PERICLES, GREECE NEEDS YOU BACK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890053-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 12, 2010
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: June 19, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/12 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890053-7
ARTICLE APPEARED WALL STREET JOURNAL
ON PAGE p 19 June 1984
Pericles, Greece Needs YoL~13iEk
By GORDON Cxovirz ghanistan. According to an article written
ATHENS-The Berlin Wall, according for Ethnos by a Soviet Literary Gazette
to this country's most read newspaper, "reporter," the U.S. is developing croco-
was built by the communists to defend dile feces as a biological poison, to be de- -
against Western attack. Likewise, the So- livered by specially bred mosquitos.
viet U
i
'
"
n
on
s
struggle for detente is genu-
ine," the country's prime minister assured
a recent political gathering. "We cannot
say that the U.S.S.R. is an imperialist
power, unlike the U.S. It is a force against
the spread of capitalism and imperial-.
ism."
? East Germany "constitutes a mira.
cle and an example for East and West."
Mr. Anastasi was found guilty of crimi-
nal libel for claiming that Ethnos is the
first newspaper set up b the KGB's disin-
formation department In a Western coun-
Welcome to Greece, the home of the j;Iy.His source for this allegation Yannis
newspaper Ethno and Prime Minister An. Yannikios, a pro-Moscow Greek Commu-
reas apan reou. Mr. Papandreou's Pan- 'list Party member and publisher. Mr.
Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) Yannikios refused to testify on Mr. An-
took over this NATO and Common Market astasi's behalf at the trial, although he did
give evidence at the appeal hearing. Mr.
member in 1981, vowing to move the. coun- Yannikios says he testified that at the urg- ,
try leftward. What's become of Greece , ing of party officials he formed a part-
since can be summed up by the advent of
Ethnos, and especially by its recent suc- nership in 1977 with Mr. Bobolas, a Greek
cessful libel action against journalist Paul businessman. The men signed contracts in
Anastasi. 1978 with the Soviet copyright office in
Accordin to a book b Mr. Anastasi, Moscow to publish a Greek-language edi-
the reason Ettinos reads like Pravda tion of The Great Soviet Encyclopedia,
simple: It's published "in cooperation" and, according to Mr. Yannikios, the pro-
with the KGB. which he says financed the ceeds on sale of more than 30,000 sets of
start-up in 1981. Mr. Anastasi's 317-page the 34-volume set went to help get Ethnos
book, "Take the Nation in Your Hands" started.
(Ethnos means "nation"), was published The Soviet contacts, according to Mr.
last year in Greek. In December, Mr. An- Yannikios, were Boris Pankin and Vassiliastasi was convicted of defamation for his Sitnikov. The Soviets were director and-
allegation that the paper's publisher, deputy director of the Soviet copyright of-
George Bobolas, is an "agent of influence" fice. Western sources believe the copyright
for the KGB. Mr. Anastasi, a full-time cor- office is linked to the KGB, and its disin-
respondent for the London Daily Telegraph formation department in particular. Mr.
and a stringer for the New York Times, Sitnikov was identified in John Barron's
had his conviction confirmed in an appeal . 1974 book, "KGB: The Secret Work of So-
last month, although the sentence was re-ii viet Agents," as deputy director of the
duced from two years in jail to a payment KGB disinformation office. Mr. Pankin
of $1,200, and he is further appealing to the ` was director of the KGB disinformation de-
Greek supreme court. partment as well as Mr. Sitnikov's supervi-
Most Profitable Daily
sor at the copyright office, according to
sources cited by Mr. Anastasi. When Yuri
Meanwhile, Mr. Anastasi's book is Andropov reorganized personnel in 1982,
banned; Ethnos, with a circulation of 180,- Mr. Pankin was made ambassador to polit-
000, is now the most profitable daily in ically sensitive, neutral Sweden.
