Bibliographie
Primary sources
Archives
National Archives, Department of State, Record Group 59, Records Relating to the Allied Missions for the Observation of Greek Elections (AMFOGE I and AMFOGE II) (Lot File No. M-72), HMS Entry Number A1 1376.
Printed sources (Government documents)
“Agreement between the Greek Government and EAM”, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic papers, The Near East and Africa, 1945, Volume VIII, Document 63.
“The Soviet Foreign Commissar (Molotov) to the Secretary of State”, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic papers, The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume II, Document 1063.
“Revision of Greek Electoral Lists”, Department of State Bulletin, vol. XV, no. 374, September 1, 1946, p. 424.
Report of the Allied Mission to Observe the Greek Elections, Washington, United States Government Printing Service, 1946.
“Allied Mission to Remain in Greece for Informal Observation”, Department of State Bulletin, vol. XV, no. 374, September 1, 1946.
“Report by Messrs. Richard T. Windle and Leland Morris, Chiefs of the Allied Mission to Observe Greek Elections. Report on the Observation of the Greek Plebiscite”, September 7, 1946. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, vol. VII, p. 206.
Secondary sources
Adler, Ken, The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World, New York, The Free Press, 2002.
Campbell, John Kennedy, “The Greek Civil War”, in Evans Luard (ed.), The International Regulation of Civil Wars, London, Thames and Hudson, 1972, pp. 37-64.
Chiang, Chih-Ang, “Using the Pao as the Primary Sampling Unit. Some Notes and Reflections on the Possibilities of a Census of China by Sampling”, Population Studies, vol. 2, no. 4, March 1949, pp. 444-453.
Clogg, Richard, Parties and Elections in Greece: The Search for Legitimacy, Durham (NC), Duke University Press, 1987.
Close, David H., The Origins of the Greek Civil War, London and New York, Longman, 1995.
Daly, Joseph F., “Oral History – Joseph F. Daly” [online], 9 p.
URL: https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/ Daly_Oral_History.pdf.
Deming, W. Edwards, Some Theory of Sampling, New York, Wiley, 1950.
Desrosières, Alain, “Three Studies on the History of Sampling Surveys: Norway, Russia-USSR, United States”, Science in Context, vol. 15, no. 3, 2002, pp. 377-383.
Desrosières, Alain, Pour une sociologie historique de la quantification. L’argument statistique I, Paris, MinesTech, 2008.
Folks, J. Leroy, “A Conversation with Oscar Kempthorne”, Statistical Science, vol. 10, no. 4, November 1995, pp. 321-366.
Frankel, Lester R., “Some Theory of Sampling, by William Edwards Deming”, Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 46, no. 253, March 1951, pp. 127-129.
Henry, Louis, “Résultats d’un sondage sur la population de la Grèce en 1946”, Population, vol. 2, no. 4, 1947, pp. 785-789.
Jessen, Raymond J., Statistical Survey Techniques, New York, Wiley, 1978.
Jessen, Raymond J., Blythe, Richard H., Kempthorne, Oscar & Deming, W. Edwards, “On a Population Sample from Greece”, Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 42, no. 239, 1947, pp. 359.
Jessen, Raymond J., Deming, W. Edwards, Daly, Joseph F. & Kempthorne, Oscar, “Observations on the 1946 Elections in Greece”, American Sociological Review, vol. 14, no. 1, February 1949, pp. 11-16.
Karabell, Zachary, Architects of Intervention: The United States, the Third World and the Cold War, 1946-1962, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1999.
Kruskal, William & Mosteller, Frederick, “Ideas of Representative Sampling”, in Donald W. Fiske (ed.), Problems with Language Imprecision, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1981.
Latham, Earl, “Political Statistics”, The Journal of Politics, vol. 10, no. 4, Nov. 1948, pp. 636-658.
Mavrogordatos, George T., “The 1946 Election and Plebiscite: Prelude to Civil War”, in John O. Iatrides (ed.), Greece in the 1940s: A Nation in Crisis, Hanover and London, University Press of New England, 1981, pp. 181-194.
