ABSTRACT
From 1967 to 1974, the colonels’ regime made, in one sense, Greece’s full alignment even more unproblematic for the alliance: compliance conformed to the regime’s ideological commitments and political needs, central among which was its own survival through domestic oppression. This chapter reproduces schematically the decisive events, agents, reasons, and causes of the two policy-patterns just introduced. It shows how, during phase I, the conservatives, under Papagos and Karamanlis, and the liberal government of George Papandreou, perceived that Greece was expected to place allied unity far above the pursuit of other vital interests. During phase II (April 1967-July 1974), the colonels’ regime tried to exchange servility in NATO for American toleration and legitimation. The Socialist platform for the 1981 electoral campaign exhibited a confident expectation of victory. In formulations characterized by apparent ambiguity, Panhellenic Socialist Movement appeared to be relaxing its formerly radical self-definition. Greece’s semialignment had thus begun in a framework of multiple Greek and NATO paradoxes and dilemmas.
