Elias was mesmerized by the Polk assassination and its aftermath. He followed accounts of Polk’s personal story and his controversial journalism and was struck by reports of Polk’s fearlessness in covering both the left and right wings in Greece.11 Unsparing in his criticism of the atrocities committed by the Communists, Polk had also uncovered the corruption and venality of members of the Greek government who skimmed American aid, and he had criticized Greek politicians who were “unwilling to serve anybody except themselves.”12 Elias admired Polk’s independence and doggedness of purpose.
Various theories proliferated in American and Greek press coverage. Initial suggestions of a right-wing—perhaps even a government—plot were matched and soon overtaken by right-wing theories that the Communists were behind the murder. It was counterintuitive to believe that the guerrilla leader Markos would have ordered Polk assassinated rather than taking advantage of Polk’s platform to broadcast the Communist commander’s views, especially given the growing rift between him and KKE head Nikos Zachariadis. But the alternative theory of a right-wing government plot could have fatally undermined the American public’s willingness to support a war that was just beginning to show signs of making progress.
The competing theories about George Polk’s murder came to an end a few months later with the arrest and “confession” of a Communist-ordered “conspiracy” whose principal actor was Grigoris Staktopoulos, one of the last people who had seen Polk alive. Staktopoulos was a Greek journalist who had once briefly joined the Communist Party and had more recently contributed to the center-left Salonika newspaper Makedonia. The confession confirmed Communist involvement in the plot, a story line clearly in the interest of both the Greek and American governments. Elias carefully followed press accounts of the government’s activity, the subsequent arrests, trial, and convictions, and the related news coverage. He even mulled what his own behavior might have been had he found himself in Polk’s shoes. He also sensed a disturbing official rush to judgment. Several years later he would understand just how unfair that judgment had been.
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FAR FROM ATHENS, the American-backed war ground on. Using a strategy later repeated in Korea and Vietnam, government forces relocated inhabitants of whole villages to deny raiding partisans supplies, recruits, and information. In the south this was effective, but costly. Thousands of displaced persons became refugees, needing food, shelter, and clothing. Their number rose to an estimated 700,000. Also brutally efficient was the introduction of American-supplied Napalm B, a powerful and long-lasting incendiary substance used to defoliate landscapes and attack guerrillas’ hideouts. Meanwhile, Greek Communist fighters, who had earned ignominy for their savage treatment of civilians and prisoners, lost much of any remaining support in 1948 by ruthlessly kidnapping thousands of children from peasant villages and taking them into the mountains or out of the country to be trained as soldiers. Some of these “recruits” were as young as four.
In the fight between Tito and Stalin over Yugoslavia’s growing independence, the KKE and the Democratic Army of Greece struggled not to choose sides. Eventually they chose the more powerful Stalin and Soviet orthodoxy. In July 1948, Tito retaliated by closing Yugoslavian borders to Greek guerrillas. Stalin ignored Secretary Zachariadis’s loyalty by declaring that “the uprising in Greece must be stopped, and as quickly as possible.”13 Undeterred by Stalin’s lack of support, the KKE’s “Radio Free Greece,” operating from Romania, took a slap at Tito and endorsed an independent Macedonia, a stance favored by Moscow.14 The move demoralized the majority of soldiers in the Democratic Army, who thought of themselves as Greek patriots and had no interest in the dismemberment of their homeland.
Resistance to the government’s 1949 spring offensive was minimal. From south to central Greece, the insurgency was destroyed, and thousands were captured and killed. In August, General Alexander Papagos, a hero of the Greco-Italian War who had taken charge of the National Army, inflicted major damage in a northern counteroffensive code-named “Operation Torch.”15 At about the same time, Royal Hellenic Air Force Spitfires and US navy surplus Curtis Helldivers equipped with napalm bombs destroyed many well-camouflaged targets.16 With Albanian supply lines and escape routes effectively closed, the remaining Democratic Army of Greece was routed. On October 16, 1949, KKE radio declared a cease-fire. The civil war was finally over. More had been killed than during the entire German occupation. Economically, the country was in worse shape than it had been in 1944. The scars would last for generations.
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WHILE ASSIDUOUSLY FOLLOWING the progress of the hot war in his homeland and the beginning stages of the Cold War on the world stage, Elias studied the history of Greek news publishing, from its earliest handwritten broadsides, to its role in the revolution, to the growth of opposition papers and restrictive press laws imposed by authoritarian governments.
He didn’t want to be a doctor, lawyer, businessman, or engineer. He wanted to be a journalist. He thought of the Androulidakis brothers and George Polk, their courage, integrity, independence, and willingness to criticize both sides if the facts justified it. Elias wanted to be an investigative reporter—one who would be the first to uncover important stories. He also reckoned that, if he did it well, he could even be more famous than the people he covered. He wanted to make news by getting news. And he wanted to start at the top, at Kathimerini.