Meynaud, Jean, Les forces politiques en Grèce, Montreal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1960.
Michalopoulou, Catherine, “A Unique Collaboration: Prominent Statisticians’ Survey Work in Greece in 1946”, The American Statistician, vol. 68, no. 3, 2014, pp. 196-203.
Midgley, Gerard, Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice, New York, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000.
Neyman, Jerzy, “On the Two Different Aspects of the Representative Method: The Method of Stratified Sampling and the Method of Purposive Selection”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, vol. 97, no. 4, 1934, pp. 557-625.
National Statistical Service of Greece, Résultats du recensement de la population effectué le 7 avril 1951, vol. I, Athens, 1961.
Politakis, George, The Post-War Reconstruction of Greece: A History of Economic Stabilization and Development, 1944-1952, London, Palgrave, 2018.
Porter, Theodore M., Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995.
Prévost, Jean-Guy & Beaud, Jean-Pierre, Statistics, Public Debate and the State, 1800-1945: A Social, Political and Intellectual History of Numbers, London, Pickering and Chatto, 2012.
Reid, Constance, Neyman, New York, Springer-Verlag, 1998.
Richter, Heinz, British Intervention in Greece. From Varkiza to the Civil War, February 1945 to August 1946, London, Merlin Press, 1986.
Seng, You Po, “Practical Problems in Sampling for Social and Demographic Inquiries in Undeveloped Countries”, Population Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, September 1949, pp. 170-191.
Sfikas, Thanasis D., The British Labour Government and the Greek Civil War 1945-1949: The Imperialism of “Non-Intervention”, Keele, Keele University Press, 1994.
Valaoras, Vasilios G., “Some Effects of Famine on the Population in Greece”, The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 3, July 1946, pp. 215-234.
Woodhouse, Christopher M., Apple of Discord: A Survey of Recent Greek Politics in their International Setting, London, Hutchison & Co., 1948.
Woodhouse, Christopher M., The Struggle for Greece 1941-1949, London, Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1976.
Woodhouse, Christopher M., Something Ventured, London, Granada, 1982.
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Notes
Documents relating to AMFOGE are filed under: National Archives, Department of State, Record Group 59, Records Relating to the Allied Missions for the Observation of Greek Elections (AMFOGE I and AMFOGE II) (Lot File No. M-72), HMS Entry Number A1 1376. This archive consists of 18 boxes, containing a large series of folders filled with memoranda, minutes, incident reports, drafts, correspondence, directives, forms, lists of personnel, press releases, pamphlets, etc. An instrument describing the records in the boxes is provided with Box 1. We will refer to all material from this source by box number. Another relevant data source is the W. Edwards Deming archive at the Library of Congress. Material on AMFOGE is contained in three folders in Box 23. Part of this material can also be found in the AMFOGE archive, but it also includes some correspondence to Deming, and some detailed sampling plans. We have not yet been able to consult Greek sources and we are conscious that our knowledge of the views of AMFOGE’s Greek critics (see section 4) is based solely on the translation of material selected by AMFOGE.
“Agreement between the Greek Government and EAM”, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic papers, The Near East and Africa, 1945, Volume VIII, Document 63.
“The Soviet Foreign Commissar (Molotov) to the Secretary of State”, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic papers, The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume II, Document 1063.
Report of the Allied Mission to Observe the Greek Elections, Washington, United States Government Printing Service, 1946, p. iii. Hereafter designated as AMFOGE I Report.
Z. Karabell, 1999, p. 17.
“A Chapter in Quantitative Political Science. Observations on the Elections in Greece”, draft paper by Raymond J. Jessen, Joseph F. Daly, and W. Edwards Deming, dated 26 July 1946, p. 1 (Box 9).
AMFOGE I Report, pp. 26-27.
