Up for auction "Ambassador to Greece" John Peurifoy 2 Page Signed TLS Dated 1952. This is a RARE document a copy of the speech give by the U.S. Ambassador to the proplr of Greece celebrating their independence. Most of these documents were destroyed or discared over time, A true piece of Greek history.

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John Emil Peurifoy (August 9, 1907 – August 12, 1955) was an American diplomat, an ambassador in the early years of the Cold War. He served as United States ambassador in Greece and Thailand and was the United States Ambassador to Guatemala during the 1954 coup that overthrew the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz. Peurifoy was born in Walterboro, South Carolina on August 9, 1907. His family of lawyers and jurists traced their New World ancestry to 1619, two years before the arrival of the Mayflower. His mother Emily Wright died when he was six, and his father John H. Peurifoy died in December 1926. When he graduated from high school in 1926, the yearbook recorded his ambition to be President of the United States. Peurifoy received an appointment to West Point in 1926. He withdrew from the military academy after two years because of pneumonia. He worked for a time in New York City as a restaurant cashier and then as a Wall Street clerk. He went to Washington, D.C. in April 1935 in the hopes of working for the State Department. He operated an elevator for the House of Representatives–a patronage job he got through South Carolina Congressman "Cotton Ed" Smith–and worked for the Treasury Department. He attended night school at American University and George Washington University. Peurifoy married Betty Jane Cox, a former Oklahoma schoolteacher, in 1936. When he lost his job at Treasury, he and his wife both worked at Woodward & Lothrop department store. Peurifoy identified himself as a political liberal and was a lifelong Democrat, because, he said, "You're born that way in South Carolina. It's almost like your religion."  In 1953, during the Eisenhower administration, Peurifoy was sent to Guatemala, the first Western Hemisphere nation to allegedly include Communists in its government. The fabrications regarding the communist regime had been triggered by a year long smear campaign instigated by the United Fruit Company UFCO, after a series of social reforms had expropriated land acquired under dubious circumstances by UFCO. The "standard" of the smear campaign had been using the social reforms in the country to accuse the regime of communism. The CIA led operation was codenamed PBSUCCESS. He took up his position as Ambassador there in November 1953.^[1] Carlos Castillo Armas, leader of the CIA sponsored rebel forces, was already raising and arming his forces. Peurifoy made clear to Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz that the United States cared only about removing Communists from any role in the government. In June 1954, the CIA set into motion a plan to overthrow the Arbenz government. Peurifoy pressed Arbenz hard on his positions on land reform and played an active role in the coup. He then played a central role negotiations between Guatemala's army officers, Elfego Monzon, the head of the military junta that seized power and Carlos Castillo Armas, leader of rebel forces. Carlos Castillo Armas was later declared president of Guatemala. His work in Greece and Guatemala earned him a reputation as "the State Department's ace troubleshooter in Communist hotspots." The New York Times reported in 1954 that he contemplated running for the U.S. Presidency someday.