GREECE AND THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

UNCLAS ATHENS 002306

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KPAO MASS MOPS GR
SUBJECT: GREECE AND THE GREAT WHITE FLEET

REF: STATE 152640


1. Summary: Embassy Athens recommends a low-key, primarily
military-to-military commemoration of the centennial of Theodore
Roosevelt?s Great White Fleet, to be planned in connection with the
visit of a US Navy ship in late 2008 or early 2009. Although the
port of Piraeus here appears to be one of the least well-documented
stops on the historic voyage, perhaps because of the political
turbulence Greece was experiencing at the time, we note that one of
the participating ships and another that welcomed the fleet home to
Virginia were later sold to the Greek Navy. These two smaller,
Mississippi-class ships performed coastal patrols and training
missions for some two decades as the Kilkis and the Limnos before
being retired and, ultimately, destroyed by the Germans early in
World War II. Post may also be interested in distributing books and
materials produced in connection with the event to selected
high-level military, civilian government, and academic contacts.
End Summary.


2. The January 11-19, 1909 visit of part of the Great White Fle@aeus near Athens is onQmented, accordiner
Eleftherios Venizelos and his irredentist ?great idea? to national
prominence. (The new international airport in Athens bears his
name.) Within a few short years, Greece entered the Balkan Wars
and, after initial territorial gains, was soundly defeated by the
Turks in Asia Minor. The culminating, catastrophic flight of the
Greek-speaking residents of Smyrna (Izmir) in 1922, the next stop on
the Great White Fleet?s itinerary, is still painfully resonant here
today. It was at the center of last year?s long-running,
nation-wide controversy over updating children?s history textbooks.


3. It is also important to note that large-scale Greek immigration,
itself a reflection of political and economic difficulty, peaked
during the voyage. As Richard Clogg writes in his Concise History
of Modern Greece, in the decades surrounding the turn of the last
century, one in seven Greek men left the country, most for the
United States.


4. These historical and modern circumstances, and the fact that two
ships that either participated in the Great White Fleet?s voyage or
welcomed it back home, the Mississippi and the Idaho, were sold to
the Greek Navy about 1914, suggests a low-key, primarily
military-to-military centennial commemoration. These ships
performed coastal patrols and training missions for some two decades
as the Kilkis and the Limnos before being retired and, ultimately,
destroyed by the Germans in the early months of World War II.
Including U.S. Coast Guard representatives in a ship visit to Greece
would therefore be appropriate and helpful to link the Great White
Fleet?s piracy deterrence function to today?s transnational threats.
SPECKHARD