GREECE: Another Junta in Athens

The new military rulers of Greece moved quickly last week to consolidate their power. Within 48 hours after the Sunday morning coup that ousted the government of George Papadopoulos (TIME, Dec. 3), most tanks and troops were removed from the streets of Athens, a curfew imposed at the time of the coup was lifted, and public schools (but not the universities) were reopened. The junta even freed a token number of political leaders, students and workers who had been imprisoned by the previous regime after last month’s rioting.

The deposed Papadopoulos remained under house arrest, presumably at his suburban villa. But the ouster of the much hated former President did not mean that Greece was on the way back to democracy. In a nationally televised speech, the new civilian Premier, U.S.-educated Adamandios Androutsopoulos, announced that the junta would rule indefinitely by decree, and would not hold the national elections that Papadopoulos had promised for some time in 1974. “We will bring our mission to its conclusion,” he declared, “without interruptions, timetables or surprises.”

Androutsopoulos argued that the 1974 elections would have been fraudulently conducted anyway, so the nation was none the worse off for their postponement. After all, he said, the two plebiscites that Papadopoulos had conducted—one on a new constitution for Greece, another on whether the country should be a republic instead of a monarchy—had resulted in “unbelievable majorities.” Lest the people get the idea that the old dictatorship had merely been replaced by another, Androutsopoulos insisted that the junta would rule “sparingly, and always within the absolutely necessary limits for the functioning of the state.”

In phrases reminiscent of those used by Papadopoulos in the 1967 coup that brought him to power, Androutsopoulos spoke of the need to “cleanse” Greek society and to fight the prevailing “climate of upheaval, uncertainty and slackness.” Just about the only policies of the former regime that he did not attack were its economic programs, doubtless because he had helped to shape them as Papadopoulos’ Finance Minister.

The makeup of the junta remained something of a mystery. The new President was a relatively unknown army officer, Lieut. General Phaedon Gizikis (who was promoted to full general three days after the coup). But he did not seem to be a particularly forceful figure; in fact he went out of his way to announce, after taking the oath of office, that “I have no personal ambition.” The new Cabinet was composed of civilian rightists who had been rounded up quickly after the takeover; some were unknowns and some were has-beens.

Apparently the most powerful member of the junta—and almost certainly the mastermind of the coup—was Brigadier General Dimitrios loannidis, head of the military police (see box).

loannidis is known to be militantly antiCommunist. There was some speculation that in planning the coup, loannidis capitalized on the student uprisings at Polytechnic University last month in order to play upon the Greek public’s fears of Communism. For one thing, he allowed provocative film footage of the aftermath of rioting and street fighting to appear on Athens television —something that he could easily have prevented. As a result, many Greeks were convinced that a Communist takeover was imminent, and that the coup was organized to forestall it.

Even without the student rioting, however, the country had had its fill of Papadopoulos. Housewives and workers were angry about inflation (30% in the past year), shortages, price controls and the burgeoning black market. The navy, traditionally royalist, was embittered by the way in which Papadopoulos, a former army man, had unceremoniously dumped the monarchy last June and then purged the navy’s upper ranks. The army, in turn, felt that Papadopoulos was betraying the nationalist goals of the 1967 revolution and turning himself into a dictator. When he used tanks to crush the student rioting, the army leadership felt humiliated in the eyes of the Greek people. By the time he fell last week, George Papadopoulos had few friends left.

Next Phase. Whether he still had the support of the Nixon Administration was a matter of widespread debate in Athens in the days after the coup. Inevitably, perhaps, some Greeks whispered that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had engineered the whole thing. One particularly curious explanation: that the overthrow had something to do with avenging Spiro Agnew.

It was true that Washington had been annoyed by the refusal of the Papadopoulos government to allow U.S. planes bound for Israel to fly over Greece during the Yom Kippur War. Yet on balance it seemed that the U.S. would have had more to gain—in the short term, at least—by opposing the coup. The Administration had been pleased by Papadopoulos’ recent promises of free elections, and by his acceptance in principle of the next phase of the U.S. Navy’s plans to use Greece as a “home port” for the Sixth Fleet. Whether the new junta will go along with the plan is not yet known, though Androutsopoulos has already made it clear that Greece will remain in NATO.

A more immediate problem for the junta is how to broaden the base of its support at home. Early reports suggested that Gizikis might call upon King Constantine to return from exile. At week’s end the King was still at Claridge’s, his favorite London haunt, refusing comment. There were also reports —from Paris, but significantly not from Athens—that the junta was negotiating with former Premier (1955-63) Constantine Caramanlis, now 66, to return to Greece and join the government.

Cool Papers. Why would the generals want Caramanlis, a respected politician of moderate views, to come home? If the stories prove to be true, the reason may be that they believe Caramanlis could effect a reconciliation between Greece and the Common Market, and thereby save the country from economic collapse. Greece’s loss of associate membership in the EEC, as the result of Europe’s opposition to the Papadopoulos dictatorship, cost the nation $300 million a year in agricultural benefits alone.

Whether Caramanlis would care to go home under the present circumstances was uncertain. Throughout the first week following the coup, Athens newspapers remained cool toward the new regime, even though loannidis was watching them carefully. Twice during the week the publishers of the capital’s nine dailies were summoned to military police headquarters and given messages from the general. The first message was a reminder that Greece was under martial law and that newspapers should print nothing that was “likely to cause fear or anxiety.”

The second message was even more instructive. Newspapers should be “extremely cautious,” said loannidis, in their use of the word “elections.” And they should refrain from speculating about the whereabouts or future disposition of George Papadopoulos.