Greece 1964-1974

“Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution,”
said the President of the United States

excerpted from the book

Killing Hope

by William Blum

“It’s the best damn Government since Pericles,” the American two-star General declared. (The news report did not mention whether he was chewing on a big fat cigar.)

The government, about which the good General was so ebullient, was that of the Colonels’ junta which came to power in a military coup in April 1967, followed immediately by the traditional martial law, censorship, arrests, beatings, torture, and killings, the victims totaling some 8,000 in the first month. This was accompanied by the equally traditional declaration that this was all being done to save the nation from a “communist takeover”. Corrupting and subversive influences in Greek life were to be removed. Among these were miniskirts, long hair, and foreign newspapers; church attendance for the young would be compulsory.

So brutal and so swift was the repression, that by September, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands were before the European Commission of Human Rights to accuse Greece of violating most of the Commission’s conventions. Before the year was over Amnesty International had sent representatives to Greece to investigate the situation. From this came a report which asserted that “Torture as a deliberate practice is carried out by both Security Police and the Military Police.”

The coup had taken place two days before the campaign for national elections was to begin, elections which appeared certain to bring the veteran liberal leader George Papandreou back as prime minister. Papandreou had been elected in February 1964 with the only outright majority in the history of modern Greek elections. The successful machinations to unseat him had begun immediately, a joint effort of the Royal Court, the Greek Military, and the American military and CIA stationed in Greece.

Philip Deane (the pen name of Gerassimos Gigantes) is a Greek, a former UN official, who worked during this period both for King Constantine and as an envoy to Washington for the Papandreou government. He has written an intimate account of the subtleties and the grossness of this conspiracy to undermine the government and enhance the position of the military plotters, and of the raw power exercised by the CIA in his country. … Greece was looked upon much as a piece of property to be developed according to Washington’s needs. A story related by Deane illustrates how this attitude was little changed, and thus the precariousness of Papandreou’s position: During one of the perennial disputes between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, which was now spilling over onto NATO, President Johnson summoned the Greek ambassador to tell him of Washington’s “solution”. The ambassador protested that it would be unacceptable to the Greek parliament and contrary to the Greek constitution. “Then listen to me, Mr. Ambassador,” said the President of the United States, “fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant’s trunk, whacked good…. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament and his Constitution may not last very long.”

In July 1965, George Papandreou was finally maneuvered out of office by royal prerogative. The king had a coalition of breakaway Center Union Deputies (Papandreou’s party) and rightists waiting in the wings to form a new government. It was later revealed by a State Department official that the CIA Chief-of-Station in Athens, John Maury, had “worked in behalf of the palace in 1965. He helped King Constantine buy Center Union Deputies so that the George Papandreou Government was toppled. For nearly two years thereafter, various short-lived cabinets ruled until it was no longer possible to avoid holding the elections prescribed by the constitution.

What concerned the opponents of George Papandreou most about him was his son Andreas Papandreou, who had been head of the economics department at the University of California at Berkeley and a minister in his father’s cabinet, was destined for a leading role m the new government. But he was by no means the wide-eyed radical. In the United States Andreas had been an active supporter of such quintessential moderate liberals as Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey. His economic views, wrote Washington Post columnist Marquis Childs, were “those of the American New Deal”.

But Andreas Papandreou did not disguise his wish to take Greece out of the cold war. He publicly questioned the wisdom of the country remaining in NATO, or at least remaining in It as a satellite of the United States. He leaned toward opening relations with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries on Greece’s border. He argued that the swollen American military and intelligence teams in Greece compromised the nation’s freedom of action. And he viewed the Greek Army as a threat to democracy, wishing to purge it if its most dictatorial- and royalist-minded senior officers.

Andreas Papandreou’s bark was worse than his bite, as his later presidency was to amply demonstrate. (He did not, for example, pull Greece out of NATO or US bases out of Greece.) But in Lyndon Johnson’s Washington, if you were not totally and unquestionably with us, you were agin’ us. Johnson felt that Andreas, who had become a naturalized US citizen, had “betrayed America”. Said LBJ:

“We gave the son of a bitch American citizenship, didn’t we? He was an American, with all the rights and privileges. And he had sworn allegiance to the flag. And then he gave up his American citizenship. He went back to just being a Greek. You can’t trust a man who breaks his oath of allegiance to the flag of these United States.

