break their line of communication in the Mediterranean? Nonsense. And we have no navy. The uprising in Greece must be stopped, and as quickly as possible. 18

The first major shiploads of military assistance under the new American operation arrived in the summer of 1947. (Significant quantities had also been shipped to the Greek government by the US while the British ran the show.] By the end of the year, the Greek military was being entirely supported by American aid, down to and including its clothing and food. The nations war-making potential was transformed: continual increases in the size of the Greek armed forces ... fighter-bombers, transport squadrons, air fields, napalm bombs, recoilless rifles, naval patrol vessels, communication networks ... docks, railways, roads, bridges ... hundreds of millions of dollars of supplies and equipment, approaching a billion in total since the end of the world war... and millions more to create a Secret Army Reserve fighting unit, composed principally of the ex-members of the Nazi Security Battalions referred to earlier.19

The US Military Mission took over the development of battle plans for the army from the ineffective Greek generals. The Mission, related British military writer Major Edgar OBallance, took a tough line and insisted that all its recommendations be carried into effect, at once and in full .20 Eventually, more than 250 American army officers were in the country, many assigned to Greek army divisions to ensure compliance with directives; others operated at the brigade level; another 200 or so US Air Force and Navy personnel were also on active duty in Greece.

All military training methods and programs were revised, revitalized and tightened up under American supervision21... infantry units made mote mobile, with increased firepower; special commando units trained in anti-guerrilla tactics; training in mountain warfare, augmented by some 4,000 mules (sic) shipped to Greece by the United States ... at American insistence, whole sections of the population uprooted to eliminate the guerrillas natural base of operation and source of recruits, just as would be done in Vietnam 20 years later.

Both on the ground and in the air, American support was becoming increasingly active, observed CM. Woodhouse, the British colonel and historian who served in Greece during the mid-1940s, and the theoretical line between advice, intelligence and combat was a narrow one. 22

The Greek leftists held out for three terrible years. Despite losses of many tens of thousands, they were always able to replenish their forces, even increase their number. But by October 1949, foreseeing nothing but more loss of lives to a vastly superior destruction-machine, the guerrillas announced over their radio a cease fire . It was the end of the civil war.

The extent of American hegemony over Greece from 1947 onwards can scarcely be exaggerated. We have seen Marshalls directives to Griswold, and the American management of the military campaign. There were many other manifestations of the same phenomenon, of which the following are a sample:

In September 1947, Vice-Prime Minister Constantine Tsaldaris agreed to the dissolution of the government and the creation of a new ruling coalition. In doing so, said the New York Times, Tsaldaris had surrendered to the desires of Dwight P. Griswold ... of [US] Ambassador MacVeagh, and also of the King .23 Before Tsaldaris addressed the Greek legislature on the matter, MacVeagh stepped in to make a change to the speech.24

Over the next several years, each of the frequent changes of prime minister came about only after considerable American input, if not outright demand.25 One example of the latter occurred in 1950 when then American Ambassador Henry Grady

sent a letter to Prime Minister Venizelos threatening to cut off US aid if he failed to carry out a government reorganization. Venizelos was compelled to step down.26 The American influence was felt in regard to other high positions in Greek society as well. Andreas Papandreou, later to become prime minister himself, has written of this period that Cabinet members and army-generals, political party leaders and members of the Establishment, all made open references to American wishes or views in order to justify or to account for their own actions or posi-tions. 27

Before undertaking a new crackdown on dissidents in July 1947, Greek authorities first approached Ambassador Macveagh. The ambassador informed them that the US government would have no objection to preventive measures if they were considered necessary . Reassured, the Greeks went ahead and rounded up 4,000 people in one week.28

An example of what could land a Greek citizen in prison is the case of the EAM member who received an 18-month sentence for printing remarks deemed insulting to Dwight Griswold. He had referred to the American as the official representative of a foreign country .29

In the economic sphere, Andreas Papandreou noted, the United States exercised almost dictatorial control during the early fifties requiring that the signature of the chief of the U.S. Economic Mission appear alongside that of the Greek Minister of Co-ordination on any important documents. 30

Earlier, American management of the economy may have been even tighter. A memorandum from Athens dated 17 November 1947, from the American Mission to Aid Greece to the State Department in Washington, read in part: we have established practical control ... over national budget, taxation, currency issuance, price and wage policies, and state economic planning, as well as over imports and exports, the issuance of foreign exchange and the direction of military reconstruction and relief expenditures. 31

There was, moreover, the creation of a new internal security agency, named and modeled after the CIA (KYP in Greek). Before long, KYP was carrying out all the endearing practices of secret police everywhere, including systematic torture.

By the early 1950s, Greece had been molded into a supremely reliable ally-client of the United States. It was staunchly anti-communist and well integrated into the NATO system. It sent troops to Korea to support the United States pretence that it was not simply an American war.

It is safe to say that had the left come to power, Greece would have been much more independent of the United States. Greece would likely have been independent as well of the Soviet Union, to whom the Greek left owed nothing. Like Yugoslavia, which is also free of a common border with the USSR, Greece would have been friendly towards the Russians, but independent.

When, in 1964, there came to power in Greece a government which entertained the novel idea that Greece was a sovereign nation, the United States and its Greek cohorts, as we shall see, quickly and effectively stamped out the heresy.

4. The Philippines 1940s and 1950s

U.S.s oldest colony

I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed (to) Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way-I dont know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them [the Philippine Islands] back to Spain-that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany-our commercial rivals in the Orient-that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) chat we could not leave them to themselves-they were unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spains was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by Gods grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.

-William McKinley, President of the United States, 18991

William McKinleys idea of doing the very best by the Filipinos was to employ the United States Army to kill them in the tens of thousands, burn down their villages, subject them to torture, and lay the foundation for an economic exploitation which was proudly referred to at the time as imperialism by leading American statesmen and newspapers.

After the Spanish had been driven out of the Philippines in 1898 by a combined action of the United States and the Filipinos, Spain agreed to cede (that is, sell) the islands to the United States for $20 million. But the Filipinos, who had already proclaimed their own independent republic, did not take kindly to being treated like a plot of uninhabited real estate. Accordingly, an American force numbering at least 50,000 proceeded to instill in the population a proper appreciation of their status.

Thus did Americas longest-lasting and most conspicuous colony ever come into being.

Nearly half a century later, the US Army again landed in the Philippines to find a nationalist movement fighting against a common enemy, this time the Japanese. While combatting the Japanese during 1945, the American military took many measures aimed at quashing this resistance army, the Huks (a shortening of Hukbalahap- Peoples Army Against Japan in Tagalog). American forces disarmed many Huk units, removed the local governments which the Huks had established, and arrested and imprisoned many of their high-ranking members as well as leaders of the Philippine Communist Party. Guerrilla forces, primarily organized and led by American officers and composed of US and Filipino soldiers of the so-called US Army Forces in the Far East, undertook police-type actions which resulted in a virtual reign of terror against the Huks and suspected sympathizers; disparaging rumors were spread about the Huks to erode their support amongst the peasants; and the Japanese were allowed to assault Huk forces unmolested.

This, while the Huks were engaged in a major effort against the Japanese invaders and Filipino collaborators and frequently came to the aid of American soldiers.2

In much of this anti-Huk campaign, the United Slates made use of Filipinos who were collaborating with the Japanese, such as landlords, large estate owners, many police constables, and other officials. In the post-war period, the US restored to power