40 Years after the Collapse of the Greek Junta: reflections on its historical significance

Summary

Podcast Summary: LSE: Public lectures and events

Episode Title: 40 Years after the Collapse of the Greek Junta: Reflections on its Historical Significance
Date: May 28, 2014
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team
Key Speakers: Unnamed main presenter (A), Chair—Kevin (B), Contributor—C

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the 40th anniversary of the collapse of the Greek Junta and the subsequent restoration of democracy (“Metapolitefsi”). The panelists reflect on the origins, legacy, and significance of the dictatorship (1967-1974), discuss the transition to democracy under Constantine Karamanlis, and review the anti-junta campaign in Britain. The discussion critically examines both the internal and external factors shaping Greek political culture and the long-standing challenges of institutional reform in Greece.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Nature and Origins of the Greek Junta (00:00–09:00)

• Misconceptions on Foreign Imposition:
  While the 1967–1974 military dictatorship (the “Junta”) is popularly believed to have been imposed by the Americans, recent historiography indicates its origins were primarily internal, rooted in longstanding crises within Greek political institutions.
• Internal Collapse and Army Intervention:
  The Junta arose from the collapse of the Greek political system in the mid-1960s. A small group of extremist, low-ranking officers seized power, leveraging anti-communist sentiment as a pretext (00:57).
• Longstanding Institutional Crisis:
  Greece had faced enduring political divisions since 1915 (notably the Venizelist/anti-Venizelist split and later the civil war), resulting in a fragile and crisis-prone political culture.

“Recent research shows that the Junda was a much more complicated affair... its origins were primarily internal. It was a consequence of the internal collapse of the Greek political scene in the mid-1960s.” — Speaker A (02:24)

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The Transition: Collapse of the Junta & Restoration of Democracy (09:00–17:20)

• The “Greek Miracle” Transition:
  The Junta collapsed in July 1974 amidst the Cyprus crisis. Constantine Karamanlis returned from exile to lead Greece, overseeing a swift, bloodless transition to democracy, including the legalization of the Communist Party and abolition of the monarchy through a referendum (11:14–13:50).
• Dual Crisis Management:
  The new government faced severe internal threats (pro-Junta officers in the military) and external threats (hostilities with Turkey), requiring delicate navigation.
• Comprehensive Reform Strategy:
  Karamanlis aimed to resolve Greece’s deeply embedded institutional crises, not just undo the damages of the Junta. He connected internal reform with a bid for EEC (now EU) membership, making European integration central to democratization (14:58).

"But the essence of the transition and Karamanlisi's aim was not simply and narrowly to solve the problems created... It was the effort to solve in one stroke all the problems of the painful institutional crisis of the Greek 20th century." — Speaker A (12:20)

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Reconsidering Karamanlis: Leadership, Teamwork, and Legacies (17:20–25:00)

• De-Mythologizing Karamanlis:
  While often credited solely to Karamanlis, the transition was a team effort involving a generation of political figures with common goals. Speaker challenges the image of Karamanlis as an ‘ethnarch’ or singular savior, arguing this view oversimplifies history and misattributes structural achievements (17:35–19:20).
• Personality vs. Institution:
  Karamanlis’s dominance highlighted both the strength and long-term weakness of Greek democracy—the inability to sustain reforms beyond the influence of charismatic leaders.

"The phenomenon which we describe with the word Karamanlis is not one man, it is a group of people... This team included persons like Constadinos Satos, Panagios Canelopoulos, George Ralles..." — Speaker A (14:58)

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The Challenge of Continuity in Greek Politics (25:00–28:00)

• Lessons & Persistent Weakness:
  Greece’s finest moments often come in times of adversity, but there is a repeated failure to ensure long-term continuity of reform.

“Perhaps our finest hour is the hour of ultimate danger... But then they failed to make the necessary follow up to this accomplishment... the most important condition of success: long term continuity.” — Speaker A (16:35)

• Contemporary Relevance:
  Drawing parallels with the contemporary Greek crisis (post-2010 debt crisis), the speaker warns that without establishing lasting institutions, crises will recur.

"...if we do not manage to accomplish that, I am afraid that in a few years we will again find ourselves perhaps once more here at the LSE discussing a new Greek crisis." — Speaker A (17:00)

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Audience Q&A: Government Structure Under Karamanlis (17:25–22:20)

• Chair’s Question:
  The chair (Kevin) challenges the view of collective government, citing Karamanlis’s centralized, prime-ministerial style, which limited collective cabinet decision-making (17:25).