“The Mission is satisfied that the revision and recompilations of the electoral lists as observed by it attain a degree of fairness and accuracy which justifies their use in seeking the opinion of the Greek people in matters of national import.” “Revision of Greek Electoral Lists”, Department of State Bulletin, vol. XV, no. 374, September 1, 1946, p. 424.
“Report by Messrs. Richard T. Windle and Leland Morris, Chiefs of the Allied Mission to Observe Greek Elections. Report on the Observation of the Greek Plebiscite”, September 7, 1946. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, vol. VII, p. 206.
“Supplement to Report on the Observation of the Greek Plebiscite”, September 13, 1946, quoted in G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 376.
“Allied Mission to Remain in Greece for Informal Observation”, Department of State Bulletin, vol. XV, no. 374, September 1, 1946, p. 425.
“Miniature sample census” was an expression used by Jessen and his co-authors in “Observations”, p. 12. Two occurrences can also be found in Some Theory of Sampling, where the United States Monthly Report on Labor Force is described as a “miniature monthly sample census” (W. E. Deming, 1950, pp. 158 and 269). Of course, the idea of a “sample census” may seem a contradiction in terms, and viewing a sample as a “miniature” of the population is “rarely appropriate and achievable in statistics” (W. Kruskal & F. Mosteller, 1981, p. 9). Unsurprisingly, the idea has not caught on.
See note 6.
On the rise of sampling as seen from a socio-historical perspective, see A. Desrosières, 2002 (special issue on survey sampling); J.-G. Prévost & J.-P. Beaud, 2012, ch. 8: “Politics of the Sampling Revolution”, pp. 153-172.
T. M. Porter, 1995, p. ix.
T. M. Porter, 1995, p. 8.
L. R. Frankel, 1951, p. 129.
R. J. Jessen, W. E. Deming, J. F. Daly & O. Kempthorne, 1949, pp. 12-13.
R. J. Jessen, W. E. Deming, J. F. Daly & O. Kempthorne, 1949, p. 16.
R. J. Jessen, W. E. Deming, J. F. Daly & O. Kempthorne, 1949, p. 13.
In a letter to William Baxter of the State Department in which he sought permission to publish the paper, Deming wrote for instance: “You will observe that no mention is made of the election results or the condition of the registers.” “Letter from W. Edwards Deming to William Baxter”, dated November 6, 1946 (Box 10).
C.-A. Chiang, 1949; Y. P. Seng, 1949. The first scholarly paper quoting “On a Population Sample” (and summarizing its method and findings) was by French demographer Louis Henry: L. Henry, 1947. Interestingly, the AMFOGE team of experts had no French statisticians (they were all American or British), which testifies to the cultural context in which probability-based survey sampling emerged as well as to its novel status in 1946-47.
C. Michalopoulou, 2014, p. 201.
C. M. Woodhouse, 1948, p. 264.
J. F. Daly, no date, p. 2.
J. L. Folks, 1995, p. 324.
R. J. Jessen, 1978, p. 319.
“Here there were 60 British, 60 American, and 40 French investigators. Assignments of these national groups to voting places over Greece were randomized separately for each of the three groups, despite objections from the military organization that this would unduly burden the logistics problems in supplying the investigator teams (consisting of a military officer, his driver, and his interpreter, together with a jeep and trailer stocked to provide the team the means of support wherever it was assigned in Greece). The random assignments assured us, after examining the results, that nationality differences in this case were insignificant.” R. J. Jessen, 1978, p. 475.
R. J. Jessen, 1978, p. 496.
C. Reid, 1998, p. 203.
C. Reid, 1998, p. 208.
R. Clogg, 1987, p. 21.
C. M. Woodhouse, 1976, p. 175. In his 1982 memoirs, Something Ventured, Woodhouse makes only one reference to the fact that he was the British secretary general of AMFOGE, without passing any judgment on its work (id., 1982, p. 102).
