It was midnight when Press Minister Athanasios Tsaldaris contacted the Prime Minister at the time Konstantinos Karamanlis to inform him that the number one international terrorist Carlos the “Jackal: was in Athens.
The Minister told the president of the government that the central intelligence services (KYP) had information that he had arrived in Athens a few hours prior and was being accommodated on a yacht in Pasalimani.
Tsaldaris asked Karamanlis for instruction, as those in charge were planning on storming the yacht to arrest Carlos.
“What do you think must happen?” asked Karamanlis his minister. Tsaldaris remained silent. Karamanlis interrupted the silence by say that “if we attack and catch him alive, his comrades will react and the may bring their activities to Greece. If he is killed during the operation, we will have to face the international outcry. If he escapes, we will be the world’s laughing stock”.
“What do you say?” Karamanlis asked Tsaldaris.
“We should inform him to leave Greece immediately. That was, we will solve our problem…”.
By handling the situation this way the government at the time dealt with the presence of Carlos in Greece, who have “escaped” a few hours later and the Karamanlis government avoided many dangers.
The fact is that since the 1970s a lot has change and the tactic of passing the hot potato on to someone else is long gone. The current government must be prepared and determined to implement the decisions.
Europe has many more sides beyond the bailouts…
Stavros P. Psycharis
Originally published in the Sunday print edition
