Liberal on the Spot

Greece last week got what the U.S. doctor ordered--a coalition Cabinet of Royalists and Liberals.

The U.S. doctor was State Department Career Man Loy Wesley Henderson, who was dispatched to Greece two weeks ago. He found that Royalist Constantine Tsaldaris, who has strong dictatorial leanings, had been entrusted by King Paul to form a new Cabinet (TIME, Sept. 1). Liberal Leader Themistocles Sophoulis refused to serve under him, so Tsaldaris said he would go it alone. Henderson put his foot down, delivered what amounted to an ultimatum. Tsaldaris then stepped down to the job of Vice Premier. Sophoulis became the head of the new Cabinet. The most unsavory of the Royalists were out.

Sophoulis, who wants to fight Greece's Communists without establishing a dictatorship, promptly promised an amnesty for guerrillas and political prisoners, thousands of whom are not Communists. Sophoulis, however, is 86; he can remember the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Handicapped by his age and a record of political vacillation, Sophoulis inherited a state of civil war and a wrecked national economy. He did not look like a man who could steer Greece to peace and safety; but Washington had no better ideas, perhaps because Greece had no better politicians.

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