When he was finally well enough to return to college, he told his parents he didn’t want to interrupt his education by enrolling again in school. Given the growing American presence in Greece, he thought his ability to read, write, and speak English, especially colloquial and idiomatic American English, could help him land a reporter’s job. But he also knew that his English-language skills needed improvement. So, in early 1949, he applied for a job at the Athens branch of the British insurance firm Eagle Star, where he learned the King’s English. After work he attended a language school near Syntagma Square with instructors from the United States.
Processing commercial and maritime property claims was deadly boring, and in his second year he quit to pursue his dream. Journalism was a closed profession, but, through a combination of well-placed family friends like Dr. Giannatos, Elias lined up a call with the Kathimerini editor, Aimilios Chourmouzios. After several increasingly long telephone conversations with different people, Elias was invited to the paper to meet with its business editor, Epameinondas Efetas. Elias was bright, ambitious, and had boundless enthusiasm for the job, but all of that would not have secured a position at the paper. Once again, his ability to read, write, and speak English, even if imperfect, made him a valuable resource.
When he first walked into the open newsroom on Sokratous Street with the high ceiling, big windows, desks lined up in rows, telephones ringing and typewriters click-clacking, he experienced a mixture of awe and comfort. He was oblivious to the acrid smell of stale cigarettes. Efetas talked to Elias about Greek politics and international business issues, Dr. Giannatos, and his own extended family’s circle of friends. Elias then met the editor, Chourmouzios. He was shorter than Elias, but his firm handshake, handsome face, strong jaw, and piercing eyes gave him a commanding aura. The interviewee was introduced to George Vlachos, the paper’s legendary owner, and his attractive daughter, Eleni. He looked for the Androulidakis brothers, whose writing he much admired, but they weren’t around.
The interview process lasted nearly two hours. Elias talked about himself, OAG, a range of current events, and personalities in the Greek government. Chourmouzios steered the conversation to the American Embassy, international economics, and the paper’s reputation and traditions. At the end, Elias shook hands, left, and walked home. He was told politely and noncommittally that the paper would get back to him with its answer.
For three long days, he waited near the telephone as the paper weighed its hiring decision. Then Chourmouzios called personally to tell him that he was not only being offered a job, but that he would be a diplomatic correspondent, reporting primarily on the American community in Greece. It was one of the happiest days of his life.
6.The Young Journalist
IN SUMMER 1950, NOW A young man of 21, Elias felt he was on top of the world, writing for arguably the most prestigious and influential paper in Greece, with immediate access to powerful figures in both Greek and American circles in Athens.
Having replaced Great Britain as the country’s primary benefactor, the United States’s military, diplomatic, economic, and political influence in Greece was paramount. “Millions of dollars in aid and thousands of personnel were flooding the country. The American community in Greece was the biggest story,” Elias recalled, “and the paper wanted to cover it well. I determined that to be effective as a journalist would require me to be especially aggressive and indefatigable.”
There were potential stories everywhere. The American presence in Greece had grown from the hundreds to the thousands, but the juggernaut was far from monolithic. The large embassy competed frequently with semiautonomous parts of the American mission, particularly an acronym jungle of economic-aid organizations spawned by the Marshall Plan, the various military contingents, and the CIA in its different guises. Each of these entities established a distinctive relationship with a variety of Greek organizations and individuals.
Beyond bringing the Amerikanokratia that dominated Greek political and economic decision-making, American culture permeated everyday Athenian life.1 Movies were a cheap form of entertainment. In theaters, for a couple of hours, people with threadbare clothing and rumbling bellies could vicariously experience the lives of beautiful women, dashing men, and the American dream. Few women could resist the allure of synthetic hosiery with seams down the back. Young men coveted aviator sunglasses, the kind worn by the flamboyant General Douglas MacArthur. By the early 1950s, Brits were replaced by Yanks, who were invested with a similar exalted status.
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IT WAS AN unusually hot August afternoon when Elias Demetracopoulos took his first taxi trip from the Kathimerini building on Sokratous Street to the American Embassy on historic Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, not far from the Royal Palace and Constitution Square. The warren of offices, disparaged by those who worked there as dilapidated, was a grand old building and a cool oasis to the outsider entering it. The embassy staff and foreign correspondents who frequented the building were welcoming. But, afraid of being taken in, Elias remained skeptical of the bonhomie.
