On his eighty-fifth birthday in December 2013, friends in Washington gathered at his senior-living place to celebrate. The eclectic group included Louise Gore’s niece Deborah Gore Dean, Sy Hersh, Cliff Hackett, and Dick Westebbe. Messages of congratulations were sent from Greece, Ireland, and across the United States.24 The guests were informally attired for the noontime Sunday gathering, but Elias came dressed in a dark navy suit, a white shirt, a red-and-blue-striped tie, and freshly shined shoes. The meal featured his childhood favorites: spaghetti and meatballs, followed by chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream.
—
PARKINSON’S DISEASE CONTINUED to limit his speech and dexterity. His mind was still sharp, but he had difficulty articulating his thoughts. He comprehended more than he could communicate. During 2014 he had expressed increasing concern that he was being victimized by unspecified persons. Some of his caregivers downplayed his worries as signs of his disease, but his anxiety was justified.
Reluctantly relaxing his intense concern for privacy, he gave Cliff Hackett power of attorney for banking matters. Hackett discovered money missing from Elias’s Capital One bank account. Although Elias seldom left his room, ATM withdrawals had been made in Rockville, Maryland, over fifteen miles away, and elsewhere almost $20,000 had been stolen from his accounts.
The episode reminded Elias of the Watergate era behavior of Riggs Bank, which had allowed the FBI to rummage around his accounts to serve Nixon’s interests and then denied for years it had done so. In a scene reminiscent of earlier battles, Hackett, as Elias’s representative, turned to the D.C. police fraud squad for help, and one bank employee eventually went to jail. Capital One never fully apologized, and never provided a full accounting of what had happened. Ever the “scooper,” Elias wanted someone to expose how the bank had let it happen and was pleased to learn that Washington Post editor Marty Baron considered his case possible “material for a broader story on weak security at banks.”25
The Capital One experience may have sapped much of Elias’s remaining energy. He was deemed a candidate for hospice care. In early Spring 2015, his Georgetown facility announced it was closing for renovations. All its residents would have to leave before May for at least eighteen months. Relocating a hospice patient would be problematic, and Elias and Cliff Hackett considered other options. Returning to Athens was appealing, even if Greece was in the middle of its bad-debt crisis. Remembering his father’s return from the diaspora to fight in World War I, Elias liked the image of standing with Greece in its time of trouble. But Lufthansa made it difficult, imposing last-minute boarding restrictions that forced him to change airlines and delay his departure. For several days, he was the only resident left in the place, as it was readied for a major demolition. One of his last visitors was Barbara LaRosa, the niece of Elias’s late wife Celia, who still cherished her childhood memories of the once-happy couple. 26
The various compartments of Elias’s life could be seen in the trio of designated legal decision-makers needed for his health-care and travel arrangements. Cliff Hackett, in Washington, handled the complicated departure; Jeanne Oates Angulo, in Houston, controlled his heath-care proxy, and Persa Metaxas, in Athens—his executrix and sole beneficiary—held his living will.
Accompanied by a nurse, Elias landed in Athens on May 4, 2015, and was driven about five miles to Paiania, east of Mt. Hymettus. Skepi Pronoias, a fifty-year-old elder-care facility, became his new home. 27 His spare, single room on the ground floor had a balcony overlooking a large garden. For several months, Elias rallied in his new environment, more animated and talkative than he had been in Washington. But he never ventured outside his room, and his television remained unwatched.
His most frequent visitors were Persa’s son, Stefan Manuelides, and Kostas Loukopoulos, a former Ethnos reporter. Stefan, who had roomed at Amherst College with future prime ministers George Papandreou (Andreas’s son) and Antonis Samaras, had known Elias all his life and took charge of his final financial and administrative arrangements. Loukopoulos focused on responding to the dying man’s emotional needs. He had interviewed Elias by telephone years before, admired his forceful efforts to bring down the dictatorship, and had written about him, but he had never met him until now. Their connection was personal. Kostas’s idealistic father, crippled at birth, had been exiled and imprisoned during the civil war largely because of a relative’s political notoriety, and was tortured and exiled again at the hands of the colonels.
