Transcription
Raphael Mousis: The continuation of the story has no Jewish interest. It's more, you know, Aser Mousis who ceases to be a representative of Israel after some years. Because the time had come, a diplomatic corps developed in Israel itself and it was one of the paradoxes for a Greek citizen to be Israel's representative in Greece.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And this had to happen at some point. When he became Israel's diplomatic representative, did he have to cut some ties with the community in Greece? Was there any friction with this?
Raphael Mousis: There was no such issue, no. And in the ceremonies we have the beautiful photographs where when a wreath is laid on the occasion of the founding, Zacharias Vital who was the president of the community is present in the photograph, me as a scout.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: We know that Ben-Gurion's visit to Greece took place. Of course. You weren't here for that.
Raphael Mousis: I'm already in England.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: In England, at this time could your father speak Hebrew?
Raphael Mousis: Certainly. He spoke Hebrew, he learned it during the occupation and afterwards. Possibly he must have read prayers, he knew the letters from before, but he developed communication and contact afterwards. Of course he traveled quite a bit. He had also bought an apartment in Tel Aviv, while this was I think in some way not simply because it was the future for us to go, but it was also a prerequisite for being a diplomatic representative, to have a base.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did he ever take Israeli citizenship?
Raphael Mousis: Yes, Israeli. Look, I don't know if he took citizenship, but he had a diplomatic passport. Therefore, should we say he had citizenship? I don't know.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Now while you were studying but even when you had married and when you returned, had your father testified in various trials?
Raphael Mousis: Look, if we're talking about trials, of Jewish content there are two trials. One is rather not one, it's the series of collaborator trials. In which we were obliged to be present. From morning to evening. Because you were there and because he wanted all this history to be imprinted in my memory. And I was there present and usually in the front row and to see, you know, these were shocking because prosecution witnesses came, people who had lost their mother, their siblings, their children etc.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Can you tell us a bit about these.
Raphael Mousis: These scenes were terrible. That is, it was rare for a witness not to be calm in his testimony. They cried, they shouted, they wanted to move, to rush at the defendants. And I remember, I was impressed by some witness, whose name I don't remember, who testified with a calm voice like I'm speaking to you now. And the judge saying "Thank you Mr. Witness. Please Mr. Witness continue Mr. Witness, please be calm." Because no one else could restrain themselves and my father was always in the prosecutor's box in all these trials except for the trial of those who had blackmailed us in which he had a combination of being both prosecutor and main prosecution witness.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: This was after the war?
Raphael Mousis: These were after the war. Yes.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And the trials with your own.
Raphael Mousis: Well, all these trials where I'm obligatorily present. Among the scenes that had impressed me was at some point one of the defendants turned to my father and said "Who are you to accuse us, you who fled to save your own skin?" From Thessaloniki. And my mother getting up to go grab him and a scene ensues. And you know now things that created a tremendous impression on me that the one who called out "who to save your skin you left."
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: He was from Thessaloniki?
Raphael Mousis: Yes. A defendant. Perhaps it was Recanati.
Raphael Mousis: And then the Merten trial of course. But I know the Merten trial from a distance. I'm already a student far away. But he sent me all the newspapers that published about the trial, I have them all. And from there I also made what I constructed in the bequest from the newspaper clippings. In the Eichmann trial he didn't go but had sent a statement.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: What motivated him to write the article about the Greekness of Macedonia in 1964?
Raphael Mousis: We said that father combined great intense Greekness and intense Jewishness, intense Judaism. Well, the Macedonian issue at the time he wrote the article had come intensely to the surface. Various movements had been created about the non-Greekness of Macedonia, the Macedonian question, and this motivated him to seek sources in the Bible. It was a speech that had made a great impression, he gave it at the Society of Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki for the first time and then published it and it has been published in various publications.
Raphael Mousis: It was the late Nikos Martis, minister in various postwar governments, who particularly appreciated this article and mentioned it at every opportunity. The Greekness of Macedonia continued to write books.
Raphael Mousis: Look now, what he wrote was knowledge of Hebrew and ability to handle the Greek language. He had started writing from very young. His first was "15 days through Jewish Palestine" in which he has very beautiful descriptions of the situation he had found there in which he speaks of course about Jews and Arabs. The term Palestinian doesn't exist.
