Although he had support amongst the older, well-connected members of the military, younger radical elements in the armed forces began to work against him from the moment he took office.

Some believe this was Endelkachew's motivation for seeking alliances with moderate military officers with bases of support, such as Alem Zewde Tessema, the commander of the paratrooper battalion, and who became chair of the Armed Forces Coordinated Committee (AFCC) on 23 March.

Alem Zewde was tainted due to his support for Endelkachew and on 22 June lost control of his own battalion, and fled to Gojjam seeking refuge.

[3] That same month, 12 or 16 members of the AFCC under the leadership of Colonel Atnafu Abate left that body and called for a meeting of representatives from all of the military units in Ethiopia at the headquarters of the Fourth Division, which was convened 28 June.

On 12 September, Emperor Haile Selassie was formally deposed by the Derg, an act Keller describes as "anticlimactic given the events that had unfolded since July".

He was Ethiopian Ambassador to Britain, and later Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and was one of the people under consideration for the post of UN Secretary General in 1972, before Kurt Waldheim was appointed.