THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW MARGARITA PAPANDREOU
Dreifus, Claudia
THE PROGRESSIVE Interview Margarita Papandreou Making the most of 'derived power' BY CLAUDIA DREIFUS For decades, being the wife of a nation 's leader has been a dead-end job whose occupant...
...It was not the first time Andreas Papandreou was reputed to Claudia Dreifus is a free-lance writer whose interviews with such subjects as Gore Vidal, Ralph Nader, and, most recently, Vice President Sergio Ramirez of Nicaragua, frequently appear in The Progressive...
...My reply, which was meant to be light, turned out to be very feminist...
...This is my answer to all those questions being asked at this moment...
...These things don't happen overnight...
...PAPANDREOU: Oh, yes...
...Q: Would the Women's Union of Greece have developed into such a success without your special concerns, organizing skills, and connections...
...Details of an affair between the prime minister and a former Olympic Airlines flight attendant became public, and the Greek opposition began calling for new elections...
...Q: And so Andreas Papandreou returned to Greece to start walking the political road that would eventually lead to the prime ministership...
...When I was asked that, I thought, "Why would anybody ask me such a ridiculous question...
...As I grew older, after college, other things happened to "raise my consciousness": getting a career, competing for jobs, and dealing with men on the job...
...I can use that power to do some good, or I can throw it away...
...I certainly do...
...When Papandreou isn't jetting around the world organizing wives of other heads of state for disarmament, she is back home in Greece pushing feminist politics...
...So I think female values should be transferred to the public sphere and used in policy-making...
...There are lots of forces in the United States who oppose us, because of Andreas's independence on many issues—because of his desire to give voice to Greece, to give it some dignity as a nation...
...Being of two worlds—Europe and America—has made things very rich...
...A lot of it...
...I suppose it depends on how you look at it...
...PAPANDREOU: Yes...
...That was one of the things, from exile, I swore I would do when we returned...
...As we waved goodbye from the plane, I said to myself, "When we come back, there won't be five people at this airport— the crowds will be out, and somehow it will wipe away all the anguish and the pain...
...Q: When your American friends see these reports in the newspapers, what would you tell them...
...The door was open if I wanted to continue with a career, but there was no way to have the children and do that too...
...Moreover, it might silence some opponents who would say, "Okay, we're not so keen on all this feminism, but after all, the wife of the President of the United States is involved and so we better not criticize...
...It wasn't exactly against the government...
...It was like a whirlpool, it was like a sea...
...PAPANDREOU: Marriages are under stress, especially those of long duration, and ours is no exception...
...PAPANDREOU: Why not call me the wife of the Greek prime minister...
...Several months after our interview, a scandal broke out in Greece that threatens both her and her husband's political goals...
...Does the U.S...
...We are a socialist-feminist organization promoting political participation and women's rights for Greek women...
...We said, "We would like you to adopt this as part of your platform...
...So this happens, and it provides the opportunity...
...PAPANDREOU: I'm less worried about Margaret Thatcher being an Iron Maiden than I am about the exclusion of large numbers of women from policy-making circles...
...Q: Why would putting more women there make any difference...
...We were willing to be extremely political to win our goals...
...When this started, I was the wife of an opposition leader—Andreas was not yet the prime minister...
...Within our program, of course, were things like the legalization of abortion, modernization of the family code, pension for women farmers, civil marriage...
...Now, I'm not sure whether our different way is related to the fact that we are biologically the creators of life, or whether it has something to do with our instincts of mind, or whether it has to do with the oppression we have suffered for centuries...
...Q: We've heard a lot of reports...
...Q: You have recently gotten involved in the international debate on nuclear disarmament...
...And now, as the wife of a head of state, I'm still an idealist, but I am a pragmatic idealist...
...It wasn't conceivable that as soon as Papandreou came in, immediately American bases would be asked to leave and we would pull out of NATO...
...Of course...
...I have no reason to pretend that it isn't there...
...We played the game as it should be played...
...As for Berkeley, I doubt that my years there formed me very much politically...
...PAPANDREOU: I think it would...
...The only party that adopted our program was PASOK [the Panhellenic Socialist Union...
