The greek connection, p.57
The Greek Connection, page 57
24 “Rise of the Junta in Greece,” Matt Barrett https://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/junta.htm
25 Witcover (Very Strange), 6
26 He definitely didn’t want to repeat the experience of 1960, selecting Henry Cabot Lodge, a foreign policy equal.
27 UPI, “A Good Word’ for Agnew,” NYT, 8/10/1968, 12
28 Donald Rumsfeld, “Confidential Memo—1968 Meeting to Discuss Vice Presidential Nomination,” 8/8/1968; 1968%20Meeting%20with%20Richard%20Nixon%20re%20Vice%20Presidential%20Pick%2008-08-1968%20(1).pdf
29 Theo Wilson, “Pappas, the Rich Mystery Man Behind Agnew” New York Daily News, 8/9/1968; “Agnew, the junta and the CIA link with Nixon camp,” Sunday Times (London), 9/29/1968
30 National Press Club Transcript, Friday, 9/27/1968
31 “Remarks by Governor Spiro Agnew, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 9/27/1968
32 Ibid.
33 Louise Gore letter to EPD, 9/27/1968; on 2/21/70 Agnew told a fundraiser in St. Paul, MN, “I have made no public statements on the Greek government.” Charles E. Claffey, “Exiled Greek Claims Agnew Supports Junta,” Boston Globe, 2/21/1970; in 1989, Agnew wrote historian Kutler: claiming to recall nothing about Greek money, the Gore note “and nothing about the Press Club…Louise Gore was pressuring me to support Demetracopoulos and my advisers were telling me that he was some sort of wild-eyed leftist who was to be avoided.” Agnew letter to Kutler, 2/1/1989
34 “Statement Made by the Greek Political Editor in Exile, Mr. Elias P. Demetracopoulos on Saturday, September 28 at a News Conference in Washington, DC,” Congressional Record, Wednesday, 10/9/1968
35 Ibid.
36 UPI, “Demetracopoulos,” 9/28/1968; “Greek Exile,” AP, 9/28/1968; Alain Clement, Le Monde, 9/29–30/1968; “Agnew, the junta and the CIA link with the Nixon camp,” Times (London), 9/29/1968
37 CIA memorandum, 9/30/1968
38 Nohlen & Stover, 830
39 Embassy of Greece letter to Cong. Les Aspin, 12/15/1980
40 Edward A. Junghans, Assistant District Director, Investigations, to EDP, 9/19/1968
41 Supporting Affidavit for INS,10/23/1968
42 SAC, WFO to FBI director noted that INS investigator was “endeavoring to develop” additional information concerning “subject’s morals” that could overcome the evidence of likely physical persecution in Greece and lead to EPD’s deportation. 11/14/1968 and 12/11/1968
18: JUNTA-GATE AND THE O’BRIEN GAMBIT
1 Louis Harris, interview, 7/28/2004
2 Robert B. Semple, Jr., “Electoral Pact Pushed by Nixon,” NYT, 10/30/1968
3 Devries, 147; “Rising voter confidence in Democrats is found; Gallup Poll Registers Cut in GOP lead on Ability to Handle Major Issues, 10/30/1968; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency, 256–7
4 McGinnis, 126
5 Garment, 140
6 Converse, Miller, Rusk, and Wolfe (“Continuity and Change”), 1083–105
7 Steinem, 10/28/1968. Steinem declined multiple email and telephone requests to discuss her 1968 assessment.
8 Teddy White letter to Nixon printed in Christopher Hitchens’s column Minority Report, The Nation, 6/5/1989, 764
9 Times (London), 9/29/1968; Boston After Dark, 10/12/1971
10 Roubatis, Tangled Webs, 197; Yiannis P. Roubatis and Karen Wynn, “CIA Operations in Greece,” in Phillip Agee and Louis Wolf (eds.), Dirty Work 147–56
11 Roubatis wrote that KYP was the only security agency “restructured” by Papandreou and that it “presented the American CIA with a host of problems.” Roubatis, 197; Andreas Papandreou interview with William Buckley on “Firing Line,” 4/30/1972 in National Herald’s “The Greek Junta: A Retrospective,” 4/21/2007, 12; Katris, 45
12 Weiner, Blank Check, “The CIA Act kept the Agency’s budget secret…creating a clandestine treasury for the CIA…”, 120; https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc18410972_story.html?utm_term=.d36c757150b2 (“Historical data on U.S. intelligence spending is largely nonexistent.”)
13 Miranda Pesmazoglou, interview, 5/29/2012
14 Westebbe, interviews, 5/4/2012 and 4/8/2013; “Demetrios Galanis, Headed Greek Bank,” NYT, 5/5/1973; Economist Westebbe speculated that Pappas may have also taken junta funds for Nixon from the National Bank of Greece, which, based on Pappas’s being a major business client, would have been a relatively softer target. EDP’s sources only mentioned Central Bank involvement.
