$Unique_ID{COW01453}
$Pretitle{287}
$Title{Greece
Chapter 1E.   The Military Dictatorship, 1967-74}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{greece
political
military
junta
greek
united
states
karamanlis
party
new}
$Date{1986}
$Log{}
Country:     Greece
Book:        Greece, A Country Study
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1986

Chapter 1E.   The Military Dictatorship, 1967-74

The Disintegration of the Political System

     The political system that had been stable since 1952 and had seemed well
on its way to becoming a robust two-party democracy in 1964 disintegrated in
less than three years. Most of the controversy that undermined the system can
be attributed to a tragic misunderstanding and a personality clash between
George Papandreou and King Constantine II, who succeeded to the throne after
Paul's death in 1964. The conflict resembles in many ways the national schism
of the early part of the century and the feud between Venizelos and the first
Constantine. Papandreou suspected the king of harboring thoughts of
unconstitutional interference in the political process, while Constantine
believed that Papandreou was plotting the reestablishment of a republic. What
should have been a relatively minor political scandal-the ASPIDA affair and
its aftermath-escalated into a major crisis, owing largely to the
intransigence and arrogance of the prime minister and the monarch.

     Considerable responsibility for the deterioriation of relations probably
rests with Andreas Papandreou. He was a unique character in Greek politics. A
former American citizen and resident of the United States for more than 20
years, he was well known as a distinguished professor of economics at the
University of California at Berkeley. He returned to Greece in 1959 and became
a respected technocrat as head of the Centre of Planning and Economic
Research. In 1963 he began a political career with his election to the
parliament and quickly emerged as his father's chief aide, minister to the
prime minister. It was an open secret that Andreas was being groomed to
succeed his father as the leader of the CU. That revelation stirred
considerable resentment among many political veterans, and their ire was
exacerbated by Andreas' blatant flirtation with left-wing and communist
causes.

     He had in the space of about five years become a major political figure,
propelled into the public eye by a deliberate emphasis on controversial
issues, particularly those favored by the left. He openly advocated a
remaking of the social and economic structures of Greece and, sensitive to
the potential charge of pro-Americanism because of his history, he outdid
almost everybody in the vehemence of his anti-Americanism, unambiguously
calling for Greek "independence" in foreign policy. No one outside the
communist left had talked this way since 1944, and Andreas' outspokenness,
combined with his proximity to real power, sent shock waves throughout the
conservative community. In this context the ASPIDA accusations merely
confirmed for many their suspicions.

     Following George Papandreou's resignation in July 1965 the contest with
the king became daily more rancorous. New elections would have been the
logical solution to the conflict, but the king refused to permit what he
believed would be seen as a referendum on the institution of the monarchy. For
18 months a series of governments tried in vain to restore calm. By late 1966
Andreas had practically eclipsed his father in the public consciousness, and
the issue was apparently transformed into a battle between the right and the
left for control of the government.

     The probability of a military coup was openly discussed in cafes and in
political circles, but no political party took serious steps to counter any
possible action. Andreas and his supporters dismissed the possibility of any
action by the military independent of the conservative political parties, and
the military's adherence to electoral politics was unquestioned. Furthermore,
perhaps unconsciously drawing on the precedent of the national schism, they
believed that the political divisions had infiltrated the army, effectively
destroying it as a political unit. Finally, they believed that the army was
controlled by the top echelon of officers, whose movements could be easily
followed, and that lower ranks were not capable of independent action.

     As it turned out, Papandreou and his associates were wrong on all three
counts. The autonomy of the military as a political actor had been firmly
established during the Civil War, and the experience of the following 20
years-particularly its relationship to the United States, which gave it an
essentially independent source of funding-had served only to reinforce that
autonomy. Ideologically, the military throughout the postwar period remained
overwhelmingly unified in its conservative orientation, although some factions
distinguished themselves by their right-wing extremism. Finally, they had
completely ignored the Greek military's penchant for coups as instruments of
political action. The disintegration of the political system at the hands of
the politicians themselves was an open invitation to the military to fulfill
its historical role since 1909 as the "vigilant guardian of the national honor
and ideals."

     Comparing the situation to that in 1936 when the Metaxas dictatorship had
declared the necessity of forestalling an imminent "communist takeover," a
group of army officers, led by colonels Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos
and Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos, invoked the Promotheus Plan, a NATO-prepared
contingency plan designed to strengthen internal security in the event of a
serious external threat. The coup of April 21, 1967, less than one month
before elections, surprised everyone, both politicians and generals (who were
planning their own coup), and succeeded virtually unopposed.

