The Diplomacy of Restraint: The United States' Efforts to Repatriate Greek Children Evacuated During the Civil War of 1946-49*

The Diplomacy of Restraint: The United States' Efforts to Repatriate Greek Children Evacuated During the Civil War of 1946-49* Howard Jones

In early 1948 the Department of State began receiving reports that Greek communist guerrillas were evacuating thousands of Greek

children from the country and relocating them in neighboring communist states in East Europe. Stories of atrocities during the Greek civil war were not new, of course, but these revelations seemed particularly shocking. The government in Athens charged that the rebels were kidnapping youths aged three to fourteen, causing the entire episode to take on the sinister appearance of a calculated effort

to destroy Greece as a nation. Indeed, the Greek government accused the rebels of genocide and appealed to the United Nations for help. Afterward it turned to the United States, which had earlier an-

nounced the Truman Doctrine of military and economic aid to prevent the spread of Soviet communism into Greece and Turkey. This seemingly new communist threat, which the Greeks called paedomazoma or "gathering ofthe children," aroused indignation within the Truman administration because it violated the fundamentals of

humanitarianism; more importantly, some American observers sus-

pected that the evacuations were a device for undermining the Truman Doctrine by deepening the chaos in Greece and making the country a breeding ground for communism (U.S., Dept. of State, Athens Post Records, Embassy to Sec. of State, 17 April 1948). Although numerous writers have referred to the displacement of Greek children, they have been unable to determine motive for obvious rea*The author wishes to thank the Earhart Foundation, Truman Library, and University of Alabama for support in the preparation of this article. He also ex-

presses appreciation to Richard V. Burks, Robert H. Ferrell, and Hugh Ragsdale for their advice and encouragement. 65

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sons: the files in the East European states and in Greece remain closed to researchers.

The accessibility to American documents permits only a onesided examination ofthe question, but even this approach raises important implications that extend beyond the immediate issue of the children. The evidence demonstrates that at least in this instance the

Truman administration was less rigid in its response to foreign policy matters during the Cold War than usually appeared to be the case. Despite pressure from many sources, the government in Washington refused to engage in a propaganda campaign against the communists, attempting instead to make a dispassionate decision about whether there was proof of kidnapping. There were reasons for this restraint. The purpose of the Truman Doctrine in Greece was to wind down the war and establish internal stability— not to aggravate further relations between the Athens government and its neighbors to the north. Furthermore, the Cold War itself would soon have an

effect on these incidents relating to the children. The Truman administration was aware of the growing troubles within the Corninform (Communist Information Bureau), and would try to exploit Yugoslavia's break with the Soviet bloc in June 1948. Undoubtedly this move by Yugoslavia's leader, Marshal Josip Tito, had an impact on the manner in which the United States dealt with the kidnapping allegations brought before the United Nations. State Department materials show that the Truman administration was so interested in

the overtures made by Tito shortly after the rift became public that by 1949 it was sending economic assistance to Yugoslavia (Lees, 407-22; Coufoudakis, 417, n. 47). Such a policy strongly suggests that Secretary of State George C. Marshall and others in Washington could not have wanted to criticize the Yugoslav government (or any other potential dissident in East Europe) over the fate of the Greek children. With these realities in mind, the purpose of this essay is to explore the delicate diplomacy exercised by the State Department in dealing with this new twist in the Greek situation. The White House suspected that both sides in the child controversy had exaggerated the issues, and yet it also knew that the matter was part of the ongoing civil war in Greece and for that reason could affect the outcome of the Truman Doctrine. Supporters of the Athens government complained that Yugoslavia was attempting to undermine the Greek nation as part of an effort to construct a Balkan federation. More importantly, these Greek loyalists asserted, the child abductions were proof of the darkest kind of crime. According to the government in Athens, the communists transported the youths to foster homes inside the neighboring states of East Europe, where

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in ideological training camps they were converted to communism and returned to Greece as guerrillas. A spokesman in Athens insisted

that the scheme "was intended to destroy Greece by destroying Greece's future—her youth" ( Time, 15 March 1948, 35). The Greek government marshalled a considerable amount of circumstantial evi-

dence for kidnapping. A team of inquiry—the United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB)—interviewed witnesses ofthe removals; the Greek government provided documentation for the evacuations; Red Cross agencies and independent observers verified the existence of thousands of Greek children outside the coun-

try; Time's correspondent in Greece reported that the "Reds" had taken the youths into the "people's democracies" to receive a "Marxist education" (28 May 1949, 26); and most governments ac-

cepting the youths defended their actions as humanitarian attempts to save the children from "monarcho-fascist" Greek armies allied

with Anglo-American imperialists. In the atmosphere of civil war, perception and reality often merged. Once they did, the United States could no longer ignore the matter.

The Truman administration faced a highly sensitive situation. It realized that even if true the charge of kidnapping was impossible to prove; indeed, many observers in Washington were probably correct in believing that the evacuations had taken place primarily to save the children from starvation and war. One of the few reliable

accounts of the practice indicates that the guerrillas initiated the removals as a propaganda effort to arouse worldwide sympathy, but wound up alienating villagers as well as other Greeks worried that

their country would be sacrificed for a Balkan federation (Gage, 245ff.). Yet no matter what the truth was, American policymakers knew that failure to defend their Greek protégé would unsettle other nations looking to the United States for leadership in the Cold War. There were domestic considerations as well. The White House rec-

ognized that the issue could have serious political implications, for numerous Greek-American organizations inside the United States demanded that Washington take action. Under Marshall's leader-

ship, the United States decided upon the only possible course: it appealed to the UN to seek the children's repatriation on humanitarian grounds.

