Papadopoulos and the British Parliament

In this 1994 article by Richard Clogg you can read how the leader of the Colonels' regime contributed towards cleaning up British political life, by giving 'a powerful boost to the process which culminated in the establishment in 1974 of the Register of Members' Interest'.

ERT Archives

The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), that is the Greek state-owned public radio and television broadcasting corporation, has decided to digitize its archive and make it available online.

I have collected here some material (mostly newsreel excerpts) pertaining to Anglo-Greek relations and is already online:

Roy Hattersley (person in charge of renegotiating the terms of the UK's membership of the EEC) was the first British minister to visit Greece since the restoration of democracy.
You can watch a video of his arrival here.
He stated that he went to Athens to help improve relations with Greece, and discuss issues of common concern, such as the situation in Cyprus and Greece's application of the EEC (two weeks before the UK held its European Communities membership referendum - by the way, here's a historian's view of what would have happened if Britain had voted 'no').

The following day Hattersley talked to the press about the nature and the atmosphere of the discussions he had with Foreign Minister Bitsios. You can watch that here.

Athens Polytechnic Uprising

Thirty five years ago today the Athens Polytechnic uprising (info here and video here) ended in bloodshed.

This picture shows the tank that crushed the gates of the Polytechnic, stopped in front of the building. The picture was found at http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/november17.htm.





This is a copy of the Vradyni Athens daily reporting on the events on the following day. I found this on SKAI.gr website today; it is incorporated in a text commemorating the uprising.











The front page of the 18th November 1973 reminded me of another page of the same newspaper that I had come across in my research.

It is a cartoon published approximately a year before the November '73 events and it comments on Lord Carrington's visit to Athens in September 1972.

Lord Carrington was Defence Secretary at the time and his visit (the first one by a British minister under Heath) was presented to the public as 'unofficial', with his habit of holidaying in Greece used as a pretext.