The "Revolution of 21 April"

     The 12 members of the junta were all middle-ranking army officers and
members of Papadopoulos' EENA, and most, if not all, had been members of
IDEA, the secret organization that launched an abortive coup in 1951. They all
had similar military and personal backgrounds-sons of peasants or petit
bourgeois parents. Their formative military experiences had been defeat by
the Germans, followed by a mutiny against the collaborationist regime, the
battle for Crete, the chaos of the MEAF and, finally, the Civil War. They
shared a contempt for politicians, parliamentary politics, the top leadership
of the army, and the oligarchy of which it was the representative. In place of
the former regime, the junta installed a collective dictatorship through a
"revolutionary council" led by a triumvirate, but Papadopoulos was first
among equals.

     The revolutionary council introduced martial law throughout the country
but continued to reorganize the monarchy and a civilian prime minister for the
first eight months. Constantine mounted an abortive countercoup on December
13, and his subsequent flight to Rome ended the charade of civilian control,
although a regent was appointed to preserve the king's constitutional role.

     A new constitution was announced and adopted by plebiscite on October 29,
1968, replacing the 1952 constitution. The "crowned democracy" was preserved,
but the king's powers were greatly circumscribed. It provided for the
restoration of the multiparty system at some later date, but under strict
controls. The most important articles of the constitution and of associated
laws concerned the role of the military. The de facto autonomy of the postwar
era was institutionalized, not only in the administration of purely military
matters (appointments, salary, etc.) but also in all political matters. The
armed forces were required to pay allegiance to "the Country, the national
ideals and traditions, and [to] serve the Nation," but there was pointedly no
mention of allegiance to civilian authorities, who, for their part, were
henceforth bound by the constitution and the laws of the country. Thus the
role of supreme guardian of the nation, which the army had assumed
periodically since 1909, was constitutionally mandated. The International
Commission of Jurists described the 1968 constitution as "no more than a legal
instrument devised to keep the government in power."

     The profoundly conservative nature of the regime was amply demonstrated
by the draconian penalties stipulated for discussing or advocating "ideologies
aiming at the overthrow or the undermining of the existing political or social
order or the corruption of the national convictions of the Greeks." The
structures were clearly directed at the left, but through Papadopoulos'
statements it was also clear that the "left" included not only the Communists
but also most of the center. Civil rights, including the right to vote and
express political views, the free press, and numerous civil liberties were
severely restricted, and the junta reserved to itself the right to deny these
freedoms to individuals it deemed unworthy or dangerous to public order.

     The first three years of the junta were characterized by gross human
rights violations, well documented by a human rights organization, Amnesty
International, and in hearings before the Council of Europe; these violations
included illegal arrests, torture, unexplained imprisonments (by late 1967
at least 6,000 political prisoners had been identified), extremely strict
censorship, forced exile, and withdrawal of citizenship. Members of the EDA
and other known communist supporters were the principal targets, but many
members of center parties, including the Papandreous, and even of the ERE,
such as Kanellopoulos, the last precoup prime minister, suffered house arrest,
imprisonment, or exile. In addition, the junta tried to impose a code of
behavior on the country, outlawing certain traditional practices (for example,
the ritual breaking of dishes at tavernas) and mandating both religious
attendance and a conservative dress code. Gradually, the regime relaxed some
of its more controversial restrictions, lifting martial law from rural areas
in 1971. After 1972 it was limited to Greater Athens.

     The human rights abuses brought forth an uproar in Western Europe and the
United States, causing a serious disruption in diplomatic relations. Although
no government withheld recognition of the junta, international bodies,
including NATO, heard frequent denunciations of the regime's police-state
methods. Greece withdrew from the Council of Europe on December 12, 1969, to
avoid being suspended. The EEC suspended negotiations about Greece's future
status, and on May 7, 1969, the European Parliament reserved its right to
reconsider the association agreement altogether if progress was not made to
restore a multiparty parliamentary system as had been promised. Nevertheless,
despite the protestations, the obligatory provision of the 1962 association
agreement, such as tariff reductions, continued to be implemented. The EEC did
withhold US $56 million in development loans previously granted to Greece, but
the net effect of these actions on the regime was relatively small.

