Where Greece Stands Today: Her Position in International Affairs

by STEPHEN G. XYDIS

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POINT of order, point of order.” In the UN General Assembly last year the Greek delegate raised a hand toward the Chairman of Committee I who, caught in a procedural wrangle, had first made a ruling and then had changed his mind. The debate was on Cyprus. The delegate of a country antipodal to Greece, New Zealand, had proposed that the discussion of the question of self-determination for the Cypriots clamoring for Enosis— union with Greece — should be indefinitely postponed. Delegates from other countries pointed out how difficult it was to put off a discussion not yet begun. Messrs. Lodge and Nutting declared that they favored New Zealand’s resolution. At the same time they stated that they did not wish to prevent Greece from having her say — as well as any other country who thought itself concerned. Alexis Kyrou, the Greek representative, thanked them bitterly for their magnanimity, asserting that his right to speak stemmed not from their grace but from the fact that the matter had been placed on the Assembly’s agenda.

The vote on procedure having finally been taken, speeches on the substance started that same afternoon. The Greek diplomat worked hard to open one of the last chapters in the long story of Greece’s struggle to recover her lost children. It is a chapter in which Mr. Kyrou is very personally involved. Twenty or so years ago, the British, suspecting him of having instigated the disorders which broke out in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, expelled him — a mere consul then — from the island. Now, in a skyscraper of steel and glass, in air-conditioned, neon-lit, windowless comfort, he was, as a full ambassador, fighting back. But in vain. After much discussion the question of Cyprus was shelved — “for the time being,” as an amendment proposed by the representative of Colombia put it — thus saving face for all directly concerned.

When the Greek delegate returned to Athens after this incident he went through that moment which Hawthorne once described as “seldom or never . . . precisely the most agreeable” in a man’s life, “the moment when a man’s head drops off.” In brief, Mr. Kyrou offered to withdraw from active service.

In 1954 Greece was celebrating a slightly more gruesome head-chopping, the fiftieth anniversary of the death of a national hero. It was in August, 1904 that a handsome lieutenant named Pavlos Melas, a graduate of the Greek West Point, the School of Evelpids — Young Hopefuls — got ready for his third trip to Macedonia that year, leaving behind him in Athens an anxious wife and two children. This scion of an old Epirote family donned his dark blue klephtic kilt and, under the alias of Mikis Zezas, together with thirty-five men slipped across the Greco-Turkish border near Larissa.

Traveling by night over the cruel stony mountains, hiding by day to avoid the Turkish settlements, keeping alive with the crusts and cheese that frightened shepherds gave them, they marched northward along peaks and ridges. Coming silently into subjugated Greek villages, they brought hope to their compatriots. They organized them so that they might more effectively resist the Bulgar Komitadjis who terrorized them. They supplied them with money and arranged for them to get arms. As his messages to his wife at home showed, Melas’s mind was gnawed by Christian doubts whether it was right to kill, even for the Great Cause. His brother-in-law Ion Dragoumis, consul in Monastir, aided him with his network of agents and encouraged him with his restless enthusiasm.

One rainy night the band reached the Greek mountain village of Statitsa in Central Macedonia. Next day Melas was talking over plans with the headmen of the village, when an old woman suddenly came in. A Turkish detachment, she told them, was near the village.

“They’ll pass by,” said Melas confidently.

But they didn’t. Someone must have told them about the strange men from Athens who had arrived the day before. The Turkish soldiers marched into the village. Melas saw them trying to break into the house opposite the one in which he lay in wait. But shots met them. The soldiers dispersed. Both sides dug in. A siege began.

Melas and four of his men moved into a stable. When night had fallen he stealthily slipped out to reconnoiter. A flash shattered the stillness.

“I’ve been hit,” his comrades heard him cry, as he lurched back into the stable. Lying on the hay, he took off the cross he wore around his neck.

“Give it to my wife,” he said, “and to my son, my rifle.”

They helped him out of his bandolier and cartridge belt. From his pouch fell gold coins. The bullet had passed clean through it and entered his stomach. As the blood flowed from his body, Melas was in ever greater pain.

