THE SECRET WAR IN GREECE
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Under Benito Mussolini's fascist directives Italian troops attacked Greece during the Second World War in 1940, but were defeated by the massive resistance of the Greek population. Hitler, who had observed the failure of Mussolini with disapproval, in 1941 sent his German troops which conquered the country and placed it under the control of the Axis Powers. The Greeks once again organised a massive resistance operation and throughout the war the German army faced great difficulties with keeping the country under control. As in Italy and France, in Greece the strongest resistance organisation to the fascist occupation was dominated by Communists. ELAS, the People's Liberation Army, had been founded on the initiative of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) some months after the German invasion. Its partisans cut across the entire left of the political spectrum and many women, priests and even some archbishops fought in its ranks. EAM, the political wing of the People's Liberation Army, was also dominated by the Greek Communists. Out of a population of seven million up to two million Greeks were members of the EAM party, while 50,000 were actively fighting in the ranks of ELAS army. |
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ELAS was the thorn in the flesh of the Nazis who essentially wrestled the country back from the German occupiers. In its operations ELAS was supported by the British secret army SOE whose officers advised ELAS on the ground and supplied it with weapons and munitions. Many personal friendships developed between the Greek ELAS resistance fighters and the British SOE liaison officers. Yet the brothers in arms were abruptly separated when Prime Minister Winston Churchill in March 1943 decided to halt all support for ELAS as he feared that Greece after the defeat of the Axis Powers could come under Communist control. Churchill secretly sent his foreign minister Anthony Eden to Stalin in October 1943 to carve up the Balkans. The deal, cemented at Yalta, gave Britain and the United States a free hand in Greece, while Bulgaria and Rumania were to fall under the influence of the Soviet Union. |
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In order to minimise the power of the Greek Communists and Socialists, London planned to reinstall the Greek conservative king together with a right-wing government after the war. The crucial British Foreign Office directive of March 20, 1943 which signalled the turn around emphasised that 'SOE should always |
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furthermore impress on such groups as may be anti-monarchical the fact that the 1 King and Government enjoy the fullest support of His Majesty's Government.' |
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The King was less than popular among many Greeks after having cooperated with the fascist dictator Metaxas. Inspired by Mussolini and Hitler, Metaxas had introduced the fascist salute, the rigid outstretched right arm, as well as a brutal secret police during his rule in the late 1930s. Yet London pursued the conservative policy and in October 1943 the British Foreign Office even contemplated 'a downright policy of attacking and weakening EAM by every means in our power', an approach which was postponed however for it was 'likely to sacrifice all chance of military advantage and to defeat its own ends by strengthening 2 EAM politically'. |
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The turn around of the British came as a shock to ELAS and its difficulties increased when former Nazi collaborators and right-wing special units, such as the fascist X Bands of Cypriot soldier George Grivas, with British support started to hunt and kill ELAS resistance fighters. Churchill, who observed the battle from a distance, noticed however that the X Bands, for complete lack of popular support, never numbered more than 600 Greeks and hence ELAS remained the strongest guerrilla on the territory. It was in this context that in late 1944 he decided that something more had to be done in order to prevent the Greek Communists from reaching positions of power. Churchill therefore gave orders that a new Greek right-wing secret army had to be set up whereupon, as journalist Peter Murtagh relates, a 'new Greek army unit was established, which came to be known variously as the Greek Mountain Brigade, the Hellenic Raiding Force, or LOK, its Greek acronym (Lochos Oreinon Katadromon)'. As it was aimed against the Communists and the Socialists the unit excluded 'almost all men with views ranging from moderate conservative to left wing. Under British military supervision and at 3 Churchill's express orders, the unit was filled with royalists and anti-republicans.' |
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Field Marshall Alexander Papagos was made the first commander of the Hellenic Raiding Force and with British support he recruited right-wingers into 4 occupiers and the British-sponsored Hellenic Raiding Force, Churchill feared a public relations disaster should it be revealed to the British public that London was secretly supporting the fascists against the Communists in Greece. In August 1944 he therefore instructed the BBC to eliminate 'any credit of any kind' to 5 secured victory over the German occupiers and Hitler was forced to withdraw his soldiers also from Greece. Churchill immediately demanded that the resistance should disarm, an order which ELAS was willing to obey if it was equally applied to their only remaining enemy on the field, the British-sponsored Hellenic Raiding Force. |
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As Great Britain refused to disarm the secret right-wing army, a large democratic demonstration organised by EAM in Athens against British interference in the post-war government of Greece took place on December 3, 1944, a mere six |
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weeks after the German occupation forces had been pushed out of the country.