     The reaction of the United States to the colonels' coup was somewhat more
problematic. At the time of the coup and persisting into the 1980s, rumors of
United States complicity gained wide acceptance in Greece. Proof has never
been offered to substantiate this claim, although there is reliable evidence
that United States embassy officials had been in contact with the generals who
were also planning a coup and had requested its postponement - not
cancellation - to allow time for a possible political resolution of the
crisis. The colonels' action was apparently a complete surprise to the embassy
staff. The United States hesitated to grant recognition but continued
relations in the first months, stating that the relationship was conducted
through the head of state, the king, who accepted the new regime; therefore,
as far as the United States was concerned, there had been no change. After the
king's departure in December that line of reasoning obviously lost its
meaning, but the United States resumed full diplomatic relations with the
junta on January 23, 1968.

     The position of the United States was difficult; domestic reaction
against the junta was very strong, especially after the revelations of
widespread human rights violations, but Greece's strategic situation in the
eastern Mediterranean and on NATO's southeastern flank made it almost
impossible to break off relations. This view was reinforced by the outbreak
of the Arab-Israeli June 1967 War and the perceptible buildup of Soviet naval
forces in the Mediterranean. There were those within the government, notably
Robert McNamara, secretary of defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson, who
advocated cutting off or at least substantially reducing military aid to
Greece, but others noted that continuing aid would give the United States
more leverage over the junta in its effort to promote the early restoration
of democracy. A compromise was reached whereby shipments of heavy weapons
were suspended, but all other forms of aid were continued. Between 1967 and
1970 there was a decrease in the level of military aid, but apparently it
was a result of previous decisions and had no connection with the coup. In
1972 a long-awaited agreement was signed, giving the United States Sixth
Fleet permanent port facilities in Greece. In short, except for some
relatively intemperate remarks by Vice President Spiro Agnew in a trip to
Greece in 1971, United States administrations did not openly embrace the
junta, but then neither did they distance themselves from the military
regime, and Greco-American relations continued relatively unchanged. In
Greek popular opinion, however, the United States aided and abetted the
colonel's regime despite knowledge of its many excesses. This perception
led to a simmering anti-Americanism that remained widespread into the 1980s.

     The years between 1967 and 1973 saw a gradual but steady increase in
Papadopoulos' position within the junta. At the time of the coup he served as
minister to the office of the Prime Minister, and by November 2, 1967, he had
become head of a powerful body for coordinating government policy in defense,
security, finance, education, and social welfare and assumed the prime
minister's post as well as the stewardship of the Ministry of National
Defense. A year later another reorganization of the government apparatus
dissolved the revolutionary council and expanded the powers of the prime
minister. At the same time, a new cabinet was appointed with a preponderance
of Papadopoulos' supporters. In 1970 Papadopoulos added the foreign ministry
to his collection of offices, followed by the regency in 1972.

     In May 1973 there was a naval mutiny, indicating that despite extensive
purges the navy still harbored a significant number of disaffected officers.
Papadopoulos claimed that the king was implicated in the plot and on June 1
declared him deposed. He proclaimed the creation of a "presidential
parliamentary republic" to be ratified by referendum and promised to restore
a multiparty system and to hold elections in 1974. The president was given an
eight-year term and wide legislative and executive powers with exclusive
control over foreign policy, defense, national security, and public order. The
period of the "Revolution of 21 April" was officially declared at an end. The
referendum ratified the new constitution in July 1973.

The Collapse of the Junta, 1973-74

     Although Papadopoulos was now at the height of his power, there were
signs of growing dissatisfaction. The referendum vote, though favorable (78
percent), was considerably less enthusiastic than was the 1968 plebiscite on
the constitution (92 percent). The favorable vote in Athens, where martial law
remained in force, was only 51 percent. After five years of high growth, a
noticeable downturn in the economy that began in 1972, including a 30-percent
inflation rate, took away one of the regime's most important props. Although
labor activity was severely restricted, unrest grew in scattered areas, and
public opinion palpably shifted from acceptance to mere toleration of the
junta. The most serious disturbances were among students, first at the Law
Faculty of the University of Athens in March 1973 and then more spectacularly
at the Polytechnic in November. Each time, the protests started as small
disturbances over academic and professional issues but rapidly escalated to
political matters, spreading to student enclaves all over the country. Many of
these students had received basic training in demonstration techniques during
the student uprisings in Paris and the United States in 1968 and 1969; and
they skillfully manipulated clandestine radiobroadcasts to stir up sympathy
among the general population. The Polytechnic demonstration was brutally
crushed by army troops and tanks, leaving at least 34 students killed, several
hundred wounded, and almost 1,000 arrested according to some reports. The
relaxation of police controls was reversed and martial law reimposed, but the
severity of the junta's response only increased popular discontent.

