Greece and the Early Cold

GREECE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR THE VIEW FROM THE WESTERN ARCHIVES:DOCUMENTS Dionysios Chourchoulis, Christos Christidis, Vaios Kalogrias, Periklis-Stelios Karavis, Manolis Koumas, Sofia Papastamkou To cite this version: Dionysios Chourchoulis, Christos Christidis, Vaios Kalogrias, Periklis-Stelios Karavis, Manolis Koumas, et al.. GREECE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR THE VIEW FROM THE WESTERN ARCHIVES:DOCUMENTS. Nikos Marantzidis. University of Macedonia, 2015, 978-618-81891-5-7. halshs-01220793 HAL Id: halshs-01220793 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01220793 Submitted on 26 Oct 2015 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. GREECE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR THE VIEW FROM THE WESTERN ARCHIVES:DOCUMENTS Edited by: Dionysios Chourchoulis, Christos Christidis,Vaios Kalogrias, Periklis-Stelios Karavis, Manolis Koumas & Sofia Papastamkou This research has been co‐financed by the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) ‐ Research Funding Program: THALES. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund. 0 Δηλώνω υπεύθυνα και εν γνώςει των ςυνεπειών του νόμου ότι το παραδοτέο «Έκδοςη τόμου ταξινομημένων και πρωτότυπων εγγράφων» αποτελεί πρωτότυπο έργο και δεν έχουν χρηςιμοποιηθεί άλλεσ πηγέσ πέρα από αυτέσ ςτισ οποίεσ γίνεται αναφορά. Όπου υπάρχει αναπαραγωγή δεδομένων, πινάκων και παραθεμάτων, αυτό δηλώνεται ρητά. Ο επιςτημονικά υπεύθυνοσ, Καθηγητήσ Νικόλαοσ Μαραντζίδησ GREECE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR THE VIEW FROM THE WESTERN ARCHIVES:DOCUMENTS Edited by: Dionysios Chourchoulis, Christos Christidis,Vaios Kalogrias, Periklis-Stelios Karavis, Manolis Koumas & Sofia Papastamkou Παραδοτέο έργο στα πλαίσια του ερευνητικού προγράμματος ΘΑΛΗΣ - Η Ελλάδα από τον Β’ Παγκόσμιο στον Ψυχρό Πόλεμο: Διεθνείς Σχέσεις και εσωτερικές εξελίξεις (MIS: 380436). Επιστημονικά υπεύθυνος Καθηγητής Νίκος Μαραντζίδης Τμήμα Βαλκανικών, Σλαβικών, και Ανατολικών Σπουδών Πανεπιστήμιο Μακεδονίας Αναφορά σε παραδοτέα: Δράση («Ενέργεια») 2: «Η Ελλάδα & δυτικός κόσμος στις αρχές του Ψυχρού Πολέμου». Υπο-Δράση 2.4: «Επεξεργασία αρχειακού υλικού». Παραδοτέο: «Έκδοση τόμου ταξινομημένων και πρωτότυπων εγγράφων». ISBN 978-618-81891-5-7 © 2015 Thessaloniki: University of Macedonia Contents List of abbreviations…………………………………………………………….. 6 Prologue…………………………………………………………………………. 7 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….... 9 Bundesrepublik Deutschland................................................................................. 15 France…………………………………………………………………………… 39 Italia……………………………………………………………………………... 61 United Kingdom………………………………………………………………… 91 United States of America……………………………………………………….. 125 NATO…………………………………………………………………………… 171 Abbreviations ASMAE Archivio Storico e Diplomatico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri FO Foreign Office MAE Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères NARA National Archives and Record Administration NATO NATO Archives PA AA Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes (Berlin) 6 Prologue Greece‘s relation with the West during the Cold War era has constantly attracted the attention of Greek and international scholarship. In this relationship, continuities and breaks become evident. The postwar era was marked by the continuation of the agonizing Greek effort to integrate in the West. Thus, there was an effort to bring relations with the major Western European states (Britain, France, West Germany, Italy) back to a kind of normalcy. This, as could be expected, was a particularly demanding endeavour, especially regarding the former Axis powers, against which Greece had fought during the Second World War. The Cold War provided a context or a medium which facilitated the rebuilding of bilateral contacts. There also were breaks, or at least novelties, pointing to the ascent of a new era of international relations. The US-Greek special relationship, forged during the difficult years of the Greek civil war but also burdened by the memories of US penetration in Greek policy-making in 1947-52, was a salient novel element. Greece‘s participation in NATO was an unprecedented event: this was the first time that the country allied formally with the major powers of the West. Last but not least, Athens‘s ambition to participate in supranational European integration resulted in the 1961 Association Agreement with the European Economic Community, and opened new roads for Greece‘s internal development and international relations. This volume presents archival material from the