Leslie Finer was a British journalist and author who worked for the BBC, the Financial Times, The Observer, the New Statesman, other British news organisations, Kathimerini and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
19 Facts About Leslie Finer
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Leslie Finer covered news in Cyprus and Greece between 1954 and 1968.
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Leslie Finer was described by Kathimerini as one of the most respected and reliable reporters of that era.
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Leslie Finer was the son of Charles and Rachel Topper Finer.
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Leslie Finer's elder brother Morris was a high court judge.
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Leslie Finer covered events in Cyprus during the final years of British rule and then reported the news from Athens during the years when the United States exercised major influence on Greek political affairs.
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Leslie Finer covered the early stages of junta rule in Greece up to the time at which he was expelled from Greece by the junta.
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Leslie Finer helped Helen Vlachos escape from Greece after she was placed under house arrest by the junta.
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When Vlachos arrived in London, Leslie Finer helped her settle using his political contacts in Britain.
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In 1968 he was declared persona non grata by the junta, and after a final meeting with Stylianos Pattakos, the junta's number-two-man, during which Pattakos gave him a stern rebuke, Leslie Finer was deported from Greece for "having the courage to report on what he saw and thought".
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Leslie Finer's deportation caused an international uproar and subsequently became the subject of a discussion in the British House of Commons.
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Leslie Finer investigated the role of the colonels in Cyprus and their involvement in undermining Archbishop Makarios.
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Leslie Finer had once mentioned that the greatest propaganda achievement of the junta was to persuade people that Greek democracy was "sick" before the coup and needed the intervention of the junta before it could improve.
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Leslie Finer wrote for Helen Vlachos's journal Hellenic Review and for the Index on Censorship publications analysing and working against the junta.
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Leslie Finer gave lectures related to Greek matters for the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and at the University of Bergen in Norway.
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Leslie Finer is the author of Passport to Greece, illustrated by Spyros Vassiliou.
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Leslie Finer married the famous Greek actress Elsa Verghi in 1954 but they later divorced due to their separation imposed by the junta through his expulsion from Athens and the subsequent refusal of the regime to allow Verghi to visit her husband in London.
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Leslie Finer was a philhellene who always wanted to be close to events associated with Greece and even managed to find employment as the newsletter editor at the Greek Embassy in Washington, where he worked for over thirty years.
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Leslie Finer died of cancer at his home in Lewes, Delaware on 10 March 2010.