"He was primus solus... He was a Prime Minister who gave very little attention to the full cabinet..." — Chair (B) (18:00)

• Speaker's Defense:
  The main speaker asserts there was structured deliberation before decision-making, with expert input and periodic review, but this was not the British cabinet system, nor was it intended as such for future Greek leaders.

"...in order to make a big decision or even a smaller decision, there is a pattern in Karemenlis activity. Even before the dictatorship... a period of very careful study, and then another series of meetings with cabinet ministers and experts and then the making of a decision." — Speaker A (20:00)

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The British Anti-Junta Campaign (22:34–45:44)

• Vivid Personal Reminiscences:
  Contributor (C) recounts personal experiences in Greece during the 1967 coup and in the anti-junta movement in Britain, providing a social context of Greek student life and political activism at LSE in the 1960s.
• Organized Transnational Opposition:
  Anti-regime campaigns in Britain spanned the entire Greek political spectrum (excluding ultra-right), instrumental in keeping the Junta’s abuses in the public eye—even if not directly contributing to its fall (31:40–34:36).

"...few dictatorships in the post war period, I think, have, in Britain at least, been the subject of such persistent, informed criticism, hostility, as the military regime that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974." — Contributor C (44:11)

• Media & Public Relations Battles:
  Recalls efforts to expose and disrupt British PR campaigns hired by the Junta, including a document leak that led to public controversy and cancellation of the PR contract.
• Cross-Party British Response:
  Notably, paradoxical alliances emerged in the UK: a Labour MP supported the Junta, while a Conservative MP became its most influential critic.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The essence of the transition... was to settle all pending questions of the past decades—national rift and civil war.” — Speaker A (13:37)
• “Karamanlis remained in the Greek political system, a structural anomaly... and this, in my view, was the long term weakness of the transition to democracy.” — Speaker A quoting Sir Brooks Richards (16:21)
• “Dear friends, allow me concluding to try to be a little revisionist. The transition to Democracy... confirms, I fear, a very disturbing Greek canon. Perhaps our finest hour is the hour of ultimate danger.” — Speaker A (16:35)
• “When and if we manage to do this, we have finally grown above the need to have these big leaders like Venizelos and Karamanlis, whom we then wrongly deify, thus inflicting new blows on our historical and political culture.” — Speaker A (16:55)
• “[T]he anti regime lobbies... were hard at work. Well, this indicates the kind of mindset at least that particular Ambassador Hooper, who saw his task as developing what the Foreign Office called a good working relationship with the junta.” — Contributor C quoting Sir Robin Hooper (43:00)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–09:00: The origins and contested narratives about the Junta’s rise
• 09:00–17:20: The “Greek Miracle” transition to democracy; Karamanlis’s strategy
• 17:20–19:20: Deconstructing the ‘ethnarch’ myth
• 19:23–22:28: Debate on cabinet government and decision-making structures
• 22:34–45:44: British anti-junta activism, the Greek diaspora, and PR battles
• 44:11: Closing remarks on the lasting significance of British opposition to the Junta

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Conclusion

This commemorative discussion offers incisive reflections on the Greek Junta’s origins, its historical legacy, and the meaning of the 1974 transition to democracy. It highlights the perennial challenge of institutional continuity in Greek politics and the importance of collective, system-oriented reform over reliance on charismatic leaders. The British anti-junta campaign is presented as a rare moment of transnational solidarity and persistent activism, keeping the abuses of the regime in the public domain. The lesson for contemporary Greece: true democratic stability requires more than dramatic change in moments of crisis—it demands sustainable institutional evolution from within.

Transcript

[A]

