the 1946 british parliamentary delegation to greece a lost opportunity maude george

8/13/2019 The 1946 British Parliamentary Delegation to Greece a Lost Opportunity Maude George

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T he 1946 B rit ish Parl iam entaryD elegat ion to G reece:A L ost O pp ortun ity ?by GEORGE MAUDE

The B ritish military presence in Greece from October 194 4 to thespring of 1947, when the Americans began to take over in the lightof the Truman Doctrine of March 12, 1947, was a comm itment thatstrained both the British econo my and the patience of British leaders.Paradoxically, Britain's involvement in Greece helped to contribute to thebelief in Britain that its world role had to be d iminished. W illiam H ayter,counsellor in the Sou thern Department of the Foreign Office, sum medup this aspect in Oc tober 1945 by opposing any g reater intervention inGreek affairs on the grou nds that Britain mu st avoid entanglement in a second Eg ypt. ' O n the other hand, the British did not want to seethe Ru ssians on the M editerranean as a consequen ce of being able toexploit a weakened Greece. H ence until at least the Truman D octrinethe British tended to think in terms of a minimal solution: the rapidbuilding-up of a G reece strong enou gh to resist Russian pressure andstrong enough to do so w ithout a permanent B ritish military presence.The fu rther paradox o f the situation was that it wa s far from c learthat the Soviet Union had designs on Greece: much evidence, availableeven at that time , spoke against this, as recent research has shown. 2Butwhen relations with the Soviet Union degenerated in the immediatepostwar years, it became all too easy to su m up the vicious problemof Greece's internal politics in terms of the wider struggle betweenW est and East. The spheres of influence and percentage agreemen ts of1944 were conveniently ignored, and as far as Greece was concerned itwas assum ed that the Soviet Union wou ld if it could. 3The Ru ssians, it*1 am indebted for discussion of this theme to George Alexander, ElisabethBarker, and, above all, Marion Sarafis, who has in so many other w ays renderedinvaluable assistance. Needless to say, none of them share any responsibilityfor the author's conclusions.

George Alexander, B ritish Policy in Greece 1944-1947 (Ph.D. Thesis, LondonUniv ersity, 1979), pp. 250-1.Ibid. pp. 214-5, 389-90. Also Richard Clogg, Greece in Com m unist Pow erin Europe 1944-1949 ed. Martin McC auley, London, 1977, esp. p. 197.3Elisabeth Barker, Greece in the Framew ork of Anglo-Sov iet Relations, 1941-


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6O U R NA L O F T H E H EL L E NIC D IA S P O R Awas believed, would get their opportunity in the dire event of theextreme left forces coming to pow er in Greece and, consequently, itbecam e an object of British policy to prevent this.In acting this way, the British ran up ag ainst the G reek dilemm a,the terrible either/or situation between the extrem e left of EA M andthe extrem e right of the popu list forces, a dilemm a first sketched ou tin William Hardy McNeill's contemporary work of that name. 4McN eill'sanalysis has been m ore fully refurbished by Geo rge A lexander's 1979London doctoral thesis, British Policy in Greece , 1944-1947. Alexanderconcentrates on the other side of the coin, nam ely on the failure o f astrong political center to arise in Greece. In Alexander's thesis, howev er,the dilemma has a twist of its own for the British leaders, who areportrayed as being consc ious of the need to save the ir policy morallyby handing over power to a center force that wou ld preserve G reecefrom a threat of resum ption of civil war. 5W hat, in short, British policywas aiming for, was a clean victory over commu nism in Greece.Bu t clean or not, that victory had to be secu red. This posed no moralproblem for W inston C hu rchill, bu t it did pose a very grav e problemfor the Labour government that entered office in Ju ly 1945. The problemarose concretely in connection with the growing dispute within theLabou r Party on wh ether or not the Labou r governm ent seriously in-tended to pu rsue a socialist foreign policy. This was, of cou rse, a widefront and embraced critics outside the party, too. One of the first toexpress his unease with the L abour go vernmen t 's policy w as the ILPleader Fenner Brockw ay and the primary points at issue for him w erethe actions of British forces in Indonesia and Indochina, concern abo utwhich soon erupted, too, among Labour backbenchers. 6Bu t by the beginning of 1946, Greece began to come up ev er morepersistently in the speeches and w ritings of those w ho w ere critical ofthe Lab ou r gove rnm ent's foreign policy. Just as clearly as Indonesiaand Indochina, Greece seemed to be a test of two of the key principlesof a socialist foreign policy laid down in the Labo ur P arty's electionmanifesto, Let Us Face the Future. On e of these principles wa s that ofworld cooperation with the USSR , in connection with which the manifesto1944 in Greece: From Resistance to Civil War, ed. Marion Sarafis, Nottingham,1980, esp. p. 30. Barker herself seems to believe that the Sov iet Union might actin this way.

4W . Hardy McN eil l, The Greek Dilemma: War and Aftermath, London, 1947.5Alexander, op. cit. Introduction & pp. 270-1, 392-3, 431-4.Attlee Pap ers, Bodleian L ibrary, Ox ford. Le tters from Fe nner Brockw ay toCleme nt Attlee, September 26, 1945 and October 4 and 16, 1945. (I am gratefulfor permission from Fenne r Brockw ay to refer to these letters and to Earl A ttleeand to the M aster and Fellows of U niversity College, Oxford, for permission tomake use of this and other material from the Attlee Papers mentioned here.)By O ctober 24, opposition to British gov ernm ent policy had spread and nearlysixty M.P.'s had by this date signed a memorial to the government asking forrecognition of the nationalist move ments of both Indonesia and Indochina.


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary D elegation to Greecepointed out that in prewar times, the Tories were so scared of Russiathat they missed a chance that might well have prevented war. A secondprinciple was that in pursu it of collective security with the US A andthe USSR, the Labour government could so the manifesto assertedutilize the common bond with the working-peoples of all coun tries.In February 1946 , Konni Zilliacu s, Labou r M.P . for Gateshead,drafted a long statement for the Labou r Party's External Affairs Comemittee reasserting these principles and making a particular reference tothe Labou r Party's wider foreign policy statement issued toward the endof the war and entitled The International PostWar Settlement. The latter,Zilliacus reminded his hearers, had called for sharing control ofbases and key strategic communications through the UNO . Bu t Bev in,argued Zilliacus, instead of renegotiating the Dardane lles, Suez, andTangier conv entions so as to pu t these areas under UN control, wasdev eloping on Greek territory a bigger and better M alta in order tokeep the Ru ssians out of the Med iterranean. In the second place,Zilliacus upbraided the Labour gov ernment for refusing to recognize thatin most of Europe and A sia working-class leadership . .. is now inCom mu nist hands. Zilliacus did not on this occasion draw out the sig-nificance of this by any particular reference to G reece, but the pointwas obvious.In countering these allegations, Attlee did not waste much time onZilliacus. In a letter to Zilliacus himself, Attlee dismissed the latter'sstatement to the External Affairs Committee as showing an astonishinglack of understanding of the facts. 7But elsewhere Attlee evinced somesensitivity to the Zilliacus line that the Labour government had simply carried on with the foreign policy they had inherited from the Tories.In the H ouse of Com mo ns foreign affairs debate on June 4, 1946,Attlee trenchantly defended the strong British military presence in theeastern M editerranean as a factor in the maintenance of peace and un-derstood as such by the Soviet Union, a position, in short, that wasentirely justifiable, provided that ultimately there is developed a regionalorganisation which fits into a UN Security System. 8Unfortunately for

