GREECE - ANSWERING TO HISTORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100470019-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 1, 2004
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: September 1, 1975
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

STAT
Approved For Release 2005/01/11 : CIA-RDP88-01314R01
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Airrls'Nering'ro History
Throughout his 21-day trial for high
treason and insurrection; former Dicta-
i3 r George Papadopoulos acted as if he
ti i considered himself the most paw-
e.a1 man in Greece. Slavishly deferen-
tial. Papadopoulos' 19 co-defendants in
the trial at K.orydallos Prison on the out-
skirts of Athens referred to him as "Mr.
President." When talking to reporters,
,,ac sCu:.at, jaunty Papadopoulos assured
them that he would not be in jail for
long. Disdainfully refusing to enter a
plea in his defense, he crowed, "I shall
answer only to history and the Greek
reopie." To which Court President Ioan-
ris Deyannis replied, his small sharp
features pinched in anger, "Do you thin:c
history is absent from this courtroom?"
Papadopoulos shrugged off the ques-
tion. Less easily shrugged off was the
verdict. At week's end Papadopoulos
was sentenced to death before a firing
squad, along with Nicholas Makarezos
and Stvlianos Patta.kos, his chief aides in
the 1967 coup. Of the 17 other defen-
dants, eight drew life imprisonment, in-
cluding Dinutrios Ioannides, the tough
former military police chief; seven re-
ceived prison terms ranging from five to
20 years; and two were acquitted. When.
he heard the word thanaton-Greek for
death Papadopoulos' fixed smile sud-
denly disappeared. There is a possibility,
however, that the government might
commute the three death sentences.
Only a few miles from Korydallos,
the men alleged. to have been5the grand
inquisitors of the Papadopoulos regime
also faced trial. Before a military tribu-
nal, 31 officers and men of ESA, the no-
torious Greek military police, faced
charges of torture. Witness after witness
testified that within a week of Paoado-
poulos' April 21, 1967, coup more than
8,000 had been arrested. Of these, 6,188
were banished into exile. Another 3,500
were subsequently sent to ESA torture
centers. One prosecution witness, former
Colonel Spyridon Moustaklis, 49, was
unable to answer questions because
brain damage caused by beatings had
left him mute and semiparalyzecl. Com-
municating by groans and gestures, glar-
in;; at the defendants, Moustakclis clum-
sily tore his shirt open to reveal the scars
that marked his body. Said his wife: "We
have a little girl who has never heard her
father's voice." Verdicts on the 31 ac-
cused,-which could lead to maximum
sentences of 25 years, are. due next
month.
Day of the Coup. One. question left
unanswered by both trials was whether
the American CIA actively supported the
seven-year Papadopoulos regime, as is
widely believed in Greece. Deyannis for-
bade almost all discussion of the ques-
tion by insisting that the court was in-
terested solely in finding out what
happened on the day of the coup. The
most important testier-pony touching on
the CIA to be admitted daring the trial
came from Andreas Papandreou, the
leader of the Panhellenic Socialist
Movement and a volubly anti-American
leftist. According to Papandreou, the
Greek . intelligence service (KYP) was
heavily financed and directed by its U.S.
counterpart. "I can assure you," he tes-
tified, "that these men [the defendants]
worked in direct cooperation and cor-
respondence with the Americans."
The Incontinent Press
As a reporter, I found your article
on the effects of press revelations on the
efficiency of the Central Intelligence
Agency [Aug. 4.] disturbing.
The article was particularly mean-
ingful to me because f had just finished
collaborating on a story exposing the ex-
istence of a CIA base in this area-a story
about which, I should add, 1. felt con-
siderable trepidation.
I wrote the story mainly because my
fellow reporters expected it of me and
also because I would have gotten into
considerable trouble with my editor if I
had not. After reading your article. I
think I would be happier about myself
had the story I did never appeared, and
I think there are occasions when we of
the media should ask ourselves wheth
er. in our ea.e-,?ness to write a big story,
%%e are not tampering with something
far more important.
Our subservience to the "scoop"
mentality has caused us to lose. our sense
Approved For Release 2005/01/11: CIA-RDP88-01314R00( 4047 k0i1,9.-*'e need to get it back.
-John W. Floars
The Daily.Advance