CYPRUS: Unfinished Tragedy

It had seemed, amid the urgent preoccupations of the cold war, like a cloud no bigger than a busy diplomat’s hand. Then, suddenly, the dispute over Cyprus was a nasty, swelling storm of the kind that takes lives, topples governments and jeopardizes alliances. By last week, with Cypriots and Greeks inflamed against Britons, and with Greeks and Turks torn apart in a revival of an aged hatred, the case threatened to crumble the long southern flank of the NATO defense network. NATO’s southern commander, U.S. Admiral William M. Fechteler, hastened to Athens and Ankara to examine the breach. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles sent an urgent message to the Greek and Turkish Premiers: “The partnership of Greece and Turkey constitutes a strong bulwark of the free world in a critical area. If that bulwark should be materially weakened, the consequences would be grave indeed.”

What had caused the mild winds of discontent on a small Mediterranean island to blow up into a crisis involving the entire Western alliance? Act I. It began with some inept diplomacy in London. The British, having turned Cyprus into their Middle East military-command post, decided the time had come to do something about Greece’s demand for enosis (union) with Cyprus and its dominantly Greek (80%) population. Instead of seeking a direct Anglo-Greek settlement, British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan polished up an old British plan for limited home rule, already rejected by the Greek Cypriots, and made the mistake of inviting the Turks to join him and the Greeks in London. In his first few months in office, Macmillan had disappointed many who had expected good things of him. The Cyprus case, his first solo venture in diplomacy, represented a chance to recoup. But the Foreign Secretary made no advance soundings of either the Greeks or the Turks, was taken by surprise when the Turks took a vehemently strong position against any hint of eventual self-determination and even against Macmillan’s gesture toward home rule for the Cypriots. Far from building toward an agreement between Britain and Greece, the London talks opened old Greek-Turkish wounds and provoked consequences far worse than would have resulted from no talks at all.

Act II, Scene I. Tempers simmered on all sides—in Turkey, in Greece and on Cyprus. A small bomb exploded in the Turkish consulate in Salonika and triggered wholesale riots against Greek minorities in Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara (TIME, Sept. 19). At first, under martial law and strict censorship, much of the story of the riots’ nature was suppressed by the government of Turkish Premier Adnan Menderes, who has a supposedly democratic regime but cracks down on free speech and free press with totalitarian ease. But by last week, from piecemeal reports, diplomatic dispatches and the tales of travelers from Turkey, the outside world began to learn how wanton, yet organized, the riots were.

Damage amounting to perhaps $300 million was wreaked on the stores, homes and possessions of Greeks in Turkey; scores of Greek Orthodox churches in the country were fired or defaced; some 300 persons were injured. It became evident that the Turkish government had not wanted to halt the violence or—worse from a standpoint of stability in a NATO country—had been unable to stem it. “I must admit,” said Menderes, “that we were exposed to a national catastrophe, the object of a real attack by surprise.” Western diplomats were also slow to realize how deep and serious was the revulsion in Greece. The Greek government went so far as to charge that the bombing that touched off the affair was engineered by the Turks themselves, arrested the Turkish watchman of the Salonika consulate as the alleged fuse lighter.

Act II, Scene 2. On Cyprus, the London failure fanned mounting tension into mobbish terrorizing. The spiritual leader of Greek Orthodox Cypriots and the eminence grise of the enosis movement, 42-year-old Archbishop Myriarthefs Makarios, while renouncing violence, busily heightened the enosis fever both on Cyprus and the Greek mainland. Local British security officers recommended his deportation but London wisely decided to leave the influential archbishop alone. But more Royal Marine Commandos were sent to the island from Malta to disperse demonstrators, and guard against explosions. Still violence increased. Last week the British Institute at Nicosia was sacked by a shouting crowd, 3,000 rioters stoned British troops entering the village of Amiandos to take down anti-British banners and posters.

Act III: The U.S. Intervened. Secretary of State Dulles, who already had sent a note to Turkey expressing “deep concern” over the riots, dispatched his stern appeal to the two NATO allies. “I believe that the unity of the North Atlantic community, which is the basis of our common security, must be restored,” said he. The Greeks exploded at the absence of any words of sympathy for the victims of the Turkish riots. “Mr. Dulles placed criminals and victims on the same level,” cried Athens’ newspaper, Vima, with considerable justice.

Next day, in the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. asserted itself again, joined Britain and Turkey in voting down Greece’s request for a full U.N. debate of the Cyprus dispute. The U.S. view was that an exposure of the matter to the many tongues of the U.N. would simply make matters worse; the Greek view was that this was treachery. “Greece must leave NATO,” cried the respectable right-wing daily, Ethnos. “Greece cannot remain inside this jungle of crooks and black mailers.” Opponents of the government, weak and indecisive because of the illness of its chief, Old Soldier Alexander Papagos, joined in the anti-NATO talk.

The Cabinet went so far as to summon the army’s Chief of Staff to brief it on the consequences of quitting NATO—only to arrive at the obvious decision that Greece, for all its anger, would hurt itself most by giving up its only defense against Communism.

In such an atmosphere, there was little prospect of persuading all sides to accept a reasonable solution—one that would protect Cyprus’ role as an essential British and NATO bastion, grant the Cypriots their deserved passage toward eventual self-determination, piece together again the hate-shattered bonds of Greek-Turkish amity. As a small measure of help, Turkey began to show some contrition and to make restitution to riot victims. But the Turkish treasury, impoverished by shortsighted Menderes economic policies, had so far scraped up only a tiny fraction of the money needed to repair riot damage.

Menderes also ousted his Interior Minister for failing to maintain law and order (while at the same time suspending five newspapers which had attacked the government for failing to halt the riots). In Washington and London, diplomats talked of waiting for a day when tempers would cool to make room for reason. But none could honestly say that the day was coming soon.