faction headed by reclusive military police chief, brigadier-general Dimitris Ioannides, invited former politicians of the pre-junta era for consultations on the army's intention to hand over power to a civilian government comprising top cadres from the traditional centre and right. The news of the hand over plans sparked nationwide enthusiasm as the military rulers had set the country on a war footing in the wake of a full­scale Turkish invasion of Cyprus on July 20, provoked by a pro-junta coup in Nicosia which toppled the island-republic's president, Archbishop Makarios. Battles were still raging in the island's north when Greeks took to the streets in all the major cities, celebrating the junta's decision to step down before the war in Cyprus could spill over across the Aegean. But talks in Athens were going nowhere with Gizikis' offer of the mandate to form a government to Panayiotis Kanellopoulos, the last civilian prime minister in the week before the 21 April 1967 army coup. At the moment of deadlock on July 23, Evangelos Averoff, a close aide of Karamanlis, suggested that only the former rightwing strongman Karamanlis could take charge of the domestic situation and negotiate a ceasefire in Cyprus. But Averoff knew that Karamanlis was already on his way as cheering Athenian crowds chanted 'Here he comes!'

Dimitris Yannopoulos

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