Raphael Mousis: After liberation, since I'm already back at college, I'm an athlete and sports fan and I go and watch track events at Panathinaikos at Kallimarmaro like this and the first postwar Mediterranean games are organized in which three countries participate: Greece, Turkey and Palestine. When we say Palestine it's Palestine with the Magen David. This was the so-called Palestine.
Raphael Mousis: And I'm at the stadium and the first event is the 100 meters. There were no preliminaries, directly the final. And the Palestinian Gabai comes first and behind me some lady who had obviously, I remember her saying "Gabai Rishon, Gabai Rishon. Rishon is first." Well, when we talked about Palestine we meant Jews and Arabs.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Obviously you had children. Can you tell us how many children, what their names were.
Raphael Mousis: My children, I had two boys. The first was born in America and is Alexander. Alexander was named Alexander because Aser Mousis's name during the occupation was Alexander. And in this way the name Alexander is also known to be a Jewish name. Birth year 1961.
Raphael Mousis: The second is Elias who was born in Athens. The choice of the name Elias was Aser Mousis's as a name that is both Jewish and Greek and Elias was born in 1965. Elias lives in Athens in Psychico. Alexander lives in California, he's the one who wrote the books etc., who on February 20th Ioannina was liberated on February 21st, 1913 and we have historical photographs from the liberation where Esat Pasha hands over the sword to Constantine. It's a photograph from those.
Raphael Mousis: Every year there's a ceremony in Ioannina and every year the president of the republic is present. And the previous evening there's a big ceremony at the cultural center which this year doesn't exist, it will be held somewhere else. And always someone is the keynote speaker. The keynote speaker on February 20th is called Alexander Mousis. He'll come from America and speak.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did they have Bar Mitzvahs?
Raphael Mousis: Elias had a Bar Mitzvah. Alexander didn't have a Bar Mitzvah. Not because we didn't want to but because it was the year his grandfather died and the whole family was in mourning. Elias had a Bar Mitzvah.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Not their children.
Raphael Mousis: Elias had a Bar Mitzvah with the Rabbi. Brit and all that. Therefore you see that there's some Jewish element and then there's the Jewish element afterwards but I don't think- look now the son, circumcision is something that in America Philip is Alexander's son, Philip Philip Raphael was circumcised because all children do it, not because of Jewish reasons and Raphael here for medical reasons as well.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Now as a married family man you've come to Greece, do you follow the community's affairs?
Raphael Mousis: No look, in my life in Greece I always had good friendly relations both with Lovinger and more with Makis, Constantine etc., but activity only a little, at some time a public relations committee of KIS was created in which I was involved and I even introduced them, does the name Magliveras mean anything to you, Dionysios Magliveras was the one who created the chronicles, the first creator of the chronicles, he was my classmate from college and I introduced him. I had no other activity and one reason, half serious half joking, you know in the Jewish circle I'm always Aser Mousis's son, like this.
Raphael Mousis: And so I dealt with things that weren't Aser Mousis's specialty and perhaps I reached, let's say, you know, Mousis Elisaf who was elected mayor, I think to a higher office in Greece's public life, director of DEH, no other co-religionist had reached in the past. Therefore for me it was elsewhere and I was active at Athens College on the board of directors at IOVE I was and am honorary president of a school, college in Athens, that is I had very intense activity in research matters and education matters and business matters but not in the Jewish community.
Raphael Mousis: There was some time when they had a problem at KIS, Makis Constantine couldn't be re-elected because he had completed I don't know what and couldn't and Saltiel had also completed years and Saltiel came to me and told me to become president of KIS.
Raphael Mousis: And my first response was I had remembered that someone else, a Minos Levis was general director of the Bank of Greece something and in some such situation they had made him president of KIS. And I remember it was a resounding failure of a capable man but they suddenly made him president of KIS and he had no idea.
Raphael Mousis: And I say I don't want to become a second Minos Levis. And no he tells me we have no other person. OK I'll do it but with one condition, that I'll have as vice-presidents Albala and Constantine. Which were the two directors, they didn't want to. And so I never became president of KIS, fortunately.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Who became it finally?
Raphael Mousis: Albala. They found a way for Makis to become it again. It was the year when it was two years one, two years the other.
Raphael Mousis: I return to Greece because of EVGA and spend some years in this space in industry. Subsequently EVGA is sold by my wife's family and it roughly coincides with the first energy crisis, the first oil crisis when the embargo happened. And the price of oil from $2 per barrel went to $12, quadruple.