     On November 25, 1973, within days of the Polytechnic debacle,
Papadopoulos was deposed in a coup and replaced as president by Lieutenant
General Phaedon Ghizikis. The real power, however, was clearly held by
Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannides, the head of the ESA, the military
police that had often been charged with gross brutality. The justification for
the new coup was that Papadopoulos had deviated from the principles of the
"revolution," now reinstated, and was leading the country to an "electoral
adventure."

     The reconstituted junta continued to suffer from the growing economic
problems and, despite a renewed security crackdown, public opinion
inexorably moved toward open opposition. The domestic base of support was
crumbling, so Ioannides turned to foreign policy to provide the issues that
might restore public confidence. In April and May he initiated a
saber-rattling incident over the question of possession of oil deposits
recently discovered near the island of Thasos in the Aegean Sea. A more
serious confrontation over Cyprus brought Greece to the brink of war with
Turkey. Relations with Archbishop Makarios, president of the Republic of
Cyprus, had become openly hostile as the junta brazenly supported the
activities of the EOKA, the terrorist organization dedicated to the union of
Cyprus with Greece. An outbreak of violence by the EOKA against two Turkish
Cypriot villages in 1967 had led to American diplomatic intervention, the
rationale being that Greece had violated the Zurich and London agreements of
1959 that had laid the foundations of the Republic of Cyprus and set limits on
the size of Greek and Turkish contingents. As a result, Greece had to withdraw
the 10,000 troops that had been sent to the island by Papandreou in 1963, and
Grivas, head of the EOKA, was sent back to Greece.

     On July 6, 1974, Makarios charged the government of Athens with plotting
the overthrow of the Cyprus republic. Nine days later Greek regular army
officers who had been assigned to the Cypriot National Guard mounted a coup
against Makarios, soon joined by the Greek army contingent on the island. The
consensus was that the coup had been planned and carried out on orders from
Athens. Turkey exercised its right as guarantor of the 1960 constitution of
Cyprus and intervened on July 20 to preserve the republic.

     The junta called for general mobilization of the armed forces, but the
effort collapsed in complete disarray. Many commanders refused to carry out
the junta's order to retaliate, and the commander of the "C" Army Corps
stationed in northern Greece issued an ultimatum to Ghizikis, demanding a
return to civilian rule. The armed forces were collapsing from within, and
the issue was no longer simply the army's political strength but its survival
as an institution. In desparation the junta turned to Karamanlis, who had
been living in Paris since 1963, to restore democracy to Greece. On July 24,
1974, a civilian government was sworn in, ending seven years of military
dictatorship.

The Restoration of Democracy, 1974-81

The Return of Karamanlis

     The choice of Karamanlis was worked out in a compromise between civilian
political leaders, primarily from the ERE, and the military. Karamanlis was
untouched by any hint of collaboration with the junta and had spoken out
forcefully against it from Paris, but at the same time, his conservative
credentials were impeccable and therefore acceptable to the military. In
addition, Karamanlis had enormous personal prestige in Greece, a factor that
helped ease the transition to democratic methods.

     The goal of the new regime was to heal the historical rifts of the Greek
political system that had prevented the evolution of a stable and effective
multiparty parliamentary system. The first order of business was to destroy
the ideological rigidity of the system that had restricted political power to
only one camp, the right, since 1935. The repression of left-wing opposition
(broadly defined to include not only communists and socialists but also
centrists) had resulted in political instability and chronic violence and, in
addition, had made Greece a living anachronism by artificially stifling social
change. By legalizing the KKE Karamanlis hoped to finally end the Civil War
and begin the healing process.

     Elections were held in November 1974, only four months after the fall of
the military dictatorship, and four major parties participated. The right was
represented by the New Democracy (Nea Demokratia-ND), founded by Karamanlis,
whose core was the old ERE. The ND never developed a full program for the
election, instead relying on the drawing power of its leader, whose
conservative views were well known. Its electoral slogan, "Karamanlis or the
tanks," aptly summed up its approach. The old CU was revived under a new
label, Center Union-New Forces (Enosis Kendrou-Nees Dynamis-EK-ND). Deprived
of a charismatic leader by the death of George Papandreou in 1968, the center
became almost indistinguishable from the ND in its program: support of closer
ties with the EEC and commitment to a free-enterprise economy. Unlike the ND,
which remained neutral on the question of the monarchy, the EK-ND and the
other three major parties came out in opposition to restoration.

