In response to:
Greece: Tyranny Without a Future from the September 24, 1970 issue
To the Editors:
In his penetrating review article about the Greek junta in your issue dated 24 September Professor Forrest poses the central question of why it happened. May I supplement what he has written by referring your readers to a new book which has just appeared in Switzerland: La Vérité sur la Grèce. The author is an anonymous Greek living in Greece. His account of why it happened and his examination of what can be done about it are the best that have appeared so far—thoroughly well informed, thoughtful, sane. I hope that an English translation may soon be published.
Professor Forrest avers that the junta cannot last. One may share his faith and yet be greatly concerned about how long it will last, for upon this turns the question whether it will be succeeded by men of the caliber and temper of the author of La Vérié sur la Grèce or by others whom we may admire less. Greece is a relatively poor and weak country. It is therefore congenitally exposed to interference from outside in its internal affairs. Such interference is normally resented. It is also considered improper (by, for example, the Charter of the UN). But it goes on all the time and it can indeed be urged that those who interfere while the going is good have some obligation to interfere when things go wrong. The Council of Europe has done so to the extent that lies in its power. The US Administration is also doing so—but on what is, from any decent point of view and on any calculation of expediencies, the wrong side.
Peter Calvocoressi
The University of Sussex
Brighton, Sussex,
England
