Leslie Finer

Leslie Finer (10 December 1922 – 10 March 2010)[1][2] was a British journalist and author who worked for the BBC, the Financial Times, The Observer, the New Statesman, other British news organisations, Kathimerini and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.[1][3][4] He covered news in Cyprus and Greece between 1954 and 1968. He was described by Kathimerini as one of the most respected and reliable reporters of that era.[4] Finer was considered an expert on Greek affairs.[5]

Leslie Finer
Born
Leslie Finer

(1922-12-10)10 December 1922[1]
Died10 March 2010(2010-03-10) (aged 87)
Occupation(s)Journalist, author

Life and career

Finer was born in London's East End. He was the son of Charles and Rachel (Ray) Topper Finer.[1] His father's family were refugees of the antisemitic pogroms in Poland. His elder brother Morris was a high court judge. Finer studied at the London School of Economics and graduated during World War II with a degree in History.[1][6] During the war he worked for the Ministry of War Transport. He also worked as private secretary to Philip Noel-Baker.[1]

He covered events in Cyprus during the final years of British rule and then reported the news from Athens during the years when the United States exercised major influence on Greek political affairs.[3] He also covered the early stages of junta rule in Greece up to the time at which he was expelled from Greece by the junta.[4]

Reporting from Athens during the junta

His reports during the coup in Athens caused such alarm to the junta that the colonels bought all the copies of the newspapers which carried his articles and also placed an army officer at the radio station where he created his Greek-language broadcasts.[4] He also helped Helen Vlachos escape from Greece after she was placed under house arrest by the junta.[4] When Vlachos arrived in London, Finer helped her settle using his political contacts in Britain.[6]

His dispatches to the BBC circumvented the regime's attempts at heavy censorship of the news. BBC foreign service broadcasts were popular in Greece throughout the dictatorship years. In 1968 he was declared persona non grata by the junta, and after a final meeting with Stylianos Pattakos, the junta's number-two-man, during which Pattakos gave him a stern rebuke, Finer was deported from Greece for "having the courage to report on what he saw and thought".[6][7][8]

The Spectator reported in 1968 that the junta was very annoyed with Finer's three daily broadcasts to the BBC, which caused "tidal ebb and flows of customers" in Athenian cafés. The Spectator also commented that Greece was "stiflingly blanketed by censorship" at the time.[9] His deportation caused an international uproar and subsequently became the subject of a discussion in the British House of Commons.[10][11]

Investigation and analysis of the junta

His investigative journalism uncovered a plot which implicated the junta of the colonels and its strongman Georgios Papadopoulos in a campaign in 1968 designed to assist Italian right-wing parties in staging a coup d'état in Italy.[12][13][14][15] He also investigated the role of the colonels in Cyprus and their involvement in undermining Archbishop Makarios.[5][16] He assisted Georgios Grivas with writing his memoirs.[16]

Finer had once mentioned that the greatest propaganda achievement of the junta was to persuade people that Greek democracy was "sick" before the coup and needed the intervention of the junta before it could improve.[17] In 1975, Finer also reported on the Greek Junta Trials for New Society and wrote: "The trial of 20 ringleaders of the 1967 coup is a test of democratic justice. Among its other functions, this is a mode of exorcism and education."[18]

He also compared the fate of Papadopoulos to that of Adolf Hitler, but stated that: "there is this difference: instead of being dead in his bunker, the "arch villain" George Papadopoulos is alive and reasonably well; so are his chief fellow-conspirators..."[18]

He also wrote for Helen Vlachos's journal Hellenic Review and for the Index on Censorship publications analysing and working against the junta.[1] He gave lectures related to Greek matters for the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and at the University of Bergen in Norway.[1]

Impact

Christopher Hitchens commented on Finer's 1972 article in the New Statesman under the title The Colonels' Bid For Cyprus, saying that: "...[it] still lives in my mind as one of the most Cassandra-like essays ever published." Hitchens explained that Finer had predicted, as early as 1972, the events which led to the ousting of Makarios and the subsequent invasion of the island by Turkey in 1974.[6]

The same article has been called "prophetic" in a report by the Judiciary Committees of both the US House of Representatives. and Senate.[19]

Publications

Leslie Finer is the author of Passport to Greece, illustrated by Spyros Vassiliou.[18][20][21][22][23][24]

Leslie Finer translated a number of works.