Raphael Mousis: And then Constantine Karamanlis has returned. We're talking about the immediate years of the transition and Constantine Karamanlis is convinced that there's a need to create a national energy council because until then even the word energy as a concept as we know it today. We knew energy as something, physical energy and so on.
Raphael Mousis: Also there was oil and oil policy, there was electricity and electricity policy, but that these things, oil and electricity and whatever else constitute one concept that must have some unified strategy. How much electricity versus how much oil and from what should electricity be produced when it was $2 per barrel was unprofitable and then the concept of energy strategy is created internationally and introduced to Greece.
Raphael Mousis: The choice of the first president of the National Energy Council who is called Elias Gyftopoulos, MIT professor, my beloved friend, my brotherly friend. Minister under Karamanlis was my brother-in-law Yannis Boutos and I convince Yannis Boutos to convince Karamanlis to make Gyftopoulos president of the Energy Council who indeed becomes it and takes me as executive secretary of the National Energy Council.
Raphael Mousis: And so I start being one of the first if not the first who I can call an energy specialist in Greece. All the others came later. So the Energy Council is created. It's a successful tool that Karamanlis appreciates. And at some point a deputy director position at ETVA becomes vacant and they suggest I leave the energy council and become deputy director of ETVA.
Raphael Mousis: And I become deputy director of ETVA which was the National Bank of Industrial Development and I have responsibility for bad loans and new loans and personnel and I have what's called a successful career as deputy director of ETVA. I now enter the circle of executives, never political but recognized as belonging to this space.
Raphael Mousis: They have a problem with DEH and it's suggested I take on director at DEH. And so after deputy director of ETVA in 1978 I become director of DEH. The youngest who had ever become one. I'm 45 years old like this. An adventurous period of my life in which I also taste anti-Semitism while I'm director of DEH.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: From where, phew.
Raphael Mousis: Look, there are many cases. First of all, the Arabs were oil suppliers and they didn't like that a Jew became director of DEH. And Karamanlis however was persistent about this. He had decided he wanted Mousis there and no one dared tell Karamanlis.
Raphael Mousis: But let me tell you an incident that's very characteristic. A Volos MP, that is Magnesia MP from PASOK visited me. We're still New Democracy of course. And he tells me my sister Maria had served at DEH before your time and was dismissed. Obviously she wouldn't be a permanent employee to be fired and you must rehire her.
Raphael Mousis: I say I'll answer you, come again. I ask my services, they say she's the worst. She had upset everyone. She was negligent, impossible Mr. Director let's say. And he comes again and I tell him unfortunately your sister is not acceptable to the company. You'll regret it he tells me, as I see you.
Raphael Mousis: He submits a question in the Greek Parliament on energy matters generally about supposed energy policy in which he develops the view how the non-Greek Raphael Mousis becomes director of DEH. It's known that he fought in the Six-Day War as a major in the Jewish army and how is it possible for this man who has no faith in Greece, no faith.
Raphael Mousis: The minister Stefanos Manos who defends me in some way. But he's more interested in energy policy. Presiding over parliament is the later almost president of the republic and parliament president Alevras who says it's in the minutes PASOK wouldn't object to using the foreign Raphael Mousis let's say as director of the National Bank but not as director of DEH where we have interests with the Arabs.
Raphael Mousis: The same evening a journalist from Eleftherotypia calls me and says "Mr. Director, were you really a major in the Jewish army in the Six-Day War." I tell him "Sir, I wasn't a major and by coincidence I have a fantastic alibi because I remember that while the Six-Day War was happening I had undergone hernia surgery and while in pain I was listening to the radio broadcasting news from the Six-Day War.
Raphael Mousis: He asks me which clinic were you operated in, my boy I don't remember. Now this happened. The war in '67 and we're now in '80-'81 I don't remember. It was I say some street off Alexandras Avenue. I don't remember what the doctor was called, I say I remember Pothitos. Where do we find him, he's dead. Very convenient isn't everything. You don't remember the clinic. Your doctor has conveniently died and you want us to believe you have an alibi.
Raphael Mousis: And Eleftherotypia publishes the next day that it was confirmed that Raphael Mousis the director of DEH was a major, be careful not to let me tell you to get up, attention now, major in the Jewish army. Some good Christian reads Eleftherotypia and this good Christian was an accountant at the clinic which I didn't remember.
Raphael Mousis: And he appears and contacts Eleftherotypia and DEH and they go and find in the clinic's basement where they keep the archives and it's verified that I had indeed been operated on and was there those days. The next day Eleftherotypia writes some malicious comment about me and who incidentally didn't fight.
