Greece-Turkey

THE ATLANTIC REPORT

ON THE WORLD TODAY

BOTH as a government and as a people we demonstrate the most extraordinary capacity for surprise. The crisis over Greece has been on the horizon for at least two years. In the form it finally took, it was visible for several months before the President delivered his message to Congress.

The chronology is worth noting. In mid-January Paul Porter was sent to Athens as the head of an economic mission. Before he left he heard rumors the British might have to withdraw their economic assistance. The American Ambassador in Athens, Lincoln MacVeagh, had been sending back such reports for some time. MacVeagh was working in close collaboration with the British Ambassador, Sir C. J. Norton.

On February 22 the British Ambassador in Washington, Lord Inverchapel, asked for an appointment with the Secretary of State. On February 24 he informed Secretary George C. Marshall that British assistance would terminate on March 31, the end of the Greek fiscal year. The final shipment of UNRRA supplies was due to leave this country for Greece the first week in April. British troops will be withdrawn this summer.

The President delivered his message to Congress on March 12. Only nineteen days remained for action. Given the precarious condition of the Greek government, with a dollar balance of only $14,000,000 left for necessary imports, this was split-second timing.

United States or United Nations?

Perhaps the President planned it that way. But Senator Vandenberg and other Republicans responsible for putting it over did not think so. They were irritated by what they considered unnecessary delay and bungling, and by the decision not to consult the United Nations.

Vandenberg wanted to know why the UN had not been immediately notified of the step the United States was to take. He argued that the United States should have asked the Security Council to keep jurisdiction over the border dispute. In that way, said Vandenberg, the prestige of the UN would have been saved and, more important, as a matter of practical procedure the UN would thereby have been placed between Russia and the United States in Greece.

Giving point to this criticism, the report of a UN mission to Greece was released five days after the President spoke. UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization had sent eight experts to study the plight of Greece. At an FAO conference in Copenhagen last September they released a preliminary summary of their recommendations.

Now in their full-length report of 188 closely printed pages they set out a detailed cure for the misery and ruin that Greece is today. This was a long-term program for the construction of dams, the irrigation of land, and the development of industry — particularly of a tourist trade that would bring thousands of visitors to an appreciation of the beauty of Greece.

The report recommended that these steps be carried out under the guidance of a United Nations Advisory Mission for Greece, to be made up of representatives of various UN groups, including, of course, the FAO itself. It suggested a long-term loan from the International Bank.

While these are admirable suggestions, they are not entirely realistic. The International Bank would be highly unlikely to make a loan to Greece its first commitment. Obtaining approval of a UN commission to Greece might prove difficult in view of the veto, and in any case, approval could scarcely be obtained in time.

Economist for the FAO mission was Mordecai Ezekiel, adviser of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ezekiel pointed out, in what was a “non-political report, that inflationary pressures could scarcely be checked so long as such a considerable part of the male population remained in the Army. About 55 per cent of the government’s budget goes to the military, and the budget is 50 per cent unbalanced.

It is impossible to keep “politics” out of a discussion of Greece. Members of the mission got the impression of a weak and uncertain government trying to enforce order by repressive measures. The law of the defense of the realm adopted last summer subjects citizens generally to execution by courts-martial and arbitrary search and seizure.

Army vs. guerrillas

What members of Congress found hard to understand was the disparity between the size of the Greek Army and the scale of the guerrilla operation in the north. About 150,000 men were in the Army. The guerrilla bands were estimated at 13,000, equipped with mortars, machine guns, and other modern weapons.

One reason advanced for the success of the guerrillas is the nature of the country in which they operate. In the wild, mountainous region on the northern border, villages have been terrorized and laid waste. Guerrillas are in control in parts of Macedonia, where apparently the plan is to establish a corridor from the Albanian border eastward.

Evidence is fairly detailed that members of bands organized by the National Liberation Front (EAM) have been trained outside Greece. Moscow is said to have supplied a manual on guerrilla warfare, printed in Greek. But there was no evidence that foreigners had participated in this border warfare.

Why does Greece need to maintain a large army? The explanation, as it came from Porter, MacVeagh, and others on the spot, was in terms of the imminent breakdown of the Greek economy. For example, rehabilitation machinery on the dock could not be moved to the site of reconstruction because no one wanted to work for inflated Greek paper money. What is essential first of all, according to Porter, is to send in quantities of food and clothing so that people will be able to buy something with their money. This will restore confidence and thereby ease the position of the Bank of Greece. Funds in hiding outside the country will be returned.

Army politics

Another doubt about the Greek Army was its politics. When left-wing Labor members of Parliament complained to the British Foreign Office about Greek fascists holding high commissions, they got a remarkable reply. The Foreign Office, which had been largely responsible for shaping Britain’s policy in Greece, said there were 228 former members of the German-sponsored security battalions holding active service commissions in the Greek Army. These were the hated Greek battalions that did much of the Nazis’ dirty work during the occupation.

As a counter, the Foreign Office pointed out that nearly as many officers holding active service commissions had been members of the Communistdominated National Liberation Front. Lyall Wilkes, a young Labor M.P. who fought in Greece, said he believed the number of collaborators with Army commissions was much higher than the Foreign Office estimate, perhaps as high as a thousand.

