Eleven Miles from Athens

Government planes had dropped a million leaflets over the rocky, sunbaked, guerrilla-infested hills of Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace. Premier Sophoulis' leaflets offered amnesty to all who would turn in their guns. But in the northern hills "the word" had come by Radio Moscow, straight from the editorials of Pravda and Izvestia: no compromise; the fight goes on. Only a few hundred had trooped in from their hideouts to accept the amnesty which "liberals" in Western countries had demanded. Scoffed the Communist organ Rizospastis: "We welcome the leaflets which make badly needed tobacco wrappers, notepaper, fire starters and other essential if unmentionable tissue."

"Primordial Duty." In Athens last week, Sophoulis extended the amnesty offer for a month. He had not much hope that it would succeed. Greek Communists had become more strident. Trumpeted one of the proclamations of their Central Committee: "It is the primordial duty for . . . Communists without delay to mobilize all their forces . . . and act. . . . The political intentions of our movement today can be realized from a military point of view."

In a Lake Success committee room last week, the U.S. won majority support for a Balkan commission. But in Athens, U.S. missions knew that the crisis might easily arrive before the commission. Said one U.S. Army officer, back from a long look at the frontiers: "We've got to make up our minds damned quick whether we are going to fire or fall back."

"To Develop Revolution." There was evidence that the U.S. was making up its mind. In recent days the Athens airport had resembled Washington's Boiling Field. White-starred C-54s of the Air Transport Command brought a stream of tight-lipped generals and high-ranking brass of the Air Force and Marine Corps, who hurried off to conferences and staff consultations. Some bounced in jeeps along the cratered, axle-snapping roads of Macedonia and Thrace, to inspect Greek Army units. Offshore, units of COMNAVMED, including the carrier Leyte, prowled around the Aegean islands.

At week's end, a tireless friend of Greece and U.S. Ambassador in Athens since 1944 stepped into one of the planes for a quick trip to Washington. Scholarly Lincoln MacVeagh had long ago traced on the flyleaf of his well-thumbed copy of Leninism, Joseph Stalin's treatise for revolutionaries, the dictum: "It is an essential task of a victorious revolution in one country to develop and support revolution in others." MacVeagh, who speaks ancient Greek with the fluency of a contemporary of Aristides, was not really surprised by anything he had seen in Greece.

His ambassadorial reports had advocated economic aid to Greece. Last week it seemed to MacVeagh that the economic program would be far from enough. Real construction could hardly begin until guerrilla activity was contained. That might take a momentous decision by U.N. with the U.S. in the forefront.

As MacVeagh's plane took off, loaded with official pouches and situation maps, he could see down below the little town of Chasia, just eleven miles from Athens. The night before, guerrillas had attacked it; it was the closest they had come to the capital.

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