The truth about the generals
Sir: I am grateful to Mr Young and Mr Mackridge (Letters, 5 July) for their cour- teous comments on my article, though I am not sure that in the circumstances I enjoy being reminded that I too am an ex-colonel.
Mr Mackridge is of course quite right. It was the ex-generals' plot of 1969 which I meant to describe as mythical, not the ex- colonels' plot in 1967.
Mr Young differs from me on a number of matters of judgment. He has as much right to his opinions as I have, and there can be no certainty in present circumstances which will prove right. I would agree with him in regarding the Greek Communist party as a permanent conspiracy, though I do not believe there was any specific plot timed for the spring of 1967. I would agree with him that there have been many past conspiracies in the armed forces, though I am sure that the particular officers I men- tioned were not involved in one.
I hope Mr Young is right in believing that the present military government will in
the end hand over power to a parliamentary government of its own free will. But it was very hard to find anyone in Greece who be- lieved it.
Mr Fraser's letter (12 July) is another matter. Much of it is unworthy of comment, but I cannot overlook one point.
Mr Fraser implies that I would have approved an unconstitutional seizure of power by my friends among the senior officer corps. This insinuation is not merely insulting, but ignores the ,essential point of my article, which was that the ex-generals of Whom I wrote are not of the conspira- torial type.
Incidentally, I notice that Mr Fraser's letter contains not a word in explanation or justification of the arrest and deportation, without trial, of the senior officers in ques- tion, which were the subject of my article.
For the rest, I recognise in Mr Fraser's letter his master's voice and style of argu- ment. What he says, in effect, is that my friends in Greece and I belong to the past and should cease airing obsolete views. This is a line with which I am familiar. I first encountered it in October 1944, the month in which Greece was liberated from Ger- man occupation.
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