Editorial Note
Loy W. Henderson, on February 18, 1948, delivered an address on “The Greek Situation” before the Kentucky Women’s Action Committee Forum at Louisville, Kentucky; for text, see Department of State Bulletin, February 29, 1948, page 272.
Ambassador Dendramis discussed the Louisville speech with Mr. Henderson on February 20, stating that the speech “had been very well received in Greece, but that the Foreign Minister had queried him about one point which disturbed him, namely the statement at the end that if the Greeks should themselves falter ‘it would be extremely difficult for the United Nations or any member of the United Nations to save Greece …’ In his query, Mr. Tsaldaris had connected this remark with a memorandum recently handed by Generals Livesay and Rawlins to the Greek General Staff saying that the guerrilla situation must be liquidated within six or seven months. Did all of this mean, Mr. Tsaldaris asked, that American policy had changed, that the United States had relaxed its determination to see the Greek situation through?
“Mr. Henderson replied that there was no change in policy at all so far as the United States Government was concerned. However, he wished, once again, to speak ‘very frankly’ to the Ambassador on this subject. He had deliberately inserted the sentence in question in his speech because he wished to remind the Greeks very forcibly that they must not lay down on the job and simply wait for American military assistance. The impression was gaining ground among American correspondents and other American observers in Greece that there was a trend in this direction. Obviously it would be very difficult to induce the American people to go on helping Greece if they felt the Greeks were not doing everything in their power to help themselves.” (Memorandum by Mr. Henderson, 868.20/2–2048.)
Major General S. B. Rawlins was Commander of the British Military Mission in Greece.