It is not necessary to carry a torch for the colonels who seized power in Greece in 1967 to suggest that they evoked from the start in much of the Western world a sense of shock and hostility beyond their obvious deserts. Their coup was bloodless, after all, and scarcely unexpected. Their authoritarian style was more typical than the preceding parliamentary system had been of the prevailing trend in other countries with similar historical, economic and social weaknesses; and in purely Greek ferms it could be seen as a comprehensible and characteristic, albeit depressing, response to a genuine national crisis. The changes in the Greek economy which had ensued from the postwar period of reconstruction, the accelerating drift from the land, the startling growth of Athens, the soaring emigration figures, and the termination of American aid had all imposed great new strains upon the country.