Executive Secretariat Files, Lot 63–D351
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Hickerson) to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
I agree with the conclusions set forth in the attached N”SC paper (NSC 5/3, May 25, 1948, “The Position of the United States with Respect to the Use of U.S. Military Power in Greece”).
I am, however, somewhat disturbed at some of the phraseology in the paper and in the enclosures. For instance, at the bottom of page 4 it is stated that “The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the dispatch of forces, token or in strength, to Greece would be militarily unsound.” This raises a question which we have hashed over with the military boys time and time again. The purpose of sending forces to Greece would be to indicate a determination to clean up the situation in Greece and not effectively to conduct military operations if a shooting war started with Russia. We have told the military boys time after time that we recognize that if we sent military forces to Greece and a shooting war with Russia started, the first thing we would do would [Page 99] be to get all of our forces out of Greece as rapidly as God would let us. All of us recognize that Greece is not the place to conduct military operations if World War III starts. Any troops sent to Greece should be sent against that background. They should be dispatched if the time comes when there seems to be a reasonable chance that their presence in Greece will contribute to improving the situation in that country and thus rendering more remote the possibility of World War III.
I repeat that I concur in the conclusions set forth in this paper and recommend that the Acting Secretary go along with it.1
- The views of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs on NSC 5/3 were set forth in a memorandum of June 1 by Mr. Cromie to Mr. Jernegan, which Mr. Henderson directed be sent informally to the Policy Planning Staff. The memorandum stated that “This political decision [by the Joint Chiefs of Staff] is thus justified by military considerations which, however well founded, would appear irrelevant in the immediate circumstances. The present struggle for Greece should be considered primarily as a last opportunity of avoiding World War iii and only incidentally as the preliminary skirmish of an eventual new global conflict Political rather than military considerations should therefore be paramount.” (868.20/6–148)↩