Death & the Flower Vendor

The Salonika police claim an enviable record: since 1936, they say, not a single murder in that Greek port has gone unsolved. Six weeks ago, the body of 34-year-old CBS Correspondent George Polk was found floating in Salonika Bay, his hands & feet tied together, a bullet in his head (TIME, May 24). But by last week the police had made no arrests.

After a seven-day flying trip to Greece, ex-OSS General William J. Donovan announced that the Greek "authorities are handling the case satisfactorily." Some U.S. newsmen, in Greece when George Polk died, were not so sure. Neither was CBS. Three top CBS staffers (Edward R. Murrow, Howard K. Smith and Don Hollenbeck) broadcast a progress report on an independent investigation now being conducted by two CBS legmen.

Lobster on Niki Street. The CBS story had all the drama and color of an Eric Ambler mystery. Tall, blond George Polk, whose pull-no-punches broadcasts had angered the Greek government,/- had been trying to reach the hideout headquarters of Leftist General Markos to get the guerrilla side of the story. His "contact man" was apparently an Athens flower vendor, who visited Polk daily for ten days before his death--but in the treacherous climate of Athens, Polk had no way of making sure whether he was dealing with Right or Left.

The night of his death, George Polk ate a hearty lobster dinner, perhaps in a waterfront cafe on dirty Niki Street. A short time later, Polk was shot point-blank from behind with a long-barreled gun, then tied up with 30 feet of rope. Probable scene of the crime: one of the countless coastwise vessels with which the harbor swarms. (To shoot Polk first and then drag his bleeding, trussed body through Salonika's streets could hardly have escaped notice; to lure him to a caique, and then shoot him in a below-deck cabin, would have been simpler and safer.)

A Necktie, a Notebook. Unconscious but still alive, Polk was thrown overboard to drown--in stagnant water only 150 yards off shore. His money and most of his papers were left on the body, as evidence that not robbery but "deliberate execution" was the motive. Then his identity card was mailed to the police. Still missing: Polk's notebook, his scarf, his favorite necktie (bright red and blue)--and the flower vendor.

Concludes CBS's Smith: "There is no doubt that the murder .. . was a cold, deliberate political demonstration, planned to be spectacular, planned to intimidate. If the murderers are not discovered, an invisible but inevitable pressure of intimidation will rest on every American correspondent abroad." But the Greek police last week were pursuing another line of inquiry less likely to embarrass higher-ups. Their official theory: George Polk had been killed because of something in his "personal life."

Shortly before his murder, Polk applied for a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard. Last week Harvard announced that his selection as a fellow would be entered on its records, and expressed pride "in having a candidate of his high qualities and journalistic distinction."

/- Just before his death, Polk sent Columnist Drew Pearson a letter, saying that the government was making it tough for U.S. newsmen by public denunciations, rumormongering, red tape and "hints that 'somebody is likely to get hurt.' "

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