Metaxas built the Greek Army, and he built a good army. Its usefulness was illustrated when suddenly, on October 28, 1940, the Italian 'armies invaded northern Greece through Albania. It was such a good army that it pushed the Italians back into Albania, and only the intercession of Hitler and his Panzer divisions made it possible for Italy to save her legions from disaster.

Metaxas died shortly before the Germans intervened, and the King, to escape capture, went abroad. Incidentally, one of the greatest tourist traffics in Greece seems to be that of kings going abroad and returning home again.

One unfortunate and unforeseen development of the Metaxas dictatorship was the growth of an underground Communist movement. The Greek is an individualist. For instance 72 percent of all the farms in Greece are of less than 712 acres in size and are owned and worked by those dwelling on them. It is the highest percentage of home ownership among farmers in the entire world.

The Communists took advantage of the Metaxas dictatorship to go underground and build a strong, well-organized system of cells throughout the country. When the Germans invaded Greece, as was the case in so many other countries, the underground movement, or ELAS, formed a spearhead of the opposition against the aggression of the Germans. It became obvious to a great many Greeks during the occupation, however, that the Communists' ultimate goal, rather than the defeat of the invader and of the occupation forces, seemed to be directed in many instances toward the subjugation of Greece following the probable withdrawal of the German troops.

In the light of this, a great many of the leaders in the resistance movement withdrew from ELAS, the Communist-controlled army, and formed EDFS. And much of the history of the occupation in Greece is written around not the struggle between ELAS and the Germans but around the struggle between ELAS, the Communist movement, and EDES, the rightist movement. The Germans withdrew, and the Varkiza agreement was signed which requires the ELAS supporters to turn in their arms. A few arms were turned in, but more were stored away for future use, and in October 1944, following the withdrawal, the Communists launched an oll-out civil war in an effort to obtain control of the Government of Greece and to establish a dietatorship of the proletariat. Due to the intervention of the British on that occasion, the effort was defeated.

Later, as you know, in 1946, an election was held under the joint auspices of several of the United Nations countries, and the monarchy was ordained by the majority of those voting, with the Communists abstaining.

There is every reason to believe that while there were minor excesses in the Greek elections, while there were some evidences of rightist outrages, the election by and large was a fair, free, and valid expression of the Greek people. In the words of the electoral mission:

It is estimated that the proportion of qualified voters who abstainedin this case the Communists

for "party" reasons is about 15 percent and certainly between 10 and 20 percent. (The Communist and satellite parties and certain other small leftist groups boycotted the election.)

It may be said in general that the Greek election of March 31 ranks well as respects peace, order, and regularity of proceedings on election day when compared

with earlier national polls and that as respect public decorum, law, obedience, and orderly balloting it can stand comparison with conditions which prevail in France, Great Britain, and the United States on election days.

The mission concludes that notwithstanding the present intensity of political emotions in Greece, conditions were such as to warrant the holdings of elections, that the election proceedings were on the whole free and fair, and that the general outcome represents a true and valid verdict of the Greek people.

Now, the third and by far the most important situation relative to Greece today is the military. Of the three elements with which Greece has to contend, none is of greater importance. Both political and economic considerations dim into relative unimportance in the face of open and undeclared aggression and warfare throughout the country. Arrayed against Government forces, against the legally constituted Government, if you please, are a number of bandit bands, comprising some 18,000 irregulars.

Guiding spirits behind the activities of the bandits are most certainly the Communist elements of Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, and, by indirection, Soviet Russia. Trained observers estimate that some 10 percent of the guerrillas are philosophical Communists, another 10 percent victims of rightist outrages following the withdrawal of German troops but that the great majority, the other 80 percent of those comprising the membership of the bands, are peasants and . farmers pressed into service during the raids on the villages of northern Greece.

The policy of the Greek Communists appears to be no less than the establishment in Greece of a dictatorship by violent means of the proletariat, which will be without organized opposition. Bands are unquestionably organized and directed by the party in a brutal and outright attempt to overthrow the Government and its legal functions throughout as large an area as possible.

It might be added, just in passing, that scores of villages, as I mentioned before, have been completely evacuated. Between 250,000 and 300,000 refugees have fled in terror from the northern provinces of Greece.

