Harold Wilson and Hugh Greene

Today's Daily Telegraph features an interesting opinion article on 'Harold Wilson Night' by the paper's former editor and authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher, Charles Moore.

Here's an excerpt of the article which refers to Wilson's relationship with BBC Director-General at the time (and head of London-based resistance organisation European Atlantic Action Committee on Greece) Hugh Greene:

http://www.geni.com

No one but the BBC would have dreamt up a “Harold Wilson Night”. It is hard to think of any other politician who was at the top for so long (he won four general elections) with so little to show for it. But it is fitting that the BBC should have commemorated the 50th anniversary of Wilson’s capture of the Labour leadership because, at the time, it loved him.

In the general election of 1964, Wilson spotted that the BBC comedy Steptoe and Son would be broadcast on polling day. Believing that the programme (about father-and-son rag-and-bone men) was particularly popular with Labour voters, and would therefore keep them away from the polling stations, Wilson went to see Hugh Greene, the director-general, to persuade him to reschedule. Greene, who craved a Labour victory, obliged. Since Wilson’s overall majority was only four seats, it is possible that it was the Beeb wot won it.

BBC2 series on Britain in the 1970s

BBC2 has a new series on Britain in the 1970s.
The series is based on Dominic Sandbrook's research for his books, State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974 and Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974-1979.

This is the series description from the BBC website:

"Historian Dominic Sandbrook presents the 1970s as a vital and exciting era in which the old Britain of the post-war years was transformed into the nation we see around us today.
Sandbrook is as interested in how ordinary people were changing Britain as he is in politicians. In this episode, he reveals a country brimming with aspiration as millions get on the property ladder, take their first foreign holidays and start to challenge the old class boundaries to their lives. It was a decade in which ordinary British people first felt the thrill of freedom and money, but Sandbrook shows us it was also a decade in which raging conflicts about the economy and Europe loomed large."

Here's a link to the first episode:
1. Get It On 70-72

Here's a link to the series' blog, where the historian and presenter of the tv series shares his experiences:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2012/04/the-70s.shtml

The ghost of the Colonels by Adam Curtis

About a month ago, Adam Curtis (pictured) published this entry on his BBC blog.
It is an excellent piece and it connects the current financial situation of Greece with the
Greek Colonels' dictatorship.

Among the gems included are a really fascinating report by Panorama's John Morgan, and the film
Greece - The Seven Black Years, which manages to give a clear picture (and in colour!) of what life under the regime was like.
It is a remarkable film and a wonderful source for those interested in developing an in-depth understanding of the dictatorship.

'Back to the 1960s'

Another entry that is connected to the Greek debt crisis.

Yesterday, a Greek minister (by a strange twist of fate bearing the same name as the Greek dictator's brother and regime official) made a comparison between the current financial situation in Athens and the one around the time of the Greek Colonels' regime, and expressed the opinion that Greece's exit from the eurozone would lead the country 40 to 50 years back.

According to BBC News:

'Greece's minister for international economic relations, Constantine Papadopoulos, said leaving the euro would be "catastrophic" for Greece.

"I personally think [leaving the eurozone] would take us back to the 1960s or 1970s,"he told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme.

He later clarified that he was not referring to the political situation at the time, when the military took power in a coup, but the standards of living and the structure of the economy.'

Here's the full article.


And here you can see an interview he gave to SKY NEWS more recently:

BBC and the fall of the junta

This is a BBC article on the demise of the Greek dictatorship. The article was published on 23rd July 1974.

See also a BBC video of celebrations for the end of military rule here.

Sir Brooks Richards

In this newsreel excerpt Sir Brooks Richards presents his credentials to the President of Greece, General Gizikis, in September 1974.

Brooks Richards succeeded Sir Robin Hooper in what was his second and last post as an ambassador. He stayed in Greece until 1978, when he retired from the Foreign Office.

A few months after the fall of the junta, Brooks Richards admitted that Greece had emerged from
the dictatorship ‘in better shape’ than the British had expected.
He also believed the time had come to revise the state of Anglo-Greek relations, and he suggested a series of ‘quite modest developments’, as a sign of British recognition of the change that had taken
place in Greece.

In this video you can watch him talking in Greek, while he presents the prizes (a trip to London) to the winners of a BBC competition.

The 25 November 1973 coup d'etat

35 years ago yesterday another coup d'etat took place in Greece.
In the aftermath of the Athens Polytechnic uprising, head of the military police, Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis toppled Papadopoulos and installed Lieutenant General Phaedon Gizikis as President of Greece.
Ioannidis came to be known as the 'invisible dictator' because he was the one pulling the strings during the last period of the Colonels' regime which ended with the Cyprus coup d'etat in July 1974 and the Turkish invasion of the island.

Dimitrios Ioannides (right) toasting with George Papadopoulos (middle) and Phaedon Gizikis (left) Ioannides and Gizikis overthrew Papadopoulos in a later coup.

The communique announcing the overthrow of the Markezinis government accused Papadopoulos of 'straying from the ideals of the 1967 revolution and 'pushing the country towards parliamentary rule too quickly'.

Here you can read BBC's report on these events.

The photos on the right are from an article of the London press on the British recognition of Ioannides' regime.

[You can also read an article (in Greek) on Ioannidis, Kissinger and the USA here.]