297. Letter From the Ambassador to Greece (Talbot) to the Country Director for Greece (Brewster)1
Dear Dan:
Having heard nothing further on the limited military assistance items whose transfer was recommended by SIG and IRG, I assume that the process of getting White House and Congressional clearance has, as we had more or less anticipated, proved difficult. I also assume that my extended presence in Washington would not have changed this situation, and that it was wise for me to leave the Capitol and return to Athens on schedule.
At this end my impressions are gradually taking shape, but I have hesitated to express my views on the changing scene before fresh talks with the military members of the Government as well as with the King and the Prime Minister. Later this week I would hope that process would be sufficiently advanced to permit me to express fresh opinions with confidence.
My tentative impressions are that internal consolidation by the coup group has substantially advanced during my absence and that as more prospective difficulties have become apparent there is greater sensitivity and some change in the wider public mood.
Specifically, purging of persons on whom the coup leaders cannot confidently depend has proceeded not only through the upper reaches of the Air Force and Navy (but not yet the Army) but also into the gendarmerie and police as well as civilian ministries and agencies. Some changes are distinct improvements, e.g., ETVA and GAEC. Elsewhere replacements have either proved undistinguished or, indeed, unavailable. While the departure of Zolotas and John Pezmazoglu will undoubtedly attract the most international attention, with Galanis at the helm this shift may be less important than changes in other areas.
Distasteful developments include the tightening of the screws in the fields of education and the arts. The Embassy’s airgram (A–68)2 spells out these details. Nor is it encouraging to hear that Papaconstantinou is running into increasing frustrations so that instead of an early end to press censorship we could just possibly see an early end to Papaconstantinou as a Government official.
[Page 627]As the Embassy has reported, the economy shows many signs of weakness including spreading unemployment in the industrial sector. You have seen our reports of labor restiveness. Businessmen, too, seem more acutely aware now than in June of the prospect that this reform government will put a sharper tax bite on them than has been their past lot.
On the constitutional front there is a good deal of confusion and of skepticism. We should get deeper into this question during the current week. In any event, I hear numbers of people now discussing matters from the implicit assumption that the coup group will attempt to stay in power indefinitely.
By and large, however, my impression is that a good many influential Greeks believe the country still has open options and that perhaps the King with American encouragement can bring this Government to a recognition of the need for constitutional progress. Since this is so central a question in the United States, I would rather hold off for some days before making a current estimate of the prospects. As the Embassy’s recent reporting has made clear, there are a good many difficulties.
All this should not, I believe, be interpreted to mean that we should go slowly on the limited moves agreed to by IRG and SIG. On the contrary, my fears have been strengthened that the Greeks are moving into a prickly and negative mood and that it will not be easy to persuade them to wait quietly while we sort out our domestic policy issues. The argument in favor of flexibility in handling military assistance remains very strong indeed. If we are to have any chance of pulling Greece into the direction of constitutionalism, this one limited bit of leverage should certainly be available to us.
I recognize that an interim letter of this kind may do more to raise the level of your concerns than to clarify your analyses of the situation here. I will have to try to be better based and more explicit in communicating with you later in the week.
With best wishes always,
Yours sincerely,
August 8
P.S. After dictating the above paragraphs yesterday, I had a reception last evening for Archbishop Iakovos which brought into the open a disturbing note of which we were already generally aware. None of the invited Ministers turned up. (Nor, it appears, did either Kollias or Papadopoulos attend the Fourth of July reception.) In the course of the afternoon, when Papadopoulos’ staff man, Major Lambropoulos, telephoned the Minister’s regrets for the evening, Geoff Ogden told him that Congressman [Page 628] Brademas would like to see the Colonel and suggested a drink at the Residence sometime today. Lambropoulos was exceedingly curt in explaining the Minister was busy today and in any event a request to see the Minister should be made through the Protocol Office of the Foreign Office. He had earlier given Stephen Calligas a similar answer to a request by Malcolm Forbes for a meeting. It is evident that we have a problem. Whether resistance to social relations is a harbinger of further counter-irritance to our policy of coolness and non-decision on military matters is a question we will try to probe promptly though deftly.