     In 1968 the traditional left had split; a Eurocommunist wing that
advocated independence from Moscow and acceptance of parliamentary procedures
formed a separate party, the KKE-Interior. For the 1974 election the
KKE-Exterior and the KKE-Interior joined forces in an electoral alliance under
the name United Left (Enomeni Aristera), which advocated a nonaligned foreign
policy and the nationalization of basic sectors of the economy.

     The fourth party was entirely new. The Panhellenic Socialist Movement
(Panhellinion Socialistiko Kinima-PASOK) was founded in 1974 by Andreas
Papandreou, using his Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), one of the major
resistance organizations under the junta, as the new party's core. PASOK,
echoing the kinds of criticisms of the Greek society and economy that had made
Papandreou notorious in the early 1960s, declared its opposition to a
restoration of the monarchy and to a continuation of Greece's relationship
with the EEC, arguing that Greece should develop links with the nonaligned
nations of the Third World.

     Karamanlis' ND won an easy victory in the election, receiving over 54
percent of the vote and an overwhelming majority of the seats in the
parliament. The center received 20.5 percent of the vote; the United Left, 9.4
percent; and PASOK, only 13.6 percent-far below its expectations.

     The second historical issue to be addressed was the status of the
monarchy. Since independence, but particularly in the twentieth century, the
debate between republicans and monarchists had soured the political scene,
often resulting in violence and distorting the evolution of the parliamentary
system. In December 1974, for the sixth time in the twentieth century
(previously in 1920, 1924, 1935, 1946, and 1973), a referendum was held on the
future of the monarchy. In the fairest vote to date, 69 percent of the
electorate voted against the restoration of the monarchy. The constitutional
issue that had plagued Greek politics since independence was finally and
definitively over.

     Karamanlis had been fully aware of the fragility of his hold on power.
Just how fragile was dramatically shown in February 1975 by the announcement
that an attempted coup (as it turned out, the fourth in six months) had been
thwarted. The extent of participation in the plot among the military was
chastening, but it provided the opportunity for the long-awaited cleansing
of the armed forces and trials of those responsible for the dictatorship. The
new government, bolstered by its electoral mandate, proceeded cautiously,
and trials resulted in long sentences for most of the principals involved in
the junta, particularly for those in the security forces accused of inhumane
treatment of prisoners. Members of the original triumvirate-Papadopoulos,
Makarezos, and Pattakos-were sentenced to death, but the government commuted
the sentence to life imprisonment. Many outside the government denounced the
leniency of the punishments, but the government had to balance the need for
just retribution with the need to maintain reasonable relations with the
military. A more severe attack on the institution would probably have led to a
violent reaction, perhaps a coup.

     In 1975 a new basic law of the land replaced the 1952 constitution, which
had been reinstated at the end of the junta. The new document created a more
powerful executive branch led by a president, elected for a five-year term,
who is commander in chief of the armed forces and head of state. The
president, responsible for choosing the prime minister, is obliged to invite
the leader of the majority party in the parliament to form a government, but
he is also empowered to dismiss him after consulting the Council of the
Republic, a body made up of former presidents, the prime minister, the leader
of the primary opposition party, and former prime ministers who have received
votes of confidence in the parliament. He has the power to veto legislation
(though the veto can be overriden by a simple majority), dissolve the
parliament, appeal to the electorate directly in a referendum, declare martial
law, and rule by decree for 30 days without parliamentary approval. This sharp
shift in the direction of executive power caused an uproar among opposition
circles, but Karamanlis contended that these formidable powers of the
president should be considered extraordinary, to be used only when necessary
to preserve stability in the context of the "Greek reality" of divisive
conflict. The presidency was given to Constantine Tsatsos, a longtime
associate of Karamanlis, who during his term never invoked the powers of the
office, allowing the parliament and the prime minister to remain the active
centers of the political system. In 1980 Karamanlis himself assumed the
office.

