Greece - US Department of State

610 Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XXIX
use with Papadopoulos in attempting to persuade him to become more
democratic: “Whereas we do not presume to tell you what’s good domestically
for Greece, it is our duty as friends and allies to point out
that your internal policies could create serious friction within NATO
and thus end by harming Greece and the Alliance. Given our strong
common concern with deterring further Soviet encroachment in SE Europe
by presenting a strong, united front in NATO, we believe you
must do more about restoring individual and political liberties at
home.” It is along these lines, I’m persuaded, that our tactical handling
of the present GOG should proceed. (The Ambassador’s use of this line
in his December 28th talk with Papadopoulos 10 drew the discouraging
response, I’m sorry to note, that: “Well, too bad for NATO, until it
changes its ideas.” In other words, take us or leave us, as we are!)
Two complementary courses of action are open to us in this respect:
1) we can attempt to accelerate democratic progress within
Greece; and 2) we can try to slow down the adverse reaction to the
Greek situation in NATO. Neither will be easy, but our aim should be
to bring these two lines of action into some tolerable policy balance.
Up to the present we have concentrated primarily on pushing Papadopoulos
rather than on enjoining our NATO friends to avoid initiatives
which, however satisfying to their sense of democratic righteousness,
do not make a notably constructive contribution to the
solidarity which free Europe still badly needs. The use of the somewhat
specious argument that Greece’s present behavior is unworthy of
true NATO membership is about as unrewarding as leveling the same
charge against the Soviet Union (and a lot of other countries) with respect
to their UN membership. Granted, we don’t like the way they
act and therefore should try to get them to mend their misguided ways.
But the most effective way of accomplishing this is not by reading them
out of the club but rather by keeping them in it so we can continue to
influence them. I recognize, of course, that the best way to avoid trouble
in NATO over Greece is to get the GOG to be less repressive; but I
think we should also devote some attention to advising our NATO allies
(and one thinks primarily of Norway and Denmark, who are the
most vociferous) against allowing domestic politicking to prejudice international
security.
In debating the ever-present question of how much, and what kind
of pressure we should put on the GOG to return to democratic methods,
I have always felt rather strongly, Dan, that we have generally ignored
an important factor which might be described as the “legitimacy
of the Revolution.” To a large extent, we and the Western Europeans
10
See Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, volume XVI, Cyprus; Greece; Turkey, Document
375.