$Unique_ID{COW01452}
$Pretitle{287}
$Title{Greece
Chapter 1D.   The 'Terrible Decade': World War II and the Civil War, 1940-49}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{war
army
greece
greek
communist
british
government
forces
national
resistance}
$Date{1986}
$Log{}
Country:     Greece
Book:        Greece, A Country Study
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1986

Chapter 1D.   The "Terrible Decade": World War II and the Civil War, 1940-49

World War II

     Metaxas reorganized and reequipped the army in preparation for the
European war that he believed was inevitable. At best he hoped to keep Greece
neutral, but there was no question that if Greece were drawn into war it would
side with Britain. On October 28, 1940, the Italian ambassador in Athens
demanded that Italian troops be allowed to occupy "certain strategic points"
on Greek territory. Metaxas rejected the ultimatum out of hand with a succinct
ochi (no), an event that has since been celebrated by a national holiday.
Metaxas geared the army up for battle, even recalling some republican junior
officers who had been dismissed in 1936, albeit severely limiting their
authority.

     The Italian forces that invaded Greece expected an easy victory. Within a
month, however, an inspired Greek army had counterattacked and driven the
Italians deep into Albanian territory. Metaxas' death in January 1941,
however, deprived the Greek war effort of his determined leadership. In
meetings with Mussolini the previous August, Hitler had conceded that "Greece
and Yugoslavia belong exclusively to the Italian sphere of interest," but as
preparations were made for the invasion of the Soviet Union (scheduled for the
spring of 1941), Germany invaded both Yugoslavia and Greece. The British
provided naval support and sent 50,000 troops to aid the Greeks, but within
three weeks the Allied defense lines were overrun by a combination of air and
armored attacks. Faced with an army visibly disintegrating, General Georgios
Tsolakoglou, the Greek commander in Epirus, surrendered his army in the field
without government approval. Prime Minister Alexander Korysos, who had taken
over after Metaxas' death, committed suicide after learning of treason in his
cabinet. Athens was occupied on April 27, 1941, and Crete was captured in June
by German airborne units after nine days of fierce fighting. In 53 days the
country fell. The king and his government were evacuated to Egypt, where Greek
naval units and the remnants of the army were reorganized to continue the war
under British command.

     The Axis powers occupied Greece for four years. The Germans were
interested in holding only the principal communications routes and positions
of vital strategic importance, leaving the rest of Greece to the Italians or
the Bulgarians. A collaborationist government, headed by Tsolakoglou, directed
general administration and security, particularly after the establishment in
1944 of the collaborationist Security Battalions, armed police forces
recruited from young villagers and led by Metaxists and often former army
officers. During the occupation most Greeks suffered more from hunger and cold
than from military action. During the winter of 1941-42 there was mass
starvation, especially in Greater Athens, and casualties numbered in the
thousands.

The Resistance

     More than 40 years after the end of World War II much of the history of
the resistance and of the subsequent Civil War (1946-49) remains
controversial. In the mid-1970s and early 1980s many important documents
from British, American, and Greek archives were opened to scholars, and a
new debate ensured the revelation of much new material. Nevertheless, to a
very large degree interpretations of this period depend on ideological and
political biases, and it remains difficult to assign an objectively correct
history to the period.

     What is clear is that spontaneous resistance sprouted almost from the
moment of occupation. The first recorded organized subversion occurred in
Macedonia in September and October 1941. The remnants of the predominantly
royalist Greek armed forces had been evacuated to the Middle East. Many of the
officers who had been purged after 1935 remained in Greece but, wedded to the
idea of traditional set-piece warfare, were reluctant to take up arms since
they were hopelessly outmanned and outgunned. The only organized force willing
to shoulder the burden of resistance, therefore, was the KKE.

