868.20 Missions/10–1547
Draft Memorandum by the Ambassador to Greece (MacVeagh)1 to the Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Henderson)
Proposed New Military Mission to Greece and Coordination of U.S. Activities
The military situation in Greece has just been studied by General Chamberlin, who has made a report on the matter, and the economic situation is well-known to the Department from the reports of the Embassy’s Economic Section and of AMAG. The two situations are closely connected, since economic reconstruction cannot succeed in the absence of order and tranquillity, while economic chaos favors the spread of Communism and the recruitment of the rebel forces.
The Aid to Greece and Turkey Bill was passed last spring on the basis of studies of both these situations made last winter. The program set up under the Bill is only now getting started. In the meantime many months have gone by and the military situation has deteriorated considerably. AMAG has already been forced to increase the proportion of its funds allocated for military supplies, and the Prime Minister of Greece has requested that the Military Section of AMAG be authorized to go beyond its present functions of supplying the Greek Army and give operational and planning advice.
General Chamberlin’s study on the spot has resulted in his belief that such operational and planning advice must certainly be given if the Greek Army is successfully to cope with the guerrilla problem. He believes that a specially selected group of officers should be sent to Greece for this purpose since the officers now attached to AMAG are experts only in supply. He also believes that this group should constitute a separate mission nominally under the Ambassador and reporting directly to the War Department, or, perhaps preferably, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I agree with General Chamberlin. It appears to me that arguments advanced for placing his proposed group under AMAG fail to take account of the limited objectives of the AMAG organization. I feel the aims of the new group must include not only the giving of operational advice to the Greek Army in the existing circumstances, but [Page 386] also forward planning to take care of possible developments of which no account was taken when the AMAG was constituted. In fact, I feel that forward planning may become the most important part of its duties owing to the daily increasing probability of further involvement of the Soviet satellite states, and even perhaps of Russia itself, in Greece’s internal struggle. In my view, the proposed group should be free to concern itself with suggestions as to future policy on the highest level, but this is no part of the functions of AMAG, which is only an instrument created to carry out a policy already formed, and possibly already out of date.
I have heard the argument advanced that it would be dangerous to create a military mission, not under the jurisdiction of AMAG, which would deal with plans and operations while supplies remained under AMAG’s control. This, it is said, would create a lack of coordination in our military assistance to Greece which would be highly undesirable and might even be disastrous. However, no such lack of coordination need arise if both AMAG and the new military group were coordinated under higher authority in the field as well as at home. In the field, this might be done under the Ambassador, who in fact should be the coordinator of all US activities in the country where he alone has representative capacity. As things are at present, there seems to be a mistaken idea in some quarters as to AMAG’s status in Greece and a belief that it in some way constitutes independent mission on a par with the Embassy. I believe this idea, which is somewhat supported by the existing relationship of “liaison” between the two missions, should be corrected and the facts as to our representation clarified. Perhaps this might best be done by not leaving the Ambassador’s precedence merely tacit, as at present, but by expressly charging the Chief of Diplomatic Mission, or his representative, with the active coordination of all governmental agencies in his territory, as I remember was done in South Africa (and elsewhere) when I was Minister to that country and had to do with the aspiring activities of BEW, OLLA, WSA, OWI, OSS, etc. I have no personal interest in this matter and no desire to undertake more specific responsibilities than are already laid on my shoulders, but the fact remains that coordination without a coordinator is hardly to be expected in any enterprise, and that in a foreign country the President’s representative, or his deputy, alone can have the requisite knowledge and authority over all the many varied branches of American activity to fulfill the requirements of the coordinating task.
- Ambassador MacVeagh left Athens on September 12 and was in consultation in the Department of State from September 17 to 22. He accompanied General Chamberlin on his special mission to Greece, leaving for Athens on September 22 and departing from the Greek capital on October 11. He was again in consultation in the Department from October 23 to 28, beginning sick leave the latter day. (123 MacVeagh file)↩