High life
Winning ways
Athens
In January 1976 I wrote an article for which I was eventually to be awarded the first of many prizes that I have won for my writing. When the time came for me to col- lect my trophy I decided to do it by proxy. The authorities, however, had other plans. They insisted that the Cassandra award has to be given to the lucky recipient in front of many witnesses, and in my case those witnesses were five burly policemen knock- ing on my father's door early in the morn- ing and demanding my whereabouts. Once the authorities realised that I was too shy to receive my prize, they sent out an alert ask- ing the police, the border patrol, the fire department, the gendarmerie, Olympic Airlines personnel, the fourth estate, and any responsible Greek citizen to call them if they set eyes upon my person. What they didn't reckon with was my crew. I simply got up and left one morning on my yacht.
The passage in the article that got me the award was the following, and it appeared on 23 January 1976 in the New York Times: `There is strong evidence that an un- precedented encroachment by the Soviet Union is taking place in Greece. Through subtle infiltration of the press, the Soviet machine has succeeded in moving Greece still further away from NATO and the United States. In fact it is widely believed that the Soviet disinformation service has managed to subvert Greek life and just about sever the strings that have always united Greece and Uncle Sam. The KGB's infiltration of the press is a major factor in creating the anti-American climate.'
Now the Cassandra prize carries with it an 18-month stay in a hotel that also houses my friends the Colonels. After I refused to accept it for two years the authorities finally gave up and let bygones be bygones. Until this year. Now, as of last week in fact, I am about to receive another award: the Delphic Oracle one. A few brave souls, some of them still housed in the hotel that Irefuse to stay in with the Colonels, have toted me winner of the Delphic prize without a single dissenting voice. And they want me to col- lect it at the same time that Mr Paul Anast, the Sunday and Daily Telegraph correspondent in Athens, collects his Cas- sandra one.
Here is what' Paul Anast wrote in the Sunday Telegraph of 19 September 1982: `The Soviet Union has infiltrated the Greek media and propagated a disinformation campaign to a deeper extent than in any Western country. They say methods employed by Russia have included help in the setting up of a highly successful Soviet- front Greek daily, Ethnos (the Nation), financial inducements to other Publica:,
tions, and direct pressure on conservaal' newspapers.'
Although I am a humble man, I did P61111 out during the ceremony last week thatk won the first Cassandra prize and it tv", the Telegraph man six years to match all achievement. The reason being, of coarse; that it doesn't take a genius to realise Oa most of the Greek press have always be":11 on the take. And like all thieves they screw.,, loudest that they are honest. Greece has t74 openly communist papers, one supPell ,, from Moscow, the other from Bucharese
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and the best-selling one that Anast vir° about Ethnos. The owner of Et-h110101 was selling books until very recently, v a even more recently he has bet„, negotiating to buy a couple of yachts f1'. shipowners who have fallen on hard rimPs Ironically, the Prime Minister, Argil, Papandreou, the most famous alloy American since Khomeini, attended a Pa as to celebrate the first year of Ethnos. Or' , ssiodmtsae twtoitns . said, the first year of Soviet sll" Now some people will tell You "v toe Andreas 'is an actor who does not be"" d in anything except himself, Power ails• women', like his ex-political ally Dellih°,0 thenes Botsaris whom I am quoting. 0t''' will say that he will dismantle the co try's institutions in order to perpetuate to rule. I say that if — and here I am trylabcta, win yet another award — the object 01 tbe tellect is merely to mislead, then a perspicacious Andreas must be viewed et, Greek Teddy Kennedy. Even better, in fil ip because Andreas, who was a 'Wilco Bethesda Naval Hospital during the nil. and saw no action, did not cheat whiler,"5, ing bandages. And speaking of hosPita% yet another CIA plot sent Mrs Fapandref:',0 to hospital last week. An American iellY off stung her while she was swimming 0, Lagonissi. Margaret Papandreou lives4i, while the jellyfish, it was reliably reP°1` died instantaneously.
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