New Strong Man

A man most people never heard of--Colonel General Enver Hoxha, 36--had quietly become Premier of Albania's Government and head of its National Liberation Army. Since the Germans had gone and the Allies had never really turned up in force, Hoxha's 30,000 leathery Partisans had swiftly taken over their mountainous, Vermont-sized country.

About all that was known abroad of Hoxha was: 1) he had been born at Argyrokastron (birthplace of Albanian independence and scene of Greece's famed stand against the Italian invasion in 1940); 2) he had been a professor of French before taking to politics and war. In his first published interview, he went on record as favoring democracy for Albania and a "close alliance" with Tito's Yugoslavia, to which Albania was now bound by "ties of blood."

So far as Hoxha's men were concerned, the Balkan Federation advocated by Marshal Tito must wait until Albania's private boundary dispute with Greece was settled. But with Soviet Russia, Albania was on cordial terms. Last week Premier Hoxha was busily conferring with a Soviet mission which had dropped in by air.

As head of Albania's Army, Colonel General Hoxha talked tough in the direction of Greece's Premier Papandreou. Hoxha said flatly that his country would fight to protect itself against Greek claims to southern Albania. As Premier, Hoxha promised private ownership of property, universal suffrage, national mobilization of labor to rebuild the devastated country, punishment of war criminals.

After five years of Italian and German occupation, Tirana, the Albanian capital, was mostly intact, though the retreating Germans had wrecked the British Legation. From the U.S. Legation, they took only the caretaker's guitar.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.