Greece: The Searing Days of Summer

The ancient Greeks developed democracy, but they were skeptical about it. "A charming form of government, full of variety and disorder," sniffed Plato. Present-day Greeks found his teaching true last week, as Athens for the second week baked in a hot sun and rocked with riots. One politician un easily recalled that 17 of Greece's 20 revolutions since 1821 have happened in the searing days of summer.

In the wake of his resignation and replacement by King Constantine with another Premier (TIME, July 23), George Papandreou, 77, staged a dramatic "return" t o Athens in a ten-mile motorcade from his country villa. A cheering crowd of 200,000 lined the streets, bus tops, and rooftops, many waving his portrait wreathed in laurels and suggesting to the fallen hero that "a new irreconcilable struggle" had begun in Greece. "Who rules this country today? The King or the people?" he asked. Enthusiastically, the crowd responded, "We want a plebiscite. Unity! Papandreou! Down with the puppet government!"

First Martyr. Two nights later, some 4,000 young followers of Papandreou carried his cause to the Parliament building in downtown Athens. Cordons of police warned them back, but they pressed on. Suddenly the police lobbed tear gas grenades and turned fire hoses on them, then waded in with truncheons. In the push to retreat, bodies tangled and fell. When the curtain of tear gas lifted, Stadium Street was strewn with stunned demonstrators and tourists, broken glass, placards, clothing and hundreds of odd shoes. One student, Sotirios Petroulas, 25, suffocated, and George Papandreou had his first martyr.

For what? As the fiery, hawk-faced ex-Premier told it, Petroulas was a martyr in the cause of "the people," as represented by himself, v. 25-year-old King Constantine. "I am the embodiment of democracy," announced Papandreou. "The love of the people for me has no precedent in the history of Greece."

New Premier George Athanassiadis-Novas did not doubt that Papandreou was popular with the voters. More pertinent at the moment was the old man's strength in Parliament. Novas' regime had won over at least 20 of Papandreou's 171 members of the Center Union faction in the legislature, leaving Papandreou with something less than a clear majority. It was also well known that a great many Center Union rank-and-filers had become disenchanted with Papandreou's particular brand of despotism in party affairs.

Danish Import. Yet Papandreou was still an orator without peer in the land of Demosthenes. And in choosing to attack the monarchy he had a vital issue, for the Greeks have often resented, and sometimes even exiled, a royal family that was originally (in 1863) imported from Denmark.

While Constantine shuttled anxiously between Athens and his summer palace on Corfu, Premier Novas announced that Parliament would be asked to give his government a vote of confidence next week after a five-day debate. His ministers huddled with leaders of other parties to line up support, and Novas himself added that he would be only too delighted to "negotiate with anyone in the Center Union either for a new government formation or a broadening of the present one."