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The organisers of the demonstration had made it clear that they wanted to combat the British with peaceful means, announcing the demonstration as the prelude to a general strike. Shortly after 11 o'clock in the morning of that day a group of Greek protesters, numbering between 200 and 600, walked Into Syntagma Square in Athens, the main square in front of the Greek parliament. This small group, among which were women and children in a festive mood, was part of a much larger group of 60,000, delayed by police blocks. As the small group ambled into the square, a line of armed men, a motley collection of police and freelance gunmen, presumably including members of the Hellenic Raiding Force, met them. British troops and police with machine guns were positioned on the rooftops. The atmosphere was tense. |
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Suddenly, and without warning, the peaceful demonstration was turned into a massacre as the command was given: 'Shoot the bastards'. A hail of bullets came down on the unarmed protesters who scattered in all directions. Allegedly the massacring went on for almost an hour. It left 25 protesters dead, including a six-year-old boy, and 148 wounded. Not long after the killings the main group of protesters arrived. In a display of remarkable restraint, the 60,000 held an entirely peaceful emotional and solemn rally among the corpses of their fellow protesters. Banners dipped in the blood of the slain demanded that the British stay out of Greek affairs. Many carried American and Greek flags. Some the red flag of Socialism. But only very few the Union Jack of Great Britain. In London, Churchill faced an angry House of Commons which demanded an explanation for the barbarity. While admitting that it had been a 'shocking thing', Churchill stressed that it was equally stupid to bring large numbers of unarmed children to a demonstration, while the city was full of armed men. The role of the secret 6 right-wing army in the Syntagma massacre was not investigated. |
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After this demonstration of force the British reinstalled the king, and ELAS handed over its arms to the British in return for the promised national democratic elections that were held in March 1946. As the Greek Communist Party and the centre left unwisely decided to boycott the polls due to the British occupation of the country, the right emerged victorious from the elections. A succession of weak British puppet governments with conservative and right-wing leanings followed. Convinced that Greece would fall under the control of brutal Soviet dictator Stalin if the Greek left should come to power, the government continued to arrest EAM members, many of whom were tortured on notorious island prison camps. |
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In 1945 most parts of the world celebrated the end of the Second World War and, in order to prevent such a tragedy from reoccurring, established the United Nations Organisation. Yet Greece remained a battlefield and already one year after the Second World War the Cold War started. As the frustration of the Greek left grew a fraction rearmed and took to the hills and in the fall of 1946 started a civil war against the British and the local right. Britain, exhausted by World War, could no longer control the country and in early 1947 asked the United States for support. CIA expert William Blum relates that 'Washington officials well knew |
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that then new client government was so venal and so abusive of human rights that
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7 Yugoslavia supported the Greek left with arms and the country seemed on the |
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brink of turning red, President Truman with his famous 'Truman Doctrine' in |
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By some ideological alchemy Truman labelled the corrupt right-wing regime in Athens as 'democratic' and dismissed its opponents on the left as 'terrorists', as US forces with heavy military equipment landed in Greece. The left-wing partisan force of some 20,000 men and women, scattered in the Greek mountains, was outnumbered six to one as the US special units linked up with the Hellenic Raiding Force and other units of the Greek right. When Stalin realised that the civil war in Greece could lead to a superpower confrontation, Yugoslavia was excluded from the Soviet Bloc in 1948 where upon the arms supply for the Greek partisans ebbed away. Their situation became desperate as the Hellenic Raiding Force operating under US command was excellently equipped and gained strength. The United States secretly started 'Operation Torch' and used chemical warfare to defeat the Greek partisans by dropping thousands of gallons of Napalm on Greece. In late 1948 the Greek resistance, which on their native soil had defeated both the German Nazis and the British troops, collapsed. 'The end of the civil 8 war meant total victory for the Greek Right and its patron, the United States.' |
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The secret anti-Communist army Hellenic Raiding Force was not disbanded but remained operational to control the Greek opposition. Greece joined NATO in 1952 and by that time 'had been moulded into a supremely reliable ally-client of the United States. It was staunchly anti-Communist and well integrated into 9 run, train and equip the Hellenic Raiding Force under Field Marshall Alexan- der Papagos. The secret CIA anti-Communist army was a most valuable asset to influence the political situation in the country. The clandestine cooperation between the US secret service, the Greek military and the Greek government was repeatedly confirmed in secret documents, the existence of which the Greek public learned with some surprise during the Gladio discoveries in 1990. They included a document on the Greek secret army dated March 25, 1955 signed by US General Trascott for the CIA, Konstantin Dovas, Chief of Staff of the Greek 10 11 involved reconfirmed the agreement on the Greek secret army on May 3, 1960. |