The origins of the controversy over the Greek children lay in the civil war itself. The removals perhaps began as early as January 1948, but the first confirmed instances took place soon after a Balkan

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States Youth Conference in Belgrade the following month, where a Cominform arrangement provided that all children three to fourteen years of age should be relocated for safety in foster homes in Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and

Rumania (Sweet-Escott, 71). In early March, the leader ofthe Greek rebels' "Democratic Army," "General" Markos Vafiades, called for the evacuation of eighty thousand youths from the northern Slavophone (Slavic-speaking Greeks) villages in western Macedonia (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Charles Bohlen, Dept. of State counselor, to Rep. Ralph Gwinn of N.Y., 30 March 1948; NY. Times, 4 March 1948, L3; 15 March 1948, L8; Times (London), 4 March 1948, 4e; 6 March 1948, 3e; 16 March 1948, 4e). Despite the rhetoric that accompanied the announcement, it is likely that the guerrilla command realized the necessity of evacuating the northern areas, soon to become the scene of a heavy military offensive by the Greek National Army. The problem was that the Greek government denounced the evacuations as kidnappings, creating a situation which threatened to force the United States into a broader commitment to Greece at a

particularly touchy time in Yugoslavia's relationship to the Soviet Union. Given the panicky atmosphere of civil war, many Greeks probably believed what they were saying. Slavic communists, spokesmen in Athens proclaimed, had abducted the youths with the intentions of indoctrinating them for a later round in the civil war. The Soviets were involved, some Greeks declared. Moscow wanted

to detach Greek Macedonia and incorporate it into an independent Macedonian state, where it would become part ofthe Federal State of Yugoslavia. Once the Russians were assured an outlet to the Aegean Sea, they would install a communist regime in Athens, cut off Turkey from the West, and secure access to the eastern Mediterranean (Burks, 99-101; Nicholson). Regardless of whether the Greek charges were valid, some Americans in Washington were certain that the East European communist regimes were not free to do anything without the approval of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The danger was that the ensuing chaos in Greece would promote the collapse of the government in Athens and undermine the Truman Doctrine (U.S., Dept. of State, Office of Intelligence Research, Report 4664, 17 April 1948, 22; U.S., Dept. of State, Foreign Relations 107, Dwight Griswold, Chief of American Mission for Aid to Greece, to Sec. of State, 16 June 1948). Countries providing refuge for the children were not hesitant in detailing their actions and further inflaming the situation. Radio Sofia declared in early March that Hungary welcomed the youths and

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other Greek refugees "in response to the appeal of the People's

Councils of Free Greece [rebel areas in the north]." In fifty-nine villages, the bulletinvcontinued, "parents have given 4,684 children

aged three to thirteen, who will be transferred to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, and Yugoslavia." Eleftheri Ellada, the communist voice of Markos' rebel forces, listed over a half-dozen

Greek villages and the numbers of children taken from each. Free Greece radio declared that over four thousand children had already been relocated, and in April Radio Belgrade reported the arrival of seven thousand more. Three days later it claimed that twelve thousand would be divided among Albania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia,

and Hungary (Voight, 188, 189, 198, 198, n. 3; Times (London), 12 March 1948, 3e; UN, General Assembly, Official Records, 3 sess., Supplement8, 1948, 19; UNSCOB Report A/574, Annex 2, 29, 31; N. Y. Times, 11 April 1948, L28; 23 June 1948, L23; "Children—or Slaves?", Union Jack, 17 April 1948, enclosed in U.S., Dept. of State, Athens Post Records, Embassy to Sec. of State, 12 May 1948). The United States had become concerned about the Greeks' frontier troubles even before it announced the Truman Doctrine. In

December 1946 the Athens government complained to the UN Security Council that Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria were providing the rebels with war matériel, places of refuge, and hospital facilities. The Security Council established an investigatory commission which compiled information in Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria before submitting its report in May of 1947. The commission agreed with the charges of border violations brought by the Greeks, and was convinced that Yugoslavia and Bulgaria were working through a communist controlled organization known as the National Liberation Front (EAM) to separate Greek Macedonia from the homeland. The hostilities in Greece therefore constituted more than a civil war; they involved external dangers as well. But the Security Council would go no farther. It could not agree on any action and removed the item from the agenda (UN, Security Council, Official Records, 1st Year, 2d Series, Suppl. 10, Vol. 4, 1946, 169-92; Vol. 3, 1946, 637701; 2d Year, Vol. 5, 1947, 2368-2405; 2d Year, Special Supplements 2, 1947). The United States, by March 1947 committed to Greece through the Truman Doctrine, brought the border problems to the attention of the General Assembly. The result was a resolution in October, which established the UN Special Commission on the Balkans (UNSCOB) to investigate the border disputes. Headquartered in Salonika, Greece, UNSCOB was composed of representatives of Australia, Brazil, China, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Paki-