...You might say we are in a preelection period, even though the intention of this government is to fill out its four-year term...
...But I believe the impossible is possible...
...In fact, I remember often when I was observing women in this role—way back in the United States, before I ever dreamt I might be in that role myself—I always wondered why women who were in those positions didn't use their power for something that was really good...
...And I had always been a deep and committed supporter of women's rights...
...This leader can stand up, at least, when pressure hits, and speak as a leader of a nation...
...The whirlpool of people kept getting bigger and bigger...
...During the time of the dictatorship, I cannot tell you how many times I stood in front of this very building—picketing, demonstrating...
...The information we have is that the firm recommended—even at the time of the last elections—that, to win an election and defeat Papandreou, it doesn't help to hit at PASOK, his party, because he is the party...
...Be consistent with your commitment...
...And I assume this would be a destabilizing situation for Greece...
...Q: When your husband first started seeking the premiership, his platform included getting out of NATO and the Common Market...
...Women are, after all, the makers of life, and that may make us want to protect it more...
...Q: Would it have more clout...
...Pragmatism comes naturally to this woman who grew up Maggie Chant in Elmhurst, Illinois...
...press of ah affair that Andreas Papandreou is having with a young woman...
...We had been working with other women's organizations for several years developing our own very progressive concept for a family code...
...And that is where, in the end, we had to form demonstrations and go to the streets...
...What that means is that I have a vision, and I work toward that vision...
...We had all kinds of proposals written down and ready for the party that might take them up at the right moment...
...But either way, I had a position and that helped...
...Does it give you a wonderful sense of satisfaction to be here as the wife of Greece's prime minister...
...I don't know if a crisis is worth breaking up such a long and, I would say, very stable and rich and warm relationship...
...Q: In the United States at this moment, there is an attempt to paint you as Lee Hart, Gary Hart's wife...
...The thing that disturbed me there was the overtures for sexual contact that were made in terms of my trying to get the various accounts...
...Greece gave me a much greater understanding, a much greater appreciation of the difficulties and realities of the world we live in...
...Many, many hours later, I caught up with him in the city...
...My tactic was to pretend I didn't understand what was being suggested...
...Many of my opponents are opponents simply because I am the wife of the prime minister, and therefore I fall among those they will attack...
...Even Danielle Mitterrand, a brilliant woman with a profession of her own, is known abroad mostly as a protocol fixture and living advertisement for French haute couture...
...Q: Some years ago, an interviewer asked you a question about First Ladyhood...
...I call it derived power—but it is power...
...MARGARITA PAPANDREOU: What I can say is this: Where there's smoke there's fire...
...But I do believe that the foundation of our marriage is very strong...
...This is my answer to what people have been wondering about...
...She inquired if, while you were growing up in Elmhurst, Illinois, you ever dreamed that someday you would be the wife of a prime minister...
...Q: Nevertheless, your organization has been amazingly effective...
...How come...
...Still, I think the fact that I'm the wife of the prime minister certainly helped us...
...On the other hand, she would also have tremendous opposition for the same reason...
...Any student of postwar Greek history is struck by the degree to which the American Embassy in Athens has been a big player in domestic affairs...
...Q: We are sitting here inside the Greek Embassy in Washington, D.C...
...Where they dragged their feet was on the legalization of abortion...
...It's a whole intricate web, a structure, a mechanism that involves many things...
...We negotiated an agreement on the U.S...
...Of that 800, only four are women...
...Also, getting married affected me a lot...
...I have no idea where the idea came from that I was going to work for Dukakis...
...And one shouldn't belittle the need that human beings have to be close to people who are in positions to make decisions, or to know the inner workings...
...We intend to remain together as partners and comrades, as friends, and as man and wife.' to exile in 1968...
...I do think that those qualities we associate with Midwestern populism were very much a part of my childhood: the work ethic, discipline, a certain sincerity and directness, fairness, and honesty...
...PAPANDREOU: And I replied, "No, I dreamed I'd be prime minister...
...PAPANDREOU: I didn't found the Women's Union alone, but with twenty others...
...When the children came, four of them, I suddenly realized that I couldn't have the opportunities I had dreamed of for myself...