     The communist organization had been mauled under the Metaxas regime, but
most of its leaders had escaped or had been inexplicably released from prison
by the Germans in the weeks before the invasion of the Soviet Union. They
quickly began to rebuild and expand their former network. The KKE had been
founded in 1918 and was, like all communist parties of the period, closely
tied to the Soviet Union. The ground was not exactly fertile for communist
recruitment, for there was no indigenous socialist movement. As territorial
expansion proceeded in the north, and particularly after the arrival of the
refugees after 1922, the party began to attract members from ethnic and
religious minorities (Macedonians, Albanians, Slavs, and Muslims) condemned to
an inferior social and economic status. It grew rapidly during the Great
Depression, especially after 1935 when the party, following the policy of the
Communist International (an organization founded and directed by Moscow, also
known as Comintern), abandoned the idea of Macedonian autonomy and actively
sought alliance with the mainstream parties; but it remained weak, receiving
only 9 percent of the vote at its height in 1935.

     The threat of Communist participation in a coalition government in 1935
and their leadership of strikes in 1936 precipitated Metaxas' seizure of
power. The KKE had always been unusual among Greek parties because of its
classical communist structures - a small, disciplined, and ideologically
committed membership hierarchically organized and headed by a strong, united
leadership - and Metaxas tried to destroy it from within. He came close to
succeeding but, ironically, the period of underground activity during the
dictatorship gave it precisely the kind of experience necessary for resistance
activities.

     The National Liberation Front (Ethnikon Apeleftherotikon Metopon -EAM)
was founded in September 1941 as a coalition of five parties, joining
Communists, socialists, and some republicans, but it was dominated by the KKE,
although this was not generally known at the time. In February 1942 the EAM
announced that it was "taking up arms" and formed the National People's
Liberation Army (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos - ELAS). ELAS
quickly became the largest national resistance organization, eventually
fielding an army of over 1.5 million. Although its recruits came from all
social classes and regions, republicanism was a common bond. ELAS' connection
with the KKE was purposely kept hidden because the EAM (that is, KKE)
leadership feared that the communist label would repel many potential
resisters. Nevertheless, the EAM-ELAS spoke openly about imposing a new social
order after the war and eventually discussed using the resistance against the
occupation as the first step in a revolutionary process. Both the nationalist
and the revolutionary themes found an eager audience among the educated,
white-collar, urban elite, as well as among rural villagers. By December 1944
ELAS and EAM, its parent organization, had the backing of probably two-thirds
of the electorate.

     By comparison, other resistance movements paled. In September 1941 a
rival organization, the National Republican Greek League (Ethnikos
Dimokratikos Ellinikos Stratos-EDES), led by Napoleon Zervas and other
regular army officers who were victims of the 1935 purges, was founded. The
EDES was republican and antiroyalist and, like the other noncommunist forces,
was regionally based and tended to consist of old-style personalist and
clientelist organizations. The EDES, centered in Epirus, was by far the
largest of these groups, claiming 30,000 members, followed by the National and
Social Liberation (Ethniki Kai Kinoniki Apeleftherosis-EKKA), numbering about
1,000 members. In all, approximately 110,000 Greeks actively fought in the
resistance, of whom about 72 percent were associated with the EAM-ELAS.

     The resistance took some time to gain momentum. From the summer of 1942
the resistance began to take on serious dimensions. Britain, which was the
only Allied power of any real significance in the eastern Mediterranean until
1944 when the United States and the Soviet Union began to intervene, tried to
impose a unified command on resistance forces under British direction in order
to coordinate the guerrilla activity in Greece with Allied operations in North
Africa. The destruction of a railroad viaduct at Gorgopotomos in November
1942 was the single most important operation of the resistance and also the
only time ELAS cooperated with other resistance movements under a single
command.

     The British Military Mission complained that much of the energy of
resistance groups was directed not against the Axis forces but against each
other and that their efforts at coordination were largely futile. The internal
rivalries were dramatically shown after the Italian surrender in 1943. The
EAM-ELAS miscalculated that German forces would be immediately withdrawn from
Greece, leaving the way open for a revolutionary offensive. Collecting a
windfall in Italian arms and munitions that made it independent of British
sources of supply, ELAS conducted a campaign between the summer of 1943 and
February 1944 that virtually eliminated some of the noncommunist resistance
groups; others survived only after the British, finally alerted to the power
and aims of ELAS, intervened to save them. This period has come to be known as
the "first round" of the Civil War.

