Word: coupes
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...mass of the people." If that is true, why was the army so afraid the people were going to repudiate him in the May 28 elections by voting for Papandreou that it had to move in to stop them? As for the military men who carried out the coup, their 1984 decrees and pronouncements speak for themselves...
Pattakos handed the King a letter from the army chief of staff, Lieut. General Gregorias Spandidakis. It explained that the coup was a necessary action to head off a Communist plot to seize control of Greece...
...early afternoon, the King got in his car and drove to the Defense Ministry in Athens, which was the coup's command post and was filled with all manner of prisoners, heavily armed junior officers and the ranking military men of Greece. The King confronted the leaders of the coup. "You are going to get three orders," he told them. "The first order: I want Arnaoutis brought here. Get him! The second order: Get Kanellopoulos and bring him here. The third order: I want to speak to the generals alone...
Obediently, the officers brought in Arnaoutis, who warned the King that anarchy was rampant. Next came Kanellopoulos, who advised the King to try to persuade the officers to return the country to parliamentary rule. Then with Spandidakis and the coup leaders absent, the King met alone with a handful of the highest ranking generals. "The people who are with me, stand up," commanded the King. All the generals rose, but as they and he both knew by now, it was the colonels who had the guns-and the power...
...late afternoon the King drove home to Tatoi and had his first food since the night before: an apple. In the evening he returned to Athens for the swearing-in of Kollias. But he refused to speak on the radio or endorse the coup in any way. When Papadopoulos produced a speech that the junta wanted the King to deliver to the nation, Constantine bridled. "Stand at attention!" he snapped. "Who gave you the impression I was going to speak? Not only that, it's badly written. Take it back...