THE NATIONS: Not So Stupid

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Greek Premier Constantin Tsaldaris has been called (with some justification) a stupid reactionary. Even stupid reactionaries sometimes make sense. Last week, fat Dino Tsaldaris made sense.

In an Athens interview with Cleveland Plain Dealer Correspondent John Leacacos, Tsaldaris offered a solution to Greece's civil war. He asked Joseph Stalin to tell all Communists that the Communist Party prefers victory by democratic means to victory by violent revolution. Then a neutral zone in northern Greece should be created where Greek guerrillas could surrender their arms without fear of recrimination (they would be free to leave Greece or stay under police protection). New elections should be held under international surveillance. As concessions, Tsaldaris offered a wide amnesty to political oppositionists, and customs-free zones in the Aegean port of Salonika to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

Said Tsaldaris: "If by regular democratic methods and arguments the Greek people want to elect Communists to the majority . . . the Communists are welcome to it. The Communists in France, Italy and Belgium have won considerable power and influence through normal participation in the political life of their countries. Why can't Greek Communists do the same?"

Tsaldaris' statement put Communism's busy friends in the U.S. on the spot. Support from Washington, far from encouraging Tsaldaris to a war of extermination against the left, had given him sufficient confidence to make concessions and to emphasize that he would play the democratic game as long as the Communists, along with everybody else, were forced to abide by the rules. At a time when some Communist leaders in France (see FOREIGN NEWS) were deciding they did not like the democratic rules, Tsaldaris' statement had a piquant point.