     The Greek forces assembled in the Middle East (known as the Middle East
Armed Forces-MEAF), meanwhile, suffered from similar internecine conflicts.
The old antagonisms dating from the national schism remained of paramount
importance within the officer corps. Beginning in 1942 there was some attempt
to reinstate the most able republican officers, a move that was bitterly
resisted by the largely royalist army and navy. While the officer corps
squabbled over old wounds, the rank and file were overwhelming (probably as
much as 80 percent) allied with the EAM. The communist position in the
enlisted ranks was continually strengthened as news spread of the communist
resistance in Greece. Secret extremist organizations of both left and right
proliferated, at times destroying the combat effectiveness of the armed
forces.

     Between 1942 and 1944 there were frequent mutinies and strikes
(delicately termed "anomalies"), culminating in the "grand revolt" of spring
1944 by republican and communist soldiers and sailors trying to force the
recognition of a government of general national unity under the auspices of
the EAM's clandestine provisional government, the Political Committee of
National Liberation (Politiki Epitropi Ethnikis Apeleftheroseos-PEEA), set
up in March. Only the threat of attack by British forces finally ended the
mass mutiny. The British conducted a purge of the Greek forces to root out the
communist elements, reducing its size from 15,000 to 3,000. According to
recently available evidence, it is almost certain that the EAM-ELAS did not
have any direct communication or guidance of the communist groups, although it
was generally assumed at the time and for decades after that the troubles in
the MEAF had been part of an overall plan for a revolution. The British
despaired of the Greek forces' ever becoming combat-ready, given both the
unimpressive credentials of most in the bloated officer corps and the chronic
politicization of all ranks. In fact, many analysts, believe that the British
interference hindered efforts by the more moderate forces to work out an
accommodation within the military.

     The resistance was from its inception basically antiroyalist, and the
restoration of the republic after the war was considered one of its primary
goals. Republicans of all stripes, Communists, and even some monarchists
pressed the king throughout the war for a pledge that he would not return to
Greece until after a postwar plebiscite had been held to decide the fate of
the monarchy. George obstinately refused. The British were thoroughly
consistent with their long history of intervention in Greek politics and
strongly favored the retention of the monarchy as the one stabilizing force
in Greek politics. Their principal concern was that the eastern Mediterranean
remain both stable and British, considered especially important since the
historical Russian challenge to British hegemony in the area seemed to
reappear with the rise of the Greek Communist forces (though reliable
evidence of Soviet intervention has never been presented). The end of the war
was approaching in late 1944, and the Allied powers were already turning their
attention to postwar arrangements. The British prime minister, Winston
Churchill, went to Moscow to negotiate with Soviet premier Josef Stalin in
October and emerged with the "percentages agreement" apportioning spheres of
influence in Eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and Britain. Britain was
accordingly given a 90-percent controlling interest in Greece, while the
Soviet Union reserved only 10 percent. For all intents and purposes, Stalin
had washed his hands of Greece. Apparently, the KKE knew nothing of these
developments.

     The Germans withdrew from Greece in October 1944. Through the Soviet
military mission in Athens the KKE was ordered to "avoid opposition" and to
participate in the newly arrived coalition government, headed by George
Papandreou, a moderate republican. Although the EAM-ELAS had effective control
of all of Greece outside the capital, the Communists bowed to Moscow's
directive, accepting six relatively unimportant cabinet positions in the
British-sanctioned government.

The Second Round: The Athens Uprising, December 1944

     The new government faced the enormous problem of caring for a ravaged
population and rebuilding a shattered nation. Economic conditions in Greece
worsened in 1945, despite the end of fighting. It was estimated that 8 percent
of the population-well over half a million out of roughly 7 million-had been
killed in the war or died during the occupation. Of a prewar Jewish community
of approximately 76,000, over 60,000 had been killed. The only other Allied
power that had suffered more during the war was the Soviet Union. The physical
destruction was assessed in 1946 at US $8.5 billion, or well over US $1,000 per
person. Some 1,500 villages had been destroyed, leaving 700,000 Greeks
homeless. Fruit and tobacco crops, strong prewar export items, were destroyed,
and food production was half of what it had been in 1940. Communications and
transportation networks were in ruins. Two-thirds of the merchant fleet had
been sunk, and the harbors remained clogged with mines and sunken ships (see
Historical Development, ch. 3). Crete, the most important island, was under
enemy occupation until the German surrender in May 1945.

