Summary The Civil War that ravaged the country is now over, and one of the many fugitive fighters of the Left, Nikos Belogiannis, the man with the disarming smile and the carnation, a former captain of ELAS (Greek People’s Liberation Army), returns to Greece. Under the code-name Kostas, he hides in the house of a comrade and comes into contact with Nikos Ploumpidis as well as with other members of the outlawed Communist Party. The Plastiras government, with the intention of establishing peace and helping the reconstruction of the country, treats the communists with relative forbearance. The military and secret services, however, with the Directors of Security and the Central Intelligence Service as their leaders – and under the direct guidance of the American CIA Station Chief and the US Ambassador – don’t look favorably on the developments, especially when Plastiras’ party wins the elections again. In their attempt to subvert the government, they concoct a “communist conspiracy” and focus both attention and publicity on the arrest of Belogiannis and his companion Elli Ioannidou, as well as of other members of the Communist Party. The irregular court-martial, using greatly abbreviated procedures, sentences them to death, but Prime Minister Plastiras suspends the execution of the sentence. They are tried again, this time by regular court-martial. At the trial, the accused testify that they are not being tried for their actions but for their beliefs, and thus they flatly repudiate the false bill of indictment. Despite this, the court sentences eight of the accused to death, and the Americans press the government and the King not to grant them a reprieve. Ploumpidis sends a letter in which he confirms that he is the head of the illegal mechanism of the party and not Belogiannis, but both the Greek secret services as well as the foreign leadership of the Communist Party consider the letter to have been forged. To avoid putting the unity of the Party in jeopardy, Belogiannis and Ploumpidis leave the matter as it is, and so Belogiannis and his three comrades are led at night to the firing squad.