Rebirth in Epirus

From a bleak stone cottage in Epirus came news that shook the Greek exile Government apart. After 20 days of wary talk in the shadow of the snowy Pindus Range, Greeks in Greece clasped hands, agreed to drop their fratricide, devote themselves henceforth to killing Germans. Greeks in Cairo lost their nerve, began last week a game of tag which left them all demeaned.

First Premier Emmanuel Tsouderos resigned and asked King George II, busy in London, to name fellow Cabinet Member Sophocles Venizelos Premier in his stead.

Sophocles, 49-year-old second son of the late, great Eleutherios Venizelos, is a veteran of Grecian wars with Bulgaria and Turkey, a onetime bridge champion, a declared opponent of the Greek monarchy, who nevertheless joined the Greek Cabinet in Cairo last year.

The King was slow in cabling his approval of Venizelos as Premier. Venizelos said that he would not take the job. The Cabinet then suggested George Roussos, elderly liberal and onetime Vice Premier. Roussos agreed to accept if asked, but now the King named Venizelos. When the next huddle broke up, Tsouderos was back in the driver's seat and all the members were straightening their ties.

Just before Tsouderos resumed office--"until the present crisis passes"--a fact came out which made the whole game plain. Greeks in Greece had just agreed to send a man to talk in Cairo; fears that a Cabinet shuffle would be needed to entice a fighting Greek across the sea were groundless. This week King George was due to fly to Cairo, too.

But talk of coalition could not allay the fears that plague the apprehensive ministers. A Greek in Greece, Colonel Euripides Bakirdzis, wearer of the British D.S.O., and four friends of the Communist-flavored Liberation Front (EAM), had formed a new committee. The committee might well develop into a government, Tito style. It said that it had vacancies for men from Cairo, if they care to come to Greece.

Clearly coalition was not the issue; the source of sovereignty was at stake. Did it go with the legal Government into exile, or did it remain with the men who fought?

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