Goodbye, Zeus

No one in Athens or in Washington wanted to make too much of the issue, but Greece's sudden cancellation of Zeus, a small joint maneuver with American forces in the northern part of the country, exasperated U.S. officials. The scrapping of Zeus came just as the U.S. and Socialist Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, after months of feuding, appeared to be mending their differences.

Government Spokesman Dimitrios Maroudas blandly asserted that Greece had opted out of the maneuver, an exercise focusing on possible invasion routes through Eastern Europe, because "the only threat" to Greece came not from Warsaw Pact nations but from Turkey, the country's traditional enemy to the east. American officials suspected that the announcement might have been triggered by objections from Greek Communists, who are uneasy over the improving relations with the U.S. But because Athens still intends to join in a much larger NATO exercise in October, Greek and foreign observers were prepared to dismiss the sudden demise of Zeus as little more than a sacrificial act by Papandreou to placate the extreme left.