15 Mario Modiano, interview, 5/31/2012
16 According to former San Francisco mayor George Christopher, Nixon’s 1962 lieutenant-governor running mate and 1968 Nixon-Agnew fundraiser: Pappas “raised a lot of money…working closely with Stans in ’68,” but Christopher was surprised that “nothing listed on records for Pappas.” James Polk, July 3, 1971, notes from Christopher interview, included in letter from Polk to JHB, 12/27/2011
17 Tsimas also confirmed it to Stanley I. Kutler in a 1/5/1987 telephone conversation, Wars, 651; Kutler letter to EPD, 1/5/1987
18 Apostolides, email to JHB, 2/1/2015. According to Murtagh, in August 1989 the Greek government transported 16.5 million secret files compiled by the police and KYP since 1944 to a steel mill northwest of Athens and incinerated the records. Murtagh, Rape, 267
19 Jack Boos, interview, 1/5/2011
20 Deegan subcontracted part of his work to Burson-Marsteller and a “hard-sell publicist,” Carl Levin. After Deegan, the Greek Embassy relied on Harry Anestos, a suburban criminal defense attorney, because of a friendship he had with Greek Embassy military attaché and later ambassador Iannis Sorokos, but paid him only $18,000 annually, largely to “cultivate” Agnew and congressmen with large Greek-American constituencies. Howe, Power Peddlers, 408
21 Shields, interview, 11/18/2014
22 Helms furnished the harshly critical “undated blind memorandum,” 6/14/1966 on EDP to FBI, which forwarded it to State Dept. for action by the Nationalities Intelligence Section. Memorandum from S. J. Papitch to D. J. Brennan, Jr. re: “Ilias P. Dimitrokopulos,” 6/20/1966. Report included such false reports as OAG members having “disrupted” his award for heroism, TIME magazine dismissing him for “unreliability,” flashing “his” American passport and offering to procure similar false passports for Greek journalists, offering bribes, planting propaganda for the Yugoslavs, and the ironic observation that EPD has been a New York Herald Tribune stringer “off and on” since 1959. Deputy Director CIA, Richard Helms, “SECRET” Blind Memo attachment, 6/14/1966
23 “Greek Regime Denies Rumor That It is Financing Nixon,” NYT, 10/15/1968
24 Under the title “Fascist Junta in Greece Financing Nixon’s Campaign,” Andreas Papandreou’s interview with Tidsignal in Stockholm was published on 10/1/1968. Spyros “Stan” Draenos said Andreas received the information from EPD, interview, 5/28/2012
25 October 18, 1968, telephone call from EPD to O’Brien’s office, 12:25 p.m.; returned call from O’Brien to EPD, 3:55 p.m. (Liza Talbot, Digital Archivist, LBJL), email to JHB, 5/31/2013; O’Brien file, JFKL
26 Maheu, 79, 208–10
27 Ibid., 206–7
28 Ibid., 207
29 O’Brien, No Final Victories, 257; Witcover (Dream Died), chapter 9; White, 1968, chapter 9; Blum, Years of Discord, 305–10.
30 Maheu, 210
31 Westebbe, interview, 3/13/2012
32 Marion von Cramm letter to EPD, 9/13/1968, followed by October phone calls
33 Voutselas, interview, 3/2011
34 Salinger, 208
35 Gallup Poll, October 1968; Carl Brown, Roper Center email to JHB, 11/2/2010
36 In penning his inscription to Elias in his 1986 Watergate book, Cover Up, Harry Dent followed up his earlier sentiment with: “your view re the break-in (i.e. looking for the 1968 Pappas money file) makes sense.”
37 Feldstein 62; Dietrich and Thomas, 281–3; Summers, 155, 157
38 Feldstein, 66
39 Ibid., 67–74
40 Napolitan, interview, 11/27/2009
41 Ibid.
42 Broder interviews, 10/2/2009 and 4/12/2010; Mark Feldstein, memorandum to JHB: “Nixon advisor Herbert Klein wrote that Pearson’s decision not to air [in 1968] the rumor of Nixon’s psychiatric treatment probably saved the presidency for Nixon. It seems equally likely that exposing Nixon’s “Greek Connection” would have been just as pivotal. For while financial impropriety may be more complicated to understand than mental illness, Nixon’s previous “slush fund” and Howard Hughes scandals would have made yet another, similar pecuniary one seem more believable, reinforcing the worst of Nixon’s image.” Mark Feldstein, memorandum to JHB “Re: Nixon & Demetracopoulos,” 8/29/2013. Klein’s “would have changed the results” statement is from his book at 412 and discussed in Feldstein, 95–9; Karen Tumulty, “Obama struggles to get beyond a scandal trifecta,” WP, 5/15/2013: “The most corrosive political scandals are the ones that feed a preexisting story line.”