     In foreign policy the Cyprus situation continued to dominate relations
with Turkey. In February 1975 a Turkish Federated State of Cyprus was declared
to exist in the northern half of the island, which had been occupied by
Turkish troops since 1974. Although the new state received diplomatic
recognition only from Turkey, many states, in particular Britain, granted de
facto recognition. Negotiations between Greece and Turkey dragged on through
1975, but substantive progress could not be made because the two nations held
diametrically opposed views on how to solve the conflict. Greece maintained
that the matter was intracommunal and could be settled only by negotiations
between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots themselves; the Turks,
whose claim to the island dates only from 1955, contended that Greece and
Turkey, as protectors of the island's communities, were responsible for
resolving the crisis. In November the United Nations General Assembly, after
much prodding by Cypriot president Makarios, called for the withdrawal of
foreign troops from Cyprus, but it was small comfort to the Greek Cypriots
because no effort was made to enforce the resolution. A number of other
issues, including possession of the Aegean oil reserves (which broke out into
a major crisis in 1976 over Turkish explorations in the area), air traffic
control over the Aegean, and Greek fortification of some of the islands,
exacerbated tensions between the two nations.

     The continued impasse complicated arrangements with NATO (from whose
military arm Greece withdrew in 1974), threatened to postpone Greece's entry
into the EEC, and dangerously undermined relations with the United States.
Anti-American feelings, which developed under the junta, were reinforced by
what was seen as a bias in favor of Turkey evidenced first during the Cyprus
crisis in 1974-75 and again in 1976, when the United States agreed to provide
US $1 billion worth of military aid over four years in return for installations
on Turkish soil. After strong Greek protests, including the recall of the
Greek ambassador, the United States agreed to supply US $700 million over four
years in return for facilities in Greece. This seven-to-10 ratio between Greek
and Turkish aid became an implicit formula for future United States assistance
(see Military Assistance, ch. 5).

     The ND asked for elections in 1977, one year ahead of schedule, on the
grounds that the government needed a renewed mandate to deal with these
complicated international issues. The results of the election showed a shift
away from the ND. Although it kept its parliamentary majority, its share of
the vote decreased by 13 percent, and its representation in the parliament
fell by 22 percent. The principal beneficiary of the vote was PASOK, which
doubled its vote and became the second largest party in the parliament with 93
seats, an enormous increase over its previous 13. The center, renamed the
Union of the Democratic Center (Enosis Demokratikou Kendrou-EDIK), won only 12
percent (down from 20.5 in 1974), and the traditional left slightly increased
its vote.

     Karamanlis' most important achievement as prime minister between 1974 and
1980 was the installation and apparent consolidation of a functioning
democratic system. By a careful balancing of all the conflicting pressures, he
hoped to end the tragic cycle of hatred and violence that had characterized
Greek politics in the twentieth century. His efforts to stabilize the
economy-undermined by both the 1973-74 oil crisis and the junta's profligate
policies-were less successful (see Historical Development, ch. 3).

The Panhellenic Socialist Movement Comes to Power: The 1981 Election

     Elections held in 1981 resulted in a resounding victory for PASOK-48.1
percent to the ND's 35.9 percent. The ND's fall had been presaged in the 1977
results, but the size of PASOK's win surprised most observers. Only three
parties-PASOK, the ND, and the KKE-Exterior- won seats in the parliament,
wiping out the minor parties. Many observers believed that the election
indicated a fundamental shift to the left of the whole political environment,
rejecting the extreme right wing that had ruled Greece for 46 years and
replacing the old center with a modern, progressive social democratic party,
PASOK. In any case, the young democracy had faced its first and most difficult
test, the alternation of ruling parties, and most observers were confident of
the regime's stability.

     The most important development in the post-junta period was the growing
political clout of an upwardly mobile entrepreneurial class and a white-collar
group, created by the uneven but sharp economic growth of the postwar period,
and the consequent disintegration of the traditional center parties, which
first became apparent in 1977 and was complete by 1981. The critical factor,
therefore, was which party could attract the centrist voters. Despite
Karamanlis' obvious intention, the ND never developed beyond its ERE core.
Although it successfully shed its postwar anticommunism and introduced more
progressive socioeconomic policy proposals, it failed to develop either a
coherent and attractive ideological basis or a well-structured mass
organization. The clientelist networks developed under the ERE remained at the
center of the ND and frustrated attempts to attract new members. Moreover, the
party had little to offer the voter in search of a party. Karamanlis
characterized the ND's basic principles as "radical liberalism" but never
defined what that meant. The party's performance under Karamanlis' government
was creditable, presiding over a marginal economic recovery and reforms in
education and banking, but it was not associated with any discernible program.
Finally, and perhaps most important, the party was until 1980
indistinguishable from its founder, Karamanlis. When he retired from politics
to become president in 1980, the ND lost its center. Within a short time, but
especially after the loss in 1981, the party split into its constituent parts,
the more conservative elements gaining the upper hand. The ND's attempts to
portray itself as a center-right party failed to convince either itself or the
voters.

