Greek Tragedy

Although President Truman in his speech to the Congress last Wednesday failed to mention the Soviet Union by name, subsequent newspaper and Congressional comment has made explicit what was merely implicit in the lines of his address: the President was not asking the Congress to vote him $400,000,000 with which to aid Greece and Turkey in the ensuing fifteen months. He was asking that the United States embark upon a gigantic "containing operation" of the Soviet Union, a program whose vastness both in time and money dwarf completely the expenditure and time limit he cited.

Viewed strictly in terms of self-interest, the President's proposal is both legal and logical. The British, for more than one hundred years, have been actively engaged in halting the expansion of Russia, whether czarist or communist, in the direction of the Dardanelles. Since shortly after the end of World War II, British troops have been stationed in Greece, ostensibly to "see that democracy is reestablished." If her historic policy in the Mediterranean is insufficient proof, then her tacit approval of the present corrupt reactionary Tsoldaris government demonstrates that the first intention of the British government is to halt the Russians rather than to bring democracy to the lower Balkans. The British appeal to the United States for active aid in Greece is impelled by her desire for us to participate more whole-heartedly in a so-called Anglo-American bloc, and by her realization that the maintenance of the British position around the world is now too expensive for an impoverished empire to carry alone. Thus if our interests are identical with Britain's, as many insist they are, then our accession to her request is completely logical.

Our legal position, looked at from the same point of view, is equally impregnable. As one sovereign government to another, Greece would ask of the United States money with which to bolster up her ramshackle economy, civilian experts to aid her in reconstructing her war-torn country--and military experts and materiel to beef up her army of over 100,000 men. By so doing, the United States would take up where Britain left off--aiding the present Greek government to root out and destroy the EAM forces in the north and to supply the Greek and Turkish governments with the economic and military wherewithal to stem the dynamic onrush of the Soviet Union towards the Dardanelles.

Missing: Food and U.N.

The brutal power politics nature of the whole situation is obscured by the stark and undeniable facts that Greece stands desperately in need of foreign aid. Despite the efforts of UNRRA, millions of Greeks are starving today. Thanks to the inefficiency of the government, Greece has no income tax, no rationing, and no price controls. The violent fighting between the rightist X-ites and the leftist EAM, if allowed to break out into full-scale civil war would mean the final tragedy for a whole people, whose heroism in the war against the Axis is excelled by no other. Interference in Greece by an outside agency of sufficient wealth and force, then, is imperative to the continued existence of the Greek nation.

But despite the necessity for helping Greece and the "legality" of our moving in, unilaterial action on the part of the United States in the Greek crisis would constitute a subversion of the United Nations. Chapter VIII, Section 1, of the Dumbarton Oaks plan for U.N. organization states: "The Security Council should be empowered to investigate any dispute or any situation which may lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute in order to determine whether its continuance is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security." Section 6 of the Moscow Declaration is equally explicit: "That after the termination of hostilities they (the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, and the United States) will not employ their military forces within the territories of other States except for the purposes envisaged in this declaration and after joint consultation." In by-passing U.N., the United States would deny to the organization on which the hopes of the world for peace are riding jurisdiction over a situation which ranks with international control of atomic energy and the question of what to do with Germany as one of the three most urgent problems facing mankind today. And by acting unilaterally in Greece, we afford the Russians the opportunity to bring up our action to the Security Council, thereby forcing America to the unpleasant choice of either torpedoing the organization once and for all time or of withdrawing our aid, at the expense of almost all our prestige as a responsible world power.

British Deadline Purely Arbitrary

The Congress should heed the President's appeal for aid to Greece, but not on the terms he has proposed. Instead, our vast resources should be offered to the United Nations for use as they see fit to stabilize Greece. Although all of the decisive powers reside within the Security Council, nevertheless the presence of the veto power in the Security Council, as well as the absence of the neutral influence of smaller countries not directly concerned with the situation in the eastern Mediterranean suggest that the General Assembly would be more suitable as the supervisory body. (The planned purpose of the General Assembly was defined at Dumbarton Oaks as the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations.") Although the calling of a special meeting of the General Assembly and the time necessary for the wheels of humanitarianism to grind into action would carry considerably beyond the purely arbitrary March 31 deadline set by the British for withdrawal, such a deadline does not preclude, as some people who are anti-Communist first and pro-U.N. second would indicate, action by the United Nations. Even if the British were unable to continue their military establishment in Greece beyond the deadline, some interim arrangement, such as a grant from the U.S. to the United Kingdom to tide the British over until such time as the U.N. could assume control might be set up.

U.N. World or Unilateral World

If Congress carries out the demands of the President to interfere unilaterally, then the significance of the victory in World War II is not that the world received another chance to establish universal peace, but that this has become the American Century whose sole vital activity--even to the point of war consists in preventing it from becoming the Russian. With faith in the United Nations, for whose creation we are so largely responsible, the United States can not only help to solve the present tragic dilemma of the Greek people, but to revive the guttering hopes of the peoples of the world that America stands for peace on the mutual understanding between all nations.