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stan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with "seats being held open" for Poland and the Soviet Union, should they reverse their decisions to abstain. The Polish delegate to the Security Council had opposed any commission of inquiry because, he argued, the disturbances in Greece were internal in nature. The creation of such

a group, he complained, "was linked with a declaration ofthe guilt of Greece's northern neighbors, which had never been established." The only way to calm the situation in Greece, he and the Soviet delegate insisted, was to install a democratic government in Athens that would restore civil liberties and seek the withdrawal of all outside

military forces (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/692, 4 sess., Suppl. 8, 1949, 1; Annex 1, 19; 3 sess., Suppl. 2 (A/620), 3, 11-12). The controversy over the children then threatened to mesh with the border issue when in February 1948 the Greek delegation made an official protest to the Secretariat ofthe Assembly. The Greek foreign minister later emotionally charged that "the abduction of Greek children was more than a mere violation of treaty pledges"; it was a "crime against humanity." The Greek Liaison Service to the UN maintained that witnesses reported great opposition to the removals. Markos' guerrilla bands, it declared, had instituted a census of children in northern Greece for the purpose of funneling them into nearby communist countries for "re-education." The guerrillas hoped to destroy the "Greek race" by converting the children to "communist ideology." The Greek delegate to the General Assem-

bly called this the "crime of genocide" (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/574, 3 sess., Suppl. 8, 1948, 18; Annex 2, 29, 31). The General Assembly quickly authorized UNSCOB to investigate the alleged abductions. Under the supervision of a Chief Observer in Salonika, a half-dozen observation groups prepared to work along the northern frontier, although only inside Greece because Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria barred their entry. The guidelines were clear. Those questioned were to be chosen at random, coercion was forbidden, and to ensure safety the witnesses were not to be sworn or identified (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/574, 3 sess., Suppl. 8, 1948, 18; A/935, Annex 3, 4 sess., Suppl. 8, 1949, 23). Meanwhile American officials abroad confirmed that mass re-

movals of Greek children were indeed taking place. The Joint United States Military Aid Program to Greece QUSMAPG) informed Washington that in mid-March communist guerrillas had attacked a number of villages and taken both adults and children (U.S., Army,

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JUSMAPG Reports No. 6, 25 March 1948; No. 7, 1 April 1948; No. 9, 15 April 1948). American diplomatic sources reported the arrival of 300 Greek youths in Rumania, another 500 in Yugoslavia, and 800 in Czechoslovakia (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Rudolf Schoenfeld, Legation in Bucharest, to Sec. of State, 17 April 1948; Cavendish Cannon, Legation in Belgrade, to Sec. of State, 19 April 1948; Laurence Steinhardt, Legation in Prague, to Sec. of State, 28 April 1948). A story in one communist publication, Miada Fronta, was headlined "We save Greek children" and carried a photograph of two visibly exhausted boys over the caption: "The first picture of persecuted children of democratic Greece shows two of these courageous young comrades who had to flee their homeland

before monarchic terror. Entirely without means, they are dependent on international solidarity of people's democratic and progressive countries" (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Steinhardt

to Sec. of State, 28 April 1948). II

UNSCOB encountered numerous problems gathering information. Its members had great difficulty reaching remote villages, and in several instances were fired on from outside the country. There was another obstacle. The rebels had accused UNSCOB of being under control ofthe "Anglo-Saxons and their satellites" and warned that "every individual or group from the above-mentioned Commission" who entered areas under their control would be "arrested im-

mediately" and "treated as prisoners of war" (Voight, 190-91; Woodhouse, 248; Matthews, 177-78). UNSCOB had the formida-

ble task of determining the truth without being able to gather testimony outside Greece (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/574, Annex 2, 3 sess., Suppl. 8, 1948, 29). Though UNSCOB compiled what it termed a "considerable body of evidence," it was circumstantial in nature and thus failed to prove kidnapping. During March and April 1948, the observation

groups learned, the guerrillas transported large numbers of Greek youths by trains, trucks, and ox-drawn carts into the neighboring states. The committee could not prove the complicity of Yugoslavia,

Albania, and Bulgaria, although it argued that the repeated communist radio broadcasts suggested that the program had the "approval and assistance of these Governments. " There was another complication. The UN observers came across more than a few cases of volun-

tary relocation of children by parents, particularly in the Slavicspeaking region of western Macedonia. Of twenty-eight removals in

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a village near Kastoria, for example, the investigatory teams discovered that in five instances chosen at random, the children had will-

ingly gone to join their fathers who were members ofthe rebel army. UNSCOB concluded that a "fairly large number of parents" who supported the removals were also sympathetic with the guerrillas. The crucial determinant in leaving Greece seems to have been whether a child's father was a member of the guerrilla force (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/644, 3 sess., Suppl. 8, 1948, 9, 16-17; Annex 3; A/574, Annex 2, 3 sess., Suppl. 8, 1948, 19, 29-31). According to one member of the UN observation teams, Kenneth Spencer, the important consideration was personal in nature (Spencer, 31-32). In villages supporting the guerrillas, the parents decided for themselves whether to send their children; but in ' 'hostile

villages," Spencer asserted, there was "little doubt that the approach was different and a process of virtual conscription enforced." Though some children went by force, others went voluntarily—especially in the Slavic areas of western Macedonia and Thrace. The key factor, Spencer emphasized, was whether the father was a rebel. In a village near Kastoria, a girl of twelve "neatly summed up the situation" when asked if the children had left on their own: "Yes," she

replied, "the children whose fathers are in the mountains wanted to go. My father was not a guerrilla, therefore I didn't want to go." Without access to countries north of Greece, UNSCOB's find-

ings were necessarily inconclusive. It could not resolve the two most important issues involved in the investigation: the number of children moved north against their will, and whether the purpose ofthe removals was to indoctrinate the youths with communist ideology. The Times (London) in early December 1948 reported that the League of Red Cross Societies recently informed UNSCOB that nearly 24,000 abducted Greek children were now living in the "satellites of Russia." Six months later it raised the figure to 28,000. Although the paper had no evidence of kidnapping, its coverage suggested that it believed the charge (3 Dec. 1948, 3d; 30 May 1949, 3e). The truth is that there was no reliable way of determining how many children went involuntarily and whether the central objective of the child program was to spread communism. Doubtless there were mixed reactions even to evacuations for safety reasons; and it is logical to assume that communist regimes would promote their own teachings, just as non-communist nations would seek to expand their ideas and way of life. UNSCOB's inability to collect first-hand evidence meant that the arguments would intensify after submission of its report.