...Margarita Papandreou organized the successful international campaign that resulted in her husband's release and safe conduct 'The foundation of our marriage is very strong...
...THE PROGRESSIVE Interview Margarita Papandreou Making the most of 'derived power' BY CLAUDIA DREIFUS For decades, being the wife of a nation 's leader has been a dead-end job whose occupant was expected to stand meekly behind her high-powered husband and reflect traditional ideas about femininity...
...I suppose what American feminists call "that click moment" happened to me in high school...
...Jacqueline Kennedy redecorated the White House...
...In the early 1960s, the family moved to Athens, where Andreas entered political life...
...I was so involved with four young children that my political involvements were somewhat curtailed...
...And we played it well...
...There are about 800 people worldwide who have the authority to make decisions about arms control and disarmament...
...I was tomboyish, liked sports, and no one in my family ever told me that there was anything I wouldn't be able to do...
...I don't think there's any reason why we can't dream of making the decisions that affect the world, making decisions of war and peace, of policy—of being citizens who exert power...
...Government still intervene a lot...
...None of that has happened...
...Three years later, they married...
...I certainly hope that I have those kinds of qualities in my character...
...have had an extramarital affair, but it was the first time his sexual life became a political issue...
...For example, let me tell you about one change we were able to effect: We got a progressive family code...
...It also gave me a chance to see my native country from another point of view: to see how it feels to be in a small country looking toward this big, powerful country...
...First Lady" is a title that exists only because of the connection to my husband, and it implies that if I were no longer married to Andreas, I would be let go...
...But I tell it also because I believe women should think in those terms...
...Then we moved to Greece...
...What Greece offered me was an expansion of my horizons and understanding...
...Greece, like most countries in the world, had need of such a group...
...This kind of distortion and disinformation is designed to destabilize, if nothing else, our own emotional world...
...The Papan-dreous spent much of the 1950s in Berkeley, California, where they raised four children and gave their spare time to liberal Democratic politics...
...Then, in 1981, PASOK won the elections...
...And we got abortion legalized...
...Greece would be isolated, surrounded by Turkey and other NATO countries...
...Q: How are you answering all the questions about your marriage...
...Nowadays, when I tell the story—which I do very often in my speeches—I tell it to set the stage for a feminist analysis of an issue...
...In the wake of the coup, he was imprisoned and threatened with death...
...Andreas walked down the ramp at the airport, and the people there swept him up and put him on their shoulders...
...PAPANDREOU: I would say that the Middle West formed me...
...We have demanded that we be equal partners with whatever countries to which we are connected or allied...
...PAPANDREOU: Both reports are false...
...That is one reason why these articles get published...
...The Greeks feel now that they have a leader who is functioning in their interests and is not being dictated to or influenced or overpowered by the United States...
...An election is not supposed to be held until 1989...
...Neither of us has applied for one...
...It gave me insight into citizenship and political work...
...This to me is the proper use of my position and title...
...I presume that she probably thinks the same kinds of things that I do: That if the relationship is strong, it is worth preserving and cannot be shaken by certain events that most every woman experiences in her life...
...And he said, "I know you are—I've seen you play...
...Q: Your husband's government has been under pressure to 'Women have something special to say about war and peace...
...found the Women's Union of Greece...
...I'll never forget it...
...So we said, "Come on...
...Q: If you were to resist, would the United States try to destabilize Greece...
...Her presence might attract more people...
...And PASOK leaders adopted it for one reason: They hadn't thought up a women's platform of their own...
...leaders would put many more eggs in another basket—Turkey...
...In late October, by telephone from the Greek executive mansion, she spoke exclusively for The Progressive, commenting on the private events affecting her public future...
...PAPANDREOU: Well, let's put it this way: Presumably, U.S...
...They kept taking him around and around...
...In 1981, Andreas Papandreou became the country's first Socialist prime minister...
...Q: Did you demonstrate against your husband...
...PAPANDREOU: It's all highly exaggerated and there are people who like to damage Andreas politically...
...PAPANDREOU: Sexual harassment...
...Q: You are probably the only First Lady extant to identify herself openly as a feminist...
