Greece - US Department of State

608 Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XXIX
persists in certain of its foolish and short-sighted policies such as indiscriminate
borrowing at high interest rates to improve its balance of
payments image. It will also have to guard very carefully against inflation
which, paradoxically, could become a threat if confidence in the
economy is restored to the extent that a boom in consumers spending
takes place with the money now being cautiously held. But the economic
oligarchy (and this represents a significant power factor in
Greece) has unmistakably cast its lot with the regime and, for obvious
reasons, is not going to try to undermine it (unless the Government
tries to promote really radical, share-the-wealth schemes). We have the
large projected Onassis investment, meanwhile, together with a concerted
effort on the part of the GOG, offering concessions that no previous
government has been willing to make, to attract the money of
other wealthy Greek shipping operators. Quite conceivably this could
succeed. Even Litton’s investments seem at long last to be picking up. 8
And underlying these more striking economic indicators, the everyday
things that matter to the bulk of the Greek population, such as the consumer
goods price level, the absence of labor unrest and better treatment
at the hands of the bureaucracy, remain not only tolerable, but
probably more favorable than before April 1967.
As we all realize, at the same time, there are a variety of imponderables
in the Greek equation—the Colonels’ painful lack of a sense
of humor, their public relations ineptitudes, their streak of anti-intellectual
vindictiveness, their patronizing conviction that they know
what’s best for the Greek people in all respects, and the confused,
pseudo-ideological pronouncements of the leader himself that pass for
policy blueprints—all of which, if not tempered or corrected, could end
by working against the Government. These must, however, be reorganized
[recognized] for what they are: largely secondary, psychological
manifestations that undoubtedly grate on the intellectuals but are
hardly of a nature to rally people to counter-revolutionary barricades.
One has to be careful not to lose sight of the forest for the trees!
In summary, there are, to the best of our knowledge, no present or
prospective internal developments, either political, economic or military,
of a nature to seriously threaten or unseat the Papadopoulos government.
The persistence of this situation, naturally, will depend on the
regime becoming progressively less, rather than more oppressive, and
on the maintenance of tolerable economic conditions. Yet it is fair to
say, I believe, that Papadopoulos is smart enough to recognize these
needs himself and the corresponding importance of working toward
8 In May 1967 Litton Industries announced that it had signed an agreement with
the Greek Government to promote economic development in Crete and the western
Peloponnesus.