A Sop to the Critics

After three years of iron-fisted rule, Greece's military junta suddenly seemed to be relaxing its grip. A total of 332 political prisoners were unexpectedly released from jail en masse. Twenty-seven men and women convicted of participating in a bomb plot that rocked Athens last summer were given lighter-than-expected sentences. A hand-picked senate of 50 men from various income levels and occupations was being formed to advise Premier George Papadopoulos and his colleagues.

Last week the colonels who run the government authorized the most surprising relaxation yet. They released Mikis Theodorakis, 44, one of the regime's leading political enemies, because he is suffering from tuberculosis. During 20 months of detention, Theodorakis, a Communist, wrote the score for the current award-winning movie Z* and had it smuggled out of Greece. He also wrote the musical score for Zorba the Greek. Theodorakis flew off in a jet chartered by French Publisher-Politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. At Paris' Le Bourget Airport, he was greeted by 100 Greek opponents of the Athens government, including Actress Melina Mercouri.

Persistent Pressure. Servan-Schreiber's precise role in obtaining Theodorakis' release was unclear. The pro-Gaullist Le Figaro, no friend of the man who founded the anti-Gaullist magazine L'Express and is secretary-general of France's rejuvenated Radical Party, called it A PUBLICITY STUNT in headlines. Cynics pointed out that the Greek junta had already quietly informed the Council of Europe that it was willing to release Theodorakis.

The reasons behind the junta's unwonted burst of benevolence were obvious. This week marks the third anniversary of the coup that overthrew the short-lived government of Premier Panayotis Kanellopoulos. More important, the Council of Europe was about to convene in Strasbourg to consider censuring the regime. Last December, Greece resigned from the council to avoid expulsion on charges of violating the European Code on Human Rights. Last week all but two of the council's members voted to condemn the junta on ten specific counts of torturing political prisoners.

Cyprus abstained because of its close ties with the regime. France loftily insisted that a vote of censure amounted to interference in the internal affairs of another state; a more convincing reason for its abstention may be that Paris is dickering with Athens for the sale of gunboats and Mirage jets.

Plainly, the council's report on the junta's repressiveness and persistent diplomatic as well as moral pressure from Europe (West Germany and Scandinavia in particular) has had some effect on the colonels. Some--but not much. The recent relaxation, TIME Correspondent John Shaw reported from Athens, amounts to little more than a sop to the regime's critics. Nearly 2,000 political prisoners are under arrest; last week about 40 of them were suddenly exiled to distant Aegean islands as security risks. Parliament remains shuttered, and parts of the constitution are still suspended. Newspapers are required to censor themselves, and their efforts do not always satisfy the colonels. Last month a military tribunal sentenced the editor and four staff members of the 57-year-old Athens daily Ethnos to prison for as long as five years for publishing "antinational propaganda."

Target Date 1984. Sensitive if not responsive to criticism, the colonels reply that they have made progress in other areas--most notably, the economy. Athens' streets are sweet with the smell of orange blossoms and alive with tourists. More than a million visitors--40% of them American--are expected this year, and they will spend $200 million. The only conspicuous soldiers in Athens are evzones in white skirts, red hats and pompon shoes. They guard the royal palace as though King Constantine were still there rather than in Rome, where he fled after seeking to stage a countercoup in December 1967.

Bouzouki restaurants are crowded, although the puritanical military has banned the popular custom of smashing dishes on the floor to demonstrate pleasure. French restaurants are heavily patronized, and so are shops carrying Ungaro dresses, Cardin shoes and Pucci sportswear. Among their best customers are the wives of the nation's 10,000 army officers, who need only flash ID cards to receive a 20% discount.

The military may be skimming the cream from the modest boom, but others are benefiting too. The minimum wage for laborers has risen 15% in three years. Income taxes have been cut as much as 13%, but tax revenues are up 60% because of stricter collections. Independent sources expect the economic growth rate to reach 8% this year, higher than it was when the colonels took over. Greece, an associate member of the European Common Market, is pushing for full membership; 1984, ironically, is the target year. A $350 million deficit in the Greek trade balance should be trimmed by such new industrial projects as oil refineries, an aluminum plant and expanded shipyards that are to be built by golden Greeks like Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos.

Nothing Untoward. On balance, though, the extra drachmas that jangle in the pockets of many Greeks are small compensation for the loss of liberty. Many Europeans, convinced that the colonels would retreat from dictatorship if more pressure were applied, are furious with the U.S. for its policy of pragmatic neutrality. The junta is receiving sizable U.S. military aid. This year the total will come to about $50 million, twice the amount Congress authorized.

Washington's explanation is that lecturing or pressuring the colonels would only make them more intransigent. The real U.S. fear is that Greece may be irretrievably lost as the eastern anchor of NATO unless the situation is handled with care--though it is hard to imagine the rigidly anti-Communist members of the junta getting too cozy with Moscow. Moreover, with Turkey demonstrating increasing anti-Americanism, Libya reclaiming major airbases from Western control, and Soviet naval strength growing in the Mediterranean, Greece figures even more significantly in U.S. planning. The country now serves as a resupply and liberty spot for Sixth Fleet ships, a refueling stop for U.S. planes en route to Southeast Asia, and a prime location for communication nets and missile sites on Crete.

Since the Administration regards its strategic requirements as paramount, a certain degree of cooperation with the autocracy is necessary. Even so, when U.S. Ambassador Henry Tasca arrived in Athens three months ago, he had orders at least to nudge the colonels toward democracy. So far, they do not seem to have felt the American poke very strongly.

*Based on the 1963 death of Greek Deputy Gregory Lambrakis in Salonika, it is a fierce indictment of the present rulers.

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