Others visited, but Persa did not. She had not been well, and even short travel was difficult. His dearest friend of longest standing was also embarrassed for him to see her as she had aged. And she was fearful of replacing her own memory of a robust and articulate Elias with the frail, bedridden reality.
Elias died peacefully on Tuesday, February 16, 2016. His last words, the night before to Stefan, were the standard ones he gave to all inquiries about his health: “I’m surviving.”
His funeral was held Friday in St. Denis Church in Kolonaki, where Elias had attended high school classes in 1941 after the occupying Germans took over the Peiramatikon building for administrative offices. The wooden coffin was closed for the service. A white cloth and large bouquet of white flowers were placed on top, with a white sash inscribed: “Have a nice trip, Giakoulele, Persa”—using her affectionate nickname for him. Smaller bouquets from others were placed nearby.
Fewer than two dozen mourners came to the service in this capacious and celebrated church, each representing a different facet of Elias’s life. The group included Kostas Loukopoulos, the first to arrive; Persa, her brother, and her son Stefan; Christina Moustaklis and her daughter Natalie; politicians from both New Democracy and PASOK; Peiramatikon classmate Antonis Drossopoulos, documentarian Angelos Kovotsos, journalists, and some other old friends. Elias wasn’t a regular churchgoer and the officiating clergy never knew him, but the nearly hour-long service was beautiful. One mourner described as especially soulful the head priest’s chanting the melodic Byzantine hymns of the Idiomela, during which he censed the deceased and the faithful.
Elias’s cousin Dimitrios Tsalapatis, an elected board member of the journalists’ union, gave a prepared speech highlighting the most important events in Elias’s career. Then, Apostolos Kaklamanis, the longest-serving president of the Greek parliament in modern times, made some impromptu remarks.28 After praising Elias’s battle for democracy and against the junta, he urged the journalists and others present to stand up and fight for Greece in the best Demetracopoulos tradition. His voice trembling with emotion, he criticized Greek journalists for being manipulated by political and business interests. Elias’s life should be an inspiration not only for young journalists who never knew him, he concluded, but for citizens everywhere.
It is not clear to what extent the priests knew that Elias’s last will, prepared years before in the United States, stated that he wanted to be cremated. Cremation had not been legal in Greece until 2006 due to church opposition. Even in early 2016, there were no functional crematoria.29 Nevertheless, at the conclusion of the service, the head priest accompanied Elias’s body to a waiting vehicle and offered blessings until the black hearse carrying the coffin pulled away. The cremation took place in Sofia, Bulgaria. Elias’s cremains were delivered to the Athens funeral home early the next week.
Elias’s last will was clear on cremation but not in directions to Persa for final distribution. Several years before, Elias had smiled at the suggestion that his ashes be buried on the Acropolis, near where his father brought him as a young boy. But Greek authorities prohibited that. The solution was the Pnyka, an uninhabited hill less than a kilometer southwest of the Acropolis, revered as the official meeting place of the people in the earliest days of Greek democracy. What could be more fitting?
On Friday, February 26, Persa, Stefan, Christina Moustaklis and Kostas Loukopoulos gathered near the St. Dimitrios Loumpardiaris church. Gently cradling the five-pound ivory-colored clay urn with a simple beige cross on its side, they chose a grove of pine trees partway up the rocky path, toward the bema, the large flat stone that served as a speaker’s platform where Pericles, Aristides, Alcibiades, Demosthenes, and ordinary citizens had debated matters of public policy. This Pnyx, site of the ancient ekklisia, was the wellspring of democracy. They picked out a tree that would not require ninety-year-old Persa to walk too far and tenderly spread the cremains around it. Kostas whispered to himself: “Goodbye, Elias.”
