Politique Internationale: The Case of the Greek Ayatollah
Taki
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...Papandreou has blamed all of Greece's self-induced d~sters on America, and the Greeks love it...
...E AME~CAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1983 or impulse ought to be resisted...
...In ancient times, face was saved by blaming the gods, blow Uncle Sam has replaced Zeus...
...One of the Review's main subjects has been, and continues to be, homosexuality, i9...
...The Colonels ~me soon after...
...And with a new and perfect pioy, anti-Americanism...
...It is true that the comparatively large number of right-of-center student publications represents a new phenomenon...
...It is curious that And'reas became prime minister in a landslide victory, because his past is not one that would endear him to most Greeks...
...This is a hard question to answer...
...at is to be done about him...
...whether or not these constitute a movement is a different ma~er...
...To avoid the draft in the U.S...
...Before his father's election, Andreas had served as economics adviser but had retained his American dt~enship i n o r d e r not t o p a y G r e e k t a x e s. ) A s a minister Andreas had good ideas...
...some treat of literary and cultural matters, some do not...
...Here is part of what he wrote on September 19, 1982: "The Soviet Union has infiltrated the Greek media and propagated a disinformation campaign to a deeper extent than in any Western country . . . . methods employed by Russia have included help in setting up of a highly successful Soviet-front daily, Ethnos (The Nation), financial inducements to other publications, and direct pressure on conservative newspapers...
...My guess is that he will never accept an electoral defeat, and that the hard-core Marxists behind him will eventually try to establish a one-party system...
...What is certain is that one week after Anast published facts about how the Soviets were indirectly, as well as directly, subsidizing parts of the press in the birthplace of selective democracy, tyranny, and demagogy, the Greek prime minister, Andreas Papandreou, the most famous anti-American since the Ayatollah himself, attended a party celebrating the first year of Ethnos's existence---or Soviet subsidization, if you prefer...
...vilification campaign against me was of such intensity that it discouraged others from digging further...
...But ff the object of the intellect is to mislead and conquer, then Papandreou . . . . be viewed as a danger to all freedom-loving Greeks...
...Yet the tendency to think of these journals as manifestations of a single enti~ Tod Lindberg, assistant editor of The Public interest, was co-founder of Counterpoint...
...I have always thought of Andreas Papandreou as the Greek version of Bianca Jagger...
...To say that Greek newsmen are on the take is akin to saying that those humanoids who overran the American Embassy in Tehran are hirsute...
...Like the posturing Nicaraguan ninny, he has made anti-Americanism the basis of his political philosophy...
...I was sued, judged, and sentenced to 18 months in jail for libeling the Greek press...
...Or so the media accounts have run...
...To understand why- this should be so, one need only look to the pages of the Review itself...
...It seems I was not the type of person the Times likes to defend...
...D 0~eoeooo~oa~oegoooooooOoeoooooo Tod Lindberg T DAR TMO UTH S W AND T A young neo~nse~ative journalist r~ses ~me obje~ions...
...And to judge by the articles that have appeared in .Newsweek, Time, the New Republic, the Nation, National Review, the New Fork Times, and others (tO say no~ing of television and radio~, the leader of this "move&ent,', or at least its most i~o~ant voice, is the Dartmouth Review...
...What is surprising to most friends of Uncle Sam is that Washington still takes Papandreou's posturing seriously...
...When I tried to get the New York Times to say something-anything--in my defense, that august paper pulled a Pontius Pilate...
...1980 brought a handful more, including the best known among them, the Dartmouth Review, which began to publish that June...
...Instead, he became an American citizen...
...he became a nurse's aide at the Bethesda Naval Hospital...
...The ensuing Taki Theodoracopulos is The American Spectator's European editor...
...I can only point out to the wise men in Washington what Old Nick wrote in The Prince in 1532: "From ~is arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved...
...After their collapse Andreas returned ~umphant...
...It is poetic if not divine justice, there ~ore, that the Times stringer in Athens today is in the same kind of fix I was six years ago...
...The number continues to grow, and it seems there are now dozens...
...that he uses the divisive and intemperate slogans of a reckless extremist, his star is not about to wane...
...It means pride, but ~e word can also be used when lying to save face...
...it rarely touches upon literature, for example, or the popular culture, and when it d~s, it tends to judge according to political criteria...
...So good in fact that his father's party split up, accusing the elder Papaadre~3u of nepotism...
...some cover only caius events, some mix that with national affairs, some cover only national affairs...
...There is in snd becau~ ~iificaliy they areall at least fact substantial diversi~: some are maga- broadly of the Right, the media, including zines, some newspapers...
...In fact, it is almost impossible...
...When Greece was invaded by fascist Italy in 1940, and his class was called up, he refused to return...
...some are ne...
...Perhaps they are waiting for the KGB to deny it...
...After two years my lawyers managed to have the decision reversed, which can only mean the Greek judiciary accepts the fact that the Greek hacks are on the take...
