Greece, 1950

This year Greece presents itself before the United Nations General Assembly with the feeling that it has decisively fulfilled its duties towards peace.

157. Greece presents itself as a victorious democracy which, after a hard struggle of ten years against totalitarianism of every kind and colour, has entered into a period of peace and of complete internal normality and reconstruction.

158. During the year which separates us from the last General Assembly, the critical and delicate geographical sector which God and history have entrusted to the Greek nation has not occupied this world Organization with problems of an immediate critical nature. There is, however, one exception, and that is the problem which, unfortunately, remains unsolved and which substantially does not concern Greece alone, but the moral order of the whole world. I refer to the return of the Greek children forcibly abducted from their homes and still undergoing the inhuman totalitarian distortion of their soul and spirit.

159. The attention of all of us today is directed to another sector: the Far East. It is directed to the gallant sacrifices of the military forces of the United Nations in defence of the freedom of Korea.

160. For all who have ever believed, as we in Greece have believed, in the possibility of a practical application of collective security throughout the world, this moment is intensely moving. It suffices to compare the long and fruitless discussions in the League of Nations in similar circumstances to the rapidity with which the United Nations decided to intervene in Korea, for us to be convinced that it is possible for collective security to enter upon the path of practical application. If, in order to secure this possibility, modifications are required in the United Nations Charter, these modifications must be made as soon as possible so as to create a stable, legal and moral framework within which collective security will function not only to oppose aggression on the march, but also to discourage the potential enemies of peace.

161. Greece, of course, has had the opportunity of experiencing, on the moral level, the good results of the actions of the United Nations. The United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans set up by our Organization contributed, at a time when public opinion, even in the great western democracies, had fallen into the trap of falsehood and defamation, to restoring, in the eyes of all men of good faith, the truth as regards the tragedy which Greece was undergoing. But the confidence of world opinion in the United Nations had been shaken, as was evidenced by, among other things, the speeches made during the fourth session of the General Assembly. Recognition was given to the effective action of the Organization on the economic and social level — and here let me express our special gratitude to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund — but many had begun to doubt its ability to fulfil its principal mission, which is to secure peace, but not peace alone, peace with justice. Peace is the great blessing towards which the hearts of all men are turned, but peace has value only when the price at which it is bought is not the abandonment of justice.

162. At Munich, where peace was bought by the confirmation of violence and injustice, peace was not even temporarily secured. The immediate and active repudiation of violence constitutes the most positive and the greatest guarantee of peace. That is why the intervention of the United Nations in Korea, which moreover proved that there exists a decisive world leadership, today raises the hopes and the confidence of all peoples really devoted to peace.

163. However, the satisfaction which we feel must not be allowed to obscure our vision and cover up the difficulties which we still have to overcome. There is still much to be done in order to stabilize the confidence of the world in our Organization, so that we may all acquire the certainty that a nation which falls victim to unjust aggression can rely with assurance upon the immediate manifestation of human solidarity, which today is coming to the rescue of Korean freedom. A way must be found for the swifter mobilization of the forces of resistance. We shall have to accept heavier sacrifices. In this spirit we have been gratified to hear the proposals of the United States delegation [A/1377] and we hope that the General Assembly will study these in a constructive manner. We must also find means — and this, I submit, is most important, most essential — to bring a greater pressure of moral severity to bear against all forms of propaganda which falsify the truth and present the heroes who are giving by the sacrifice of their blood a noble example to future generations, as hired tools of imperialistic and capitalistic policy. Greece is a country which has deeply suffered from this sly and deceitful propaganda, now being turned on the defenders of Korea.

164. A few days ago a letter written by John McCormick, an American soldier, was published in the Press. It was addressed to his children and he wrote it a short time before he fell on the field of honour in Korea. In it he said: “I want you both to know that I'd be with you if I could, but there are a lot of bad men in the world and if they were allowed to do what they wanted to do, little girls like you wouldn’t be allowed to go to church on Sunday or able to go to the school you wanted to.”

165. These are the words of a morally clean and free man, a man with the simple, time-hallowed feelings of honour, affection, pride and self-respect. A citizen of ancient Athens would have written in the same spirit.

166. Is it, I ask you, possible, is it right, for us to allow without protest that men of the superb moral calibre of John McCormick should be branded as imperialists? No. We have to take a decisive stand in opposing the propaganda of falsehood which presents totalitarianism as democracy, tyranny as freedom, John McCormick as an imperialist and the so-called Stockholm Appeal as an appeal for peace.

167. Greece, inspired by the true spirit of democracy, a spirit which is clear and unyielding, and which cannot be swayed by the propaganda of falsehood, considers it its duty to respond with the willingness of a deep historic consciousness to the invitation of the United Nations, and now has a brigade of her troops ready to participate in the Korean struggle.

168. We have not for one moment allowed ourselves to think that because for ten years Greece has been fighting and undergoing great sacrifices, she is absolved from once more performing her duty. We believe that the sacrifices of the past do not exempt anyone from the obligations of the future. On the contrary, they make their fulfilment even more imperative. Moreover, the fact that the Korean struggle is taking place at the antipodes of Greece — not even this can be allowed to influence our decision. The Greek nation feels that its boundaries coincide with the boundaries of freedom itself. And the Greek nation also knows that its fate is not prescribed by definite geographical dimensions. For all peoples, geographical dimensions are today world-wide; the geographical conditioning of life and death is uniform. Time and space are one for all. And above all conscience is one and the same for the free men and women of the world.