Raphael Mousis: Well these things happened and others occurred and others wrote from prominent people. My sister died while I was director of DEH from cancer and I wanted to go to the funeral and it's asked, Thanasis Tsaldaris was press officer for the government then and is it true that the director of DEH will travel for personal purposes to Israel with which we haven't established, we hadn't established relations and Tsaldaris says we'll forbid it. They'll forbid me from going to my sister's funeral like this.
Raphael Mousis: And I didn't know what to do. There was a great journalist Androulakis. He had no relation to today's Androulakis but was a very respected journalist then. And I call him to my office, tell him this and that means and he looks at me and says "My boy now I was a great man, he has the right to call me my boy, if you don't do this in your whole life you'll have regrets. You'll get on the plane and go to your sister's funeral. Don't let me hear another word." And I indeed went to my sister's funeral.
Raphael Mousis: Well these were the things, there were others, but there were also the good ones. That is George Rallis although he had a reputation from a family not pro-Jewish was impeccable with me. So when they went and said you must fire him. Rallis became prime minister later, you must fire him. Why, what wrong has he done. But he's Jewish. But you have nothing to accuse him of. That was Rallis's answer.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Who had gone to ask for this.
Raphael Mousis: New Democracy MPs who saw that then the issue was the increase in electricity prices. The inflated bills in which I was the villain because the price of electricity was rising. Then from the photographs which I think are in my book. No in my other book. In the '81 carnival there was a Mousis float me "Thou shalt not increase electric current" etc. and I was watching it and I remember it.
Raphael Mousis: Let's say they had come to ask me if I wanted some help because during the period of inflated bills anti-Semitism against me had taken on great proportions. From then it had been combined that all this that the people pay expensive electricity because somehow Mousis sends the money elsewhere.
In the third part of the interview, Rafael Moses recounts his family life and his professional development. He describes the birth of his two sons, Alexandros (1961) and Elias (1965), his return to Greece in 1962 to head EBGA, and his impressive career in the public sector. From the National Energy Council, he was promoted to deputy director of ETVA and then, at the age of only 35, became the governor of PPC in 1978. He details the instances of anti-Semitism he faced during his tenure, including false accusations of involvement in the Six Day War and pressure from politicians and the media. The narrative demonstrates the challenges faced by a Jewish executive in high positions in the Greek civil service in the 1980s.
Raphael Moses
Transcription
Raphael Mousis: The continuation of the story has no Jewish interest. It's more, you know, Aser Mousis who ceases to be a representative of Israel after some years. Because the time had come, a diplomatic corps developed in Israel itself and it was one of the paradoxes for a Greek citizen to be Israel's representative in Greece.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And this had to happen at some point. When he became Israel's diplomatic representative, did he have to cut some ties with the community in Greece? Was there any friction with this?
Raphael Mousis: There was no such issue, no. And in the ceremonies we have the beautiful photographs where when a wreath is laid on the occasion of the founding, Zacharias Vital who was the president of the community is present in the photograph, me as a scout.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: We know that Ben-Gurion's visit to Greece took place. Of course. You weren't here for that.
Raphael Mousis: I'm already in England.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: In England, at this time could your father speak Hebrew?
Raphael Mousis: Certainly. He spoke Hebrew, he learned it during the occupation and afterwards. Possibly he must have read prayers, he knew the letters from before, but he developed communication and contact afterwards. Of course he traveled quite a bit. He had also bought an apartment in Tel Aviv, while this was I think in some way not simply because it was the future for us to go, but it was also a prerequisite for being a diplomatic representative, to have a base.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did he ever take Israeli citizenship?
Raphael Mousis: Yes, Israeli. Look, I don't know if he took citizenship, but he had a diplomatic passport. Therefore, should we say he had citizenship? I don't know.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Now while you were studying but even when you had married and when you returned, had your father testified in various trials?
Raphael Mousis: Look, if we're talking about trials, of Jewish content there are two trials. One is rather not one, it's the series of collaborator trials. In which we were obliged to be present. From morning to evening. Because you were there and because he wanted all this history to be imprinted in my memory. And I was there present and usually in the front row and to see, you know, these were shocking because prosecution witnesses came, people who had lost their mother, their siblings, their children etc.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Can you tell us a bit about these.