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Although UNSCOB observers were unable to enter communist countries, several individuals, including Americans, received permission to visit homes for the Greek children. In one instance a Brit-

ish news correspondent and well-known non-communist, Kenneth Matthews, accompanied an American newspaperman in securing visas from the Bulgarian government and visiting a children's home in the town of Plovdiv. The building, formerly the town hall, sat in a wooded public park and housed 170 Thracian children. Upon the arrival ofthe two visitors, the children marched from their rooms to

present themselves. Older boys joined them from the garden nearby, carrying spades and singing in unison: "We're giving the deathblow to Fascism; we're marching to civilization." Many ofthe children were orphans and either did not know their own names or were too frightened to say. Matthews believed that the Greek government had converted "an act of politically motivated charity" into a diabolical plot. The American was dubious about this assessment (Matthews, 177, 180-82). In another case, the American embassy's cultural attaché in Sofia joined French, British, and Canadian newsmen in inspecting a Greek Children's Home outside the city. The home, once a hotel bombed during the war but now rebuilt, housed 510 children in clean, comfortable surroundings. The attaché claimed that the schools in Bulgaria emphasized a "pattern of thought" that was communist in orientation. When someone entered the room, the

youths stood, extended a clenched fist salute, and declared, "Welcome, Dru gario [comrade]." People they talked with were "synagonistes," or fellow fighters, the salutation given by the communist guerrilla force. Wherever they went in groups, they did so in march step while singing partisan songs that substituted the word "foreigners" for "Germans" or "Nazis." Slogans often chanted were "Forward with Markos," "Let us struggle for liberty," and "Down with imperialism and fascism. ' ' The school textbook opened with the Greek National Anthem and a picture of General Markos, and included poems and stories praising the guerrillas' wartime efforts against the Nazis and the British, while urging a campaign to drive all "foreigners and barbarians" from Greece (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Donald Heath, Legation in Sofia, to Sec. of State, 21 July 1948). Reports also came from American visitors to children's homes in Yugoslavia and Poland. Homer Bigart, a correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune who was known for his non-communist feel-

ings, described the care received by Greek youths. All of the children, according to Bigart, had left Greece voluntarily (14 June

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1948). Two members ofthe American embassy in Warsaw observed Greek children in their quarters in Poland (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, C. H. HaIl1Jr., to Dept. of State, 23 Dec. 1949). The Americans were not granted permission to talk with the youths, but their observations convinced them that the children received sat-

isfactory care. A Greek teacher noted that the children would remain in Poland until there was "real peace" at home. These on-site inspections of children's homes outside Greece did not resolve the issue. The lodgings were clean, the food was ample, the supervision and education were better than what most children experienced in Greek villages. And yet the uniform behavior of the youths—the slogans, the ritual, the group activities, the educational sessions, the attempt to blame the "fascists" (Greek government aided by the British and Americans) for all troubles—suggests that there was an effort to convert them to communism, as the Ath-

ens government declared. UNSCOB meanwhile adopted another tactic: it proclaimed that the Greek government, not the guerrillas, should be responsible for the children's safety. Removal "without their parents' free consent," it declared, "raises the issue ofthe inherent rights of parents" and breaks "accepted moral standards of international conduct." Furthermore, it violates Greek sovereignty and endangers relations between Greece and its northern neighbors. The United States and Britain supported UNSCOB's recommendation that the Greek government should bring the matter before the governments involved. If there were "humanitarian grounds" for relocating the children, UNSCOB noted, the government in Athens ought to carry out the program. Should this not work, the committee would assure that the evacuations took place "through the intermediary of an appropriate international organization." In June the Greek government informed UNSCOB that it had already contacted Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland; by September all governments had either ignored or refused the appeals (UN, General Assembly, OfficialRecords, UNSCOB Report A/574, 3 sess., Suppl. 8, 1948, 19, 20; A/644, 3 sess., Suppl. 8A, 1948, 4, 5; Times (London), 3 June 1948, 3f; 25 June 1948, 3g). Indeed, the Ministry of Social Welfare in Athens had taken measures to transport the children out of northern Greece and into "colonies" or "children's cities" established on the mainland and

on the islands. Whether the Greek government had begun this program to protect the children from the guerrillas or to resettle them in preparation for military operations in the north, it had taken more than five thousand youths from Macedonia, and had already relo-