...both left and right wings, have by and conservative, some Old Right, some Moral 9 Majodtarian/New Right, some libertarian...
...More important, however, was the Cassandra Prize, which I also won...
...Paul Anast, the author, strings for both the Times and the Telegraph...
...Whereas once the Left had owned the alternative press, now the Right has increasingly been asse~ing itself...
...His gimmick was made easier by something Greeks call filotimo...
...Fortunately, the sentence was never carried out, though there were Greeks anxious to hand the Cassandra award to me in person in the Athens central jail...
...I took the opportunity to depart the isles of Greece on my yacht, sans prize...
...We should wish to be both, but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must ch~se be~een them, it is far safer to be feared than to be loved...
...Through subtle infiltration of the press, the Soviet machine has succeeded in moving Greece still further away from NATO and the United Siates...
...In fact it is widely believed that the Soviet disinformation service has managed to subvert Greek life and just about sever the strings that have always united Greece and the United States...
...He once again became Greek...
...finally be put in his place by An~eas...
...Who knows...
...But because many of them have ~ received funding from the same sourc~~e .Institute for Educational Affairs in New York-large disregarded the distinguishing features of each in of the notion of a unified, even well-artic~ated, movement...
...The KGB's apparent infiltration of the press is a major factor in creating the anti-American climate...
...It is about time that America chose whether it wants to be kicked around (loved) or respected (feared...
...The pnncipal evidence of this has been the profusion, in the last few years, of student journals of "'conservative" opinion...
...Given Papandreou's openly anti-American and pro-Russian line, his attendance was not at all surprising...
...My suspicions were first aroused after the Colonels' collapse in 1974 and the return of Konstantin Karamanlis as prime minister, and I wrote my piece after confirming my facts with one of his most powerful cabinet ministers, who unfortunately refused to give me documents in his possession that would prove the Soviets were paying off Greek journalists to write virulent anti-American tracts...
...If, as Wiifrid Sheed claims, the object ~ ~e mteliect is truth, then Papandreou must be judged as being on an intellectual level with, say, Bokassa, formerly of the Cen~ai A~can Empire...
...and so on...
...T~ yellowest press in Europe agrees...
...Bwriting they above words a s part of an op-ed article that appeared in the New York Times in January--1976---I managed to win the Delphic Oracle award that same year...
...Whereas once the Right had been the "establishment" m the academy, now the men and women of the Left have come into positions of authority, and thus have become the objects of disaffection...
...As a student he was a Trotskyite and fled to America after police showed interest in his activities...
...Well, not exactly: no one is about to sue him, though they are calling him a hell of a lot of names...
...1~ he Dartmouth Review is a weeHy newspaper, in tabloid form, Which covers l~ai events--inc~ding campus sports--and national affairs...
...ODOOOQIQQOOQOOOQ~O~OOOQOQQiIIO~OOgDDgOOOOgOOIOOOO~OlIOQO . . . . Q 0 I 0 0 ~ 0 Q 0 0 O o o o I 0 0 ~ I o Q Q D 0 0 0 O 0 ~ 0 ~ j Q I Q w 9 Q 0 Q 0 O 0 I 0 Q Q 0 Q B O 0 I m O g o D O ~ Q 9 0 m D 0 0 0 ~ Q Q ~ 0 I o Q 0 Q I I 0 0 0 g 0 O 0 ~ Tald POLITIQUE INTERNATIONALE: THE CASE OF THE GREEK AYATOLLAH Our dashing European correspondent files his first political column from the birthplace of selective democracy...
...And like Bianca Jagger he runs the gamut of anti-American bile, from sneering accusations to snarling hysteria, with eyes like slit trenches for effect...
...The only trouble with this dispatch is that it was published in the Sunday Telegraph of London...
...I wonder why as I am writing this the Times has not run it...
...He remained in America during the savage Communist uprising in Greece in the wake of World War II and taught economics at various American universities, including Berkeley...
...His demagogy has the people convinced that the Great Satan wil...
...ATHENS--There is strong evidence that an unprecedented encroachment by the Soviet Union is taking place in Greece...
...It claims a very wide readership at Da~mouth College, and a substantial number of alumni subscribers 1500 or I70,3 of the la~er, depending on where One l~ks in the November 1, 1982 edition, its conce~s are almost exclusively political...
...The cU~ent lot began to appear in 1979, with Counterpoint at the Universi~ of Chicago and the Yale Political Monthly...
...Despite the fact that he attacks nepotism yet is a product of that system, that he uses patronage as much as any politician in the past, that he plays his favorites unashamedly, and...
...Now it isn't easy to libel the Greek press...
...e press has lately made much of a ~ 6 new conse~ative movement" said to be 9 sweeping ~e nation's college campuses...
...When in 1963 his father, George, became prime minister, he was appointed to the 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1983 most powerful ministry...
Vol. 16 • January 1983 • No. 1
