SEVERAL WATERGATE-RELATED NARRATIVES published during the 1980s and ’90s assembled the fragments of the 1968 and 1972 election histories—involving, in shifting combinations, Elias, Pappas, and the Nixon team—into a theory loosely called “the Greek Connection.” In varying degrees, Elias was both an informed source and a center of attention for these stories.
In June 1982, as the tenth anniversary of Watergate approached, Jack Anderson employed the term “Greek Connection,” to mean the Demetracopoulos-as-a-dangerous-Communist device used by Nixon aides to scare a majority of Patman’s committee into voting against subpoenaing key Watergate participants, thereby abruptly stopping the first serious investigation.2
In his 1983 book The Price of Power, Seymour Hersh presented and confirmed the Demetracopoulos allegations about Tom Pappas serving as a financial conduit in 1968. Although Kissinger, appearing on Ted Koppel’s Nightline, called Hersh’s description of his role in halting the 1968 investigation “a slimy lie,” Jack Anderson called Hersh’s revelations about the Pappas scheme the “smoking gun in the Greek connection.”3
Christopher Hitchens found in the Hersh book a convincing explanation of the Watergate break-in. In 1986, Hitchens published a major essay in The Nation titled “Watergate: The Greek Connection,” in which he highlighted blocked efforts to mount congressional investigations of Pappas’s activities.4
Stanley Kutler’s 1990 book The Wars of Watergate brought the Greek Connection theory front and center. He tracked down players in the Patman story and received independent confirmation of Pappas’s 1968 illegal transfer of Greek money to Nixon. Former CIA director Richard Helms told a London friend that Kutler’s was “by far the best book” on the topic.5
At gatherings marking the fortieth and following anniversaries of Watergate, and in other events, scholars, journalists, and Watergate aficionados have not agreed on exactly what the burglars were looking for.6 Collecting intelligence on whatever “shit file” O’Brien had on Pappas’s role in the 1968 Nixon campaign was surely not the sole motive for the 1972 break-in, but the Greek Connection endures as at least a plausible partial explanation.7 Certainly, the anxiety that Elias caused people in the Nixon White House was real and had important consequences.
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THE FALL OF the Berlin Wall and its aftermath in the 1990s had ripple effects as Greece, the United States, and much of the world focused more on domestic concerns. It was also a transitional period for Elias. He missed the adrenaline rush of getting news before it broke and influencing history. He was no longer a ubiquitous presence on Capitol Hill. Eventually, many of his best contacts moved on to other jobs, retired, or died.
After Bob Brimberg’s fatal heart attack in 1993, disagreements with the firm’s successors led to the end of that association. For a while, Elias kept up his Wall Street consulting work for other companies and made trips abroad on their behalf. But his business clients were changing their strategic focus from fundamental research to more quantitative approaches. In 1995, Citibank Global Asset Management ended their long relationship with Elias in an effusive letter praising his “exceptionally perceptive analyses” of the complex interaction of economic and political dynamics during the Cold War and post-Communism eras.8
Elias would continue to monitor international political and economic news, but only as an interested observer. He still read the New York Times and the Washington Post daily, and supplemented them with Greek newspapers and television newscasts. He never learned to use a computer, so he was unable to research topics of interest on the Internet or exchange emails. Always the old “scooper,” he would feed his insights, tips, and outrages via telephone to friendly journalists, editors, and historians on both sides of the Atlantic.
He continued to attend Washington dinner parties and receptions, but more as another guest, not a man with a special agenda. While he was still often tapped as the desirable extra man, he was increasingly seen attending events with boon companions like Louise Gore, Deena Clark, and Jeanne Oates. He found great pleasure spending quiet time with close friends, and talked nearly daily with Persa, who, after 1988, largely stayed in Athens.
Instead of reinventing himself, retooling his skills and engaging with new players and their issues, Elias turned inward and looked back. He focused on burnishing his legacy, intent, as always, on setting the record straight. He tried to get federal agencies and authors to correct their erroneous or incomplete accounts and identify him properly. He was particularly incensed when the State Department’s long-delayed official history of the controversial junta period in Greece (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. XXX, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, 1973–1976) misidentified a key reference to him as “Androutsopoulos.”9
Similarly, although Demetracopoulos liked Tim Weiner’s 2007 history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes, he took sharp exception to the author’s attributing the disclosure of Pappas’s 1968 delivery of Nixon cash not to Elias but to a House speech by Congressman Don Edwards.10 The June 17, 1993 speech, “Watergate and the Greek Connection,” made on the twenty-first anniversary of the break-in, was a tribute to Demetracopoulos and directly credits Elias with being the one providing “proof” of the 1968 illegal money transfer.11
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AS HE ENTERED his final years, Demetracopoulos repurposed the hundreds of once-secret government files he’d painstakingly uncovered. In the past, he had sometimes quietly assisted friends like Christopher Hitchens and Washington Post reporter Larry Stern as they wrote their Cyprus books, respectively Hostage to History and The Wrong Horse. Now Elias made it widely known that he was available as an informed source. He distributed a three-page list of topics and people he’d be glad to talk about. Describing himself as one who “speaks with documents,” Elias prepared packets of articles featuring himself and his exploits. Being named as a source in nearly three dozen books pleased him immensely.
