June 16, 1954
GEORGE PAPANDREOU: The leader of the Liberal Party Mr George Papandreou has given an extensive interview to the editor of the National Herald newspaper in New York, Mr Babis Marketos. Mr Papandreou said he has two objections to the prime minister’s characterization of the Greek Rally party as a «political movement,» and that Greek Rally had already shown that it is more partisan than any other party and that a party is not necessarily a morally inferior organization and something suspect, but a factor for democracy. (…) The concept of a «political movement» is undemocratic and is more reminiscent of undemocratic movements. (…) Mr Papandreou said his party categorically rejected the proposal by (leader of the Communist Party Nikos) Zachariadis to set up a «democratic front,» as world communism and its substitutes are today the enemies of national and personal freedom. The liberal party is the democratic center fighting a battle on two fronts – to defend the nation from communism and the people from economic oligarchy, as well as defending democracy on all sides. (…) Mr Spyros Markezinis had turned the Coordination Ministry into a «fireworks factory,» he said.
