Dr. Alex Bebler
Even the reactionary Greek press cannot ignore these disastrous economic conditions. Thus, for example, Elephteria of August 4, 1948, says: "The purchasing power of money is falling; industrial production is falling; unemployment is increasing; exports are unsuccessful. Farmers are victims of blackmarketeers, normal trade is declining and only speculators prosper."
Here is what even a monarchist paper such as Ethnilzos Kiri/zs had to admit in an article of July 7, 1948, on the implementation of the so-called Agreement on Economic Aid of the United States of America to Greece:
"When the Americans received our request for help, our request to send a mission, they sent us masters, missions which dismiss and appoint, impose laws and taxes. In any view, there is interference in our domestic affairs, and the aid furnished under the Truman Doctrine is given to us on condition of our tolerating this interference. The dictatorship of the American Mission is imposed on no other country but Greece. This is the result of the fact that by a special decree the American mission is actually a supreme Commissariat. Our independence has been abolished and we are bound hand and foot. Such a dictatorship is imposed nowhere but in Greece."
The logical consequence of the economic dependence of Greece was the steps taken by the United States of America to broaden and strengthen its political position, by the formation of a Government which would fully and without reserve carry into effect the aims of American policy in Greece. After the resignation of the Athens Government headed by Maximos, during the Government crisis of August 23-28, 1947, the United States Ambassador Mr. McVeagh had thirteen, and the Chief of the American Mission in Greece, Mr. Griswold, eleven interviews with various Greek politicians. But all that was not enough. Loy Henderson, Chief of the Near East and African Division in the American State Department, had to come to their assistance. On that occasion, an American journalist, George Polk, who was later, as it is known, brutally murdered, evidently to prevent him from visiting the Free Territory of Greece and General Markos, wrote in the December, 1947, issue of Harper's Magazinethat Henderson had warned the Athens politicians that "American public opinion could force the withdrawal of American economic and military aid."