Helen Vlachos

Helen Vlachos
Ελένη Βλάχου
Born	(1911-12-18)18 December 1911 Athens, Greece
Died	14 October 1995(1995-10-14) (aged 83) Athens, Greece
Occupation(s)	Journalist, author

Helen Vlachos (UK: /ˈvlækɒs/, US: /ˈvlækoʊs/; Greek: Ελένη Βλάχου, Eléni Vláchou; 18 December 1911 – 14 October 1995) was a Greek journalist,^[1][2] newspaper publishing heiress, proprietor, and anti-junta activist.^[1][3][4][5]

Soon after the coup of 21 April 1967, she closed down her newspaper Kathimerini as a protest against the dictatorship. In October 1967, her description of one of the junta principals, Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos, then Minister of the Interior of the junta, as a clown, led to her house arrest, for which she later wrote a book under the same title.

For her refusal to acquiesce to the Greek junta's demands that she censor her publications, her resistance against the regime of the colonels, and her contributions to freedom of the press, she was posthumously recognised as one of the World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute.

Life

Helen Vlachos (Eléni Vláchou) was the daughter^[3][6] of Georgios Vlachos, who founded Kathimerini, one of Greece's premier newspapers, in 1919.^[2] She worked as a journalist in her father's newspaper and covered the Berlin Olympics in 1936.^[2][5] During World War II, her father refused to cooperate with the Nazi occupation government and closed down Kathimerini. During the war she worked as a nurse.^[5]

After the war, Helen Vlachos resumed working in her father's newspaper as a columnist. Her column was simply titled "E", for "Eleni", her name in Greek.^[2] She became very popular in Greece because she often used to criticise the government from her column.^[1]

When her father died in 1951 she took ownership of Kathimerini (Daily) and expanded it by publishing the afternoon edition of the paper under the name Mesimvrini (Noon edition).^[2] She published Eikones (Pictures), which was an illustrated magazine and the first of its kind in Greece. She also launched Ekdosis Galaxia (English, "galaxy publishers"), a quality paperback imprint, which became collectible.^[2] She had been a supporter of the monarchy and the Greek right-wing parties.^[7]

Life under the colonels

"They cannot tell me how to run my newspapers any more than I can tell them how to run their tanks"

Helen Vlachos

The coup d'état of 21 April 1967, which overthrew the legitimate government of Greece, started at 2 a.m. local time. Soon after the coup had begun, Vlachos arrived at the offices of Kathimerini in the early hours of the morning, in complete shock, surprise and disarray, to plan the publication of what was to be the only edition of her newspaper during the dictatorship and started to organise the photographic and other recorded material which was to be included in that special edition.^[8]

She realised that in the future such material could prove crucial in documenting the events which, according to her evaluation based on her experience of events centred around World War II, could have led to a possible new catastrophe for Greece.^[8][9] The next day, Vlachos, not willing to submit to the censorship demanded by the junta, decided to close down her newspapers and her magazine Eikones as a sign of protest against the dictators and their repressive measures.^[1][2][4][8]

The suspension of the publication of her papers was a great disappointment for the dictators, as well as a political blow against them, because it deprived them of the means to gain support and acceptance from the mainstream right of Greek politics by using her established and well-respected publications such as her newspaper Kathimerini to promote their agenda.^[2] Further, the junta never expected that the owner of a right-wing newspaper would go against them and they were very surprised when she did.^[1] Her action of closing her papers was among the first overt signs of resistance against the junta.^[10]

The junta then tried to pressure her to republish her newspapers but she steadfastly refused choosing instead to criticise them at every opportunity.^[11] She even resisted pressure from Papadopoulos himself who actually threatened her and did not reply to his comments, keeping silent.^[10] During a later interview titled Eleni Vlachou: A journalist remembers, with ERT, the national broadcast company of Greece, she said that by not responding to the junta pressure her "silence was her loudest voice".^[10] She also dismissed the junta demands by declaring: "They cannot tell me how to run my newspapers any more than I can tell them how to run their tanks".^[1]

Despite her closing of her papers, she still went regularly to her office at the building of her publishing company where she frequently expressed her opinions against the junta.^[2] She also gave interviews to the Italian Press where she used to call the junta a circus.^[1][12]