     Nevertheless, prodded by the British, the new government first turned its
attention to demobilizing the resistance groups, particularly ELAS. Plans were
made to form a unified national army joining ELAS and the EDES with the MEAF.
It was a tense accord, and both Communists and the government were highly
suspicious and sensitive to any hint of betrayal. Misunderstandings were
responsible for the timing of the uprising, but it is probable that some sort
of confrontation was inevitable. The opposing forces were too evenly
matched-the KKE apparently realized that the goals of the groups were too
antithetical to make for a lasting compromise. In November, in the face of
what it considered to be threatening moves by the British, the EAM
representatives left the government, and ELAS units refused to surrender their
arms to the British commanding officer. On December 3, 1944, a demonstration
designed to show the EAM's popular strength in Athens could not be controlled
by the British forces which fired into the crowd. Estimates of civilian dead
ranged from as few as seven to as many as 28, and the wounded from 12 to over
100. The Battle of Athens, the second round of the Civil War, ensued with
Communist and government forces (including British troops) fighting in the
streets for control of the capital. The battle lasted for 33 days, and the
Communist forces were soundly defeated by a British force strengthened by
troops taken from the Italian front to oppose the Communist takeover.

     During the fighting the British feared that public opinion was
dangerously sympathetic to the Communist revolt and deeply resentful of the
government's cooperation with collaborationists from the occupation regime.
They persuaded the king to appeal to a broader audience by appointing as
regent the archbishop of Athens, Damaskinos, a heroic figure during the
occupation and respected by both sides. Papandreou resigned as prime minister,
and the regent appointed the Liberal hero, Plastiras, in his place.

     Although armed revolution had been openly discussed within the KKE since
its inception, the Communists were outmanned and outmaneuvered almost
immediately after their initial surprise attack. The Varkiza Agreement, the
truce signed on February 12, 1945, was relatively generous to the defeated
Communist forces. It guaranteed certain of their political demands, including
the right to free expression, trade unions, the lifting of martial law, an
amnesty for all participants in the rebellion, a plebiscite on the
constitution, and parliamentary elections within a year. ELAS was required to
demobilize and surrender its weapons (although in fact it gave up only a
portion of its arms cache), which included both small arms and heavily
artillery.

     The Communists suffered more than a military defeat during the second
round. Much of the good will they had earned during the war was destroyed
by reports of mass executions and other atrocities that became common
knowledge. As many as 11,000 had perished in the month of street fighting,
and whole sections of Athens, which had survived the German occupation
with few scars, were in ruins. In any case, most Greeks had simply had enough
of war and recoiled at the idea of another; so by the beginning of 1945
the initiative had swung toward the noncommunist forces. The KKE's wartime
allies in the EAM broke away, and the divisions between republicans
and royalists were muted for the sake of a national crusade of
anticommunism. By the time of the plebiscite in September 1946 it was clear
that the voters had largely disowned the Communists. Ninety-four percent of
eligible voters turned out, and two-thirds voted in favor of the monarchy,
the most visible target of the Communist attacks; the results were the exact
obverse of allegiances during the resistance.

The Third Round

     It is difficult to put an exact date on the resumption of fighting.
Sporadic and unorganized clashes occurred throughout 1945, but incidents
increased in the late summer and fall. The Communists charged that a
"White Terror" was being waged by Metaxists and former collaborators and
that the remnants of the wartime Security Battalions formed the core of the
vigilante bands. The evidence seems to bear out their accusations, and
some analysts suggest that until the spring of 1947 there was, in some areas
of Greece, a virtual parallel state of fanatical anticommunists. While
former members of the resistance were systematically purged from the civil
service, no similar efforts were made to root out collaborators. The police
were apparently hesitant to investigate charges of crimes by known
right-wingers, while zealously pursuing left-wing activists. Metaxists
controlled much of the judicial system, and there seem to have been marked
discrepancies in the sentences meted out, depending on the ideological
affiliations of the accused. The Communists engaged in a terror of their
own, but to a much lesser extent.

