Siege

Konitsa held out. That was the biggest news from northwestern Greece, the warmest front in the world's cold war.

Battle of the Bridge. Konitsa had been picked as the capital of the Communist rebels' newly proclaimed "provisional government." When the battle began, the government garrison in the besieged, isolated town consisted of less than 1,000 men. Konitsa's normal population of 5,000 was swollen by refugees. Rebel shells struck terror among the civilians.

The rebels had dynamited the Bourazani bridge across the rain-swollen Aoos River, apparently the only avenue of relief (see map). When Greek army engineers tried to repair the bridge, they were dispersed by rebel shells from high ground to the north.

Finally General Michael Andonopoulos, commanding the 8th Mountain Division, sent a detachment up to Konitsa by a mule track. This force, pushing through a thin screen of snipers, got into the town across an old Turkish bridge. Thus Konitsa was reinforced by 2,000 men. Ebullient government communiques claimed that the "routed" rebels were fleeing north into Albania and east into their Gramos Mountain stronghold. But next day the rebels attacked Konitsa again. At week's end, they attacked Philiates, near the coast opposite Corfu, 45 miles from Konitsa. Government officers, somewhat apologetically, explained that the stubborn rebel campaign was planned by a Russian-Yugoslav-Bulgarian staff.

The Pea-Green Bus. An observation team from the U.N.'s Balkan Commission flew into loannina last week and, accompanied by reporters, started for the fighting zone in a pea-green bus. They were a strangely assorted crew. India's press representative was a small neat man in a midnight blue Homburg and black canvas overshoes. Mexican Captain Soto Mc-Nerney was resplendent in a green hunting costume, with fur collar, from Manhattan's Abercrombie & Fitch. The London Times man, clad in street clothes and carrying a neatly rolled umbrella, looked as though he had just stepped off a train at Paddington station.

Greek soldiers, sitting in ditches, stared incredulously at the bus and its occupants. The commissioners stared back. They saw and heard plenty to indicate that rebel leader Markos Vafiades was getting help from "abroad." Artillery officers said that Greece had never had a 65-mm. gun, such as the rebels were using. Rebel prisoners admitted that they had moved freely back & forth across the Albanian frontier. Greek Spitfire pilots said they saw a column of trucks moving toward the border from the Albanian town of Leskovik. But the "Greek Situation" would not be resolved by U.N. commissions. The key was in Washington.

Washington was heartened by the Greek success at Konitsa (achieved partly with U.S. arms), but that success could be overestimated. All of Greece, like little Konitsa, was besieged by Communism. The larger siege must be lifted and Greece must be made safe. This the Truman Doctrine had stated. It would take more than a dash up a mule track by hardy Greek soldiers to achieve that end. How much would it take? No one was sure, but last week the U.S. Navy provided a clue. It announced that it was sending enough U.S. Marines to its Mediterranean force (the big aircraft carrier Midway, three light cruisers and ten destroyers) to beef it up to full normal manpower.

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