"With All Arms"

Still there was no pause in the Greek civil war. The truce talks continued. So did the shooting. Now Athenians in their cellars caught another sound in the cacophony of conflict: the whoosh of rockets from British strafing planes. In the barricaded streets and around the ruins on the storied hills the tide of fighting ebbed & flowed. British Lieut. General Ronald M. Scobie warned ELAS that he would attack "with all the arms at my disposal," did so next day. Sherman tanks, spitting shells, dispersed ELAS troops in Mount Lycabettus. Beaufighters scattered ELAS concentrations north of the capital.

But ELAS had their successes too. In the fashionable Kifissia suburb they dynamited their way into R.A.F. headquarters. In central Athens they stormed into forbidding Averoff prison. Scores of political prisoners passed from British to ELAS custody. Averoffs condemned quisling, potbellied, bemonocled Ioannis Rallis, bolted while the prison was changing hands. Two days later, with both British and ELAS hot on his trail, he surrendered to the Greek police. He still wore his eyeglass.

By week's end the British had cleared about a third of Athens. But from Epirus in the northwest came a sudden yelp of alarm. General Napoleon Zervas, barrel-chested commander of the pro-Government EDES guerrillas, protested that ELAS forces had overrun eight villages in his territory. Next day he abandoned his headquarters at Ioannina.

UNRRA Out. A prime casualty of the civil war was UNRRA. Last week, before it had begun its mission, it was ordered back to Cairo till the shooting ended. The little men & women of Athens, round whose homes the battle swirled, went mostly hungry. Inside their area the British were feeding tinned meat every day to some 75,000 people, or one in 25 of the city's population. Less fortunate Athenians subsisted on herbs and grasses. Disease, handmaiden of hunger, had not yet appeared, but ELAS and British doctors, under Red Cross protection, thought it best to confer on epidemic control.

A military decision seemed still remote. London continued to probe anxiously for a political formula that would satisfy all groups. In Parliament, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden restated the Government's case in firm, friendly tones: Britain had gone into Greece with prior U.S. and Russian approval. It sought no economic or strategic advantage for itself, although it was true that Britain had an interest in the Mediterranean. Added Eden: "Our aim is to maintain law & order, to establish a Greek Government broadly representative of all opinion in Greece, including EAM. . . . The first task of the Government will be to get relief going and food for the people. The second task will be to organize free and fair elections."

Regent In? On the pressing problem of a regency for Greece (TIME, Dec. 25) Mr. Eden was equally conciliatory. "We are not against a regency. . . . The first suggestion for a regency was made by our ambassador in Athens. . . ." With Britain's imprimatur, a regency seemed the quickest way to end the fighting.

Premier George Papandreou and EAM were both reportedly agreed on the person of Archbishop Damaskinos, strapping (6 ft. 4 in.), black-bearded prelate who had gone to the Church from the wrestling ring. The respected Archbishop himself had agreed to act for the King.

George II, living in the tweedy, tasteful seclusion of a Claridge suite in London, had not yet agreed to relinquish his royal rights. While he was looking for his answer, the London News Chronicle announced that he was also looking for an English country home.

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