Raphael Mousis: These scenes were terrible. That is, it was rare for a witness not to be calm in his testimony. They cried, they shouted, they wanted to move, to rush at the defendants. And I remember, I was impressed by some witness, whose name I don't remember, who testified with a calm voice like I'm speaking to you now. And the judge saying "Thank you Mr. Witness. Please Mr. Witness continue Mr. Witness, please be calm." Because no one else could restrain themselves and my father was always in the prosecutor's box in all these trials except for the trial of those who had blackmailed us in which he had a combination of being both prosecutor and main prosecution witness.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: This was after the war?
Raphael Mousis: These were after the war. Yes.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: And the trials with your own.
Raphael Mousis: Well, all these trials where I'm obligatorily present. Among the scenes that had impressed me was at some point one of the defendants turned to my father and said "Who are you to accuse us, you who fled to save your own skin?" From Thessaloniki. And my mother getting up to go grab him and a scene ensues. And you know now things that created a tremendous impression on me that the one who called out "who to save your skin you left."
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: He was from Thessaloniki?
Raphael Mousis: Yes. A defendant. Perhaps it was Recanati.
Raphael Mousis: And then the Merten trial of course. But I know the Merten trial from a distance. I'm already a student far away. But he sent me all the newspapers that published about the trial, I have them all. And from there I also made what I constructed in the bequest from the newspaper clippings. In the Eichmann trial he didn't go but had sent a statement.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: What motivated him to write the article about the Greekness of Macedonia in 1964?
Raphael Mousis: We said that father combined great intense Greekness and intense Jewishness, intense Judaism. Well, the Macedonian issue at the time he wrote the article had come intensely to the surface. Various movements had been created about the non-Greekness of Macedonia, the Macedonian question, and this motivated him to seek sources in the Bible. It was a speech that had made a great impression, he gave it at the Society of Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki for the first time and then published it and it has been published in various publications.
Raphael Mousis: It was the late Nikos Martis, minister in various postwar governments, who particularly appreciated this article and mentioned it at every opportunity. The Greekness of Macedonia continued to write books.
Raphael Mousis: Look now, what he wrote was knowledge of Hebrew and ability to handle the Greek language. He had started writing from very young. His first was "15 days through Jewish Palestine" in which he has very beautiful descriptions of the situation he had found there in which he speaks of course about Jews and Arabs. The term Palestinian doesn't exist.
Raphael Mousis: After liberation, since I'm already back at college, I'm an athlete and sports fan and I go and watch track events at Panathinaikos at Kallimarmaro like this and the first postwar Mediterranean games are organized in which three countries participate: Greece, Turkey and Palestine. When we say Palestine it's Palestine with the Magen David. This was the so-called Palestine.
Raphael Mousis: And I'm at the stadium and the first event is the 100 meters. There were no preliminaries, directly the final. And the Palestinian Gabai comes first and behind me some lady who had obviously, I remember her saying "Gabai Rishon, Gabai Rishon. Rishon is first." Well, when we talked about Palestine we meant Jews and Arabs.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Obviously you had children. Can you tell us how many children, what their names were.
Raphael Mousis: My children, I had two boys. The first was born in America and is Alexander. Alexander was named Alexander because Aser Mousis's name during the occupation was Alexander. And in this way the name Alexander is also known to be a Jewish name. Birth year 1961.
Raphael Mousis: The second is Elias who was born in Athens. The choice of the name Elias was Aser Mousis's as a name that is both Jewish and Greek and Elias was born in 1965. Elias lives in Athens in Psychico. Alexander lives in California, he's the one who wrote the books etc., who on February 20th Ioannina was liberated on February 21st, 1913 and we have historical photographs from the liberation where Esat Pasha hands over the sword to Constantine. It's a photograph from those.
Raphael Mousis: Every year there's a ceremony in Ioannina and every year the president of the republic is present. And the previous evening there's a big ceremony at the cultural center which this year doesn't exist, it will be held somewhere else. And always someone is the keynote speaker. The keynote speaker on February 20th is called Alexander Mousis. He'll come from America and speak.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Did they have Bar Mitzvahs?
Raphael Mousis: Elias had a Bar Mitzvah. Alexander didn't have a Bar Mitzvah. Not because we didn't want to but because it was the year his grandfather died and the whole family was in mourning. Elias had a Bar Mitzvah.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Not their children.
