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104O U R N A L O F T H E H E L L E N I C D I A S PO R Ayear; and G reek television grosslyunderestimates the intelligence ofthe average citizen during everybroadcast m inute. A ll these couldbe better, but they are not. Va rvara'scomplaining, how ever, w ill have noeffect on their improvement. Evenw hen she offers some sort of solu-t ion, i t sounds ped antic or ridicu-lous. A t one point she says: "W hatis needed is an earthquake to w ipeus all from the face o f the earth."L ater she changes her mind, andthinks of entering either a hom e forthe aged or a p oorhouse. But onegets the impression that she do esnot desire a solution at all. Shecomplains for the sake of complain-ing, and she w ill not accept a solu-tion if offered to herthat w ouldtake her voice away and leave herspeechless since she w ould havevery little else to say .Varvara, already in its secondprinting within a year of its publica-tion, is not just the story of a p oorchambermaid T hrough puns andw ord play, the book m oves on dif-ferent levels. The reason it hascaught the imagination of the publicto such an extent is not due to i tsliterary m erit, but because it servesas an allegory of Greek politicaland soc ial life of the last decade orso. Every single episode in the story,

or, to be more precise, every otherw ord, can be interpreted in m orethan one w ay. The hotel which isbeing demolished is very appropri-ately cal led H otel "H ellas ," sym-bolizing G reece; the death of "cer-tain youths" corresponds to thetragic deaths of students at the P oly-technic up rising in 1973; and themere m ention of the w ord "guardi-an" brings to mind G reece as a p ro-tectorate of the superp ow ers. But,w hatever the levels of interpretationm ight be, they a re all w ell belowthe level of accep tability. T he vari-ous themes that appear and reappearat random in the course of the nar-rative have been exploited beyondrecognition by so m any other w ritersthat they have lost their sting. O nlythe reverberation remains like thememory of a ghost that has lefttown.Yet, the book has i ts mom ent atthe very end, in the last five p ages,w hen the workers mov e in to startthe dem olition. V arvara's braggingstops, and there is only the screamof a frightened and lonely woman.She sees the end coming, and, ifshe had a second life to live, thereader hopes that she w ould havechosen an ger as her strongest de-fense ag ainst an insensitive societyand the w orld in general. George V alam vanos

** *I Should Have Died by PHILIPDEANE. N ew York: A theneum,1977. 182 pp. $7.95.In light of all the disclosuresregarding A merica's imp erial for-eign pol icy, what do w e mak e ofan author who is outraged and

astonished that U nited States rela-tions with Greec e are solely moti-vated by narrow self-interest? Suchis the case w ith P hilip D eane 's (apen name for Philippe DeaneGigantes, the son of a famousfighter in the Greek resistance)latest book, I Should Have Died.

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Book R eviews05In this rambling account, Deanema kes the almost quaint discoverythat the "F ree W orld" system isn' tso w onderful after all. H e does thisby con trasting his experiences as acaptured new spap er repo rter in aNorth Korean prison camp withhis role as an aide to King Con-stantine before the junta takeoverof A pril, 1967.W hile in the North K orean camp,D eane is tortured as a w ar criminal.He refuses to confess to anycrimes. N ot only does Deane endurethis experience un bended, but heengages in philosophical discussionswith his captors over w hich systemcapitalism or com munismis better.R ight before his release, he is toldby one of his captors, a Chineseofficer, that the A merican systemis no better than the Korean,C hinese, and S oviet system, andthat someday he w ill discover thattruth himself.In 1964, after working as anewspaper reporter and a staffmember at the United Nations,D eane is asked by King C onstan-tine to become a liaison for thepalace to the Greek intellectual,media and trade union comm unity.F rom the outset, how ever , he be-come s suspicious that other advisorsto the K ing, specifically George P a-padop oulos, are on the p ayroll ofthe A merican C entral IntelligenceA gency. Fur thermore, these menare obsessed w ith the belief that acomm unist takeover of Greece isimminent with people like A ndreasPapandreou leading the way.T hrough the intel ligence w ork ofhis father (a liberal arm y officer)and others, Deane begins to puttogether the outline of a projectedcoup. H is attempts to alert the King

