Back in the Fold

For the first time in more than 400 years, the 60,000 Greeks of the Dodecanese* had something to cheer about. They packed the festive, narrow streets of their medieval capital city of Rhodes as a Greek destroyer, escorted by U.S. and British destroyers, nosed into the mountain-rimmed harbor, and King Paul and Queen Frederika landed to take formal possession of the islands. In 1522, when Suleiman the Magnificent stormed the battlemented castle of the Knights of St. John, the islanders had become Turks; since 1912, when imperial-minded Italy won its Turkish War, they had been Italians. This week, by the terms, of the Paris peace treaty with Italy, they became again what they had always remained in speech and culture--citizens of Greece.

* In Greek, Dodecanese meand "Twelve Islands." Actually there are some 50 islands in the Dodecanese group, lying off the shores of Asia Minor.

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