“Kill me, kill me,” he entreated his comrades. And, delirious, he calld out the names of his wife and children. Pyrsas, his faithful friend, whispered to him they would not leave him. He bent down to touch Melas’s lips with his own. They were cold. October 13, 1904.

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To STATITSA from Monastir a few days later came an agent of Ion Dragoumis, Melas’s consul brotherin-law. His mission was to find the dead man’s body which the peasants had secretly buried. The exhumation had barely started when news came that another Turkish patrol was approaching. In fear lest the corpse, if found, be submitted to some horrible desecration, one of Melas’s comrades severed his dead leader’s head from the body, wrapped it up carefully in a white linen cloth, and put it in his pack. The body was buried again. Next night, in a small Byzantine chapel of a village nearby, the head of Pavlos Melas, covered with wild cyclamen and autumn crocus, was interred in a small wooden casket and placed under a slab in the church pavement, just in front of the iconostasis, like a martyr’s relic.

Today in Athens, opposite the monument, dedicated to Byron, the English philhellene, stands a monument to Pavlos Melas, the champion of Greeks in Macedonia. Under his alias of Mikis Zezas his name still lives in Greek folklore.

There is also a memorial in Athens to Melas’s brother-in-law, Ion Dragoumis. If Pavlos Melas died for the cause of Greek nationalism in Macedonia during that gloriously romantic era before World War I, Dragoumis evolved towards a larger scheme of things. A man of action no less than of sentiment, he was also a thinker. Diplomat, politician, and writer, Dragoumis lived to raise the Greek flag again in Thessaloniki, Macedonia’s capital, in 1912. But he was not simply a liberator; Dragoumis envisaged a Greece which would be part of a larger whole than Hellenism.

Sensing the evil side of nationalism and realizing that it might, as later it indeed did, transform the Balkans and the Middle East into a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces would never fit, Dragoumis had the vision of a confederation of all the Balkan and Middle Eastern countries. This would embrace the whole area which once had been unified by the Ottoman Turks. (This concept was comparable in its utopian grandeur to “The Great Idea” which Mr. Theotokas discusses in his essay — the Greek dream of re-creating the Byzantine Empire— but was, actually, a distinct movement.) In this multinational bloc of power, which might, be able to hold its own against Russia as well as against the Great Powers of Western Europe, he hoped that the Greeks, outnumbered though they might be, would act as a kind of vitalizing leaven.

In pursuing this idea Dragoumis set up in Constantinople an organization, a secret society of national groups and religious leaders, whose aim was to further the co-operation of the various nationalities in the Ottoman Empire. After the Young Turk constitution of 1908 which proclaimed, at first glance, very similar aims, this “Organization of Constantinople,” as it was called, intensified its efforts. Dragoumis, however, was destined to clash with the spirit of the times. From Greece lie received little support. And in the Ottoman Empire the Young Turks pursued a policy of assimilation of the various ethnic groups rather than their harmonious integration in equality.

During World War I Dragoumis strenuously opposed Eloflherios Venizelos who hoped that victory for the Allies would lead to the realization of the Great Idea. Although Dragoumis urged Greek participation in the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign, and favored the alignment of Greece with France and Britain, he clashed with them too, particularly when they violated Greek territorial sovereignty. Did he or Venizelos ever suspect that England and France had secretly agreed to let Russia have, after the war, the Great Idea’s golden heart, Constantinople?

Dragoumis did not live to see the tricks which history later played on the opponents who exiled him during the war. He did not live to see the uprooting of all Hellenism from Asia Minor. He did not see the end of the Ottoman Empire and the rebirth of Turkey in Asia. A gang of followers of Venizelos, against whose life an attempt had been made the day before in Paris, took Dragoumis from his car, marched him off, stood him against a wall, and shot him in cold blood. August 12, 1919. His memorial still stands on the dusty sidewalk in Athens.

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KITTNG recently to an Athens paper, a former Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs, Philip Dragoumis, Ion’s younger brother, had the courage to question the Greek Government’s wisdom in raising the Cyprus matter before the United Nations. He expressed the statesmanlike view that creating problems for friendly and allied powers might undermine their confidence in Greece.