     The government's decision to reverse the schedule agreed to at Varkiza
and hold parliamentary elections before holding a plebiscite on the monarchy
was considered a provocation by the KKE, which called for a boycott by its
supporters. As the March 1946 election approached, violence increased, and the
country began a gradual slide back into civil war. The KKE had lost much of
its popular support, but its former supporters did not swing to the right
either. In the election only 49 percent of the electorate turned out-a
remarkably low rate for Greece-and of that only 65 percent voted for
right-wing candidates. The Allied Mission for Observing the Greek Elections
estimated that the politically motivated, i.e., communist sympathizer,
abstention rate did not exceed 9.4 percent. In effect, despite widespread
fraud, the right wing won less than one-third of the vote. Unfortunately,
there was no center available to fill the vacuum and reconstruct the political
equilibrium. The traditional pre-Metaxist parties (primarily the Liberals and
the Populists) had been all but destroyed under the dictatorship since they
could no longer deliver to their clientelist networks. Many of the former
leaders had been sullied by rumors of collaboration or by the events in the
Middle East. The Greeks political scene, polarized between two ideological
extremes, convulsed in a brutal civil war for the next three years.

     Tradition places the decision by the KKE to start an all-out civil war
on February 12, 1946, but the party leadership almost certainly remained
divided and confused until well into 1946. Markos Vafiades was sent to the
mountains in August 1946 to bring together the scattered guerrilla bands,
and in December the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) was created as the
successor of ELAS. Action centered in the north, especially in Macedonia and
Thrace, where the mountainous terrain was best suited for guerrilla warfare.
The communist forces, which never numbered more that 28,000, were
overwhelmingly outmanned by the combined National Army and Gendarmerie
(the national police force), totaling about 265,000 troops and eventually
armed and trained by the United States. To partially offset the disadvantage,
the DAG received substantial military aid and advice from the communist
regimes in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania-though apparently none directly
from the Soviet Union-and in the first year had an advantage in morale,
tactics, terrain and, to some extent, talent. The National Army insisted on
waging a static defense that was inappropriate against a guerrilla adversary,
and the leadership was often inadequate. Within seven months the DAG claimed
to dominate three-quarters of Greece, and the National Army, despite its
size advantage, was in disarray.

     In December 1947 the KKE announced the formation of the Provisional
Democratic Government, prompting the government in Athens to impose martial
law and outlaw the KKE. During the Civil War a series of "paraconstitutional"
texts were adopted, severely limiting most civil liberties and mandating
extremely harsh penalties (including death) for actions against the prevailing
social and political order and against the country's integrity. Many of the
provisions remained in force after 1949, some until 1975.

     The Greek government found itself increasingly pressed by the revolt,
and the British, themselves recovering from the war, by 1947 could no longer
provide the kind of assistance necessary to forestall a takeover. In March the
Truman Doctrine was announced and included Greece within the perimeter of
territory considered vital to American national interests. From that point the
Greek Civil War was seen by the United States as a critical battlefield in the
worldwide struggle against Soviet expansionism. Between 1947 and 1951 United
States military and economic aid (through the Marshall Plan) totaled over
US $1.5 billion. The massive infusion of funds and military advisers turned the
tide in the war. Time was no longer on the side of the Communists, and the DAG
changed its tactics. Thus far they had been rather successful using
hit-and-run tactics devised by Vafiades, the DAG's commander. From late July,
however, Nikos Zakhariades, the head of the KKE, joined the army in the
mountains and insisted on more conventional warfare. The KKE was then mortally
wounded when Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, eager to improve relations with
the West after his break with the Soviet Union, closed his country's borders
to the Greek guerrillas in July 1949. Yugoslavia, along with Albania, had
provided both arms and, most important, sanctuaries for the DAG. The KKE had
truly been abandoned, and morale plummeted.