J. K. Campbell, 1972, p. 46.
R. Clogg, 1987, p. 18. “These estimates are essentially guesswork […]”, T. D. Sfikas, 1994, p. 87.
D. H. Close, 1995, p. 174.
G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 184. Mavrogordatos, whose analysis also covered the September plebiscite, is, to our knowledge, the first author to use AMFOGE archival evidence. Michalopoulou (see note 22) was also able to do so.
G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 182.
G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 187.
G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 192.
G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 187.
G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 379. In his 1965 survey of Greek political forces, the French political scientist Jean Meynaud was equally severe in his criticism: “Taking into account the composition and functioning methods of the Mission, it would seem very naive to see in this certificate of good democratic conduct anything beyond an attempt to buttress the international status of a government entirely subservient to the Anglo-Saxon powers.” J. Meynaud, 1960, p. 80.
H. Richter, 1986, pp. 444-445.
H. Richter, 1986.
H. Richter, 1986, p. 447.
G. T. Mavrogordatos, 1981, p. 378. Already in 1948, American political scientist Earl Latham had ironically referred to AMFOGE’s results, underlining the fact that, while “the sample of voters was constructed according to the best scientific principles by the highest scientific talent, and rigidly and scrupulously followed in the interviewing”, the fact that these interviews were conducted by soldiers in uniform cast “a reasonable doubt about the reliability of answers to a question about coercion, required to be made in the presence of the military” (E. Latham, 1948, p. 646).
E. Latham, 1948, p. 379.
E. Latham, 1948, p. 379.
C. Michalopoulou, 2014, p. 199 (Table 1).
“Report of the Planning and Sampling Staff, Central Office, AMFOGE”, April 9, 1946, “Statistical Supplement”, p. 1 (Box 8).
“Form A”, February 26, 1946 (Box 14).
“Report of the Planning and Sampling Staff, Central Office, AMFOGE”, April 9, 1946, “Statistical Supplement”, p. 1 (Box 8).
“Household interview regarding registration. Form B”, February 28, 1946 (Box 14).
“Instructions for Form C-2. Verification of residence of registered voters”, February 27, 1946, p. 1 (Box 14).
“Form C-2”, appended to the preceding document (Box 14).
“Form D-1” (Box 14).
Inquiry E is also sometimes mentioned. This one was different, since it covered a variety of investigations carried out in response to specific allegations of fraud or violence. Given the Mission’s limited means, sampling was used here only to select cases that could be the object of further investigation. Inquiry E thus fell outside the specific competence of the sampling staff.
AMFOGE I Report, pp. 26-27. Our emphasis. A full report, to be “published in volume form”, was announced, including a series of appendices, but it was never released (p. 35). A draft version of this full report can, however, be found in the archive (“Report of the Allied Mission to Observe the Greek Elections”, April 10, 1946 [Box 5]).
The results of these inquiries were compiled in two tables featured in “Report of the Allied Mission to Observe Revision of the Electoral Lists”, August 19, 1946 (Box 10).
Michalopoulou has described the population sample as “exemplarily designed, conducted, and presented” (C. Michalopoulou, 2014, p. 198).
R. T. Jessen, R. H. Blythe, O. Kempthorne & W. E. Deming, 1947, p. 359.
R. T. Jessen, R. H. Blythe, O. Kempthorne & W. E. Deming, 1947, pp. 363-364. This method was presented for the first time in “On the Two Different Aspects of the Representative Method: The Method of Stratified Sampling and the Method of Purposive Selection” (J. Neyman, 1934).
R. T. Jessen, R. H. Blythe, O. Kempthorne & W. E. Deming, 1947, p. 360.
R. T. Jessen, R. H. Blythe, O. Kempthorne & W. E. Deming, 1947, pp. 360-367.
R. T. Jessen, R. H. Blythe, O. Kempthorne & W. E. Deming, 1947, p. 367.
R. T. Jessen, R. H. Blythe, O. Kempthorne & W. E. Deming, 1947, p. 369.
“Letter from R. Jessen to F. Kohler”, February 15, 1946 (Box 4).
“Letter from J. Neyman to F. Kohler”, February 15, 1946 (Box 4). Neyman’s emphasis.