It may indeed have been ill-advised to raise the matter of Cypriot self-determination before the UN, that Cerberus of the status quo, without first obtaining the support of the American government and of the UN members usually lumped together as the “anticolonial bloc.” But to secure such support without something positive to offer in exchange was to attempt the art of the impossible. With the Mediterranean more important than ever as a strategic sea for containing the Soviet power, it was hardly to be expected that the British would repeat their grand gesture of 1803 of ceding the Ionian Islands to Greece, particularly as they were just giving up their base at Suez.

Yet it was precisely through the art of the impossible that Greece became independent in 1830. Without that counterpart to Socratic wisdom, Socratic madness, Greece would neither have grown as it did, since achieving independence, nor would it have survived two great world wars that left the country in shambles.

In 1954 it was as if the Greeks suddenly resolved to stop being “good children. They not only raised the Cyprus question in the United Nations, but advised the British that it might be better if British warships did not carry out that summer their usual courtesy calls to Greek ports. Furthermore, in the UN General Assembly last fall, perhaps to show consistency in their new anticolonial stand, Greek delegates often failed to vote as they had done before on matters not connected with the Cyprus issue, or took positions on some questions closer to those of countries in the Soviet bloc.

The political consequences of Greek success in having the Cyprus question placed on the General Assembly’s agenda may not have been without some advantage for the United States. The case may have been used as leverage against Britain in its stand on Red China; such is the interconnection of world affairs today. But it also gave the Turks the opportunity to say that they preferred to have the British remain in Cyprus. Thus American interest in maintaining not only British but also Turkish goodwill may have served as a brake on any American desire to implement the high principles of selfdetermination which America has so often proclaimed.

Yes, the Greeks in 1054 became “bad boys.”Yet for their daring they got plenty of publicity, most of it, strange to say, not unfavorable. The British Labor Party deplored Churchill’s policy on Cyprus, and the leader of the Liberal Party spoke in favor of upholding the principle of self-determination for the Cypriots. In the United States there were not only favorable editorials in the press, but speeches in Congress. Recently, indeed, Congressman Albert R. Morano introduced before the House of Representatives a concurrent resolution urging the United States Delegation to the UN to take “all possible steps” to bring about consideration “of the applicability of the principle of self-determination” in the case of the Cypriot people.

There were press reports not long ago that the Turkish Government had protested about an intercepted shipment of dynamite and arms apparently destined for Cyprus. Then last February, the Turkish Premier went off to Italy to promote TurcoItalian relations without making a stop at Athens. These news items, as well as recent reports of outbreaks of terrorism in Cyprus, are straws in the wind, in a region of the world which is of vital importance.

Next year, the question of the Turkish Straits, and possible revision of the Montreux Convention, will be coming up. The American Government is not a party to this Convention but has signified its wish to participate in any future international regime regulating navigation through the Turkish Straits. Something ought to be done to improve relations in an area where the United States first took a stand on the Soviet menace with the build-up of its Mediterranean naval forces in 1946 and with the Truman Doctrine of the following year. Otherwise, the whole NATO system in the Mediterranean, with its array of Western-minded states, its bases from North Africa to Anatolia, with the aircraft carriers of the U. S. Sixth Fleet cruising the blue waters from Gibraltar to Beirut and Istanbul, may suffer a rude jolt. The Cyprus question is having serious repercussions in domestic Greek politics. The Papagos Government has lost considerable ground. Many Greeks feel they have been let down. Greece, like Turkey, is at a strategic crossroad between East and West. Were it ever to break away from the Western bloc, in a Tito coup reversed, because of internal developments, that would be a serious blow to the West. And to Greece it might bring tragic consequences.