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According to Murtagh the running of the Hellenic Raiding Force was a major project of the CIA in Greece. 'In the mid 1950s, the CIA helped supply and equip the Force, and consciously re-modelled it on existing elite units in the US army and Britain-America's Delta Force and Britain's Special Air Service, the SAS. |
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Under CIA direction, Raiding Force members were issued with green berets, long
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before the US army's own Green Berets unit came into being.' As was the case in all Western European countries, contact with British and American Special Forces remained cordial. Greek officers took much pride in having been selected for the special unit after receiving special training abroad. Murtagh correctly relates that the Greek secret army through the CIA was also linked to NATO and the stay-behind command centre ACC in Brussels. The Raiding Force doubled as the Greek arm of the clandestine pan-European guerrilla network set up in the 1950s by NATO and the CIA which was controlled from NATO headquarters in Brussels by the Allied Coordination Committee.' Next to its domestic control tasks the Hellenic Raiding Force was trained for the classical stay-behind task. "The idea behind the network was that it would operate as a "stay-behind" force after a Soviet invasion of Europe. It would co-ordinate guerrilla activities between Soviet occupied countries and liaise with governments in exile. Those involved would be members of the conquered nations' secret police and intelli- gence services, plus civilian volunteers. The Greek branch of the network was 12 already been created in 1944 by the British, it arguably remains the oldest of the secret stay-behind armies active in Europe during the Cold War. |
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The existence of the secret army had been revealed by former CIA agent Philip Agee already in 1987 in his book 'Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe', for which he was heavily criticized by the CIA and the Pentagon. Agee, who had been a CIA operative in Latin America in the 1950s, left the agency on moral grounds in 1969 and thereafter publicly criticised the terrorist operations and the human rights violations of the CIA in numerous countries by revealing both operations and names of active CIA agents. Years before the secret Gladio armies were discovered in Italy, Agee revealed that 'paramilitary groups, directed by CIA officers, operated in the Sixties throughout Europe'. He stressed that 'perhaps no activity of the 13 CIA could be as clearly linked to the possibility of internal subversion'. |
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As far as Greece was concerned the CIA according to Agee had played a decisive role. 'The Greek-American CIA officer recruited several groups of Greek citizens for what the CIA called, "a nucleus for rallying a citizen army against the threat of a leftist coup." Each of the several groups was trained and equipped to act as an autonomous guerrilla unit, capable of mobilising and carrying on guerrilla warfare with minimal or no outside direction.' Control of the secret army rested with the CIA and the Greek officers whom the American secret service trusted. 'The members of each such group were trained by the CIA in military procedures. As far as can be determined, most of the paramilitary groups trained in two camps: one near Volos, and the second on Mount Olympos. After the initial training sessions, these groups would drill in isolated areas in Pindos and the mountains near Fior- ina.' As with all secret armies in Western Europe run by the CIA, the units were equipped with light weapons hidden in arms caches. "These guerrilla groups were armed with automatic weapons, as well as small mountain mortars. The weapons were stored in several places. Most of the military supplies were cached in the |
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ground and in caves. Each member of these paramilitrary groups knew where such
cached weaponry was hidden, in order to be able to mobilise himself to a desig-
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nated spot, without orders.'
Due to the involvement of numerous persons the need-to-know had to be
extended to several groups which in turn made it extremely difficult to keep the army and its links to the CIA top secret. 'Constant problems developed with keeping the project secret. One CIA officer described it as "a nightmare"', Agee related and highlighted: "The Paramilitary Group, as far as can be determined, was never disbanded. In the eyes of senior CIA officials, the groups under the direction of the paramilitary branch are seen as long term "insurance" for the interests of the United States in Greece, to be used to assist or to direct the possible overthrow of an "unsympathetic" Greek government. "Unsympa-
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thetic" of course to American manipulation.' The CIA invested millions into
the secret Greek army and built an entire complex of huts and training centres near Mount Olympus in east-central Greece where the members of the Hellenic Raiding Force were tutored by CIA instructors in a varieties of skills including
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skiing, parachute training and scuba diving. About 800 secret arms caches
were erected all over the country while the secret army allegedly counted as many
as 1,500 officers, which were in need to recruit immediately another 2,000, to give
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the Hellenic Raiding Force a nucleus strength of 3,500 elite soldiers.
