50 Years Ago Today
K.TSALDARIS’S SPEECH: Constantinos Tsaldaris made a speech at the People’s Party election center at 6 Ermou St. yesterday. The Greek people, said Tsaldaris, know the theme of the coming election. They realized it from the first, when the election was being prepared in secret, and they followed it through all its phases, when it began to emerge through the pressure of events. Now they see it being brought to the fore by people under the guidance, as always, of well-known characters behind the scenes. When they saw that the People’s Party was steadfast, the conspirators made a coordinated attempt to remove the commander-in-chief from his post with the suspect aid of Liberal Party leader Sophocles Venizelos, as revealed by his collaborator in the government, Giorgios Papandreou. This increasingly dangerous policy and moral anomaly is the major theme of the election; a political and ethical theme. (He then uttered a libelous statement against Spyros Markezinis.) The conspirators realized that apart from the People’s Party, which presented an obstacle to their illegal ambitions, the Greek throne also stood firm on the bastion of constitutional order. Failing to conquer it, they turned against it some 10 months ago. There is no doubt that from the political point of view, the situation is difficult. The West believes the Slav-Macedonians should not be asked to back down on the name issue while being forced to made painful concessions to the ethnic Albanians. Athens has been under pressure not only to avoid raising the issue, but to recognize FYROM by the name Macedonia, in order to strengthen unity within that country and stability in the region.
