The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Roosevelt 52
851. Your number 673. I will send you a considered answer to your telegram, for the kindly tone of which I thank you, over the weekend. I hope that the British reinforcements now coming steadily into Attica may make a more healthy situation in Athens. You will realize how very serious it would be if we withdrew, as we easily could, and the result was a frightful massacre, and an extreme left wing regime under Communist inspiration installed itself, as it would, in Athens. My Cabinet colleagues here of all parties are not prepared to act in a manner so dishonourable to our record and name. Ernest Bevin’s53 speech to the Labour Conference won universal respect. Stern fighting lies ahead, and even danger to our troops in the centre of Athens. The fact that you are supposed to be against us, in accordance with the last sentence of Stettinius press release,54 as I feared has added to our difficulties and burdens. I think it probable that I shall broadcast to the world on Sunday night and make manifest the purity and disinterestedness of our motives throughout and also of our resolves.
[Page 155]Meanwhile I send you a letter55 I have received from the King of Greece, to whom we have suggested the policy of making the Archbishop of Athens Regent. The King refuses to allow this. Therefore an act of constitutional violence will be entailed if we finally decide upon this course. I know nothing to the credit of the Archbishop except that our people on the spot think he might stop a gap or bridge a gully.