What, then, are we to make of the fact that Andreas Papandreou was later reported to have worked with the CIA in the early 1960s? (He criticized publication of the report, but did not deny the charge.) If true, it would not have been incompatible with being a liberal, particularly at that time. It was incompatible, as he subsequently learned, only with his commitment to a Greece independent from US foreign policy.

As for the elder Papandreou, his anti-communist credentials were impeccable, dating back to his role as a British-installed prime minister during the civil war against the left in 1944-45. But he, too, showed stirrings of independence from the Western superpower. He refused to buckle under Johnson’s pressure to compromise with Turkey over Cyprus. He l accepted an invitation to visit Moscow, and when his government said that it would accept Soviet aid in preparation for a possible war with Turkey, the US Embassy demanded an explanation. Moreover, in an attempt to heal the old wounds of the civil war, Papandreou began to reintroduce certain civil liberties and to readmit into Greece some of those who had fought against the government in the civil war period.

When Andreas Papandreou assumed his ministerial duties in 1964 he was shocked to discover what was becoming a fact of life for every techno-industrial state in the world: an intelligence service gone wild, a shadow government with powers beyond the control of the nation’s nominal leaders. This, thought Papandreou, unaccounted for many of the obstacles the government was encountering in trying to carry out its policies.

*****

A CIA report dated 23 January 1967 had specifically named the Papadopoulos group as one plotting a coup, and was apparently one of the reports discussed at the February meeting.

Of the cabal of five officers which took power in April, four, reportedly, were intimately connected to the American military or to the CIA in Greece. The fifth man had been brought in because of the armored units he commanded. George Papadopoulos emerged as the defacto leader, taking the title prime minister later in the year.

The catchword amongst old hands at the US military mission in Greece was that Papadopoulos was ” the first CIA agent to become Premier of a European country”.

*****

It was torture … which most indelibly marked the seven-year Greek nightmare [under Papadopoulos]. James Becket, an American attorney sent to Greece by Amnesty International, wrote In December 1969 that “a conservative estimate would place at not less than two thousand” the number of people tortured. It was an odious task for Becket to talk to some of the victims:

“People had been mercilessly tortured simply for being in possession of a leaflet criticizing the regime. Brutality and cruelty on one side, frustration and helplessness on the other. They were being tortured and there was nothing to be done. It was like listening to a friend who has cancer. What comfort, what wise reflection can someone who is comfortable give. Torture might last a short time, but the person will never be the same.”

Becket reported that some torturers had told prisoners that some of their equipment had come as US military aid: a special “thick white double cable” whip was one Item; another was the headscrew, known as an “iron wreath”, which was progressively tightened around the head or ears.

The Amnesty delegation described a number of the other torture methods commonly employed. Among these were:

a) Beating the soles of the feet with a stick or pipe. After four months of this, the soles of one prisoner were covered with thick scar tissue. Another was crippled by broken bones.

b) Serious incidents of sexually-oriented torture: shoving or an object into the vagina and twisting and tearing brutally; also done with a tube inserted into the anus; or a tube is inserted into the anus and water driven in under very high pressure.

c) Techniques of gagging: the throat is grasped in such a way that the windpipe is cut off, or a filthy

rag, often soaked in urine, and sometimes excrement, is shoved down the throat.

d) Tearing out the hair from the head and the pubic region.

e) Jumping on the stomach.

f) Pulling out toe nails and finger nails.

*****

The United States … provided the junta with ample military hardware despite an official congressional embargo, as well as the police equipment required by the Greek authorities to maintain their rigid control.

In an attempt to formally end the embargo, the Nixon administration asked Papadopoulos to make some gesture towards constitutional government which the White House could then point to. The Greek prime minister was to be assured, said a secret White House document, that the administration would take “at face value and accept without reservation” any such gesture.