The Greek-American CIA officer who played a central role in setting up and running the secret Greek army mentioned by Agee was Thomas Karamessines. Like many of his colleagues in the CIA, Karamessines during the Second World War had served in the US secret service Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Due to his strong anti-Communist convictions and Greek roots he was transferred to the US Embassy in Greece in January 1946 under the cover of military attache. During the civil war he established contacts with the British and Greek security officials and the members of the Hellenic Raiding Force. After the CIA was created in 1947 to replace the OSS, Karamessines set up the CIA headquarters in Greece located in Athens on the fifth floor of the pale monolith Tamion Building just off Syntagma Square. Within a few years the CIA station numbered more than 100 full-time agents, most of whom were Greek-Americans as Karamessines himself. And Athens became the hub of all CIA activity in the Balkans and the Middle East, as far as Iran.
Directly involved with secret warfare and the anti-Communist CIA armies Karamessines in 1958 was transferred to Rome where as CIA chief of station he controlled the Italian Gladio and the battle against the Italian Communists. In 1962 Karamessines was forced to leave Rome amidst rumours that he had been involved in the non-clarified death of Italian industrialist and ENI boss Enrico Mattei. Back in the United States secret, warrior Karamessines became chief of CIA global covert actions when he was promoted to Deputy Director of Plans. Allegedly secret warrior Karamessines had carried the battle also to the United States and after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 was accused to have covered up traces and destroyed sensitive documents.
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Karamessines saw to it that the CIA not only financed but also controlled the
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Greek military secret service KYP , despite the fact that the l a t t e r repeatedly engaged in torture. 'With coinciding aims and purposes, and of course our money, |
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it was easy to work with them', a former CIA agent stationed in Greece later recalled. 'KYP were good at noodling out Greek Communists and those who 18 and Russian radio traffic, and sent the tapes to the United States in order to be decoded by the NSA. Monitoring the Greek opposition KYP together with the CIA amassed 15 tons of information on 16-and-a-half million individual files on Greeks regarded as a threat to the state. When paper storage started to become a serious problem the CIA provided KYP with a computer system. In what in retrospect amounts almost to an irony of history the first democracy of the modern age, namely the United States, had hence provided the first democracy of Ancient history, namely Greece, with the first computers in order to control the population. The KYP chief was greatly exited over the new machine and invited the press to inspect it. Standing next to the rather large and heavy machine he boasted that 'You in Greece may sleep peacefully because this marvellous accomplishment of American science never sleeps', whereupon in order to demonstrate the quality of the system he pressed an 'enemy of the country' button which to the embarrassment of the KYP produced a file on one of the journalists 19 present at the meeting. |
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As the CIA together with the local oligarchy through the Hellenic Raiding Force and the KYP controlled the Greek left and the Communists the only danger to the balance of power rested with democratic elections. Laughlin Campbell, CIA station chief from 1959 to 1962, was greatly worried that in the national elections of October 1961 the left was going to secure a victory and therefore a large number of people were either terrorised or paid in cash to vote according to KYP directives. In some villages the CIA and the army's candidates polled more votes than there were people eligible to vote. The CIA was successful and in the end the left-leaning Centre Union got only a little over a third of the vote and a 100 seats in parliament. Its leader, George Papandreou, protested at the election fraud, later had it investigated by an independent commission which confirmed the claim, and announced a relent- less struggle against the government. |
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With strong popular support Papandreou had the courage to pick a fight with the CIA and the KYP and in 1963 forced US-supported Greek Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis to resign. Tensions heightened as in the following elections in November 1963 the Centre Union secured 42 per cent of the popular vote and 138 of the 300 seats in parliament. Papandreou, who headed the single largest party, was elected Prime Minister in February 1964. For the first time since the occupation of Greece by Hitler the Greek right faced the prospect of having to come to terms with a serious loss of political power. Papandreou was guaranteed four years in government, a development which 'sent shock waves through the right-wing establishment. Many, including several key advisers, believed it signalled that the |
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country was well on the road to a Communist take-over. That was something they
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were determined to stop.' Prime Minister George Papandreou had to be removed.
