Greece - US Department of State

676 Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, Volume XXIX
Greece wants to be a member of European bodies. The only aspect
of the Greek departure, which could be considered good, was that the
foreign ministers of the participating countries will no longer face the
unpleasantness of having to deal with the Greek case.
The Secretary noted some general apprehension that the Greek
question may come to the surface in NATO. He pointed out that it had
arisen repeatedly in his recent discussions in Brussels. 3 He was sorry
that a solution other than the one arrived at could not have been
achieved. He had been given to understand that there were a number
of derogatory comments in the Human Rights Commission’s report to
the Committee of Ministers and he asked whether that report had been
made public.
Ambassador Vitsaxis confirmed that the Commission’s report had
not been made public. He noted that the conclusions of the report were
substantially: a) that the Communist danger the Greek Government
cited as justification for suspending civil liberties in Greece had not
been proved. (The Ambassador noted that had been only part of the
Greek Government’s argument. It had also pointed to the imminent
danger of chaos just prior to the coup); b) regarding the second charge
of the practice of “torture” in Greece, Ambassador Vitsaxis claimed that
the Commission’s conclusions had been badly construed in the press.
He maintained that out of 250 cases put forward, the Commission singled
out 30, which they considered could be examined prima facie. Of
those 30 they pointed in turn to 11 in which “the presumption was
strong” that these 11 principals had been mistreated. Further, Ambassador
Vitsaxis said that one of the 11 was quoted by the newspaper Libre
Belgique two days ago to the effect that his testimony about the
Greek Government had been a lie and that he had never been tortured
by the Greek Government.
Also with regard to press reports of disagreement between the
Greek Government and the ICRC, Ambassador Vitsaxis noted that the
International Committee of the Red Cross had issued an official statement
on December 5, 1969, 4 noting that it had visited a number of prisons
in Greece and had met with no impediment on the part of the Greek
Government.
The Secretary expressed the hope that the Greek Government
could make some substantial moves in the direction of return to constitutional
government before the NATO spring meeting. He noted that
3 Reference is to discussions held at the NATO Ministerial meeting December 4–5.
Documentation is in the National Archives, RG 59, Conference Files, 1966–1969, CF 396.
4 The report, which was leaked at the end of November, reported on 213 individual
cases of the use of torture on prisoners. It is summarized in The New York Times, December
1, 1969.