Personal life

Finer married the famous Greek actress Elsa Verghi in 1954 but they later divorced due to their separation imposed by the junta through his expulsion from Athens and the subsequent refusal of the regime to allow Verghi to visit her husband in London.[6] They had first met in London when he interviewed her for the Evening Standard's column Londoner's Diary.[25][26]

His second wife was Jean Rubin, who later was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In 1991 he married Jacqueline Sunderland, who also helped him take care of his previous wife, Jean.[6]

Death

Finer was a philhellene who always wanted to be close to events associated with Greece and even managed to find employment as the newsletter editor at the Greek Embassy in Washington, where he worked for over thirty years. He died of cancer at his home in Lewes, Delaware on 10 March 2010.[4][6]

References
  1. "Obituary: Leslie Finer, journalist, author". Cape Gazette. 22 March 2010.
  2. "Farewell to Philhellene Leslie Finer". Greek Embassy in Washington 23 March 2010. Greek Embassy in Washington. Archived from the original on 28 March 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  3. "Leslie Finer: journalist". The Times. 8 April 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  4. 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. His dispatches during the coup prompted authorities to buy up all the newspapers where his articles appeared, to station an army officer in the radio station where he recorded his Greek-language reports, and to ultimately warn him that his journalism was unacceptable. [...] When she decided to leave Greece, Mr. Finer helped arrange her escape... Mr. Finer arranged secretive transport on a British flight.
  5. Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger. Verso. 1997. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-85984-189-1. Retrieved 21 March 2013. In early 1972 Leslie Finer visited Cyprus. He is a commentator with a well-earned reputation for expertise in Greek affairs, and a no less well-earned reputation for political moderation. As the correspondent for the BBC in Athens, he had ...
  6. 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.
  7. Verite Sur La Grece (in French). L'AGE D'HOMME. p. 123. GGKEY:TGTJE7GP3WJ. Retrieved 27 March 2013. Il ne s'agit pas de menace théorique : plusieurs journalistes étrangers ont déjà été interdits de séjour – à commencer par Leslie Finer, correspondant de la B.B.C. et de l'Observer pendant de longues années, qui eut le courage de dire ce qu'il ...
  8. Athenian (1972). Inside the colonels Greece. Chatto and Windus. p. 123. Retrieved 27 March 2013. Several foreign journalists have already been expelled, beginning with Leslie Finer, for many years correspondent for the B.B.C. and the Observer, who had the courage to report what he saw and what he thought. Not all of his colleagues are ...
  9. The Spectator. January 1968. p. 261. Retrieved 22 March 2013. The colonels weren't, I imagine, particularly irked by what Finer wrote for English newspapers: what made his continued presence in Athens unacceptable was his work for the bbc. In a country as stiflingly blanketed by censorship as Greece today the importance of the thrice- daily news broadcasts from London is hard to exaggerate. I'm told Athenian cafes, for example, now experience a sort of tidal ebb and flow of customers every evening.
  10. "MR. LESLIE FINER HC Deb 26 February 1968 vol 759 cc233-4W". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 26 February 1968.
  11. Robert McDonald (16 November 2011). "'The Week in Greece' and other stories". Athens News. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  12. Anna Cento Bull (2007). Italian Neo-Fascism: The Strategy of Tension and the Politics of Non-Reconciliation. Berghahn Books. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-85745-042-5. Retrieved 21 March 2013. The first article, written by Leslie Finer, correspondent for the paper in Athens until he was expelled in February 1968, and entitled 'Greek Premier plots Army coup in Italy', revealed the existence of a 'planned military coup in Italy by a group of ...
  13. Alessandro Silj (1994). Malpaese: criminalità, corruzione e politica nell'Italia della prima Repubblica, 1943–1994 (in Italian). Donzelli Editore. pp. 132–. ISBN 978-88-7989-074-8. Retrieved 21 March 2013. Eppure Leslie Finer non-potrebbe essere più esplicito. Scrive, su "The Observer": "Un gruppo di elementi di estrema destra e di ufficiali dell'Esercito sta tramando in Italia un colpo di stato militare con l'incoraggiamento del governo greco ...
