Konstantinos Karamanlis
Soon after returning to Greece during metapolitefsi Karamanlis reactivated his push for the country's full EEC membership in 1975 citing political and economic reasons. Karamanlis was convinced that Greece's membership in the EEC would ensure political stability in a nation having just undergone a transition from dictatorship to Democracy.
In May 1979 he signed the full treaty of accession. Greece became the tenth member of the EEC on 1 January 1981 three years earlier than the original protocol envisioned and despite the freezing of the treaty of accession during the junta (1967-1974).
In the 1961 elections, the National Radical Union won 50.80 percent of the popular vote. On 31 October, George Papandreou stated that the electoral results were due to widespread vote-rigging and fraud. Karamanlis replied electoral fraud, to the extent that it happened, was masterminded by the Palace. Political tension escalated, as Papandreou refused to recognize the Karamanlis government. On 14 November 1961 he initiated an "unrelenting struggle" (" ") against Karamanlis.
Tension between Karamanlis and the Palace escalated even further as Karamanlis vetoed fundraising initiatives undertaken by Queen Frederika. On 17 June 1963 Karamanlis resigned the premiership after a disagreement with King Paul of Greece, and spent four months abroad. In the meantime the country was in turmoil following the assassination of Dr. Gregoris Lambrakis, a leftist member of Parliament, by right-wing extremists during a pro-peace demonstration in Thessaloniki. The opposition parties castigated Karamanlis as a moral accomplice to the assassination.
In the 1963 election the National Radical Union, under his leadership, was defeated by the Center Union under George Papandreou. Disappointed with the result, Karamanlis fled Greece under the name "Triantafyllides". He spent the next 11 years in self-imposed exile in Paris, France. Karamanlis was succeeded by Panagiotis Kanellopoulos as the ERE leader.
In 1966, Constantine II of Greece sent his envoy Demetrios Bitsios to Paris on mission to convince Karamanlis to return to Greece and resume a role in Greek politics. According to uncorroborated claims made by the former monarch only after both men had died, in 2006, Karamanlis replied to Bitsios that he would return under the condition that the King were to impose martial law, as was his constitutional prerogative.
U.S. journalist Cyrus L. Sulzberger has separately claimed that Karamanlis flew to New York to visit Lauris Norstad and lobby U.S. support for a coup d'état in Greece that would establish a strong conservative regime under himself; Sulzberger alleges that Norstad declined to involve himself in such affairs.
Sulzberger's account, which unlike that of the former King was delivered during the lifetime of those implicated (Karamanlis and Norstad), rested solely on the authority of his and Norstad's word.
When in 1997 the former King reiterated Sulzberger's allegations, Karamanlis stated that he "will not deal with the former king's statements because both their content and attitude are unworthy of comment." The deposed King's adoption of Sulzberger's claims against Karamanlis was castigated by left-leaning media, typically critical of Karamanlis, as "shameless" and "brazen". It bears noting that, at the time, the former King referred exclusively to Sulzberger's account, to support the theory of a planned coup by Karamanlis, and made no mention of the alleged 1966 meeting with Bitsios, which he would refer to only after both participants had died and could not respond.
On 21 April 1967, constitutional order was usurped by a coup d'état led by officers around Colonel George Papadopoulos. The King accepted to swear in the military-appointed government as the legitimate government of Greece, but launched an abortive counter-coup to overthrow the junta eight months later. Constantine and his family then fled the country.
In 2001, former agents of the Eastern German secret police "Stasi", claimed to Greek investigative reporters that during the Cold War, they had orchestrated an operation of evidence falsification, in order to present Constantine Karamanlis as having planned a coup and thus damage his reputation, in an apparent disinformation propaganda campaign. The operation allegedly centered on a falsified conversation between Karamanlis and Strauss, a Bavarian officer of the King. They also alleged that a photograph of the former New Democracy leader Constantine Mitsotakis standing next to a uniformed Nazi officer, that had been repeatedly published by the PASOK-leaning Greek daily Avriani, was in fact a photomontage fabricated in Bulgaria. Their disclosures have not been challenged to this day.
Following the invasion of Cyprus by the Turks, the dictators finally abandoned Ioannides and his disastrous policies. On 23 July 1974, President Phaedon Gizikis called a meeting of old guard politicians, including Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Spiros Markezinis, Stephanos Stephanopoulos, Evangelos Averoff and others. The heads of the armed forces also participated in the meeting. The agenda was to appoint a national unity government that would lead the country to elections.
Former Prime Minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos was originally suggested as the head of the new interim government. He was the interim Prime Minister originally deposed by the dictatorship in 1967 and a distinguished politician who had repeatedly criticized Papadopoulos and his successor. Raging battles were still taking place in Cyprus' north when Greeks took to the streets in all the major cities, celebrating the junta's decision to relinquish power before the war in Cyprus could spill all over the Aegean. But talks in Athens were going nowhere with Gizikis' offer to Panagiotis Kanellopoulos to form a government.
Nonetheless, after all the other politicians departed without reaching a decision, Evangelos Averoff remained in the meeting room and further engaged Gizikis. He insisted that Karamanlis was the only political personality who could lead a successful transition government, taking into consideration the new circumstances and dangers both inside and outside the country. Gizikis and the heads of the armed forces initially expressed reservations, but they finally became convinced by Averoff's arguments. Admiral Arapakis was the first, among the participating military leaders, to express his support for Karamanlis.
After Averoff's decisive intervention, Gizikis decided to invite Karamanlis to assume the premiership. Throughout his stay in France, Karamanlis was a vocal opponent of the Regime of the Colonels, the military junta that seized power in Greece in April 1967. Now he was called to end his self imposed exile and restore Democracy to the place that originally created it: Greece. Upon news of his impending arrival cheering Athenian crowds took to the streets chanting: ! ! "He is coming! He is coming!" Similar celebrations broke out all over Greece. Athenians in their thousands also went to the airport to greet him. Karamanlis was sworn-in as Prime Minister under President pro tempore Phaedon
Gizikis who remained in power in the interim, till December 1974, for legal continuity reasons until a new constitution could be enacted during metapolitefsi, and was subsequently replaced by duly elected President Michail Stasinopoulos.
During the inherently unstable first weeks of the metapolitefsi, Karamanlis was forced to sleep aboard a yacht watched over by a destroyer for the fear of a new coup. Karamanlis attempted to defuse the tension between Greece and Turkey, which were on the brink of war over the Cyprus crisis, through the diplomatic route. Two successive conferences in Geneva, where the Greek government was represented by George Mavros, failed to avert a full-scale invasion and occupation of 37 percent of Cyprus by Turkey on 14 August 1974.