To achieve this military confusion and this civil chaos, the Communist Party has consolidated all of its agencies on both sides of the Greek northern frontier. As determined by the United Nations investigating committee, the Governments of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania have actively aided the bandits who are formenting this constant struggle within Greece. Assassination, murder, pillage, intimidation, are all weapons in daily use against the Government forces. These terrorized villagers and I might say of all political demoninations and philosophies; rightists, those of the center, Communists— have all fled the villages. The bandits loot and kill with apparent abandon and with obvious disregard of the political concepts of their victims. This is the so-called national army of liberation and, as one Greek peasant said: "If there is anything we are being liberated from it is life, our liberty, our herds, and our flocks."

Forced service in the bands has become the standard medium for recruitment. Peasants are not only taken by force from their fields, if they are found working in isolated groups or individually, but during raids on villages, they are dragged from their homes by force.

The roads are so heavily mined with German Teller mines that no one with any intelligence at all travels the roads. Instead, they get

off the roads and go through the orchards and the fields to reach their destinations. Railway bridges are demolished nightly and so are highway installation.

Anything which serves a useful purpose or is constructive in its nature in Greece is a legitimate target of attack for these forces which seek to undermine, create dissention, and defeat the purpose of the American-aid program.

The guerrillas, with the help and assistance of Greece's northern neighbors, are in many cases better equipped from the military standpoint than is the Greek Army. Not only does a seemingly inexhaustible supply of German Teller mines find its way across the frontiers, but the individual bandit's personal arms are not only of an efficient type-English or German rifles-but in many cases absolutely new. Bandits interviewed by us after their desertion from bands engaged in operations against the regular Army informed the observers that they had received this equipment: 1 German rifle per man, 150 rounds of ammunition per weapon, hand grenades, a bandoleer, and canteen, and that had been sent across the international frontier. Further they stated that they had crossed into Greece from Yugoslavia with the permission, aid, and assistance of Yugoslavian frontier guards. In addition to the military comander of the band each unit has a political adviser, called a kapetan, whose sole function is the indoctrination of the recruits into the Communist philosophy. He is on an equal footing with the military commander, except he fills a political capacity rather than a tactical one.

Whatever the merits of the Communist argument elsewhere, the tactics of terror which are being employed by the bandits in the northern part of the country has not strengthened the Communist movement in Greece. The so-called national army of liberation, lauded by the world Coinmunist press and by the fellow-travelers in all countries, represents nothing to the average peasant in northern Greece but a gang of murderous cutthroats.

One bandit, who had surrendered to the Greek National Army told us in Salonika shortly after his capture:

I am and have always been a Communist. I believe in the Communist doetrine. I am not, however, a murderer as well.

This was after his one and only raid with the national army of liberation on a Greek village.

It might reasonably be expected that the villagers in northern Greece would take reprisals against the families of known bandits. However, they do not. The Government furnishes these families with rations and, oddly enough, with a dependency allowance in drachmas, which is furnished to any widow without visible means of support.

The families are well treated in the villages. We spoke to a number of them. There have been no reprisals that we were able to determine.

Now that, sir, is a very rough and brief outline of the situation as it pertains to Greece. We are face to face with an hour of decision in Greece. The military situation is rapidly deteriorating, in our opinion, and I might say that what I have said here today is said with the concurrence and approval of Mr. Teague of Texas.

Unless offensive operations are commenced; unless some form of additional assistance is given to the Greek Army, it is entirely likely that before the winter is over Thrace may well be separated from the balance of Greece. If this happens, there will unquestionably be established in Thrace or elsewhere a Greek "democratic" government, a Greek puppet government. If this comes to pass there may well be the era of international brigades and so forth whereby the northern neighbors who now cloak some of such activities to a slight degree may openly come to the support of the puppet government. If Thrace goes or if northern Greece goes by the board, it is going to represent more than the loss of a certain degree of sovereignty to Greece. It is going to be an irreparable loss to the principles, the ideals, of the United Nations as an instrumentality for peace.

The decision is ours to make. The aggression is there in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, which states there shall be no aggression across an international frontier regardless of the political or economic situation within the country concerned.

