Karamanlis: The Restorer of Greek Democracy (review)

134 Reviews King in December 1943 not to let the British bully him into surrendering his constitutional right to the throne. Neither Churchill nor Bevin was responsible for the decision to restore King George to the throne in September 1946. It was the outcome of an imperfect but not corrupt plebiscite, carried out in the aftermath of the Communist assault on Athens in December 1944. Nor was it British policy which sponsored the so-called "white terror " which followed the "red terror." Mr. Alexander quotes Leeper's specific advice on averting it (p. 91). Bevin, who succeeded Eden in July 1945, was constantly urging the Greek government to act with moderation, and the King to behave as a "strictly constitutional monarch" (p. 213). These adjurations, though ineffective, were not insincere. Apart from lucidly clarifying these facts, Mr. Alexander's book has other merits. He gives close and detailed attention to the economic problems of reconstruction in Greece after the war. He emphasizes the reciprocal impact of policy towards Greece and the other Balkan countries: the British government hesitated to criticize Soviet policy in the "people's democracies" for fear of counterattacks on policy in Greece. He is severe but not unjust in his condemnation of the politikos kosmos of Athens, which was eager for power but indifferent to responsibility. Perhaps most important of all, Mr. Alexander now leaves the onus on those who hold the sinister interpretation of British policy in Greece to prove that British Ministers and officials were persistently lying about their motives and intentions, not only in public but also in private communications with each other. It will be a valuable service if Mr. Alexander will proceed to make a similar study of the Truman Doctrine itself, based on the corresponding documents of the State Department, which he has not utilized in the present work. CM. Woodhouse King's College, London CM. Woodhouse, Karamanlis: TL· Restorer of Greek Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press. 1982. Pp. 288. $44.00. Among political personalities of contemporary Greece Constantine Karamanlis is at once typical and unique. He is typical because despite rather humble provincial origins he was very much the product of the same forces and machinations which brought to promi- Reviews 135 nence the vast majority of political leaders of twentieth century Greece. He is unique because, as C. M. Woodhouse has gone to great lengths to demonstrate in this volume, Karamanlis sought to transform and modernize Greece internally and to improve its relations with the rest of the world. And unlike Eleftherios Venizelos, with whom he is inevitably compared, he has reached the last act of his career universally respected and popular. It can be argued that Karamanlis is "The Restorer of Greek Democracy" only in a technical and perhaps ephemeral sense. Yet, whatever the future of democracy in that country, during the last ten years he has served as the unifier and father-figure as no other among his compatriots could have done. His political career spans half a century (he was elected deputy in 1935), a period of great turbulence and change. However, Woodhouse focuses on the years since the civil war, when Karamanlis was travelling with great speed on "The Path to the Top." His attitude toward the coming of the Metaxas regime was apparently typical ofthat of most of his fellow deputies: to oppose the dictatorship would have been tantamount to support for the "revolution ." As for the enemy occupation and wartime resistance, in his own words, "No movement ofthat period reflected my own political ideas." On the other hand, in the early fifties, serving alternatively as minister of labor, transport, social welfare and public works, he is shown to have been dynamic, resourceful and capable of producing results. According to Woodhouse, this truly impressive record was the reason for his selection by the palace to succeed Papagos in 1955. As prime minister he continued to press for economic progress, industrialization and social reform. However, the Cyprus problem soon tended to obscure all other issues. Woodhouse, who is especially well informed on this complex topic, shows Karamanlis to have been moderate and farsighted whereas the British, the Turks and Makarios are blamed for ruining...