"SO LONG, FELLA"

Victory in Greece, which had once seemed assured for the U.S.-backed Athens government, now seemed farther away than ever. For one reason, the guerrillas driven out of northern Greece had lived--and had been re-equipped--to fight another day. There were other and larger reasons. TIME Correspondent Robert Low had them in mind when he cabled:

The little town huddled on the edge of the Thessaly plain looked more isolated than ever. Winter had come, and a sharp wind whipped snow across the terra-cotta fields. The two-story stone buildings with their low-pitched roofs and ramshackle wooden balconies were a little more battered. Along the muddy, pot-holed streets there were more Communist slogans splashed along the walls in red paint. And in the distance, on the slopes of cloud-wrapped Mt. Olympus, there were more guerrillas.

Yet things seemed pretty much the same after 18 months--until the uneasy, almost hostile atmosphere enveloped you. At the wine shop I found the grizzled oldtimer who had once lived in America. He was sitting at his usual table. Last time we had had several drinks together. He had talked nostalgically about old days in the States, enthusiastically about things Americans were now going to do for Greece.

I walked up and greeted him: "How are things?"

Then I noticed that his usual broad smile was missing. "Not so good," he replied.

I suggested a drink, and started to sit down. But he rose to his feet, shaking his head.

"Look, Mister, I would like to--but when they come it won't do me no good to have been seen talking to an American. So long, fella."

Then he turned his back and walked out of the empty shop.

Red-Shaded Map. The army column passing through town on reconnaissance meets the same wall of silence. An officer asking for information is told: "It's all very well for you to ask us questions about them. But in an hour you are gone and the others are back. Then our heads are bashed in and our families carried off to the hills because we have talked to you. And I have nothing to say except that the sooner you get out of town the better for us."

That is the story of more than two-thirds of Greece. A little over a year ago, there were a few red circles on military situation maps indicating areas held or dominated by Communist guerrillas. Today on those same maps there are some--though not very many--blue circles instead. They denote areas held by government forces: Athens, Salonika, and thinly scattered provincial towns. The rest of the map is shaded red.

It is an ominous fact that wherever the Greek army is not, the guerrillas are--if not physically, then in influence and authority. Their systematic terrorizing of the rural population has been highly successful. Almost 700,000 peasants have become refugees in the larger towns--a tremendous social and political problem, as well as a great drain on the overburdened finances of the Greek government.

First-Class Rebellion. The best that could be said for the American aid program was that it had kept Greece as a nation from falling into the Soviet orbit. But it had not managed to maintain even the status of March 1947, when the aid was started under the Truman Doctrine.

What had happened to the $634 million in money, supplies and equipment which had been poured into the country by the U.S. over 18 months? Who was responsible for the failure? Why had the program not succeeded in its aims?

The scale of aid was not great enough; the purpose was divided, and therefore rendered ineffective. In the beginning, U.S. policy did not adequately recognize that a first-class rebellion was in progress which required swift and powerful measures.

U.S. officials were as greatly concerned with "evils of poverty" breeding Communism as they were with the growing strength of Markos' armed bands. From a long-term point of view, they were right, of course. But they were and still are faced with an urgent short-term problem that must be met first. Until the rebellion is quelled there can be no effective reconstruction or economic rehabilitation.

The rebellion has made far more paupers than the economic situation which the U.S. mission tried to remedy. If the program had provided a tractor, a combine and a herd of Holstein cattle for every peasant in Greece, the people still would not have been able to save their families, houses and possessions from marauding Communist bands.

One Hundred Gold Pounds. The story of George Magalios illustrates the point. George, who lived on the outskirts of Karditsa, was a big, handsome man, still dark-haired and active for his years. He had worked hard all his life, and from his savings bought a rare farm possession for Greece, a tractor-drawn combine. With it he had made enough money to educate his eldest son Anastasios, 22, and to build up respectable dowries for his four pretty daughters.

A few months ago, letters began appearing under George's door at night. The first said: "You will pay 100 gold pounds to the Democratic [Communist] Army." George threw the letter in the fireplace. Soon the second arrived. "If you don't pay you'll have a difficult time." When that was ignored, a third threatened: "If not paid immediately we will have your head --you'll be slaughtered in the marketplace like a steer."

When his friends heard of the letters, they warned George that he'd better move to the center of the town. His answer was: "I am not going [to] leave my home--I've fought in four wars and am not going to be frightened by these tramps."

"Open the Door." One day during the guerrilla attack on Karditsa, a man banged on George's front door and shouted: "George, it's me, John. Open the door, for Christ's sake!" John had been best man at George's wedding many years before. The voice sounded like his, so George opened the door slightly. Outside he saw several armed guerrillas. George fired twice at a man who tried to force his way in, slammed the door and bolted it, ran upstairs, grabbed a grenade and tossed it through the window down into the group at the door.

For hours George and Anastasios fought off repeated attacks from the windows. George's wife begged him to leave while it was still possible to escape by the side cellar door and through the fields to town. George refused, but insisted that his wife go, taking the daughters with her.

The family escaped, but during a lull in the firing, while Anastasios was bolting the cellar door after them, guerrillas managed to dash up to the front door with a small charge, and blow it in. For two hours or more George and his son fought on, first at the staircase leading to the second floor, then at the landing of the attic. Finally they were forced up onto the roof.

Neighbors hiding in nearby fields told the rest of the story. From behind the chimney, hardly large enough to cover them both, they continued firing with their last rounds of ammunition. Then the guerrillas managed to pick off Anastasios with their Vickers machine gun. As he fell, he started rolling down the slanting roof. George came out from behind the chimney to grab him. He too was caught by the Vickers. He fell across the body of his son.

Small Proof. When the guerrillas in the house heard no further resistance, they came up onto the roof. They kicked the two motionless bodies, which rolled off the roof and fell 20 feet to the garden below. There, others administered the coup de grace.

Twenty-four hours later, the guerrillas withdrew and the family returned to the house. In the garden they found the lifeless bodies of George and his son. They also found eight dead guerrillas outside the house, three more inside.

Neither in Greece nor anywhere else are there many men as stubborn and courageous as George and Anastasios Magalios. Their fate is a small proof that the U.S. will need to give more than "economic rehabilitation" to stop Communism in Greece.

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