Polk Trial Battle Of Greek Politics, Brother Declares

The trial of the convicted murderers of George Polk, CBS correspondent, "was not a legal trial, not a legal case--but a political battle between the guerilla Communists and the government of Greece," his brother, William R. Polk '51 claimed last night. He gave his report off the trial at an American Veterans Committee meeting in Phillips Brooks House.

According to the Chief of Police of Salonika, Gresco, scene of the crime, George Polk "was killed by the Communists to defame Greece in U.S. eyes and end American financial assistance to that nation."

Polk feels certain that the fact that his brother had threatened "to denounce certain actius of Prime Minister Tsaldaris" may have had much to do with the crime.

Significant in the trial, according to Polk, is the fact that "No one in the courtroom was in a position to question the basic premise of the trial--that the Communists had killed George Polk."

Polk said last night that he had discovered that Gregory Stakiopoulos, government "finger-man" in the case, was famed as the "Political Barometer of the Balkans"--a "devilish and shrewd" man who in many changes of government had always managed to remain on the winning side.

According to Polk, Stakiopoulos had revised his evidence half-a-dozen times to fit new factors in the case.

He also claimed that Adam Mouzenldes, convicted for the murder, had died a month before the crime, and that there was complete contradiction in the facts about the evening of the slaying."