Above the treeline, spectators could appreciate a spectacular panorama set against a bright cerulean sky with light puffy clouds and a gentle breeze. All Athens spread out below, the Parthenon close ahead and, towering in the distance, Mt. Lycabettos, next to where Elias had grown up. After the shared customary blessing of “May his memory be eternal,” Kostas looked up the hill toward the Pnyx and remembered the challenge of Kaklamanis from the funeral the week before, to Greeks, and especially Greek journalists, to live up to Elias’s model of fierce independence, audacity, integrity, civic responsibility, and commitment to democratic values. That, he thought, would be the most fitting legacy of all.
The four concluded their ceremony at a nearby restaurant with the traditional simple post-burial meal of broiled fish, salad, and coffee. Christina brought some fine French brandy for a toast. They finished with Elias’s favorite dark chocolate and Persa’s empathetic benediction: “Elias is with St. Peter now, and for sure he’s already giving the poor saint and heaven a hard time. Poor St. Peter, he obviously won’t know what to do with him.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Transliterating Greek names of persons and geographic places into English is made difficult by different conventions used. There are historical academic renderings of ancient Greek. There are phonetical transliterations that seek to approximate the sound of words in modern Greek. And there are official standards, such as the 1987 approved UN/ELOT system, which established rules for reproducing specific letters. There is also an informal approach used by individuals, spelling their family names distinctively for generations and often using their English first-name equivalents (e.g., John for Ioannis). In CIA files, Elias Demetracopoulos’s name is cross-indexed with at least ten different “aliases.”
This book largely concerns a period before the ELOT system standardized modern Greek transliterations, so, for example, if Antonios Ambatielos were to apply for a passport today, his surname would be spelled “Ampatielos,” using the “mp” letters as they are spelled in Greek, not as they are heard. The same adjustment would be made for Melina Mercouri and Elias Demetracopoulos regarding the “c” and “k” changes in their names. I have made the UN/ELOT adjustment for less-common names and places, but it looks strange on the page for American readers to deal with odd English spellings such as Kretans from Kriti, Periklis not Pericles, and Thoukididis not Thucydides. Accordingly, I have used a combination of approaches, adhering to classical spellings of well-established names such as Crete and Pericles, but using the modern ELOT system for others. In cases where well-known individuals consistently used a particular spelling during their lifetime, such as King Constantine II (not Konstantinos), I have followed their approach.
From 2010 to 2015, I talked with Elias frequently, in face-to-face interviews and in sometimes-daily telephone calls, during which he would reconstruct events and read and orally annotate documents and private papers. At different times he would repeat himself, with slight differences in language used. I have not listed the specific dates of each of my conversations with him, but he is a source throughout. Whether drawn from government documents, broadcast transcripts, or interviews, all conversations quoted were recounted by one or more of the participants or observers.
In researching Elias’s US government files, I first used the more than 1,000 pages of personal records accessed by his attorney, William Dobrovir, from 1975 to 1986, most containing extensive redactions. In Elias’s private papers I found some files, notably from the FBI, that came unredacted, which presumably he received from Senator Vance Hartke during the 1969 Private Bill effort to adjust his immigration status. In 2009, Elias gave me full rights to stand in his place to access all available records concerning him and waive any privacy rights he would have to prevent disclosure. My Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and mandatory appeals to denials yielded similar material, often still with extensive redactions. Some files continue to be withheld in their entirety; others have been destroyed or are missing. Many documents, especially concerning CIA, FBI, and the State Department Security Office information, omit the names of sender and/or recipient and do not indicate the originating or recipient agency or the date. I have not distinguished from which FOIA request tranche a document came. Similarly, I have not created a standard format for referencing documents that come from formal compendiums such as the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, miscellaneous documents identified in online Declassified Central Intelligence Records (CREST), National Archives Research Administration (NARA) searches, presidential library requests, the irregular identifications of government documents obtained through FOIA submissions and appeals, or the unorganized serendipity of EPD’s private papers. This accounts for some of the unevenness in identifying source materials.