US Vice-president Spiro Agnew, on a visit to the land of his ancestors, was moved to exalt the “achievements” of the Greek government and its “constant co-operation with US needs and wishes”. One of the satisfied needs Agnew may have had in mind was the contribution of $549,000 made by the junta to the 1968 Nixon-Agnew election campaign. Apart from any other consideration, it was suspected that this was money given to the junta by the CIA finding its way back to Washington. A Senate investigation of this question was abruptly canceled at the direct request of Henry Kissinger.

Perhaps nothing better captures the mystique of the bond felt by the Greeks to their American guardians than the story related about Chief Inspector Basil Lambrou, one of Athens well-known torturers:

“Hundreds of prisoners have listened to the little speech given by Inspector Basil Lambrou, who sits behind his desk which displays the red, white, and blue clasped-hand symbol of American aid. He tries to show the prisoner the absolute futility of resistance ‘You make yourself ridiculous by thinking you can do anything. The world is divided in two. There are the communists on that side and on this side the free world. The Russians and the Americans, no one else. What are we. Americans. Behind me there is the government, behind the government is NATO, behind NATO is the U.S You can’t fight us, we are Americans.”

Amnesty International adds that some torturers would tell their victims things like “The Human Rights Commission can’t help you now … The Red Cross can do nothing for you. Tell them all, it will do no good, you are helpless.” “The torturers from the start,” said Amnesty, “had said that the United States supported them and that was what counted.”

In November 1973, a falling-out within the Greek inner circle culminated in the ousting of Papadopoulos and his replacement by Col. Demetrios loannidis, Commander of the Military Police, torturer, graduate of American training in anti-subversive techniques, confidant of the CIA. loannidis named as prime minister a Greek-American, A. Androutsopoulos, who came to Greece after the Second World War as an official employee of the CIA, a fact of which Mr. Androutsopoulos had often boasted.

Eight months later, the loannidis regime overthrew the government of Cyprus. It was a fatal miscalculation. Turkey invaded Cyprus and the reverberations in Athens resulted in the military giving way to a civilian government. The Greek nightmare had come to an end.

Much of the story of American complicity in the 1967 coup and its aftermath may never be known. At the trials held in 1975 of junta members and torturers, many witnesses made reference to the American role. This may have been the reason a separate investigation of this aspect was scheduled to be undertaken by the Greek Court of Appeals. But it appears that no information resulting from this inquiry, if it actually took place, was ever announced. Philip Deane, upon returning to Greece several months after the civilian government took over, was told by leading politicians that “for the sake of preserving good relations with the US, the evidence of US complicity will not be made fully public”.

Andreas Papandreou had been arrested at the time of the coup and held in prison for eight months. Shortly after his release, he and his wife Margaret visited the American ambassador, Phillips Talbot, in Athens. Papandreou related the following:

“I asked Talbot whether America could have intervened the night of the coup, to prevent the death of democracy in Greece. He denied that they could have done anything about lt. Then Margaret asked a critical question What if the coup had been a Communist or a Leftist coup? Talbot answered without hesitation. Then, of course, they would have intervened, and they would have crushed the coup.”

