High life
Iron lady
Takt
One of the things I enjoyed most during the seven years of the Colonels' rule in Greece, was seeing the politicians going through the withdrawal symptoms they always suffer when out of office. Power and publicity are more addictive than heroin, and seven years is a long time to go without them.
What particularly struck me about the politicians during their enforced holiday, was the fact that very few of them managed to land jobs. The great majority had money of their own — Nikita Venizelos 'escaped' on his yacht — while others lived in exile without any visible means of support. The present prime minister, George Rallis, tried his hand selling insurance, although I don't think he was very successful at it. The present leader of the opposition, Andreas Papandreou, did much better: he travelled widely and managed to collect a great deal of money from socialist regimes in the cause of future socialism in Greece.
I used to see Rallis during the Colonels' rule, over a backgammon board. We didn't discuss politics because there was not much to say. I was pro junta, he had lost his job because of them. Although he lacked charm, Rallis gave the impression of being both honest and tough. He did not cry foul and blame the Americans and the monarchy like everyone else. He knew it was the politicians' squabbling, and Papandreou's extremism, that had been the cause of the Colonels' coup. Therefore I was very surprised to see him pull a Jimmy Carter last week when Queen Frederika was buried at her old home in Tatoi. He had given permission for ex-King Constantine to stay two days following his mother's funeral, but after Papandreou raved and threatened in parliament he rescinded the order. Constantine was allowed five hours in all, and only 50 people were permitted to attend the service.
Although many Royalists were outraged, I was not. I know the Greeks better than most, and bravery is not one of their traits. Expediency, yes, but certainly not bravery. After all, why make problems for themselves when the person in question is dead? What difference did it make that at one of their nation's most critical moments she had been the beacon of liberty against totalitarianism?
When the communists tried to take over the country in a bloody uprising paid for by Uncle Joe Stalin, it was Frederika and her husband, King Paul, whom the nation rallied around. And once victory had been achieved with the help of the British and Americans, the communists never forgot that she was somebody to be reckoned with. The active part she played during the revolution, the Queen's fund that she organised and through which thousands managed to survive, her cleverness and charm, came under scurrilous attack by so-called democrats. A very effective campaign by the Left made her out to be a monster and an outright thief.
Frederika was strong-willed, like a granddaughter of a German Kaiser was supposed to be. Once, when a politician asked her to account for the Queen's fund, she — who, needless to say, had never touched a penny — answered that 'I don't need to prove to people who are known to have taken bribes that I am honest.'
Ironically, although the King was the first person to challenge the Colonels, and lost his throne for his trouble, the Left depicted him as a junta sympathiser. It was as if Churchill had been branded a collaborator with the Nazis. Just before the King's unsuccessful counter-coup, Frederika saw my father at a function. Like myself, he was sympathetic to the Colonels. The Queen Mother quickly accosted him and asked him whom he was in favour of, the King or the Colonels. My father is no fool. 'I am for Greece, your majesty,' he answered like a modern Pythia of Delphi.
Last week he sent the largest of all wreaths. It was not allowed through by the authorities, and when he put up a large portrait of Frederika in a hotel, the authorities sued him for breach of the peace. 'I can understand them fearing a ghost,' he told me, 'but why are they afraid of flowers?' Well, perhaps now he will understand once and for all that Greek politicians are cowards, and never to be trusted. And instead of giving them money he can leave it to me — outside Greece— so that I can spend it as only I know how. Living well, after all, is the best revenge.
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