Jack Maury, who had replaced CIA Chief of station Campbell in Athens, was
given the order to remove Papandreou. Adopting an arrogantly visible profile by wearing loud suits and large rings and driving a large American car — 'bigger than the ambassador's', as he was fond of pointing out - the CIA chief of station demonstrated his power publicly. Secretly he conspired with King Constantine, royalists and right-wing officers of the Greek military and secret service and in
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July 1965 manoeuvred George Papandreou out of office by royal prerogative. Several short-lived governments followed each other after the silent coup while the secret army, advised by KYP officer Konstantin Plevris, engaged in a clan- destine battle to manipulate the political climate. Several bombs exploded in the country. In 1965, the Gorgopotamos bridge was blown to pieces by a bomb, just as the political left and right joined to commemorate their resistance to the Nazi occupation and, in particular, to commemorate their success in sopping the Germans from blowing up the bridge during the occupation. The massacre left five dead and almost 100 wounded, many gravely. 'Well, we were officially trained terrorists',
an officer involved in the secret stay-behind operations declared later, highlighting
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that they had enjoyed powerful support.
The support came from the administration of Lyndon Johnson in Washington who already in the context of the war in Cyprus had made it clear to the Greek government who was in charge. In summer 1964 President Johnson summoned Greek ambassador Alexander Matsas to the White House and told him that the problems in Cyprus had to be solved by dividing the island into a Greek and a Turkish part. When Matsas refused the plan, Johnson thundered: 'Then listen to me, Mr. Ambassador, Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If those two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good.' The government of Greece, as Johnson insisted, had to follow the orders of the White House. 'We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament and constitution,
23 he, his parliament and his constitution may not last very long.'
When Matsas in consternation uttered 'I must protest your manner', Johnson continued shouting 'Don't forget to tell old Papa - what's his name - what I told you. Mind you tell him, you hear', whereupon Matsas cabled the conversation to Prime Minister George Papandreou. As the US secret service NSA picked up the message the phone of Matsas rang. The President was on the line: 'Are you trying to get yourself into my bad books, Mr. Ambassador? Do you want me to get
really angry with you? That was a private conversation me and you had. You had
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no call putting in all them words I used on you. Watch your step.' line went dead.
Click. The
Andreas, the son of George Papandreou, witnessed the manipulations and the secret war in his country with disgust. After having flirted with a Trotskyist group as a student, Andreas had left Greece for America in the 1930s to escape
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the repression of the Metaxas dictatorship. He became a US citizen, embarked on
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a flourishing career as an economist and academic, heading the department of economics at the University of California at Berkley. During the Second World War he served in the US Navy and after the war was contacted by the CIA to work in the Mediterranean policy group. When he started to understand the role of the United States in Greece he cut his bonds with the CIA and in the late 1950s returned to Greece to become one of the most prominent and most vitriolic dema- gogic critics of the United States. In a style reminiscent of Castro, the younger Papandreou in inflammatory speeches attacked the United States' interference in Greek affairs, NATO, the corruption of the king, the Greek conservative parties and the Greek establishment in general. |
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The Pentagon and the CIA were shocked to see that yet another Papandreou challenged their power in Greece. And Murtagh relates that 'it would be difficult to understate the degree to which the former Prime Minister's son was loathed by 25 duties and discovered that the KYP routinely bugged ministerial conversations and turned the data over to the CIA. He furiously dismissed two top KYP officers and attempted to replace them with more reliable officers whom he ordered to stop all cooperation with the CIA. Yet, as Papandreou recalled, the new KYP Director 'came back apologetically, to say he couldn't do it. All the equipment was American, controlled by the CIA or Greeks under CIA supervision. There was no kind of distinction between the two services. They duplicated functions in 26 a counterpart relationship. In effect, they were a single agency.' |
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As Papandreou challenged the KYP, Norbert Anshutz, US Deputy Chief of Mission of the US embassy, came to see him and advised him to rescind his orders to the KYP. Andreas Papandreou refused and ordered the US official to leave his office, whereupon Anshutz angrily warned that 'there would be conse- 27 quences'. The military coup d'etat came on the night of April 20/21, 1967, one month before the scheduled elections for which opinion polls, including those of the CIA, predicted an overwhelming victory of the left-leaning Centre Union of George and Andreas Papandreou. The secret army Hellenic Raiding Force started the coup which was based on the Prometheus plan, a NATO-designed scheme to be put into action in the event of a Communist insurgency. In the event of opposition, Prometheus was unequivocal: 'Smash, without hesitation, any probable enemy 28 Greek Defence Ministry which in admiration for the United States had been baptised Pentagon. They met little to no resistance and under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Costas Aslanides, a trained paratrooper, the building was secured. After the coup leaders controlled the Pentagon, phase two of the plan started and in the dark of night tanks with flashlights rolled into the capital and under the command of Brigadier General Sylianos Pattakos rounded up the parliament, the royal palace, the radio and the communication centres. Pattakos directed his column along the same route into the city taken by the Germans when they had conquered Athens in April 1941. Occasionally the tanks stopped, |
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the officers looked around for signs of opposition. But there was none Athens
was asleep.
