January 12, 1958
COMMUNISTS: A group of seven Communists arrested this week included the leader of the local Communist Party of Greece (KKE) cell, apprehended in Piraeus, and two KKE cadres arrested at the Eidomeni border post while trying to leave for an Iron Curtain country using forged passports. The passports were genuine but the owners’ photographs had been replaced by those of the bearers. In a statement, the deputy interior minister emphasized that the discovery had been made possible thanks to close cooperation between Piraeus security officials and police officers in Nea Ionia. At the home of the ringleader, documents were seized. Many coded reports by KKE leaders in Greece were being taken to the border by Communist Panayiotis Fourtounas. The reports contained revealing details about the situation within the Communist Party of Greece and its activities. A detailed announcement on these is to be issued in due course. From an initial perusal of them, however, it emerges that those arrested had close relations and contacts with cadres and officials in neighborhood offices of the United Democratic Left (EDA) party.
