Apostasia of 1965

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Apostasia (In Greek: Αποστασία) or Iouliana (Greek: Ιουλιανά, the events of July) or the Royal Coup (In Greek: Το Βασιλικό Πραξικόπημα) is a term used to describe a political move in Greece, in 1 October 1965, involving King Constantine II and a group of politicians, a prominent member of which was the later Prime Minister of Greece Kostantinos Mitsotakis, to replace the government of Georgios Papandreou.

1 Background
- 1.1 The Aspida scandal
- 1.2 The resignation of Georgios Papandreou
2 The July apostasy
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Background

Relations between the new King and Prime Minister Papandreou began with goodwill on both sides, although Papandreou had always been a republican. Georgios Papandreou had already tried to establish a good atmosphere with King Paul I, recognising a royal right to all military decisions. According to this agreement between the King and the prime minister - an agreement for which Papandreou was later criticised - all the generals had to be approved by the King. This agreement was confirmed with the appointment of Petros Garoufalias, a centrist but pleasing to the royal family politician, as Defence Minister.

The relations between Constantine II reached a tipping point after some clumsy handlings of the King (the notorious and insulting letters to the prime minister) and the alleged Aspida (ασπίδα=shield) Scandal. But what was exactly this scandal?

[edit] The Aspida scandal

The Aspida Group allegedely comprised military officers, who belonged to the centre or the left and wanted to assume control of an army dominated by right-wing officers who had fought in the Greek Civil War against the left. Nevertheless, the alleged scandal, which had been revealed in 1965, would have no serious implications in the political life of Greece, unless Andreas Papandreou, the prime minister's son and a prominent political of the centre-left, was accused to be a member of Aspida, an accusation that the future prime minister of Greece never accepted.

Garoufalias decided to form a committee, which would examine the political implications of the Aspida scandal, including Andreas' involvement. This decision caused the disapproval of Georgios Papandreou and the vehement reaction of Andreas Papandreou. After these developments, Petros Garoufalias was obliged to submit his resignation and the problem of his successor arose.

[edit] The resignation of Georgios Papandreou

After Petros Garoufalias resigned, Georgios Papandreou decided, pushed by his son's advice, to assume himself total control of the army, by succeeding Garoufalias as Defence Minister. The relations with the King were already bad after an insultant letter the King has sent to the prime minister. In this letter Constantine II was expressing in a rude way his discontent, because Papandreou refused to meet him. Georgios Papandreou replied to the King in a bitter but careful and polite way.

Constantine II, following his advisors' recommendations, refused to accept the prime minister's appointment as Defence Minister. His logical argument was that there was a conflict of interest, since the son of the prime minister was accused to be involved in an alleged scandal the new defence minister, namely his father, would have to clear up. In turn, the King proposed the appointment of any person the prime minister would like but not himself. In the beginning, Georgios Papandreou seemed willing to think of the King's proposal, but, during their last and bitter meeting, the prime minister refused Constantine's II proposal and threatened to resign, if he was not appointed defence minister.

Constantine II denied the prime minister's demand and he accepted Georgios Papandreou's resignation. The political turmoil start from this point and it arises from the fact that the King had already decided about Papandreou's successor, Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas who was waiting in a near room during the meeting between Constantine II and Georgios Papandreou. The fact that Papandreou's successor was sworn in just a few moments after Papandreou's resignation caused a great deal of criticism.

[edit] The July apostasy

Papandreou appealed to public opinion with the slogan "the King reigns but the people rule." On July 15, Constantine accepted his resignation and tried to form a series of governments- ghosts using the apostates of the Center Union (members of the party who decided to favor the King) and causing a constitutional crisis that later led to the period of dictatorship known as Greek military junta of 1967-1974. One of the prominent members of the centrist politicians who supported the King was the future prime minister and leader of ND, Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

King Constantine made several attempts to form new governments, but none of them lasted for long. He appointed Speaker of Parliament Georgios Athanasiadis-Novas as Prime Minister. Athanasiadis-Novas was followed by many Center Union's dissidents and conservative ERE MPs) but not enough to gain a vote of confidence in parliament. He was replaced on August 20 of the same year by Ilias Tsirimokos with similar effects. Failing to gain a vote of confidence, Tsirimokos was dismissed on September 17.

Constantine II next induced some of Papandreou's dissidents, led by Stephanos Stephanopoulos, to form a government of "King's men," which lasted until December 22, 1966, amid mounting strikes and protests. When Stephanopoulos resigned in frustration, Constantine appointed an interim government under Ioannis Paraskevopoulos, which called elections for May 1967. This government did not even last till the scheduled elections. It was replaced on April 3, 1967 by another interim government under Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Kanellopoulos being the active leader of the National Radical Union and still supposed to organize a fair election in 28 May 1967).

There were many indications that Papandreou's Center Union Party (EK) would not be able to form a working government by itself in the scheduled elections. There was a strong possibility that the EK party would be forced into an alliance with the socialist EDA (EΔΑ) party, which was suspected by conservatives to be a proxy for the banned Communist Party of Greece (and not totally without cause; while EDA was by no means Communist, the Communist Party had decided to support EDA in the election in hopes for further reforms).

This sense of a "Communist threat", along with putschist tendencies in some right-wing nationalist fractions of the military of Greece, eventually led to the coup d'etat of April 21, 1967, which established a military dictatorship, better known as the "Regime of the Colonels".