I Stand Alone

When the returns came in late election night, Greece's handsome Premier Constantine Karamanlis was tired, unshaven, untalkative. "We're dog tired," said his pretty young (28) wife, leaning against her husband's broad shoulder. For six weeks six-footer Karamanlis had tramped and traveled from snow-choked passes in Macedonia to sun-washed villages in the Peloponnesus to defend his pro-Western policy against the coalition formed against him by three disgruntled ex-Premiers in league with the remnant of the outlawed Communist Party. "I stand alone. I am one against all," he proclaimed defiantly.

Standing alone, Karamanlis last week won Greece's most important election since 1946. His National Radical Union took at least 155 seats out of 300; later returns may bring his majority over the opposition Democratic Union to 22 seats. The Democratic Union actually polled a higher popular vote--49.8% to Karamanlis' 45.8%--but it failed, through the complicated workings of the electoral law, to translate its advantage into seats.

Karamanlis won his victory without any noticeable help from British or American diplomacy. The opposition centered its fire on Greece's "humiliation" over Cyprus, needled Karamanlis unmercifully for "giving in to the British," for his "servility" to the U.S. Pointing to the Democratic Union's higher popular vote, Communist propagandists from Moscow to Budapest crowed that a majority of Greeks had "repudiated" Karamanlis' pro-Western government.

Actually, most of the Democratic Union's voters were neither anti-Western nor antiDemocratic. Many of them were old-line Liberals, supporters of the late Eleutherios Venizelos, whose picture appeared on many placards and still carried great appeal in remote places where voters did not know that his son Sophocles and ex-Premier George Papandreou allied themselves with the Communist-front E.D.A. in the Democratic Union.

"This alliance is for electoral purposes only," insisted Papandreou, and swore he would not cooperate with the Reds after election. While Papandreou promised merely "a new foreign policy," Communist claques took over his rallies, shouting in Athens' Klafthmonos Square: "Out of NATO. Out with Americans." The shabby deal with the Communists may have cost the Liberals more votes than the Communists brought them.

Man with Mettle. Unlike most Greek politicians, Constantine Karamanlis (now Premier in his own right for the first time) is not a member of a wealthy Athenian family but the son of a Macedonian schoolteacher, with the rough tongue and traces of the rough manners of the north. Trained as a lawyer, and a member of Parliament since 1935, Karamanlis early showed his mettle. When John Metaxas padlocked Parliament and declared himself dictator, he summoned Karamanlis and offered him a Cabinet post. Karamanlis looked Metaxas squarely in the eye and said: "Mister Premier, all dictatorships contain the sperm of death. They are doomed from the beginning, as will be yours. I think it might be better if you got some .older men to work with you." (Metaxas replied equably: "Young man, I think you're right.")

In 1952 Premier Alexander Papagos gave Karamanlis the thankless ministry of public works, a graveyard of politicians that had been starved of funds for years. Karamanlis moved in briskly, scraped together a budget, and in 2 1/2 years built and resurfaced hundreds of miles of roads, brought water to thousands of acres of reclaimed land through dam and irrigation projects, replaced his native Salonika's ancient cobblestone streets with asphalt. On inspection trips he often sat down with the work gangs and shared their cheese and olives. What was even more unheard of, he clamped down on contractors, docked them if they delayed construction beyond their contracted completion date, threatened with jail those who tried to get away with shoddy materials.

King's Choice. After the death of Field Marshal Papagos four months ago, King Paul passed over several senior politicians to pick 48-year-old Karamanlis for the premiership. Since then the government's halls have reverberated to his sten torian voice as he drives his subordinates on with exhortation and colorful invective. Impatient of inefficiency, he is apt to call a hapless minister, peremptorily demand action or his resignation. "Any solution is better than no solution," he snaps.

Greece has clearly found a new and vigorous leader. Though he failed to win a clear majority of the popular vote, the fact is that his nearest individual rival polled only 18% of the vote. In multiparty voting, no Greek Premier has taken office with a popular majority since 1928. And many a European Premier would be grateful for a working majority of 22 drawn from his own party alone.

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