Greek junta

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. 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 ("regime change"; Greek: Μεταπολίτευση) to democracy and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic.

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.

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 organized 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 organizations 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 rumors 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.