7In the Attlee Papers, there is a copy of the Z illiacus statement, with a coveringletter of 2.11.1946 sent by the author to Clement Attlee, who replied on2.17.1946.The Greek issue took time to swing into the focus of backbench opposi-tion to the gov ernm ent's foreign policy, perhaps in part becau se of a conv ictionthat Labour would automatically overturn the Greek policy of the coalition govern-men t. (In this connec tion, I am most grateful for having received perm ission toconsult the Eng lish translation, undertaken by M arion Sarafis, of Heinz Richter'sforthcoming work on G reek history from D ecember 1944 to the start of the CivilW ar, shortly to be published by the Me rlin Press. Richter points out that H aroldLaski, the chairman of the Labour Party, had stated in early August that theLabou r governm ent wou ld completely revise British policy toward Greece.)sAttlee Papers, draft of a speech for Com mons foreign affairs debate of Ju ne4 1946.


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8OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAA ttlee, events did not appe ar to be leading to the latter dev elopme nt,and he spent some time in the debate defending the actions of hisforeign secretary in opposing the Sov iet demand for the trusteeship ofTripolitania9and the Soviet-backed demands of the Y ugoslays for con-trol of Trieste. Ne vertheless, it was p ossible for A ttlee to m ake o ut acase however specious that the Labour government was trying to liveup to the claims of the ideal laid dow n in their policy statements onthe conduct of postwar foreign affairs.Bu t the second contention of Zilliacu s, that in large parts of Eu ropeand Asia the working-class movement was being led by the comm unists,was a reality that rapidly drained the La bou r leaders of ev ery vestigeof socialist idealism, whereas to their critics in the left wing of theparty or on the fringe left ou tside the party, this was precisely the areain which socialist idealism had to be translated into reality in the shapeof cooperation with these forces.For A ttlee and B evin there could be no suc h cooperation, for anykind of accomm odation with the comm unist-dominated (as the phraseran) forces was the thin end of the w edge o f Ru ssian penetration intoyet another area of Europe or Asia. Leftwing critics of Attlee's andBev in's foreign policy seemed to hav e no w ay of cou ntering this charge.In his statement, Zilliacus had u pbraided the British governm ent for notseizing the opportun ity to advo cate the creation in the eastern Mediter-ranean of a UNO-controIed security system. The opportunity thatZilliacus referred to was the raising of the Greek question by the SovietUnion at the very first meeting of the Security Council on Janu ary 21,1946. Bu t on this memorable occasion, the Soviet delegate had attackedthe British gov ernm ent and called for the withdrawa l of British troopsfrom Greece. Significantly, a campaign to get the British out had alreadybeen pursued for over two months w ithin Greece by the leftwing EA M(Ethniko A peleftherotiko Metopo or N ational Liberation Front), whosecomm unist-led character had become ev en more pronou nced with thewithdrawal from it in March 1945 of the socialist leaders Elias Tsirimokosand Alexander Svolos, ' both of whom had held important ministriesin the Papandreou government, which had fallen as a result of thestart of the second round of the Civil W ar in December 1944.A context like this was hardly favorable to producing in A ttlee andBev in sympathy for a comm unist-led worker's movem ent that seemedso obviously to be de monstrating the truth of the L abour P arty leaders'fundam ental conv iction of the threat to British interests and ideals em-bodied in suc h m ovem ents. It must be stressed that the ideal content

9This Soviet demand had come up as early as September 1945. CAB 128/1,CM (45), 27th and 32nd conclusions of September 3 and 15, 1945. It came upagain in April 1946. CAB 129/9, CP (46) 165th conclusion of April 18, 1946.PRO , Kew. McNeill,op. cit., p. 186.p. 165.


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary D elegation to Greecein the Labou r government's policy toward Greece was an important com-ponent, forgenuine though it undoubtedly wasit also served to softenthe harsh realities of the considerations of power politics and in manyrespects blurred the appra isal of alternative courses of action.The conclusion of the second round of the Civil W ar had beenthe Varkiza Ag reement of February 12, 1946, which had d emobilizedELAS Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratosthe National People'sLiberation A rmy), the military wing of E AM , in return for w hich anamnesty w as granted, civil liberties were to be restored, elections heldpreceded by a referendum on the monarchy. Throughout 1945, the suc-cessive Greek bourgeois governments shamefully neglected to ensure theobserva nce of the am nesty and it became o ne of the first tasks of theBritish Labou r government to put pressure on the reluctant Greek regent,Archbishop Damaskinos, and the British ambassador, Reginald Leeper,to see that the amnesty terms w ere enforced.' 2This hum anitarian con-cern linked up w ith the British Labour governm ent's political goals: theestablishm ent of a Greece that wa s safe (i.e., non-com m un ist) and pu rified from excesses (i.e., dem ocratic), a mix in short of ideals andconsiderations of realpolitik on the part of the Labou r governm ent. Theoutcome of this policy was the creation by the British of a decent centergovernment, which Hector McN eil, the parliamentary undersecretary forforeign affairs, tried to achieve by his v isit to Greece in m id-N ovem ber1945, wh en he forced the reg ent to appoint the veteran Liberal leaderThemistocles Sofoulis head of a minority government'sThis governmen t, in which EA M did not of course participate, wasinitially nonetheless accepted by them . 14This was not an u nsatisfactoryaspect from the B ritish gove rnm ent's point of view , for it mean t thatEA M was both relegated and well-behaved. In fact, EA M , which rep-resented a powerful political force (at its high point during the war,it had claimed a m embership of one-and-a-half million ou t of a popula-tion of eight million), 15was restless. Throughou t autum n, it had beentrying to send a delegation to the B ritish gov ernment in L ondon 1 and,when it arrived in Decem ber, Bevin refused to see it on the groundsthat, as foreign secretary, the most prudent course is to meet only theRepresentatives of Governm ents and not the representatives of political

12i am indebted once more for Heinz Richter's permission to consult theEnglish translation of his forthcoming work in regard to this aspect of Britishpolicy. It should be stressed that a strong element in British policy at this timewas the creation of conditions for a financially solvent Greece. On the EAMview of M cN eil 's visit, see M anchester Guardian January 1, 1946.14McNeill, op. cit. p. 185.15 Richter. Archives of the Leagu e for Dem ocracy in Greece, King's College, London,Seymour Cocks file, letter of Diana Pym to Seymour Cocks of September 28,1945, and reply of C ocks of O ctober 2, 1945, promising to g et the m atter raisedin the Commons.