Well, thank you, Kevin. I would like to warmly thank the lse, both the Ideas and the Hellenic Observatory for the honoring invitation to be in this panel today for every LSE graduate. The return to the LSE for an academic event is always one of the most important parts of our academic life. On the other hand, I confess it feels awkward to speak on this subject these days. I was studying at the LSE in 1990 when Greece was again at the verge of bankruptcy and was then bailed out by partners. I now come here at the time of a new crisis to speak about one of the most spectacular Greek successes of contemporary history. This gives rise to some bitter thoughts which you will permit me to share with you at the end of my presentation. Let me start with some remarks regarding the dictatorship. The nature of the Junda has been hotly and, as usually happens in Greece, incomplet debated. The Junda, as Kevin said, was a humiliating experience for a country which aspired to become part of the west and whose economy in the 1950s and 60s was growing at an annual rate of almost 8%. It was seen then as imposed by the Americans as a natural evolution of the anti communism of the post civil war Greek political system and to a large extent as the inevitable result of the specific outcome of the civil war of the 1940s. The dictatorship therefore caused huge mutations in Greek political culture and dramatically boosted a rather hollow pseudo revolutionist culture, anti Americanism and anti Westernism. Recent research shows that the Junda was a much more complicated affair. The International Bibliography is full of new works, some by Effie Padalou, who is with us today, new works based on research in the American and the British Archives, which show that the dictatorship was not in the end imposed by the United States. Its origins were primarily internal. It was a consequence of the internal collapse of the Greek political scene in the mid-1960s. The junda was not even imposed by the Greek army as a whole. It was a strange moment when the state was hijacked by a small group of extremist officers unrepresentative of the army, mostly of its higher echelons. These officers were low rank, essentially Nasserist and dandy western. However, they managed to take advantage of the anti communist psychosis of the post civil war political system and to use the communist threat as a pretext to impose an outdated regime. In other words, recent historiography suggests that the roots of the Junda can be found more in the interventionist tradition of the army of the interwar years. The Junda was thus a manifestation of the Phenomenon which was described in Greek Bibliography as quote the crisis of Greek institutions, end quote. Which started with the rift between Venizelists and anti Venizelists in 1915, produced enormous cleavages in the Indo war period and then was combined with the communist anti communist cleavage of the 1940s. Since 1915 Greece experienced a series of parallel cleavages, national rift and civil war. The country had managed to develop economically in the 1950s and 60s, but its politics and its institutions had not followed the pace of modernization of its economy. And social inertia was still extremely strong. This painful mismatch between its economic progress and its political and social inertia, as well as Greece's crashing inability to reform in the 1960s opened the road for the humiliating dictatorship which thus can be interpreted as a sign of the wider failures of the Greek political system going back to the beginning of its crisis of institutions since the early 20th century. But on 23rd July 1974 the Junda fell and the former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis, who was leading in self imposed exile in Paris, was called to assume the premiership. Karamanlis returned to Athens in the middle of the night on the French presidential aircraft which Valeri Ziscard Estan readily made available for his trip. Then Karamalis oversaw the transition to democracy, first heading a national unity government and then as head of an elected government following elections in November 1970 in which his party, the New Democracy, received a very big share of the vote, 55%. Now in my presentation I'm anxious to discuss interpretations of the Greek transition. Rather than torment you with a detailed account of the events, allow me simply to mention its main stages. The problem of the Greek transition was that the governments had to deal simultaneously with an internal and an external crisis. The Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the simultaneous Turkish claims on the Aegean Seab airspace meant that there was an imminent danger of a Greek Turkish war either in occupied Cyprus or in the unfortified islands of the eastern Aegean. At the same time, internally, the pro junta officers continued to control crucial units of the Greek army, especially units stationed around Athens. From mid August 1974 until February 1975, the ministers of defense and of public order, Evangelo Saverof and Solon Gikas, suppressed a series of attempted coups and of assassination attempts against Karamanliski and his constant changing of places to sleep. So the democratic governments had to steer a very careful course in this crossfire of challenges, both internal and external. The transition was called by the international press the Great Miracle. Exactly because despite these Enormous challenges. It was done swiftly, bloodlessly and effectively. But the essence of the transition and Karamanlisi's aim was not simply and narrowly to solve the problems created created by the Junda in 1967-1974. It was the effort to solve in one stroke all the problems of the painful institutional crisis of the Greek 20th century. Without such a comprehensive approach, Karamanlis believed it would be impossible to set up an established democracy. The repeal of Honda legislation and the return to democratic government in summer 1974 were crowned by the legalization of the Communist Party in September. The Communist Party had been banned in 1947, the Civil War in November. Three elections were held. In early December. A referendum abolished the monarchy, thus solving the infamous regime question which had been raging since the interwar years. So it is clear that Karamanlisi's aim was to settle all pending questions of the past decades. National rift and civil war. In early June 1975, the transition was completed by the coming into force of the new constitution. This constitution managed to solve the problems of the institutional cris which Greece was facing, to create at last the institutional framework of the modern interventionist state to protect effectively human and social rights. But the most important aspect of the transition strategy can be traced in the fact that the constitution came into force on 11 June, and the Greek application to join the EEC as a full member was formally submitted on the morning of the following day. The Carmelis government saw the internal transition as integrally connected with the country's European options. The two sides of the same coin. One could not be done without the other. I will not trouble you much with this aspect of the transition strategy. It is best explained in an LSE PhD by Irini Karamuzi. The book is now forthcoming and allow me to say, permits us, I think, to be proud of the fact that our students become better scholars than us. At any rate, this swift, bloodless and effective transition surprised the world, especially the west of the mid-1970s, which was torn by the oil shocks, self doubt and loss of confidence. But what was the meaning of all this? The truth is that this Greek miracle was personified in