Office of the Historian

781.13/7–2650

The Chargé in Greece (Minor) to the Secretary of State

confidential
[No.] 147
Athens, July 26, 1950.

Enclosed is a memorandum1 of my recent conversation with the Greek Prime Minister, General Nicholas Plastiras.2

The Department may be as discouraged as I was to learn that the Greeks are again thinking of additional foreign assistance as the only way out of Greece’s economic difficulties.3 We will make quite clear on every appropriate occasion our disagreement with this attitude.

It will be noted that although the Greek Prime Minister emphasized his personal conviction that widest possible leniency measures should be adopted, he also stated that this development would probably not occur as the other government leaders disagreed with him on this point. Later the same day, Plastiras issued a press release indicating that international developments precluded any considerable extension of leniency measures. (Embassy despatch 146 of July 26.)1

[Page 387]

In general, I must remark that the Prime Minister’s views on both economic and security questions indicated a lamentable lack of realism.

Harold B. Minor
  1. Not printed.↩
  2. Also present at this meeting, held on July 24 at Prime Minister Plastiras’ request in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, were John Moatsis, Chef de Cabinet of the Prime Minister, Stephen T. Calligas of the Embassy in Greece, and Robert G. Miner, Second Secretary of Embassy and Consul at Athens.↩
  3. Chargé in Greece Harold B. Minor reported that Prime Minister Plastiras “thought that the economic difficulties of Greece might be alleviated by a loan of 50 to 60 million dollars by the International Bank” (enclosure to source text, not printed).↩
  4. Not printed.↩