GREECE: Account Overdrawn

Still vivid in the memory of most Athenians is the day in May 1941 when 19-year-old Emmanuel Glezos slipped silently into the ruins atop the Acropolis and tore down the Nazi swastika that desecrated the sacred rock. With this first open defiance of Greece's World War II German occupiers, Glezos made himself a national hero.

Even after Glezos turned Communist, public affection for him continued. Arrested in 1949 for supporting the made-in-Moscow Greek rebellion of 1947-49, he was sentenced to death, but on the strength of his flag-snatching he got off with a term in jail.

Last December, when Glezos was...

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