ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the Greek military’s decision to relinquish power, the process of transition, and the nature of civil-military relations of the post-withdrawal period. The Greek people celebrated jubilantly the dictatorship’s fall and extended a hero’s welcome to former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis, recalled by the military from his self-imposed exile in Paris to head the new national-unity civilian government. Students of civil-military relations see military professionalism as an important corollary affecting the behavior of modern soldiery. The massive and long continuing American military and economic aid that flowed in through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan had a decisive impact on the civil war and subsequent developments. The abortive February plot and the limited purge of the armed forces that followed marked the end of the transition period from military to civilian rule. The history of civil-military relations in Greece seems to bear out the latter position.