Source

Η ανασφάλεια της Κάτω Μακεδονίας

«Δεν εννοήσαμεν αν η γλώσσα ήτον η μακεδονική ή η ελληνική», έγραφε το 1904 ο Παύλος Μελάς στη γυναίκα του από κάποιο σλαβόφωνο χωριό της Μακεδονίας. «Ζα νάσητε μπράτιε Μακεντόντσι» (για τους αδελφούς μας Μακεδόνες) τιτλοφορούνταν οι προκηρύξεις που οι μακεδονομάχοι μοίραζαν στους χωρικούς το 1905, όταν ο επίσημος χαρτογράφος του ελληνικού βασιλείου εξηγούσε πως ο Μακεδονικός Αγώνας διεξάγεται μεταξύ «Ελληνιζόντων Μακεδόνων» και «Βουλγαριζόντων Μακεδόνων» αλλά «η εθνότης είναι η αυτή και εις τας δύο ταύτας κατηγορίας, ήτοι η Μακεδονική». Το 1920 η επίσημη απογραφή πληθυσμού του ελληνικού κράτους κατέγραψε την ύπαρξη «μακεδονικής γλώσσας», διακριτής από τη σερβική και τη βουλγαρική. «Μακεδονική γλώσσα» αναφέρει ακόμη και η εμφυλιοπολεμική Λευκή Βίβλος που εξέδωσε το 1947 το κράτος των Αθηνών. Για «μακεδονική γλώσσα η οποία ομιλείται στα Σκόπια και έχει γραμματικήν και συντακτικόν» έκανε τέλος λόγο το 1959 στη Βουλή ο Ευάγγελος Αβέρωφ, υπουργός Εξωτερικών του Καραμανλή του πρεσβύτερου.
Να υποθέσουμε πως όλοι αυτοί δεν ήταν παρά ενεργούμενα του «αλυτρωτισμού των Σκοπίων», αφού έσπευσαν -μερικές δεκαετίες πριν από τον κ. Ντάνιελ Φριντ του Στέιτ Ντιπάρτμεντ- ν’ αναγνωρίσουν την ύπαρξη της ακατονόμαστης «ψευδοεθνότητας» και «ψευδογλώσσας»; Οσο για την Πηνελόπη Δέλτα, ο ρόλος της είναι εξαιρετικά ύποπτος: αυτή δεν γράφει, και μάλιστα στα «Μυστικά του Βάλτου», για πληθυσμούς που «εθνική
συνείδηση είχαν τη μακεδονική μονάχα» δυο ολόκληρες γενιές πριν απ’ τον Τίτο;

Περίσσεψε φαίνεται ο ενθουσιασμός από την εθνική μας νίκη στο Βουκουρέστι. Από την επιβεβαίωση δηλαδή του ότι κι εμείς, ως παλαίμαχοι νατοϊκοί, μπορούμε να καταπατούμε ατιμωρητί τις διεθνείς συμφωνίες που έχουμε υπογράψει. Μέσα σε χρόνο μηδέν παραμερίστηκαν έτσι η διπλωματική μετριοπάθεια και τα ορθολογικά επιχειρήματα, περί
μιας σύνθετης ονομασίας που θα καθιστά διακριτή τη «δική μας» Μακεδονία από την «άλλη», κι επιστρέψαμε επί της ουσίας στις μέρες του 1992-93. Από τον Γιώργο Παπανδρέου ώς τον Γιώργο Καρατζαφέρη κι από τα φιλοκυβερνητικά κανάλια μέχρι το «Ριζοσπάστη», όλος ο πολιτικός κόσμος σπεύδει να καταγγείλει σαν «απαράδεκτη πρόκληση» ακόμη και την απλή
παραδοχή του αυτονόητου: ότι οι βόρειοι γείτονές μας έχουν εθνική ταυτότητα και γλώσσα, τις οποίες οι ίδιοι προσδιορίζουν (και η υπόλοιπη ανθρωπότητα -με την εξαίρεση των Βούλγαρων εθνικιστών- αποδέχεται) εδώ και πολύν καιρό ως μακεδονικές. Αυτή όμως η σκλήρυνση δεν αντίκειται απλώς στο υφιστάμενο διεθνές δίκαιο περί εθνικού
αυτοπροσδιορισμού. Αδυνατεί επίσης εκ των πραγμάτων να συμπυκνωθεί θεσμικά σε κάποιο διεκδικήσιμο αίτημα, πέρα από την ανομολόγητη αλλά οφθαλμοφανή προσδοκία αυτοδιάλυσης του «κρατιδίου». Ταυτόχρονα, ωστόσο, αποκαλύπτει το βαθύτερο (και παράλογο, μολονότι ιστορικά ερμηνεύσιμο) σύνδρομο εθνικής ανασφάλειας που υποκρύπτεται πίσω από το θέατρο σκιών περί «μακεδονισμού». Εναν αιώνα μετά τους Βαλκανικούς πολέμους, μάλλον κάποιοι δεν έχουν ακόμα πειστεί πως η ελληνική
Μακεδονία είναι όντως ελληνική.

