Democracy at Gunpoint: The Greek Front

Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1970. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. xv, [3], 365, [1] pages. Index. Andreas Georgios Papandreou (5 February 1919 - 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics, known for founding the political party PASOK, which he led from 1974 to 1996. He served two terms as prime minister of Greece. Papandreou's party win in the 1981 election was a milestone in the political history of Greece, since it was the first time that the elected government had a predominantly socialist political program. The achievements of his first two governments include the official recognition of the leftist and communist resistance groups of the Greek Resistance (EAM/ELAS) against the Axis occupation, the establishment of the National Health System and the Supreme Council for Personnel Selection (ASEP), the constitutional amendment of 1985-1986 which strengthened parliamentarism and reduced the powers of the indirectly-elected president, the conduct of an assertive and independent Greek foreign policy, the expansion in the power of local governments, many progressive reforms in Greek law and the granting of permission to the refugees of the Greek Civil War, of Greek ethnicity, to return home in Greece. The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), which he founded and led, was the first non-communist political party in Greek history with a mass-based organization, introducing an unprecedented level of political and social participation in Greek society. In a poll conducted by Kathimerini in 2007, 48% of those polled called Papandreou the "most important Greek Prime Minister". Derived from a Kirkus review: Rather impersonally for this sort of political testament, Papandreou presents a history of the past thirty years of Greek politics, ending with a description of the April 1967 coup. The tone of the first chapter's reminders that "imperialism is not dead" gives way to a narrative history emphasizing the extraordinary personal corruption of individual politicians, bureaucrats, and military men. The American Embassy runs "the Greek Establishment" (the king, merchant-capitalists and sycophantic intellectuals and bureaucrats), which conspires to prevent the emergence of true political parties. But Papandreou's own ingenuousness may partly explain the mire of Greek politics. Figuring as the childlike victim of his opponents' evildoing, he says little about his own politics. In 1959 he returns to Greece from American exile "out of abiding filial love" for father George, who, he recalls, urged Churchill during World War Il to wipe out the Greek anti-Nazi resistance and made a deal with the King in 1966 to bounce Andreas out of the Center Union Party. There are of course reminiscent vignettes: New York Timesman C. L. Sulzberger visits his hotel jail bearing James Bond mysteries; the American Ambassador shows Andreas his Washington dispatches concerning an American-sponsored coup.