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa she described the junta members by saying: "All in all they are mediocre and colourless, except of course Pattakos. He is a mediocre man who acts like a clown".^{[1][10][12][13][14][15][16][17]} As far as the regime's strongman Georgios Papadopoulos was concerned, Vlachos told La Stampa that she feared him less than "going to the dentist".^{[10][14][18][19][20]}

The interview to La Stampa proved too much for the dictators, who sent the police to her house to summon her to appear in front of the Athens Military Court where she was interrogated for four hours. At the end of the interrogation she was told that a date would be scheduled for her trial by the end of October. Hearing that she exclaimed: "This is going to be a lot of fun!".^[14]

Such attacks against the junta could have led to imprisonment or worse, yet she was not intimidated saying that should she ever go to jail she was expecting to be fed her favourite dish, which was meatballs.^[1] In October 1967, her description of one of the junta principals, Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos then Minister of the Interior of the junta,^{[2][13][16][21][22][23][24]} as a clown,^{[2][5][10][13][21][22][23][24]} led to her house arrest,^{[2][5][13][22][23][24]} for which she later wrote a book under the same title.^[2][10]

Escape to London

Following her house arrest, in December 1967, she devised a plan to escape. She obtained a fake passport and dyed her hair black with shoe polish to match the false identification.^[1][2][5] On the night of the escape, the 55-year-old climbed out of a window from her flat and then to the roof of a neighbouring apartment and, going from roof to roof in a cold Athens night, she finally managed to reach street level.^[5][25]

She went into hiding in an Athens bordello while her husband, Konstantinos Loundras, wearing the high heels of his wife, paced about their apartment trying to fool the police into thinking his wife was still in the apartment.^[1][26][27]

Two days later she was on her way to London,^[25] having successfully escaped from house arrest with the help of her friend Leslie Finer, an author who worked at the Greek Embassy in Washington and who arranged a secret British flight for her.^[26]

In Britain she was granted political asylum.^[3] Soon after she started her anti-junta campaign from exile. To that end she formed an alliance with anti-junta activists Melina Mercouri and Amalia Fleming, Greek widow of Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of pennicilin.^[2]

She loved Britain and the British people and used her fluency in the English language and its idioms to deliver witty attacks against the junta, knowing that the British public appreciates humour rather than exaggeration.^[2][3] In 1970 she published House Arrest, a book detailing her life under the junta before her escape to London.^[2][20]

In London, she became editor of the Hellenic Review, a journal for the Greek expatriates in Britain. While working at the journal she got hold of a leaked document detailing the propaganda activities of the junta in London. The leaked document implicated Gordon Bagier, a British MP who had become a paid lobbyist for the junta. This created a major political storm which embarrassed the junta and further damaged its reputation. The incident also led eventually to the creation of the Register of Members' Interests in the British Parliament.^[2]

Return to Greece

In 1974 with the fall of the junta, she returned to Greece and restarted the publication of her newspapers. She became state deputy for New Democracy under Konstantinos Karamanlis in Greece's first democratically elected Parliament during Metapolitefsi.^[1][2][5] Later she resigned from her political position because she found politics boring compared to journalism.^[3][5]

In 1987 she sold Kathimerini to George Koskotas and in the 1990s she published her memoirs Peninda kai Kati: Dimosiographika Chronika (Fifty Something: Journalistic Chronicles), alluding to her more than sixty-year career in the newspaper business.^[2] She had two homes located in Athens and London and spent her retirement years travelling between them.^[3]

She died on 14 October 1995 in Athens, aged 83. She received a state funeral attended by political leaders and hundreds of journalists.^[3]

Recognition

Eleni Vlachou is recognised as one of the World Press Freedom Heroes, an award sponsored by the International Press Institute. She received the award posthumously in 2000.^[11]

Andreas Papandreou, as Prime Minister of Greece, had said about her: "She was a truly great figure in Greek journalism... She was unwavering in her principles and her beliefs... Her immediate reaction to the coup of 21 April 1967, with the cessation of publication of Kathimerini and her other publications, is a crowning moment of resistance in the field of journalism."^[11]

A prize named in her honour "The Eleni Vlachou Award" is presented every two years starting from 2003 to Greek journalists by the German embassy in Greece for excellence in journalism covering European and international topics.^[9]

Marriage

In 1935, Vlachos married Ioannis Arvanitidis. Vlachos and Arvanitidis later divorced. In 1951, she remarried, to Konstantinos Loundras.^[2]