For Celia Was’s records I used both Dobrovir’s 1970s material and my 2010+ inquiries. For Tom Pappas, I made 2009+ requests and appeals, getting most from his files in presidential library archives, a lesser number from State Department and FBI records, and slight responses from the CIA. A majority of the Demetracopoulos information was originally deemed “Classified” or “Secret.” In the endnote listings I have not identified all that were so denominated or characterized the extensiveness of redactions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It would take another manuscript to properly thank all who have helped me prepare this book over its long gestation, which in some ways began with the insights provided me by Louis Georgantas, Alec Tsoucatos, Catherine Fisk, and their families and friends, during my time in Athens over the chaotic summer of 1966.
As I’ve described in the Introduction, Elias Demetracopoulos was a difficult and enigmatic subject who opened up over years with great reluctance. In the end, even though he knew this would not be an authorized biography, his generous cooperation made this book possible.
Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians, Melville House’s proudly independent publishers, enthusiastically embraced a book proposal concerning Elias that would deal with a largely unknown source of the Watergate scandal. Kelly Burdick, my first editor, advised me to revisit Athens to explore Demetracopoulos and his world before his anti-junta leadership years in Washington. On my return, he urged me to expand the biography. Mark Krotov, Kelly’s successor, praised early drafts while encouraging me to write an even bigger book, including more US-Greek history during the Cold War. When the manuscript became too large, Paul De Angelis skillfully guided my restructuring and revisions. Ryan Harrington knowledgably captained the voyage during its final years and brought the book home.
Three people were preeminent. They embraced the project from its infancy, energized me when my spirit flagged, and repeatedly discussed the work in progress and reviewed entire, often unwieldy, iterations, always enhancing the work by their incisive criticism and wise recommendations. Cliff Hackett, Jean Monnet biographer, former foreign-service officer, House and Senate consultant and Elias’s closest male friend in Washington, never failed to respond to my repeated requests for help. My wife, Margie Arons-Barron, journalist and former editorial director to whom this book is lovingly dedicated, put much of our family life on hold for years, patiently listened to my Elias monologues, and unstintingly gave me the benefit of her professional expertise. Athens-based journalist Kostas Loukopoulos started as an interviewee and became a trusted friend. The book would not be what it is today if it weren’t for his long years of great assistance, fact-checking, conducting supplementary Greek language research and interviews, translating documents, and deciphering nearly illegible handwritten Greek personal correspondence. His unselfish support rose from pure philotimo and respect for Elias’s fight against the junta and for Greek democracy.
In nearly ten years of researching and writing, I benefitted greatly from the work and encouragement of others. Historians, journalists, former diplomats, and chroniclers of that period provided my grounding, and some generously opened their files, exchanged emails and phone calls, and suggested others to contact. Many shared their reminiscences generously; others with tactful restraint or reluctance. A partial list of those who provided valuable research and writing assistance includes: George Anastasopoulos, Jeanne Oates Angulo, Pavlos Apostolidis, Susan Margolis Winter Balk, David Barrett, Fred Barron, George Behrakis, Frank Bellotti, Richard Ben-Veniste, Costas Betinakis, Michael Binstein, Jack Boos, Evagelia Bournova, Thomas Boyatt, Jim Boyd, David Broder, Carl Brown, John Capsis, Ronnie