On Good Friday a gloomy rain fell, often in bucketfuls, in many parts of Greece, bringing whatever it was in the air down to the ground, which was teeming with all the good green things which spring brings.
The following midnight many millions partook of the traditional mayeritsa, a steamy brew of unmentionables whose only ingredients which can be spoken of aloud in polite society are handfuls of freshly cut dill and crispy heads of leafy lettuce just plucked from the garden (to follow the cheerful style of Greek-American cookbooks). But in this land of sudden surprises (as the tourist brochures tirelessly point out), it was the mentionables which were unmentionable.
Two days later, after continuous ethic feasting during which children romped in the wet grass, consumed fresh yogurt and drank pails of goat’s milk, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, following a hastily convened meeting of the Interministerial Co-ordinating Agency, warned the public that due to the presence of high radioactivity in the air and on the ground, the consumption of fresh milk and leafy vegetables in particular was hazardous to health, and that children should avoid going out of doors.
It was true, of course, that six days earlier scientists in remote Scandanavia, alarmed by sharp rises in radioactive elements in the air, learned, together with the rest of the world, of the nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. What was locally less clear, in spite of warnings issued by the Italian government
five days earlier about similar injuctions regarding milk and leafy vegatables, is that the winds had shifted southerly. This caused surprise, though it is characteristic of winds to do just that. Who was manning the fort at the Atomic Energy Commission’s Democritos Center of Nuclear Research during these vital days was unclear, too, but if, in the Soviet Union, no one wanted to put a dampener on May Day, who here would want to upset Easter?
This unfortunate delay in informing the public, and thereby causing fear that by no means all the truth had been told, created a condition of panic which surpassed the day of mobilization which followed the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Longer memories recalled nothing like it since the days of World War II. Arguments and fist-fights broke out among frantic shoppers grabbing cartons of evaporated milk, packages of frozen vegetables, tins of fruit and cases of bottled water. Within 24 hours markets had run out of these items leaving rows of empty shelves.
If the hysteria was great, the public’s sudden acquisition of scientific knowledge was even greater. By the end of the week, school children who were sliding through chemistry with a grade of 10 knew all about strontium, iodine 131, cesium 134 and 137, how much plutonium there was in the water and in the atmosphere, that 0.1 becquerel per cubic metre is roughly equal to a 0.2 millirem respiratory intake within a 24-hour period and that a 15 microentgen rate of exposure per hour is nothing to worry about.
During this period of anxiety, it might have been imagined that the innumerable and noisy peace groups which march all over Athens – and towards the US Embassy in particular – on the slightest-pretext would have turned the city into a shambles. But, no, quite to the contrary, they showed remarkable self-control. Hardly a bullhorn was heard and the only gathering at the Soviet Embassy was characterized by restraint. Though a ban on nuclear war was repeated, nuclear peace was now the immediate issue. This the prime minister referred to directly in Alexandroupolis on May 14 when he called for an “active participation in an effort to confront the nuclear danger, in the form of weapons as well as, unfortunately, in the peaceful use of energy.” Drawn by the cheapness of nuclear power, business might try to diminish the dangers, but putting prosperity before health seems short-sighted. Those who want to play with matches must first learn effectively how to put out fires. Panic may be unjustifiable but it is a natural, if irrational, act of self-preservation.
As the panic subsided, the everyday world of terrorism, tourist-crisis and economic anxiety returned to dog the steps of the Hellenic republic. Even the state visit of the presidential couple to Paris did not produce its hoped-for success, and the bonds of socialist brotherhood appeared slack. Nevertheless, the president and his lady were heaped with honors. The most prominent, certainly, was a 300-kilogram meteorite of great curiosity and rarity. This, it is hoped, he will present to the people, so that they may become as learned in geology as they already are in chemistry. If, in a generation’s time, Greeks begin winning a whole series of Nobel Prizes for Science, the reason will not be hard to explain.