The completed report, Mr. Chairman, will contain some recommendations which I shall withhold at this time.

Chairman EATON. Thank you very much. That was a very fine study of the Greek situation.

I think that we are ready to hear from the most distinguished gentleman of the Democratic Party, Mr. Richards.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES P. RICHARDS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Mr. RICHARDS. Mr. Chairman, at the outset I want to say that it has been a real privilege and pleasure to serve under your distinguished leadership as chairman of the Foreign Aid Committee and also under the vice chairmanship of the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Herter, with whom I went to Europe.

As a member of the Herter committee, I probably have a twopronged duty and responsibility, because I am not only reporting as a member of the Herter committee but I am reporting to the Foreign Affairs Committee of which I am also a member.

I have some hesitancy in making a presentation today on the subject of Italy, thinking that what I may say will probably be in the nature of an anticlimax after the splendid presentation by the gentleman from Connecticut this morning.

Mr. Chairman, it happened that I was assigned to the subcommittee on the Mediterranean of the Foreign Aid Committee. We studied particularly conditions in Trieste, Greece, and Italy.

As Italy is the only country involved in the proposed interim-aid. bill, I shall be forced to make a few remarks concerning our impressions while there, and some of the things that we found out while there.

Unfortunately, I did not know Italy before I went there. Neither did I have the knowledge of the Italian people that some of the other members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs have. But that may be an asset instead of a liability since when you go to a country where already there are ties of enmity or friendship, those may influence human decisions.

The Subcommittee on the Mediterranean was composed of Mr. Jenkins, of Ohio, chairman; Mr. Mahon, of Texas; Mr. Nixon, of California; and myself. I might add that this committee was known as the Jenkins Raiders in the Mediterranean, and we dubbed our chairman with the name Pig-Iron Pete, because he was so tough. He did not even have a cold while the rest of us were sometimes afflicted with various and sundry minor ailments.

It happens that I am the only member of that subcommittee who is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, so I feel that I should at least add a few observations to those so eloquently expressed about the conditions in Italy by the gentleman from Connecticut.

While we were in Italy, Rome was our headquarters. Rome was our headquarters for 3 to 4 weeks. The members of our committee worked day and night, and we went to almost every section of the country. We talked with the people in the vineyards around Naples and in the rice fields in the Po Valley, and with the people in the Fiat automobile plants of Milan and the fellows who run the boats on the canals of Venice. We tried to talk with a cross-section of the Italian life. We talked with the Premier of Italy. We conferred with practically every member of his government. We had long hours of conferences with the different departments of the Italian GovernWe talked with representatives of almost every one of the 14 political parties in Italy. We talked to the leaders of the Communist Party. We conferred with the leaders of the Catholic Church. We conferred with the leaders of civic organizations and chambers of commerce. We tried to qualify ourselves to bring back a true and accurate report here to you and to the Congress.

Now, just as the gentleman from Connecticut said, we found that there are two major relief problems in Italy, just as we found to be the case in every other country that we visited-the long-range problem and the short-range problem.

It is not necessary for me to say today so much about the long-range problem in Italy. That problem has confronted Italy for centuries, from an economic angle. It might be well to recall to your minds that here we have a country about the size of New Mexico. It is a country of 46,000,000 people, and that population has increased by 4,000,000 since the war. This is due to influx of returned Italians from some of the lost colonies, and to various other reasons. The population of Italy is increasing now by 500,000 a year, and when you consider the geographical make-up of Italy, the topography of the land, the available resources, the kind of crops they raise there. you realize it is a stupendous problem for any economy or economist when it comes to working out a happy life for those people under those conditions.

Take the matter of coal, for instance. Italy is suffering right now. more than from anything else, from a lack of coal. Before the war 57 to 60 percent of her coal-she had to bring most of it from abroadwas brought in from Germany. Now she is able to get only about 20 percent of the prewar intake from Germany. The rest of that prewar or 60 percent came from Poland and Great Britain. Today she gets only a trickle from Poland and none from Great Britain. All of that leads us back to the nub of this whole question, that you cannot have economic recovery in any country unless the basic causes