43 Aloysius Farrell, “Yes, Nixon Scuttled the Vietnamese Peace Talks,” Politico Magazine, 6/9/2014; W. W. Rostow, “Memorandum for the Record,” 5/14/1973, LBJL
44 Healy also credited Princeton political scientist and campaign finance specialist Herbert Alexander with providing him tips concerning Pappas fundraising from Greek and Greek-American sources in 1968. In 1971, Alexander provided then–Associated Press reporter James R. Polk with a similar tip on Greek-American donors who contributed to a 1968 Agnew dinner in a Chicago suburb and discovered their names “attached to identical amounts, which apparently they did not give to a separate Nixon-Agnew committee…” The source of those duplicate donations remains a mystery…” “False Campaign Money.” Polk letter to JHB, 12/27/2011
45 Healy, interviews, 10/2/2009 and 11/2009; http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/06/07/robert_l_healy_at_84_globe_editor_columnist_political_insider/
46 Lydon, interview, 9/28/2009
47 Kapenstein notebooks, JFKL
48 Charles Claffey, interview, 10/2009, Healy, interview, op. cit. Note also that less than a year before, The Boston Globe, in a 11/3/1967 editorial, had specifically championed the cause of “persecuted” exile EPD (“distinguished editor and foe of the present military government”) and endorsed the call for a congressional investigation to ascertain “why the Greek junta has so much influence with our State Department and a staunchly pro-American refugee editor has so little.” But in October 1968 no one told Winship that the source of the charges about Pappas injecting Greek money into the US election was the same EPD.
49 Christopher Lydon, “Thomas Pappas: Portrait of a Wealthy Immigrant, Political Kingmaker,” Boston Globe, 10/31/1968, 21
50 Ibid.
51 “Statement Made by the Greek Political Editor in Exile, Mr. Elias P. Demetracopoulos, on Thursday, October 31, 1968, Washington, D.C. at 6 PM,” EPDP
52 WP, 11/1/1968
53 Feldstein memorandum to Barron, op. cit., “In the fall of 1968, Pearson and Anderson tried desperately to prevent a Nixon victory by publishing one exposé after another but none of them hit their mark.” Drew Pearson Papers (G281) LBJL; William G. Helis, Jr., letter to Pearson, October 18, 1968, re: Pappas denial of Greek shipowner involvement in Nixon campaign and other Greek-American fundraising activities; Kapenstein notebooks re: sending Agnew material to Pearson, 10/10/1968, JFKL
54 Westebbe, interview, 8/12/2014
55 Mark Feldstein, “Memorandum to Jim Barron re: Nixon & Demetracopoulos,” 8/29/2013
56 Whitten, interviews, 2011–2012
57 Feldstein email to JHB, op. cit., 4. When reports surfaced in 1975 about Agnew’s support for the junta and Greek money in the election, Robert B. Lin wrote LTE Philadelphia Inquirer (7/30/1975): “If these revelations had been revealed in 1968, we wouldn’t have had a Vice President and President forced to resign their offices, because neither would have been elected.”
58 Robert Dallek, “Three New Revelations About LBJ,” The Atlantic, April 1998. “Johnson wanted something to use against Nixon if the Nixon Justice Department started to comb the Johnson Administration for scandal, and Nixon’s Greek connection would serve that purpose handsomely.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/04/three-new-revelations-about-lbj/377094/
59 Lawrence O’Brien, papers in LBJL and JFKL
60 Norman Sherman, email and interviews, 1/22/2014
61 Jack Anderson with Les Whitten, footnote to United Feature Syndicate column, 6/24/1975; later, “O’Brien denied suppressing information, suggesting he lacked supporting evidence,” Norman Kempster, “Break-in Held Effort to Hide Nixon’s Money Link to Greece,” Los Angeles Times, 8/1/1990
62 Richard Helms, corrected transcript of his Kutler interview in Stanley I. Kutler papers in Univ. of Wisconsin (Madison) archives. Pappas proudly told Apogevmatini in July 1968 that he “worked for the CIA anytime [his] help was requested.” In 1983, EPD told an interviewer, “It would be inconceivable for Tom Pappas to have done this transaction and not to have notified his CIA contacts.” W. Dale Nelson, AP, 6/2/1983. EPD later specifically referred to Greek-American CIA agents in Athens as Pappas’s frequent local contacts.
