Georgios Papadopoulos

Who was Georgios Papadopoulos?

Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos was the head of the military coup d'état that took place in Greece on 21 April 1967 and leader of the junta that ruled the country from 1967 to 1974. Papadopoulos was a Colonel of Artillery. During World War II, he had initially fought against the Italian 1940 invasion and then he became a German collaborator in the Security Battalions, and in the postwar years he received intelligence training in the United States and became a CIA agent. He held dictatorial power in Greece from 1967–1973, until he was himself overthrown by his co-conspirator Dimitrios Ioannidis. It has been claimed that Papadopoulos was the first CIA agent to govern a Western European country.