Ioannis Charalambopoulos
Ioannis Charalambopoulos (Greek Ιωάννης Χαραλαμπόπουλος, born 1919 in Psari, Messinia ) is a Greek politician. He was Foreign Minister and Defense Minister under Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou.
Charalambopoulos studied engineering at the Military Academy and at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich / London.
In the Second World War he took part in the Albanian front as well as in the Middle East as commander of an infantry unit. In 1961 he retired from the army and joined the Center Union. During the military dictatorship (1967-1974), he founded the resistance group " Democratic National Resistance Movement" ( EKDA ). In May 1967, he was arrested and exiled to Syros. Through an amnesty he was freed to be arrested again in August 1968. It was followed by three years in prison and in exile. He joined the National Liberation Movement ( PAK ). After the uprising at the Athens POLYTECHNION he was again arrested and tortured by the military police, deported to Gyaros, where he remained until the collapse of the dictatorship. As a founding member of the PASOK party, he held various offices. In the parliamentary elections in 1963 and 1964 Charalambopoulos was selected for the Center Union and in the next ten elections from 1974 to 2000 for the PASOK in the parliament. He was also Member of the European Parliament for the period since the accession of Greece to the EU on 1 January 1981 up to the first European elections. From 21 October 1981 to 26 July 1985, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Deputy Prime Minister to November 1988, further defense minister from April 1986 to July 1989.