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Covert and Clandestine Operations in Greece

Since 1952 the CIA provided a subsidy to George Papadopoulos, the Greek colonel who later led the military coup in Greece in 1967. The CIA also gave subsidies to many Greek military and political figures for years after 1952. The subsidies apparently ended in 1972. Greece became a member of NATO in 1952. From 1952 to late 1963, Greece was governed by conservative parties--the Greek Rally of Marshal Alexandros Papagos and its successor, the National Radical Union (ERE) of Constantine Karamanlis. In 1963, the Center Union Party of George Papandreou was elected and governed until July 1965. It was followed by a succession of unstable coalition governments.

On April 21, 1967, just before scheduled elections, a group of colonels led by Col. George Papadopoulos seized power in a coup d'etat. Civil liberties were suppressed, special military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved. The political leaders of the conservative, liberal and leftist parties were arrested and thousands of party members and followers were jailed or exiled. Several thousand political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands.

A new, popular resistance movement was born which culminated in student uprisings in the Law School of Athens University and In the Polytechnic. In November 1973, following an uprising of students at the Athens Polytechnic University, Gen. Dimitrios Ioannides replaced Papadopoulos and tried to continue the dictatorship. Gen. Ioannides' attempt in July 1974 to overthrow Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, brought Greece to the brink of war with Turkey, which invaded Cyprus and occupied part of the island. Senior Greek military officers withdrew their support from the junta, which toppled in July 1974. The dictatorship of the colonels collapsed, but not before it had delivered about half the territory of Cyprus to the Turks.

Leading citizens persuaded Karamanlis to return from exile in France to establish a government of national unity until elections could be held. Karamanlis' newly organized party, New Democracy (ND), won elections held in November 1974, and he became Prime Minister. Free elections were held and Michael Stassinopoulos, an academician and president of the Council of State, was appointed President of the Republic. A plebiscite was held by which the Greek people chose the regime of a Presidential Republic and the first elected president was Constantine Tsatsos, a university professor and academician.

The civil war period and initial American intervention

The United States' covert and clandestine operations in Greece commenced during the final stages of World War II and intensified dramatically during the Greek Civil War from 1946 to 1949. These operations represented among the first large-scale peacetime intelligence activities undertaken by American agencies and established precedents that would shape Cold War policy for decades. The intervention began when Britain, exhausted economically by the war and unable to sustain its military commitment in Greece, requested American assistance in early 1947 to prevent communist forces from seizing control of the country. President Harry Truman's administration responded with what became known as the Truman Doctrine, pledging support to Greece and Turkey against communist expansion. While military and economic aid through the Marshall Plan received public attention, the covert dimension of American involvement proved equally significant in determining the conflict's outcome.

American arms shipments arrived in Greece in 1947, building up what observers characterized as a rightist war machine with fighters, napalm, small arms, and patrol boats. Beyond material support, American advisors helped construct airfields, bridges, docks, railways, and communication networks that proved decisive in the government's campaign against Democratic Army of Greece forces. The Central Intelligence Agency, authorized to conduct covert operations in 1948 through National Security Council directive NSC 10/2, became instrumental in defeating communist insurgents in Greece alongside similar operations in Italy. Britain formally withdrew from Greece in early 1947, but American military advisors tipped the tide in favor of the Greek government after 1948. President Truman rejected Greek calls to finance the national army directly, instead offering equipment and training. Bolstered by this approach, Greek government forces methodically pushed the rebels deeper into the mountains. American equipment, particularly aircraft including surplus Curtiss Helldivers transferred from the escort carrier USS Sicily, supported operations that drove communist forces toward the Albanian border. The Greek Civil War reached its climax in August 1949 at the massif of Grammos near the Albanian border, where after several days of brutal combat the communist forces broke and streamed back across the frontier, effectively ending organized resistance.

