten by various unions...
...It is predictable...
...The complaining Greeks had spoken out of turn...
...Those few "MonarehoFascists" who took note of this were additionally smeared as "scaremongers...
...When the tiny British liberation forces arrived in Greece, their intention was not to put the King back — as falsely claimed — but to establish order in which the promised plebiscite could be held...
...Jr., embattled business manager of Local 3. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union...
...Thow a big strugpund, communist for racy...
...But the Communists, holding, as always, that they were in the great majority, turned savagely on the mission and denounced the elections as "rigged...
...This blunder still pays dividends to the Communists...
...Or the mass deaths from execution, starvation and cold on the roads leading to the North...
...In fhe Italian anc .French phssee of World War II...
...the on the o were cista," "copries...
...But now a new tyranny was gaining ground, under Communist influence, for the purpose of enslaving Greece by bringing it into the Soviet orbit...
...The 'democrats' don't want him back...
...Assistant Secretary of Labor Ralph Wright is now in the Middle East attending a strategy conference of all economic councillors and labor attaches in Cairo...
...Robert Benjamin of the Ernest Angell law firm has taken over the Alger Hiss appeal...
...but at the same time, in Salonika, where the UN mission held meetings, incredulity reigned supreme in the supposedly impartial secretariat of the UN Commission of Inquiry...
...These witnesses encountered deafness or indifference...
...But soon afterward, within occupied Greece there was discernible a change in the people's estimates of government...
...Metaxas, hateful as was his Rome-Berlin copycat tyranny, had imposed that tyranny to keep Greece free...
...Harry W. Flannery...
...Greek arnricers, rebelled obitter were autgimc, "Monarchasion, American by not only nple: lished by the further, front) had learr arm...
...THE VARKIZA AGREEMENT...
...Rebels trained on foreign soil, with bases across Greece's northern borders, were making incursions into Greek territory...
...The best reportorial talent was still employed in the crucial operational theaters in Europe and the Far East...
...These by deafness orbit for aid fors...
...The fortunes of this wartorn country were then at their lowest ebb...
...The term, "Monarcho-Fascist," had gained cur This Fascists" w the tion camps Witnessccuincluding nible with the ates makers: teful gold to Eaycat interested anny many...
...George Polk, CBS representative in Greece, was foully murdered in May, 1948...
...4 4 State Daparlmenl spokesmen have asked, informally, that anilTito Yugoslavs plaasa shut up for the duration...
...Somehow, the treachery was excused...
...the eminent New York Time foreign correspondent who has been covering Greece ion covering Greece and tha Near East since 1940...
...Generally, Greeks understand these methods...
...Few British or American correspondents of the "Greek civil war," however, had ever been to Greece previously...
...On the one hand, the latter reasoned, you had the forces of reaction, of "Monarcho-Fascism," of collaboration with the Italians and Germans...
...A former Russian diplomat, who broke with the Soviets several years ago, has become so unhappy (he's jobless, his wife is sick) that he's thinking about returning to the Soviet Union...
...Times advertising columns in the paat have frequently been open to management and labor groups during industrial disputes...
...At last a desultory inquiry was held...
...it's highly classified...
...THE OBJECTIVE of Communist propaganda in Greece is to impair and finally destroy American interest in that nation...
...A national plebiscite in September, 1946, also under international supervision, showed roughly 70 per cent in favor of the monarchy...
...Years went by before as much as a ripple of indignation appeared anywhere, except in "MonarchoFascist Greece," for the 28,000 children abducted for the purpose of bringing them up as communists...
...A. C. Sedgwick la...
...While fighting the Italians and the Germans, Zervas was repeatedly attacked by ELAS...
...Both organizations were posing as "liberal" and "democratic...
...It was a frank warning that Greece, as a bastion against communism, would crumble unless effective and early aid were forthcoming...
...No sooner was his body recovered from Salonika harbor than the usual myth was spread, namely, that he had been done in by agents of the "MonarchoFascist" Government because he was going to "spill the truth about Tsaldaris...
...Elections took place in March, 1946, under the supervision of an Allied mission boycotted by the Russians...
...Both had been carefully organized, however, by the KKE (Communist party of Greece) as indeed the KKE admitted in 1945...
...When Communist agents — who happened also to be trade unionists —were charged with treason and murder and tried by law and condemned to death, the world was told that they had been shot for being trade unionists and the rest of their biographies was purposely forgotten...
...It was written by Charles Yale Harrison, a New Leader alumnus...
...The Greek Liaison, headed by Alexander Kyrou, had all the facts about these invasionary expeditions;—facts now taken for granted by the United Nations...
...Tha next issue of the Reporter will carry the first real biographical piece on Harry Van Arsdale...
...These same rebels became the much romanticized "Democratic Army of Free*Greece...
...Dated March 3, 1947, the letter reflected pathos and dejection...
...The following April King George died, and with him the old conception of a "crowned democracy," and ancient mistrust...
...Requests for aid for the National Resistance Movement headed by General Napoleon Zervas were put down to Rightist predilection...
...Beset by communism, it possessed neither money nor strength to fight an effective struggle for survival...
...A certain labor columnist whose initials are Victor Riesel recently got a tip that the French warship...
...But President Roosevelt, visiting George II after Churchill, advised him "to get on your white horse and ride into Athens...
...time, the " gained currency...
...No notice was taken of them, or of any of the simple recommendations he made which might have prevented internecine strife, or quickly halted it...
...THE COMMUNISTS possess many means of eliminating roadblocks in their path—methods of eradicating Greece that have several times come within a hairsbreadth of realization...
...No sympathy of Communist or other manufacture, for the thousands killed and the hundreds of thousands rendered homeless and hopeless, was aroused anywhere but in "Monarcho-Fascist Greece...
...Sedgwick reported Ihe 1940-41 Greek-Itsliax 1940-41 Greek-Italian war for tha Timet, later accompanied Iha famed British Eighth Aro«d British Eighth Army on Its dssart campaign, and followed the Allies In fhe Italian all...
...Will Lawther will be a platform companion...
...The British want to put the King back...
...ELAS agreed to hand over its arms, but turned in only its antiquated arms and hid the rest for the "third round" to come...
...A YEAR EARLIER, at the time of the Teheran Conference, Winston Churchill (then passing through Cairo) calle4 on King George II of the Hellenes and told him that His Britannic Majesty's Government would not support his return to Athens after liberation until there had been a plebiscite...
...Later, Soviet tactics changed...
...American confusion and misunderstanding continued to accommodate the Com inform...
...It has been the express purpose of the Truman Doctrine to save that bastion, to counteract the attrition of Greece, day after day, under vigilant guidance...
Vol. 33 • April 1950 • No. 13