Karamanlis. He dominated the political process to the extent that Giskard later stated that in 1979 it was Karamanlis, not Greece, who joined the EEC. Helmut Schmidt remarked that it was impossible to deny the entry to the EEC of a country led by such a man. So this personification of the Greek transition is not merely the result of the usual Greek provincial. It is also an international view. It is to some extent even accurate. Let us simply wonder what would have happened if Giscard's plane had crashed on that crucial night of 23rd July 1974 and Karamanlis had been removed from the scene. Still, it's not the whole story. I fear that the picture of one man, Karamanlis, single handedly leading this process, has created misunderstandings, even historiographical distortions in our days. A new bibliography offers, I think, a fuller picture. It focuses on Karamanlis role as a leader of a team rather than as a lonely titan. In other words, the phenomenon which we describe with the word Karamanlis is not one man, it is a group of people. There is an inner circle of the Carmelis governments, members of the same generation, characterized by common and clear ideological priorities such as the acceptance of the social market, the need to follow in Greece the fundamental methodology of the interventionist state, the need to overcome at last the static cleavages of the national rift. Half the people of the Karamanlist team came from former anti venizelism, Karamanlisk himself, half from former venizelism. This team included persons like Constadinos Satos, Panagios Canelopoulos, George Ralles, Evangelo Saverov, Xanofonso Lotas, Panagis Papaliguras, ioannis Pesmazoglo After 1974, Costista Nopoulos, Kostadinos Mitsotakis and others. Most of these people had been close to Carmelis from the very start, from 1955 and therefore they did not have the opportunity to lead themselves. Still, it is telling that despite this temporal disadvantage that they faced, three became prime ministers, two presidents of the Republic. Without these people the phenomenon which we call Carmelis could never have existed. As the US embassy commented on another Karamanlist government in 1962, quote 19 Greeks will have differences whether their cabinet ministers or girl scouts, unquote. But that was the real function of Karemen Lisi's leadership. He could command the support and the respect of this high quality team. He was the catalyst who allowed them to act in the sui generous conditions of post war Greece. Unfortunately, focusing one sidedly on his role, we have tended to commit the huge mistake of missing this more comprehensive picture of a larger group of people characterized by common political methodology and by common ideological priorities. And thus we have largely missed the point. This is why in a recent book I have disputed the widely accepted in Greece, widely accepted view of Karamanlis as an ethnarch, the leader of the nation, an ethnarch is a person who leads a nation which has not yet developed its institutional organization. Both Karamanlis and the leftharis Venezuelas before him aimed at exactly the opposite. They aimed at the creation of a state and of a political system able to function based on procedure, not through the magical touch of a mythical leader. But despite their impressive accomplishments, both Venizelos and Karamanelis failed in that pivotal effort. They remained the positive exceptions in a political system which so easily gives in to parochialism and to populism. In his annual review for 1977, the British Ambassador, the able Sir Brooks Richards, noted that for this reason exactly, Karamanlis remained in the Greek political system, quote, a structural anomaly. And this, in my view, was the long term weakness of the transition to democracy. Dear friends, allow me concluding to try to be a little revisionist. The transition to Democracy in the mid-1970s confirms, I fear, a very disturbing Greek canon. Perhaps our finest hour is the hour of ultimate danger. Then we appear magnificent, able to overcome our weaknesses and to prove that we can deal with the real world in its worst manifestations. In 1974, the Greeks faced the simultaneous dangers of a civil war and an external war and managed to make the swiftest, bloodless and effective transition to democracy. But then they failed to make the necessary follow up to this accomplishment. And the people of the Karamandlis team, despite their immediate spectacular victories, failed. And they knew that they had failed to ensure the most important condition of success. Long term continuity. Karamanisk himself repeatedly stressed this major fault of the Greek political system, the inability to mount a long term effort. And I'm fully confident that the most important root of our present predicaments can be found exactly in this fundamental weakness of ours. Now, speaking about reflections, allow me to say that ironically, this is something that many of us experience even today. Dear friends, during the last four years of crisis in Greece, I have seen people of the right, the center and the left rallying together to protect, not their own version of political ideology, but a way of to protect Hellenism's fundamental investment since the 18th century, namely the effort to become part of the developed world. I have seen these people from the right, the center and the left fighting together against their own former comrades who have given into panic and to irrationality. I have seen them fighting not merely shoulder to shoulder, but literally back to back, surrounded and besieged. It is, in a very bitter manner, our own finest hour. But as had happened in 1912, during the Balkan wars, in 1940, when the country faced the fascist onslaught in 1974, when it had to set up an international example of democratic transition. As it happened. In all these cases, the true test of our success will not be just whether we will be able to survive in the Western world. The true test will be whether we will manage at last accomplish what the people of the Venizelos and the Carmenlist teams tried but failed to accomplish. Continuity of our effort, which is the fundamental precondition to attain the major aim of our national narrative, namely to create a state in the country which will be truly a full member of the democratic developed West. When and if we manage to do this, we have finally grown above the need to have these big leaders like Venizelos and Karamanlis, whom we then wrongly deify, thus inflicting new blows on our historical and political culture. If we do this, we will have a state able to function without the repressive embrace of the titanic leaders, which is by itself a sign of our own spiritual underdevelopment. And ironically, it is only then that these titanic leaders will have finally succeeded in their efforts, because this is what they strove to to do. I am convinced that this is the true task of Greek society, although how it will be done, I'm not in a position to say. I think that I do know, however, that the social conditions of Greece nowadays have grown beyond the need for sudden short bursts of exceptional effectiveness which were the eras of Karamanlis and of Venizelos. These are no longer enough. The country now requires sustained and long term calm and enlightened effort and full system based on the moderation and the accumulated knowledge of a developed society. Even assuming that we overcome our present crisis, if we do not manage to accomplish that, I am afraid that in a few years we will again find ourselves perhaps once more here at the lse discussing a new Greek crisis. But this new aim cannot be accomplished from outside. It must be done by us, from within.

