Memoirs of Peter Boudoures Chapter 41 The Greek War Relief Versus Business as Usual

Boudoures with Archbishop Athenagoras

But before doing so I ran into an old employee, Alex Stephens, who had worked for me between 1928 and 1930 at the Maison Paul Restaurant. He was headwaiter at Saro's Restaurant in Hollywood, at Hollywood and Vine Streets. I told Alex that I would very much like for him to return to San Francisco and be the general manager of the dining room at my restaurant. I told him it was his patriotic duty to return and run the dining room so that I could travel and do the job that I was required to do for the Greek War Relief. I offered to pay him a higher salary than he was getting a Saro's.

I also promised Alex that if and when Spiro Skouras delivered on his promise to give me an interest in a number of theaters, I would give him a one-fourth interest in the Maison Paul Restaurant. Fortunately for me and for him, he accepted the offer and returned to San Francisco where he took over the job of headwaiter and manager of the dining room. He worked like a trooper and did a marvelous job for 5 or 6 years. Unfortunately, I did not perform everything for him. Spiro Skouras did not give me the theaters that he promised and, as result, I could not turn over an interest in the restaurant to Alex. He was, however, wonderfully paid for the work he did.

I continued working and endeavoring to do everything that was humanly possible to collect funds. I appointed a number of people throughout the state as directors. Father Lokis was appointed Regional Director for the local area of Northern California. George E. Johnson of Reno was appointed Deputy Director for Nevada and part of Northern California. A number of other people were appointed, too many to remember.

The people worked hard and the drive went very, very well. So well, that in fact, per capita, we collected more money than any other section of the United States. We also had the lowest overhead in the country, only one and seven-tenths percent of the money collected. The credit for this low overhead was due to the efforts of everyone involved in the fund raiser. I gave my time and money to travel and I hired someone to replace me at work without asking for reimbursement. But so did everyone else. Our books were audited by certified public accountants for two successive years, and we came out clean. I say this because some people (who never have a good word for anything) stated that we were traveling on expense accounts.

The drive went on. In the meantime we arranged to have the Greek Independence Day celebration, March 25, 1941, held at the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. I asked Spiro and Charles Skouras to arrange to send three or four actors from Hollywood to entertain at the event. They sent Ronald Reagan, Linda Darnell and Merle Oberon. The house was sold out. There was standing room only. It was a huge success, and some $8,000 to $9,000 profit was cleared.

The Italians were losing the war in Albania and it looked like they were going to be driven into the sea. Unfortunately for Greece, Adolf Hitler found it necessary to go to the rescue of his pal, Benito Mussolini, and Germany declared war on Greece. The British tried to help. But they were losing the war in North Africa and in Europe and they had little war material to spare. They sent troops to Greece, but there weren't many, and they weren't very effective. The German army attacked Greece through Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The border with Yugoslavia was not fortified because Greece always had good relations with Yugoslavia. The Germans poured through that border.

The Bulgarian border was different. It was well fortified and the Greek army fought valiantly. They held off the Germans for forty days and made them pay a tremendous price. However, the combined forces of Germany, Italy and Bulgaria were irresistible. They finally overran Greece.

The Greek Government, together with King George, left Greece for Egypt where they set up a government in exile. They organized guerilla activities to make life miserable for the German and Italian occupation forces. The sacrifices that the Greek people made during the occupation added a glorious chapter to the history of the Greek people.

In the meantime, some of the Greek officials came to the United States and stayed in New York for the duration of the war. One of these officials was the former minister of finance. He was a constant guest of Spiro Skouras, both in New York and in Los Angeles. I met this gentleman one evening at Charles Skouras' home In Beverly Hills. Charles and Spiro were both present as were a number of officials from Fox West Coast Theaters. Charles often invited me to Los Angeles to speak before various groups in support of the War Relief. Subsequently, on another occasion at Charles's house, one of the officials from Fox West Coast asked me what I thought of the former finance minister.

My answer was that I didn't think very much of him. I was asked why. I said, "Well, I don't have high regard for anyone who holds a high position in the Greek government and in his country's hour of need, leaves his country to come here, with his country's money, to have a good time while his people are suffering." My comments were overheard by Spiro Skouras. He was sitting nearby, playing gin rummy with his sister-in-law. He said to me in Greek, "Why do you talk that way?" His wife, Seroula, immediately intervened. She told him, "Leave Peter alone. Let him speak his mind."

I responded by telling Spiro that no matter what he said, I had the courage of my convictions, that I meant what I said, and that I wasn't about to change my mind. After the party was over, I got into the car with Spiro and his chauffeur to go to the hotel. He brought up the subject again and asked, "Peter, why do you speak against our mother country?" I explained to him that I was not speaking against Greece. I was speaking against one individual. I told him that I was entitled to my opinions. I explained to him that the American people who talked against Franklin Roosevelt, our greatest president up to that time were not talking against the United States. He didn't agree with me. I told him, "Spiro, I respect your opinion, you respect mine." That ended the discussion and I later returned to San Francisco.

The occupation of Greece in May of l941 precluded us in the United States from delivering any more money or supplies to Greece. I continued working on the project but the biggest and the best part was over. Even though the people in Greece were in desperate need of food, medicine and God knows what else, the German blockade prevented us from sending anything there. Archbishop Athenagoras, William Helis, and Spiro Skouras had a number of conferences with the Secretary of State and with President Roosevelt for the purpose of getting the government to convince Germany to allow aid to enter Greece. They hoped to get Germany to lift the blockade to allow the Red Cross to deliver supplies to the Greek People. To some extent they were successful. The War Relief drive ran out of steam by the middle of 1941, only to be rekindled in mid 1944 when the German Army pulled out of Greece.

(Evidently, Boudoures also went along. He had occasion to meet and be photographed with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House in 1941).

During 1942 I was appointed to serve as a member of a local draft board, Board number 77. We met every other week, three of us, to examine the applications of people who wanted exemption from the draft. They wanted to avoid, for one reason or another, serving in the armed service. At the same time the late Superior Court Judge Harris put my name in as a candidate for the Grand Jury, and I was selected to serve. With what little work was left for the Greek War Relief, the work for the Draft Board, the work for the Grand Jury and taking care of my restaurant, I had all the work that I could do. A few months later I found it impossible to keep up all the work and I resigned from the Draft Board.