868.01/11–944: Telegram
The Ambassador in Greece (MacVeagh)23 to the Secretary of State
[Received November 10—9:33 a.m.]
14. In a long talk which I had with the British Ambassador yesterday he told me that report recently appearing in the London press to the effect that the British had blocked the setting up here of a regency council was quite wrong. He said that the present situation, in which there is no regency and the King functions as he normally would if he were simply on a visit outside the country, seems to be a result of lack of interest rather than anything else. Thus, when he asked Mr. Papandreou whether he had given any thought to setting up a regency here at this time, the answer was simply no, there were so many other things to do. When the new Ministers were sworn in recently, they took the oath in the presence of the Prime Minister and of the Archbishop, the Ambassador “supposing” that the former was empowered by the King to represent him momentarily for the purpose in hand. It is Mr. Leeper’s impression that neither constitutional questions nor that of the regime figure in practical politics just now, though as regards the latter a growing reaction against Communist agitation and pretentions may be strengthening royalist sentiment with accretions from the Republican side. He thinks that after restoration of order though [through] British influence (“The Russians seem really to be keeping their hands off this country; apparently that was settled the other day at Moscow”24), the present seemingly large extreme Left group will break up into parties of varying degrees of socialism, leaving the genuine Communists in a weak position, and that the political future will largely be a matter of new formations, with the old parties substantially defunct. He said he is at present advising Papandreou not to worry too much about conditions in the Provinces but to concentrate on improving those in Athens, on the theory followed by Lenin and Trotsky that in country in dissolution it is easier to spread control from the center than to impose it simultaneously in many and widely separated localities.
I feel that the Ambassador’s views are in the main sound. The present popularity of Communism here is largely a function of starvation and of the total destruction of the country’s economic system centering in the capital. Perhaps the slight beginning already made [Page 137] to correct this situation has suggested to the head of the Communist Party that the immediate opportunity for direct action has passed. In any case Siantos25 (see my Greek 389 of October 24, 7 p.m. from. Cairo26) has recently stated in an interview given to the London Daily Herald that his party is in favor of “normal democratic solutions” and that the services of ELAS and other groups of partisans (including, it should be noted, what he calls the “volunteer groups from Egypt”, in the Sacred Brigade and the Mountain Brigade in Italy) are no longer necessary. He is in favor of the Government’s proposals for a nation[al] army “inspired by the democratic spirit of regeneration of the laboring nation”, though of course excluding “all officers of dictatorial or fascist tendencies”. Under these limitations, “the officers of the ELAS form a natural part of the army”. It may be presumed that the intention exists to “bore from within” in that army, and eventually to dominate it if possible. But this is far from, constituting an immediate menace. On the other hand, however, it should be realized that the situation here still retains possibilities of dangerous deterioration, particularly should the efforts at currency stabilization now being attempted result in failure. General Scobie has so far had little success in controlling demonstrations in the city or insuring order and public safety in the suburban [areas?], and the-confessed inability of the Government to give him support in his task augurs well [ill] for the enforcement of the strict price and other financial regulations on the observance of which stabilization must in. great part depend.
- Ambassador MacVeagh returned to Athens on October 27, 1944. The United States Representative on the Advisory Council for Italy (Kirk) had reported in telegram No. 734, October 13, 11 a.m., from Caserta, that “Athens is free … the Greek flag is waving on the Acropolis”. (868.01/10–1344)↩
- For correspondence regarding British Prime Minister Churchill’s visit to Moscow, see vol. iv , entry in Index under Churchill.↩
- George Siantos, Acting Secretary General of the Greek Communist Party.↩
- Not printed.↩