The Transition

The State Department assessed the new government positively stressing the point that although its members were critical of Washington's failure to disassociate from the Greek military regime they were still pro-Western and remained supporters of Greece's participation to NATO.

Kissinger did not share his department's optimism. The regime change in Greece meant that Karamanlis, however conservative himself, had to govern democratically. That was equal, according to Kissinger's thinking, to the ‘unleashing’ of leftist forces. His apocalyptic description probably reflected his estimate of the Portuguese precedent in April 1974. The problem from Kissinger's perspective was that the littoral northern Mediterranean was in flux. It was not a matter of choice between military and civilian rule. His interpretation of events concerned the adverse effects of political change on the Atlantic alliance and the security relationships Washington had built up since the 1940s. He was not sure of the outcome of the political process initiated in Greece. If a right-of-centre government emerged it would be fine. A left-of-centre one would vindicate his gloomy view that the US was not capable to influence events. His main preoccupation was that the army was spent as a political force. The military had transferred power to a civilian government because it had failed and would not be in a position to influence events before the lapse of some time.