  14. Mario Caprara – Gianluca Semprini (27 September 2012). Neri! (in Italian). Newton Compton Editori. pp. 231–. ISBN 978-88-541-4695-2. Retrieved 22 March 2013. un uomo di fiducia del colonnello George Papadopoulos nel corso di un viaggio clandestino in Italia. ... avanzata da Leslie Finer, ripropone uno schema molto simile a quello verificatosi in altri contesti: Grecia 1964–1967, Indonesia 19651966, ...
  15. Alessandro Silj (1998). Verbrechen, Politik, Demokratie in Italien (in German). Suhrkamp. Retrieved 22 March 2013. Und das, obwohl Leslie Finer gar nicht deutlicher hätte sein können. ... und Offizieren des Heeres plant in Italien mit Unterstützung der griechischen Regierung und ihres Ministerpräsidenten, Georgios Papadopoulos, einen Militärputsch
  16. Brendan O'Malley; Ian Craig (25 August 2001). The Cyprus Conspiracy: America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion. I.B.Tauris. pp. 135–. ISBN 978-1-86064-737-6. Retrieved 21 March 2013. Leslie Finer, the BBC correspondent in Athens, who had collaborated with Grivas on his memoirs, warned that the EOKA-B leader was ideally placed to start a conflict that would allow the junta to intervene to 'restore order' and tighten...
  17. Robert V. Keeley (2010). The Colonels' Coup and the American Embassy: A Diplomat's View of the Breakdown of Democracy in Cold War Greece. Penn State Press. pp. 207–. ISBN 978-0-271-03758-5. Retrieved 21 March 2013. Leslie Finer once said to me that he believed the principal propaganda achievement of the present regime was to convince people in Greece and abroad that Greek democracy was very sick prior ...
  18. New Society. Vol. 33. New Society Limited. 1975. p. 415. Retrieved 22 March 2013. The Greek colonels on trial Leslie Finer The trial of 20 ringleaders of the 1967 coup is a test of democratic justice. Among its other functions, this is a mode of exorcism and education. ...But there is this difference: instead of being dead in his bunker, the "arch villain" George Papadopoulos is alive and reasonably well; so are his chief fellow-conspirators, now arrayed under close public scrutiny in the bare courtroom arranged...Leslie Finer, author of Passport to Greece, was Athens ...
  19. United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate Problems Connected with Refugees and Escapees (1976). Crisis on Cyprus: 1976, Crucial Year for Peace : a Staff Report. U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved 22 March 2013. In a prophetic article (New Statesman, 10 March 1972) Leslie Finer wrote that such flirtations with the enosis lunatic fringe would infallibly ...
  20. Library of Congress. Copyright Office (1967). Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series: 1964: July–December. Copyright Office, Library of Congress. p. 2138 (Passport to Greece; see FINER, LESLIE). Retrieved 27 March 2013.
  21. Leslie FINER (1964). Passport to Greece ... Illustrated by Spiros Vassiliou. London. Retrieved 27 March 2013.
  22. Ethel S. Beer (1967). Marvelous Greece: an appreciation of the country and its people. Walker. p. 46. Retrieved 27 March 2013. Leslie Finer's Passport to Greece is a witty interpretation...
  23. National Book League (Great Britain); Anglo-Hellenic League (1968). Greece: an annotated list of current books. National Book League in association with the Anglo-Hellenic League. p. 30. Retrieved 27 March 2013. 6 Finer, Leslie. passport to greece.
  24. Institute for Balkan Studies (Thessaloniki) (1965). Balkan Studies. Vol. 6–7. Institute for Balkan Studies (Thessaloniki). p. 414. Retrieved 27 March 2013. University of California, Berkeley GEORGE C. SOULIS Leslie Finer, Passport to Greece, an Informative Guide to Enjoying the Country, illustrated by Spiros Vassiliou : Longmans, 1964. Pp. 259. The author of this attractive book (in his own ...
  25. Thomas Doulis (20 April 2011). The Iron Storm: The Impact on Greek Culture of the Military Junta, 1967–1974. Xlibris Corporation. pp. 173–. ISBN 978-1-4568-3842-3. Retrieved 21 March 2013. Foreign Office friendly toward the Colonels. The nervous Greek Ambassador, protected against unruly protestors by bodyguards, natives like Leslie Finer, a journalist expelled from Greece, translator of Costa Tachtsis's Third Wedding, and ...
  26. Peter Gowland (31 March 2010). "Lives Remembered Leslie Finer". The Telegraph.
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