[B]

Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Perhaps I can just abuse my position as chair and ask a quick follow up, and then we come to the external dimension. Much of your conclusion was on Caramelis as an individual setting up a system which would identify, survive him, something which would be institutionally stronger, more robust, and would be a break therefore with the past. What strikes me is that you're of course right not to deify Caramelise. But what strikes me is the way in which he, as an individual ran his government in dispute. He was primus solus, indisputably he was a Prime Minister who gave very little attention to the full cabinet. Indeed, if the cabinet met, he would have a television address. Rather like in England, we have the Queen making the Queen's speech every autumn. So if this was an individual who was seeking to establish a new type of government more strongly institutionalized, something which would in some respects be crudely depersonalized, others would be able to sustain this after him. That didn't seem to be necessarily the most logical way to run the government. Indisputably, there was one person at the top. And the way in which the government on the inside was run was very much coming to be one individual. Not to a cabinet, not to cabinet committees. None of the procedures we normally associate with cabinet government in Western Europe were originated by Kareman Leese at this period.

[A]

May I?

[B]

Please, just briefly, if you like.

[A]

Yes, yes.

[C]

But I think.

[A]

The position of Karamanlis and his government was indeed unique. I said that, but I will not agree that it was or that the decisions were all made by himself. Cabinet committees were existent. Yes. The full cabinet rarely met. And there's also a series of very careful. There is a pattern in Karen Manlis's political methodology regarding his government. I don't know if this is fully the British system. Obviously it's not. Greece is not Britain anyway. But in order to make a big decision or even a smaller decision, there is a pattern in Karemenlis activity. Even before the dictatorship and after a series of very important meetings with experts and cabinet ministers, a period of very careful study, and then another series of meetings with cabinet ministers and experts and then the making of. Of a decision. After the making of a decision. Karamanelis would not tolerate dissent before the making of the decision. He would discuss everything after the making of the decision. Now the road to the making of the decision. On the road to the making of the decision, the role of the ministers responsible and of the experts are crucial. It was not Karamelis job to make all the minor adjustments in a government program. And after that Karamanlis, about a year later, would hold another meeting to review the course of implementation and so on. It would go like that. There is this very nice, very good article by Takis Papas regarding his methodology. It's not a cabinet system in the British manner. And I'm not saying that it could be. I do not think that Karamanlis thought that it should be followed by the next prime ministers after him. But it's not just the way that the government works. When I'm talking about continuity, Kevin, I'm Talking about a more general picture, how society works, how the whole state works. I'm talking about mentalities. I think that in many Karamanlis, I don't know if he was primus solus. I understand Karamanlis as the leader of a team. It was Venizelos who was the real titan. Venizelos was much more dominating over his ministers, but it's another period. We can hardly compare the 1930s and the 1950s or 70s.