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10OURNAL OF THE HELLEN IC DIASPORAparties. 17This, if anything, was a rejection of the Labou r gove rnment'sdaim to hav e a special advantage in the manag ement of foreign affairsby virtue of the common bond with the working-peoples of allcountries.Bu t Bev in did counsel the delegation to see H ector McN eil, whowas now assuming a grow ing responsibility for Greece. Two m embersof the delegation also later saw Zilliacu s. 12This was a natural enoughoccu rrence as the EAM desperately dung to its belief that the influenceof the British Labour Party would in some way be sooner or laterexerted to help EAM .The boycott by EA M of the Greek elections in M arch 1946 was afurther step in their relegation, how eve r. As the m onths we nt by, thesitua tion in Greece see m ed to be wo rsening as far as the hop es of re-storing basic civil liberties were concerned, and the plight of Greektrade unionism in particular became an international scandal. 2 Fromthis point of view, the political solutions in Greece that the BritishLabou r government was endorsing for the monarchists won the Marchelections from w hich mo re than half the registered electorate had ab-stained21 did not au gur well for the politics of reconciliation. W ithinBritain, the Greek issue was being seen very mu ch in terms of questionsof human rights and Labour gov ernment spokesmen had a hard time injustifying their Greek policy from this point of view, since they them-selves shared many of the apprehensions of their critics and werestruggling to convince themselves that they cou ld produce a policy thatwou ld restore civil rights.22

17Seym our C ocks file, letter from Cocks to Diana Pym of Decem ber 6, 1945,recoun ting the results of his own interview with Bev in.1 8 S e y m o u r Cocks file, letter of Diana P ym to C ocks of M arch 5, 1946, enclos-ing a cable from the EAM Central Committee and a further letter of March 7,1946, stating that two members of the delegation had seen Zilliacus at theCommons.120n the expectations of EAM in regard to the Labour Party and LabourGovernment, see the Introduction by Marion Sarafis to S. Sarafis, ELAS: TheGreek Resistance A rmy, p. lxxviii, and M cN eill, op. cit., p. 185.20The replacement of the elected leaders of the Greek trade u nion movem entby governm ent nominees was brought before the W FTU by the veteran Frenchtrade union leader Leon Jou haux in 1946. The Foreign Office was also disturbedabou t trade union conditions in Gree ce. See e.g., C. W arner's report of July 13,1946, in FO 371,58906, Public Record Office, Kew, and in the same file a

report of Hector McNeil's of July 8, detailing his conversations with theGreek premier, K. Tsaldaris. (Reference to and extracts from this and othermaterial at the PRO appears by kind permission of H M SO.)The pam phlet Tragedy in Greece, published by the Leag ue for Dem ocracy inGreec e, also dealt in detail with the su ppression of trade union rights.21McNeill,tion, p. lxxx, believes that slightly fewer than 40% of the registered votersabstained.22F0 371,67145, fetter of H. McN eil to Hu gh Dalton.

op. cit., p. 194. Marion Sarafis, on the other hand, ELAS: Introduc-


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary D elegation to Greece1N one of this, however, solved the problem of what to do with EAM ,whose de facto position was that it had disbanded its army in Februa ry

1945 and had, seemingly, abandoned its involvement in constitutionalpolitics in March 1946. This was a very dangerous situation, and itwas this that should have been the focal point of debate betwee n theLa bour gov ernment and its critics as the vital months of 1946 ebbedaway. It will be contended here that the L abour go vernme nt succeededin evad ing this issue and must therefore share a certain responsibility forthe reopening of the Greek Civil W ar, when the so-called third roundstarted in earnest in the au tum n of 1946. 23It must of cou rse be adm itted that already by the early m onths of1946, EAM 's own attitude had become uncertain and ambiguous. As faras Britain w as concerned, the strident cam paign em barked on againstthe presence of British troops with, at the same time, the manifest desireto establish reasonable relations with the British Foreign O ffice showedthe conflicting elements in the outlook of EA M . EAM was still a coali-tion of diverse political forces and the lines of policy even among thecomm unist leaders themselves w ere far from clear. It has been pointedout that the meeting of the Second P lenum of the Greek C omm unistParty on February 11, 1946, had already concluded that an armed strugglemight again be necessary. 24Before the elections, the former commander-in-chief of the EL AS forces, General Stefanos Sarafis, warned the gen-eral secretary of the Greek Com mu nist Pa rty, N ikos Zachariadis, thatabstention from the forthcoming M arch elections implied a resum ptionof civil war 25Yet the central organs of EAM did not seem to have takenany lead in the resum ption of the conflict, and, by the summer, the GreekComm unist Party was seeking the help of the eastern Eu ropean govern-ments for a proposal to neutralize Greece. 23In the midst of this highly labile situation, there arrived in G reecein August 1946 a British all-party parliamentary de legation. The leaderof the delegation was Seymou r Cocks, the Labou r M.P . for Brox towe,who was also chairman of the ex ternal affairs group of the parliamentaryL abour P arty. Coc ks was a veteran of Labou r Party politics, who w asmuch respected by his colleagues in the party. 27H e had been an inauguralmem ber of the execu tive of the Leagu e for Dem ocracy in G reece, anorgan ization highly critical of British policy toward tha t coun try. The

231t is true that sporadic outbursts occurred before this. Clogg, op. cit.pp. 193-4 and M . Sarafis, ELAS: Introduction, p. lxx xi.24Clogg, op. cit., p. 193.25M. Sarafis, ELAS: Introduction, p. lxxix . On the v acillation of Zacha riadisand his difference of opinion with M arkos Va fiadis, see C. M. W oodhouse, T he

Struggle for Greece, 1941-1949, Lo ndon, 1976, p. 176.25As M. Sarafis points out, ELAS: Introduction, p. lxxx, the Soviet Unionignored this proposal, doubtless for fear of the spread of the idea elsewhere inthe Balkans. It ma y of course be argu ed that neutralization by the Po wers w as adevice for allowing EA M a free hand in Greece.27Letter to the author from L eslie H ale, Ap ril 26, 1946.


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12OURNAL OF THE HELL ENIC DIASPORAchairman of the Leagu e for Democracy in Greece was the author ComptonM ackenzie, and its secretary was D iana Pym, a mem ber of the Com -mu nist Party; needless to say, the Leagu e itself was not kindly regardedby the Foreign O ffice, especially in the case of M rs. Pym . 28The other L abou r M .P.'s in the all-party parliam entary delegationwere Leslie Hale, W alter Monslow of ASL EF, and Evelyn W alkden.The Conservative members were John Maude, K.C., and W. M. R.Vane. There was one L iberal mem ber, E. R. Bowen. These names hadbeen subm itted to the gov ernment by the chief whips of the three partiesand, at least within the L abou r Pa rty, a lot of jugg ling of nam es hadoccurred before the final list was ready. The Foreign Officein the personof Hector McNeilalso expressed its partialities. At the very last moment,one Labour M.P. whose name was on the list had to drop out forhealth reasons. This was John P arker, the Fabian, and his absence wastruly a great loss to the delegation. Another L abour M .P., Capt. FrancisN oel-Baker, had already offered his services as a possible replacementshould any other Labou r M .P. drop out. But by the time the delegationwas about to leave, N oel-Baker was motoring through Y ugoslavia andthe chief whip was unable to contact hitn. 29This, too, was a significantomission from the delegation, for N oel-Baker's family had a v ested in-terest in Greece, holding extensive estates in Boeotia. 3The B ritish all-party parliamentary delegation to Greece w as theapparent brain-child of Konstantinos Tsaldaris, the Populist (monarchist)prime m inister of Greece, who h ad been the v ictor in the elections ofMarch 1946. H e first proposed the idea to the British embassy in A thensin an interview with Sir C. N orton on M ay 1. N orton was not initially

