Media 68

For the Greek colonel Giorgio Papadopoulos, August of 1968 is the first period of holidays since, a year before, he had taken power with a coup d’état.

Some months before he had thus summarized in an interview, the political programme of the military junta: "The final objective of the revolution of April of 1967 is to make a jump forward towards progress; this step can only be made by eliminating every tendency towards parliamentarianism". To achieve this result the military junta assembled a group of trustworthy jurists to modify the Greek Constitution and thus consolidate its power.

The news of the assassination attempt against Papadopoulos, carried out on 13 August by a group of young militants of the Union of the Centre, led by Alexandros Panagulis, surprises due to its daring the political police, convinced, after the mass arrests of the previous months, that they had neutralized the opposition.

The attack fails. Panagulis and a companion of his are arrested, but the illusion of the military that they have "normalized" the country is put to a hard test. Moreover the economy makes no steps forward, even if the military had done all they could to get foreign capital into Greece.

The coup d’état of 1967 did not solve any of the problems of a country that is always hovering between backwardness and authoritarian modernization. Since the end of the civil war, military juntas have alternated with weak governments legitimized only by the crown. There are few parties that participate in the political life, the trade union activity in the work places is almost non-existent.

Certainly, the constitution in force up to the time of the coup d’état described Greece as a "crowned democracy", where the division of legislative, executive and judiciary power rules, but in which the king has ample powers of intervention on the government; furthermore, civil, political and trade unions rights are indeed guaranteed, but the right to strike is bound to "national security", while freedom of press is, until the 1960s, with "limited sovereignty". The only strong power is the army, which considers itself as the sentry guarding the values of eternal Greece.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the army stayed neutral during the short interval of the government presided over by the conservative Karamanlis, who remains in power until 1963 when he is removed under pressure from King Constantine. The reasons that force the Greek monarch to remove the leader are the usual ones: the corruption of the state machinery and the quarrelsomeness among the government exponents. But this time there is a new one: the request for greater democracy that the new political formations claim, and that makes the return of the military to power "unwise".

Between the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s the Greek political geography underwent a rapid transformation. A conservative party, the ERE, was formed, which did however believe in the democratic process; Giorgio Papandreu set up the Union of the Centre, while a left wing group, called the EDA, was formed uniting Socialists and Communists, even if the latter are "outlawed" since 1949.

But the greatest transformations took place in the social structure. Internal emigration changed Athens into a metropolis in every sense and in the Greek cities a middle class began to be formed which, with increasingly radical political positions, wants the modernization of the country within the democratic institutions.

A further consequence of the urbanization is the schooling of many young people, who for the first time in the history of modern Greece have access to higher education and university formation and who, freed from the memory of the civil war that paralyzed the political life of the country, became the protagonists of its public life until the coup d’état of the military.

It was in fact precisely the university students who animated in 1963 the demonstrations of protest after the assassination, by the police, of the young Communist Gregori Lambrakis. A mobilization that led to the fall of the government, to early political elections and to the victory of the Union of the Centre of Giorgio Papandreu, a heterogeneous political group that includes Socialists, Moderates and Liberals.

After the installation of the new government, however, the political and social contrasts became radicalized: King Constantine spoke a number of times against the government, police intervention in the demonstrations of the Union of the Centre or of the EDA is arrogant and provocative. The army however has remained aloof, but in more than one occasion some officers state that they will not "watch helpless the spread of chaos and anarchy".

Moreover the Greek political scene is in tumult. At the request of the government to remove the Minister for National Defence and the Chief of Staff of the army, the King refuses and calls new elections, while the squares of Athens, Salonika and of other cities become the theatre of demonstrations and repeated clashes between students and police forces. The Union of the Centre splits, Papandreu loses his parliamentary majority and new elections are proclaimed.

King Constantine states that the Constitution must be modified to strengthen the power of the executive and subordinate civil and political rights to social peace. In March 1967, a month from the coup d’état, the daily Etnos directed by the son of Giorgio Papandreu, Andreas, appears with the headline: "We will spark off the revolution if they try to violate the Constitution", while the more moderate Ta nea writes that "If the King chooses a coup d’état, the only solution is revolution". It is in this climate that on 21 April 1967 the coup d’état of Giorgio Papadopoulos, Stylianos Pattakos and Nikola Makarezos takes place.

The three military swear their loyalty to the crown, announce that the heads of the largest parties are under house arrest and that in the country the putsch was bloodless.

However, thousands of people are deported to the islands of Yaros and Leros, including many intellectuals and including the famous composer Mikis Theodorakis.

In the meantime all the reforms of the Papandreu government have been abolished, freedom of press and political freedom have been interrupted. "We want to save the Greece of the Christian Greeks" is the slogan of the military junta and, as its first administrative measures, it forbids long hair for men and trousers for women and imposes ancient Greek in public documents.

The majority of European countries did, however, condemn the coup and, after months of hearings in which the torture and violations of human rights are denounced, on 31 January 1968, with a clamorous vote, Greece is expelled from the European Council, even if the United States acknowledges the military regime.

For the military junta this is a humiliation. The rewriting of the Constitution, which will then be subjected to referendum, is hurried up. It is in this climate that Alexandros Panagulis organizes the attack against Papadopoulos. In spite of its failure, the attack is transformed into an act of accusation against the military junta which has a vast international echo. During his trial, Panagulis denounces the systematic use of torture and the involvement of NATO in the coup d’état. The young Greek will be condemned to death, but the penalty will never be carried out as Panagulis is expelled from the country due to the international pressure that seeks his release.

The echo of the trial and the international isolation of Greece are considered by King Constantine the chance to have the crown return to make its weight felt in public life. Marginalized after the coup, Constantine did however support the military junta under strong pressure from the American Embassy. But in the following months he tried to organize a statement of the military against the junta of Papadopoulos, Pattakos and Makarezos.

There will be no statement, just a public declaration of Constantine against the junta and his flight from Greece on 13 December 1968. The military thus remain the lords of the field. The vote at the referendum-farce in September 1968, called to approve the new Constitution, turns into a general consent in their favour. For the colonels in power this means that "order reigns in Greece" and that many opponents can be released from prison even if the spokesman for the colonels regrets that some leaders of the opposition must however remain under house arrest because they continue their "anti-national" activity.

Only the elderly and ill Giorgio Papandreu is released. On first November the old leader dies. Two days later his funeral procession, which is opened by the highest representative of the Orthodox Church of Athens, turns into a demonstration against the junta of the colonels. The police intervenes harshly and hundreds of demonstrators are arrested. It will be the last demonstration against the military dictatorship until November 1973 when the students of the Polytechnic barricade themselves inside the university.

This is an armed revolt against the junta of the colonels, who decide to use armed cars against the students. For a week Athens becomes a battle field, and the bloody end of the revolt coincides with the fall of the junta. As their last card, the military remove the protagonists of the coup d’état of 1967, thinking that by doing so they will be able to remain in power. They state that censorship is abolished and permit a gradual return to the lawfulness of democratic parties, except for the Communist party. A sort of limited democracy, in which the army should have the double role of guarantor and source of legitimization of the executive power. A project that finds a strong ally in the United States, but not in Europe.

Europe will win and the regime of the colonels will end with the arrest of the majority of the military authorities.