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cated over two thousand in Salonika. Nearly half of five thousand from Thrace had been transported to the Greek interior. In a housing program staffed by volunteers and having the support of Queen Frederika, the Greek government eventually resettled nearly 15,000

youths, from both communist and loyalist background, in fortyeight children's homes (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/674, 3 sess., Suppl. 8, 1948, 19, 20; Annex 2, 31; N. Y. Times, 21 June 1948, Ll). By the spring of 1948 the Chief of the American Mission for Aid to Greece (AMAG) in Athens, Dwight Griswold, reported to the State Department that General Markos' recent announcement of child evacuations was "unusually effective psychological warfare" and that the queen had overreacted in relocating the Greek youths (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, 23 March 1948). Both AMAG and JUSMAPG warned Greek officials ofthe "political and psychological danger" derived from the government's program. Uprooting the youths would not only necessitate child care arrangements, but it would cause military problems by forcing the government to use army transport units in relocating the children, and would add to the country's already enormous refugee burden. The Americans recommended that the Greeks establish "voluntary refugee centers" in large towns where parents might choose to send their children. Griswold was convinced that Markos' strategy was to "snatch" a few youths from time to time "to support propaganda of mass abductions and continue [to] produce [a] demoralizing result among Greeks." His assessment found support in Salonika, where the American consul general, Raleigh Gibson, believed that the rebels were waging an "effective war of nerves" designed to prove the Greek National Army incapable of guaranteeing security (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Gibson to Sec. of State, 28 April 1948). American diplomats meanwhile reported growing fear in Greece that the guerrillas' abductions were part of an effort to establish a free Macedonian state dominated by either Slavs or Bulgars. Gibson in Salonika noted the Greeks' belief that the communists

sought the "dismemberment" of their country (U.S., Dept. ofState, General Records, Gibson to Sec. of State, 16 April 1948). The American ambassador in Prague, Laurence Steinhardt, reported that the Greek chargé was convinced that the guerrillas wanted to further the "Slav-ization" ofthe children in communist surround-

ings (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Steinhardt to Sec. of State, 8 April 1948). Indeed, a later report filed by UNSCOB took note of frequent radio broadcasts, press releases, and statements of

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public officials in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria calling for the separation of "Greek" or "Aegean" Macedonia from Greece. The National Liberation Front called for an ' ' independent and equal Macedonian State" within "the confederation of democratic Balkan peoples"

(UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/935, 4 sess., Suppl. 8, 1949, 5). Propaganda from both sides intensified the uproar in a country already torn by civil war. The American consul in Patras reported on

a demonstration in that city against the abductions of children (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, L. Pittman Springs to Sec. of State, 27 March 1948). One speaker warned: "Do not forget that Greek children are kidnapped to be turned into Bulgarians." Another proclaimed that the Slavs intended to "annihilate the Greek race by their satanic plans." The Greek press meanwhile denounced the abductions. One paper lashed out at the "hateful and barbaric action by Slav-led bands of gangsters," while another blasted the UN for being "indifferent" to the "extermination of a race" (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, quoted in Karl Rankin, Embassy in Athens, to Sec. of State, 19 April 1948). The First Secretary of the American Embassy in Athens, Karl Rankin, urged the State Department to publicize the child removals along with a recent newspaper report of a mass murder of other youths. His sources revealed that "senior Communist officials in [the] Slav states" had not counted on the evacuations having such adverse effect, and that they now sought to return to their original policy of taking "only the willing children of willing members ofthe rebel army and its followers." Rankin then noted press reports in Greece alleging that during the government's recent military offensive in Roumeli its forces had come across the bodies of forty children along the slopes of Mount Ghiona. According to the account, the Greek National Army had trapped the retreating bandit forces, whose leaders feared that the children would reveal their places of refuge, and therefore ordered them strangled. The day following the discovery, the Greek Ministries of War and Justice sent an investigatory team under JUSMAPG's leadership. Rankin suggested that if the story proved accurate, the United States should expose the atrocity before the world (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Rankin to Sec. of State, 3 April 1948, 10 May 1948; Times (London), 10 May 1948, 4b). The information soon gathered by JUSMAPG did not confirm a massacre at Roumeli. Despite the testimonies of three witnesses about multiple murders, the team found only two bodies. Nonetheless, the officer in charge of the investigation, Captain James Hur-

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ley, Jr., asserted that the lack of evidence did not exonerate the rebels. The Greek National Army had failed to safeguard the area after discovering^he bodies, he pointed out, and "it is my opinion that the children originally were there and that they were since re-

moved by radio instructions and dumped into snow crevices in Ghiona, where no one will ever find them." (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, Report enclosed in Embassy in Athens to Dept. of State, 14 June 1948). Ill

The State Department was skeptical about the kidnapping charges brought by the Athens government. In a dispatch to diplomats in Athens, Budapest, Bern, Salonika, and Moscow, Secretary of State Marshall explained that British and American sources in Greece and within the "iron-curtain area" believed that guerrilla propaganda had twisted the evacuation effort for the "dual purpose" of winning praise for "humanitarianism" and for "terrorizing [the] Grk [Greek] nationalist peasantry" (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, 29 April 1948). A "few thousand" youths had been taken from Greece, some by force from loyalist families, but the majority from the "guerrilla infested area, where they constituted [a] welfare problem for Markos, and departed with more or less willing consent

[ofthe] slavic minority or communist parents." In a statement that summed up the State Department's position, Marshall declared that the child removal program appeared to be more "convenience and psychological warfare than planned 'genocide,' but is of course no less reprehensible for that reason." Although it is doubtful that the Kremlin was involved in General Markos' efforts to remove the children, American intelligence analysts suspected the Soviets of playing at least an indirect role (U.S., Dept. of State, Office of Intelligence Research, Report 4340.4, 3 July 1947, 41). In a secret study of April 1948, the Research and Analysis Division of the Department of State noted several reasons for the communist guerrillas' "actual or threatened evacuation" of Greek children. For one, it would "relieve [the] guerrilla economy" by moving the youths from combat zones; it also would "supply future manpower while exerting psychological pressure on Greece. ' ' A few paragraphs later, however, the analysis declared it "reasonable to assume that all action in support of Markos takes place with the prior knowledge and approval of Moscow and with the participation of Soviet coordinators on the spot." The Soviets, the report continued, intended to obstruct economic stability by keeping Greece in a