63 Healy, interview, op. cit.
64 Kapenstein, 1968 campaign diary, JFKL
65 Fraser, interviews and emails, 9/2014
66 Hersh (Price), 138–9; Hersh interviews, including 12/1/2013
67 Robert Healy interviews with JHB discussing Healy’s earlier conversations with campaign finance expert Herbert Alexander; https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/americas-laws-have-always-left-its-politics-vulnerable-to-foreign-influence/2019/10/18/3fb7db62-f0f3-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html
68 Dallek, Camelot’s Court, 113; Baker, 141, 254
69 According to EPD, Louise Gore gave this information to him.
70 Kutler (Wars), 208
19: FIGHTING THE DICTATORSHIP
1 FBI memorandum, 10/23/1968; letters from Republican New York senators Jacob Javits (1/24/1969) and Charles E. Goodell (4/1/1969) to INS district director Lewis Barton
2 Early in the Nixon Administration, EPD described its “encouraging start on the explosive issue of Greece’s military dictatorship,” praising Secretary of State Rogers for going “well beyond any comments of his predecessor” in expressing concern about junta tortures and violations of civil liberties. LTE, NYT, 4/27/1969
3 Memo from RN to Bob Haldeman re: Drew Pearson columns, 1/15/1969, RMNL, WH Special Files Collection, box 1, folder 43; memoranda, RN to Kissinger and Haldeman, 1/15/1969; Kissinger to Haldeman, 1/15/1969 re: scheduling early RN appointment with Tom Pappas; Draenos, “Exile Politics,” 63
4 Letter from Deputy Chief of Mission in Greece (McClelland) to Country Director for Greek Affairs (Brewster), FRUS, XXIX, 1969–1976, doc. 239
5 Staude party, details EPDP
6 CIA 5/6/1969
7 Moskos, 108
8 “Pyrros, “Memories of the Anti-Junta Years,” The Pyrros Papers, 6/19/1991, Special Collections Library, LaBadie Collection, Greek Junta, University of Michigan
9 Letter from Margaret Papandreou to EPD, 4/6/1969
10 Draenos, “Exile Politics,” 57
11 Murtagh, Rape, 104, 207
12 Notes and schedule details re: visit in EPD private papers
13 Vlachou to EPD letter, 3/26/1969
14 Cong. Don Fraser inserted the “Greece: A New Vietnam?” speech into the Congressional Record, Vol. 115, no. 87, 5/27/1969; Senator Frank Moss, letter to Agnew 5/7/1969; Agnew response 6/12/1969; Senator Quentin Burdick sent letters to Defense Secretary Laird, SecState Rogers, and Kissinger twice, soliciting their views, once enclosing the GWU speech, the other with the Hudson Institute paper.
15 Louis Menand, “Fat Man,” New Yorker, 6/27/2005
16 7/16/1969; Kahn sent the paper to Hudson’s entire mailing list, including Kissinger. Republican Senator Charles Goodell put the Hudson paper in the Congressional Record, along with the earlier EPD Wall Street Journal article, 8/5/1969
17 State Dept., 8/20/1969; CIA 7/16/1969; CIA memorandum, 10/17/1969
18 LOOK, 5/27/1969, 19–21; oral histories later revealed that Ambassador Henry Tasca didn’t like to receive “reports describing torture or severe punishment without trial” and when confronted with reports of torture from American diplomats the CIA would say “That’s not true. We hear from our sources…,” the sources being those who were doing the torturing. Charles Stuart Kennedy, ADST
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Panorama WTTG TV, 5/29/1969 transcript
22 Ibid.
23 Testimony, 7/8/1969
24 “The Council of Europe Fights for Democracy in Greece, 1967–1969,” Andreas G. Papandreou Foundation, Historical Series no. 1, May 1998. “The Greek Affair” in Council of Europe’s European Yearbook, Vol. XVII, 1969, 272–335
25 Kofas, 101; FRUS, 1969–1976, XXIX, doc. 257, 10/7/1969
26 Karamanlis letter, EPDP; Woodhouse, Karamanlis, 192; Vidalis, 59; State Dept. Confidential memorandum, 10/30/1969 noted EPD supporting Karamanlis statement in telephone conversation with Andreas Papandreou in Toronto.
27 Woodhouse (Karamanlis), 193
28 Editorial, “Caramanlis fights the junta,” NYT, 10/1/1969
29 EPD telegram to Robert Brimberg, 10/29/1969
30 Vidalis, 64
31 Deena Clark letter to EPD, 10/5/1969
32 Historian Stanley Kutler reviewed the document at the Nixon archives and described it as filled with pages of scurrilous information on Demetracopoulos, largely drawn from CIA files. The archives have since been relocated to Yorba Linda, California, and archivists there now say that that Caulfield memo is missing, perhaps misfiled among the thousands of other documents.