28F0 371,58893 comments in the minutes of R. Selby, May 4, 1946, andD. J. McCarthy, August 20, 1946, on Solley, Tiffany, and Dodds, and onMrs. Pym. The list of Labour members originally sent by Hector McNeil to thechief whip, W illiam W hiteley, contained the following nam es: H. C. Usborne,W alter Ayles, George B rown, Mrs. Freda Corbett, and H. D . Hu ghes. Letter ofJune 5, 1946 in FO 371,58898. Whiteley substituted Walkdon for Hughes andlater proposed Neil MacLean, the chairman of the party, as one who would besenior to Seymour Cocks, whose name had now cropped up. Letters of July 5and 29 to Hector McN eil. W hen MacL ean was unable to go, Whiteley substitutedthe name of John Parker. Letter of July 30, 1946, to McN eil. On Francis N oel-Baker's possible last-minute membership, letter of D. J. McCarthy to AthensEm bassy, Augu st 12, 1946 and Foreign Office to Belgrade Embassy, Augu st 12,1946. FO 3 71,58898. Francis Noel-Baker's views on Greece may be gauged from a letter hehad pu blished in the Times on Feb ruary 28, 1946. In this he blamed British policyfor refusing to encourage moderates to join EAM in wartime, but seemed toassume that with this failure there had been no alternative to the use of forceby the British against EAM. Later, his critical review of the pamphlet Tragedyin Greece in Tribune won Foreign Office approval. FO 371,58893, minute ofD. J. McCarthy of August 20, 1946. He had accompanied Hector McNeil toGreece in Novem ber 1945.


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The 1946 British Parliamentary Delegation to Greece3particularly impressed by the idea. Holding to the belief that there wasanyway complete freedom of the press in Greece and that the coun trywas comparatively calm, he seemed to favor a quieta non movere posture,a view m ore or less endorsed by the Foreign Office official who minutedhis dispatch, with, however, the significant proviso that if there ispressure from the H ouse we would agree. 31But it was just pressure from the House of Commons thatTsaldaris had in mind. For on April 13, 1946, the League forDem ocracy in Greece had received a cable from Gene ral Alexan drosOthoneos, the president of the P an-H ellenic Federation of Dem ocraticClubs, inviting a delegation of British personalities, preferably deputies,to visit Greece. At the Foreign Office, William Hayter dismissedOthoneos as an EA M stooge and the Union of D emoc ratic Clubsas of course one of EA M 's num erous aliases. Bu t the fact was thatthree Lab our M .P. 's L. J. Solley, S. Tiffany, and N orman D oddshad already agreed to form a delegation to go to Greece. The Greekgovernment, obviously anxious to be on its best behavior with the Britishgovernm ent, had granted visas to the surprise of the Foreign Office,which had not been prepared to recomm end that visas be granted. BothBevin and McNeil expressed their regrets to William Whiteley, theLabou r chief whip, that a delegation w as going to Greece that was notrepresentative of the views of the House of Commons as a whole,a point of view that once again underlined the constitutionalist ap-proach of these key figures, as opposed to the socialist approach toforeign policy of their critics.In the even t, before taking further action, the Foreign O ffice w asprepared to aw ait the report of this delegation. They feared the wo rstand their fears were realized, Solley writing on his return in the middleof May in the News Chronicle that Greece was rapidly becom ing aFascist state 33and the three M .P.'s together pu blishing shortly after-ward a pamp hlet entitled Tragedy in Greece (published by the Leagu efor Democracy in Greece, whose secretary, Diana Pym, had accompaniedthe M.P.'s), in which the deprivations of life and civil liberties thenoccuring in Greece were reported from a leftwing viewpoint.In the meantime, however, Tsaldaris had come up with his ownproposal for a wider delegation. Having granted an interview to

81F0 371,58893. Tel. of Sir C. N orton to Ernest Bevin, May 2, 1946.32The deliberations of the Foreign Office on this question will be found inFO 371,58893, esp. Hayter's letter to M.A.M. Robb of April 18, 1946, R.Selby's minute of A pril 16, copy of a cable of April 13 from Ge neral Othoneosto the Lea gue for Dem ocracy in Greece, Mc N eil 's letter to Chief W hip W hiteleyof April, and R. Selby's minute of M ay 4, 1946.33A copy of this article will be found in FO 371,58893. The article wasaccompanied by a cartoon by Vicky of the lamb and sheep of Greek democracybeing brutally butchered by the prewar dictator John Metaxas and the royalistgovernment of 1946, and bore the caption: You can never change yourbutcher.


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14OURNAL OF THE HELL ENIC DIASPORASolley, Tiffany, Dodds, and Mrs. Pym at the Athens embassy, SirClifford N orton now became m ore convinced than previously that theTsaldaris proposal should be taken u p, while, at the Foreign O ffice,H ayter supp orted the idea of an all-party delegation to offset the badeffect in Greece of the recent visit of near-Comm unist M .P.'s. 34It says mu ch for the tolerance o f the British constitutional systemthat Seymour Cocks was chosen to head the British all-party parliamentarydelegation to Greece. For in the great foreign affairs debate in theH ouse of Com mo ns on June 4, Cock s interpreted the Varkiza Agree-ment as a trick. EAM , Cocks stated, made one great mistake to laydow n their arms, trusting to the honor of the British Fore ign Office.Cocks env isaged a time w hen British troops would be w ithdrawn fromGreece, when civil war might possibly break out again, and then revolu-tion will take place, on w hich occasion I hope it will be su ccessfu l.Cocks's remarks were addressed in particular to the member for W ood-ford, W inston S. C hurchill. 36In view of Cocks's identification with the EAM cause at this juncture(when he w as und oubtedly affected by the reports of Solley, Tiffany,D odds, and the Leag ue for D em ocracy in Greece in general), it is in-teresting to note how he subsequently behaved in a responsible posi-tion a s head of an all-party parliamentary d elegation, which, if it hadbeen forceful enoug h in getting its own report's conclusions acted upon,might, so it will be argu ed here, hav e been instrum ental in prev entingthe very resumption of the civil war that Cocks so gleefully envisaged inhis June speech.

