October 16, 1954
MISTAKEN IMPRESSION: United Nations, 15 – Greece’s representative at the UN, Mr Alexis Kyrou, speaking this afternoon at the UN’s Political Committee said the general situation regarding the reduction of arms had improved. He observed that everyone was satisfied, since the Russian representative Mr Andrei Vyzinsky had agreed in principle, as a basis of discussion, to proposals by Britain and France he had previously rejected. (…) Mr Kyrou then referred indirectly to the Cyprus issue, saying «let us hope that the lesson (for Russia) will not be forgotten by those who in this year of 1954 still persist in believing in the spirit of the Holy Alliance and therefore still raise obstacles to friendly settlements that would restore equilibrium to situations that are now dangerously out of date. (…) The Greek delegate’s speech could not be taken as anything but praise for Mr Vyzinsky. His reference to the Holy Alliance was a clear hint not only to Britain but the US, in the sense that it indicated a slightly anti-Western trend in Greece’s diplomacy in major international problems, as the pro-Communist propaganda would like to have it. BASES: The flags of both Greece and the US have been raised at the air base in Iraklion, Crete.