According to Elias, the press corps would customarily gather at the embassy for 10 a.m. briefings. Staff would usually bring news releases. The reporters would take the official press handouts and rework them into articles, often including something from notes they jotted down at the press conference. Reporters, whether present at the briefings or not, were often encouraged to rewrite the handouts and check back with public affairs officers before filing the articles. Filing early in the day made it easier to have long lunches at local tavernas and take in the pleasures of the Greek capital.
Reporters who were somewhat more enterprising would conduct follow-up interviews to amplify the embassy release or develop stories on their own. But even then, some reporters would run their pieces by the embassy press officers for an informal “fact-checking” review. John Rigas, longtime correspondent for a variety of publications and a Demetracopoulos contemporary, said that, while Elias’s characterization fits the description of many foreign journalists, especially those who were just in for a visit, it painted a simplistic portrait of most of the regular press corps.2 Nevertheless, Rigas agreed that the embassy did not welcome independent reporting.
Elias chafed at the cozy way embassy journalism was practiced. He had never been to journalism school, but, from hard lessons learned with OAG, he thought it important to be skeptical.3 The young reporter rejected requests to review his stories prior to publication. He later remembered embassy staff and many of his new press colleagues being taken aback at his brash attitude. But Chourmouzios, his editor, backed him up and told him he was proud of his stance. “And that opinion,” said Elias, “is what mattered most.”
Elias refined the same skills he first developed in the OAG underground, trying to build trusting relationships and ferret out information. He was the youngest reporter at the paper and possibly the youngest in the press covering the embassy, which brought out his competitive nature. He eagerly sought angles to stories other reporters didn’t have and impatiently grappled with the reality that scoops would not come to him on a platter. “I began to develop my own sources,” he recalled, “obtain exclusive stories and interviews and expose official wrongdoing.”
He learned the various press hangouts where reporters ate, drank, and exchanged gossip.4 “France,” at the beginning of Stadiou Street in downtown Athens, was a large cafe with small marble tables and wrought-iron chairs. For next to nothing, low-wage reporters could patiently nurse their kremes—bowls of warm milk, corn flour, and sugar—and while away hours in the close, smoke-filled atmosphere. For fancier fare, reporters and some publishers went to Pappos Gallery, a small restaurant located near three printing-press shops. Apotsos served arguably the best delicatessen, good for the stomach while one drank ouzo. And nearby, the Ideal was the bar of choice for a quick drink after work. Other popular tavernas were tucked away in nearby cellars and side streets.
Elias visited these places from time to time, but he wasn’t a regular anywhere. He chose to work independently and saw more value in socializing with possible sources at diplomatic receptions and dinners. The information was fresher, the food better (and free), and these events seemed to take place almost every day. As he got to know members of the American community, he also became a regular visitor in their homes and offices. When he hosted important sources, he preferred to splurge at the Grand Bretagne Hotel.
During Elias’s early months at the paper, he developed what would become his signature practice: conducting long-form interviews, often providing written questions to the subjects in advance. He was trying to turn a liability into an advantage. Although his English had improved significantly, he was self-conscious about his ability to take notes during a rapid-fire exchange in a non-native language, especially when the topics were complex.
Sometimes the subject would respond to his inquiries in writing. More often, Elias would arrange for taping, using the subject’s equipment or, if that wasn’t possible, lugging or wheeling a large reel-to-reel tape recorder into the interviewee’s office. The tapes would then be transcribed by the interviewee’s secretary or a one-woman secretarial service near the Court of Justice, on whom Elias came to rely. Afterward, he’d return to have the interviewee approve, in writing, the accuracy of the transcript. Only then would he prepare a story using all or part of the interview.
Elias’s method lent itself well to Kathimerini, which was generally regarded as Greece’s national newspaper of record. The Androulidakis brothers befriended him, but his main mentor and protector at the paper was Chourmouzios, who pushed back at those who would tease Elias for his youth or his non-smoking, non-drinking habits. The editor came from the cosmopolitan Cypriot port of Limassol, where his family had a long tradition of literary publishing excellence. In his youth he’d praised socialism, but his awareness of the atrocities committed in the Soviet Union moved him to the political right.
