Athens

"I was reminded of—and perhaps haunted by—what the historian Gibbon said of Athens. “In the end,” he wrote in his epitaph for the ancient Republic, “more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all—security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom of responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free"

"Soon came the hammer blow. On the day that the government announced that Sun would be awarded the casino rights for Athens for the next 50 years, I went out with Marc Roussos for a celebratory dinner. We had put in a lot of hard work to win the bid. While we were seated at the dinner table, an acquaintance of Roussos’s strolled up. “You guys did well,” he said, “only having to give a $10 million backhander. You got it cheap.” The whole conversation was in Greek, so I did not understand at first. Then Roussos translated for me. It seemed that it was widely known, including by the press, that at least one of Sun’s Greek partners – if not all of them – had allegedly participated in a huge bribe to ensure that our bid would win. I simply could not believe it. I called the senior partner and demanded a meeting. It was true, the partner confirmed, stating that I must have been naive to think that we could win the bid based only on my excellent presentation. “That’s not the way it works here,” he said with a smile. “What else did you expect?” I did not need to phone Sol to know what to do. I called a partners’ meeting and announced that Sun, despite having won the bid, was walking away and would sue the partners for our costs to date and $10 million. “That’s a number that you seem to like,” I announced as Roussos and I stomped out of the room. When I called Sol to give him first the good news and then the bad, his reaction was immediate. “You did the right thing, Pete. But you had better get your arse out of there before they find you tied to a concrete slab at the bottom of the Med.”"