317. Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Greek Affairs (Silva)1
SUBJ
- Conversation—Fragments and Impressions—Athens, May, 1971
The Consensus: As the Embassy was reluctant to have me see anyone in the government and left me totally to my own devices (with some caveats as to who in the opposition I ought not to see because of “the Ambassadorʼs sensitivities”) I was inevitably left with calls in Athens on persons whom I previously knew2 (and their friends) who inevitably were in opposition to the present regime. Most of them were Center Union/Venizelist/liberals. The following views were generally held by all of them—they are not reported as facts but as indicators of mood and opinion.
[Page 796]On Violence: Everyone matter-of-factly expected increased violence and accepted the need for it as the only way out of the present impasse. It was generally believed that the violence was necessary because of the indifference to or complicity of the U.S. in the situation.
On Anti-Americanism: It is difficult to judge how wide or deep anti-American feelings run among those people with whom I talked. Without exception they blamed the U.S. for making the situation possible. They are disillusioned at our cynical abandonment of principle and to some extent disenchanted with us as the “leaders of the free world”—one University professor asked, “What free world? Spain, Portugal, Latin America, Greece?” Without exception, however, they described the Greece of the future as still allied closely with the U.S. and NATO. Most of them saw the future relationship between Greece and the U.S. as quite different from that which obtained in the past. Greece must, they felt, make its own decisions based on its own self-interest and its own self-interest does not include over-dependence on the U.S. The decisions of the U.S. are obviously made entirely on the basis of what the U.S. believes to be in its own interest without regard for the welfare of other countries. Greece is the example. We will always be friends but the relationship must be as equals. In a few instances I was told that there was in fact wide-spread hatred of the U.S. among Greek intellectuals and cultural leaders. But they observed, once things got back to normal in Greece, we could expect that most of them would come around again. “The Greeks donʼt hold grudges” (sic!!). There are too many close ties between us.
A few University students both in Athens and in Thessaloniki—probably fairly representative—had rather interesting views. Anti-Americanism exists certainly but only as part of the anti-establishment posture of Greek youth. Students are not even anti-regime particularly. This government like all governments before it—is corrupt and despotic—the whole system must be changed. If the government lifted martial law the students would burn down the University. On the other hand I heard reports of small groups of far-leftist “maoist” students whose first order of priority is the overthrow of the regime. Though much of the talk is probably bombast, many of them are seriously plotting violence directed against the regime and against the Americans whom they identify with it. They lack the resources at the moment, but it would not take much to get them to go to work.
On the Embassy: The constant inescapable theme, right left and center, is that the Embassy, and most particularly the Ambassador, supports the regime. American policy toward the regime is seen as the product of the position of the Embassy, which can always be counted on to come to the defense of the regime. In many cases the condemnation was carried higher and laid at the doorstep of the administration. [Page 797] The President and Mr. Kissinger were cynics without scruple ready to sacrifice the Greek people to the needs of their “cold war politics.” But in any event, they observed, the Ambassador was to blame. He cannot but know what is going on in Greece. If he could not get the administration to change its policies then he should resign. There was nobody in the Embassy they could talk to. “None of them want to hear the truth.” A couple of people described Jim Potts3 as the evil genius behind the present situation. They saw special meaning in his reassignment to Greece at this time since he had served earlier in Athens and they assumed knew Papadopoulos in his earlier KYP incarnation.
On Corruption: Every educated Greek I talked to made a point of the corruption of the regime. One person asserted he had it on unimpeachable authority that the last time Minister of Mercantile Marine Holevas went to Japan he placed an order for his third tanker. All the members of the government are on the take. Even Pattakos, I was told, has bank accounts in Switzerland. The corruption permeates the whole system. At the highest levels the deals are made with the economic oligarchy, with Bodossakis, Andreadis, Angelopoulos and others of that ilk who are further enriching themselves through their close relationship with the government. In the middle reaches of the government bribes are the order of the day. In the villages, army officers are guilty of the pettiest chicanery and venality, stealing lepta, as one man put it, while their bosses in Athens steal millions of drachma. One University professor philosophized that rather than cleansing the Greek body politic the regime had introduced the new “favlokratia” (political corruption) to levels and sectors of Greek society previously untouched—it permeates the society, the church, the school system, the military, to a degree hitherto unknown and they have set democracy in Greece back another decade.
The Prisoners: I met several of the wives of prisoners. They are a remarkable group, reinforcing my view that the finest thing Greece has ever produced has been Greek women—both in marble and in the flesh. Wives of University professors and military officers, they were all young, relatively well-educated and possessed of enormous courage and dignity. They would of course like to see the Department of State and the Embassy take up their husbandsʼ cases with the regime. Mrs. Papanicolao (wife of Col. Nicholas Papanicolao who was arrested early on presumably for complicity in the Kingʼs counter coup) described his treatment calmly, in detail. As soon as he was arrested the beatings began. He managed to escape from the room in the suburban hotel [Page 798] where he was being held and got as far as the court yard—his plan was to get to the American Embassy where he hoped to find sanctuary. He didnʼt make it. He was taken to another room where he was manacled high on the wall for a total of twenty-five days (with a three day break to heal his wrists) during which he was deprived of water and food for long stretches and subjected to intensive psychological pressures. A loud speaker blared continuously suggesting that his colleagues had told all and implicated him to save themselves, that his wife was taking advantage of his absence by bedding down with some of his old friends, etc. He was beaten regularly with a cane on his legs and ribs. Other wives described similar treatment their husbands had reported receiving usually at the hands of the military police.
On the question of the manner of arrest, Mrs. Maronitis, wife of Demetrios Maronitis, former professor (ancient Greek literature) at the University of Thessaloniki, replied that the military police arrested her husband in the dead of night in mid-March and without a warrant. She and her husband both asked the arresting officers for a warrant, referring to PMʼs assurances on Article 10 of the Constitution. There was none, either for the arrest or for the ensuing search of their home. Her husband was a member of PAK, she was told, and they wanted to find evidence of his collaboration. They went through all his papers and found nothing, confiscated all the books and articles he had written in order to search for references which might prove him Andreasʼ [Papandreou] man.
The Universities: The Professors I saw of both the universities were uniformly pessimistic about the general situation, unhappy with U.S. support for the junta, highly critical of the condition of the universities. One of them called his university a time bomb set in the dark—no one knew when it would go off. The students seem quiescent, the work load is great, the value of the degree generally recognized—but the great majority are rabidly anti-junta. All that is lacking for an explosion is leadership and opportunity. Through their Commissars in the Universities for regime manages to control the universities entirely—retired General Polyzopoulos at Thessaloniki University is fundamentally a decent man but he is the juntaʼs man in the University and gets into everything. The result is a totally intimidated faculty which will be cautious and avoid any innovation or discussion which might be interpreted by the government as somehow counter-revolutionary. Classes are still enormous, contact with the students virtually impossible and as a result the schism between faculty and students grows. Both universities in order to do what they are set up to do should drastically reduce their student bodies. Otherwise the education this generation of Greeks is getting will continue to be mediocre at best. One young professor at a medical school insisted that the graduates do not deserve the title of MD and it is a crime to turn them loose on the public.