In the grave years ahead, Greek politicians should take a larger view of things. They should keep in mind, as Ion Dragoumis did, that Greece is but part of the Balkans, part of the Near and Middle East. They should keep in mind too, that it is part of the entire Mediterranean, that it is part of the whole Western world to which the ancient Hellenes contributed so much. As the United States, despite 1776 and 1812, has common interests with Britain, so has Greece common interests with Turkey, despite 1821, 1912, and 1922. Friendly relations with Turkey across the Aegean, as Venizelos himself realized after the Turks defeated the Greeks in 1922 in Anatolia, must be a cornerstone of Greek foreign policy. On the Greco-Turkish relationship the Truman Doctrine was set up, and during the Korean crisis, Greece together with Turkey was brought into the Atlantic Pact.

Friendly relations with the prevailing naval power in the Mediterranean is another cardinal principle that Greek foreign policy makers must keep in mind. Mussolini’s Italy forgot this, to her disaster. Although the Soviet border is but three hundred miles away from Greece, the United States, five thousand miles away, is closer, because of its sea power. So is Britain.

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A SUCCESSFUL foreign policy must rest on a sound basisof domestic stability. A primary test for Greek politicians is to find means to improve the lot of the rapidly growing population of Greece, now close to the eight-million mark. Since 1944, UNRRA assistance, British financial aid, then American aid through the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and MSA has amounted to over two and a half billion dollars. But of this sum about one third was used for military purposes to defend the 52,220 square miles of Greek territory from postwar communist aggression. The rest helped to restore the economy of a country which during World War II suffered damages estimated at over seven billion dollars.

Today, thanks to this financial aid, Greek agricultural and industrial production has surpassed prewar levels. For the first time in its history, this paradoxical country, where only twenty-five per cent of the land is arable, while nearly fifty-five per cent of the population must derive its living from agriculture and forestry (the U.S. figures are respectively 26.5 and 17.7), is self-sufficient in wheat, because of improved methods of cultivation and the introduction of seed with a higher yield. Similar, though less spectacular, gains have also occurred in the production of other grains and many food crops. However, because of the loss of its prewar outlets in Eastern Europe, which is now Soviet-dominated, and because of American and Turkish competition in the world market, Greek tobacco exports have fallen — a hard blow to the balance of trade. Still to reach prewar levels is the breeding of livestock, and, as a result, the output of meat and dairy products.

Turning to industrial and mineral production, we should note first that thanks to the postwar construction of hydroelectric and thermoelectric plants, Greece, which has no high-grade coal or oil resources, has lessened its dependence on imports of these two indispensable fuels for powering industry. Annual electricity production has almost doubled since 1939. The production of metallurgical goods, building materials, and textiles has made great strides forward. Finally, the monetary reforms of 1953 have been fairly successful.

However, Greek politicians must still face such grave problems as the constantly increasing population and rising underemployment. Without further industrialization and/or greater opportunities for emigration the recent improvement in living standards can hardly continue. A favorable legal climate for international investment, must be created. Greek-owned merchant vessels now registered abroad must be encouraged to sail again under the Greek flag. Finally, the peaceful use of atomic energy, or the improvement of methods to harness the tremendous energy of the sun, or of using sea water for irrigation open vast new horizons for a country which is poor in natural resources but rich in hands and minds.

But, let us return to foreign policy. In that sphere Greek politicians should work to repair, strengthen, and preserve the subtle nets of common interest Greece has with its neighbors. Pacts, without this continuous effort, are mere words. In the Balkans lies the problem of Soviet-dominated Albania. Make an island of Albania and you have an exact Mediterranean counterpart of Formosa — but turned against the West. To seek to bring Albania into the Western fold would be a test of the earnestness with which members of the Balkan Pact of 1953 are ready to pursue their aim. In attaining this objective Greece might take a lead.

Greek statesmen should remember that for the first time in modern Greek history Greece is a peacetime member of a far-flung peaceful alliance. In this alliance the greatest power on earth participates, reversing a long tradition of isolationism. Each member state of this great pact has certain responsibilities that go beyond the narrow confines of parochial national interest.

History’s ways are strange. Events move fast in a fast-changing world. Macedonia, for which Pavlos Melas gave his life, was Greek a few years later. And was it not under Churchill that Suez was given up? Who knows? The Greeks should not take counsels of despair. They should wait . . . “for the time being.”