The most complete information guide about Athens, Greece
HISTORY
OF ATHENS
The
Greek Military Junta
(Regime of the colonels)
1967-1974
Operation Gladio
To
prevent the communist-led Greek resistance from taking power,
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the creation
of a secret army from as early as 1944, known as the Greek Mountain
Brigade, the Hellenic Raiding Force or LOK. LOK commander Field
Marshal Alexander Papagos excluded "almost all men with views
ranging from moderately conservative to left wing".
Greece
joined NATO in 1952 and LOK was integrated into the Gladio European
stay-behind network. The CIA and the Greek military reconfirmed
their mutual cooperation. In addition to preparing for a Soviet
invasion, they agreed to guard against a leftist coup.
During
the Cold War, Greece was a vital link in the NATO defence
which extended from the eastern border of Iran to the north
most point of Norway. In 1947, the United States formulated
the Truman doctrine and began to actively support a series
of authoritarian governments in Greece, Turkey and Iran in
order to ensure that these states did not fall under Soviet
influence. Having experienced a communist insurgency before,
Greece in particular was seen as being in risk.
The Coup of 21 April 1967
On
21 April 1967, just weeks before the scheduled elections, a group
of right-wing army officers led by Brigadier Stylianos Pattakos
and Colonels George Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos and backed
by a shadowy Revolutionary Council, seized power in a coup d'etat
following the Prometheus plan which was a Nato plan prepared for
the event of serious internal disorders. Their official justification
for the coup was that a "communist conspiracy" had infiltrated
the bureaucracy, the academia, the press, and even the military,
to such an extent that drastic action was needed to protect the
country from a takeover.
The
colonels were able to quickly seize power by using surprise and
confusion. Pattakos was commander of the Armor Training Centre,
based in Athens. Tanks were placed in strategic positions of 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 and authority figures as well as many
ordinary citizens suspected of left-wing sympathies. One of the
first to be arrested was Lieutenant General George Spantidakis,
Commander in Chief of the Greek Army.
The
conspirators were known to Spantidakis as he himself had brought
some of them to Athens to use in a coup he and other leading army
generals had been planning in an attempt to prevent George Papandreou's
victory in the upcoming election and the communist takeover that
would, supposedly, follow it.
The
colonels succeeded in persuading Spantidakis to join them
and he issued orders activating an action plan, the Prometheus
plan that had been previously drafted as a response for a
hypothetical communist uprising. Under the command of paratrooper
Lieutenant Colonel Spantidakis, the LOK took control of the
Greek Defence Ministry while Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos
gained control over communication centers, the parliament,
the royal palace and, according to detailed lists,
arrested over 10.000 people.
Since
orders came from a legal source, commanders and units not involved
in the conspiracy automatically obeyed them. During the first
day, many of the arrested were
held in the "Ippodromos", a stadium for horse racing
in Glyfada. Some of them, Panayotis Elis being one, were executed
in cold blood by young army officers. 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.
Chronicle
of Events of Friday 21 April 1967
00:01
Brigadier
Stylianos Pattakos, Commanding Officer of the Armored
Cavalry Training Center, invites Colonel (Armor) Constantinos
Mavroidis and Security Officer Major (Armor) Ilias Theodoropoulos
in his office and orders them to mobilize the camp according
to the Prometheus plan.
01:19-01:35
Pattakos,
announces to his subordinates that: "The Armed Forces
of our Fatherland, have decided to put an end to the chaos".
01:36
Pattakos
returnes to his office where he gives his orders to his
subordinate officers.
The
tanks leave the camp. Colonel Makarezos, inside the first
tank, heads towards the Ministry of Defense. Colonel Ioannis
Ladas orders the Military Police to arrest certain politicians
and military personnel. All the units of the Athens metropolitan
area are mobilized according to the Prometheus plan.
02:20
Brigadier
Pattakos, Colonel Papadopoulos, Colonel Tsiliopoulos and
Lt. Colonel Rouphogalis meet with the Chief of the Army.
General Spandidakis announces: "From now on, I take
over the leadership of the Revolution". The Palace, the
government buildings, the Parliament, the public television
and radio building are under the control of the "Revolution".
All the telephone lines are off."
03:30
The
center of Athens is under the control of the military
junta.