The terms of reference of the all-party parliamentary delegation werenot of the clearest. It is obvious that Tsaldaris himself wanted awh itewa sh of his governm ent, and his director-general of foreign af-fairs was somew hat horrified when the British embassy insisted that thedelegation should also be able to meet EAM leaders. 36The delega-tion's most apparent point of reference was to investigate whether polit-ical conditions in Greece were favorab le to the holding of the plebisciteon the return of the monarchy. But since the plebiscite was alreadyscheduled to be held on S eptember 1 and the delegation did not arriveuntil August 16 (Walkden and Bowen not until August 18),x 7anynegative observations made by the delegation could by no means hav eforestalled the holding of the plebiscite, and indeed they w ere give nno au thority to make any such possible recommendation. Superv ision of

84F0 371,58898, letter from Sir C. Norton to Ernest Bevin of May 8, 1946,with minutes by H ayter and Orm e Sargent.35F0 371,58893, containing an extract from Hansard of June 4, 1946. Richterhas pointed out that Cocks had already put a critical question about Greece inthe Comm ons as early as Aug ust 22, 1945.36F0 371,58898, letter of D. W . Lascelles to Ernest Bevin, August 5, 1946.37F0 371,588 99, letter of. Sir Clifford N orton to Ernest Bev in of September3, 1946.


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary Delegation to Greece5the registration of voters and of ce rtain other procedu res had alreadybeen en trusted to a second allied election mission (B ritish and Am er-ican).38The F oreign Office standpoint was perhaps m ost illuminatinglysummed up in a minute by R. Selby, who at one and the sam e timeseem ed to feel that the prox imity of the plebiscite to the delegation'svisit deprived the latter of its adv antages, while, how ev er, wh at wechiefly w ish the world to know is whether, despite propaganda to thecontrary, conditions are ripe for aplebiscite in Greece. 38This view w asin essence no t dissimilar to that of Tsaldaris.

But in the light of the concern expressed about Greece on bothsides of the House (in, for example, the debate on foreign affairs ofJu ne 4), it is reasonable to assum e that the delegation's own prim aryinterest would reside in the chances afforded by the visit of makingan estimation of the likelihood of establishing a modus vivendi thatwo uld prev ent the plunge into further violence. This, in broad terms,is what the delegation endeavored to do.Som e time after their arrival in Greece, the M .P.'s split up and eachgroup took in a specific area of the cou ntry. Som e of the M .P.'s alsoreported on special aspects of the Greek situation: Monslow and W alkdenon trade unionism, Hale and Maude on law and order, Vane on themilitary situation. 4 ' On the whole, one has the impression that theM .P.'s w ere as thorough as they possibly could be in the brief spaceof time allotted to them (they left on August 29 excep t for Vane,who had private reasons for staying on). Hale and Maude in par-ticular behav ed ex tremely well in refusing to accept at face v alue thestatements made to them by the au thorities. W alkden, on the other hand,could no t resist playing to the gallery and at Salonika regaled his Greekhearers with his First W orld W ar exploits on the Salonika front: theseexploits included the killing in vengeance of a couple of Macedo-Bu lgar brigands, a tendentious story to relate in the Greece of 1946,where the com mu nist danger w as often interpreted in terms of a Slavor Slavophone attack from the north.The de legation's general line of wanting to be scrupu lously fair toall sides in Gree ce natu rally em braced a de sire to be apprec iative o fthe efforts taken on its behalf by the Greek gov ernm ent. This, cou pled88 McNei1.l, op. cit., pp. 200-1. On the earlier missionAMFOGEibid.,pp. 189 and 193-4. F 371,58898, minute of R. Selby of June 15, 1946.40All the MP's spent six days together in Athens and Piraeus. Then e.g.,Cocks, Hale, Maude, and Vane went to Sparta and Tripolis, while Bowen,Monslow, and Walkden went to Patras and Kalavryta and then flew to Crete.

FO 371,58899, letter of Sir Clifford Norton to Ernest Bevin, September 3, 1946.41The full report is in CP (46), no. 447.42F 371,58899, letter of Sir C. Norton to Ernest Bevin; September 3, 1946.43 FO 371,58899, letter of British consul-general in Salonika to Sir C. Norton,

August 27, 1946.


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16OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAwith the fact that the delegation was itself composed of all sides ofthe British political spectrum , led to certain unhappy com prom ises inthe final tex t of the delegation's report. A t one and the sam e time, thedelegation thanked the Greek governm ent for having been given everyfacility . . . to investigate conditions in Greec e. They we re able to g owhere they liked and see whom they wished, while this was im-mediately contradicted when the report went on to tell how the delega-tion was acc ompanied by go vernm ent representatives to every p rovin-cial center, and was received there by the local nomarch, in consequence ofwhich at Sparta and Edessa no representatives of the left were m et.

In spite of these difficu lties at the prov incial leve l, the d elegationsucceeded in mee ting a very representative set of top politicians. Apartfrom P opulists, these included such diverse figures as the L iberal leaderThemistocles Sofoulis, George P apandreou, the founder of the Dem -ocratic Socialists, Ilias Tsirimo kos, of the EL D Soc ialist Pa rty and aformer mem ber of EAM , and the Greek com mu nist leaders Dim itriosPartsalidis (the EAM general secretary) and N ikos Zachariadis (generalsecretary of the Greek Communist Party). The delegation also metGreek trade unionists from both the elected executive of the GreekTUC , subsequ ently deposed by the government, and from the provisionalexecu tive appointed by the government in its place.The delegation assum ed that the forthcoming plebiscite on the mon-archy would turn out, as it did, to show a majority in favor of thereturn of the king, particularly as many earlier supporters of the republicwere now , for fear of commu nism, prepared to back the monarchy as abulwark against that danger. But the delegation was not content toleave matters at that point and had the sense to see that whether themon arch's return was dem ocratically endorsed or not, the deteriorationin Greek political conditions w ould continue w ithout further m easuresof reconciliation. The fact that EA M supp orters were already takingto the mou ntains in m any areas w as not, the delegation mo destly be-lieved, entirely due to foreign inspiration. There was such a thingas rightwing terrorism; the security committees, courts-martial, deporta-tions to the islands, violence aga inst elected trade u nion officials, allpointed, in the d elegation's opinion, to a state of a ffairs in w hich thegovernm ent's own role was n ot always- su fficiently distinguished fromthat of its own m ore ex treme adherents in the field.Hence the delegation concluded that the return of the monarch shou ldbe view ed as an opportunity to inaugura te a policy of reconciliation,the key to w hich wou ld be the formation of w hat the delegation calledan all-party governm ent. This was n ot perhaps quite what it sounded.In the delegation's report, such a governm ent was described as em-bracing all sections exc ept the extrem e left. W hat was mean t by theextreme left? Did this mean EAM? Or did it mean only the GreekCo m unist Party, thu s leav ing the way open for representatives of the


