Kostas Simitis’ autobiography “Paths of Life” was published in 2015. In it the former prime minister, who died today, Sunday, January 5, at the age of 88, took off the mantle of technocrat for the first time and revealed unknown aspects of his personal life.
Kostas Simitis wrote about his childhood, his studies, the persecution his family suffered, the dictatorship, PAK, PASOK, Andreas Papandreou, and Akis Tsochatzopoulos.
Simitis wrote about his time in London, where he studied Political and Economic Sciences, after graduating from the University of Marburg in Germany and being discharged from the army.
Within the university he wrote that there was “a sense of freedom, a critical attitude, a demand for well-founded positions and systematic analysis.” He felt that “the removal of the Conservative government had signalled a general move away from conservative norms and conservative lifestyles. The miniskirt was the symbol of the new age.”
He and his wife, Daphne “lived this new reality by watching and participating, with a feeling of permanent curiosity, searching and freedom. The years in London were for me one of the best of my life.”
In September 1969 Simitis, wanted by the junta as a member of the Democratic Defense, escaped with the help of Amalia Fleming to Giessen, Germany, where his brother Spyros lived. He wrote that former prime minister, “Andreas Papandreou was one of the first to call me.”
When they met later on one of Papandreou’s European tours Simitis accepted the offer to become a member of the PAK Political Council. Though in retrospect he had critiques, “I realized a little later that it was an organ that existed only on paper. It was impossible to function in Andreas’ absence. In Europe, a rudimentary organization existed only in Sweden and Germany. It was a network of friends or acquaintances that supported Andreas’ appearances and publicized his announcements.”
“In the years after ’69, many changes were made to the organizational structure of the PAK, to the individuals who participated in its leadership, to their relationships with Andreas. A common feature of all these changes was the preservation of the person-centered character of the organization, that is, its absolute dependence on Andreas.”
Costas Simitis did not hide his disagreements either during the period of exile or when PASOK was founded, which operated with what he identified as ambiguous positions and without a coherent plan for the country. In 1979 he was forced to resign from the Executive Bureau following leaks from Papandreou himself due to a leaflet with the slogan “Yes to the Europe of the people”.
In 1981 Simitis was not a parliamentary candidate although Papandreou had assured him in two meetings that he would be, he was in fact disqualified by a photographic decision of the Central Committee. Afterwards Papandreou offered him to join the European candidate list but he did not accept. “I was annoyed by the impression he wanted to create, that I was asking the PASOK to secure a ‘career’ for me. I had achieved it on my own and I didn’t need any post”.
In 1987 Simitis resigned as Minister of Economy because Papandreou had reversed the economic stabilisation programme that he had asked to be implemented. “Koutsogiorgas had convinced him that it would cost him votes in the elections.”
Their relationship, however, was more complex than that described in the press, “When I took over as Prime Minister, I had already known Andreas for more than thirty years. There were very few PASOK cadres who had been with him for such a long time. Political commentators highlighted our conflicts, the distance that separated us in life and politics, our different behaviors. However, they overlooked our many commonalities: our resistance to the junta, our struggles for the establishment and development of PASOK, our confrontation with the Right, our cooperation for an effective government. We maintained a stable relationship between us, despite any friction,” He wrote.
“At the end of the day of crises, there was always a mutual appreciation,” said Simitis. “There were also similarities in our lives that connected us: our studies and long stay abroad, our university careers, the scientific work that shaped an analytical and critical way of thinking, our awareness of the country’s problems, our contact with Marxist and socialist thought and, of course, the belief that social change requires continuous interventions and not simply the management of the existing situation.”
“However, we approached the exercise of politics differently and had different views on certain central goals that we should pursue,” Wrote Simitis. Papandreou maintained an American-centric perspective: the main pole of global development was the USA, “European unification had only an economic dimension for him; he did not attribute any political significance to it.” On the contrary, Simitis believed that Greece’s participation in shaping the unification path “would strengthen the forces of convergence and create new development opportunities for the country as long as we systematically sought to fulfill our goals. Andreas’s reticence towards the European unification effort, his misgivings, his distancing resulted in Greek society adopting a contradictory behavior.”
Simitis had harsh critiques for PASOK politician Akis Tsochatzopoulos. “Tsochatzopoulos was, for many, one of the culprits of the decline of PASOK. He accepted without complaint any decision of the president. He handled PASOK as a mechanism of power in the service of himself and his friends, as well as Andreas,” he wrote. “Those who want to exploit their position for personal gain find a way, despite the prohibitions and controls. This observation was confirmed during the tenure of both PASOK and ND governments. Government and state officials abused their office for personal gain.”
In his biography Simitis also wrote that cases of corruption were slow to be revealed during his prime ministership, and placed blame elsewhere. “The payment of bribes by the foreign manufacturer of missile systems through a Swiss bank to an offshore company in the Virgin Islands can only be detected in rare cases. (…) The evidence of bribery in armament programs emerged, both in Greece and in other countries, from disputes between suppliers and their intermediaries, from court decisions taken abroad, from investigations by foreign investigative authorities into irregularities in the manufacturers’ businesses, and not from investigations by Greek audit authorities. That is why the illegal acts were detected in Greece after many years.”
His reflections reveal a man who grappled with the complexities of political leadership, ideological divides, and the human flaws of governance, yet maintained a hope for stability and reform.
