the country.
In order to understand the story of how he made himself wealthy at great cost to the nation, one must go back to a late December day in 1995, when a Turkish cargo ship ran into an islet—in essence, a large rock—jutting from the sea some miles off the Anatolian coast. The accident triggered a dispute over whether the rock in question—about ten acres of crag inhabited by wild goats but not people—and another outcrop next to it belonged to Greece or Turkey. Greek authorities, certain of the islet’s Greek proprietorship, offered to tug the cargo ship, but the Turkish captain initially demurred, arguing the rock was in fact Turkish, and therefore a Turkish boat should detach it instead. The countries, of course, had a long and famous history of antagonism; they sparred incessantly over the fate of the divided island nation of Cyprus, and feuded over Aegean territorial waters and airspace. At first, this dispute seemed somewhat mundane. The Turkish ship eventually accepted a Greek tug, and later, the Greek and Turkish foreign ministries quietly exchanged notes expressing their competing claims over the islet, known as Imia to Greeks and Kardak to Turks. But the matter was by no means finished.
At the time, Tsochatzopoulos was the acting prime minister, serving in place of his ailing mentor, Andreas Papandreou, PASOK’spopulist founder. Tsochatzopoulos’s PASOK roots stretched back to the late 1960s, when he was a student studying civil engineering in Munich, and an American-backed, military dictatorship known as the Regime of the Colonels ruled Greece. In Germany, Tsochatzopoulos joined Papandreou’s antidictatorial Panhellenic Liberation Movement, which operated in exile. The organization’s aims would later become PASOK’s stated agenda: the reduction of American Cold War influence over Greek affairs, and a socialist economic transformation. The dictatorship crumbled in 1974, and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or PASOK, was officially born. Seven years later, Papandreou was elected prime minister and set about increasing government spending and socializing indebted private companies, though he backtracked on pledges to withdraw from NATO and close U.S. bases in Greece. The victory ushered in more than two decades of nearly continuous PASOK rule. The party’s triumph also commenced a long ministerial career for Tsochatzopoulos, who came to be known by the diminutive “Akis.” Tsochatzopoulos was first appointed minister of public works, and over the duration of PASOK’s reign, he remained minister of something or other. Tsochatzopoulos, a dapper man with dark, shrewd eyes and an angular face carved with deep lines, was a smooth talker and maintained a somewhat genteel demeanor. Papandreou was said to have referred to him as “Beau Brummel,” after the extravagant nineteenth-century English dandy. Tsochatzopoulos’s fealty to the party leader was condensed into a joke: “What time is it, Akis?” Papandreou asked Tsochatzopoulos. “Whatever time you want it to be,” replied his devotee.
A few weeks after the boat hit the rock, the aging Papandreou resigned from the premiership due to his rapidly deteriorating health. The loyal Tsochatzopoulos, already acting in his place, was considered a likely replacement. The PASOK faction, however, narrowly elected Tsochatzopoulos’s rival, Costas Simitis, to take over the premiership instead. Simitis, whose main goal was to lead Greece into the eurozone, was an unassuming, mild-manneredformer professor, seen as a pro-European “modernizer.” He had none of the bombast of his predecessor—with whom he often clashed—and, for his technocratic disposition, was derided by his detractors as “the accountant.” Two days before Simitis’s inauguration, a Greek magazine published a story concerning the “sudden uprising” of a severe provocation from Turkey—the month-old Imia territorial dispute. Soon, Greek newspapers devoted themselves to
In order to understand the story of how he made himself wealthy at great cost to the nation, one must go back to a late December day in 1995, when a Turkish cargo ship ran into an islet—in essence, a large rock—jutting from the sea some miles off the Anatolian coast. The accident triggered a dispute over whether the rock in question—about ten acres of crag inhabited by wild goats but not people—and another outcrop next to it belonged to Greece or Turkey. Greek authorities, certain of the islet’s Greek proprietorship, offered to tug the cargo ship, but the Turkish captain initially demurred, arguing the rock was in fact Turkish, and therefore a Turkish boat should detach it instead. The countries, of course, had a long and famous history of antagonism; they sparred incessantly over the fate of the divided island nation of Cyprus, and feuded over Aegean territorial waters and airspace. At first, this dispute seemed somewhat mundane. The Turkish ship eventually accepted a Greek tug, and later, the Greek and Turkish foreign ministries quietly exchanged notes expressing their competing claims over the islet, known as Imia to Greeks and Kardak to Turks. But the matter was by no means finished.
At the time, Tsochatzopoulos was the acting prime minister, serving in place of his ailing mentor, Andreas Papandreou, PASOK’spopulist founder. Tsochatzopoulos’s PASOK roots stretched back to the late 1960s, when he was a student studying civil engineering in Munich, and an American-backed, military dictatorship known as the Regime of the Colonels ruled Greece. In Germany, Tsochatzopoulos joined Papandreou’s antidictatorial Panhellenic Liberation Movement, which operated in exile. The organization’s aims would later become PASOK’s stated agenda: the reduction of American Cold War influence over Greek affairs, and a socialist economic transformation. The dictatorship crumbled in 1974, and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or PASOK, was officially born. Seven years later, Papandreou was elected prime minister and set about increasing government spending and socializing indebted private companies, though he backtracked on pledges to withdraw from NATO and close U.S. bases in Greece. The victory ushered in more than two decades of nearly continuous PASOK rule. The party’s triumph also commenced a long ministerial career for Tsochatzopoulos, who came to be known by the diminutive “Akis.” Tsochatzopoulos was first appointed minister of public works, and over the duration of PASOK’s reign, he remained minister of something or other. Tsochatzopoulos, a dapper man with dark, shrewd eyes and an angular face carved with deep lines, was a smooth talker and maintained a somewhat genteel demeanor. Papandreou was said to have referred to him as “Beau Brummel,” after the extravagant nineteenth-century English dandy. Tsochatzopoulos’s fealty to the party leader was condensed into a joke: “What time is it, Akis?” Papandreou asked Tsochatzopoulos. “Whatever time you want it to be,” replied his devotee.
A few weeks after the boat hit the rock, the aging Papandreou resigned from the premiership due to his rapidly deteriorating health. The loyal Tsochatzopoulos, already acting in his place, was considered a likely replacement. The PASOK faction, however, narrowly elected Tsochatzopoulos’s rival, Costas Simitis, to take over the premiership instead. Simitis, whose main goal was to lead Greece into the eurozone, was an unassuming, mild-manneredformer professor, seen as a pro-European “modernizer.” He had none of the bombast of his predecessor—with whom he often clashed—and, for his technocratic disposition, was derided by his detractors as “the accountant.” Two days before Simitis’s inauguration, a Greek magazine published a story concerning the “sudden uprising” of a severe provocation from Turkey—the month-old Imia territorial dispute. Soon, Greek newspapers devoted themselves to
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