[B]

Okay, we don't have time to pursue a particular interest. Richard.

[C]

Well, it's a pity that Constantine Tsuchalas can't be here this evening because he was, as I understand, going to give us a global picture of the update here, the seven year dictatorship looking at circumstances before, during and after. My brief was to say something about the anti colonel campaign in Britain during this time. Well, this discussion is taking place on the 40th anniversary of the Metapolita. See the restoration of democracy in 1974. In three years be the 50th anniversary of the coup itself in 1967. And I may briefly mention that in 1965, 1966, my wife was the shore librarian here at LSE. I don't know whether if there's still a shore librarian, but she had the job of sort of of organizing concerts, lectures on cultural matters, anything about economics, more or less. The Shaw Library at that time had a number of newspapers, including two or three Greek newspapers which would arrive daily and during the Juliana, The July events, 1965, the resignation of Yogios Papenreo at the bastard of the young King Constantine. This gave rise to to a great political crisis. And every day at about noon, because the Greek papers arrived about 11, 11:30 Greek students would flood into the Shore library to catch the latest news from Greece. This was of course 50 years, well, 40 years or so before the Internet. And it was their only means of following what was going on there. And after a few minutes a very animated discussion would develop. And it was my wife's task to try to preserve quiet in the Shore Library and to persuade the Greeks to carry on their political discussions in the corridor. She wasn't always successful in that, but that was my, through her the first introduction I had to Greek politics. And we spent the academic year 19667 in Greece and of course lived through the Praxicobra, through the coup. And it was this experience that led me to develop an interest in contemporary Greek politics. Hitherto I'd been carrying out research as a graduate student student on topics such as Study of karma lithika, I.e. texts written in Turkish but printed in Greek characters of which there's quite a substantial literature which interested me. But that was a subject about as far removed from current politics as you can imagine. And so I did develop rather rapidly this interest in Greek politics. Evan Liz has rightly said, I think, that the junta was not imposed by the Americans at that time There was still a belief fairly widespread in Greece, particularly among older Greeks, that everything that happened in Greece was controlled not by the Americans but by the intelligence service.

[A]

They still believe it.

[C]

