Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ous Certificate of Political Reliability (which remained valid until 1962), which declared
that the document bearer was not a left-wing sympathiser; without this certificate Greeks
could not vote and found it almost impossible to get work. US aid did little to improve
the situation on the ground. The DSE continued to be supplied from the north (by
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and indirectly by the Soviets through the Balkan states), and by the
end of 1947 large chunks of the mainland were under its control, as well as parts of the
islands of Crete, Chios and Lesvos.
In 1949 the tide began to turn when the forces of the central government drove the
DSE out of the Peloponnese; but the fighting dragged on in the mountains of Epiros until
October 1949, when Yugoslavia fell out with the Soviet Union and cut the DSE's supply
lines.
The civil war left Greece politically frayed and economically shattered. More Greeks
had been killed in three years of bitter civil war than in WWII, and a quarter of a million
people were homeless.
The sense of despair became the trigger for a mass exodus. Almost a million Greeks
headed off in search of a better life elsewhere, primarily to countries such as Australia,
Canada and the US.
Reconstruction & the Cyprus Issue
After a series of unworkable coalitions, the electoral system was changed to majority
voting in 1952 - which excluded the communists from future governments. The Novem-
ber 1952 election was a victory for the right-wing Ellinikos Synagermos (Greek Rally)
party, led by General Alexander Papagos (a former civil-war field marshal). General
Papagos remained in power until his death in 1955, when he was replaced by Konstandi-
nos Karamanlis.
Greece joined NATO in 1952, and in 1953 the US was granted the right to operate sov-
ereign bases. Intent on maintaining support for the anticommunist government, the US
gave generous economic and military aid.
Cyprus resumed centre stage in Greece's foreign affairs. Since the 1930s Greek Cypri-
ots (four-fifths of the island's population) had demanded union with Greece, while Tur-
key had maintained its claim to the island ever since it became a British protectorate in
1878 (it became a British crown colony in 1925). Greek public opinion was overwhelm-
ingly in favour of union, a notion strongly opposed by Britain and the US on strategic
grounds.
In 1956 the right-wing Greek Cypriot National Organisation of Cypriot Freedom
Fighters (EOKA) took up arms against the British. In 1959, after extensive negotiations,
Britain, Greece and Turkey finally agreed on a compromise solution whereby Cyprus
