1. AHEPA TIES TO THE MILITARY & CIA

Being a secret society composed of ethnic Greeks, US military intelligence was especially interested in recruiting AHEPA members. During WWII, the precursor to the CIA, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), formed special Greek regiments to provide wartime surveillance, and counter British influence in the area. As WWII ended, these Greek American Operational Groups became more intricately tied to US Cold War efforts. To “contain communism” (the new Truman Doctrine), US provided decades of “aid” and “military protection” to Greece & Turkey.

https://twitter.com/OrderOfAHEPA/status/883043519048364034

https://twitter.com/OrderOfAHEPA/status/883044297838272512

https://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/ossgreece.aspx

http://www.pahh.com/oss/straight.html

In 1987, the 122 regiment files were declassified by the CIA. However, some claim there was an additional regiment that recruited Ivy-League educated Greeks into the OWI (office of Wartime Intelligence)

http://greekodyssey.typepad.com/my_greek_odyssey/2006/06/greek_american_.html

(first comment on the article)

“Most Greek American OSS operatives who ended up serving in Greece did not come through 122 or even the Army at all but were Ivy League Greek Americans recruited directly through an operation coordinated by OWI (which was just as much a precursor to CIA as OSS was) Greek desk head, Harry Lagoudakis together with the WWII AHEPA Supreme President George Vournas. The Mousalimas history linked and your entry primarily reflect the radio operator group which was a fraction of the actual effort. A lot of this is tangled up with the fact that the British blocked deployment of the 122 and 2671. This had less to do with the concept of Greece being in "the British Sphere" than the SOE's main concern -- blocking EAM/ELAS. In memo after memo the SOE accused the OSS, and American and Greek American OSS operatives, of being "leftists." Greek American OSS involvement, or more precisily the hampering of their invovlemnt in fighting the Germans, Italians and Bulgarians in Greece, is tied up with the history of British involvment in polarizing the resistance and creating a lot of the aftermath.”

Interestingly, I’ve found no trace of a “Harry Lagoudakis” working for the US Government outside of his Springfield College Alumni newspaper in 1948. I suspect this is due to parts of the Greek Operation still being classified.

https://cdm16122.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/p16122coll3/.../download (warning PDF)

“Harry Lagoudakis is in the office of intelligence and research of the State Dept. Washington, D. C., as a senior political analyst.”

Nonetheless, the close relationship between Frankin Delano Roosevelt, George C. Vournas, and AHEPA, is documented by Stanford University:

https://web.stanford.edu/~ichriss/Couvaras.htm

“George C. Vournas is an attorney at law by profession, with offices in Washington, D.C., and a former Supreme President of Ahepa (1924-1945). In World War II he was commissioned Captain in the Army of the United States and was separated from that service with the rank of Major. He had been designated to go into occupied Greece, as a head of a military mission to come into contact with the Greek resistance fighters but, unfortunately, he failed his physical examination because of injuries sustained during maneuvers in the Egyptian desert.
“[George C Vournas] in August 1940, upon my arrival at the National Convention of the Order of Ahepa in Seattle, Washington, I found a telegram from a prominent journalist in Washington urging me to contact Anna Roosevelt Boetinger. Her husband was the editor of the city’s leading newspaper, the Seattle Intelligence; her father was Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt had telephoned his daughter the previous evening. The situation in Europe was getting darker by the day and Roosevelt had asked that Ahepa assist in mobilizing public opinion in favor of exchanging “old United States destroyers to Great Britain for bases in the Americas.” As chairman of the convention, I was instrumental in preparing appropriate resolutions for the consideration of the assembly: They were unanimously approved.
The 1942 Ahepa Convention was held in Atlanta, Georgia. Ahepa was already busy in World War II activities, and I, as Supreme President, vigorously intensified these efforts. We organized the fraternity into Ahepa War Service Units, whose efforts were directed toward war bonds,4 selling American Red Cross campaigns, Greek War Relief and National War Chest campaigns, civilian defense, blood donations, hospital visits, and preparation of Red Cross supplies. Speaker of the House of Representatives Sam Rayburn, assisted by the Supreme President of Ahepa, Lyndon Johnson, then congressman, inaugurated the Ahepa’s sale of war bonds over a national radio broadcast.”

[Because George C. Vournas failed his physical examination, another AHEPA Ivy Leaguer, Costa Couvaras was recruited for the intelligence mission]

“In late 1942 the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was eager to recruit Americans of Greek descent into its service. Members of Ahepa in and out of uniform were urged to apply for acceptance in the OSS. This is how Costa Couvaras was recruited. Costa Couvaras had been in the United States since 1935. He studied political science and history at Cornell University receiving B.A. and M.A. degrees. His first job was with the National Herald, a Greek daily published in New York. After joining the OSS, he was dispatched to Cairo.
In the spring of 1944 he was sent into enemy-occupied Greece as head of an OSS mission. He eventually succeeded in reaching the EAM (Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo, Greek Liberation Movement) command in the mountains of Greece. His reports were eagerly awaited by his higher-ups at the OSS headquarters. “PERICLES”—his assumed name—became famous for his objectivity and lucidity. His immediate superior, Arthur J. Goldberg, postwar Supreme Court Justice and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said:
“Costa Couvaras served under me with great distinction and although naturally proud of his origins, as we all should be, he remained faithful throughout to his sworn duty to forward, to the best of his ability, the interests of the United States. I never found in his work of the OSS that he ever deviated from this solemn obligation.”
Couvaras saw the EAM as a patriotic movement dedicated to the liberation of Greece and so reported.Costa was with the EAM command until liberation. As liaison officer he promised the command of EAM that America would stand by them. He was given the Bronze Star medal with the following citation: “First Lieutenant Costa G. Couvaras, performed meritorious service as chief of an intelligence operation in occupied Greece from March to October, 1944. Penetrating the mountain regions he established contact with and gained the confidence of leaders of the Greek Resistance Movements, secured and transmitted important political and military information and assisted other United States intelligence missions in their operations.”
The war in Greece was upgraded. From civil war it became “International Communist aggression,” despite the fact that Stalin—the internationally-acknowledged Communist High Priest—was fighting on the side of Truman. Through a constant barrage of anti-communist statements, news releases and pronouncements from the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, plus special Presidential messages to the Congress personally delivered, McCarthy’s “anticommunism,” became Truman’s policy. The “Truman Doctrine” was born, inaugurating the era of Cold War.
The U.S. domestic political dialogue soon discovered that “poor Turkey,” which played “footsie” with Hitler during the war, was also “menaced,” and awarded the major part of the “Aid to Greece” [12] program. From there the march proceeded merrily on until every country bordering the Soviet Union was included, making this the third attempt at containment of the Soviet Union. John Foster Dulles extended the principle to encompass the world.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/01/us/george-c-vournas-lawyer-98.html

“Born in Greece, he came to the United States at the age 17 and earned his law degree in Washington. He was in private practice until about 10 years ago, often representing business interests before Government agencies. He was a past president of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. His familiarity with Greek-American affairs led President Lyndon B. Johnson to name him to the official United States delegation to the funeral of King Paul I of Greece in 1964.”

https://www.facebook.com/OrderOfAHEPA/photos/ahepa-hails-todays-passage-of-the-office-of-strategic-services-oss-congressional/10154797368233887/

Finally, the head of the 122nd regiment, Peter Clainos, was a member of the Order of AHEPA, the first Greek graduate of West-Point, and a FOUNDING MEMBER of the Sons Of Pericles.