in the cost of living index — all of which led to a financial squeeze on working people. So_it was that the junta could not provide a satis— factory solution to the just demands of blue and white collar workers; even if it had wished to, it would have found its wav blocked because it clashed with the monOpolistic interes s the junta served in the first place. Faced with the disagreeable prospect of chain reactions in the ponulace, the dictatorship was forced to announce a series of spectacular palliatives in an attempt to calm citizens' frustrations by raising their h0pes.

In an attempt to break out of its internal isolation, it tried to exploit for its own ends the people's well—established aversion to the monarchy, and seized the same Opportunity to announce its next step, aimed at softening the image of brute force it had acquired until now. Accordingly, a mock referendum was engineered;

it secured the Presidency for the post's sole candidate, Papadopoulos.

It must here be stressed that this set of manoeuvres was the result of Pentagon and NATO planning that called initially for _ the loyal support of Panadopoulos, and when his ouster became politically expedient, for his replacement by a group of civilian politicians from the conservative ranks, led by Emmanuel Averof. This pre-arranged course of action, which we may term "dictatorial normalization", had the unexpected merit of awakening from lethargic slumber a number of former members of Parliament, ministers and other figures, who hame together under the Prime Ministership of Spiros Marchezinis to burnish the junta's laughable civilian image. Obedient executors of the military's

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.commands, they believed their turn had come to rule the Greek people without giving it the right to decide its own future. The stubborn intractability of the people, however, and public denunciation of

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this handful of opportunists on the part of the leaders of the progresé