Greece - US Department of State

626 Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XXIX
247. Letter From the Chargé d’Affaires in Greece (McClelland)
to the Country Director for Greek Affairs (Brewster) 1
Athens, April 28, 1969.
Dear Dan:
Arch and I have reapplied ourselves over the week-end to the important
question raised in your letter of April 14th, 2 and reiterated in
your telephone call of Friday, 3 of whether continuing the current U.S.
policy of withholding delivery of suspended MAP items can still serve
to impel the GOG to make more rapid and genuine progress toward
representative government.
In summary, it is our conclusion that, whereas we can probably
extract some further short-range, tactical mileage from a continuation
of this policy (i.e. until a new Ambassador arrives and has been able
to assess the situation, in other words, for perhaps another 3 months),
we believe this would be unlikely over the longer range to have any
appreciable effect on the pace and nature of internal political evolution
in Greece. As was noted in NEA/GRK’s succinct March “Memorandum
for the President” on the subject of “Policy on Military Deliveries
to Greece”: “the Regime clearly ...is not prepared to make basic
concessions in return for a lifting of the arms suspension.” Persisting
with suspension would moreover retain all the inherent disadvantages
of this policy. 4
A second part of our conclusion—and we regard this as an important
concomitant—is that by abandoning the MAP withholding policy,
we do not necessarily need at the same time to abandon significant
leverage over the GOG which could be exerted in other ways. We believe
that this conclusion is reenforced by recent evidence, in particular
the exaggerated interpretation in the controlled Greek press of the
significance of Pattakos’ visit, and to a lesser extent that of Pipinelis
and General Angelis, 5 to Washington, together with the disproportionate
reaction to the seemingly minor Viewpoint episode, 6 that it is
1
Source: Department of State, Greek Desk Files: Lot 75 D 227, U.S. Policy Towards
Greece. Secret; Official-Informal.
2
Not found.
3
No record of this conversation on April 25 was found.
4
The Department of State memorandum was not found. The President ordered a
study of military aid to Greece on April 26; see Document 246.
5
Angelis accompanied Pipinelis to Washington April 9–11. A memorandum of his
conversation with the Vice President is in the National Archives, RG 59, Central Files
1967–69, POL GREECE–US.
6
This USIA publication had printed an article critical of the Greek junta.