The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels was a right-wing military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels overthrew a caretaker government a month before scheduled elections which Georgios Papandreou's Centre Union was favoured to win.
The dictatorship was characterised by policies such as anti-communism, restrictions on civil liberties, and the imprisonment, torture, and exile of political opponents. Its hardline policies brought increasing isolation on the international stage, peaking with the regime withdrawing from the Council of Europe in 1969. It was ruled by Georgios Papadopoulos from 1967 to 1973, but an attempt to renew popular support in a 1973 referendum on the monarchy and gradual democratisation by Papadopoulos was ended by another coup by the hardliner Dimitrios Ioannidis. Ioannidis ruled until it fell on 24 July 1974 under the pressure of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, leading to the Metapolitefsi (Greek: Μεταπολίτευση, lit. 'regime change') to democracy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic.
Background
The 1967 coup d'état and the following seven years of military rule were the culmination of 30 years of national division between the forces of the left and the right that can be traced to the time of the resistance against Axis occupation of Greece during World War II.
Worried by the strength of the communist partisan forces, National Liberation Front and ELAS, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin drew up a secret document known as the percentages agreement, which sought to avoid further conflict in Europe by dividing up Western and Soviet spheres of influence. In this negotiation, Greece was viewed by the British as an important asset against further communist progression into Europe. After the country's liberation in 1944, Greece descended into Civil War (1946–1949), fought between the communist forces and those loyal to the newly returned government-in-exile. Clashes between the communist resistance and the Greek collaborationist Security Battalions, largely recruited as part of an anti-communist effort during World War II, led to further post-war political instability. One such was the Battle of Meligalas in 1944, in which partisans court martialled and then executed hundreds of collaborationist fighters and the villagers housing them. Right-wing governments from the post-war period until it was ended during the Metapolitefsi continued to commemorate the anniversary as a marker of left-wing violence, and the event has remained a flash-point for generations.
American influence in Greece
In 1944, British prime minister Winston Churchill was determined to halt the Soviet encroachment in the Balkans, and ordered British forces to intervene in the Greek Civil War (see Dekemvriana) in the wake of the retreating German military. This was to be a lengthy and open-ended commitment by the British. The United States stepped in to further help the Greek government against the communist forces in 1947.
In 1947, the United States formulated the Truman Doctrine, and began actively supporting a series of authoritarian governments in Greece, Turkey, and Iran in order to ensure that these states did not fall under Soviet influence. In 1945, officer veterans of the Security Battalions had organised themselves into a secret society known as the IDEA (Ieros Desmos Ellinon Axiomatikon–Holy Bond of Greek Officers). Several of the future leaders of the junta, such as Georgios Papadopoulos, were members of IDEA. With American and British aid, the civil war ended with the military defeat of the communists in 1949. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its ancillary organisations were outlawed (Law 509/1947), and many Communists either fled the country or faced persecution. The CIA and the Greek military began to work together closely, especially after Greece joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952. This included notable CIA officers Gust Avrakotos and Clair George. Avrakotos maintained a close relationship with the colonels who would figure in the later coup.
In 1952, IDEA issued a manifesto stating that a dictatorship was the only possible solution to Greece's problems, which the Greek scholar Christos Kassimeris called an "astonishing" statement, since the communists had been defeated in 1949, Greece was enjoying a period of relative prosperity after living standards had collapsed in the 1940s, and Greek politics were stable. Kassimeris argued that since Papadopoulos played a large role in writing the 1952 manifesto, that it was his "personal ambition" rather than objective fear of the sway of Greek communists as motivation. In no way could Greece be presented as on the brink of a communist take-over in 1952.
Greece was a vital link in the NATO defence arc which extended from the eastern border of Pakistan to the northernmost point in Norway. Greece in particular was seen as being at risk, having experienced a communist insurgency. In particular, the newly founded Hellenic National Intelligence Service (EYP) and the Mountain Raiding Companies (LOK) maintained a very close liaison with their American counterparts. In addition to preparing for a Soviet invasion, they agreed to guard against a left-wing coup. The LOK in particular were integrated into the European stay-behind network. Although there have been persistent rumours about an active support of the coup by the U.S. government, there is no evidence to support such claims. The timing of the coup apparently caught the CIA by surprise. However the U.S. has acknowledged their role in supporting the Junta in the years following the coup.
Iouliana and political instability
After many years of conservative rule, the election of the Centre Union's Georgios Papandreou as prime minister was a sign of change. In a bid to gain more control over the country's government than his limited constitutional powers allowed, the young and inexperienced King Constantine II clashed with liberal reformers. In July 1964, Papandreou announced his intention to fire those officers belonging to IDEA, whom the king did not want dismissed, claiming it was his royal prerogative to protect the IDEA officers, which in turn led to massive demonstrations in Athens, which had a republican flavour. In July 1965, Papandreou offered his resignation not expecting it to be accepted, but the hasty acceptance from the king caused a constitutional crisis known as the "Iouliana of 1965".