...Potential members had the feeling that probably the organization was close to the source of power...
...But Margarita Papandreou, the sixty-three-year-old wife of Andreas Papandreou, Socialist prime minister of Greece, is fast shattering the stereotype of what the wife of a head of state can do...
...We believe this was done on the instructions of an American public-relations firm hired by Constantine Mitsotakis, the leader of the Greek opposition...
...Q: The American Government, particularly the Reagan Administration, doesn't particularly like independents running countries that once were considered part of its sphere of influence...
...I'm used as a vehicle...
...And when we returned to Greece, that's exactly what happened...
...We intend to remain together as partners and comrades, as friends, and as man and wife...
...Why in those terms...
...PAPANDREOU: Sure...
...So this was a way I felt I could make my particular contribution...
...Women are, after all, the makers of life, and that may make us want to protect it more.' accept the American policy on terrorism...
...PAPANDREOU: Simple...
...That must have been the first time it hit me that there was real discrimination against women...
...Rumors published in both the Greek and American press suggested that Margarita had left her husband of more than thirty-five years, and that she was returning to the United States to divorce him and devote herself to the Presidential efforts of Michael Dukakis...
...Maybe I can make use of this power...
...At this moment, we have almost no input on issues of war and peace...
...Q: What kind of sexism did you encounter in the work world...
...So, how much seriousness should one give to what is perhaps a crisis in a marriage...
...The government was committed to legalizing abortion, but the government was not moving...
...In the end, I believe women have developed a set of values somewhat different from the values of the men who now make war-and-peace decisions...
...Make true on your promises...
...It's sort of like a child that wants to leave the family home to live its own life...
...That's a year and a half away, but not so far off that the opposition forces are not thinking about whatever they can do to make sure they win the election...
...But you can't try out...
...I'm very athletic, and as you can see, quite tall...
...In the last five years, prompted by the work of the Women's Union, the legal status of women in Greece has been transformed: legalized abortion, equality between men and women in marriage, full legal rights for illegitimate children, liberalized divorce laws...
...bases that terminates in 1988.1 don't know yet what the decision of the government will be about the bases' future...
...They make it sound like a much more dramatic situation than it is...
...Nancy Reagan tells us to "just say 'No.' " Hannelore Kohl, wife of the German chancellor, promotes rehabilitation of the handicapped...
...I am not unaware of the difficulties...
...As always in politics, there are tremendous forces on the part of the opposition to throw out the government...
...It's an extraordinary life I've been able to live," Margarita Papandreou said when we talked several months ago...
...PAPANDREOU: Well, let's put it this way: I demonstrated when my husband was in the government, for the legalization of abortion...
...The coach said, "Oh, no, you can't...
...After graduating from the University of Minnesota in journalism, I opened up my own public-relations business, doing publicity for political and nonprofit groups in Minneapolis...
...PAPANDREOU...
...The newspapers say the affair is causing a political and personal crisis for you and for his government...
...I mean, one has to ask, "What if Nancy Reagan were a committed feminist and was leading NOW...
...There has been no talk of divorce...
...Besides, I'm convinced that the world would be a better place if more women were doing that...
...But I think most women come up against that...
...But you've done it specifically as a woman and as a feminist...
...So the Women's Union circulated model platforms on women's issues to all the political parties...
...PAPANDREOU: I've asked myself that question often, because sometimes it's difficult to understand when a person perceives an injustice for the first time...
...And then he disappeared in the periphery...
...You would go to an office, and it was often made clear that the account would be easier to obtain if I were willing to do "other services" than just publicity...
...I believe women, as a group, have a different way of looking at issues...
...What did you get from each...
...Winning that involved a long, complicated political struggle...
...For me, it certainly wasn't anything I experienced at home...
...He and his left-wing politics soon were intensely popular, and the 1967 Colonels' Coup that overthrew Greece's parliamentary democracy was partly aimed at keeping him from power...
...PAPANDREOU: It hasn't happened yet...
...What I think has happened is that there has been an effort to diminish Andreas's prestige, and it started some time ago...
...And you returned to...
...I'm the oldest of five daughters, and my father always treated me almost like a son...
