Consulate General of the United States in Thessaloniki
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The Consulate General of the United States in Thessaloniki is the focal point for events relating to the United States in northern Greece. The Consulate is situated on the 7th floor of a new commercial office building at 43 Tsmiksi Street in the city center. The Consulate is delegated by the Consul General, an American deputy political officer, along with an American administrative assistant, and employs fifteen local hire employees whose expertise has a broad range: administration, diplomacy, IT systems, political affairs, maintenance, security, and public affairs. Hoyt Brian Yee is the 19th Consul General as of August 2006.
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[edit] Consulate history
[edit] Before the Great War
The Consular Agency was initially established during the age of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1830s to represent American shipping interests in the northern Aegean Sea. In the early 1870s, a Thessalonian named Pericles Hadji Lazzaro became the first honorary American consular agent. On June 10, 1908 the Agency was upgraded to a Consulate status, in which Evan E. Young delegated authority as first American Consul. During the period of time leading up to World War I, the Consulate played a minimal role in Thessaloniki due to the lack of visa requirements for U.S. travel and due to the fact that there were few Americans passing through the city.
[edit] Impact of the World Wars
The period leading up to the World Wars was characterized by a growing and better staffed Consulate due to visa requirements, the restructuring of the city following the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, and a move to 9 Straitgou Kalari Street provoked by an earthquake in 1932. Consul James H. Keeley served as principal officer at the Consulate until the outbreak of World War I in 1939.
The Germans occupied Thessaloniki for nearly four years until October 1944, and closed the Consulate closed on July 11, 1941. Three of the Consulate’s Greek employees of Jewish extraction - David Tiano, Emmanuel Karraso, and John Vafiades - were all sent to concentration camps in Thessaloniki. Tiano was killed, while Karraaso and Vafiades survived, resuming work at the Consulate at its re-opening in 1944. The reception room in the Consulate, otherwise known as the David Tiano room, is dedicated to his memory, and the present Consulate acknowledges his passing on an annual basis.
The period surrounding the World Wars dramatically changed the face of not only the Consulate, but more significantly the city itself. Thessaloniki had previously been a melting pot of Muslims, Jews, and Greek orthodox Christians; yet now with the permanent departure of the Ottoman Empire, forced emigration of the city's Muslims and arrival of the minority Orthodox Greeks via the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the eradication of 95% of the Thessalonian Jews, Thessaloniki became a majority Greek Orthodox modern metropolis.
In 1944, following the departure of the German forces, William M. Gwynn resumed his position as Consul, and relocated the Consulate to 59 Nikis Avenue where it remained until its final move in 1999.
[edit] Post World War II years
During the post World War II years, the Consulate transformed its role in Thessaloniki, reflecting the evolving relationship between America and Greece. The Consulate supported the restoration efforts of the American Farm School and Anatolia College, which had both been used as headquarters of German occupation forces during World War II. At this time, Greece was recovering from the devastation of the Second World War, and as the British were not in a position to help, the U.S. filled the void through aid entitled in the Truman Doctrine. Organizations such as American Mission for Aid to Greece also reflected the growing American presence in the late 1940s. The Consulate provided services for mariners and analyzed the Ministry of War Finance Act, which allowed American servicemen and World War II veterans to bring in fiancees of other nationalities without references to specific quotas.
In 1952, the Consulate was elevated to rank of Consulate General and over the next decade, a strong relationship developed between Thessalonians and the Consulate where Americans were well received and political issues such as the Macedonian Question had not yet surfaced. During the 1960s, the Consulate began working with an increasing American business presence in the city which accompanied the Greek Economic Miracle. The Consulate also engaged in sensitive border issues involving Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania.
The 1967 Greek military junta coup and the Cyprus crisis damaged the American image across Greece. Thus, during the 1970s, the Consulate began to focus more on improving public relations through an active outreach program to neighboring provincial cities in northern Greece. This decade was was a hectic one for the Consulate General as it dealt with several drug trafficking cases originating in the Middle East and Africa.
1999 marked a final move to the Consulate's present location in the suite on the seventh floor of 43 Tsimiski. At present, the United States has had an official presence in Thessaloniki for nearly 177 years. There have been 19 Consul Generals and 16 Consuls.
[edit] Work of the Consulate General
[edit] Mission statement
The mission statement of the American Consulate General in Thessaloniki, Greece is to strengthen cooperation, friendship and trade between the United States and northern Greece, to be a model diplomatic platform for the promotion of U.S. Government policies and objectives, and to protect the lives and interests of U.S. citizens. Goals associated with this mission include:
- Promoting mutual understanding through educational, cultural and public affairs activities.
- Addressing common concerns and differences through open and constructive dialogue with officials, journalists and other citizens.
- Increasing commerce between the U.S. and northern Greece and surrounding countries by identifying and promoting opportunities for trade and investment.
- Fighting terrorism, illegal migration, trafficking and other cross-border crime through joint training and other preventive efforts.
- Assisting U.S. citizens by providing prompt, efficient consular services, information and other support.
[edit] Recent issues in the forefront
The Consulate General has placed a high priority on combatting the issue of human trafficking and modern-day slavery by organizing a number of border control seminars and workshops in places such as Kilkis and Alexandroupolis in an attempt to combat the Balkan network of women and children trafficked for the purposes of labor and sexual exploitation. The efforts have helped pave the way for new Trafficking in Persons legislation into Greek law.
The treatment of Greece's minorities in the North, particularly the large Turkish Muslim population in Western Thrace, has been addressed through cooperation with local authorities and through public outreach events such as seminars, lectures, and training sessions.
Furthermore, the Consulate general has supported and assisted the KEPEP Institution - the Center for Children with Special Needs - in Sidirokastro, Greece for several years.
[edit] Consulate in the news
The Consulate has played a significant role in many high profile cases such as the George Polk investigation of 1948 and the 1999 Julie Marie Scully murder, among others.
The mysterious death of American journalist George Polk has long bewildered Americans and Greeks alike. Polk, who arrived in Thessaloniki in the spring of 1948, had attempted to contact the leader of the Andartes resistance group, only to disappear. Polk's body was found having been murdered execution-style, and speculation and accusations were rampant as to who was responsible for his assassination. The Consul General at the time, Raleigh A. Gibson, invested much time on the case. The Salonika Bay Murder: Cold War Politics and the Polk Affair, a book written by Edmond Keeley (bodyguard and brother to then ambassador to Greece Robert Keeley) critically analyzes the case.
In 1999, the Consulate General played an active role in the investigation of the murder of an American woman Julie Scully by her Greek fiancee, George Skiadopulous. The investigation led to a confession by Skiadopulous who is serving a life term for the murder.
The Consulate General played a large role in the discovery and safe return of a missing 15 year-old Mulberry, Florida girl, who secretly flew to Greece upon being lured by an internet chat mate, a 35 year-old German man named Franz Konstantin Baehring. She was found in Thessaloniki and Baehring was arrested and sentenced to a prison term.
The Consulate has received a number of prominent celebrities. Most recently, former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis visited the Consulate in 2007; other visitors have included Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, former president Bill Clinton, actress Faye Dunaway, five-time Academy Award winning film director Francis Ford Coppola, film director Sofia Coppola, production designer Dean Tavoularis, former U.S. Secretaries of Defense William Cohen and Donald Rumsfeld, Tipper Gore, and actress Juliette Lewis.
