for domestic consumption without the talks having been concluded or diplomats informed.71
The Institutional Development of Greek Intelligence, 1953-1995
In post war Greece, intelligence was always militarised within the foreign affairs and security community. Greek politicians primarily assigned military officers to the intelligence field, while graduates from the armed forces academies and higher officers were preferred to civilian personnel within NIS. After the fall of the Junta in 1974, KYP remained under the authority of the Prime Minister; later it was transferred to the authority of the Home Office and then to the Minister for Public Order. NIS did not have a strong institutional link or a culture of co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the MoD. Moreover, crisis management decision-making was not fully developed. From 1982, the famous KYSEA (Kyvernitiko Symvoulio Exoterikon kai Amynas - Foreign Affairs and Government Council) was manned by the Prime Minister as the council president and by the secretaries for Defence, Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Public Order and Finance. The director of NIS did not have a seat or an official advisory role in KYSEA. However the most serious problem confronted by KYSEA was the lack of support from a developed secretariat and the intelligence bureaucracy. The concept of creating and maintaining a ‘National Security Council’ was not accepted and the Prime Minister was only given a Legal Affairs Office and military and diplomatic advisors. Allegedly during the 1980s Papandreou used KYSEA primarily as a way to legitimise his own decisions.
In May 1953 KYP (Kentriki Ypiresia Pliroforion- Central Intelligence Service) was established by Law 2421/1953. Article 1 declared the foundation of KYP ‘for the national security of the armed forces, public security and order’. Article 2 established the authority of the Prime Minister over the new service; ‘KYP would be put under the direct orders of the president of the Government’. Article 3 outlined the priority assignments; KYP would have to ‘co-ordinate’ all state security agencies in collecting intelligence and under the direction of the Prime Minister KYP would have to develop methods to collect intelligence ‘by its own means’ and to provide assessments and estimates of national security issues. In parallel, KYP would have to ‘enlighten public opinion on national security’ which in effect meant that KYP was also an official propaganda agency of the state.Article 4 established that the Prime Minister was the only one who could appoint the director of KYP. The KYP director ‘could be a capable civilian’. However until 1987, the head of KYP was a military officer, usually an Army brigadier or a lieutenant-general and a NIS placement usually signified the end of a military career. The same article established an inter-ministerial council whereby the KYP director would be assigned to the Presidency. Nonetheless, KYP did not gain predominance or full co-ordination with MoD intelligence services and between the 1950s and the fall of the Junta in 1974, KYP was manned by special forces officers who generally had no training in intelligence analysis and lacked a full understanding of the role of a modern intelligence service. Military intelligence, or as one insider put it, ‘the mere counting of enemy capabilities’, remained a mindset that influenced the way personnel and officers understood the international events and assessed threats. Throughout the 1950s and until the invasion of Cyprus in 1974, officers of the MoD and KYP remained focused on the Bulgarian and ‘internal communist’ threats, ignoring Turkish intentions towards Cyprus and the possible Turkish reaction to the Greek-inspired plans against President Makarios.72
In February 1982 the PASOK administration introduced Law 1415/1982 which put KYP under the direct authority of the Prime Minister. Until 1982, KYP had been under the authority of the Secretary of the Presidency of the Government (Ypourgeio Proedrias tis Kyverniseos). Moreover, Article 1 par. 3e stated that the Prime Minister could assign ‘the parliamentary authorities on KYP issues’ to a Secretary. In effect, Papandreou could avoid answering controversial intelligence questions by sending one of his ministers to attend the parliamentary sessions in his place.
In 1986 the PASOK administration introduced Law 1645/1986. NIS (Ethniki Ypiresia Pliroforion/ National Intelligence Service – previously the KYP) constituted ‘an autonomous civilian service’, remaining under the direct authority of the Prime Minister. According to Article 2, NIS was assigned ‘the collection, processing and dissemination to the component authorities of information pertaining to the country’s national security’. NIS also undertook the tasks of ‘protecting national communications, co-ordinating intelligence collection and disseminating information to all government intelligence services’. Essentially, in time of war, NIS would become the government’s ‘intelligence staff’. The nature of the relationship and links between NIS and MoD would be decided by classified orders. Therefore, scholars cannot document to what extent NIS, MoD and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared intelligence in the 1980s and 1990s. However a former head of Turkey and Cyprus Affairs Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed that he was not on the dissemination list of top secret NIS intelligence. Only political figures were entitled to secret intelligence and, in general, the sharing of secret intelligence was only at a political and not at a departmental level.73
Article 6 of Law 1645/1986 established closer co-operation between high ranking intelligence officials by assigning the presidency of the ‘Intelligence Council’ to the NIS director. This included members from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Intelligence Branch of the General Staff and the State Security Directorate of the Police. The council would meet every two months or during a crisis and the NIS director could invite other public officials if necessary. In 1986, UnderSecretary Kapses gave verbal orders to a top diplomat to attend occasional Chiefs of Staff and NIS meetings at the MoD. The diplomat requested the issue of a formal appointment to these meetings but Kapses, who sought to keep the MoD, NIS and Ministry of Foreign Affairs bureaucracies separate, thought it ‘unnecessary’.74
In the mid 1990s, NIS was placed under the authority of the Home Office. The conservative administration of Constantinos Mitsotakis introduced Law 360/1992 which reorganized the personnel structure and training within the NIS. The most important aspect of legislation appeared in Article 3 par. 4c. Accordingly, ‘the NIS director was the Prime Minister’s advisor on issues of his responsibility and informed him on any issue pertaining to the national security of the country’. This article established for the first time a clear intelligence advisory relationship between the NIS director and the head of the administration.
Later, under the authority of Law 395/2001, NIS was transferred to the Ministry of Public Order. The Secretary of Public Order supervised both NIS and State Security; in British government terms this amounted to being assigned MI5, Special Branch and MI6. Law 395/2001 did not replace 1645/1986 as it is considered the legal foundation of the civilian intelligence service.
Having provided key information on the institutional development of NIS, it is necessary to examine the legal framework for decision-making within the government council. The key documents are Laws 660/1977, 1266/1982 and 2292/1995. Law 2292/1995 is the most detailed legal document regarding the responsibilities and assignments of KYSEA and it makes particular reference to the role of the Defence Secretary, the chief of the General Staff and of the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force during a crisis. A close analysis of these three documents reveals that both the NIS director and NIS as an institution are insufficiently integrated into the advisory structure of KYSEA. The MoD and the chiefs are in a powerful position, able to provide intelligence to decision makers. In contrast, the NIS director is not considered of equal rank to the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force Staff. Moreover, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bureaucracy does not have either position in KYSEA.
In the post-Junta years the Karamanlis administration sought to establish political control over the General Staffs of the Army, Navy and Air Force and aimed to strengthen the operational role of the chief of the National Defence General Staff (GEETHA – Geniko Epitelio Ethnikis Amynas). The need for the centralisation of authority in the armed forces derived from the 1950s and 1960s, in which Junta brigadiers and colonels were able to form loyal groups within the armed forces and KYP and were able to organise the 21 April coup and establish their military rule.75 Karamanlis’s intention was to centralise authority in the armed forces in order to ensure political oversight of the military