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"constant state of turmoil" that was designed to "undermine Greek morale." Such a "war of attrition" aimed at eroding faith in the Athens government, draining American resources, and facilitating communist takeover (U.S., Dept. of State, Office of Intelligence Research, Report 4664, 27 April 1948, 20, 22, 26-27). By implication, the report seemed to say, the Soviets tacitly approved the child evacuation program because it interfered with the Truman Doctrine. The disclosure of UNSCOB's findings in May 1948 helped to determine Washington's policy: it would appeal for the repatriation of only those youths taken against their will. But the Department of State was not happy with this approach. In a dispatch released to the press in late June and sent to the American embassies in Athens, Paris, London, Belgrade, Sofia, Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, and Moscow, Marshall explained that even in the cases of children who went voluntarily, he agreed with UNSCOB that their "protracted retention" was "contrary to the accepted moral standards of international conduct." It was "difficult to understand the 'humanitari-

anism' of harboring foreign children of uncertain family status without having the means to care for them, and of refusing their repatriation because of political considerations" (U.S., Dept. of State, Foreign Relations 249-50, Marshall to Embassies, 23 June 1948; NY. Times, 25 June 1948, L14). By the autumn of 1948, the United States was under public pressure to express moral condemnation of the alleged abductions and to seek restoration of the children to their families. Time magazine featured an article containing a picture of fifteen Greek children over the caption "Abductions for instruction" and quoting Lenin: "Give us the child for eight years, and it will be a Bolshevist forever' ' (15 March 1948, 35). The New York Times carried a front-page story by journalist C. L. Sulzberger, who asserted that Markos' purpose was to establish a Slavophone minority in Greece grounded in "new ideologies" acquired in communist education camps (21 June 1948, Ll). Cries of indignation came from Boy and Girl Scout organizations, state legislatures, and members of Congress, while a veritable deluge of letters and telegrams fell upon President Truman, beginning in August 1948 and not abating until the summer of 1951. Correspondence to the White House came from fourteen countries and more than thirty states, and included protests from university students in the United States, private citizens, Greek-American organizations, and Greek church groups, including the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of North and South America (Truman Papers, folder labeled "Greek Children"). Meanwhile both houses of Congress passed resolutions urging the Truman administration to halt the ab-

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ductions and to secure repatriation of the children through the UN and other international agencies (U.S., Dept. of State, General Re-

cords, Gertrude Engstrom, Commissioner of Girl Scouts in Pittsburgh, to Marshall, 25 May 1948; Bohlen to Gwinn, 30 March 1948 ; Ernest Gross, Asst. Sec. of State, to Sen. Scott Lucas of 111., 11 Oct. 1949; Jack McFaIl, Asst. Sec. of State, to Sen. Sheridan Downey of Calif., 22 Dec. 1949; U.S., Congress, Senate, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 18Jan. 1950, Congressional Record, Vol. 96, part 1, 507; part 2, 27 Feb. 1950, 2366-67; House, Appendix, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 1 March 1950, Vol. 96, part 14, A1514; 20 March 1950, A2070; House, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 22 March 1950, Vol. 96, part 3, 3812; Senate, Appendix, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 27 March 1950, Vol. 96, part 14, A2215-16; Senate, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 17 July 1950, Vol. 96, part8, 10356; 13 Sept. 1950, part 11, 14667; House, 82dCong., 1st sess., 23 April 1951, Vol. 97, part 3, 4222). The president promised only to cooperate with the UN and the International Red Cross

in seeking the youths' return (U.S., President, Public Papers 32, Truman to Greek Orthodox Archbishop Michael, 6 Jan. 1950; 259, Truman to Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House, 19 April 1950; 663, Truman to Vice-President Alben Barkley, 29 Sept. 1950). In mid-August 1948 the Greek government heightened its efforts to secure State Department cooperation in bringing kidnapping charges before the General Assembly ofthe UN. Five months earlier its ambassador in Washington, Vassili Dendramis, had handed William Baxter, specialist in Greek, Turkish, and Iranian affairs, a draft note concerning the child removals which the Athens government intended to take before the UN. Dendramis wanted to send it to the

UN Secretary-General at the same time the Greek Foreign Office

published the text and sent copies to UNSCOB and all foreign missions in Athens. This approach, the Greek ambassador believed, would exert pressure on those countries holding the youths in socalled "protective custody" to permit repatriation (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, memorandum by Baxter, 24 March 1948). Before Baxter forwarded the proposal to his superiors, he sought to avert a confrontation with the Soviets by making important alterations in the note. The Greeks, according to the draft, condemned "Soviet Communism" ["Soviet" struck] for a "diabolical international conspiracy" designed to kidnap their children. Radios in "Soviet dominated" [both deleted] Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest, Budapest, and Tirana had announced the children's arrival. The purposes ofthe abductions, the note asserted, were to scare the Greek people into supporting the rebels and to drive villagers into the cities, increasing the government's refugee burden. "In the long run the

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Communist objective is to warp the minds ofthe kidnapped children of Greece in order that they may become agents in the enslavement of their native land" (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, memorandum by Baxter, 24 March 1948). Without proof for the Greeks' allegations, Baxter recognized the wisdom in eliminating references to the Soviet Union.