From time to time, Demetracopoulos wrote articles that usually concerned great moments in his life. In the Washington Post, for example, he challenged Newt Gingrich’s assertion that Bill Clinton’s taking Chinese money was the first case of foreign money in American politics.12
His critics found Elias’s self-promotion excessive. Others saw it as a needed cathartic release after dealing with a lifetime of false rumors and malicious disinformation. Several psychiatrists and psychotherapists observed that Elias’s compulsive compartmentalization and somewhat narcissistic behavior was consistent with that of Holocaust survivors and other abuse victims, suggesting that these tendencies might have been rooted in his World War II experiences, adaptive behavior that contributed to his survival.13
Elias made no apologies for his behavior. When asked years later what he thought was the most overrated virtue, he replied without hesitation: “Modesty.” He shrugged off criticism, insisting flamboyance is proper if you have underlying substance. He felt he lived up to what he said about himself. He was also stubbornly reluctant to admit mistakes beyond the hackneyed observation that “everyone makes mistakes.” Pushed to admit to some error of judgment, Elias mentioned only one.
In 1978, Washington Post national editor Larry Stern told Elias he wanted to write a feature on Demetracopoulos’s CIA-driven troubles with Time, the Herald Tribune, the Washington Star, and the Washington Post, believing that it was a compelling tale of a compromised free press. He said editor Ben Bradlee, whom Elias had first met in Paris in the 1950s, agreed. When he was finished, Stern called Elias to ask him where in the paper he’d like the article featured but added that Bradlee didn’t believe the Post’s part of the story was strong enough to be included.
Elias replied: “Larry, we agreed to do the story including the Post. Now…you’ve taken away the Post. I thought we had an understanding…” He told Stern to “Forget the whole thing. Kill it. Don’t run it.”
“That was my biggest mistake,” Elias recalled in 2010, “because what I should have done was to have the Post publish the article without mentioning itself and then call the New York Times a month later with the story the Washington Post left out. I’ve made other mistakes,…but this mistake goes to the heart of the newspaper business.” The “scooper” was angry at himself for having reacted personally, not strategically.
Demetracopoulos treasured two letters. In 1993, former CIA and FBI director William Webster, who had confirmed reports of extensive agency surveillance and helped clear his name, wrote a “Dear Elias” letter reflecting on Demetracopoulos’s “long travail”: “As I am sometimes given to saying, good things are worth waiting for…I enjoyed our visit…I hope to see you again soon…Bill.” Three years later, during the election-year debate over the Clinton scandals, former Wisconsin congressman Henry Reuss, retired chairman of the House Banking Committee, wrote to tell him he thought the transfer of Greek money in 1968 was of “more transcendent importance than Whitewater,” the Arkansas land deal that led to Clinton’s impeachment. Reviewing Elias’s leadership during the seven-year struggle against the junta, Reuss concluded, “Pericles would have approved of you.”14
Elias stayed in touch with his friends in Europe and the United States by telephone and letters. Especially with Mario Modiano and childhood friend Antonis Drossopoulos, he dissected the never-ending crises of their homeland. Elias viewed events in Greece with a blend of anger and sadness. “So many years of missed opportunities to make reforms that could make life better for people,” he reflected, “broken promises, wasted sacrifices, and lessons never learned.”
From time to time he’d visit Greece, but he was put off by Athens’s pollution and pugnacious drivers who would drive and park anywhere—which he saw as a metaphor for increased incivility in Greek political discourse. To a Washington Post reporter who asked why he stayed in D.C. long after the junta was overthrown and his citizenship restored, Elias replied that he had no family or job in Athens and because “Washington is a fascinating city.”15
Some who had worked with him in Greece and the United States were upset with him for not staying more involved, not continuing to be a forceful public voice for reform. Elias’s response was that he had done his part and it was time for others to do theirs. He also sensed that there was a new generation of leaders who didn’t care what he might have to offer. Other friends wondered whether his deteriorating health had become a limiting factor.
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MANY OF DEMETRACOPOULOS’S later years were lonely. More and more empty dates appeared on his once-overflowing calendar. He comforted close friends like Deena Clark and Louise Gore during their last illnesses and grieved their deaths in 2003 and 2005. Others drifted or moved away. Jeanne Oates got married, became Jeanne Oates Angulo, and later retired to Texas. Elias recalled the quotation attributed to Harry Truman: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” But he also remembered his father’s teaching him Aristotle’s three kinds of friendship: utilitarian, pleasurable, and that based on long-lasting goodness. “Poor Elias,” commented Stanley Kutler, “he really believes in serious friendship.”16
He acknowledged wistful moments when he thought it would be nice to have the companionship of a wife or the personal attention of a child, but quickly and unsentimentally concluded he had made the correct decision. “If I had a family, I never could have done the things I did. It would have been a dangerous distraction. I always would have been afraid of the impact on their lives. I would never have wanted to risk their safety and peace of mind, the way I did in marrying Celia. And now I pay the price, but so be it.”