Establishment and American control of the Greek intelligence service

Following the communist defeat in 1949, the CIA established the Greek secret police force known as KYP (Kentrikí Ypiresía Pliroforión), the Central Intelligence Service, whose officers received training by American intelligence operatives. The agency was created by influential Greek American CIA agents, most notably Thomas Karamessines, who later rose to become Deputy Director for Plans in the CIA. The first director of KYP was Alexandros Natsinas, a Lieutenant General of Artillery and veteran of World War II and the Greek Civil War, who headed the agency from its founding in May 1953 under Legislative Decree 2421/1953 until December 1963. The agency was organized by the American CIA and had as its main task counterespionage activities against agents of the Soviet Bloc. The relationship between the CIA and KYP reflected an extraordinary level of American control over a purportedly sovereign nation's intelligence apparatus. For the first eleven years of its history from 1953 to 1964, KYP agents received their salaries directly from the Americans rather than from the Greek state, a practice that continued until Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, reportedly enraged with this level of dependence, ended the arrangement.

The depth of CIA penetration into Greek governmental operations extended well beyond salary payments. Available evidence suggests that KYP regularly monitored ministerial meetings and provided recordings to the CIA, a practice that Andreas Papandreou discovered when he joined his father's cabinet in 1964. The intelligence service operated under an explicitly anticommunist mandate, reflecting Greece's recent civil war and its position bordering communist regimes in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. Between 1952 and 1961, the agency conducted a campaign of cultural propaganda against the Greek communist party and the United Democratic Left. The service issued reports on Trotskyist and Titoist currents within communism, which were to be reinforced to spread discord among leftists. In November 1953, KYP proposed conducting tax audits on suspected communist book publishers and cinema owners, censoring Soviet movies and promoting Soviet films of particularly low quality. In 1959, KYP launched exhibitions of Soviet products in Volos, Thessaloniki, and Piraeus, with products purposefully selected to be cheap and defective to tarnish the Soviet Union's image.

Albanian infiltration operations and regional activities

Greece played a central role in one of the CIA's first major covert paramilitary operations behind the Iron Curtain, the Albanian infiltration program codenamed BGFIEND by the CIA and VALUABLE by British intelligence. The operation aimed to overthrow the communist regime of Enver Hoxha in Albania and eliminate Soviet influence in the Mediterranean region. At the first NATO meeting in Washington on September 6, 1949, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin proposed that a counterrevolution be launched in Albania, and US Secretary of State Dean Acheson agreed. The operation was conducted jointly by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in collaboration with other Western Bloc nations, with Greece and Italy providing essential support. Britain sought Greece's assistance partly because Greece was hostile toward Albania due to Albanian territorial claims in Northern Epirus and Albania's previous support for the Democratic Army of Greece during the civil war.

The Albanian operation involved selecting, training, and infiltrating indigenous agents into Albania to effect and support resistance activities. Greek territory served as one of the principal launching points for infiltration operations. The Manetta Villa in the Athenian suburb of Kifissia was used as a training ground for Albanian anticommunist guerrillas. An MI6 communication center was set up in the Bibelli Villa in northeast Corfu, and an Albanian language propaganda radio station operated from the Alkyonides Islands. The latter came under Central Intelligence Agency control in 1950 and continued to function for four more years. The Greek intelligence service supplied the British and Americans with information acquired from the Greek community in Albania as well as political refugees living in Lavrio camp. Albanian expatriates, many drawn from the Balli Kombëtar nationalist movement and the monarchist Legaliteti organization, received training before being sent into Albania by boat from Greece, overland border crossings, and parachute drops in small groups from late 1949 to Easter 1952.

The operation proved catastrophic, as most agents were apparently captured and executed shortly after arrival. Communist security forces appeared to have advance knowledge of infiltration operations, likely through Soviet intelligence officer Kim Philby, who served as the British liaison officer for the project in Washington while simultaneously working as a Soviet double agent. Estimates suggest approximately 300 agents and civilians were killed in the operation, though this figure may be conservative. The project evolved from its initial focus on overthrowing the Hoxha regime to establishing and exploiting the National Committee for Free Albania, propaganda media operations, and economic warfare. Documents indicate that one objective was to eliminate Albania as a base for Greek guerrillas and deny Soviet military, air, and naval forces bases in the Mediterranean, while serving as a psychological stimulus to other Eastern Europeans by demonstrating the possibility of removing an entrenched communist dictatorship.

