Greek military junta of 1967–1974

Regime of the Colonels redirects here. For the Polish regime of colonels, see Colonels' group.

The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" (, To kathestos ton Syntagmatarhon), or in Greece "The Junta", ( or ; Greek Χούντα, ) and "The Seven Years" (, I eptaetía) are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. Rule by the Greek military started in the morning of 21 April 1967 with a coup d'état led by a group of colonels, and ended in July 1974.

Background

The 1967 coup 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. After the liberation in 1944 Greece descended into civil war, fought between the forces of the Communist-led Greek resistance and the now returned government-in-exile.

American influence in Greece

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.Perkins, Bradford; Cohen, Warren; LaFeber, Walter; Iriye, Akira (1995). The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Volume 4, America in the Age of Soviet Power, 1945-1991. Cambridge...
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