Raphael Mousis: Elias had a Bar Mitzvah with the Rabbi. Brit and all that. Therefore you see that there's some Jewish element and then there's the Jewish element afterwards but I don't think- look now the son, circumcision is something that in America Philip is Alexander's son, Philip Philip Raphael was circumcised because all children do it, not because of Jewish reasons and Raphael here for medical reasons as well.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Now as a married family man you've come to Greece, do you follow the community's affairs?
Raphael Mousis: No look, in my life in Greece I always had good friendly relations both with Lovinger and more with Makis, Constantine etc., but activity only a little, at some time a public relations committee of KIS was created in which I was involved and I even introduced them, does the name Magliveras mean anything to you, Dionysios Magliveras was the one who created the chronicles, the first creator of the chronicles, he was my classmate from college and I introduced him. I had no other activity and one reason, half serious half joking, you know in the Jewish circle I'm always Aser Mousis's son, like this.
Raphael Mousis: And so I dealt with things that weren't Aser Mousis's specialty and perhaps I reached, let's say, you know, Mousis Elisaf who was elected mayor, I think to a higher office in Greece's public life, director of DEH, no other co-religionist had reached in the past. Therefore for me it was elsewhere and I was active at Athens College on the board of directors at IOVE I was and am honorary president of a school, college in Athens, that is I had very intense activity in research matters and education matters and business matters but not in the Jewish community.
Raphael Mousis: There was some time when they had a problem at KIS, Makis Constantine couldn't be re-elected because he had completed I don't know what and couldn't and Saltiel had also completed years and Saltiel came to me and told me to become president of KIS.
Raphael Mousis: And my first response was I had remembered that someone else, a Minos Levis was general director of the Bank of Greece something and in some such situation they had made him president of KIS. And I remember it was a resounding failure of a capable man but they suddenly made him president of KIS and he had no idea.
Raphael Mousis: And I say I don't want to become a second Minos Levis. And no he tells me we have no other person. OK I'll do it but with one condition, that I'll have as vice-presidents Albala and Constantine. Which were the two directors, they didn't want to. And so I never became president of KIS, fortunately.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Who became it finally?
Raphael Mousis: Albala. They found a way for Makis to become it again. It was the year when it was two years one, two years the other.
Raphael Mousis: I return to Greece because of EVGA and spend some years in this space in industry. Subsequently EVGA is sold by my wife's family and it roughly coincides with the first energy crisis, the first oil crisis when the embargo happened. And the price of oil from $2 per barrel went to $12, quadruple.
Raphael Mousis: And then Constantine Karamanlis has returned. We're talking about the immediate years of the transition and Constantine Karamanlis is convinced that there's a need to create a national energy council because until then even the word energy as a concept as we know it today. We knew energy as something, physical energy and so on.
Raphael Mousis: Also there was oil and oil policy, there was electricity and electricity policy, but that these things, oil and electricity and whatever else constitute one concept that must have some unified strategy. How much electricity versus how much oil and from what should electricity be produced when it was $2 per barrel was unprofitable and then the concept of energy strategy is created internationally and introduced to Greece.
Raphael Mousis: The choice of the first president of the National Energy Council who is called Elias Gyftopoulos, MIT professor, my beloved friend, my brotherly friend. Minister under Karamanlis was my brother-in-law Yannis Boutos and I convince Yannis Boutos to convince Karamanlis to make Gyftopoulos president of the Energy Council who indeed becomes it and takes me as executive secretary of the National Energy Council.
Raphael Mousis: And so I start being one of the first if not the first who I can call an energy specialist in Greece. All the others came later. So the Energy Council is created. It's a successful tool that Karamanlis appreciates. And at some point a deputy director position at ETVA becomes vacant and they suggest I leave the energy council and become deputy director of ETVA.
Raphael Mousis: And I become deputy director of ETVA which was the National Bank of Industrial Development and I have responsibility for bad loans and new loans and personnel and I have what's called a successful career as deputy director of ETVA. I now enter the circle of executives, never political but recognized as belonging to this space.
Raphael Mousis: They have a problem with DEH and it's suggested I take on director at DEH. And so after deputy director of ETVA in 1978 I become director of DEH. The youngest who had ever become one. I'm 45 years old like this. An adventurous period of my life in which I also taste anti-Semitism while I'm director of DEH.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: From where, phew.
Raphael Mousis: Look, there are many cases. First of all, the Arabs were oil suppliers and they didn't like that a Jew became director of DEH. And Karamanlis however was persistent about this. He had decided he wanted Mousis there and no one dared tell Karamanlis.
