CANADIAN UNIVERSITY ACQUIRES GREEK HISTORIC MATERIAL

Robert McDonald and his wife Donna have donated a major collection of Greek political materials to Simon Fraser University's Special Collections Division. The items donated were collected in Greece during the period 1967 to 1974, while Robert McDonald was a correspondent for the BBC. 

The collection consists of historically sensitive items that document the political events of Greece at the time, such as resistance organizations' secret circulars, political prisoners' signed documents and tapes that contain unpublished interviews with key political figure Evangelos Averoff. The collection has been assessed as a "complete" collection on this historically important era in Greek politics. 

Robert McDonald was born in Vancouver in 1943 and attended the University of British Columbia. He has worked as a journalist since that time and has lived in Greece and London, England and collaborated with his wife Donna, also an author, to produce the historically valuable McDonald Archives. 

McDonald has written a number of books including Pillar and Tinderbox, the Greek Press and the Dictatorship, (published by Marion Boyars, NY, London, 1983), a study of how the colonels' regime used force, censorship, economic sanctions and "legal" measures to control the Press. The title is an ironic reference to a statement by a spokesman for the junta, who once described Press freedom as a pillar to uphold the state and a tinderbox to set it alight.

For more information please contact Maria Hamilton, the Greek Studies program co-ordinator, mhamilton@sfu.ca The program is interdepartmental and includes language, archaeology and history. 

Simon Fraser University: www.sfu.ca/hellenic-studies & Special Collections and Rare Books at SFU Library