Greece - US Department of State

658 Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XXIX
With the increasing restriction on US use of its bases in Libya or
Turkey, we have no other bases near the Middle East with comparable
ease-of-access.
3. Greece also provides the US and NATO with a number of military
facilities including communication links for the 6th Fleet and
Turkey, [1 1 ⁄2 lines not declassified] and logistics bases for support of the
6th Fleet. However, unlike staging rights to the Middle East, there are
theoretical alternatives to these facilities, although they are subject to
the unsteadiness of Italian policies and the willingness of Congress to
appropriate either for new [less than 1 line not declassified] facilities or
for satellite communications systems.
4. Voice of America depends heavily on relay stations in Greece
for its Arabic and Eastern European broadcasts.
D. Conclusions:
1. Apart from general interest in the ability of a NATO partner to
defend itself, the main US interest in Greece lies in maintaining unrestricted
access to bases for US staging into the Mid-East and—unless unique—to
communications [less than 1 line not declassified] facilities there.
2. Insofar as the military regime in Greece arouses hostility in
some NATO capitals—as well as in the US Congress—and could over
time become a source of international disorder, the US must recognize
that the US freedom of maneuver is somewhat limited by the existence
of authoritarian government.
E. These conclusions raise two issues which are examined in greater
detail in the two following sections:
1. Do US strategic interests require a full-scale US military assistance
program? (Section III)
2. How does the nature of the government in Greece affect US interests?
(Section IV)
III. Do these interests require us to maintain a full-scale military assistance
program?
A. Pro.
1. US access to Greece will depend on a close political relationship
and a continued sense of common objectives.
2. Because of Greek inability to produce or purchase all of the sophisticated
equipment it needs, the Greek forces cannot be modernized
without continued assistance from the US on major items of equipment,
such as F–5s, M–48 tanks, etc.
3. A continuing military aid program, therefore, is one concrete
way of demonstrating that a close political relationship exists. This is
especially true as long as the Greek government is controlled by army
officers.