GREEK MEDIA WELCOME PAROLED SPY STEVEN LALAS AS HERO

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SUBJECT: GREEK MEDIA WELCOME PAROLED SPY STEVEN LALAS AS HERO


1. (U) Summary and Comment: A major news story over the weekend of
November 24-25 in Greece, the return of former Foreign Service
communicator and convicted spy Steven Lalas on Sunday afternoon was
covered live on Greek television, and featured prominently in the
evening's prime-time broadcasts. Met by Ministry of Justice
officials as well as family and friends as he picked up his bags at
the Athens airport, Lalas made a short, emotional statement
expressing his relief at being reunited with his family after 14
years in the U.S. He was widely quoted as urging: "We [Greeks]
should stand united, that's all I am asking for, because we are
few." Lalas went immediately with his family to Kavala province in
northern Greece, saying little else of substance in an "interview"
en route carried on Monday in top-circulation, left-of-center Ta
Nea.


2. (U) More in-depth coverage of Lalas' journey ran Monday night on
SKAI TV's "New Files," a well-regarded Greek analog to "60 Minutes."
A follow-up to a 2005 interview for the same investigative news
program, Lalas repeatedly said of his crime that he would "do it all
over again." The result of long-standing interest in the case by
one of Greece's most prominent journalists, this report also
featured an interview with an FBI Agent and Lalas? attorney. A
print version appeared in influential, independent newspaper
Kathimerini in both its Greek and English editions.
Internationally, the matter received limited wire service coverage,
with the International Herald Tribune, Pravda, and a few other
European outlets picking up an AP dispatch, as did major
Greek-American newspaper The National Herald/Ethnikos Kyrix.


3. (SBU) Greek political figures have not so far engaged in the
kind of triumphalism that might have been expected given the long
history of this case. Lalas has been widely cast as a "patriot" and
a "hero" in the media, with several mainstream newspapers
criticizing the Greek state for failing to adequately protect and
honor him, then or now. Embassy Athens has not been approached by
any party to the matter or by the media since last Thursday?s
discussion with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman and the
next day?s coordination on a Ministry of Justice press release that
acknowledged "close cooperation with U.S. officials" on Lalas'
supervised return. Representative samples of Greek newspaper
reporting and commentary follow. End Summary and Comment.


4. (U) Kathimerini (independent, influential) had extensive
coverage, including this front-page Sunday, 11/25 headline in its
Greek edition: "Steven Lalas: Greek Spy Returning from the U.S.
Today." Virtually the same story appeared on an inside page of the
English-language edition on 11/27, available at
www.ekathimerini.com. It was written by the paper's editor-in-chief
Alex Papahelas, also the senior figure on the "New Files" SKAI TV
investigative program.


5. (U) The inside banner headline read: "Steven Lalas' Big
Adventure. He Fought in Vietnam, Spied for His Homeland, Was
Imprisoned, and Today, after 14 Years, is Seeing His Family Again."
The text reads in part: "It is well-known that people in serious
countries exposed to national perils say that "A country's
reliability is gauged by the way it behaves toward a spy after his
arrest." Or, as Israelis would put it, 'each spy must be a
prince/princess in his/her country.' The Greek state failed
lamentably to protect the most valuable source it had had in the
past few decades, for a number of reasons, such as incompetence and
partisan favoritism through which the wrong people were assigned to
the wrong jobs ... out of stupidity." [Ellipsis original.]


6. (U) Papahelas concludes: "What I have learned monitoring the
Lalas case all these years is this: The first to hide when
difficulties emerge are the self-proclaimed, insipid patriots who
are willing to drag the country into an adventure and then hide,
leaving the few, cool-headed professionals to take the chestnuts out
of the fire. I have also found out that the core, most sensitive
agencies of the Greek state became rotten after 1974. In 1977, the
Greek state was still doing a good job, but in 1993 it mistook
gendarmes for party-lords, and the Greek Intelligence Service for a
political party branch. The last thing I have learned, and excuse
my emotion, is that what Greeks of the diaspora have in their souls
has nothing to do with the super-patriotic verbosity of the
indigenous monkeys. It is a crazy love for a country that exists
only in their minds, a patriotism that is exceptionally genuine
without ulterior motives or self-promotion. Obviously, the Steven
Lalas that I got to know paid for this patriotism. He will at
last see his family again after 14 years ..." [Ellipsis original.]


7. (U) Top-circulation Ta Nea (left-of-center) ran a two-page story,
tagged with this front-page secondary heading: "In Turkey there?s a
Bounty on My Head: Ta Nea?s Interview with Lalas," a piece signed by
Harry Karanikas. An inside carry-over is headlined: "Greece Does
Not Support those who Supported Her," but the text attributes this
quote to a friend of Lalas. The writer traveled with Lalas from the

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airport in Athens to Kavala in northern Greece and has a few quotes
from Lalas that he presents to be an interview. In this story,
Lalas comments indirectly on the reduction of mandatory Greek
military service to 12 months, saying that the "Army is a useful
thing."


8. (U) In addition, Ta Nea chief editor Notis Papadopoulos commented
under the headline "They Owe Him" as follows: "The Lalas case is a
shame for the Greek state. The probably one-off Greek spy who had
been giving secret U.S. Pentagon and State Department documents to
Greek governments ended up in an American prison through a blunder
by a Greek official who nailed him -- wittingly or not -- to the
American agencies. The Mitsotakis government, during whose tenure
the arrest was made, not only left him alone and did not provide
forensic support, but also left him alone to cover the huge expenses
of the trial, and his wife helpless (she was pregnant then) with two
young children. The Greek state demonstrated amateurism,
incompetence, and callousness in the Lalas case. The least it could
do for Lalas today is to recognize the services he offered.
Whatever the cost. They owe him."


9. (U) Eleftheros Typos (centrist) carried a weekend story by
diplomatic editor Angeliki Spanou under the headline: "The Spy who
'Paid the Piper' for the Macedonian Issue." It reads in part: "His
fate was tough, considering that two Americans who were caught
wearing ... wigs [ellipsis original] in a van in November 1993 at
Amerikis Square were simply sent back home. ... Some people link
Washington's belated clemency with the Greek-American vote, and some
say the Bush Administration is making an effort to embellish the
face of justice in the U.S. in view of the 2008 elections."


10. (U) Eleftherotypia (left-of-center) had this on the front-page:
"'Spy' Welcomed as Hero." Inside headline: "Emotional Gathering for
Lalas." The text reports that: "In TV interviews, Lalas said he was
a victim of treason and denounced the politicians of that period
(Mitsotakis's government) who played truant. 'We should stand
united, that's all I am asking for, because we are few.'"


11. (U) Ethnos (left-of-center) noted: "[After his arrest, h]is
wife, Maria Maidanou-Lalas, who was then 26 years old, was taken to
the U.S. Embassy building where she went through the 'polygraph
test.' Since then she has been living at Chryssoupolis, in Kavala,
where she started a private English-language school and raised her
two children with great difficulty."


12. (U) Smaller-circulation Avriani (populist, independent) ran this
front-page banner: "Stavros Lalas for Parliament. The Greek State,
Political Parties, Church, and Greek People Should Publicly
Recognize Sacrifice of Man Who Stayed in Prison in America for 14
Years." The paper?s back-page lead commentary read in part: "Lalas
is one of the last heroes. He was sold to Americans in an era when
CIA agents used to maraud around in our country."

SPECKHARD