These were: Ioannis (John) Mikhalopoulos, director of the General Statistical Service of Greece (GSSG) and ex-officio member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI); Angelos Angelopoulos (1904-1995), an economist who had acted as Secretary of State for economics in the EAM so-called “Mountain government” in 1944 and would be forced to leave the country in 1946 (G. Politakis, 2018, p. 9); and Demetrios Calitsounskis (1888-1982), a professor of statistics at the University of Athens.
“Discussion with 1. Mr. John Mikhalopoulos 2. Mr. Demetrios Calitsounskis 3. Mr. Angelos Angelopoulos”, February 11, 1946 (Box 4).
“Letter from J. Neyman to J. Mikhalopoulos”, February 9, 1946 (Box 4).
Michalopoulou observes that Neyman’s estimate, which was not based on any survey, was finally not far from that obtained by the AMFOGE 2 miniature sample census (C. Michalopoulou, 2014, p. 199).
“Discussion with 1. Mr. John Mikhalopoulos 2. Mr. Demetrios Calitsounskis 3. Mr. Angelos Angelopoulos”, February 11, 1946 (Box 4).
Georges Tenekides (1910-1990) was a professor of international law in Athens from 1938 to 1941, and then in Salonika until 1946. Having played an active role in the resistance during the war, he was ousted from his position in late 1946, as the civil war began.
“Letter from J. Neyman to Ambassador H. F. Grady”, March 11, 1946 (Box 4).
“The Enemies of democracy” Nea Alithia (Salonica), translation, February 27, 1946 (Box 4).
“Memorandum. Subject: Termination of the Services of Dr. J. Neyman”, March 20, 1946 (Box 4).
“Letter from J. Neyman to the Rector of the University of Salonica”, March 13, 1946 (Box 4).
“An Honest Observer”, Eleftherie, translation, March 29, 1946 (Box 4).
EAM (Greek National Liberation Front) was the main resistance organization during the Nazi occupation. By 1946, it consisted of five parties, namely the KKE (Communist Party), the Democratic Radical Party, the Agrarian Party, the Socialist Party of Greece and the Democratic Union; but the Communists were clearly its leading component.
“To AMFOGE” (otherwise untitled document), April 7, 1946 (Box 6).
“To AMFOGE” (otherwise untitled document), April 7, 1946 (Box 6).
V. G. Valaoras, 1946, p. 215.
“Of the C.C. of the Political Parties’ Coalition of EAM to the Allied Observers for the elections in Greece”, December 9, 1945 (Box 8).
“Statistical supplement to Report of the Planning and Sampling Staff”, Central Office, AMFOGE, April 9, 1946 (Box 8).
AMFOGE I Report, p. 26.
AMFOGE I Report, p. 32. This “median value” was justified on the basis that half of those who claimed to have not voted because they were “not in the neighbourhood on election day” may in fact have been disguising politically motivated abstention.
“To AMFOGE” (letter from Central Committee of the Political Parties of EAM), April 7, 1946 (Box 6).
G. Midgley, 2000, p. 125.
R. J. Jessen, 1978, p. 453.
These scales and instruments are, of course, themselves the product of a complicated history. See for instance Ken Adler’s The Measure of All Things on the advent of the metric system (K. Adler, 2002).
A. Desrosières, 2008, p. 10.
A. Desrosières, 2008, p. 11.
To take one admittedly extreme example of such violence, an attack on Litokhoro – for which the Communists later claimed responsibility – occurred on the night before election day, March 30-31, 1946, when an armed band of 60 men descended from Mount Olympus, resulting in eight deaths and a postponement of the vote until a week later (C. M. Woodhouse, 1976, p. 173). Likothoro was not among the sampled units. AMFOGE of course paid some attention to the conduct of future interviewers, to their relationship with the interpreters and to possible inadequacies of its training sessions. It would be interesting to examine these practical guidelines in more detail, since the validity of the sampling procedure depends on a measurement error that remains modest overall.
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