Phaedon Gizikis ( ; 16 June 1917 – 26 July 1999) was a Greek army general who was the last

President of Greece The president of Greece, officially the president of the Hellenic Republic (), commonly referred to in Greek as the president of the Republic (, ΠτΔ), is the head of state of Greece. The president is elected by the Hellenic Parliament; the ...

under the junta from 1973 to 1974.

Early life and military career

Born in

Volos Volos (; ) is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about north of Athens and south of Thessaloniki. It is the capital of the Magnesia (regional unit), Magnesia regional unit of the Thessaly Region. Volos ...

Kingdom of Greece The Kingdom of Greece (, Romanization, romanized: ''Vasíleion tis Elládos'', pronounced ) was the Greece, Greek Nation state, nation-state established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally ...

, Gizikis was a career

Hellenic Army The Hellenic Army (, sometimes abbreviated as ΕΣ), formed in 1828, is the army, land force of Greece. The term Names of the Greeks, '' Hellenic'' is the endogenous synonym for ''Greek''. The Hellenic Army is the largest of the three branches ...

officer. His service number was 21756.Legislative Decree 238/1973, as published in ΦΕΚ (Government Gazette Issue) Α 315/1973 He graduated from the

Hellenic Military Academy The Hellenic Army Academy (, ΣΣΕ), commonly known as the Evelpidon, is a military academy. It is the Officer cadet school of the Greek Army and the oldest third-level educational institution in Greece. It was founded in 1828 in Nafplio by Io ...

in 1939, achieving the rank of second lieutenant in artillery, and participated in the

Greco-Italian War The Greco-Italian War (), also called the Italo-Greek War, Italian campaign in Greece, Italian invasion of Greece, and War of '40 in Greece, took place between Italy and Greece from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. This conflict began the Balk ...

and the

Greek Civil War The Greek Civil War () took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communism, Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels decl ...

. In 1967, he supported the

Georgios Papadopoulos Georgios Papadopoulos (; ; 5 May 1919 – 27 June 1999) was a Greek military officer and dictator who led a coup d'etat in Greece in 1967 and became the country's Prime Minister from 1967 to 1973. He also was the President of Greece under th ...

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

and received a number of senior military posts during the dictatorship that followed.

Later life

He was given the title of President of the Republic on 25 November 1973, after Papadopoulos was ousted by

Dimitrios Ioannidis Dimitrios Ioannidis ( ; 13 March 1923 – 16 August 2010), also known as Dimitris Ioannidis and as The Invisible Dictator, was a Greek military officer and one of the leading figures in the junta that ruled the country from 1967 to 1974. Ioanni ...

as head of the regime in an internal power struggle. Three days later, he was promoted to full

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

(

Strategos ''Strategos'' (), also known by its Linguistic Latinisation, Latinized form ''strategus'', is a Greek language, Greek term to mean 'military General officer, general'. In the Hellenistic world and in the Byzantine Empire, the term was also use ...

), a decision he signed himself. While serving as president, following the supported coup in Cyprus, he would detract from open confrontation with Turkish forces during the invasion of Cyprus. Ioannidis would later blame Gizikis and other hesitant leaders as the reason for the Greek loss. As president he gave the task of forming a new government, following the collapse of the Junta, to Constantine Karamanlis. After the fall of the dictatorship in 1974, he retained his post for four months ''

pro tempore ''Pro tempore'' (), abbreviated ''pro tem'' or ''p.t.'', is a Latin phrase which best translates to 'for the time being' in English. This phrase is often used to describe a person who acts as a '' locum tenens'' ('placeholder'). The phrase is ...

'', until a new constitution could be enacted during

metapolitefsi The Metapolitefsi (, , " regime change") was a period in modern Greek history from the fall of the Ioannides military junta of 1973–74 to the transition period shortly after the 1974 legislative elections. The metapolitefsi was ignited by ...

; he was then replaced by

Michail Stasinopoulos Michail Stasinopoulos (; 27 July 1903 – 31 October 2002) was a Greek jurist and politician who served as the President of Greece from 18 December 1974 to 19 July 1975. A member of New Democracy, he was the first officeholder under the Third He ...

. Gizikis retired from the army in 1974, on the same day he resigned from his position as head of state. In 1976, a military judicial council dropped proceedings against him and 88 other former officers charged with treason and mutiny for collaborating with the former junta. He died on 26 July 1999 at the NIMTS military hospital in Athens, just one month after his predecessor,

.Pace, Eric
"Phaidon Gizikis, '73 Greek Junta Officer, 82."
''The New York Times'' 30 July 1999

References

1917 births 1999 deaths 20th-century presidents of Greece Leaders of the Greek junta Hellenic Army generals Leaders who took power by coup People from Volos Heads of government who were later imprisoned People of the Greco-Italian War {{Greece-mil-bio-stub