Election interference and political manipulation in the 1950s and 1960s

The United States appears to have engaged in systematic interference in Greek electoral politics throughout the 1950s and 1960s, though the full extent remains partially obscured by continuing classification of key documents. Despite the fact that most documents from the troubled period of 1964 to 1968 have been declassified, CIA officers, certain diplomats, and members of Congress blocked publication of the related volume on Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey for years. The volume was printed and ready for circulation since February 2000, but the competent cross-service committee discussed its fate quarterly, and excuses were consistently found for it to remain locked in Government Printing Office storerooms. In 2000, CIA officers were deliberately delaying its publication, apparently hoping that a Republican government would side with them against the documents being made public.

Declassified documents and scholarly research reveal specific instances of proposed electoral manipulation. In September 1965, the US Athens Embassy general staff recommended funding an operation to buy up deputies in the Centrist Union to support the third government under Stefanos Stefanopoulos. The recommendation from charge d'affaires Norbert Anschutz evidenced the role of CIA activities in Greek political machinations. The White House 303 Committee rejected Anschutz's request for more than 400,000 dollars, arguing that Greek-Americans who were pressuring for the operation certainly had sufficient funds to finance it themselves. According to available information, this reference pointed to businessman Tom Pappas, who served as Treasurer of the Republican Party and maintained major investments in Greece. Information concerning decisions of the 303 Committee regarding the funding of the National Radical Union (EPE), the rightwing party Konstantinos Karamanlis founded in 1956, and certain centrist parties in the context of anticommunist efforts reportedly exists in CIA files but has not been declassified. However, the CIA's historical section appears to have acknowledged American involvement, as an official CIA history of the agency under Eisenhower's presidency includes a list of successes with reference to Karamanlis' rise to power.

In the case of Greece, it is believed that the volume issued regarding the 1950s does not contain certain top secret information concerning the activities of the CIA station regarding the appointment of Konstantinos Karamanlis as Prime Minister in September 1955. The US service only permitted the publication of one document, from which it appears that the station chief at the time, Al Ulmer, had specific discussions with the subsequent Prime Minister regarding what he intended to do concerning the Cyprus problem. The controversy over declassification illustrated the ongoing sensitivity of American intelligence activities in Greece. The US Embassy in Athens was reportedly divided on the issue. The departed Ambassador Nicholas Burns had sent a written recommendation that the volume be declassified, despite pressure from colleagues and the CIA station chief in Greece, who claimed that publishing new information regarding the period 1964-1968 would give a pretext to the terrorist organization Revolutionary Organization 17 November to justify attacks. When a delegation from Congress visited Athens, the CIA chief briefed the congressmen and explained that there was grave danger in publishing confidential historical documents, and the politicians sent a letter to the State Department requesting that release of the controversial volume be frozen.

The 1967 military coup and relationships with the junta

The question of American involvement in the April 21, 1967 military coup that brought the Regime of the Colonels to power remains contentious, though substantial evidence demonstrates extensive CIA connections to the coup leaders even if direct operational support for the coup itself remains unproven. The timing of the coup apparently caught the CIA by surprise, occurring just two days before scheduled elections that were expected to produce a victory for George Papandreou's Centre Union party. Ambassador Phillips Talbot asserted that the U.S. government was caught by surprise by the junta coup on April 21, 1967, and flatly denied any covert U.S. involvement, such as CIA participation in the matter. State Department telegrams from April 21-28, 1967 document the embassy's immediate reporting to Washington, with information passed to the White House, CIA, Department of Defense, and other agencies within hours of the coup.