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary D elegation to Greece7non-communist elements in EAM such as the Agrarians or for figureslike General Othoneos? Whatever it meant, such a government wasenvisaged by the delegation as getting rid of the special securitymeasu res, thus enabling the refugees in the m ountains to return to theirhom es; as turning its attention not merely to the reestablishment of lawand order within a constitutional framework, but also to economicreconstruction; and as holding, after a suitable period of time, newelections on the strength of electoral registers brought u p-to-date.The delegation's proposal was not a m ere pipe dream, even thoug hGeo rge II himself was hardly the figure to be trusted to inspire such areconciliation policy. One of the most significant sentences in the de lega-tion's report, howeverand one that ought to have leaped out fromthe page when the report was studied by the British Foreign Officeand gov ernment was the statement that if a governm ent of the kindenvisaged by the delegation were set up, then the EAM CentralCom mittee informed the D elegation this was before the P lebiscitethat ... they wou ld supp ort it.That this was part of a m ore widely-thought-out EA M policy linebecom es clear in that section of the British parliamentary delegation'sreport dealing with the success of the British economic mission to Greece.On being interviewed abou t this, Nikos Zachariadis, the general secretaryof the Com mu nist P arty, stated that he was in favour of the Mission'sremaining and thought that Economic Collaboration between Greece andGreat B ritain could last a hu ndred years.Zachariadis's statement certainly represented a change in EA M policyif compared with the viewpoints expressed by the EA M delegation toEngland a few months earlier. Then, the EAM viewpoint tended tosee the British econo mic conn ection in terms of a classic ex am ple ofimperialist economic exploitation. 45But now, of course, the situationhad considerably worsened from the EA M standpoint. Thanks in partto the advice of Z achariadis, EAM had m ade a serious tactical mistakein boycotting the March elections and there is evidence that the boycottwas against the advice of the Sov iet Union. N or were the Sov iet leadershelping in any other w ay, in spite of hav ing raised the Greek issue inthe Security Cou ncil in January. Thus EA M was driven into seeking amore positive relationship with the British.In fact, however, this was a trend of development that had beentaking place over m any m onths. The E AM delegation to Britain hadsought in v ain to strike a responsive chord by appealing to the Labou rgovernm ent's socialism and blaming Tory policy for the resumptionof hostilities in Greece in Decem ber 1944 ( the second round of civil

M. Sarafis points out that at the time of liberation the A grarian P arty wasthe largest mem ber organization in EA M, ELAS: Introduction, p. fill.46F0 371,58752, Rex Leeper to E rnest Bevin, January 9, 1946, containing astatement of the EAM Central Comm ittee of January 1946.46M. Sarafis, ELAS: Introduction, pp. lxxix and lxxx .


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1 8OURNAL OF THE HELL ENIC DIASPORAwar) .47Now, confronted with a non-partisan British parliamentarydelegation, EAM was compelled to adapt to the realities of Britishconstitutionalism. T he British constitutionalist tradition embraced a be-lief in nonv iolent political development; it tended to a bipartisan foreignpolicy, and had recently com e to accept that internal political violence(i.e., the communist movement) and external political violence (theSov iet Union) were inextricably connected.H ow genune was EA M in its adaptation? Its earlier delegation toBritain had stated in a pronou ncem ent issued on Ja nu ary 1, 1946, thereasons why it could no longer go on supporting the Sofoulis govern-m ent and had asked for participation in a new governm ent as an in-dispensable guarantee for reform in Greece. Now in August 1946they were proposing to give their support to a g overnment in which theythemselv es wo uld hav e no clear right of participation, althou gh it re-mains open as to how far EA M leaders were even then misled by theparliamen tary delegation's talk of an all-party g overnm ent for G reeceinto thinking that this wou ld involve the ir participation in one form oranother. At any rate, as the autumn wore on and the parliamentarydelegation's report failed to surface, EA M sources tended to interpretits non-pu blication as evidence that the report recomm ended p oliciesat variance with the current British line. This wa s held to m ean thatthe report had urged EA M participation in an all-party governm ent. Inspite of the fact that EAM 's London correspondent, T. Dog anis, havingfinally received information of the contents of the report, telegrapheda summary to the Greek Communist Party newspaper Rizospastis inearly N ovem ber in which he correctly reproduced the parliamentarydelegation's call for an all-party government excluding the Far Left. 5 N evertheless, in a subsequent issue of Rizospastis Nikos Zachariadis, instating EA M 's acceptanc e of the report, asserted that this first of alIand above all means a coalition government with an adequate representa-tion of EAM . 51N otwithstanding these obscurities, conflicts, and shifts of interpreta-tion abou t what w as involved in an a ll-party governm ent, this mu chmay be said: that EA M was in a m ood to negotiate. And neg otiation,

47Statement of the EAM delegation from the Strand Palace H otel on January1, 1946 in FO 371,58752.48 /bid.49Archives of the League for Dem ocracy in Greece. W eekly Survey of GreekNews, Greek N ews Agency, London, Novem ber 22, 1946. This was not reproduced until the Rizospastis of Nov ember 13. In the samenewspaper of N ovember 17, it was noted that the general secretary of the Gree kCom mu nist Party (Zachariadis) had, according to the pa rliame ntary delegation'sreport, expressed him self in fav or of the B ritish econom ic mission's rema iningin Greece, although, the editor added, Rizospastis does not know of any suchdeclaration by Comrade Zachariadis.81 Rixospastis of November 16, 1946. (I am grateful to Marion Sarafis fortranslating this m aterial from Rizospdstir.)


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary D elegation to Greece9as such, wa s surely preferable to the slump o nce m ore into civil war.Acceptance of EAM willingness to negotiate was not, of course, initself any guarantee of the avoidance of civil war. As noted, EAM hadcalled for the w ithdraw al of British forces from Greece and , in viewof the fluid nature of E AM policies, this must be interpreted as a tacticthat would enable it to seize power, where necessary, by a swiftand final resort to arms.In short, for a po licy of reco nciliation to work with any degree ofsuccess in Greece, the presence of a British army, as a controling forceagainst ex cesses of e ither left or right, was essential. But the B ritishall-party parliamentary delegation also looked forward to the withdrawalof British forces and its outlook here showed not merely a disin-genuo us u nderestimation of the realities of Greek politics bu t a w oefulignorance, too, of the chan ging natu re of official British policy towardGreece.For already in the Labour cabinet the right to pull Britain out ofGreece w as under way. The policy of withdrawal, however, was mu chwider than the simple evacuation of British troops: it meant the endingof British military aid to the Greek a rmed forces and the winding dow nof econom ic aid to Greece. The British parialmentary delegation did notseem to have been aware of the unease in the cabinet about Greece and,in the case of the L abou r mem bers of the delegation, this once aga inpointed to a grave lack of consultation between ministers and back-benchers. 52Thus Seymou r Cocks, speaking at Salonika, assured a publicaudience that whatev er the nature of their report . . . they would cer-tainly recomm end to their Gov ernment to continue its assistance to theGreek people 53and in actual fact the delegation came to advocate apossible ex tension of the powers of the B ritish economic m ission, bear-ing in mind the m ission's forecast that, in ten years' time, Greece mighthave a balanced budget and trade balance.In September 1946, an ag itated Ernest Bev in, regretting the victoryof the Greek king in the plebiscite, told the chancellor of the exchequ er,H ugh D alton, that he was already bringing a division of B ritish troopsou t of Greece. This was pa rtly, he indicated, a pointer to the Greeksthat they cou ld not rely indefinitely on British m iliatry su pport (w hatthe ensuing self-reliance of the Greeks wou ld mean in practice Bev indid not specify). Bu t Bev in had a more im portant reason for telling allthis to Dalton. He hoped, he said, that it would help Dalton, whohad now becom e a bitter critic of the British gov ernment's vast m ilitaryobligations.