are rebuffed particularly by QueenF rederika, w ho appears as a virulentanti-comm unist w ho is as fearfulof Pa pand reou as the colonels are.D eane even v isi ts W ashington topersuade American liberals such asR ober t K ennedy to tip A mericanpolicy toward the demo cratic ele-ments in Greece. H ow ever , he isunable to break through the beliefby United States policymakers thatonly the right wing would bestrepresent American interests inGreece.T he last section of the book isdevoted to a criticism of the juntaand the American complicity inits activities. M uch of the inform a-t ion m arshaled is taken from thetrials of junta leaders held inAthens during the summer of1975. There is also an appen-dix to the book which offersmore evidence of United Statesactivities in supp ort of the junta.While the material presented is notvery systematically handled, m uchof the information w ill be usefulto students of Greek-Americanrelations.T he end of the book finds D eanecrushed by the A merican support ofthe junta. H e is ready to say "to aCommunist jailor that I saw nodifference between two stiflingorders that dominate the world,that the individual doesn 't stand achance anyw here" (p. 148). W iththis realization, D eane drops aw ayfrom Greek political life to live inC anada and continue his academicstudies, fully ackn ow ledging thathe is now an incomplete man, ama n w ithout a political faith.W hile D eane's personal transfor-mation m ight arouse some interestamong those w ho w ish to explore

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1 0 6OURNAL Or THE HELLENIC DIASPORAthe p olitical com mittment of intel-lectuals, of more value is hisrecollection of Greek-Americanrelations in the early 1 960 's beforethe junta seized p ow er. If w e canaccep t his descriptions as accurate,they provide a clear picture of theanti-communist attitude so prevalentin Greek and American politicsduring that period. M uch of w hatDeane writes is consistent withD avid H alberstam's view of A mer-ican foreign policymak ers duringthe Kennedy and early Johnsonyears. In his book, The Best andThe Brightest, Halberstam charac-terizes A merican foreign policy asmade by men w ho "believed thatthe great threat to the w orld wa sC omm unist, an enemy at once to-talitarian, antidemocratic and anti-business, that the C omm unists un-derstood only one thing, force"(p. 31 ) . It was this thinking that ledthe United States to believe thatonly the right wing in Greec e couldbe counted on to provide regionalstability. If it m eant a junta to p utthese peop le in pow er, A mericanworld interests warranted the action.T his same ideology , of course,motivated continued Americanescalation in Indochina at almostthe exact time the junta came topower. Greece was another "do-mino" to be kept away from thecom m unists . T he strongest partsof I Should Have Died detail thatspecific A merican thinking tow ardGreece. However, the value ofthese discussions are somewhatoffset by the intervention of Deane'sow n political views. It seem s strangethat Deane w ould be shocked and

outraged by A merican manipula-tion of Greek politics. H ow couldthis man, who p articipated in Greekpolitics since the civil w ar, not ar-rive at that discovery before thejunta? Deane's own backgroundsuggests he was familar with intel-ligence and cov ert operations. H ew as w orking for the H earst news-paper chain when captured in K o-rea. The Korean conviction thatD eane was a spy was hardly para-noia. N ew spaper "cover" for spiesis hardly a new game and recentCIA disclosures just underscore thepoint. Previously, he had spent timesecretly in Albania gathering in-formation on the new govern-me nt there. It is difficult to believethat his first exposure to the m ani-pulations of American foreign policycam e w ith the plot of the colonels.P erhaps even m ore disturbing isthat Deane w ould have adopted theidea that the American image ofthe "free w orld" would be benefi-cial for Greece. This line of reason-ing, all too prevalent in Greekpolitics, alw ays stakes the future ofthe country upon following the ex-ample of one or another majorw orld power. This has been a themeof G reek p olitics for centuries andi t has never w orked. Greeks mustderive their own solutions based onGreek needs. In this regard, thisbook is yet another testimonial tothe reality that there are no saviorsfor the Greek peop le but themselves,and that even the best-intentionedof people, such as Philip Deanehimself , can be m anipulated andoverwhelmed by the machinationsof pow er po litics. Jacobs