868.248/128: Telegram
The Minister in Greece (MacVeagh) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:45 p.m.]
163. I have just received an almost despairing appeal from the Greek Premier requesting my urgent intervention to help straighten out a further complication in the question of the supply of American pursuit planes to Greece.
The Premier states pertinently as follows:
After months of repeated efforts a definite promise was finally obtained in February for the delivery to Greece about March 25 of 30 late model and 15 reconditioned Grumman planes and the Greek Government completed arrangements for their transportation to this country.
[Page 706]At the last moment, however, the British authorities requested through the Greek Minister at Washington that Greece cede these airplanes to England against Hurricanes to be delivered from Egypt, a proposal which the Greek Government naturally refused knowing that the British Air Command in the Middle East not only has no such planes available for this purpose but has already failed to supply to Greece Hurricanes previously promised.
Despite the Greek refusal to accept this empty alternative he states the question is nevertheless now being reexamined in Washington and thus the delivery of the promised planes is being further delayed and the Greek Government plunged on the eve of German aggression into the same uncertainty on this question which existed 4½ months ago.
I sincerely hope that the Department may be able to give me for the Premier some new and more cheering information in connection with this affair.