However, the coup leaders themselves maintained deep ties to American intelligence and military establishments. In late 1963 and early 1964, a group of rightwing Greek Army colonels organized to stage a military coup if Georgios Papandreou accepted support from the United Democratic Left. After Papandreou's election, the group was dispersed by transfers to Cyprus and northern Greece, but these officers completed their tours and gradually returned to key command positions in Athens. The aims of this rightist group were to counter or avert leftist infiltration of the government and military. The group saw a parallel between the situation in Greece under the Papandreous and the situation created in Brazil by the Joao Belchior Marques Goulart regime, and identified itself with the thinking and policy of the Brazilian military junta. Lieutenant Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, who emerged as the dominant figure in the junta, came to Athens before the coup to contact military colonels in the event a coup was deemed necessary.

The American response to the coup proved telling. Rather than issue a statement condemning the coup, the Johnson administration remained silent. National Security Advisor Walt Rostow explained to President Johnson that the new leaders were still trying to flesh out their government and broaden its membership as much as possible. Declassified CIA documents showed relations between the agency and Georgios Papadopoulos, including detailed briefings regarding his team before the coup d'état on April 21. Within months, correspondence between President Johnson and Papadopoulos was kept secret in both Washington and Athens. The Nixon administration, which took office in January 1969, dropped all semblance of disapproval and moved to fully embrace the military regime. Most Greeks credited the U.S. with great potential influence over Greek affairs and believed it backed the junta, though the regime proved resistant to suggestions from outside on what it regarded as internal matters. The junta's heavy dependence on the U.S. for arms supplies contributed to its desire to convince the Greek people that the colonels' regime had American government backing.

Declassified documents reveal ongoing American assessments of the junta throughout its rule. CIA and State Department analyses examined the regime's stability, economic policies, and relationship with NATO. The European Commission of Human Rights found Greece guilty of abusing human rights in 1969, with widespread and well-publicized allegations of brutality and torture by Greek security services. Regardless of the factual basis of these charges, they were widely believed by important elements of Western European opinion, and since April 1967 there had been adverse reactions in a number of Western European countries. The U.S. government did not officially acknowledge support for the Greek military junta until November 1999, when President Bill Clinton apologized on behalf of the U.S. government for supporting the military dictatorship in the name of Cold War tactics.

Cyprus operations and the 1974 crisis

American covert operations extended significantly to Cyprus, where the United States maintained complex intelligence activities related to the island's strategic importance and the competing interests of Greece, Turkey, and Britain. CIA operations in Cyprus during the 1950s and 1960s focused on monitoring the communist threat, managing Greek-Turkish tensions, and maintaining NATO's southern flank. American intelligence officers worked to prevent Cyprus from falling under communist or Soviet influence while attempting to mediate between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities and the governments in Athens and Ankara. The Cyprus situation became increasingly volatile during the 1960s as Greek Cypriots sought enosis (union with Greece) while Turkish Cypriots advocated taksim (partition). American diplomats, working in coordination with intelligence services, attempted to engineer political solutions that would satisfy NATO strategic requirements while preventing conflict between Greece and Turkey, both NATO allies.

The 1974 Cyprus crisis represented a culmination of these tensions and American involvement. In the spring of 1974, Greek Cypriot intelligence discovered that EOKA-B was planning a coup against President Makarios sponsored by the military junta in Athens. Between mid-May and mid-June, there was growing concern in Washington within the State Department and in Embassy Nicosia that a confrontation between Makarios and Athens was becoming a dangerous risk. Before any significant CIA reporting was received on a possible Ioannides-sponsored coup, the Department recommended to Ambassador Tasca that a démarche be made in Athens. On May 29, CIA reported that Ioannides was thinking about removing Makarios, stating that Greece was capable of removing Makarios with little bloodshed and felt that Turkey would quietly acquiesce to such a coup. Nevertheless, he believed Makarios' continuation in office at least in the short run was in Greece's national interest, though in the long run Makarios would not serve Greece's interests because he was irrevocably leading Cyprus into Soviet arms.

