November 25, 1954
PAPAGOS-MARKEZINIS: Yesterday’s parliamentary debate on the issue that has arisen over letters exchanged by Economy Minister Ludwig Erhardt of the Federal Republic of Germany and Greece’s former coordination minister, Mr Spyros Markezinis, continued with a speech by the prime minister, Field Marshal Alexandros Papagos, who explained the conditions under which he had been informed of the letters, and provided new material in the form of two letters from the Athens representative of Telefunken (Ioannis Voulitiotis) to the prime minister. These said that Mr Markezinis had criticized him for bringing to the field marshal’s attention the contents of the letters without consulting him. They contained a promise from Mr Markezinis to the representative that when he assumed power, he would grant his firm the radio and telephone contracts. (…). Mr Markezinis, who then took the podium, strongly denied that these letters had bound Greece legally in any way. He invoked the argument that correcting the text of the letters made him personally responsible for executing the promises.