They still believe it, do they? After 50 years and the all powerful intelligence service which had its finger in every pie, I think there's some evidence that this was not the case because on that day we were living in the British school athletes, the British School of Archaeology there. And in the afternoon of 21 April 1967 four diplomats from the British Embassy came to play tennis on the tennis court which divided the British from the American schools. Now this might have been double bluff to put us off any thought that the British were manipulating the coup, but I think it really was. There's no evidence whatsoever that the British courts by surprise. It's not that they might not have wanted to intervene, but they didn't. On this occasion a few years later, it was clear that the British were prepared to intervene in Italy and prevent communist takeover of power there. But when we did returned to Greece and after 1967, the summer of that year, we spent the academic year 196667 we were involved in the campaign against the junta. If you're interested in this aspect of the Eptahetyia, I would recommend Maria Caravier's daughter emeritus Simiosis Apotinibo Hietes Dictatorias unfortunately published only in Greek in 2007. Well, I knew Maria well. She had, I think before the coup worked as a journalist at Cathy Mary Ni and her book contains a great deal of valuable material about anti dictatorship activities in London during the period of the seven year dictatorship. But her focus is very largely on the conservative, the parliamentary right, as you term them, opposition to the junta. I mean people like Heleni Vlachu, the owner of Kathameni, who closed down her newspaper, right wing newspaper for the whole period of the junta. Takislam Reis, another conservative journalist who was very close to Cameron Lies himself. And if you read Maria's book you get very little evidence of what was going on on the part of centrists and left wingers. It's very nice to see Professor Sprouse here who was a stalwart of the anti dictatorship campaign. But he and other people very much involved do not figure largely, in some cases not at all in Muria's book. Well, I know that someday someone will undertake a study of antidictatorship activities in the UK covering all the parataxes, all the political families from the KK on the left to the Conservative parliamentary right. Because it was partly the cooperation of these anti dictatorship forces across the political spectrum, with the exception of the ultra conservative, more or less queers, I fascist right. The proposal prepared the way for Karen Release's legalization of the KKE immediately, more or less immediately after the collapse of the junta in the summer of 1974. I have myself more or less completed a memoir, part of which, a small part of which will be devoted to these years. And there are some interesting paraskinias. The Greeks would say things, but behind the scenes that you don't often hear about. There's one particular thing I'd like to mention, which was the famous appearance of Melina McCurry on the first anniversary of the Brexit conference or the coup in 1968, when she gave a great speech in Trafalgar Square before a very, very large crowd. And the speech had a great effect into mobilizing public opinion against the colonels. Not that it really needed mobilizing, but Melina had been staying at the Grosvenor House Hotel, one of the most expensive in London, Nonpark Lane. And alas, she had left without paying the bill. And my good friend George Yiannopoulos, who had arrangement for Molina to come to London, was rung up by the manager of Groan House to say that unless the bill was paid, I think by 6 o' clock on Monday evening, he would lead the fact to the press. And that would have been absolutely disastrous, of course, for publicity, for the cause. And the bill, as I remember, was about £400. It doesn't sound too much these days, but probably 10 times as much in real terms. And I suspect that this massive bill was caused by Molina telephoning around the world at a time when long distance telephone calls were very expensive. And I'd like to pay tribute to George Yiannopoulos, now dead some 20 years or so, who worked tirelessly to blacken the record of the colonels. He edited a magazine, the Greek observer, and Eleni Vlacho and Takis Lambrias both edited high quality emigrate journals. And George Yiannopoulos and I edited Greece Under Military Rule, published in 1972. An influential book because most of the essays about the disastrous gladiator consequences of the junta's policies were written by Greeks living in Greece. And with only one exception, which was absolutely justified, written by Greeks under their own name. So it was a very brave thing for them to do. And Lord Sainsbury brought up large numbers of copies of this book and distributed them to all public libraries and various other institutions. And it's a book that is not difficult, as some of you will have found out to find in secondhand bookshops because so many copies were handed out. And Yiannopoulos, when we wrote that book in 1972, we edited that book, as I said, was on that scene very close to Andreas Papandreou. And it was through this connection with Andreas that a friend of Andreas Papandreou, a prominent member of the Norwegian Labour Party, Arnetre Holt, became a contributor, although his chapter was not very good and we had to rewrite the whole thing. But that was in 1960. In 1983, Treholt was revealed to be a KGB agent and was imprisoned for some time in Norway. And sometimes, you know, rather imagine myself being imprisoned in Norway because it was rather agreeable existence. He had three rooms there, a little gym about bathroom and a sort of living room in fact.

[B]

Was it better than your accommodation in London at the time?

[C]