     The National Army's final offensive came in August 1949, and the last
Communist stronghold in the mountains fell on the last day of the month. On
top of the damage from World War II, Greece had lost another 80,000; countless
more were wounded. The bitterness and violence of the conflict reached
appalling proportions; atrocities were common to both sides. The final year of
the war was particularly brutal. As the DAG became more desperate, they
forcibly recruited fighters in the mountains, practically evacuating entire
villages, including young women. At the same time, they rounded up
approximately 28,000 children (pedomasoma) and forcibly evacuated them to
various parts of Eastern Europe to be raised as communists. In all, about
700,000 refugees, almost 10 percent of the population, were homeless. The nine
years of war wrecked havoc on the economy and on the society. That experience
still reverberated in Greek politics into the 1970s.

Postwar Democracy: A Fragile Stability

     Nine years of war had unmistakably changed the social and political
environment in Greece. The mass mobilization caused by the resistance and the
Civil War had emancipated the masses and given them, for the first time in
modern Greek history, a central place in the political process. In response to
these social changes, women were granted the right to vote in 1951. The two
opposing poles of communism and anticommunism defined the political debate.
Having barely survived the Communist assault, the government decreed
anticommunism the national duty, and security became a state obsession.
Henceforth loyalty oaths and "certificates of social beliefs" would be
necessary to obtain employment in a variety of occupations, including vendors.
Personalistic and clientelistic allegiances remained important determinants of
voting behavior. The political environment, which until 1936 had been fairly
evenly divided between reformist liberals and conservatives, became
overwhelmingly conservative. Social reform and criticism of the prevailing
system were popularly seen as unpatriotic and probably communistic. Thus,
although the Liberals remained a major political force, their rhetoric and
actions throughout the 1950s were barely distinguishable from the right. The
procommunist left presented the principal alternative, and though it
consistently polled only around 12 to 14 percent of the vote, it continued to
haunt the political scene. A genuinely independent center did not really
appear until the 1960s.

     Martial law was lifted and democracy restored in February 1950. A
proliferation of personalistic parties, none receiving very broad support,
joined in a series of short-lived and unstable coalition governments. Between
1946 and 1952 there were 16 different governments, and the parliamentary
system once more sank into immobilism. In this situation the army resumed its
traditional place as the locus of antiparliamentary sentiment. The military
had emerged from the Civil War with enormously increased autonomy from
civilian control. After the purges associated with the Metaxas dictatorship,
the Middle East "anomalies," and the Civil War, the army, which had in the
past reflected the bitter civilian political divisions and which had suffered
serious setbacks in 1948 during the Civil War, had become a remarkably
homogenous institution: royalist, fanatically anticommunist, and universally
contemptuous of civilian politicians. It was, in short, a new army. In January
1949 Papagos, hero of the Albanian campaign of 1940-41 and former chief of the
army general staff under the Metaxas regime, was asked to assume the position
of commander in chief of the army. His price for accepting the post was the
dissolution of civilian oversight of the army and virtual autonomy of the army
from civilian control. The British, who openly intervened in the rebuilding
and governance of the Greek army beginning in 1944, approved the action, and
the Greek government reluctantly agreed. From this time the military as an
institution, with the backing of Britain and later the United States, became
the single most powerful force in the Greek political system.

     In May 1950 Papagos unexpectedly resigned from the army. Most concluded
(erroneously) that he had been forced out by the government. A secret, extreme
right-wing organization, the Holy Bond of Greek Officers (Ieros Desmos Ellinon
Axiomatikon-IDEA), founded in 1945 but whose origins lay in the MEAF,
determined to stage a coup and force Papagos' reinstatement. Papagos himself
defused the situation, and shortly thereafter his reason to leave the army
became clear. He formed a new royalist political party, the Greek Rally
(Ellinikos Synagermos-ES), one month before parliamentary elections in 1951.
Modeled after Charles de Gaulle's French Rally, the ES attracted a broad
spectrum of supporters, including both the middle class and the peasants. It
emerged as the largest party but failed to get a parliamentary majority. The
king asked the runner-up, Plastiras, and his new party, the National
Progressive Center Union (Ethniki Proodeftiki Kentrum-EPEK), to form a
coalition cabinet. Plastiras fell ill three weeks later and hung on for eight
months, during which time a new constitution was enacted, by passing the legal
amendment process. Finally, in new elections held in November 1952 the ES won
50 percent of the vote and an overwhelming parliamentary majority. The Papagos
government initiated an 11-year period of uninterrupted rightist
governments.

