HELBI

"What I Didn’t Write,” the first book by journalist, columnist and political commentator Stamos Zoulas, who was the editor of Kathimerini for many crucial years, fills in the record of people and events which he did not include when they were making news. Here are the images that impressed themselves on his memory, comments he didn’t make when the events were front-page news, and a journalist’s evaluations of personalities that played a leading role during his almost 40 years of journalism, a profession he fortunately still practices. His first meeting with Constantine Karamanlis in 1965, and the last, at Easter in 1997, with the former president, in the final chapter reveal the relationship between the statesman and the objective journalist whom events brought together. The dedication of each man to his role wove a friendship and, on the part of the journalist, an admiration for the man who “stifled his heart so as to give to his people.” Here are the great events, the marathon trips to the capitals and leaders of Europe the part played by Karamanlis, by Andreas Papandreou and by current Prime Minister Costas Simitis. Their visages, carved into the rock of memory in a sketch by Kathimerini cartoonist Ilias Makris, face time and history with typical grimaces, making a fine jacket with political undertones for the book which is being launched on Wednesday, December 10 in the lecture hall of the Athens Journalists’ Union (ESHEA) building, 20 Academias, at noon. Former Premier Giorgios Rallis and Parliament Speaker Apostolos Kaklamanis will discuss the book from their own political viewpoints. After all, when it comes to the news, it takes two to tango — the politician who creates the news and the journalist who records it. So it is with this book by Zoulas, something that will always be timely.