Greece: Death in Athens

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A commemorative murder

As he did every weekday at 7 a.m., Captain George Tsantes stepped into the back seat of a black Plymouth sedan outside his home in Kifissia, a northern suburb of Athens, for the 30-minute drive to his office in downtown Athens. This time, however, two men on a Vespa motor scooter were shadowing him. When the car stopped for a red light, the scooter zoomed alongside, and a gunman fired seven shots from a .45-cal. pistol, killing Tsantes instantly and fatally wounding his driver.

Tsantes, 53, was the first American to be killed by terrorists in Athens since Dec. 23, 1975, when CIA Station Chief Richard Welch was shot down outside his home by a gunman with a .45-cal. pistol. Hours after last week's shooting, a man telephoned the Greek daily Elefterotypia and claimed responsibility for the killing on behalf of the 17th November Revolutionary Organization, the group that took responsibility for Welch's assassination. Ballistics tests later showed that Tsantes had been shot with the same gun that killed Welch.

Tsantes, however, was not so obvious a target. Born in New York City of Greek immigrant parents, the highly decorated Viet Nam veteran was eager to be posted to Athens. Since arriving there last March, he had been chief of the naval section of the Joint U.S. Military Aid Group, Greece (JUSMAGG), which administers American military aid programs. Established after World War II, JUSMAGG acquired a reputation among Greeks for working with the CIA to influence domestic politics, though in recent years its activities had been sharply curtailed. Left-wing Athens newspapers said last week that Tsantes was a CIA agent, perhaps even the agency's Athens station chief. The U.S. embassy denied the report.

Greek authorities know little about the 17th November group except the origin of its name: a bloody 1973 uprising by students at Athens Polytechnic School against the U.S.-backed military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. The Tsantes slaying was clearly timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Polytechnic rebellion. Greek authorities are worried about the rise of Athens as a focus of terrorism. Tsantes' killing was the third political murder in the city since August. The other victims were an aide to P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat and a security officer at the Jordanian embassy. In each of the assassinations, the killers left behind little evidence.