Selection: Michalis Katsigeras

AFTER DIEN BEN PHU: (From an editorial in Kathimerini) “There are some names that go down in history. (...). One of those is one which until yesterday was unknown to Europeans, that of Dien Bien Phu. There at a fortified military camp, France saved its honor and the honor of the weapons of freedom. One reaps the rewards of one’s labors. It was the Americans who first realized that, even if it is being said and written that the Americans want war and that they are fighting to save their own interests in the Pacific. When (US Secretary of State John Foster) Dulles proposed the declaration on joint action in Asia to the money-changers in London — who are holding on to Cyprus supposedly for the Empire’s defense needs — Dien Bien Phu was still bleeding. (...) It is all very well for Field Marshal Montgomery to hang up his beret, Mr Churchill to knock the ash from his cigar and Mr Bevan to make silly statements in the House of Commons. Are the flashes from the dozens of Russian missiles at Dien Bien Phu shedding more light on the threat in Asia than the dim lights of the heroic troglodytes in the fortress?”