PORTRAIT OF A TYRANT DICTATOR’S ABUSE OF POWER LINGERS IN GREEK SOCIETY

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33941, 6 September 1975, Page 14

PORTRAIT OF A TYRANT DICTATOR’S ABUSE OF POWER LINGERS IN GREEK SOCIETY

i By

DAVID TONGE

lor the "Guardian.")

f Reprinted by arrangement) George Papadopoulos is far from the first fallen dictatoi to cal! ■ history to be his judge, but. in his case, history is unlikely to guffaw behind the rose bushes” or to cast him into its dustbin since ho w.i- i mere temporary aberration but represented a common, it ,1 ””- feature of Greek politics, its dependence on what is politely called t.e foreign factor."

Since the Second World War broke out Greece has been buffeted between Axisoccupying troops. British liberation forces and United States protectors. As Churchill’s handling of the December 1944, crisis showed, these have largely decided the course of the country’s affairs amid one of of Papadopoulo's successes was to make sure that he was always on the side of the big battalions. For long his past was shrouded in mystery with any documents which might shed light on it. disappearing in much the same way as the files of the psychiatrist who had treated him before he seized power I in 1967 but who died shortly after the coup. But it has now been proved that within three months of the surrender of the Greek forces Papadopoulos, instead of following much of the army to the Middle East, was collecting grain for the Italian — and ensuring the exile of those who did not hand over. : Equally, two years later he was, according to one general testifying in court, a member of the Nazi-trained security battalions. Quick to trim When Britain became the dominant force, Papadopoulos was quick to trim with the wind, soon receiving his Christmas bolt of cloth from the the British Embassy. becoming the A.D.C. of the Greek military commander of the Athens area, and later being trained by the British at Almasa, near Cairo. With him went Nikolaos Makerezos, who was also sentenced to death. The “unknown colonel” who seized power in 1967 was, however, even better known in Greece than abroad. In the the mid 1950 s he already had the nickname of the Greek Nasser, but attempts to cashier him were stopped by both the palace [and the “foreign factor” I according to one general in the treason trial. Later, too, Papadopoulos was protected both after he was denounced in Parliament for having been secretarygeneral of the the 1961 mili-[ tary campaign to falsify the] general elections in Karamanlis’s favour and after he had been denounced in the press for sabotaging tanks and trying to blame the Communists. Indeed, he was not only

I protected but trusted, both I under the Karamanlis gov[ernment. when he was part ' of a special committee set I up by the Prime Minister | (and on which he repre[sented the Greek C.1.A.) and | later when he was trusted [with revising the N.A.T.O. J Prometheus plan — the plan i he applied to assist his seizlure of power in 1967. One of Papadopoulos's I first off-the cuff remarks after seizing power was that Nixon and two thirds of the United States Congress were Communists. Throughout his career, in fact. Papadopoulos had won the blessing of the army secret society. I.D.E.A. i— whose first head was the i present Greek Minister of! : Public Order — and of the Greek establishment by ! militantly upholding such 'sentiments. Shift of power He used the Greek secret ■services to spread reports! which convinced his masters] that there was an active! Communist danger. And his masters were ready to trumpet these as they were, indeed, threats to their 30-year hegemony of Greece — but the threats were in what the ballot box was likely to say, and involved a shift of I power to the Centre andCentre Left, not to the Left. Papadopoulos’s period in( power was described by the; Public Prosecutor as “a [monster to laugh at, a monIster to fear,” The use of toI rure as an instrument of ! State policy with the deliberate aim of making more effective the “mere shadow of martial law” — as Papadopoulos once said — has emerged clearly from the re-i cent torture trial. Education and social welfare were set back a decade, the civil war wounds reopened, and the regime left behind it the crippling problems usually bequeathed by such regime’s — an external disaster, pent-up demands for social justice, and the seeds of future Right-wing fanaticism in the security forces. Papadopoulos himself; always talked of the great plans he had, but the way he had risen to power and,- ! in particular, the forces he' represented meant these ; were always liable to remain dreams for him — and potential nightmares for many| others. He had apparently hoped that he could free himself of those who had condoned his rise and had increasingly tried to stand up to the United States. He had of course, accepted their requests for home ports and his regime meant that precoup talk of challenging the United States presence was I stilled for seven years. Plans opposed But he had refused to! allow overflights to Israel ‘ during the Six Day War,! was causing the United] States Government increas-j ing domestic problems, and I had stood out against their) plans for facilities in Crete. As he told a friend after Brigadier lonnidis had overthrown him: “There was no point in resisting. The Americans had washed their hands of me.” (This told to me first hand.) He second miscalculation was that he thought with time the traditional Rightwing politicians would co-

operate with him. Wa- he not a fellow nationalist after all? But the Right wing always saw him as an upstart, a usurper of power Certainly of all the socalled “Revolutionary Council." he was alone in having a sense of politics, and un- ! like Brigadier lonnidis. he | was well aware of what trouble Cyprus could bring [Greece. But his sense of politicwas more passive than a< ■ tive. He could turn events to his advantage but not shape them. Now he says he will be silent, telling one friend, for instance, that he know- ■ enough about those ruling [Greece to break one of the I pillars on which the bridge of bourgeois society here [rests but that he is not now in a position to remend that 'pillar if he were to break it. In fact, the Greek Right has cause to thank him. In 1967 it was generally ex : pected to win less than 40 per cent of the vote and lose the elections but in the special conditions of last year it won 54 per cent and now has complete control of the Parliament, with at least three more years to continue laying the foundations of the strongly conservative State which is now rising from the ashes of the junta. Nor deos it have any longer to jostle with the Greek monarchy for the centre of the stage. (Though for this development the cause lies less in Papadopoulos's actions than the exKing’s inadequate reactions to these.) But in one sense it is the loser for it has now learnt that the Greek Army is not its personal property as the Right used to believe Indeed, all Greeks are now concerned about what will come of the young officers who graduated from the Athens Cadet School during the colonels’ dictatorship just as Papadopoulos himself had graduated from it during the Metaxas dictatorship. As for history’s judgment. W H. Auden once wrote “History to the defeated may say alas, but it cannot help or pardon.”