Caragianis, Elliot Cattarulla, Gia Cincone, Charles Claffey, Chuck Clayman, Julia Clones, Robert Dallek, Stavros Dimas, Athanassios Douzenis, Spyros (“Stan”) Draenos, Antonios Drossopoulos, Michael Dukakis, George Enislides, Leslie Epstein, Nouvelot Eudes, Stathis Eustathiadis, Mark Feldstein, Merle Fisk, Barney Frank, Arvonne Fraser, Don Fraser, Michal Freedhoff, Rebecca Gabbai, Pitsa Galatsi, Morgan Gale, John Gamel, Maria Gentekou, Jack Germond, Evelyn Godwin, Av Goldberg, Michael Goldman, Dick Goodwin, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mike Gravel, Geir Gundersen, Michael Harrington, Louis Harris, Carl Hartman, Robert Healy, Sy Hersh, James Herzog, Christopher Hitchens, John Holum, Thomas Hyphantis, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Charlotte Sandager Jeppesen, Loch Johnson, Michael Kalafatas, Vassilis Kapetangiannis, Pantelis Kapsis, Maria Karagiannis, Theodore Kariotis, Andreas Kastanis, Pinelopi Katsigianni, Robert Keeley, Brady Kiesling, Jim King, Bill Kovach, Angelos Kovotsos, Stanley Kutler, Leonarda Lamprianidou, Barbara LaRosa, Nikia Leopold, Anthony Lewis, Gordon Liddy, Bo Lidegaard, Polly Logan, Evangelos Louizos, Chris Lydon, Lilly Makrakis, Roviros Manthoulis, Alexandros Mallias, Stefanos Manouelidis, Ed Markey, Mark Mazower, George McGovern, Jim McGovern, Jessica McWade, Persa Metaxas, Nikos Michaelis, Nick Mitropoulos, Mario Modiano, Joanne Montouris, Dick Moose, Connie Mourtoupalas, Christina Moustaklis, Natalie Moustaklis, Chris Murphy, Joe Napolitan, Warren Nelson, Marty Nolan, Nick Nikitas, Anders Harris Nielsen, Nancy Nizel, Kathy Olmstead, Frini Papageorgiou, Nick Papandreou, Alexis Papahelas, Achilles Paparsenos, Marina Parisinou, Deborah Gore Dean Pawlik, Rikke Bang Petersen, Dimitrios Piknis, Ed Perry, Miranda Pesmazoglou, Stefanos Pesmazoglou, Dimitrios Ploumpidis, Jim Pyrros, Vassiliki Rapti, John Richardson, Jan Saragoni, Thaleia Schlesinger, Elizabeth Sherman, Mark Shields, Panayotis Soldatos, Steven Stamas, Nick Stavrou, Toni Stearns, Tom Stuckey, Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swann, Patrick Theros, John Tierney, Photini Tomai-Constantopoulou, Dimitrios Tsalapatis, Amalia Tsiantou, Litsa Tsitsera, Phoebe Tully, Lou Urenek, Guy Vanhaerverbeke, George Vlachos, Elias Vlanton, Angelique Voutselas, Alexander von Cramm, Tina von Cramm, Dick Westebbe, Les Whitten, Jules Wit-cover, John Xifaris, Christa Xydaki, Fendall Yerxa, Nick Zervas, and Thaleia Zervas. I leave unacknowledged those whose price for candor was my pledge to respect their confidentiality.
Reference staffs at national archives, university archives, and presidential libraries were, with few exceptions, extraordinarily accommodating. Congressmen Don Edwards and Don Fraser authorized me to access their closed archives. Jim Pyrros provided context for his published diary and archives collection. Particularly helpful were Bill Burr at George Washington University’s National Security Archive; Elli Droulia and the librarians at the Parliament Library in Athens; Liza Talbot and Claudia Anderson at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, and David Paynter at the National Archives in College Park, MD.
I want to thank: Leandros Papathanasiou, publisher of Pella Publishing Company, for permission to use quotations from James Pyrros’s The Cyprus File: Washington, D.C. and Orestes Vidalis’s Confronting the Greek Dictatorship in the U.S.; Deborah Gore Dean for permission to quote from Louise Gore’s letters to Elias; and Barbara LaRosa to quote from the letters of Celia Was.
Thanks also to others on the Melville team: Stephanie DeLuca, Marina Drukman, Tim McCall, and Amelia Stymacks for their help in preparing the book for launch, and the hardworking staff at Penguin Random House for distributing it far and wide.
ENDNOTES
Abbreviations used in the text and in notes:
ADP
Athens Daily Post
ADST
Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training, Oral History Project
