868.20/3–3149
The British Foreign Secretary (Bevin) to the Secretary of State 1
The British Chief of the Imperial General Staff visited Greece on March 9th and 10th and has furnished His Majesty’s Government with an appreciation of the situation there.2 In this report Field-Marshal Sir William Slim has drawn the conclusion, with which His Majesty’s Government concurs, that military success against the Communist rebels in the near future is a necessity if Greece is not to become a satellite of Russia and that to achieve an early military success it is necessary for aid to the Greek forces to take priority, for the present, over all but the most essential economic aid.
Although there have been signs of improvement in the Greek situation in the past two months, in particular the clearance of the Peloponnese, the leadership and discipline of General Papagos and the dissensions in the rebel ranks, it would be rash to judge from these few encouraging signs that the end of the civil war is in sight or that the northern neighbours of Greece (with the possible exception, in certain circumstances, of Yugoslavia) will cease their aid to the rebels, in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Assembly and of U.N.S.C.O.B. Nevertheless the present favourable combination of circumstances does offer a far-reaching opportunity, of which advantage can and must be taken, to assist Greece to achieve by 1950 such marked military success that she can assure the security of her people and thereafter draw that real profit from economic aid (hitherto denied her by rebel sabotage and disruption) which would enable her to achieve economic recovery, increasingly by her own efforts.
The Chief of the Imperial General Staff considers that a relatively small increase in the size of the Greek forces at the present moment would be an investment which, taken in conjunction with the present favourable circumstances, would provide that additional central reserve necessary to clinch the military success which has so far eluded [Page 287] the grasp of the Greek army. His estimate of the increases in the forces required is:—
Army:
One Division (9,000 men)
Two Pursuit Groups (4,000 men)
Air Force:
Two Fighter Bomber Squadrons
One reconnaissance squadron.
He estimates the cost of the additional army formations at 6,000,000 pounds sterling and of the air units at 8,000,000 pounds sterling.
A copy of the report of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff is being communicated to the United States Chiefs of Staff through the Joint Services Mission.
- The source text, which is unsigned and bears no heading, was handed by Foreign Secretary Bevin to Secretary Acheson in the course of their meeting on March 31 (see editorial note, supra).↩
- A copy of Field Marshal Slim’s six-page report accompanied the source text. For a synopsis of the report, see telegram Gama 22, April 5, to Athens, p. 290. Also attached to the source text is a note by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee which indicated that Field Marshal Slim’s report had been requested in February 1949 by the British Defence Committee in order to serve as the basis for a further British approach to American authorities to give financial and economic support to the necessary expansion of the Greek armed forces so that they would be capable of finally defeating the Greek guerrillas in 1949. The British Chiefs of Staff endorsed Field Marshal Slim’s recommendations and urged that Foreign Secretary Bevin be authorized to press for American support for the proposed expansion of the Greek armed forces.↩