TIME EUROPE
May 29, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 21
To Our Readers
In Greece, 17 November is more than a date on the calendar. Revolutionary Organization 17 November — to use its full name — is an elusive terror organization, responsible for numerous political killings. Operating without much challenge from the Greek police, 17 November works on a crowded stage, with about 80 other terror groups. Many of them target U.S. nationals or property in Greece, reflecting a hostility that dates back to American support for the country's military junta of 1967-74.
In May 1967, the month after the generals took power in the land of her ancestors, Anthee Carassava, Time's Athens correspondent, was born in Montreal. Growing up in New York, Carassava — who wrote this week's report on Greece's failure to halt the anti-U.S. attacks — heard bedtime stories from the Greek classics. They made a big impression on her. She began asking probing questions on weighty matters from the age of seven, when she wrote a letter to Henry Kissinger, then U.S. Secretary of State. "I don't remember what I scribbled," she says, "but it prompted Dr. Kissinger to send me a handwritten, elementary explanation of America's policy on Cyprus." Years later, while studying medicine at Athens University, Carassava caught a whiff of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost, and found it "more stimulating than the smell of formaldehyde." She quit medical school to study political science at Union College in New York state and at Harvard. Back in Greece in 1989, she turned to journalism, drawn by the rumblings in the Balkans. "Greece proved an ideal base," she notes, "and United Press International, Reuters, the Associated Press and cnn the ideal springboards." Carassava joined Time in 1995 and has reported on subjects as diverse as the Kosovo conflict, the Cyprus stalemate, ancient Greek cuisine and marine archaeology.
This week's story isn't Carassava's first foray into the subject of terrorism. Two years ago, she reported on Greece's links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (P.K.K.). "Officials here get twitchy if you touch on the issue of terrorism," she says. "The first time I did so, I was called a cia-cum-Israeli-cum-Turkish spy. Needless to say, I felt vindicated a year later when Greece was caught harboring the p.k.k. leader, Abdullah Ocalan." We at Time felt equally vindicated in our confidence in Carassava's professionalism and we will be relying on her for future hard-hitting stories that get behind the news.
Chris Redman, Editor, TIME Atlantic
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May 29, 2000
COVER
Beyond 2000: A New World of Work
EUROPE
Shell-shocked
Angry Dutch residents want answers after a fireworks factory explodes in the middle of their neighborhood
Power Grab
Putin reveals his leadership plans
Rebel Yell
Serb protests against Milosevic's media crackdown kick-start opposition leaders into action
Campaign of Terror
Greece is second only to Colombia in its number of anti-American terrorist attacks
Viewpoint
The E.U. needs a constitutional framework
AFRICA
Ray of Hope
A warlord's capture sparks jubilation in Freetown
BUSINESS
BooHoo.com
A much-hyped dotcom has gone belly up. How many more will follow?
TIME FINANCE
The Pension Problem
As the number of workers to support retirees dwindles, Europe's governments must face a looming financial crisis
Your Money
Rules for planning your retirement
Viewpoint
The early bird can't always expect success
DEPARTMENTS
To Our Readers
World Watch
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