Alibi
Sir: I would like to comment on a book review (5 February) entitled Alibi that has recently come to my attention. It concerned a book by Taki Theodoracopulos, The Greek Upheaval, and was by Christopher Hitchens.
Contrary to Hitchens, who probablY visited Athens for three days, I lived there for ten years, before, during and after the regime of the Colonels. The foreign company I ran there had three score Greek employees, branches or retail outlets 10 every part of the country, and thousands of customers; with all of these I invariablY spoke in fluent Greek, and therefore knew their real views and feelings, as contrasted to the views that educated Greeks vvould pass out to foreign visiting reporters, especially to a trendy-liberal one as Hitchens seems to be.
Hitchens's review is so execrable and so patently prejudiced that it merits no pointby-point rebuttal. But his perspicacity can he. illustrated on a point concerning Spain: In the Daily Express of 1 February Hitchens reported from Spain, blaming terrorism on the right wing. Fifteen days later I note even a paper like the Guardian admitting in arl article that terrorism in Spain is by the left. Your reviewer no doubt spent a maximum of three days in Spain, too.
N. C. Cummins Iperidou St. 3 Athens, Greece
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