Athens Post Files, Lot 59–F48
The Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Henderson) to the Chargé in Greece (Rankin)
Dear Karl: For your background information I am sending along copies of the formal statements of Secretary Marshall,1 Mr. McGhee and Major General Harper2 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Greek-Turkish Aid Bill. You will note that Secretary Marshall’s and Mr. McGhee’s statements are unclassified. Major General Harper’s is secret.
During subsequent top secret, informal testimony, when questioned by members of the Committee regarding the eventual despatch of American troops to Greece, Secretary Marshall said that while we might eventually consider sending a token force to Greece or B–26’s to Athens, the difficulty lay in the fact that, under heavy Soviet pressure, such forces would either have to be “backed up” or withdrawn “ignominiously”. The Secretary added that he was under the same pressure now as when he was Chief of Staff to apply American strength at once in various parts of the earth. He was obliged to resist many of these pressures, however justifiable and understandable, since it was necessary to conserve our very limited strength and apply it only where it was likely to be most effective.
[Page 65]Questioned on the same subject, Major General Harper replied that while he could not speak for the Department of the Army, he would presonally be much opposed to sending any American combat troops to Greece and that he thought the commitment of any important American forces to Greece would be a “mousetrap” operation from the strategic viewpoint. This applied to the entire Mediterranean, he said, as a possible theater of operations.
Although no final, top level decision has been made here on this matter as yet, I should say that the foregoing remarks are characteristic of the general line of thinking, which will make it clear to you why we cannot easily go along with the Greeks on their various suggestions looking towards the involvement of American troops. Naturally, it would be infinitely discouraging to the Greeks if they were aware of these views, and they should receive no inkling of them. An effort by Senator Lodge to put the Secretary on record as saying definitely that no American combat troops would be sent to Greece was successfully circumvented, and abandoned by the Senator after the ramifications were explained to him.
Prevailing sentiment against the commitment of important American forces in Greece does not, of course, absolutely preclude the possible use of force in some manner to discourage or resist overt aggression on a limited scale. Nor does it preclude the possibility that a full-scale attack against Greece would be regarded by the United States as grounds for a war which, though fought in other theaters, would eventually result in the liberation of Greece.
I know that it is most difficult for you to comment usefully on such proposals as that of the Greeks for joint staff talks without some background knowledge of high level politico-military thinking in Washington. It is for this reason that I am sending this information along in strictest confidence for your own guidance and that of your key political assistants to whom you may wish to communicate it.
With kindest personal regards,
Sincerely yours,