868.51/1620: Telegram
The Minister in Greece (MacVeagh) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 10—10:20 a.m.]
355. With background reference to my telegram number 353, December 9, noon, I have the honor to transmit at the request of the Prime Minister the following personal message addressed by him to the President (translated from the original French):
“Mr. President: At this time when Greece, the victim of unjustified aggression on the part of a great power has been fighting for 40 days with all her resources in defense of her independence and of the high principles which from the beginning have been the foundation of her national existence, she is confronted by problems whose solution depends on her obtaining adequate assistance. The question of necessary supplies of war material and that of the foreign exchange required to procure them constitute two of the most acute problems, against the stern realities of which this nation’s spirit of sacrifice and its unflinching courage risk being broken.
Thus while the Greek Air Force engages the enemy at the front with the small resources at its disposal, the civil population, women and children are exposed to perfidious attack from the enemy’s aviation, which prefers to attack towns whose lack of defenses lays them open to its assaults.
Moreover the Government is encountering extremely serious difficulties in its attempts to procure necessary supplies for the army and to ensure the provisioning of the civil population with foodstuffs, because of the shortage of foreign exchange resulting from its increased needs and the restriction of its resources by the war.
In every critical juncture throughout her national existence Greece has invariably found in your country the sympathy and the help she [Page 598] required. It is only natural therefore that at such times as the present she should turn with confidence in that direction.
Making myself the spokesman of this confidence I am once more, Mr. President, addressing you in person as the authorized head of the great American nation as well as the heir of its noblest traditions to beg you to exert your high prestige to assure to my country the assistance of which she stands in need.
Only yesterday you magnanimously intervened to assure the transfer to the Greek Air Force of 30 of the 60 pursuit planes we had asked for which were about to be delivered to the American Army. Encouraged by this gesture and awaiting the removal of the obstacles in the way of its fulfillment which have arisen, I beg you to be good enough to intercede for the satisfaction in the United States of the pressing needs of the Greek Air Force.
Many other supplies as well are essential to our army to enable it to accomplish the task before it. Unfortunately the country’s available resources in foreign exchange are far from sufficient to meet the drain upon them. Therefore I hope that the possibility will be considered of according Greece such terms of payment as will allow her to place in the United States urgent orders for matériel which she cannot procure in England in spite of the generous help furnished her by that country.
The assistance which your great country could give to us at this time might be decisive in the struggle which has been forced on Greece and which she is now carrying on at the side of the British nation to ensure liberty and justice for all men. Knowing of your devotion to this ideal and to that of the supremacy of spiritual and moral forces over those of violence and oppression, the ideal which has always been the common heritage of our two peoples, I dare to hope that this further appeal which I am venturing to address to you will meet with a sympathetic reception.
In this hope I beg, Mr. President, that you will accept the assurance of my profound devotion. Signed J. Metaxas.”