Also 78-year-old George Papandreou was asleep that night in his modest,
whitewashed villa in Kastri, just outside the capital. The procedure, as in every military coup, was frightfully simple. Armed men knocked at his door, Papandreou was arrested and driven away in one of two military vehicles that had surrounded the house. At the same time eight men burst into the house of Andreas Papandreou, seven with fixed bayonets, one with a machine gun. A commotion followed, and Andreas escaped to the roof, but a soldier found his 14-year-old son, and, holding a gun to the boy's head, forced the younger Papandreou to give up. In the space of some five hours, over 10,000 people were arrested by military squads according to detailed files and planning, and were taken to 'reception centres'.
Colonel Yannis Ladas, the 47-year-old Director of the Greek military police, a year later in an interview took pride in the precision and speed with which the NATO plan had been implemented. 'Within twenty minutes every politician, every man and anarchist who was listed could be rounded up... it was a very
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simple, diabolic plan.' The Greek population waking up in the morning found
first of all that their phones were not working and soon thereafter that the military had taken over control. At 6 a.m. Colonel George Papadopoulos declared through the media that he had taken over power in order to secure democracy, freedom and happiness. Eleven articles of the constitution were suspended. People could now be arrested on the spot and without warrant, to be brought before military courts. Demonstrations and strikes were outlawed and bank deposits were frozen. The new ruler George Papadopoulos had operated as KYP's liaison officer with the CIA ever since 1952 and within the KYP was known to be the trusted man of CIA chief of station Maury. Yet not all officials of the United States agreed with the brutal procedure of the CIA. US Senator Lee Metcalf, days after the coup, criticised the administration of President Johnson sharply when on Capitol Hill he denounced the Greek junta as 'a military regime of collaborators and Nazi
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sympathisers... [who are] receiving American aid' .
Athens, Phillips Talbot, complained to Maury one week after the brutal change of
power that the US coup represented 'a rape of democracy'. Maury answered:
31 'How can you rape a whore?'
And the US ambassador in
Due to the direct involvement of the Hellenic Raiding Force the Greek military coup has been labelled 'a Gladio coup'. Only in one other country, namely in Turkey, the secret anti-Communist armies were equally involved in coup d'etats. In Italy the Gladio network carried out a 'silent coup' in June 1964 when CIA's trusted General De Lorenzo in operation 'Piano Solo' entered Rome with tanks, armoured personnel carriers, jeeps and grenade launchers while NATO forces staged a large military manoeuvre in the area which led the Socialists to silently abandon their ministerial posts. US historian Bernard Cook has rightly stressed that 'Plan Solo resembles the subsequent Prometheus Plan utilised by Colonel George Papadopoulos in 1967 to impose a military government on Greece. With its intent to destabilise Italy to prevent the advance of the Left, the
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plan was no more than "a carbon copy of Gladio".' And military expert Collin
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agrees that 'What De Lorenzo had in mind was a plan similar in its mechanical aspects to the one successfully executed a few years later by Colonel Papadopoulos 33 of Greece.' |
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The Greek junta consolidated its power through a regime of imprisonment and torture, the like of which had not been seen in Western Europe since the end of the Second World War. Most of those who had been arrested in the first hours after the coup were later moved to police and army cells. Communists, Socialists, artists, academics, journalists, students, politically active women, priests, including their friends and families, were tortured. Their toe and fingernails were torn out. Their feet were beaten with sticks, until the skin came off and the bones were broken. Sharp objects were shoved into vaginas. Filthy rags, often soaked in urine, and sometimes excrement, were pushed down their throats to throttle them, tubes were inserted into their anus and water driven in under very high pressure, 34 Inspector Basil Lambro, the chief of the secret police in Athens, was fond of stressing. 'Everybody who comes here talks. You're not spoiling our record.' The sadist torturer made it clear to his victims: 'We are the government, you are noth- ing. The government isn't alone. Behind the government are the Americans.' If in the mood Basil also offered his analysis of world politics: 'The whole world is in two parts, the Russians and the Americans. We are the Americans. Be grateful 35 we've only tortured you a little. In Russia, they'd kill you.' |