(Ελευθεροτυπία, 19/4/2008)

Source

In English, powered by Google:
Ga. nasite bratie Makentontsi

The insecurity of Lower Macedonia

«Not ennoisamen if the language or of the Macedonian and Greek», wrote in 1904 Pavlos Melas his wife from a slavofone village of Macedonia. «Ga. nasite bratie Makentontsi» (for our brothers Macedonians) headed notices that makedonomachoi moirazan to the peasants in 1905, when the official chartografos Greek kingdom explained that the Macedonian Struggle conducted between «Ellinized Macedonians» and «Bulgarized Macedonians» but « The ethnicity is the same and at the Community of the two taftas category, namely the Macedonian ». In 1920 the official census population of the Greek State took a «Macedonian language», distinct from the Serbian and Bulgarian. «Macedonian language» says even the emfyliopolemiki White Paper issued in 1947 the state of Athens. For «Macedonian language which is spoken in Skopje and has grammatikin and syntaktikon» did finally speak to the House in 1959 by Evangelos Averoff, Foreign Minister Karamanlis of the oldest. To assume that all those were not in spite of energoumena «alytrotismou Skopje», having rushed – some decades ago by Mr. Daniel Frint the State Department-n ‘recognise the existence of akatonomastis «psefdoethnotitas» and «psefdoglossas»; As for Penelope Delta, its role is highly suspect: does not write, and even in «Secrets of Valtou», for populations «National conscience had only the Macedonian» two generations ago from the Tito?

Perissepse seems enthusiasm from our national victory in Bucharest. Since confirmation of that is that we, as palaimachoi natoikoi can katapatoume impunity international agreements we have signed. Within no time aside so the diplomatic moderation and rational arguments on a composite name will make a distinct «Our» Macedonia from «other», and returned to responsible these days of 1992-93. From George Papandreou as George Karatzaferis and the filokyvernitika channels until «Rizospasti», the whole political world spefdei to denounce as «unacceptable challenge» even the simple assumption of self-evident: that the northern neighbours have a national identity and language, which identify themselves (and the rest of humanity – with the exception of Bulgarian nationalists-accept) a long time ago as Macedonian. But this hardening not only contrary to existing international law on national self-determination. Failing also in fact be compacted into one institutional diekdikisimo request, beyond the obvious expectation anomologiti but aftodialysis of «state». At the same time, however, reveals the deeper (and absurd, although historically erminefsimo) syndrome national insecurity underlying behind the theater shadow on «makedonismou». A century after the Balkan wars, probably some not yet convinced that the Greek Macedonia is actually Greek.

(Eleftherotypia, 19/4/2008)

In macedonian:

За нашите братје македонци

Чуството на несигурност на Долната Македонија

“ Не разбравме дали јазикот бил македонски или пак грчки “, иׂнапишал 1904 година Павлос Мелас на неговата сопруга од некое славофонско село на Македонија. “ За нашите братје македонци “ гласале флаерите што ги делеле грчките андарти (македономахи) кај селаните во Македонија во 1905 година, кога официјалниот картограф на грчкото кралство
објаснуваше дека Македонската Борба се води помеѓу “ прогрчки македонци “ и “пробугарски македонци “ но “ националноста и кај двете страни е македонската “.

Во 1920 година официјалниот попис на население на грчката држава регистрираше постоење на “ македонски јазик “, посебен од српскиот и бугарскиот. За “ македонски јазик “ пишува и Белата Книга од 1947 година која се издаде во Атина за време на граѓанската војна.

За “ македонски јазик кој се зборува во Скопје и има граматика и синтактика“ зборуваше во грчкиот парламент во 1959 година Евегелос Аверов, министер за надворешни работи во владата на Караманлис. Да претпоставиме дека сите тие биле инструмент на “ скопскиот
иредентизам “ бидејќи го признаа -неколку децении пред Данјел Фрид од Стеит партментот – постоењето на “ лажната нација “ и “ лажниот јазик “?

Улогата на Пинелопи Делта била особено сомнителна. Таа напишала во книгата “ Тајните на блатото “ дека “ националниот идентитет на населението во егејска Македонија бил само македонскиот “ и тоа цели две генерации пред Тито.

