The students denounced the economic policies of the junta which had led to the revaluation of the drachma, 30% inflation in basic foodstuffs, and the use of the Greek government's much needed stores of petroleum for the Athens-based American Sixth Fleet.
The Institute by now had become the focal point of the struggle, directing units of unarmed people to different points of the city. Construction workers started coming into the University, and close to 200 workers occupied a governmental building in Athens.
The riots were spreading. Thesaloniki, Patra and Prama joined the list of cities with student directed revolts. The American embassy was heavily guarded by police who feared attack by the angry demonstrators.
In mid-afternoon the students allowed reporters to come in and examine the premises, after checking their credentials for fear of government infiltration. In a brief meeting with the press the student leaders officially stated their objectives.
They said that change towards a free education was inseparable from political realities. They said: "We consider the primary precondition for the solution of the people's problems the immediate end to the tyrannical regime of the junta, and the parallel establishment of popular sovereignty.
"The establishment of popular sovereignty is intimately connected with national independence from the foreign interests that have supported the tyranny in our country for years."
In the afternoon of the 16th, the police started shooting in the air and patrolling the city with armored tear-gas vehicles. Hundreds of tear-gas canisters were thrown into the Institute. The student-security committee, however, directed people to light fires and wear protective masks to neutralize the effects of the gas. The first pleas for medical equipment and supplies came from the radio station. The injury lists grew.
As night came on, the large crowds were dispersed from the area surrounding the university and by 2 a.m. the radio station fell silent as the tanks surrounded the Institute. Before 3 a.m. the station broadcasted:
"People of Greece: we are unarmed. Unarmed. The students are facing the tanks. The tanks have turned their guns on your children, people of Greece... This moment, people of Greece, you can see what the Americans have caused us."
The tank broke the gate....
The following week in the United States, congressmen protested, editorials condemned American support of the junta, and among others UAW president Leonard Woodcock said: "The power of the dictatorship has rested on the twin base of arms and credits, both supplied in abundance by the U.S. Its reputation was internationally vouched for by Spiro T. Agnew, the convicted tax-evader..."
With a new junta in power, Greece is still in the news and the clamour goes on in the United States. After the overthrow of the Papadopoulos regime, Senators Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) and Clairborne Pell (D-R.I.) introduced a bill in the Senate: "To prohibit all military assistance to Greece until it is determined that Greece is fulfilling its obligations under the North Atlantic Treaty."
The treaty states in its preamble that "the parties are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.
It just might be too late. Six years and $400 million ago, "for the vital defense of the southern flank of the NATO alliance," the United States bought a base but might have lost a country.