Whatever the exact figures, the picture that emerges is of a political army. Troops not deployed in the troubled areas spend their time in idleness. They manage, of course, to get more food than civilians do. Ezekiel suggested, in his section of the FAO report, that they might well be put to work, part time at least, on reconstruction projects. They could help in the construction of roads and bridges. The destruction in Greece during four years of war was perhaps more calculated and more thorough than anywhere else in Europe. The Nazis deliberately plotted and executed the economic ruin of the country.

Another Spain?

Those who are in the best position to know believe that if help is not forthcoming, events will probably occur in the following sequence. Civil war will in all likelihood follow the downfall of the present government. Fascist-minded Army officers — several still in exile in Egypt — will try to take over. They could be expected to enforce a new dictatorship on the order of the savage Metaxas regime, which worked such harm just before the outbreak of the war.

Enlarged guerrilla activity would immediately follow. The expectation, said observers, was that material in volume would then begin to pour across the border from Soviet Russia by way of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. This would be a repetition of Spain. Anything like peaceful assistance would, of course, be much too late after open civil war had started.

The points of view were almost as many as the special interests involved. Oil reserves owned and exploited by American interests in the Middle East were certainly a factor in the decision. These interests were charting expenditures in Saudi Arabia and Iraq nearly as large as the advance to Greece and Turkey. Our Navy has said that Middle East reserves are essential to American security. As the President’s proposal was being debated, the Navy announced that a United States squadron would visit the Straits of the Dardanelles.

What disturbed many members of Congress was the fact that the proposal seemed to lack focus. It was too amorphous, too undefined. It was considered probable that $150,000,000 would be spent on the Army in the first twelve to eighteen months. A large part of this sum would go for material, a portion of it for construction.

Turkey and the Straits

If the proposal seemed out of focus in so far as Greece was concerned, it was definitely blurred with respect to Turkey. One who helped to frame the policy put it thus: “A shot in the arm for Turkey’s military.” In Turkey the justification of imminent collapse and terrible war damage does not exist. The Turks had sat out the war despite fierce pressure from both sides. They came out with a $200,000,000 gold balance derived in large part from the sale of chrome to both the Germans and the Allies.

The background for the Turkish move was in two notes sent by the United States to Russia last year, one on August 19, a second on October 9. They followed a Soviet note to Turkey suggesting that the Black Sea powers discuss measures for controlling the Dardanelles. It happens, of course, that Turkey is the only Black Sea power not in Russia’s orbit.

The second American note, delivered at the Kremlin by Ambassador Smith, reminded the Soviet government that the Protocol of the proceedings of the Potsdam Conference, signed by Russia, the United States, and Great Britain, provided that “the Convention on the Straits concluded at Montreux should be revised as failing to meet present-day conditions.” All three powers, the note emphasized, had an interest in the revision of the Dardanelles convention.

The American note concluded: “My Government also feels that it would be lacking in frankness if it should fail to point out again at this time, in the most friendly spirit, that in its opinion the Government of Turkey should continue to be primarily responsible for the defense of the Straits and that should the Straits become the object of attack or threat of attack by an aggressor, the resulting situation would be a matter for action on the part of the Security Council of the United Nations.”

The Army comes first

What we proposed to do in Turkey was to bolster a military establishment that was bearing down heavily on the Turkish economy. An estimated 850,000 men were under arms, approximately as many as were kept mobilized during the war. This was nearly 5 per cent of the total population.

The burden was felt by every Turkish citizen. Military expenditures for the fiscal year 1944—1945 were 58.5 per cent of the total budget. The cost of national defense was estimated at 558,200,000 lira, equivalent to $199,300,000. This was reduced somewhat the following fiscal year. Estimated military expenditures for the twelve months of 1946 were only 31.7 per cent of the total budget, but actual expenditures were much larger. The estimate for the current year is 425,700,000 lira, or 44 per cent.

The servicing and amortization of existing “armament” loans is an obligation which adds further to the heavy burden of national defense. In addition to outright military expenditures, disbursements in other government departments for radio, telegraph and telephone extensions, airfields and equipment, railway service, public health, can also be attributed to the effort to keep the Army at full strength.

With so many able-bodied men under arms, Turkey’s capacity to produce is retarded. This is particularly true in agriculture, in which 80 per cent of all gainfully employed persons are occupied. Agriculture in Turkey is still on a relatively primitive level.

Turkey’s military burden

Turkey’s transportation system, inadequate for normal needs, is heavily requisitioned for direct and indirect Army services. The movement of troops, equipment, food, animals, and other supplies requires a substantial part of the railway’s rolling stock. Heavy demands on the transportation system are made by the movement of raw and semi-manufactured materials such as iron and steel, lumber, and cement used in Army construction. Relatively few freight cars have been available for the movement of grain. In the same way motor transport has been greatly restricted.

According to reports from observers in Turkey, it would be possible to reduce this cost by modernization of the Army. Radar and other modern military installations would make it possible to scale down the number of troops on active duty. Another twelve to eighteen months of the present burden and Turkey might conceivably reach an economic impasse.

By ruthless methods the Turks have kept down Communist infiltration. Foreign agents under suspicion of sabotage have suddenly disappeared. One heard many stories, during the war, of mysterious freight dropped into the Bosporus on a pitch-black night. The techniques of suppression used under the Ottoman Empire have not been forgotten.

The chief reason, of course, why Communist infiltration is unsuccessful is the unanimity of Turkish opinion on foreign policy. The Turks have resolved to maintain Turkish control over the Dardanelles. Nothing has shaken that resolve, and one of the objectives of our advance to the Turks is to make sure they can hold firm.