The President of Pan Epirotic Federation of USA, Nicholas Gage, attended the state dinner in President Obama’s honor to be given by the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos in the Presidential Palace in Athens.
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Last Sunday, Nick and I were in New York when he got word
that he was invited to attend the state dinner in President
Obama’s honor to be given by the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos in the
Presidential Palace in Athens on Tuesday night.
So we drove back to Massachusetts while Nick scrambled on
the phone to find a flight out of Boston that would get him to Greece in time
for Tuesday. (There are no direct
flights to Athens at this time of year.) He eventually flew on Monday afternoon
on Lufthansa to Frankfurt and then to Athens, arriving midday on Tuesday. I
really wanted to go too, but the Embassy told him no spouses were coming, not even
Michelle Obama.
Nick has sent me photos of the event, which he thoroughly
enjoyed. Young women in native costume welcomed
the 120 guests entering the grand dining room.
They were seated at long tables arranged like three sides of a rectangle,
or the Greek letter pi. Obama sat in the center of the head table, at the right
of Greek President Pavlopoulos and on Obama’s right was Greek Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras.
I was amused to see that Tsipras, who as a Marxist and leader
of the leftist Syriza party made a point throughout his campaign of never
wearing a tie, appeared throughout the state dinner and other events honoring
Obama, always tie-less in an open-necked white shirt. I was also amused that the Prime Minister, an
avowed atheist, was seated next to the Archbishop of Athens. I wonder what they
talked about.
While Prime Minister Tsipras speaks halting English, Greek
President Pavlopoulos knows it well, but both made their public remarks in
Greek and then paused for an English translation. Watching the event on Greek TV, I heard Obama
whisper to President Pavlopoulos, “Is this your house? Do you live here?” and Pavlopoulos
answered, “No, I have a home over by the Hilton.”
The menu, printed in two languages, featured “Shrimps with
citrus fruits”, “rice with vegetables and herbs”, “baked grouper with greens,
garnished with potatoes and cherry tomatoes”, “chestnut dessert”, ”seasonal
fruit, two kinds of wines and coffee.
President Obama began his remarks with “kalispera” (good
evening) and lauded Greece for the country’s hospitality, humanity and its
contributions to the world as the source of democracy. After the Greek president and prime minister
spoke, the children’s choir of the Greek
National Opera sang four songs, both John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Simon and
Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” and two
popular Greek songs by Theodorakis and Hadjidakis. Afterward, Obama enthusiastically mixed with
the children and thanked them for their performance.
Sadly I have no photo of Nick talking to Obama. At U.S. State dinners, there is usually a
photographer who takes your photo as you are introduced to the President in a
reception line, but at the Greek state dinner, Obama shook hands with the
guests as they filed out of the dining room.
Nick had a brief conversation with Obama which delighted
them both—Nick said, paraphrasing a famous statement made by Saint Paul right
before his martyrdom: “Mr. President, you have fought the good fight, you have
finished the race, you have kept the faith.
History will not slight you.”
Obama replied, “Thank you. That means a lot to me.” Then he took a few steps, turned back smiling
and said, “Letter to Timothy right?” (He was right, it’s from 2nd Timothy 4:7. Proof that our President knows his Bible and
was not dozing during Sunday school.)
The next day, Wednesday, Obama visited the Acropolis Museum
and saw the Parthenon for the first time.
Then he spoke to a large group of invitees at the new Stavros Niarchos
Cultural Center. Nick was there.
I asked Nick, when it was all over, if he felt Obama’s visit
to Greece had been a success. (It was covered live for three days on Greek TV,
which I watched sporadically.) The New
York Times said last Tuesday that Trump’s victory had rattled Greece
because “Obama had been supportive of Greece’s efforts to get its finances in
order, and of Europe’s bid to keep Greece stable. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras hoped that Mr.
Obama, who travels to Berlin on Thursday, might even persuade the German
chancellor, Angela Merkel, to offer Greece some debt relief by the end of the year.”
In answer to my question Nick said, “I think it was
important to both the visitor and the visited. Obama, as he finishes his
presidency, wanted to go to the fountainhead of the values he pursued as
President. And that of course is Greece, where democracy and individual rights
and equal justice under law were developed.
And the Greeks needed somebody to show compassion for their plight in
view of the hard stand their fellow Europeans, especially the Germans, are
taking. I think both of those goals were fulfilled very successfully. Obama was
really in top form.”
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