Sorrow in Athens

To a roll of muffled drums, 100 sailors of the Royal Hellenic Navy towed the caisson carrying the coffin of King Paul of the Hellenes through the streets of Athens. Flanking the coffin were 20 evzones in tasseled red hats, pleated kilts and pompon shoes, their weapons carried upside down in mourning. Aides carried Paul's decorations on red velvet cushions, and after the carriage came the King's riderless white horse.

Clutching the hand of his distraught mother, Queen Frederika, Greece's new King Constantine, 23, headed a funeral cortege that included five reigning monarchs and scores of princes, Presidents and Premiers. At Metropolitan Cathedral, 50 bearded Greek Orthodox bishops in white and gold robes assisted the Primate of Greece in the 50-minute ceremony. As the service ended, Frederika kissed her husband's coffin, then broke into uncontrollable sobs.

Outside the church nearly 1,000,000 people clogged the streets, at times halting the procession until police could clear a passage. Cheers greeted Constantine, the bereaved Queen Mother, and former U.S. President Harry Truman who, 17 years ago to the day, had proposed the Truman Doctrine that saved Greece from Communism. But the loudest applause went to Cyprus' Archbishop Makarios. Detaching himself from the procession as it waited to convey the body to burial at Tatoi Palace, north of Athens, Makarios walked slowly around Constitution Square, waving at the crowd and acknowledging their cries for Enosis--union of Cyprus and Greece.

The demonstration for Makarios underscored Greece's most pressing problem. With the whopping majority held in Parliament by his coalition Center Union Party, new Premier George Papandreou, 76, could normally expect to make good his pledge for tax cuts, pay raises to civil servants, free education for all and rural redevelopment. Papandreou's treasury still has a surplus, and the economy is growing at the rate of 71% a year. But the success of Papandreou's program depends on the settlement of the Cyprus problem at no disadvantage to Greece; until accord is reached, Papandreou is hobbled.

Already the Cyprus crisis and the resulting anti-American demonstrations in Greece have at least temporarily scared off millions of U.S. investment dollars desperately needed to speed up Greek industrialization. Income from tourism has plummeted and the maintenance of the military on constant alert is a steady drain on the government's coffers. Though Papandreou and Constantine both favor a moderate solution to the Cyprus problem, popular indignation on the question could endanger the government--and the throne--unless some sort of settlement clearly favorable to Greece is achieved. Thus the future of an old man named Papandreou and a young man named Constantine depend in no little part on a middle-aged man named Makarios.

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