ANTI-COMMUNIST DEFENSE IN THE BALKANS

FROM Athens, TIME'S Jim Bell Reported:

The Greek border where it adjoins Bulgaria and Albania is held and patrolled by tough, experienced troops under spirited officers. Armed with basic infantry weapons up to mortars, the troops ride the mountain passes astride husky mules from Missouri. Sunk back 15 to 60 miles behind the Greek frontier regiments are the support divisions, eight in the field and one around Athens, a total of 135,000 men.

Close to the Barrage. Last week Greece's eight field divisions were engaged in an intensive six weeks' training cycle. Many of the Greek officers had studied U.S. tactics at Fort Benning Infantry School. In all divisions, aggressive young U.S. captains, majors and colonels act as advisers.

Training has corrected many technical weaknesses of the naturally courageous Greek soldier: he no longer opens fire with a rifle at targets 1,000 yards away, or with a machine gun at anything in sight, and he has learned to keep close behind his own artillery barrage in an assault. Sometimes he keeps too close. In a recent practice barrage with live artillery ammunition, five riflemen were killed.

The Greek soldier owns one uniform, and often as not his shoes have holes in them. He eats and lives at a low standard. A battalion I visited well to the rear of the frontier had 500 men, only 150 beds. The mess hall for each company consisted of a leanto, two large pots, a meat ax, a couple of knives and some ladles. Bread and bean soup, liberally dosed with olive oil, is the main diet. Yet no one ever hears a Greek soldier complaining of the chow. Most of the men never had it so good. Corporal Elias Papadopoulos is a 25-year-old farmer from the island of Chios, a veteran of the Vitsi and Grammos campaigns. I asked him if he thought the Greek army had improved. Said he: "Sir, the Greek army is good and was always good. It is the best army in the world."

At the top of the Greek army there have been many changes. Field Marshal Papagos, assessed by U.S. military men as a good sound soldier, has fired eight lieutenant generals, 30 major generals, and so many brigadiers and colonels that people have lost count. Papagos, a dignified man with a bald head, hooked nose and fierce eyes, has insisted that his officers be fighting men and not politicians.

"We Are Ready." U.S. officers here have solid faith in the new Greek army. "I've fought eight campaigns with these people," said Major General Reuben Jenkins. "The first four were horrible. The last four were wonderful." A rugged combat officer, Jenkins came here as General Van Fleet's right hand, and, since Van Fleet's transfer last year, has been chief adviser to the Greek army. He added: "If anyone thinks he can take these people on and not get his nose thoroughly bloodied, he is sure as hell mistaken." Lieut. General Stylianos Maniadakis, whose Greek corps lies in wait for any movement into Macedonia or Thrace, was confident. Said he: "We are ready for them. We will fight them. We will beat them."

FROM Belgrade TIME'S Eric Gibbs reported:

Life for the average Yugoslav has become less oppressive than it was a year ago. People breathe easier. Rationing is less severe. The Communist pressure to force the peasants (70% of Yugoslavia's 16 million) into collective farms has been relaxed. Many party bureaucrats in state offices are being fired--"shifted to production" is the term. The UDBA, Tito's political police, is less in evidence.

The Reds Looked at the Map. Tito has one of the biggest standing armies in Europe, even after making allowance for the fact that his announced troop figures are inflated. The Yugoslav army actually totals 300,000 to 400,000 men. Its equipment is bad by U.S. standards, but it is much better than the equipment Tito's partisans used against the Germans. The Yugoslavs now manufacture small arms, have even produced some 75-mm. pack-artillery pieces. In armor, they have only 200 or so T-34 tanks left them by the Russians. Yugoslav army morale is good.

On the Yugoslav border, Stalin's satellites are flexing their muscles, but the muscles seem somewhat flabby. The Hungarian, Rumanian and Bulgarian armies total about 500,000 men. Total satellite tank strength is put at 1,000. (Recent reports of many more tanks are almost certainly false.) The Bulgars are the only ones rated as serious fighters. At last fall's maneuvers, even the Bulgars failed to impress the Russian observers, who called them laggards. Morale in all three satellite armies is reported very bad. One foreign military man in Belgrade remarked: "There isn't a chance in hell of the satellites' attacking. It would take the bayonets of 20 Russians behind every 50 Hungarians."

Belgrade observers doubt that the Russians would invade Yugoslavia with their own troops. On an ordinary flat map Yugoslavia looks like a juicy strategic plum. On a contour map it is slashed and hacked with mountains. To engage Tito's troops, the Russians would have to go into the rocky Bosnian mountains. They would be risking another World War and tying up good troops in a long, exhaustive campaign. Obviously, the Russians have looked at a contour map.

A Sound Investment. Yugoslavia's real problem is not military but economic. The simple fact is that Tito faces economic collapse, possibly this year. Raw-material stocks of many factories, especially in textiles, are almost exhausted. If the factories close, real misery will grip an already threadbare country.

Many of Tito's economic difficulties stem from last year's drought, the high cost of his army, the boycott by the Soviet satellites, and visionary Marxist mismanagement by his own planners. Tito's fall through economic causes would reverberate through Europe as a great victory for the Kremlin. U.S. economic aid to Yugoslavia is a sound strategic investment--provided the money is spent on what the country needs and not on grandiose dream plans.

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