Chourmouzios critiqued Elias’s stories, shared his own approaches to working sources and newsgathering, and gave young Demetracopoulos the latitude to develop his style. He also introduced him to his circle of friends, including the renowned author Nikos Kazantzakis, who had been a Kathimerini correspondent. The editor risked stoking the jealousy of some reporters at the largely no-byline paper by letting Elias, early in his career, attach his name to some of his articles. And he encouraged Elias to pitch other news outlets for stories that didn’t make sense for Kathimerini and would not compete with it.5
Elias felt that a respected but undoctrinaire conservative paper was a good fit for him. On the political spectrum his views were decidedly center-right, but he believed himself an independent thinker. He sympathized with General Nikolaos Plastiras, the progressive victor of the 1950 general election, but disagreed with his domestic plan for reconciliation and amnesty for Communists who had been exiled and imprisoned. Acknowledging the suffering of families and those being held who were not security threats, Elias advocated case-by-case reviews, but thought the menace of international Communism made wholesale amnesty too risky. He also came quickly to doubt that the royal family, particularly the Queen, accepted the limits of a constitutional monarchy, like those found in countries like Great Britain and Sweden, where royal meddling in political activities had been curtailed. Elias supported conservative Field Marshal Alexander Papagos, hero of the Albanian and Civil Wars, when Papagos entered the political arena.
At first, Elias viewed the ever-changing coalitions that struggled to govern the country as the price of a robust democracy and was opposed to changes in the election law that would narrow choices. But he soon acknowledged the importance of a stable government to the country’s economic recovery. US Ambassador to Greece Henry F. Grady, Papagos, and Chourmouzios all favored a variation on majority rule for parliamentary elections, which led to fewer and larger parties, instead of the modified proportional representation system then in place. Elias did too, but thought Greeks themselves should drive the reform changes, without outside pressure.
When Elias started working for Kathimerini, the big domestic story was American plans to reduce the amount and scope of US aid, then over a billion and a half dollars for rehabilitation alone. The commitment of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), created by the US Congress in 1948 to administer the Marshall Plan, extended only through 1952, and was in the process of being replaced by the Mutual Security Administration (MSA), a multilateral alliance that would focus on security rather than economic development. During his two years as ambassador, Grady advocated for carefully weaning Greece off its heavy American economic dependence, worrying that Greeks of all stripes were falsely assuming that reconstruction aid would continue indefinitely. The increased Soviet threat, the rise of Communist China, and the Korean War dramatically accelerated the change in American policy.
When Grady was reassigned to Iran, Elias wondered what changes might take place at the American Embassy. Little did he know that the incoming ambassador, John Emil Peurifoy, would become one of his life’s great antagonists, responsible for triggering three decades of personal and professional travails.
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DURING HIS FIRST months on the job, Elias did a lot of “meet-and-greet” and tried to cultivate relationships with a wide range of new contacts. He learned the faces and personalities behind the letterhead names in the alphabet soup of agencies on his beat. At first, he didn’t report any significant exclusive stories. In general, he found it easier to talk with admirals and generals than with diplomats. The military brass was blunter and “gave good quotes,” whereas the embassy crowd tended to be more circumspect. Initially, he was insensitive to potential problems he was creating by favoring different agencies for coverage and pitting sources against one another. He later used the technique as part of his newsgathering strategy.
That autumn he was informed that he wouldn’t have to interrupt his new work to serve in the army. The Greek government advised him that his participation in OAG and imprisonment had satisfied his military-service obligation. He was promoted to second lieutenant. Along with the good news, he was chagrined to find that the letter crediting him for his stay in Eginition included a diagnosis of “schizophrenia.” He immediately called Dr. George Pampoukis, the longtime director of the hospital’s Department of Psychiatry, demanding that the letter be revised to reflect the diagnosis as feigned. The doctor simply replied, “That’s what it says in the records.” Elias exploded: “Just because it’s written on a paper doesn’t mean it’s true. This was the cover used by Archbishop Damaskinos and others to save me from execution. I don’t want a false diagnosis to follow me all of my life and hurt my reputation and employment opportunities. Check with your superiors.” A couple of days later he received a second letter that complied with his request.
Shortly thereafter, he learned that his wartime service would be rewarded.6 On the balmy afternoon of October 4, 1950, His Beatitude the Patriarch of Alexandria, Msr. Christoforos, conferred upon “the Greek newsman Mr. Elias Demetracopoulos, sentenced by the Germans…for acts of sabotage, the decoration of the Gold Cross of Saint Mark, the highest distinction of the Alexandria Patriarchate.” Attending the ceremony at the Cecil Hotel in Kifissia was the Greek minister of national defense and future prime minister, Konstantinos Karamanlis. The Greek aviation, marine, and agriculture ministers also came. Among the Americans were a general from the American Military Mission; the military, air, and naval attachés of the US Embassy and the director of the US Information Service.7 Newspaper accounts noted “this attendance was significant” because of “the daring and patriotic activities of Mr. Demetracopoulos.” Elias was especially happy that his mother attended, along with OAG leader Bobotinos, and OAG’s deputy chief, Dr. Giannatos. Elias’s latest girlfriend, Celia Was, sat next to his mother at the ceremony.