Well, more or less, yes it was. But it fortunately did transpire that he was not working for the KGP at the time. He contributed to our book. That happened two, three years later. But after the Metapolitan Yianopoulos fell out with Papandrio, Andreas Papandreou, I've never really understood why. And he aligned himself with Constantinos Mitsotakis, who had sort of defected, if you like, from the center Parataxis to the right. And I think that's why. One reason why George Yiannopoulos contribution has never really been recognized. But the efficacy of the campaign was illustrated by a letter that appeared in the Daily Telegraph in Summer of 1968 by Alistair Horne, well known military historian, I think he's still alive, who wrote that he'd been impressed by Papadopoulos word as a Greek, as a soldier and as an officer and complained that it was virtually impossible to get anything published in the British press that was not actually a defamatory of the colonels. He was more or less right. There was quite an extraordinary upsurge of sympathy and concern about what was going on in Greece. And it's a paradoxical fact that probably the most influential supporter of the Junt in Britain was a Labour mp, Francis Noel Baker. Well, probably the most influential critic of the regime was C.M. woodhouse. Monty Woodhouse, a Conservative MP. That's turning the world upside down really. Woodhouse, whom I got to know at that time, was prepared to appear as a character witness for Mitos Barzilides, a member of the Central Committee of the kke then an illegal organization, of course, but in the event he was not called upon. But Barcellito was someone Woodhouse had met during the wartime and would have a. A very decent honorable man was prepared to stand by him. I don't think Noel Baker would have done anything of that kind. Well, both Noel Baker and Woodhouse had close connections with Greece. Noel Baker owned one of the few almost the only large estate in Greece apart from the Royal estate and Wodehouse during the German occupation had been the second commander in chief of the British mission to the Greek resistance both during the Second World War. Members of soe, the Special Operations Executive whose task was to liaise with resistance movements fighting the Nazis and Italians and Japanese World War. But Noel Baker, curiously at that time during the war was one of the very few people in SOE that had sympathy for the aims of Aham Elas, the communist resistance. I once asked Woodhouse whether he could explain the apparent paradox that no Baker sympathized with in the 1940s but championed the junta in the 1960s and 70s. And Woodhouse immediately replied that the answer was quite simple. Noel Baker's attitude in both cases was determined by his anxiety to defend his property interest and he wanted to be on what he thought was the winning side. In the 1940s that was a. In the 1960s and 70s it was the colonels. I myself was involved with one of the great successes of the anti colonels movement in Britain, namely the sabotaging of the effort by the Junta to improve its image by hiring great considerable expense a public relations firm to spruce up their image. This public relations firm began sending groups of MPs cross party groups of MPs bees almost always accompanied by their wives, needless to say, on so called fact finding visits to Greece and. And the very first group that he sent in the summer of 1968 was a great triumph for the public relations and in particular Mauricio Fraser because they again like Aleister Horne were prepared to accept the assurances of Papadopoulos as a soldier and an officer phrase again that he was intending to move towards a restoration of democracy. And also they said they could find no evidence of the routine torture of opponents of the regime in Greece. This was nonsense, of course, and at the time of the referendum, entirely fraudulent referendum in the autumn of 1968 on whether to adopt a new and highly authoritarian constitution. No fewer than 13 British MPs arrived in Greece to so called observe the referendum, almost all of them under the auspices of the public relations man. And basically it was a lavish freebie for these individuals. But, and this is where I was involved, one day Leni Vlacho gave me a document in Greek to translate for her to appear in the Hellenic Review. And she didn't seem to attribute. I think it was a very significant document. But as I sat on the top, I remember quite vividly sitting on the the top of a bus going back from her office, Le Mary, as the Greeks would say, off Oxford street, back to the British Museum library where I practically lived at the time. I almost fell off my seat in excitement because it contained evidence that at one remove the junta had a British living Labour MP more or less indirectly in their pay. I mean he was paid by the public relations agency, but ultimately the public relations agency was getting money from the junta. But this was an extraordinary document and I remember dashing into the British Museum telephoning Eleni of Lerko, saying, you know, you can't just wait for the magazine to appear published rather erratically. We must get some publicity for this document. And I asked whether I could take it to the Sunday Times, which I did. Thereafter, a huge controversy developed. The public relations man unwisely issued an injunction to prevent the publication of the document, which was a great mistake because everyone suspected the worst and one thing led to another and the public relations contract was cancelled by the colonels and the junta never again sought to hire a professional public relations consultant to defend their interests. Well, in the annual review for 1973, Sir Robin Hooper, the British Ambassador at the time, writing to the Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas Hume, writing in his annual review. This is an exact quote from that annual review for 1973. He wrote the anti regime lobbies in which I include the Greek service of the BBC, which appears to be pursuing on government money a policy which bears little resemblance to the one which you, sir, that's Douglas Hume, of course, paid me to carry out, were hard at work. Well, this indicates the kind of mindset at least that particular Ambassador Hooper, who saw his task as developing what the Foreign Office called a good working relationship with the junta. They might from time to time make the odd comment about the need for restoration of democracy, but really all they want, are really interested in retaining this worship, this good working relationship. Well, few dictatorships in the post war period, I think, have, in Britain at least, been the subject of such persistent, informed criticism, hostility, as the military regime that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974. There was a very well organized campaign in Britain, and I emphasize this again, covering the whole spectrum, from the parliamentary right to the communist left that kept up this insistent pressure. I mean, it didn't contribute to any marked degree to the collapse of the junta in 1974. That obviously was the Cyprus crisis that led to the implosion of the regime, but at least it kept the regime in the sight of the British people. Thank you.

[B]

Thank you very much indeed.