West German, French, Italian, British and US national archives, as well as from the NATO Archives, addressing important aspects of this historical phenomenon. This multi-archival research was undertaken by a large number of scholars, in the context of the Thalis project on Greece and the Cold War, coordinated by the University of Macedonia: Konstantina E. Botsiou, Dionysios Chourchoulis, Christos Christidis, Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, Vaios Kalogrias, Periklis-Stelios Karavis, Manolis Koumas, Sofia Papastamkou, and Ioannis Sakkas. All researchers also suggested documents for possible publication, thus creating a large pool of archival material. The editors then made the final selection and prepared this volume. This volume cannot, of course, tell the whole story of Greece‘s relationship with the West in the postwar era. It aims to highlight important landmarks or perspectives, as seen by the other Western capitals. It is hoped, however, that it will contribute to a widening of the debate on one of the most important aspects of contemporary Greek history. The editors 7 Introduction Greece‘s relationship with the West during the Cold War is one of the most hotly- debated issues of contemporary Greek history. Although much remains to be done, there is an extensive and growing bibliography on this subject, from the Greek civil war until the country‘s accession to the EEC in the late 1970s. Recently, attempts are also being made to expand the discussion in the Greek 1980s. Needless to say, this bibliography has evolved through time. Initially, the focus was on the role of the Great Powers (the title of the book by Stephen G. Xydis in 19631), and the conceptual approach was compatible with the ―orthodox‖ school of thought, prevalent at that time in the West. Later on, new approaches rose. The Greek ―revisionism‖ in the late 1960s and early 1970s focused on the alleged role of the United States in the imposition of the Colonels‘ dictatorship, and thus again reproduced the omnipresent, in Greek debates, concept of a small country, suffering the interventions of the infamous ―foreign factor‖ (or, more amusingly in the Greek language, ―foreign finger‖ – μέλνο δάθηπινο).2 The Junta caused a huge setback for Greek historical perceptions and culture. The hopeful efforts of other scholars – seeking to interpret developments as processes rather than as instances of imposition, and bring into the equation the role of the Greeks or the regional, mostly Balkan, actors themselves – were largely sidelined.3 It was only later, with the advent of new generations of historians during the 1990s and later, that this more functional approach was revived and to some extent expanded. We are now in a new era, in which the role of the Great Powers is being acknowledged, but the importance of Greek or regional actors is also underlined; developments are being interpreted as dynamic interactions rather than as static incidents; and the international perspective – the wider picture – allows scholars to advance more balanced assessments regarding Greece‘s Cold War experience. The Greek attitudes towards diplomatic (or, even more ominously, ―secret‖) documents could not but reflect these dispositions. In the past, lacking access to Greek archival sources, but also firmly believing in the omnipotence of the ―foreign factor‖, many Greek analysts tended to view foreign diplomatic documents as opportunities for the ―revelation‖ of sinful contacts and of the sinister role of the 1 Stephen G. Xydis, Greece and the Great Powers, 1944-1947, Institute for Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki, 1963. 2 Andreas G. Papandreou, Democracy at Gunpoint: The Greek Front, Garden City, New York, 1970; Constantine Tsoucalas, The Greek Tragedy, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969; John A. Katris, Eyewitness in Greece: the Colonels Come to Power, New Critics Press, St. Louis, 1971. 3 Evangelos Kofos, Nationalism and Communism in Macedonia, Institute for Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki, 1964; Theodore A. Couloumbis, Greek Political Reaction to American and NATO Influences, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1966; John O. Iatrides, Balkan Triangle: Birth and Decline of an Alliance across Ideological Boundaries, Mouton, The Hague-Paris, 1968; John O. Iatrides, Revolt in Athens: the Greek Communist “Second round”, 1944-1945, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1972. 9 Great Powers. The security classification ―secret‖ or ―top secret‖ on a foreign document could create nervous breakdowns

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