January 24, 1959
EDA: The parliamentary debate on security measures continued yesterday… Interior Minister Dimitris Makris said that as was to be expected, the United Democratic Left (EDA) had been defeated in the debate, which had been useful as it had revealed EDA’s new policy which was to attempt to blind the people so that it could carry out its plans. Makris accused the extreme left of having the audacity to assume responsibility for defending democracy and to accuse the nationalist parties of not respecting democratic institutions, when everyone knows that it is the extreme left itself that is the gravedigger of democracy. That is why its position is so outrageous, Makris said. If EDA wants to distance its stance from that of the Communist Party, he continued, it will have to condemn those who betray their country and will also have to present itself as an independent party… The government is being lenient but will not permit the country to be at risk of being undermined… When there is unemployment in such a rich country as America, joblessness cannot disappear from Greece as if by magic, unless by dictatorship. EDA’s actions are aimed at trapping Greece behind the Iron Curtain after isolating it from NATO, Makris concluded.