Raphael Mousis: But let me tell you an incident that's very characteristic. A Volos MP, that is Magnesia MP from PASOK visited me. We're still New Democracy of course. And he tells me my sister Maria had served at DEH before your time and was dismissed. Obviously she wouldn't be a permanent employee to be fired and you must rehire her.
Raphael Mousis: I say I'll answer you, come again. I ask my services, they say she's the worst. She had upset everyone. She was negligent, impossible Mr. Director let's say. And he comes again and I tell him unfortunately your sister is not acceptable to the company. You'll regret it he tells me, as I see you.
Raphael Mousis: He submits a question in the Greek Parliament on energy matters generally about supposed energy policy in which he develops the view how the non-Greek Raphael Mousis becomes director of DEH. It's known that he fought in the Six-Day War as a major in the Jewish army and how is it possible for this man who has no faith in Greece, no faith.
Raphael Mousis: The minister Stefanos Manos who defends me in some way. But he's more interested in energy policy. Presiding over parliament is the later almost president of the republic and parliament president Alevras who says it's in the minutes PASOK wouldn't object to using the foreign Raphael Mousis let's say as director of the National Bank but not as director of DEH where we have interests with the Arabs.
Raphael Mousis: The same evening a journalist from Eleftherotypia calls me and says "Mr. Director, were you really a major in the Jewish army in the Six-Day War." I tell him "Sir, I wasn't a major and by coincidence I have a fantastic alibi because I remember that while the Six-Day War was happening I had undergone hernia surgery and while in pain I was listening to the radio broadcasting news from the Six-Day War.
Raphael Mousis: He asks me which clinic were you operated in, my boy I don't remember. Now this happened. The war in '67 and we're now in '80-'81 I don't remember. It was I say some street off Alexandras Avenue. I don't remember what the doctor was called, I say I remember Pothitos. Where do we find him, he's dead. Very convenient isn't everything. You don't remember the clinic. Your doctor has conveniently died and you want us to believe you have an alibi.
Raphael Mousis: And Eleftherotypia publishes the next day that it was confirmed that Raphael Mousis the director of DEH was a major, be careful not to let me tell you to get up, attention now, major in the Jewish army. Some good Christian reads Eleftherotypia and this good Christian was an accountant at the clinic which I didn't remember.
Raphael Mousis: And he appears and contacts Eleftherotypia and DEH and they go and find in the clinic's basement where they keep the archives and it's verified that I had indeed been operated on and was there those days. The next day Eleftherotypia writes some malicious comment about me and who incidentally didn't fight.
Raphael Mousis: Well these things happened and others occurred and others wrote from prominent people. My sister died while I was director of DEH from cancer and I wanted to go to the funeral and it's asked, Thanasis Tsaldaris was press officer for the government then and is it true that the director of DEH will travel for personal purposes to Israel with which we haven't established, we hadn't established relations and Tsaldaris says we'll forbid it. They'll forbid me from going to my sister's funeral like this.
Raphael Mousis: And I didn't know what to do. There was a great journalist Androulakis. He had no relation to today's Androulakis but was a very respected journalist then. And I call him to my office, tell him this and that means and he looks at me and says "My boy now I was a great man, he has the right to call me my boy, if you don't do this in your whole life you'll have regrets. You'll get on the plane and go to your sister's funeral. Don't let me hear another word." And I indeed went to my sister's funeral.
Raphael Mousis: Well these were the things, there were others, but there were also the good ones. That is George Rallis although he had a reputation from a family not pro-Jewish was impeccable with me. So when they went and said you must fire him. Rallis became prime minister later, you must fire him. Why, what wrong has he done. But he's Jewish. But you have nothing to accuse him of. That was Rallis's answer.
Michalis Daskalakis Giontis: Who had gone to ask for this.
Raphael Mousis: New Democracy MPs who saw that then the issue was the increase in electricity prices. The inflated bills in which I was the villain because the price of electricity was rising. Then from the photographs which I think are in my book. No in my other book. In the '81 carnival there was a Mousis float me "Thou shalt not increase electric current" etc. and I was watching it and I remember it.
Raphael Mousis: Let's say they had come to ask me if I wanted some help because during the period of inflated bills anti-Semitism against me had taken on great proportions. From then it had been combined that all this that the people pay expensive electricity because somehow Mousis sends the money elsewhere.