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The Italian right and their secret soldiers were impressed with how efficiently the Greeks together with the CIA had defeated the left. In April 1968 the Greek colonels invited some 50 Italian right-wingers including notorious Stefano Delle Chiaie to come over to Greece and look for themselves. Upon their return to Italy the secret soldiers escalated the violence and started to place bombs in public places which killed and maimed hundreds and for which they blamed the Italian Communists. The Greek junta was impressed with how efficiently their Italian friends were pushing the country towards a coup d'etat and on May 15, 1969 Papadopoulos sent a telegram to congratulate them: 'His excellence the Prime Minister notes that the efforts that have been undertaken for some time in Italy by 36 the national Greek government start to have some impact.' |
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The military dictatorship in the end imploded due to a near total lack of internal support, after the colonels had engaged in a foreign imperialistic adventure and in 1974 had sponsored a coup in Cyprus, seeking to replace the legitimate left-leaning government of Archbishop Makarios with a puppet regime and annex Cyprus. The Turkish troops in response to the coup invaded the island and waves of violence ensued, killing thousands, leaving the island divided into a Turkish northern and a Greek southern part. The colonels were arrested and dealt with in front of a court, with Papadopoulos being sentenced to death in 1975 for high treason, a verdict later changed into life imprisonment. In a popular vote the Greek monarchy was abolished, and a new constitution was passed. |
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Andreas Papandreou after his release from the prison cells of the junta and
years of exile spent in Canada and Sweden returned to Greece and re-entered
politics upon the fall of the dictatorship. He formed the Pan Hellenic Socialist
Movement (PASOK), won the elections of 1981 and as Prime Minister formed
the first Socialist government of Greek's post-war history. Greece in the same
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year became a full member of the European Union, but Papandreou kept his radi- cal style and repeatedly threatened to take Greece out of NATO. This he never did, but six years before his death Andreas Papandreou witnessed the exposure of the Gladio network in Italy and was the first former foreign official to confirm that such a secret army had also existed in Greece. With this the scandal crossed the Italian border and started to embarrass governments across the continent. On October 30, 1990 Andreas Papandreou testified to the Greek newspaper Ta Nea that it had been in 1984 when he as acting Prime Minister had discovered a secret NATO army in Greece very similar to the Italian Gladio which he had ordered to dissolve. Former Greek Defence Minister Nikos Kouris confirmed that the Greek secret army had been operative throughout the Cold War. 'Our clandestine structure started in 1955', Kouris claimed, 'with a contract between the chief of the Greek special services and the CIA. When I learned about the existence of this unacceptable pact... I informed Andreas Papandreou... and the order was 37 given, to dismantle Red Sheepskin.' |
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Passionate calls of the Socialist opposition for a parliamentary investigation of the secret army followed in late 1990 but were defeated by the acting conservative government and the conservative New Democracy Party. Defence Minister Ioannis Varvitsiotis in front of parliament was forced to confirm that the information pro- vided by Papandreou was correct and that the CIA and local commandos indeed had set up a secret network, an operation code-named Sheepskin, which had 38 allegedly been 'dismantled in 1988'. 39 investigation intensified Defence Minister Varvitsiotis urged that there was no need for a parliamentary investigation of the Greek secret army, for he himself was going to take care of the delicate affair in his Defence Department. Varvitsiotis trusted a General with the potentially explosive investigation who had served in NATO and as Greek military attache in Washington. Even before the report on the Greek stay-behind was finished, Varvitsiotis hence was able to assure his fel- 40 low ministers that 'The government must not fear anything.' Yet Greek Public Order Minister, Yannis |
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THE SECRET WAR IN TURKEY
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