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- 16 by Constantine Poulos Copyright by Oversese News Agency HB sudden death of King George Ir will have no immediace effect on the internal situation in Greece. In the long view, the ascen- dance of Prince Paul to the throne is bound to aggravate civil strife here. King George enjoyed the full confi- dence of the British Conservatives and of the British Foreign Offite. Prince Paul does not. The late King more or less kept himself quietly in the back- ground of the current Greek political scene, adding nothing except a passive acquiescence to the extreme policies of the royalist right-wing government which acted in his name. The new King is not likely to stay out of the cture. Whereas King George tried to maia- tain the fiction that he was the Chief of State and not the leader of a polit- ical party, it is believed that Prince Paul will openly and actively support the Royalist Popular Party and will strongly encourage the continuation of the present Royalist government's “dy- namic policy” which seeks to outlaw the Republican Left and most of the Cen- ter. This conclusion is based on Paul's past record. Although he need not have taken an active cole in the prewar dictatorship, Paul was the willing leader of the fas- cist National’ Organization of Youth which had been established by General John Metaxas, the dictator, in 1936. His advisers at that time, during the war and after the liberation of Greece, have been the leftover extremist ele- _ments of the Metaxas dictatorship, most of whom the Premier of the Greek Government-in-Exile, Emanuel Tsou- deros, eventually removed from office. The greatest influence on Paul, who fs not noted for his ability to make up his own mind, is his pretty little wife, the German-born Princess Frederika, whom he married during the pro-Ger- man dictatorship. She is clever, capable and an extremely ambitious woman. A centrist newspaper once characterized her as a “strange mixture of the Hohen- zollerns and Hitler.” In Egypt, during the occupation of Greece, she kept her- self in the’ limelight organizing relief activities and social benefits, while, in the background, she actively mixed in the bitter Greek politics. Back in Greece, following the pleb- iscite Iast September, the Princess led Paul all over Greece on public appear- ances. Anxious to eradicate the German stigma, she went out of her way to wear the national costumes of the vari- ous provinces they visited. In Athens, she has cleverly cultivated all foreign diplomatic circles and was particularly useful in impressing important foreign visitors with the justice of the Royalist cause. Liberal Party circles are already indi- cating their increased uneasiness over Paul's ascension to the throne and are insisting that theic opposition to the Royal House of Greece, all of which they consider implicated in the estab- lishment of the Metaxas dictatorship, will continue unabated. By fate the royal succession took place in a week which was also a turn- ing point of British ascendancy over its historical Balkan outpost. For the first time since mid-October, 1944, there were no British sentries standing guard before the various .buildings in Athens housing British military units—a sign marking the end of Great Britain's political, military and economic prom- inence ia Greek affairs and the failure of British policy in Greece. British policy was based on Winston Churchill's ‘insistence that only the Greek Royalist right wing could hold Greece within the British sphere of in- fluence. The acquiescence by the British “Embassy here and by the British military to the policies of the Greek right wing has always been taken in Greece as a positive endorsement of these policies and as an encouragement to go further. In time, the Greek mon- archists, who had practically no mass following left when the liberation took place, were strong enough to ignore their British patrons, HE new King, who has no Greek blood and has spent Jess than seven of the last 24 years inside the country, faces a nation divided and im- poverished and a weary people who are cynical and bitter. Upon him now rests a great deal of the responsibility of whether that division and the poverty DO NEW REPUBLIC — ———— ee and misery are to be continued. Besides | the Royalist right wing, the King will ! also have most of the army and the , gendarmerie officers, who are them- selves a state within a state, on his side. | This is a government which, by its refusal to exercise any internal controls or to concern itself with economic planning, has indicated a complete ignorance and indifference to the needs of the Greek people, and has driven thousands of them into the ranks of the -entsoma—Left. _— The Greek Left, full of plans and a program for the economic reconstruc- tion of the nation, is now on the out- side looking in, and its supporters are naturally prepared to use the help of the “north” (the guerrilla movement in the mountains) to get on the inside. That is a strong, well disciplined move- ment whose Socialist proposals are gaining additional suppert daily; and the government's negative policy of attempting to ignore or annihilate its members only succeeds in making them | Stronger. The ascension to the throne of Paul will not slow down the unswerving campaign of the Left against the mon- archist Right. Today, most of the Greek people would follow a moderate Social- ist policy if any strong party could : break through the morass of the pres- i ent political scene. But virtually evecy | Greek feels that in this day of big- | power politics he must go along with the parties that have the wholehearted | support of either the Eastern or the | Western powers. , | Inevitably this weakens the moderate | and liberal parties and their leaders. NTO this picture now steps King Paul, : I a headstrong but not particularly | bright young man who has been prepar- ing himself all his life for this hout. Very few people in Athens are hopeful today that he will take the sanest course : of action, which would be that of lead- ing a bloodless solution to the problems of Greece. Although fretful over the immediate | future, these observers say that the | ascerision of Paul to the throne may have significant results in that his an- ticipated reactionary policies will bring matters to a head much sooner than if King George II had lived. Paul's back- | ground would appear to bear out their predictions that he will take a much more active part in the government thaa his brother did, and that he will press for strong-arm handling of affairs, and that this may lead to more oppression and to further reductions of civil liber- ties. a: tit ek OTST ee ree, eet cer ir men eee ae