[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 41 (Friday, March 22, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E422]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY

                                 ______


                               speech of

                        HON. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 20, 1996

  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, on Monday the 25th the people of 
Greece and friends of Greece around the world will celebrate the 175th 
anniversary of Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire.
  When Greece regained its independence in 1821, the people of the 
United States were delighted to learn of the new Greek freedom and 
restoration of Green independence.
  Our President at the time, James Monroe, issued a declaration 
expressing America's great friendship and sympathies for the cause of 
Greek freedom.
  President Monroe's expression of our sympathies for Greek freedom and 
democracy was not just an empty promise and it was not just the 
expression of one person's views.
  Over a century later, President Truman came to this House on March 
12, 1947, to ask the Congress for its support for what became known as 
the Truman Doctrine.
  Truman described the desperate situation in Greece and how Greek 
democracy was threatened, and he asked Congress for its support for an 
unprecedented American program of economic and military aid to Greece.
  By overwhelming and bipartisan votes, the Congress responded quickly 
to President Truman's request for aid to the Greeks.
  By May 15, President Truman was able to sign a bill into law 
providing for aid to preserve and protect Greek freedom and 
independence.
  One participant in the Truman administration's effort to save Greek 
democracy later told an historian, ``I think it's one of the proudest 
moments in American history.''
  And indeed it was.
  This long history of friendship and cooperation between the Americans 
and the Greeks has weathered many a crisis in which the two nations 
were allies in protecting the cause of democracy and freedom.
  During the Second World War, Greeks and Americans fought in the great 
crusade to rid the world of the evils of the Nazis.
  We were allies in that effort, and the alliance continued for the 
next half century as allies in the struggle against communism and 
Soviet domination.
  It was from his own experiences in the Greek struggle during Second 
World War that Greece's most famous modern poet, Odysseus Elytis, wrote 
his poem ``To Axiom Esti,'' in which he described his experiences in 
the Greek resistance to fascism in World War II.
  That poem won Elytis the Nobel Prize in 1979.
  Odysseus Elytis died this week, and was buried with high honors as 
Greece's most beloved poet of this century.
  In his poetry, Elytis carried on the long tradition of Greek 
literature and its contribution to the world's cultural heritage.
  This contribution is as significant as their contribution of the 
concept of democracy has been to the world of politics.
  We are all the inheritors of the Greek contribution to our cultural 
and our political life, and today I join my colleague Mike Bilirakis in 
wishing the Greek people our very best of wishes as they celebrate 175 
years of independence on Monday.

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