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Twelve LOOKING TO THE FUTURE OF GREECE ASSESSMENT OF ANDREAS In pursuit of these parallels I have moved far afield from Greece, my frame of reference. By way of a conclusion I shall try to answer two questions that seem to be still floating in the air, followed by three observations that might be termed the lessons to be learned from this tale. The first of the two questions really amounts to a personal assessment of Andreas Papandreou. As I was writing this book in 1971–72, I did not know Andreas Papandreou well enough, from personal observation, to analyze his character or even to give an entirely accurate picture of the image he projected upon the Greek political stage. People often ask, how American was he, how Greek?1 How much was he an idealist, how much an opportunist? I had the impression that despite his two decades of residence in America Andreas remained essentially Greek. It was as a sojourner that he lived in the United States, not as a true immigrant, despite the evidence that he participated fully in American life, even to the extent of an active involvement in domestic politics on behalf of liberal Democratic candidates. The first two decades of his life formed him, and these were spent in Greece, in the household of George Papandreou. Yet the two decades in America did change Andreas. When he returned to Greece, he viewed his native land as a critic would, rather than as a lover—not that most Greeks do not also view their society critically, quite aware of its shortcomings, its deficiencies.2 Andreas was not the typical Greek, in that in America he had acquired the belief that societies can be reformed by human effort, the evils eradicated through political action. He acquired the blend of idealism and pragmatism that is perhaps uniquely American in that these impulses are also devoid of any cynicism. The typical Greek is a great cynic, and if one called him a reformer he would probably be insulted. Andreas’s American traits strained his relations with his father. The father could not comprehend or accept what he saw as his son’s dogmatism, inflexibility, reluctance to compromise, stubbornness. These were perhaps his American traits viewed in a Greek political context, where they cast a strange glow. While I do not accept Talbot’s gruff judgment of Andreas as ‘‘too rich for Greece’s blood,’’ it is certainly true that he did not slide smoothly into a perfectly harmonious orbit around his father’s political sun. In the last analysis, however, it should be up to the Greek electorate—and not up to Phillips Talbot or George Papadopoulos—to decide who is or is not ‘‘too rich for Greece’s blood,’’ and to judge whether Andreas Papandreou is savior or demagogue, hero or opportunist, god or devil. The question of opportunism is a more difficult one, and perhaps here I may be allowed some cynicism: a Greek politician who did not take advantage of his opportunities as well as promote a few he did not deserve would be considered a fool by his electorate and would doubtless be voted out of office for displaying rampant stupidity. Secondly, given that Andreas had decided to become a politician, has there ever existed a politician who was not ambitious (as I believe Margaret remarked in her book)? Andreas was certainly ambitious, but in my judgment he was not an opportunist in the sense of someone who picks up and advocates political causes he does not believe in merely because they seem popular and may help promote his political advancement. How much popular support did Andreas enjoy in the days of pre-junta democracy? This remains a controversial question some years after the events described in this memoir, and it cannot be resolved because the question was never really tested. The test would have come in the never-held elections scheduled for May 1967, in which Andreas was one of the central personalities and, along with the king, one of the two dominant issues. Had George Papandreou’s party won those elections with a majority larger than in 1964, a great deal of the credit for the victory would have had to go to the exertions of Andreas, as well as to the failings of the king. Conversely, a lesser majority would have been laid at Andreas’s door. His performance in the parliamentary elections of 1964 was...

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