and Defense. The proposals prompted Kissinger to clarify U.S. aims in private: “We do not give military aid to support governments, but because a country is important to the U.S.”112 Appropriations committees also scrutinized NATO ties and military aid. Congressman Wayne Hays’s (D-OH) 1971 amendment to ban such aid to Greece was a significant milestone in congressional assertiveness, though it allowed the president to grant a waiver on national security grounds, which he did.
In addition to this legislative interest, public opinion ran a wide gamut between those who decried congressional liberals’ “interference” in Greek affairs and those who criticized support to an authoritarian regime. One of Congressman Fraser’s constituents told him to “quit whipping the government of a country that is trying to do a good job…. Let’s give the few rightist countries of the world a chance to prove their mettle before we castigate them.”113 Another voter wrote to Senator Henry Jackson, “That the U.S. even recognizes such a repressive dictatorship as the Greek junta is unbelievably hypocritical for a country purporting to be the bastion of freedom in the world…. How can we fight totalitarianism of the left while condoning and even aiding totalitarianism of the right?”114 Greek Americans were similarly divided. A Greek Orthodox archbishop wrote to Secretary Rogers that America’s interests “should be with the people [of Greece], and not in the hands of the leaders who form an unacceptable, self-imposed, and self-perpetuating oligarchy.”115 But most favored the status quo. “Is it not a little ridiculous,” wrote a Greek-American voter to Congressman Fraser, “to concern ourselves with the internal affairs of Greece at a time when all congressmen should be devoting all their time and energy to solving the many problems that plague our country?”116 The Order of AHEPA at first lamented the dictatorship’s emergence, but soon accepted the argument that communists had threatened Greece and that military aid should continue. “Greece today is our lone ally in that part of the world,” asserted AHEPA’s president, and “Greek internal politics are the business of the Greek people.”117
Congress and the administration then locked horns over the 1971 decision to homeport part of the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet and ten thousand military and civilian personnel in Athens-Piraeus. Homeporting was intended to increase regional capabilities and improve morale by minimizing long family separations, but many interpreted the choice as support for the junta. Two critics, Congressmen Benjamin Rosenthal (D-NY) and Lee Hamilton (D-IN), were eventually proved correct in arguing that the home-porting decision would embolden the colonels. One year after the decision, the dictatorship was still in power, anti-Americanism in Greece was on the rise, and there was no democratic transition in sight. Unless the United States paid more attention to political considerations, argued Rosenthal, “We will not have much prestige left in Greece to use in the difficult times ahead.”118 State Department analysts privately admitted that the regime had stepped up its efforts to emphasize American dependence on Greece. “It is difficult to look to the future with optimism,” they concluded.119 Since the lack of democracy was now the major bilateral problem, Secretary of State Rogers and the U.S. embassy ramped up both private diplomacy and public statements. Rogers even took an indirect stab at the colonels by giving a prodemocracy speech to a group of American FSOs and their families in Greece on July 4, 1972. “Democracy is one of those clear and incisive Greek words that are part of the Western vocabulary,” he stated. “It means simply: rule by the people and for the people.”120
The final turning point in the Greek junta’s story came in November 1973, when the hard-line clique of Colonel Dimitrios Ioannidis seized power. Ioannidis’s accession spurred a revealing discussion between Kissinger and his aides, who realized that this backsliding would make the Nixon/Kissinger policy look like a failure. When Ambassador Tasca (correctly) predicted that the regime would not last long and recommended continuing a public prodemocracy stand, Kissinger asked why this was in America’s interest. With so few democracies in the world, why was America being charged with holding Greece to democracy, but not Yugoslavia, Morocco, or Algeria? “Where else are we requiring governments to specify dates for elections?” he asked. “Why is it in the American interest to do in Greece what we apparently don’t do anywhere else?” Kissinger then laid out perhaps the clearest statement of his foreign policy beliefs in light of the era’s new human rights demands: “The Department of State doesn’t have a Political Science Division. It conducts the foreign policy of the United States. It deals with any government—communist or non-communist—within the context of the foreign-policy objectives of the United States. That way you don’t get caught with each individual government in giving approval and disapproval. Why is that wrong?” Ambassador Tasca argued that Greece was receiving so much attention because it had a unique position in Europe and because people believed that the United States could influence it. Kissinger accepted that Greece could be considered a special case, but he argued that the administration should stand by its principles and let the chips fall where they may. “We can survive congressional hearings if we know what’s right,” he concluded.121
The colonels’ end came about over Cyprus. When the junta fomented an uprising against the centrist Cypriot president, Archbishop Makarios, Turkey invaded the island in 1974, which in turn created a whole new set of human rights problems. The invasion was the death knell for the Greek junta. After it collapsed in July 1974, democracy was restored, Greece withdrew from the NATO command structure for six years, and Greek anti-Americanism remained strong for a generation. In the final analysis of America’s dealings with Greece during the Johnson and Nixon years, it is clear that realism consistently trumped liberal idealism. As New York Times correspondent C. L. Sulzberger, an early defender of the junta, wrote of Nixon’s policy in 1973, “All the U.S.A. stands for has been hurt by this; but not our national interests.”122 The Greek story also demonstrates the U.S. government’s limited ability to promote democracy, even among its allies. James Miller has correctly argued that Greece’s failure to create a stable democracy between 1950 and 1974 was largely the work of Greek politicians, military leaders, and the monarchy. Yet the United States bears some responsibility. President Johnson, President Nixon, and much of Congress continued to support a dictatorship that was abusing its population. Nixon, in particular, was largely indifferent to these abuses, even when a firmer American position might have encouraged more substantial changes in Greek policies.123
Latin America’s Cold War: The Brazilian Dictatorship
Latin America was not a high priority for Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Not only was Nixon generally uninterested in the global South, but he also considered the Western Hemisphere to be beyond the realm of Soviet and Chinese interest. Mark Atwood Lawrence is correct in asserting that the two men sought “low-key preservation of the status quo”—a posture that often meant relying on dictators to maintain stability and fend off leftist threats. This policy succeeded insofar as Marxist influence did not expand into South America on their watch, but in the long run their support to oppressive regimes arguably sowed the seeds of multiple crises.124 Nixon’s approach to Brazil must be considered in the context of détente, traditional American paternalism, and South America’s civil struggles. As we have seen, Latin American democracy took a hit in the sixties and seventies. And despite Nixon’s relative inattention, there was no denying America’s unique regional interests and its overwhelming economic and political influence. As Greg Grandin has shown, while Washington backed land reforms and social welfare programs in postwar Europe and Japan, policymakers considered such programs to be dangerous in Latin America. Instead, writes Grandin, the United States “inevitably sided with reactionary civilian and military forces as a bulwark against communism.” True, the United States often had little or no involvement in the region’s coups and atrocities, but it also rarely discouraged them.125
Although South America was a low Nixon priority, he recognized Brazil as an important regional ally with a growing economy. Early in his presidency, he sent his erstwhile opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, on a regional tour to collect information and shore up relations with Latin American republics. While in Brazil, Rockefeller was willing to ask tough questions about
