Troops to Greece?

The clouds of Europe's troubles hung darkly over Washington last week. Top strategists of the State Department were seldom out of conferences. The hot question of U.S. foreign policy was: Will the U.S. send troops to Greece?

Britain, steadily removing her troops from Greece, gave the State Department renewed notice of her determination to get the rest (about 5,000) out by year's end. Britain meant to test how far, in men as well as in dollars and supplies, the U.S. was willing to go in Europe.

As if to test U.S. public opinion, the

American Legion's outgoing National Commander Paul Griffith gave the pitch to its convention in Manhattan (see Veterans) in a bristling statement: if the situation in Greece got worse, or if Greece were invaded, the U.S. should send troops. To the Legion, Chief of Staff General Dwight Eisenhower sounded a note of "critical urgency." The U.S., he said, must meet "any real threat [to peace] as it begins unmistakably to develop."

To compound the trouble, Washington heard rumbles of a misunderstanding between U.S. Ambassador Lincoln MacVeagh and Dwight P. Griswold, administrator of the aid program in Athens, over U.S. methods in Greece. Off to Athens in a hurry went the State Department's able, vigorous Loy Henderson, chief of the Near Eastern and African Affairs office.

For Athenians there was one happy occasion last week. At Piraeus, the port of Athens, Archbishop Damaskinos said a blessing over a bargeload of flour (see cut). It was the first tangible evidence of the $17,000,000 worth of supplies sped to Greece under the U.S. aid program.

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