Greece. It is also the country's most pro- In an interview here, Mr. Yannikios de-
government newspaper. As a measure of nied being aware of any KGB ties until
the political environment in Greece, it has recently, despite several trips to the
won its success by publishing assertions U.S.S.R. since the mid-1970s. Mr. Bobolas's
like these: lawyer says his client was also unaware of
? The Korean Air Lines flight was a any KGB ties. Mr. Yannikios alleged that
deliberate provocation by the CIA,
to.spy, the Soviets had him prepare a detailed fea-
on the Soviets-who were right to shoot it sibility study for a new Greek newspaper,
down. which he presented to them in Moscow in
? _Poland's__Solidarity_worksfor the 1979. His plans included estimates of start-
CIA and the Mafia backed Vatican. (The up and operating costs. It would be the
poke's trip to Poland in June 1982 went country's first tabloid and would use color
unreported in Ethnos.) photos, clean layouts and top-rate sports
The U.S., not the Soviet Union, uses and local reporting to lure readers. (Aside
"yellow rain" chemical poisoning in Af- from its political orientation, Ethnos is the
most professionally produced newspaper in
Greece.)
Mr. Yannikios has some reason for an-
tagonism toward Mr. Bobolas. Just before
the paper started in 1981, Mr. Yannikios
was squeezed out of the company. He then
sued Mr. Bobolas for starting a newspaper
without him, contrary, says Mr. Yannikios,
to the original agreement with the Soviets.
Mr. Yannikios's son testified in court that
he and his father were visited in 1982 by
Mr. Sitnikov, and that the Soviet agent
urged them to drop the charges against
Mr. Bobolas. "Bobolas now owns the news-
paper," Mr. Sitnikov allegedly told them,
"and you know how important that paper
is to us." In an interview, the elder Yanni-
kios acknowledged this meeting took
.place.
Irrespective of the truth or falsity of
Mr. Yannikios's evidence In relation to
Ethnos, it does seem that another of Mr.
Bobolas's companies pledged to procure
high-technology products for the Soviet Un-
ion. The company involved is Worldtech
Hellas Ltd.. 70% of which is owned by Mr.
Bobolas and 20% by Control Data of Min-
neapolis, the computer company. Mr. An-
astasi published a 1979 letter from Bob-
trade Ltd., part of George Bobolas's group
of companies, to A. Afonin, a representa-
tive of the State Committee for Foreign
Economic Relations of the U.S.S.R. Coun-
cil of Ministers. The letter proposed a joint
development company using Worldtech for
"world-wide technology transfer." and
stressed that "Worldtech Hellas Ltd. will
give a lot of help" to "technology transfer
on an international base." A spokesman
for Bobtrade calls company trade with the
Soviets "disappointing" and says that no
improper transfer of high technology is in-
volved. Meanwhile, Control - Data now
plans to dissolve the partnership with Mr.
Bobolas, according to a company spokes-
man in Minneapolis.
Mr. Papandreou and his PASOK gov-
ernment dismiss the Ethnos flap and
haven't questioned whether Greek security
might be endangered by high-tech trans-
fer. Indeed, government spokesman Dimi-
tris Maroudas dismissed the book as a
"thriller appropriate for holiday reading."
And the man prosecuting Mr. Anastasi,
Stathis Alexandris, is the former justice
minister in the Papandreou government.
Mr. Alexandris introduced a xenopho.
bic tone to the December 1983 trial. He
charged that six foreign correspondents
who testified on behalf of Mr. Anastasi,
including Marvine Howe of the New York
Times, "belong to some similar circles"
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and should be investigated. Ethnos "has
imperialism as its target," Mr. Alexandris
told the court. "It engages in battles and
that is why it had to be struck by this sa-
tanic publication of the book." He said that
Mr. Anastasi "is now passing a test among
the circles which mobilized him."
Ethnos took up this lead and editorial-
ized that "this rabble of witnesses-Brit-
ish, German, Dutch, one Jew from racist
South Africa, one American woman and
one former Greek-appeared in Greece as
provocative, aggressive, impertinent advo-
cates of the insultor and slanderer and at
the same time as perfect experts as to
what benefits and what damages the Greek
people." Mr. Anastasi, born in Cyprus, not
Greece, was described as "an individual
who speaks the Greek tongue but does not
have the Greek conscience."
