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Still vivid in the memory of most Athenians is the day in May 1941 when 19-year-old Emmanuel Glezos slipped silently into the ruins atop the Acropolis and tore down the Nazi swastika that desecrated the sacred rock. With this first open defiance of Greece's World War II German occupiers, Glezos made himself a national hero.

Even after Glezos turned Communist, public affection for him continued. Arrested in 1949 for supporting the made-in-Moscow Greek rebellion of 1947-49, he was sentenced to death, but on the strength of his flag-snatching he got off with a term in jail.

Last December, when Glezos was arrested again, accused along with 16 others of having abetted Communist spies in Greece, Moscow saw another fine chance to capitalize on Western sentimentality; with a wild beating of propaganda drums, Soviet President Kliment Voroshilov appealed to Greece's King Paul to free Glezos, now a left-wing newspaper editor. But years of servility to the hammer and sickle had finally exhausted the credit that Glezos won by defying the Nazis. Last week, found guilty by a military court, onetime Hero Glezos was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, four years' exile to a barren Aegean island and eight years' loss of civil rights.

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