It emerged in the inter-war years as a split from republican liberalism, and while it became a traditional social democratic party after the fall of the Colonels regime in 1974, its forms of organisation, and mass base among civil servants and small business people, lead some to compare it to Argentine "Peronism" - that is left nationalism with a working class base.

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After the Six-Day war in June, the then secretary of state, Dean Rusk, persuaded the administration to upgrade relations with the colonels' regime as it had been so helpful to America's efforts to support Israel.

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