     Papagos' administration, on the basis of its secure parliamentary
majority, ended the squabbles within the conservative ranks and began to
address the critical economic situation. A successful devaluation of the
drachma created a spurt in exports and impressed the United States and other
lenders whose capital would be crucial for any serious reconstruction of the
economy. But Papagos' most important initiatives were in foreign policy.
Greece joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952 and in
1953 reestablished relations with Yugoslavia and Turkey in the Balkan Pact.
The future status of Cyprus, with its 80-percent Greek majority, was the
subject of tripartite negotiations among Greece, Britain and, for the first
time, Turkey. The talks ended in failure and began a long conflict between
Turkey and Greece that remained unresolved in the mid-1980s.

     Papagos died in 1955 after a long illness. King Paul appointed as prime
minister a relatively unknown conservative politician, Constantine Karamanlis,
who, like Papagos, enjoyed United States backing. Karamanlis formed a new
party, the National Radical Union (Ethnikiki Rizopastiti Enosis-ERE), which
continued the basic policies of the ES but concentrated on economic
development, with considerable success. As part of his economic program
Karamanlis applied in 1959 for associate membership in the European Economic
Community (EEC). In addition to solidifying Greece's cultural and political
connection to Western Europe, it was hoped that the EEC would provide a huge
potential market, stimulating growth and modernization while also providing
some of the necessary capital. Associate status was finally granted on July 9,
1961 and came into effect on November 1, 1962 (see Historical Development, ch.
3; Appendix B).

     Again, foreign policy matters occupied much of the government's time. The
Cyprus issue became a major focus of attention as the island's Greeks, led by
Archbishop Makarios and Colonel George Grivas of the National Organization of
Cypriot Combatants (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston-EOKA), demanded enosis
and waged a campaign of violence and terror, first against Greeks who did not
back the movement and later against Turkish Cypriots and British authorities.
Karamanlis, anxious to avoid an escalation of tension both on the island and
in Greece, finally agreed to a compromise solution in 1958 that avoided both
enosis and partition. Cyprus was declared a sovereign republic led by a Greek
Cypriot president and a Turkish Cypriot vice president. Each would have veto
power on matters of foreign relations, defense, and security. A parliament was
to be divided on a 70 to 30 ratio between the Greek and Turkish communities.
It would also have communal assemblies to deal with religious, educational,
judicial, and other local matters. The army was to be divided on a 60 to 40
basis, and Britain was granted sovereign rights over an airfield and a
military base on the island. The new constitutional arrangements were to be
guaranteed by Greece, Turkey, and Britain.

     Although the immediate crisis was over, many Greeks were angered by
Karamanlis' recognition of Turkish claims to Cyprus. In the 1958 election the
ERE lost votes, but, more important, the procommunist United Democratic Left
(Eniea Dimokratiki Aristeras-EDA), founded in 1951 as a stalking horse for the
outlawed KKE, emerged as the second largest party, garnering 24.4 percent of
the vote, roughly double its postwar average. Analysts attributed the dramatic
increase in votes as a protest against the Cyprus compromise, but the left's
renewed strength caused considerable concern to conservative leaders and the
army.