     PASOK provided most of the things that the ND did not: a coherent program
of progressive socioeconomic legislation, a charismatic leader in Andreas
Papandreou, a clear ideology, and a well-defined mass organization. By 1977
PASOK's rhetoric had noticeably moderated, although its basic principles
remained intact. It claimed to unify three currents in Greek politics-the
wartime EAM, the CU and its center-left faction, and the resistance to the
junta-which shared a commitment to national independence, popular sovereignty,
and social liberation. PASOK's slogan in 1981, "Allaghi" (Change), was left
deliberately vague to appeal to the widest possible audience. Although it was
a clear reference to popular sentiment for a change from the last half-century
of right-wing rule, there was no clear definition of what it would entail. The
party, which characterized itself as a radical socialist organization
dedicated to building a socialism different from both the communist and the
social democratic models, was greatly helped by the recent rise of moderate
socialist governments in Western Europe, especially in France only five months
before, which helped to allay fears and make socialism a respectable political
program. Papandreou continued to call for withdrawal from NATO and the EEC and
for the removal of American bases from Greece, but the other aspects of his
platform-the socialization of the means of production (as distinguished from
nationalization), selfmanagement for workers, administrative decentralization,
creation of a welfare state, and democratization of the state apparatus-were
more symbols of a general orientation than concrete policy proposals. To a
large extent, therefore, PASOK's massive popular vote in 1981 might be
attributable to a vote against the past rather than a vote for a vaguely
defined Greek socialism.

     PASOK represented an innovation in Greek politics, both in its
ideological orientation and in its organizational structure, and the formula
clearly worked. By 1977 the party claimed a membership of 27,000, which grew
to more than 60,000 by 1980. It was a broad coalition of classes, including,
in Papandreou's words, "farmers, workers, employees, craftsmen and artisans,
the youth and all the people who are subject to odious exploitation by modern
monopoly capital, local as well as foreign." Like Venizelos 70 years before,
Papandreou brought with him a generation of "new men" to reinvigorate the
political system. PASOK was an attempt to create a party on the European
social democratic model, rejecting the traditions of personalism and
clientelism, but there were many signs that Papandreou's personal control of
the party undermined many of the procedural innovations (see Political
Parties, ch. 4).

                                  * * *

     The literature in English on modern Greece is relatively limited,
concentrating primarily on political history. The best general histories
available are D. George Kousoulas' Modern Greece: Profile of a Nation; Richard
Clogg's A Short History of Modern Greece; John Campbell and Philip Sherrard's
Modern Greece; and David Holden's Greece Without Columns. The last two,
although dated, are excellent introductions to the cultural bases of modern
Greece. The Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora publishes articles of
consistently high quality on a wide range of historical issues.

     Until recently, social and economic history were largely neglected.
George T. Mavrogordatos' Stillborn Republic: Social Coalitions and Party
Strategies in Greece, 1922-1936 is an excellent study of the social bases of
political alignments during a critical period in the twentieth century. Nicos
P. Mouzelis, especially in his Modern Greece: Facets of Underdevelopment, and
William H. McNeill's The Metamorphosis of Greece since World War II give a
broader historical perspective to social and economic development.

     The Civil War is perhaps the most studied period in modern Greek history,
but the ideological split that developed in Greece also affects the
scholarship on events since World War II. R.V. Burks gives a useful overview
of the contending schools of thought on the Civil War in his book review,
"Hellenic Time of Troubles." The books mentioned in that review, especially
Greece in the 1940s: A Nation in Crisis, edited by John O. Iatrides, give a
full range of interpretations of the events. Nicholas Gage's Eleni gives a
more personal and dramatic picture of how the wars affected individuals.

     Richard Clogg George Yannopoulos' Greece under Military Rule, covering
the junta up to 1975, and Clogg's Greece in the 1980s offer a broad overview
of recent history. Greece at the Polls: The National Elections of 1974 and
1977, edited by Howard R. Penniman, provides a good background to the 1981
election by analyzing developments in the political parties in the 1970s. (For
further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)