...That's when lots of things changed in terms of my burden and his burden: the obstacles of having a double workload, and so forth...
...One that you are coming to the States to work for Michael Dukakis and the other that you are leaving your husband...
...PAPANDREOU: Well, these are two politicians who seem to have had extramarital relationships...
...Q: Was there anything in your background that brought you so strongly to the cause of women's rights...
...PAPANDREOU: Because I think women have something special to say about war and peace, and because I think we have a voice that's been deliberately kept out of that debate...
...I do think when women get into politics, we are often more people-centered...
...And not only was PASOK obliged to be consistent with the constitution, but it was also obliged to be consistent with its own platform...
...They attack me in order to get at Andreas, to belittle him, or to demean him...
...Q: Like everyone else, we've seen reports in the U.S...
...But it required, I think, somebody like an Andreas Papandreou to restore the sense of identity and the dignity to our society...
...We've been seeing what would be the result and the circumstances, and what would be the economic cost as well...
...I had gone down and tried out for the high school basketball team, which happened to be an all-boys team...
...I believe we have very deep roots for this relationship...
...Q: Was there a moment when you thought: "The role of prime minister's wife doesn't have a real function to it, but it has inherent power in it...
...And I said, "But, I'm a good player...
...PAPANDREOU: And you know how rebellious a child can get...
...If you really want to do the most damage and help your cause, you should try to hit at him personally, try to diminish his stature and prestige with the people...
...PAPANDREOU: No, it's much less now...
...But now, in my sixties, I want to do what I can to improve the lot of women everywhere and to make sure there is some kind of future for our children...
...That's probably the core of the dispute with Nicaragua...
...Lots of women will...
...Q: After all you had been through, it must have been tremendously moving to return to a free Greece in 1974...
...But I do know that as women we have learned a different style of operating in order to survive—a more negotiable, life-preserving style, and I know that when women enter public life their concerns are usually more for human welfare and human survival...
...Or the head of the Women's Union of Greece...
...This story isn't entirely out of whole cloth...
...The Papandreous moved to Sweden, then Canada, where they fomented a liberation movement in exile...
...Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the few who did—and I would like to say that she is a role model for me...
...How do you answer something like that...
...PAPANDREOU: You know that I don't like the term "First Lady...
...When we left for our exile in January 1968, there were five people to see us off...
...If a First Lady has been expected to be decorative, diplomatic, and noncontroversial, then Margarita Papandreou is activist, committed, and overtly feminist...
...Listen," she said when we talked last spring, "the fact that I am the wife of the prime minister of my country gives me"a certain amount of power...
...She is president and founder of the Women's Union of Greece, the Greek equivalent of our National Organization for Women, and she is international coordinator of Women for a Meaningful Summit, an organization seeking to bring a female presence to the debate over the arms race...
...During the years we lived in Berkeley, when Andreas was the head of the economics department there and when my children were young, I didn't do much political work—which, until that point, had been my passion...
...To call me a "First Lady" says nothing about my own talents or contributions...
...Q: What would you prefer we call you...
...Q: There are three places that shaped who you are politically: the American Middle West, Berkeley, and Greece...
...It bothered me that women had to make such choices...
...As such, she and I have had similar experiences, I suppose...
...But this opposition is not just the Greek opposition...
...As a young woman who worked for the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Democratic Party, I started out my political life as an idealist...
...It can happen...
...The journey that took her from the Middle West to the Mediterranean is a story almost cinematic in its outlines—Costa-Gavras as well as Frank Capra...
...Margaret Thatcher and Jeane Kirkpatrick have been known to be quite bellicose...
...It began in 1948 when she met a handsome expatriate Greek teaching economics at the University of Minnesota—Andreas Papandreou...
...The first time I walked into this embassy after the dictatorship, I felt that somehow justice had won out...
...At any rate, this is not rare, and it is hypocritical to pretend it to be rare...
...Finally, after the fall of the Colonels in 1974, they returned triumphantly to Athens...
...Baffled, I returned with a humorous answer...
...One woman at the top won't change it...
...When women get into an issue in large numbers, they change the content of that debate...
...You're a girl...
...How did you do it...
Vol. 51 • December 1987 • No. 12