521t is fair to point out that this consultation m ay in som e respects have beengreater than now appears since the archives of the external affairs group of theparliamentary Labour Party have regrettably been lost.53F0 3 71,58899, letter of British consul-general in Salonika to Sir C. N orton,Au gust 27, 1946.54British Library of Political and Econom ic Science, London School of Eco-nomics, Dalton P apers, Dalton Diaries, vol. 34, entry of. September 10, 1946.


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20OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAThe course of Dalton's thinking about foreign policy is of some

importance, for it should be rem embered that in 1945 he w as tipped tobe L abou r's foreign secretary 55and during 1946 and 1947, whenBev in suffered from continual bou ts of illness, 55Da lton ev idently felthimself to be under the threat of having to forego the Treasury forthe Foreign Office. 57 Early in 1946, Dalton's combined v iew of foreign,defense, and economic policy brough t him round to su pporting C lementAttlee's line on the necessity for a considerable disengagement ofBritain from many areas of the world, including the M iddle East, andEgypt and Greece in particular, 58a v iewpoint long propagated by C apt.B. H . Liddell Hart, and one which had already emerged at cabinet leve l. 59The Foreign Office strongly contested this outlook, believing that anyvacu um left by British withdrawal would swiftly be filled by the R ussiansto the peril of Britain. On his entry into office, Bev in was already com-mitted to the view of the Foreign O ffice traditionalists that the defenseof the eastern M editerranean was of v ital significance. 60As the year 1946 wore on, Soviet foreign policy appeared to bem ore and m ore intransigent and this strengthened the Foreign O fficeline on the eastern Mediterranean. Bu t Bev in was clearly unhappy aboutGree ce and failing miserably in his Egyptian and P alestinian policy. Inthe m eantime, D alton, while continuing to believe in withdrawal fromthe eastern Me diterranean and privately favoring the alternative policyof dev eloping a political, military, and eco nom ic base in Africa southof the Sahara and theHorn, now concentrated on forcing Bevin toappreciate the econom ic burden of his eastern M editerranean an d, inparticular, of his Greek policy. Dalton, who told himself that he wantedto avoid the Foreign Office should Bev in go and who anyw ay claimedthat cabinet ministers shou ld not intervene in each other's provinces, 9155H. Dalton, High Tide and A fter, London, 1962, p. 4. Dalton's Diaries, vol. 34, entries of August 1, October 23, and December20, 1946, and vo l. 35, entries of Janu ary 17, and Febru ary 5, 1947.57Dalton's Diaries, vol. 34, entry of D ecember 20, 1946.5 5 /bid., entry of March 22, 1946. A memorandum of Liddell Hart's entitled, Africa and the Middle East:Reflections on Strategy and Peace P olicy, setting out these viewpoints (whichLiddell Hart had been advocating since the days when L . Hore-Belisha had beenminister of defense) is to be found in the Attlee Papers. This is actually datedMay 10, 1946, i.e., after Dalton had discussed this policy with Attlee, but it isevident that Attlee was cognizant of views of this kind earlier. (I am mostgrateful to Lady Liddell Hart for permission to refer to this memorandum.)In fact the cabinet discussedas early as September 3, 1945 and on PrimeM inister Attlee's instigation the whole qu estion of the defense of the Mediter-ranean and if it was any longer a vital matter for Britain. CAB 128/1, CM(45), 27th conc. Richter brings out the imp ortance of an FO memorandum. (undated) settingout the tenets of British policy toward G reece drawn u p at Bev in's own requ estin the first few days of office. This is in FO 371,48276.61Dalton's Diaries, vol. 34, entry of Au gu st 1, 1946.


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary D elegation to Greece1seems to have kept to a strictly economic line in his statements onGreece, these culminating in February and M arch 1947 in a successfuldem and that Britain should pull out of Greece by M arch 31.62But the Foreign Office still clung to the view that the defense ofG reece wa s essential and that withou t a com m itm ent to that defense,the Greek g overnm ent at that time (of the monarchist Tsaldaris) wou ldfall and no substitute could be found for it. 63The stage was thus setfor the Trum an Doctrine, that is, British withdrawa l, leaving the Greeksnot to themselves but to the Am ericans. Da lton felt he had trium phedand in retrospect took pride in having been the causa Proxima of theTrum an Doctrine. Bu t his imm ediate responsibilities, he maintained,had been to the British taxpayer, and he never otherw ise show ed theslightest concern for the deterioration of internal conditions in Greece,tending, as so many B ritish leaders of whatev er political hue, to blam ethe Greeks. Entirely absent in his thinking was any reference to thesecond principle of a socialist foreign policy: the comm on bond withthe working-class of all coun tries. Ye t Dalton, hobnobbing cosily withAneu rin Bev an, was reputed to be more left than many cabinet min-isters. Bu t there was no point of contact here to what Seymo ur Cocks,and, indeed, the whole British parliamentary delegation, were advocating.

Cocks, howev er, could most certainly have cou nted on the supportof a great number of Labour backbenchers. The monarchist primeminister Tsaldaris had had a roug h ride when he addressed the parlia-mentary Labour P arty in JuIy. 66Bu t now in the autum n of 1946, Cocksbegan to bun gle his task, and the w ork of the all-party parliamentarydelegation becam e the victim of a series of delays, misunderstandings,official interpretations the parapherna lia, in other words, of the opera-tion at top level of the constitutional form of government in whichCocks had at this mom ent decided to repose his trust.In the first place, Cocks himself did not hurry to get ou t the delega-tion's report, eve n thou gh the plebiscite on the king's return w as heldon September 1 and the king himself arrived in Greece on S eptember 28,so that, if a policy of reconciliation was to be impressed u pon him, theBritish government in its turn needed to be faced a s rapidly as possiblewith EAM's willingness to participate in such a policy. In fact onSeptem ber 4, Cock s, on behalf also of Bowen, M aude, and W alkden,and with the assumed support of the other mem bers of the delegation,wrote to Ernest Bevin, recomm ending, among o ther things, the formationin Greece of a government of national unity and reconciliation, bringing62Dalton's Diaries, vol. 35, especially entries of February 26 and March

14, 1947.63/bid., entry of March 14, 1947.64Dalton, High Tide and After, pp. 206-9.66Dalton's Diaries, vol. 34, entries of May 20 and November 29, 1946.66F0 371 58906 letter of William Hayter to Sir Clifford Norton July

19, 1946.


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22OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAin important elements of the Centre and Left although characteristicallyat this stage he did not further specify what these elements were . W ithbland satisfaction, a Foreign Office clerk m inuted Cocks's letter: allthe proposals of the M.P.'s are in accordance with the spirit of theGreek king's policy as expou nded to the Secretary of State. Bev in didnot reply to C ocks till Sep tembe r 24, pointing o ut m ore significantlythat any Greek government is bound to take account of the gravesituation caused by the present external pressure on G reece and by thethreat to internal order caused by Com mu nist extremists.