Asked to reflect on mortality and on Nikos Kazantzakis’s famous epitaph “I hope for nothing, I’m scared of nothing, I’m free,” Elias insisted there was more to do, lots to fear, and that it was still too soon to consider any freedom that could come from death. One persistent fear was being forgotten.
In October 2007, after lunch with a Greek friend at the restaurant that had replaced the Jockey Club, the nearly seventy-nine-year-old Elias, too proud to use a cane or hold onto the rail as his Parkinson’s disease became progressively worse, took a fall on the steps outside. He fractured his collarbone and hip, and never fully recovered. Jeanne Oates Angulo returned from Texas to arrange for his health care and new living arrangements.
After surgery and a long rehabilitation, the world of the once-intrepid journalist shrank to a modest two-room residence at the Georgetown Senior Living facility on QStreet. Slowly his new place took on the cluttered atmosphere of the old apartment only blocks away. Notwithstanding the negative prognosis and persistent pain he tried to hide, he slowly drained his resources, continuing to pay full rent on his document-filled apartment, in the hope that one day he would be well enough to return there.
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ON JUNE 19, 2007, the Botsis Foundation for the Promotion of Journalism gave him an award in Athens, described by some Greek journalists as a prestigious “lifetime achievement” prize. Elias could not attend the ceremony, but Persa Metaxas and Christina Moustaklis attended on his behalf.17 Several months later, Greek president Karolos Papoulias announced he would decorate Elias as a Commander of the Order of the Phoenix, for “outstanding services rendered to Greece in his capacity as journalist” and his “history of opposing Greece’s military dictatorship.”18 Nearly a decade before, when US ambassador Nicholas Burns and President Bill Clinton had offered apologies to the Greek people for American behavior during the junta years, Demetracopoulos regarded their words as important milestones, but largely anticlimactic.19 By contrast, this Greek recognition—from a government that had hounded him into exile and taken away his citizenship—was deeply personal. Of all the official recognitions he ever received, this one meant the most.
On the evening of Monday, January 7, 2008, the Greek Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue was aglitter for a well-attended reception in recognition of this new honor. The crowd represented a cross-section of his life. Columnist Bob Novak came, along with Sy Hersh, other journalists, former congressional staffers, diplomats, Georgetown society ladies, and historians such as Robert Dallek. Senator George McGovern flew in from South Dakota and Jeanne Oates Angulo, with her husband, from Texas. Even former CIA and FBI director William Webster came to congratulate him. Ambassador Alexandros Mallias described Elias’s successful career as journalist and “his constant fight to preserve democracy.”20 Christopher Hitchens followed, extolling Demetracopoulos’s courage in the face of abuses of power and his relentless and selfless commitment to great causes.
Then Elias slowly rose, still in pain from his accident, expressed his thanks, and urged that the award be seen as recognition as well for the many others who had struggled and suffered during the junta years. He paid particular honor to “the two American leaders, Congressman Ben Rosenthal and Senator Bill Fulbright, [who] could not survive to see their resistance to the junta recognized.” He continued:
I see this award, therefore, as recognition that many people contributed to a victory over brutality and subversion of democracy in its historic homeland. Many young people of Greece who demonstrated at personal peril and often harsh treatment and the military officers like Colonel Spyros Moustaklis who were tortured for their resistance must never be forgotten. A few of my fellow journalists also suffered from their attempts to preserve and present the truth in those dark days.
THE VOICE OF AMERICA, with which he had sparred in the past, broadcast a glowing report of the ceremony, and the Greek Herald, bastion of a Greek-American community that often criticized Demetracopoulos, described the award and the list of notables “who spoke about Mr. Demetracopoulos’ great contributions to democracy.”21
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FROM AFAR, DEMETRACOPOULOS commented on his growing concerns about deteriorating conditions in his homeland. For years he had told American friends that the European Union was not treating Greece fairly. At the same time, he warned Greek friends about the lack of responsible leadership and their unsustainable political system. His homeland had been deceitful in its public accounting. He said that cooking the books, effectively lying to the EU about the scope of Greek borrowing and the size of its national deficit and debt, would have severe consequences. Of course, heavily export-dependent Germany was complicit in lending credit. He blamed both major Greek parties for padding public payrolls and agreed with those who railed against the cronyism of a political system dependent on rousfeti (expensive political favors), fakelaki (“little envelopes”), and grigorossimo (bribe-induced stamps of approval).22 He also criticized those who avoided paying taxes and hid their money abroad. Political and business leaders who committed crimes should be brought to trial, he said, and, if found guilty, jailed. He was particularly troubled by the rise of the far-right Golden Dawn party, a disturbing manifestation of a larger authoritarian trend in Europe that he feared would grow.
In this troubled 2010 atmosphere, directors Robert Manthoulis and Angelos Kovotsos produced a documentary about Elias Demetracopoulos, portraying his “spiritual audacity” as an inspiration for their countrymen. Their film, It’s Time for Heroes, sought to connect Demetracopoulos’s own struggle for justice with Greece’s current situation and was enthusiastically received at the 2014 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.23