Голем ентузијазам за нашата национална победа во Букурешт. Потврда дека ние, како ветерани во НАТО, можеме без казна да ги прекршуваме меѓународните договори што ги потпишавме. Одеднаш се маргинализира дипломатската умереност и логичните аргументи, околу едно сложено име кое ќе ја разликува “ нашата “ од “другата “ Македонија, и се вративме всушност во 1992-93 година.

Од Јоргос Папандреу до Јоргос Караџаферис, и од блиските до владата канали до кумунистичкиот “ Ризоспастис “, политичкиот свет го осудува како провокација тоа што се подразбира ׃ дека нашите северни соседи имаат национален идентитет и јазик, кои самите ( како и останатиот свет – освен бугарските националисти ) ги нарекуваат македонски.

Оваа тврда позиција на Грција не е спротивна само на меѓународната регулатива околу националното самоопределување, туку не може во реалноста законски да се формулира како барање.

Постој неискажана, но очигледна желба за самораспаѓање на “државичката“. Истовремено се открива и подлабокиот ( нелогичен, и ако историски оправдан ) синдром на националната несигурност која се крие зад “ македонизмот “.

Еден век по балканските војни, некои луѓе веројатно не се уште убедени дека грчката Македонија е навистина грчка.

( Елефтеротипиа, 19/04/2008)

Baron De Tott; Les Turcs et Les Tartares, 1784.

The Title page.

Page XII.

Page XII.

Page 154-155.

Page 156-157.

Page 158.

Page 159.

This is taken from the English translation of the book, which was published in 1786, the original in French was published in 1784.

The Travels Of Bertrandon de la Brocquiere

Title page

Page 285.

Page 296-297.

From the book “The Travels Of Bertrandon de la Brocquiere” translated by Thomas Johnes, 1807.

Dushan law book – Macedonian Tsar

Caesar Dushans Law book states clearly that he crowned him self as Macedonian Tsar, not Tsar of Macedonia as Geographical Term, but Macedonian as Ethnical Term.

Source

A huge victory for Macedonia

Only Steven Spielberg could have masterminded this type of scenario for Macedonia. A huge moral and political victory for Macedonia. All props to the Macedonian leadership for their diplomatic skills and tactics.

I am not Macedonian so I can not rank Macedonia’s ‘happy moments’. However, without a doubt in my mind, Macedonia’s not entering in NATO should be the happiest moment for all Macedonians worldwide. There are numerous reasons for my reasoning.

Macedonia has been, and always will be cradle of culture and civilization. Macedonia’s peaceful image would have been seriously tarnished by entering the NATO Alliance. There is a reason why Macedonia is called “Balkan’s Switzerland”.

We, Americans, have a phrase when someone does something foolish, nit witted. We say “he shot himself in the foot”. What Greece did today, it didn’t just shot itself in the foot, rather, it shot itself in the face! Greece’s absurd nationalistic [read machismo] campaign and disinformation, forcing Macedonia to change its name has produced an extremely negative image of Greece abroad. Greece spent millions, for something that did not work and it will never work. It enraged the Macedonian population to such an extent, that now, they will never mention the ‘n’ in negotiations. Greece attempted to shut down, wipe out the Macedonian spirit, instead, it awakened it, more stronger than ever.

Congratulations to Mr. Gruevski, Milososki and Dimitrov who thwarted all Greek tricks and attempts via blackmail and threats to force a terrible name upon you. Everyone was aware Greece had intended to place its veto no matter what ‘talks’ were going on. “Change your name or veto” doesn’t work. It may have worked in a dark back alley.
The Macedonian diplomats, I must admit, were much, much wiser than I thought. I suspected they would make a mistake because of their youth. I was very wrong, and I am glad.

With this veto, Greece has done a huge favor for Macedonia to finally stop all of this nonsense called ‘negotiations’.

Greece saved Macedonia millions of Euros that they would have had to shell out each year for “NATO membership fees”.
Instead, Macedonia will sign a military agreement with the US (much better than agreement with NATO) and will not shell out a cent.
Washington will take Macedonia under its wings as a guarantor and a protector. This type of agreement includes free weaponry. This is money that now Macedonia will get to keep and invest in its ever growing economy.

I suggest to you Macedonia, to enjoy this great victory, this is a great day for you.

Long live Alexandar’s descendants.

William Reihman

taken from