Cocks in the meantime assured Bevin that the full report of thedelegation would be out for the nex t session of P arliament. It was actua llydated October 21, bu t had then to be printed and circulated, and permis-sion for the latter wa s not granted by the p rime m inister until the en dof Nov ember. 67The report was not pu t before the cabinet until Decem-ber 2, and a delay on its general publication until after December 23 wasagreed to by Seym our C ocks at the request of the Foreign O ffice, so asto give time for the Greek gov ernment to digest the report, 68althoughby D ecember 12 C ocks was already asking H ector McN eil for it to bereleased to the press, 69since in any case D oganis had gotten the gistof the report through to Rizospastis well over a month before.The crow ning irony was that when the report was finally printed andlaid before the cabinet, it was prefaced by an adulatory introduction fromthe minister of state, Hector McNeil, who had a very large part inm olding Britain's Gree k policy and m ust share the resp onsibility forfailing to ex ert British power in the interests of preven ting the escala-tion of the Civil War. In his introduction, McNeil paid particularattention to what the delegation had said about infringem ents of hum anrights in Greece, especially in regard to the dreaded secu rity committeesand the denial of trade union rights (a sore point also with ErnestBevin), but otherwise as far as what he termed the disorders wereconcerned, McN eil pointed out that the delegation had fou nd both theleft and right to blame. H av ing impartially adm inistered cu lpability,M cN eil left it at that, and there is no m ention in his introduction of theEAM approach to reconciliation.

Yet it was just at this time that McNeil was admitting to hiscolleagu es that Britain's Greek policy was in the m elting pot. H isfailure to consider new initiatives, howev er, must be placed alongsideanother failure: that of the Labour backbenches to m ake a big enoug h67F0 371,58898, letter from Seymour Cocks to Ernest Bevin, September 4,1946, minuted by M. S. Williams; reply from Bevin to Cocks, September 24,and letter of Cocks to Bevin, September 22; minute by D. J. McCarthy of

November 28, 1946.88F0 371,58955, Hector McNeil to Norman Dodds, December 28, 1946.69F0 371,58898, letter of Seymour Cocks to Hector McNeil of December 12,1946 and reply of McNeil of December 18.70Alexander, op . cit. p. 388.


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T he 1946 B ritish Parliam entary D elegation to Greece3stir about the publication of the all-party delegation's report on Greece.In Decem ber, N orman D odds was writing to McN eil to complain thatthe latter ignored mu ch of the evidence about G reece that Do dds wastrying to bring forward. At the sam e time, Dodds cou rteously asked himwhether it was in order for mem bers of the parliam entary delegation tolet him (Dodds) hav e a copy of their report. 71H e should have gottenand pu blished it as Do ganis did, but ev en earlier than D oganis. In theevent, these Labou r M .P.'s were bou nd by constitutional niceties. Thiswas especially true of C ocks himself, who cou rteously refrained fromforcing his view s on Bev in at the earliest oppo rtunity. This enabledBev in to hav e his chat with the Greek king in peace, an occasion onwhich the king in turn was able to present Bev in with a m emorandu minforming him that the revolutionary trend in Greece . . . (was) .. .mainly the result of foreign infiltration but that you must raise noobjection to the recru itment of a civ ilian militia. 73A few days later,Rizospastis ran an artide in which it still asked w hether the fu ture w asto be one of reco nciliation or war.The p oint abou t the all-party delegation w as that it was all-party.It was one thing for Labour backb enchers to push G reek matters aloneor for the League for D emocracy in Greece (w ith some of its publica-tions published by the Progress P ublishing C ompany) to list rightwingatrocities, and qu ite another for a delegation representing the w hole ofthe British P arliament to go to G reece and listen to EA M viewpoints,embodying an acceptance of British economic assistance and a dem andfor a policy of reconciliation (clearly enunciated prev iously by an EA Mdeputation to the Greek regent on July 18). 75The impartial character ofthe British parliam entary delegation and its report (impartial in termsof the norms of British constitutionalism) could hav e been u sed by theLabour left to justify its call for a change of policy in Greece. Thereport was not at variance with a socialist foreign policy if such apolicy were to be seen as an u nderstanding of the social and politicalmovem ents that emerged out o f the wartime resistance in many Europeancountries.By the spring of 19 47, the Civil W ar was ag ain in full intensity andCocks now cam e ou t openly and far too late in favor of the indusion

71F0 371,58955 , letter of Norman Dodds to Hector McNeil, December 9,1946.72E0 371,58899, letter of Seymour Cocks to Ernest Bevin, September 22,

1946, in which Cocks simply states that he is at at your service if in themeantime you want to hear any v iews on the situation.73F 371,58709, memorandum of the king of Greece, dated September 13,1946, and presented to Bev in at his interview w ith the king on the following day. Rizospastisof September 22, 1946, mentioned in W oodhouse, op . cit. p. 192.Woodhouse adds significantly: It was still possible to be in doubt about theoutcome.Archives of the League for D emocracy in Greece, Greek News, Journal ofthe League for D emocracy in Greece, September 1946.


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2 4OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAof EAM in the government. 78Bu t the government of D imitrios Max imos,set up after the resignation of Tsaldaris on Janu ary 23, 1947, had alreadywanted to include the ex treme rightist N apoleon Zervas as m inister ofpublic order. The British government exerted pressure to haveKanellopoulos in the post instead an exam ple of what the British coulddo if they tried. 77Zervas's time was to come, however.

It is the contention of this artide that Britain's postwar Labourgovernment let the Greek issue fall unnecessarily into the sphere ofconflict between the W est and the Sov iet Union. An alternative policyfor the period 1945-1947 wou ld have been that contained in the exerciseof a socialist foreign policy. This could notin the terms of Britishconstitutionalism have ev er meant the handing over of Greece to amilitant EA M , but rather the imposition on the Greeks of a truly coali-tion gove rnm ent. In the ev ent, the British sense o f constitutionalismgot the upper hand and led the British government into the illusionsof a decent, firmly based political center and constitutional monarchy forGreece. Britain's own parliamentary rules of the gam e for handlingdissenting opinion also got in the way and inhibited the Labour dis-sidents in particular Cocks at the very time urgency w as essential ifGreece w ere to be saved from further escalation into civil war.Behind all of this of course lay the international dimensionaBritish failure of nerv e as the Cold W ar burgeoned elsewhere, and theunhappy compromise between the British withdrawal from world powerstatus and the need to prevent a military and political vacuum fromemerging in G reece. But for the botched solutions that occurred, Britainand the world paid a heavy price. The events in Greece by no meansconstituted an u ltimate cau se of the Cold W ar, but they were neverthelessan importan t contributory factor to it. H ad British policy in Greece onthe one hand been more forceful (establishing a genuine coalition

governm ent backed by British arms), and on the other more conciliatory(toward EAM ), the Trum an Doctrine wou ld not have emerged. Andit was this doctrine, worked up into a strident and generalized anti-comm unism, that the saner heads in the Am erican State Dep artmentmen su ch as George K ennan so regretted, for it was the doctrine thatthereafter tended to stamp itself upon the whole of United States policyin Europe and elsewhere.78

76 Seymour Cocks's file, lettertaining statement of Cocks forWestminster, April 9, 1947.

77Alexander, op. cit., p. 410.78Foreign Relations of the

pp. 229-30.

of Cocks to Diana Pym, April 8, 1947, con-public meeting to be held at Central Hall

United States, vol. III, 1947, Washington,

the 1946 british parliamentary delegation to greece a lost opportunity maude george

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