Following their military defeat in 1922, after having attacked the Turks, the Greeks executed six Cabinet ministers whom they thought responsible for the humiliating failure. One was brought on a stretcher to the execution ground, being too sick to walk. Another died of a heart attack in the van taking him from his prison cell. The sick and the dead were propped up alongside the others and shot.

This time around, national humiliation did not carry such a high price. In the debacle of Greece's attempt to aid the Kurdish terrorist Abdullah Ocalan, only three Cabinet ministers and the intelligence chief were asked to step down, and none was shot.

Of key importance is the fact that the four were sacked not because they had been involved with hiding an internationally wanted terrorist or for trying to harm a neighboring country and NATO ally. They were forced to resign because they had not secured a terrorist's escape from justice and because they had failed to hurt their country's NATO partner, Turkey.

If the Turkish version of Ocalan's confessions can be believed, Greece has been helping to train and arm Kurdish fighters loyal to Ocalan's PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party, who have been responsible for killing thousands. ''They even gave us arms and rockets,'' Ocalan, now in Turkish custody, is quoted in the Turkish press as saying. ''Greek officers gave guerrilla training and explosives training to our militants.''

It cannot be confirmed independently that Ocalan actually said those words, nor can outsiders know the circumstances surrounding his confession. But at the very least, Greece's actions in the Ocalan affair ought to be debated in the councils of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and condemned by the United States and its European allies.

Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.