References

1. Jennifer Steinhauer (16 October 1995). "Helen Vlachos, Greek Publisher And Foe of the Junta, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 March 2013. Ms. Vlachos was a legend in Greek journalism…
2. Richard Clogg (17 October 1995). "Obituary: Helen Vlachos". The Independent. Retrieved 15 March 2013. Eleni Vlachou, or Helen Vlachos as she became known to a wide audience in Britain during the colonels' dictatorship of Greece from 1967 to 1974, was a publishing legend in Greece, a land of avid newspaper readers... ...Her description (wholly deserved) of Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos as "a clown" and other outspoken criticisms of the regime led to her being placed under house arrest in October that year.
3. "Helen Vlachos Obituary". The Herald (Glasgow). 19 October 1995. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
4. "Elena Vlakhou". britannica.com. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
5. "Helen Vlachos; Greek Newspaper Publisher". LA Times. 18 October 1995. Retrieved 15 March 2013. She was placed under house arrest after she described one of the ruling army colonels as "a clown".
6. Nikos Papanikolaou. Ελένη Βλάχου: Μια ακριβή κυρία (in Greek). New Action. Archived from the original on 8 April 2012. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
7. The Economist. Vol. 235. Economist Newspaper Limited. 1970. p. 49. Retrieved 20 March 2013. She supported the monarchy and was listened to by King Paul and the young King Constantine ; she supported the Papagos government ... As the latter became more powerful in the Centre Union party Helen Vlachos attempted to alert Greece to the danger of the communists ... She, along with other right wing Greeks, feared the outcome of the elections the colonels forestalled. ... In their naivety they expected her support since they believed that her views were in line with their own...
8. Ρουλα Kαρακουση (20 April 2012). "ΠOΛITIΣMOΣ Σπάνια ντοκουμέντα και μαρτυρίες για την 21η Απριλίου του '67". Kathimerini (in Greek). Archived from the original on 12 April 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
9. Βραβείο Ελένης Βλάχου (in Greek). Archived from the original on 28 June 2013. Retrieved 18 March 2013. Το βραβείο "Ελένη Βλάχου" για την καλύτερη δημοσιογραφική εργασία σε ευρωπαϊκά και διεθνή θέματα, απονέμει ανά διετία η γερμανική πρεσβεία σε έλληνα δημοσιογράφο.
10. Σκοπελίτου Μαρίνα Κάτση Ζωή. ΕΘΝΙΚΟ ΚΑΠΟΔΙΣΤΡΙΑΚΟ ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟ ΑΘΗΝΩΝ ΤΜΗΜΑ ΕΠΙΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΜΕ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΕΛΕΝΗ ΒΛΑΧΟΥ ΕΩΣ ΤΗΝ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΗ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ : ΖΗΤΗΜΑΤΑ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΚΗΣ ΔΕΟΝΤΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ (in Greek). National Kapodistrian University of Athens. Archived from the original on 25 June 2013.
11. "Eleni Vlachou, Greece World Press Freedom Hero (Honoured in 2000)". International Press Institute. Archived from the original on 4 November 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
12. Giannēs Katrēs (1971). Eyewitness in Greece: the colonels come to power. New Critics Press. ISBN 9780878530021. Retrieved 17 March 2013. To use the graphic figure invented by Helen Vlachos for the Circus- Government of the Junta, Papadopoulos serves as the animal trainer and Pattakos as the clown.
13. Robert McDonald (1983). Pillar & Tinderbox: The Greek Press Under Dictatorship. New York : Marion Boyars. ISBN 978-0-7145-2781-9. Retrieved 17 March 2013. She was placed under house arrest in October 1967 after giving an interview to La Stampa in which she referred to the colonels generally as mediocre men and to Brigadier Pattakos in particular as a clown. She managed to escape abroad to ...
14. "GRIECHENLAND / DIKTATUR Viel Spaß GREECE / DICTATORSHIP gegen die Diktatur ein Have fun Protest". Der Spiegel (in German). 9 October 1967. Retrieved 17 March 2013. ...und nannte die Junta-Obristen in einem Interview mit der Turiner Zeitung "La Stampa" "höchst mittelmäßige Leute"; Panzerbrigadier Pattakos sei ein "Clown", und vor dem starken Mann der Diktatur. Oberst Papadopoulos, habe sie "weniger Angst als vorm Zahnarzt".called the junta colonels in an interview with the Turin newspaper "La Stampa" "most mediocre people"; Panzerbrigadier Pattakos was a "clown", and before the strong man of the dictatorship. Colonel Papadopoulos did, they "fear less than going to the dentist."