If Baxter and any others in the State Department supported the Greek approach, Secretary Marshall overruled them for at least three reasons. First and most importantly, he knew that the charge of kidnapping was the "weakest link" in any case the General Assembly could make against the communist states. As UNSCOB admitted, there was no evidence tying these governments to the removals, even though they had admitted to providing a haven for the children.

Marshall later explained to a representative of the Greek embassy that the "only group which could be definitely indicted as responsible for [the] removal [of] children from Greece is guerrillas, and no

useful purpose would be served by endeavoring [to] obtain GA [General Assembly] condemnation of [the] guerrillas." Second, Marshall realized that the communist governments had found an unassailable defense in calling their reception of the children a "humanitarian act." Denunciation of these countries, he told the American ambas-

sador in Greece, would invite counter charges that terrorist practices by the Athens government had driven these people from Greece (U.S., Dept. of State, Foreign Relations 254, Marshall to Embassy in Athens, 14 Aug. 1948). Third, Marshall undoubtedly recognized that his government had to be careful about criticizing the East European countries; as mentioned earlier, Yugoslavia had defected from the Cominform that same summer of 1948, and there were obvious

advantages in trying to establish ties with Tito. Marshall emphasized to the Greeks that for "tactical reasons," the State Department preferred that they avoid a charge of kidnapping and make an appeal through the General Assembly for the repatriation ofthe children on a humanitarian basis. The secretary understood the "justice" of their complaint, but he "would not rpt [repeat] not feel able [to] support them in any attempt [to] fix blame for [the] removal [of] children or sheltering them [by] neighboring countries." Marshall suggested a less provocative way for bringing the matter before the UN. He expected the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Geneva to pass a resolution urging the return of displaced children from all countries. If it did, such a resolution would become a subject for discussion by the Assembly's Economic and Social Committee. IfECOSOC in Geneva failed to adopt a reso-

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lution calling for the children's return, Marshall noted, the Greek

government could still take the issue before the Assembly's Political Committee. In the meantime, he had received encouraging reports about repatriation efforts by Red Cross societies. Should these

groups succeed, the Greeks might not have to take the matter before the General Assembly (U.S., Dept of State, Foreign Relations 254-55, Marshall to Embassy in Athens, 14 Aug. 1948). Thus by the autumn of 1948 it was clear that the United States would do no more than appeal for repatriation on the grounds of humanitarianism. In August ECOSOC in Geneva did pass a resolution calling for reuniting "unaccompanied children" with their parents, and for the repatriation of orphans and unaccompanied children whose nationality was not clear—with the stipulation that "the best interests of the individual child shall be the determining factor. ' ' This was somewhat different from the American position that "the best interests of the child should be a guiding principle in determining final plans for the unaccompanied displaced child." There was an irony. Depending on the definition of "best interests," the United States could advocate repatriation of all children. Yet by the same argument the East European governments could refuse to repatriate any of them. On 27 November the UN General Assembly resolved that the International Red Cross agencies should seek the return of those children whose "father or mother, or in his or her

absence, their closest relative, express a wish to that effect" (Rosenfeld Papers, "Comment Paper"—Refugees and Displaced Persons, SD/A/C.3/112; UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/935, Annex 1, 4 sess., Suppl. 8, 1949, 21). There would be another outburst of the controversy in the spring of 1949, when the UN received reports that the Greek youths were among the communist guerrillas fighting the Greek National Army (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/935, 4 sess., Suppl. 8, 1949, 13-15). The British delegate to the General Assembly, Hector McNeil, denounced the "satanic use" of children in war. International organizations protected youths from "harmful drugs, from indecent traffic, from pornography, from hunger and from disease," he asserted; surely the General Assembly could not be "uncritical of men who twisted a child's mind to throw

his body into a struggle of which he knew little, perhaps against kith and kin" (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, 1st Committee, 4 sess., 1949, 304th Meeting, 31 Oct. 1949, 153). Despite the Polish representative's denials, the Greek General Staff insisted that children were among the 14,000 "fit" guerrillas in Yugoslavia, Albania,

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and Bulgaria (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, 1st Committee, 4 sess., 1949, 301st Meeting, 28 Oct. 1949, 131; Greek General

Staff cited in U.S., Army, History of JUSMAGG 52). The end ofthe Greek civil war in August 1949 did not terminate the issue involving the children. Few ofthe 28,000 evacuated Greek youths returned to their homes soon after the war, although more did so later on. In December 1949 the co-ordinator ofthe American aid

program in Greece, George McGhee, reported that most ofthe children were now receiving "intensive communist indoctrination" (U.S., Dept. of State, General Records, McGhee to Sec. of State, 29 Dec. 1949). The UN later received a report from the International Red Cross that as of April 1951 requests had arrived for the repatriation of only 10,344 Greek youths. Less than 300 of over nine thousand Greek children in Yugoslavia had returned home by May; over seven thousand lived in Yugoslavia with their parents, who were mostly Greek Macedonians, the government in Belgrade emphasized (UN, General Assembly, Official Records, UNSCOB Report A/ 935, 4 sess., Suppl. 8, 1949, 13; A/1857, 6 sess., Suppl. 11, 1951,24; Times (London), 16 Aug. 1948, 3d; 27 Nov. 1948, 5e; 29 Nov. 1948, 3b; 29 Jan. 1951, 3d). In November 1952 a high ranking British foreign affairs official told the House of Commons that the International Red Cross had received no help from the governments "within the Soviet orbit" and had temporarily halted efforts to secure the children's return (Sweet-Escott, 71, 72, n. 1). For practical purposes, the matter had been effectively closed. The guerrillas' removal of the Greek children had posed a dilemma for the United States. Not only did the Truman administration have a public commitment to Greece, but it believed that stability in that country was vital to the success of the Truman Doctrine in preserving the Mediterranean from Soviet expansion. At the same time, however, the administration in Washington sought to avoid alienating Yugoslavia, which was, according to the Greek government, a major perpetrator of the kidnappings. The State Department was probably correct in believing that the child removals had originated as evacuations of those Greeks in danger of war and starvation; it also seems likely that the rebels had expanded their initial purpose in an attempt to undermine the Greek people's faith in their government. But from there the matter became enormously complicated. The Greek government charged that the removals were kidnappings designed to destroy Greece by genocide, leaving the Mediterranean and the Balkan Peninsula open to Slavic-communist infiltration. Each side in the civil war, it appears, had exploited is-

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sues in an effort to put the other in the worst possible light. Whatever the truth, in the emotional atmosphere ofthe late 1940s, reason had given way to hysteria, making almost any charge credible. Marshall believed, and probably correctly, that the overwhelming majority ofthe children were simply refugees. The chief supports for his view were the low number of requests for repatriation and the fact that seven thousand of the nine thousand Greek children in Yu-

goslavia were living with their parents. By the spring of 1951, as shown, parents ofthe closest relatives ofthe children had filed for the return of less than forty percent of those removed from Greece. This figure suggests two probabilities: one, that at least a few children were taken by force; and two, that a large number of the parents themselves had fled from Greece. Furthermore, there is no proof that even the remaining children had been kidnapped. It is likely that many of these youths were children of either captured rebels or of rebel sympathizers who chose to stay in Greece and believed their offspring safer outside the country. Marshall was doubtless aware of these considerations and therefore sought the return of only those youths taken by force.

The Secretary of State had skillfully averted a touchy situation partly brought on by the Greek government itself. He could not ig-

nore the matter because the evacuations endangered the credibility of the Truman Doctrine by prolonging internal disorder, exposing the inability of the Athens government to guarantee security for its people, and making the country vulnerable to communist takeover. But he also realized that the Greek government had not proved its

case for kidnapping, that its own relocation program was seriously magnifying an already great refugee problem, that America's policy toward the civil war was to restrict involvement to Greek domestic

affairs, and that there were advantages in establishing a relationship with Yugoslavia. With UNSCOB itself unable to substantiate the Greek government's accusations, Marshall had no choice but to call for the return of only those children forcibly removed, and on the

morally impregnable grounds of humanitarianism. Such an approach was the only response that permitted the United States to maintain prestige by meeting its commitments to Greece. Marshall's restraint was unusual in an activist era marked by the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Airlift, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization; but he recognized that it was the only feasible escape from a dilemma forced onto the United States by its Greek ally. His adept diplomacy accomplished a stalemate in a no-win situation, left America's options open with Yugoslavia, and permitted the admin-

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istration in Washington to concentrate on matters in West Europe that were important to American security. UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

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Burks, Richard V. The Dynamics of Communism in Eastern Europe. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1961.

Coufoudakis, Van. "The United States, the United Nations, and the Greek Question, 19461952." In Greece in the 1940s: A Nation in Crisis, ed. John O. Iatrides. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1981. Gage, Nicholas. Eleni. New York: Random House, 1983. Lees, Lorraine M. "The American Decision to Assist Tito, 1948-1949." Diplomatic History 2 (1978): 407-22. Matthews, Kenneth. Memories of a Mountain War Greece: 1944-1949. London: Longman Group Ltd., 1972. New York Herald Tribune. New York Times.

Nicholson, Soterios. "The U.S.S.R. Scheme on Macedonia." Atlantis, 30 July 1950. Reprinted in U.S., Congress, House, Appendix, 81st Cong., 2d sess., 7 Aug. 1950, Congressional Record, Vol. 96, part 17, A5676. Rosenfeld, Harry. Papers, Truman Library, Independence, Missouri. Spencer, Kenneth. "Greek Children." The New Statesman and Nation 39 (1950): 31-32. Sweet-Escott, Bickham. Greece: A Political and Economic Survey, 1939-1953. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1954. Time, New York. Times (London). Truman, Harry S. Papers, Truman Library, Independence, Missouri. United Nations, General Assembly. Official Records. New York: General Assembly, 1948-49.

United Nations, Security Council. Official Records. New York: Security Council, 1946-47. United States, Army. History of JUSMAGG [Joint United States Military Advisory Group Greece], 25 March 1949 to 30 June 1950. Records of the Army Staff, Modern Military Division, National Archives, Washington, D.C. United States, Army. Joint United States Military Advisory Planning Group (JUSMAPG), Reports to Joint Chiefs of Staff, Programs and Operations 091 Greece, Section ΙΙΙ-Α, Part I, Modern Military Division, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

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United States, Congress. House. Appendix. 81st Cong., 2d sess., 1 March 1950. Congressional Record, Vol. 96. United States, Congress. House. 81st Cong., 2d sess., 22 March 1950. Congressional Record, Vol. 96.

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United States, President. Public Papers of the Presidents ofthe United States. Harry S. Truman. Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President. 1950. Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965. Voight, F. A. The Greek Sedition. London: Hollis and Carter, 1949. Woodhouse, Christopher M. The Struggle for Greece, 1941-1949. Brooklyn Heights, New York: Beekman-Essanau Publishers, 1976.