The patriot Admiral Leonidas Vasilikopoulos
So Leonidas Vasilikopoulos left...
The patriot Admiral, the brave officer who resisted the junta and paid for it, the combat soldier of the fatherland, who had a central and crucial role in the great Greek-Turkish crisis of 1987, from the position of Chief of Hellenic Navy General Staff, the whole man, the friend... He had values, except from his bravery and undoubted military virtues. And these principles he served consistently over time. No discounts, with "compromise" an unknown word in his vocabulary.
In August 1995, then head of the National Intelligence Service, he informed Andreas Papandreou with top secret documents about the existence of huge oil deposits in the Aegean, agreed with him that "unfortunately we're going to have big problems in the Aegean, as the Turks won't leave the issue peacefully". Both realized that the information from reliable sources is known by the Turks, who will arrange "gray zones" in the Aegean for this cause! These estimates were mentioned in public by Andreas in an interview at the inauguration of the Thessaloniki International Fair a few days later and were confirmed by the Imia crisis, a few months later...
And when the patriot admiral as chief of the Intelligence Service asked that fateful night of 1996 to inform the then Prime Minister Simitis about the dramatic meeting that took place in his office in the Parliament, instead of the operations rooms, with secrets critical for handling the crisis, he met his disdainful attitude! He had asked him to wait outside with the critical files. When Vasilikopoulos protested, the secretary of the Prime Minister referred him to Mantelis! But the patriot admiral, the patriot soldier, never talked about it.
Despite his bitterness that grew the next days after Simitis removed him from his post, he refused to speak publicly, because as he said to his son Kritonas and to his friends: "I don't want to hurt my country by speaking". And he followed this until the end. Now he left brave, patriot, honest and upright. Nice trip friend and calm waters...