15. Rudolf Augstein (1967). Der Spiegel (in German). Der Spiegel. Retrieved 17 March 2013. Interview mit der Turiner Zeitung „La Stampa" „höchst mittelmäßige Leute"; Panzerbrigadier Pattakos sei ein „Clown",...
16. Time. Time Inc. October 1967. Retrieved 17 March 2013. In an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa, she was asked whether she was afraid of the consequences of her defiance. Replied Helen: ... All in all they are mediocre and colorless, except of course Pattakos" — the general who heads the Ministry of the Interior. As for him: "He is a mediocre man who acts like a clown.
17. A. den Doolaard (1974). Pers en persvrijheid (in Dutch). Querido. p. 129. ISBN 978-90-214-1337-2. Retrieved 17 March 2013. ... In een vrijmoedig interview kenschetste zij Pattakos als een middelmatig man die de clown speelde. ... Na haar romantische vlucht naar Londen, vlak voor Kerstmis 1967, werd zij door de vrije wereldpers als ...
18. American Society of Newspaper Editors (1970). Problems of Journalism: Proceedings of the Convention, American Society of Newspaper Editors. The Society. p. 188. Retrieved 17 March 2013. She spoke out against the regime and granted interviews to foreign journalists which were published abroad. She was quoted in Italy as saying that she was more frightened of her dentist than she was of Col. George Papadopoulos. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
19. Time. Vol. 82. Time Inc. October 1967. Retrieved 17 March 2013. That honor was left to Helen Vlachos, 55, the acid-tongued Athens publisher who closed down her two newspapers to protest the junta-imposed censorship. ... Replied Helen: "I'm more afraid of the dentist than I am of Colonel Papadopoulos.
20. Helen Vlachos (1970). House arrest. Gambit. p. 186. Retrieved 17 March 2013. Mrs. Helen Vlachos, who was yesterday arrested by the Greek military regime, has inherited from her father, together with the leading Greek daily news- >aper " Kathimerini "... But I am more scared of the dentist than of Colonel Papadopoulos.
21. Ross, Harold Wallace; White, Katharine Sergeant Angell (1970). The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 March 2013. She continued to irritate the colonels by giving interviews to foreign journalists, and finally, after an interview in which she described one member of the junta, Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos, as "a clown" and remarked that she was more ...
22. Book Review Digest. H.W. Wilson Company. 1970. Retrieved 17 March 2013. The charge: having called Mr. Pattakos [the junta Premier] a clown.'. . . [She] escaped to England in December of that year. . . .
23. The Economist. Charles Reynell. 1970. Retrieved 17 March 2013. For five months she was left free to hold defiant court in her newspaper office until the day an Italian newspaper published an interview in which she called Brigadier Pattakos a clown. For that she was arrested,...
24. "Kirkus Review House Arrest By Helen Vlachos". Kirkus Reviews. 19 October 1995. Retrieved 15 March 2013. ...until Mrs. Vlachos in one of her many candid anti-junta interviews with foreign correspondents struck a too sensitive spot by calling Brigadier Pattakos, Minister of the Interior, a clown. Arrested the next day, she was released pending trial by a faithful Kathimerini-reading general, but a few days later the powers-that be placed her under house arrest.
25. Stephanos Dandolos. "Αρχική Σελίδα (Main Page) Ελένη Βλάχου: Η μεγάλη κυρία του Τύπου (The Grand Dame of the Greek Press)" (in Greek). Ethnos. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
26. Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer (18 March 2010). "Leslie Finer dies; Greece ousted journalist during '67 coup". The Washington Post. Retrieved 18 March 2013. When she decided to leave Greece, Mr. Finer helped arrange her escape. She dyed her hair to match a fake passport and hid out in a cramped bordello, while her subsequent husband walked around their Athens flat in high-heeled shoes to trick the guards into believing she was still there. Mr. Finer arranged secretive transport on a British flight.
27. Helena Smith (13 June 2010). "Leslie Finer obituary Journalist expelled from Greece by the military junta after he reported on the 1967 coup". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 March 2013.

External links

• Eleni Vlachou: A journalist remembers Archived 12 April 2013 at archive.today from the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation