Democracy Under Siege

The new Greek government last week solemnly decreed that, under threat of punishment, Greek youngsters must henceforth give up their seats on buses to clergymen, pregnant women and invalids. Of such stuff, apparently, is the new Greece to be built. Ruling by dictatorial decree, the junta of army officers, who three weeks ago seized control in a swift coup, pressed ahead with their plan to reshape and purify Greek life and politics.

So far, the purification process has been mainly one of arrests and repressions. In one indiscriminate slash, the junta outlawed no less than 279 Greek trade unions and social and political clubs, of which only a handful had actual far-left connections. It disbanded the youth organizations of all Greek political parties. The new government also banned 52 regional leagues of municipal officials throughout Greece and warned those that were left to stay out of politics. It dismissed as unreliable twelve mayors in cities and towns across the country. In fact, mayors as such may be going out of business anyway: the junta also abolished the constitutional clause guaranteeing local elections and declared that local officials from now on will be appointed by Athens.

Hiqh Treason. The junta arrested a handful of youths in Piraeus for scribbling antigovernment slogans on walls and sentenced six persons in Larissa to jail terms of 13 months to five years for speaking unfavorably of Greece's new masters. It scheduled for this week the trial of one of its star prisoners, Leftist Andreas Papandreou, 48, who is accused of conspiring to commit high treason as the alleged leader of the Aspida plot. There was also an indication that Andreas' father, former Premier George Papandreou, might be brought to trial for treason. An approved rightist daily in Athens last week carried a story linking George to the plot.

The repressive tenor of the regime ran counter to the wishes of King Constantine, in whose name the officers had seized power (see box). After initially opposing the coup, the King decided to cooperate in an effort to steer the regime toward parliamentary rule, but his hopes hardly seemed justified. Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos, 54, the new Interior Minister and a member of the triumvirate that really rules the country, mused to foreign newsmen that in the new Greece there would be a strong executive branch and perhaps no need for a Parliament at all. "We believe Parliament will be the Greek people," he said.

Editor's Protest. For the moment, the King and his subjects were stuck with the junta. When an earthquake leveled villages in the Pindus Mountains, some 150 miles north of Athens, King Constantine flew there to comfort the 16,000 homeless people--accompanied by General Pattakos. The trip buttressed the impression the junta wishes to convey: that the King is on their side. Actually, many Greeks, including the King, feel that the junta as it now exists is not likely to endure, and that one strong man will eventually emerge as dictator. It is with that man that the King must ultimately deal if he ever hopes to steer the country back to normality--and the dealing may be tough indeed.

So far, the only serious public protest against the coup in all of Greece came from a woman: Mrs. Helen Vlachos, the publisher of two Athens dailies and a newsmagazine, who is not only one of the country's most successful newspaper owners but also a widely read political columnist (TIME, May 20, 1966). Rather than submit to the junta's ironhanded censorship and complete news management, Mrs. Vlachos defiantly closed her publishing company and furloughed her 285 employees. "They can't publish my newspapers," she said of the junta, "just as I can't drive their tanks."

Abroad, protests against the junta were becoming more pronounced. Crowds demonstrated outside Greek embassies in foreign capitals, and many governments expressed open concern about the course of the coup. In a none-too-subtle squeeze play, Economics Minister Nicholas Makarezos made a plea for more U.S. aid--which would also give the regime the prestige it badly needs. "If the United States wants Greece to stay outside the Iron Curtain," he said, "it will have to give aid." But the U.S. was unlikely to resume any form of assistance to Greece until the colonels showed at least an inclination to return the country to normal parliamentary procedures.

For Greece, an even more immediate problem was tourism. Greece counts on earning $180 million this year from foreign visitors, but the coup frightened them away by the thousands. Bookings at Greek hotels have fallen 20% to 40% for May and June, and there has been a sharp decline in the number of charter flights from the U.S. and Scandinavia, two main sources of Greece-bound tourists.

At week's end, in an effort to dramatize the regime's stability and peaceful nature, the ruling colonels withdrew the remaining tanks from the Parliament building in Athens. But most Greeks could see that democracy in Greece was more besieged than ever.

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