Ethnos editor Alexander Filipoppoulos
denies charges that his paper is a medium
of Soviet.disinformation. Ethnos was de-
signed to be "profoundly anti-imperialistic,
profoundly democratic, free, truly objec-
tive." he testified. "We have chosen our
journalists to be progressive people, com-
menting properly on events."
The Ethnos correspondent in the U.S. is
Carl Marzani. a former State Department
employee who served three y ae rs in prison
for not disclosing communist activities in
the 1940s in the wartime OSS and the State
Department. Mr. Marzani says he doesn't
read Greek (his articles are translated)
and can't comment on allegations of the
Ethnos-Soviet link. But he does say, "Ev-
ery nation has the right to develop as it
sees fit, especially Russia, which is an ex-
periment." "Americans are as indoctri-
nated as any people in the world," he said
from New York, where he is based. The
paper's British writer, Stanley Harrison,
was chief sub-editor of Morning Star, the
"newspaper of Britain's Communist Party,,.
until 1981. He says he doesn't read Greek
either, and refused to comment on
Ethnos.
The paper's lawyer, Antony Zenzefilis,
denies there are any improper financial,
links between Ethnos or Mr. Bobolas's
other holdings and the Soviets. But he ex
plains that "so long as the U.S. favors Tur-
key against the interests of Greece they:.
will find Ethnos in the front line protecting
the interests of Greeks." Ethnos is also su-
ing a unit of the Economist magazine and
L'Express magazine for articles alleging;:
Soviet links. In a telephone interview in
Athens, Mr. Zenzefilis noted that he reads
The Wall Street Journal/Europe, and re-
marked, "I consider the Journal a serious"
newspaper but you know I must be loyal to
the interests of my newspaper.. I do hope 1
you will be fair."
Whatever the role of the KGB, there is_;
no controversy about the following: that,
Mr. Bobolas got agreement from the Soviet,
copyright office to publish the Soviet Ency
clopedia in a profit-seeking venture, that
he also is the creator of Ethnos, and that'
the paper unashamedly adheres to a pro-
Soviet and anti-American line. Laying
aside the various issues in various courts..
Ethnos raises a larger question for the-
West: How can it be that Greek public
opinion is such that a newspaper such as
Ethnos has become the country's most
widely read daily?
Anti-Americanism Encouraged
The usual answer here is that Greeks
are anti-American because the U.S. has, in;
their opinion, favored Turkey on the,Cy
prus issue. Also, there is some belief that'
the U.S. was to blame for the years of mili-.
tary rule, which ended in 1974. In fact, the.
Papandreou government has done all it
could to encourage anti-Americanism, and-
a generally anti-NATO line in Greece. Last
year's five-year agreement to retain U.S.
military bases in Greece is described by
Mr. Papandreou as a timetable for expel
ling the bases by 1988. Greece deploys its.
military largely to face off against Turkey,.,
a fellow NATO member, not against its So-
viet-bloc neighbors, and refuses to partici-
pate in NATO exercises in the Aegean. At
the same time, Greece balks when the U.S.
considers increasing military aid to Tur-.
key.
At a PASOK conference in mid-May,
Mr. Papandreou laid his anti-American:
cards face up on the table. Greece, be,
boasted, refused to go along with Western
sanctions against the Jaruzelski regime in
Poland and vetoed a Common Market reso-
lution referring to the Soviet Union by.
name as the party that shot down the Ko-
rean airliner. "Our strategic aim," the;
prime minister added, "is the disengage-
ment of our country from NATO." The So-
viet Union, Mr. Papandreou said, "is at-
tempting to define its own socialist constel
lution." But as for the U.S., he said, "its
strategy is aimed, as it has always been,,
at expansion and domination-the contin:.
ual propagation of Imperium." ? 1
So goes Greece under Mr. Papandreou:
and PASOK. The birthplace of Aristotle,'
and Pericles, indeed of Western civiliza-
tion, has become a most curious member
of the West.
Mr. Crovitz is editorial page editor of
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