868.00/3–1545: Telegram
The Ambassador in Greece (MacVeagh) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 18—4:45 a.m.]
269. Continuing to make spectacular bids to influence foreign opinion the EAM yesterday forwarded to this Embassy a long memorandum addressed to the Governments of Great Britain, the USA, the USSR and the French Republic “through their Ambassadors in Athens” and signed on behalf of the Central Committee by Siantos, Partsalides and Tsirimokos. Much of this document is substantially a repetition of the protest which these same gentlemen made to me verbally when they called last week (see my 256 of March 10, 4 p.m.) but, like the much more vituperative appeal reported in my 102 of January 28, 4 p.m.,52 it ends with a request for an Inter-Allied Commission to settle Greek affairs.
Asserting that EAM alone has faithfully carried out is [its] obligations under the Varkiza Agreement the memorandum accuses the Government of (1) persecuting and terrorizing the national resistance movement throughout the country, (2) rejecting ELASites for the national army while retaining traitors and keeping the mountain brigade intact, (3) purging the civil service and police of members of the National Resistance movement instead of collaborationists and Metaxists53 and (4) permitting public expressions of hatred for the USSR which is dangerous not only for Greece but for the Allies. The memorandum continues saying that the present state of affairs justifies the December uprising and threatens to lead to new chaos; and that only a representative Government can save the situation. It concludes with the request “that there be established in conformity with the appropriate article of the Yalta Agreement an Inter-Allied Commission to study the situation in Greece and to make [take] those measures which will assure the Greek people the democratic liberties which are an essential and urgent preliminary to a genuine plebescite and elections”.
According to this morning’s papers the delegation yesterday called on Macmillan who is at present in Athens and gave him a copy of the memorandum. He is reported to have replied that the British Government has a moral obligation to see that the Varkiza Agreement is faithfully observed and that he would study the matter and see the delegation again before leaving. In this connection the Department may find interesting his remarks at today’s luncheon offered him by the Prime Minister (see my 268 of March 15, 7 p.m.)