After making several attempts to form governments, relying on dissident Centre Union and conservative MPs, Constantine II appointed an interim government under Ioannis Paraskevopoulos, and new elections were called for 28 May 1967. There were many indications that Papandreou's Centre Union would emerge as the largest party, but would not be able to form a single-party government and would be forced into an alliance with the United Democratic Left, which was suspected by conservatives of being a proxy for the banned KKE. This possibility was used as a pretext for the coup.
To end the political deadlock, Georgios Papandreou attempted a more moderate approach with the king, but his son Andreas Papandreou publicly rejected his father's effort and attacked the whole establishment, attracting the support of 41 members of the Center Union in an effort designed to gain the party's leadership and preventing any compromise.
A "Generals' Coup"
Greek historiography and journalists have hypothesised about a "Generals' Coup", a coup that would have been deployed at Constantine's behest under the pretext of combating communist subversion.
Before the elections that were scheduled for 28 May 1967, with expectations of a wide Center Union victory, a number of conservative National Radical Union politicians feared that the policies of left-wing Centrists, including Andreas Papandreou (the son of Georgios Papandreou), would lead to a constitutional crisis. One such politician, George Rallis, proposed that, in case of such an "anomaly", the King should declare martial law as the monarchist constitution permitted him. According to Rallis, Constantine was receptive to the idea.
According to U.S. diplomat John Day, Washington also worried that Andreas Papandreou would have a very powerful role in the next government, because of his father's old age. According to Robert Keely and John Owens, American diplomats present in Athens at the time, Constantine asked U.S. Ambassador William Phillips Talbot what the American attitude would be to an extra-parliamentary solution to the problem. To this the embassy responded negatively in principle – adding, however, that, "U.S. reaction to such a move cannot be determined in advance but would depend on circumstances at the time." Constantine denies this. According to Talbot, Constantine met the army generals, who promised him that they would not take any action before the coming elections. However, the proclamations of Andreas Papandreou made them nervous, and they resolved to re-examine their decision after seeing the results of the elections.
In 1966, Constantine sent his envoy, Demetrios Bitsios, to Paris on a mission to persuade former prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis to return to Greece and resume his prior role in politics. According to uncorroborated claims made by the former monarch, Karamanlis replied to Bitsios that he would return only if the King imposed martial law, as was his constitutional prerogative. According to Cyrus L. Sulzberger correspondent for The New York Times, Karamanlis flew to New York City to meet with USAF General Lauris Norstad to lobby for a conservative coup that would establish Karamanlis as Greece's leader; Sulzberger alleges that Norstad declined to involve himself in such affairs. Sulzberger's account rests solely on the authority of his and Norstad's word. When, in 1997, the former King reiterated Sulzberger's allegations, Karamanlis stated that he "will not deal with the former king's statements, because both their content and attitude are unworthy of comment".
The deposed King's adoption of Sulzberger's claims against Karamanlis was castigated by Greece's left-leaning media, which denounced Karamanlis as "shameless" and "brazen". At the time Constantine referred exclusively to Sulzberger's account to support the theory of a planned coup by Karamanlis, and made no mention of the alleged 1966 meeting with Bitsios, which he referred to only after both participants had died and could not respond.
As it turned out, the constitutional crisis did not originate either from the political parties, or from the Palace, but from middle-rank army putschists.
Coup d'état of 21 April
On 21 April 1967, just weeks before the scheduled elections, a group of right-wing army officers led by Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos and Colonels Georgios Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos seized power in a coup d'état. The colonels were able to seize power quickly by using elements of surprise and confusion. Pattakos was the commander of the Armour Training Centre (Κέντρο Εκπαίδευσης Τεθωρακισμένων, ΚΕΤΘ), based in Athens.
The coup leaders placed tanks in strategic positions in Athens, effectively gaining complete control of the city. At the same time, a large number of small mobile units were dispatched to arrest leading politicians, authority figures, and ordinary citizens suspected of left-wing sympathies, according to lists prepared in advance. One of the first to be arrested was Lieutenant General Grigorios Spandidakis, Commander-in-Chief of the Greek Army. The colonels persuaded Spandidakis to join them, having him activate a previously drafted action plan to move the coup forward. Under the command of paratrooper Brigadier General Kostas Aslanides, the LOK took over the Greek Defence Ministry while Pattakos gained control of communication centres, the parliament, the royal palace, and – according to detailed lists – arrested over 10,000 people.
By the early morning hours, the whole of Greece was in the hands of the colonels. All leading politicians, including acting prime minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, had been arrested and were held incommunicado by the conspirators. At 6:00 a.m. EET, Papadopoulos announced that eleven articles of the Greek constitution were suspended. One of the consequences of these suspensions was that anyone could be arrested without warrant at any time and brought before a military court to be tried. Ioannis Ladas, then the director of ESA, recounted in a later interview that "Within twenty minutes every politician, every man, every anarchist who was listed could be rounded up ... It was a simple, diabolical plan". Georgios Papandreou was arrested after a nighttime raid at his villa in Kastri, Attica. Andreas was arrested at around the same time, after seven soldiers armed with fixed bayonets and a machine gun forcibly entered his home. Andreas Papandreou escaped to the roof of his house, but surrendered after one of the soldiers held a gun to the head of his then-fourteen-year-old son George Papandreou.