     In 1961 Karamanlis asked for new elections. A united opposition, the
Center Union (CU), was established by George Papandreou, a veteran Liberal and
former prime minister, joining several centrist and liberal parties. The EDA
also contested the election. Against all expectations, the ERE not only won
but actually increased its votes. The results can probably be explained by
Karamanlis' good record and the CU's having only five weeks to prepare for the
election. Nevertheless, there was considerable evidence of irregularities, and
Papandreou seized the issue, denouncing the vote as "the product of violence
and fraud." The most disturbing aspect seemed to be the open complicity of the
army and the police in many of the proven instances of vote tampering.
Although there was never any conclusive indication of the extent of fraud or
indeed of Karamanlis' culpability, for the next two years Papandreou hounded
Karamanlis, charging that his government was illegal and unconstitutional and
calling the Karamanlis "regime" a police state bordering on fascism.
Papandreou even went so far as to call on Greek youth "to terrorize the
terrorists." Finally, he called for royal intervention to resolve the issue.

     Tensions mounted, and the murder of an EDA deputy, Grigoris Lambrakis
(depicted in Costa-Gavras' film, "Z"), in May 1963 crystallized left-wing
opposition in Greece and brought forth a barrage of international criticism.
Beset on all sides, Karamanlis resigned, using a minor dispute with the king
as his excuse. Elections in November showed a sharp but not decisive swing to
the CU. Neither the ERE nor the CU had a parliamentary majority, and the EDA
held the balance between them. Papandreou was called on to form a government
but resigned within weeks rather than rely on EDA support to stay in power.
Karamanlis retired from politics and left Greece, consigning the ERE
leadership to Panayiotis Kanellopoulos. New general elections in February 1964
gave the CU an absolute parliamentary majority and enabled Papandreou to
establish a one-party government. The liberal center, splintered since the
war, had finally coalesced to provide a moderate alternative to coservative
rule. In addition, Papandreou had emerged as the first genuinely popular
political figure since Venizelos. Like Venizelos, however, Papandreou had a
domineering and highly personal style of politics that alienated the more
independent-minded members of his own parliamentary party and led to a
gradually widening breach within the CU.

     More than a year after his election, Papandreou revealed the "Pericles
Plan," an alleged plot among army officers and police to rig the 1961
election. This was the first concrete evidence he had brought forward to
support his allegations of fraud, and the unexplained four-year delay prompted
many to charge him with dredging up old news to strengthen his own position.
Others suggested that Papandreou had not revealed the plan earlier in order to
make necessary changes in key positions in the armed forces. Whatever the
reason, it seemed clear that he expected to benefit politically from the show
of vigilance.

     Unexpectedly, the right wing, supported by disgruntled members of the CU,
counterattacked in 1965 with allegations of an officially sanctioned left-wing
plot to infiltrate the military, with no other than the prime minister's son,
Andreas Papandreou, as a principal instigator. This left-wing organization,
known by the acronym ASPIDA (Shield) (Aksiomatikoi Sosate Patridhan Idhanika
Demokratia Aksiokratia-Officers Save the Country, Democracy, Ideal,
Meritocracy), had allegedly originated among officers of the class of 1953 of
the military academy and was first discovered on Cyprus. Colonel George
Papadopoulous, commander of an artillery unit in Evros, reported "communist
sabotage" in his outfit, no doubt linked to the ASPIDA group. Stories of
threats to the monarchy circulated, and fears of a communist takeover of the
army, first broached in 1944, consumed conservative groups. The CU dismissed
the allegations, particularly those of Papadopoulos, as unfounded and the
product of either overactive imaginations or, more likely, an outright
conspiracy to undermine the legally constituted government. The very existence
of the organization remains controversial, but most analysts and politicians
give the allegations the benefit of the doubt. Hardly anyone, however, accepts
the notion of Andreas Papandreou's association with any conspiratorial group,
though they acknowledge that he did have informal ties with some of the
younger officers. Professor Nikolaos A. Stavrou of Howard University has
suggested that the alleged conspiracy and the "sabotage" associated with it
were in fact fabricated by Papadopoulos' own secret army organization, the
National Union of Young Officers (Ethnkiki Enosis Neon Aksiomatikon-EENA). In
any case, George Papandreou made a crucial error in shielding his son, then
minister to the prime minister, from investigation. The whole affair smacked
of a cover-up, and the ASPIDA charges destroyed Papandreou's popular support.
Fifteen months after coming to office, Papandreou resigned as prime minister.