Georgios Ioannou Rallis (; 26 December 1918 – 15 March 2006), anglicised to George Rallis, was a Greek conservative politician and Prime Minister of Greece from 1980 to 1981.

Ancestors in politics

thumb|left|150px|, great-grandfather of Georgios Rallis

Georgios was descended from the old, noble and political Rallis family. Alexandros Rallis, born in 1760, was a prominent Phanariote (Greek from Constantinople). In 1849 his son became Chief Justice of the Greek Supreme Court. Dimitrios Rallis, paternal grandfather of Georgios Rallis, served as Prime Minister of Greece for five separate short periods in 1897, 1903, 1905, 1909 and 1921. Dimitrios's son and Georgios's father, Ioannis Rallis, was a collaborationist Prime Minister from 1943 to 1944, during the German occupation. After the liberation of Greece he was sentenced to life imprisonment for collaboration and died in jail in 1946. His maternal grandfather, Georgios Theotokis, was four times Prime Minister of Greece, between 1901 and 1907.

Early life

Georgios Rallis was born on 26 December 1918 in the prestigious Kolonaki district of Athens.

He studied law and political sciences at the University of Athens.

A close collaborator of Konstantinos Karamanlis, and went on to serve as Minister for Transport and Public Works in the 1956–58 Karamanlis cabinet, and as Minister for the Interior in the 1961–1963 Karamanlis cabinet. He was also among the founding members of the National Radical Union (ERE) in 1956. It was in this position that the coup d'état of the Colonels found him on 21 April 1967. Rallis managed to evade capture by the putschists and go to the command centre of the Greek Gendarmerie, from where by radio he tried in vain to get in contact with the III Army Corps and order it to descend onto Athens and suppress the coup. and held on to the post (from 2 January 1975 as Minister for the Presidency of the Government) under the government formed by Karamanlis' new party, New Democracy, after the November 1974 election. On 5 January 1976 he also assumed the post of Minister for National Education and Religious Affairs, which he held in tandem with the former post until the end of the cabinet term on 28 November 1977. He was the first Greek Foreign Minister to visit the Soviet Union, in October 1978, and negotiated Greece's accession to the EEC, signing Greece's accession agreement in May 1979. During his tenure Greece rejoined the military wing of NATO.

thumb|left|Prime Minister Rallis with Foreign Minister [[Constantine Mitsotakis in Luxembourg on 26 June 1981]]

He led the government until his defeat by Andreas Papandreou's PASOK in the 18 October 1981 election, resigning on 21 October.

References

  • Athens News obituary
  • 1991 interview of Rallis on his career in the 1950s and early 1960s, ERT Archive

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