The CIA reported on June 28 that Ioannides would continue taking action to thwart Makarios' tactical moves while developing with his advisers a contingency plan should Makarios force Greece into a showdown situation. On July 3, CIA claimed that Ioannides had decided against action to remove Makarios. However, in the immediate pre-coup period the intelligence continued to be ambiguous. On July 12, CIA reported that Ioannides felt that the removal of Makarios would lead to ramifications too explosive to ensure success, though this intelligence was not received until July 15, the day of the coup. When the Greek junta sponsored the EOKA-B coup against President Makarios in July 1974, installing Nikos Sampson as president, Turkey invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger conducted intensive crisis diplomacy during July and August 1974, with detailed documentation of American decision-making preserved in State Department records. The invasion led to the partition of the island that persists to the present and contributed to the fall of the Greek junta in July 1974.

Intelligence collection and strategic assets

Greece's geographic position made it valuable for American intelligence collection directed against the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. American signals intelligence facilities in Greece monitored Soviet military communications and activities in the Black Sea region and the eastern Mediterranean. The CIA maintained station offices in Athens and likely other locations that conducted espionage operations, recruited agents, and coordinated with KYP and other services. Greece's proximity to Albania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria made it useful for infiltration operations and agent handling. American intelligence personnel stationed in Greece during the Cold War numbered in the hundreds, including CIA case officers, military intelligence specialists, and support staff. The experiences in Greece proved formative for several CIA officers, including Clair George and Gust Avrakotos, who later played significant roles in other operations including the Afghanistan program during the 1980s. Avrakotos dealt with the aftermath when Revolutionary Organization 17 November murdered CIA station chief Richard Welch in Athens in December 1975.

American military bases in Greece, established by a 1953 agreement that remained in effect for decades, provided cover for intelligence activities and enhanced American strategic capabilities in the eastern Mediterranean. U.S. military installations operated in Greece during the Cold War, hosting communications facilities, logistics support, and naval operations for the Sixth Fleet. These bases served dual purposes, supporting both NATO military operations and intelligence collection activities. The relationship between base operations and covert activities remained deliberately opaque, with intelligence personnel sometimes operating under military or diplomatic cover. Greece's participation in NATO from 1952 onward facilitated intelligence sharing and joint operations, though Greek political instability and the tumultuous relationship between military and civilian authorities complicated cooperation. Documents from the Nixon and Ford administrations contain NSC staff files on Greece valuable for assessing staff recommendations and presidential policy toward the country during the critical 1973-1976 period.

Legacy and continuing controversies

American covert and clandestine operations in Greece during the Cold War produced consequences that extended far beyond immediate tactical objectives. The deep involvement of the CIA in Greek political life, intelligence services, and military affairs contributed to patterns of authoritarianism and foreign dependence that hindered democratic development. The relationship with the 1967-1974 military junta, even if American officials did not directly orchestrate the coup, represented one of the most controversial episodes in CIA history and damaged American credibility regarding professed support for democracy. Greek perceptions of American interference in domestic politics fueled anti-American sentiment that persists in some quarters. Many Greeks believed that the U.S. installed and sustained the military juntas that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974 and were convinced that the U.S. engineered or at least could have prevented the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Greek anger was fueled by revelations of the junta's use of torture on a large scale against leftists as well as by stories of CIA involvement in Greece and Cyprus emanating from the U.S. press and Congressional hearings.

The pattern of covert operations in Greece established during the late 1940s and 1950s created dependencies and relationships that proved difficult to modify or terminate. KYP's initial funding directly from the CIA created a precedent of American control that, even after Greek assumption of salary responsibilities in 1964, influenced the intelligence service's orientation and operations for years. The training of Greek military and intelligence personnel in the United States and by American advisors in Greece created networks of personal relationships and institutional ties that shaped Greek security policy for decades. The assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch in 1975 by Revolutionary Organization 17 November reflected virulent anti-Americanism stemming from beliefs that the U.S. had been the principal obstacle to leftist aspirations going back to the Greek Civil War in the 1940s when massive U.S. assistance prevented a communist takeover. The memory of American intervention in Greek affairs, from the civil war through the junta period and Cyprus crisis, continues to influence Greek political discourse and popular attitudes toward the United States.