The events the US foreign service bureaucrats discuss include the EOKA uprising; Cyprus’ independence; the Turkish Cypriot insurrection in 1963; the deterioration of the political situation in Greece and the emergence of the junta – how this affected Cyprus; the junta’s coup against Makarios; the Turkish invasion; the efforts by Greek Cypriots to recover from the devastation of Turkey’s onslaught; the various efforts to achieve a Cyprus settlement, concluding with the Annan plan in 2004.
The accounts of these officials provide an insight into how America’s global power was put together and maintained. In Cyprus’s case, we see it was done with malice, cynicism and hypocrisy. Of the dozens of US diplomats involved with Cyprus over 60 years, only one or two can escape denunciation.
The primary interviewer in these oral histories is Charles Stuart Kennedy, who was US consul general in Athens from 1970-74. Kennedy is not interested in any critical or sophisticated assessment of American policy on Cyprus. Rather, he relentlessly tries to direct his interviewees into supporting his own prejudices and views – which involve an intense dislike of Greeks, a contempt for Greek Cypriots, and an obsession with the influence of the Greek American lobby, which he blames for the Cyprus problem not being decisively taken off the agenda as it should have been, according to him, in 1974 with Turkey’s invasion.
It’s become unfashionable nowadays to talk about America’s responsibility for bringing catastrophe to Cyprus and cliched to point out Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s malign influence in the entire affair.
However, the view that America abetted, one way or another, the Athens junta in overthrowing the Makarios government and, then, Turkey in its invasion and partitioning of Cyprus – and that Henry Kissinger played the dirtiest of roles in these events – is fully vindicated by these oral histories.
Here are a some more specific points that emerge from reading these oral histories:
From the outset, the prevailing US view was that: ‘Cyprus was not going to be allowed to destroy NATO’. Everything had to be done to stop Greece and Turkey going to war over this insignificant dot on the map.
In effect, America’s desire to protect the smooth functioning of NATO meant placating Turkey, since Turkey was regarded as far more important to the US’s cold war and strategic interests than Greece.
The democratically-elected president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, for the Americans, was ‘a very unsavory, untrustworthy, unpredictable man.’ He is further described as uncooperative, slippery, Byzantine, a tribal chieftain.
However, Washington didn’t really despise Makarios for his ‘Byzantine’ personality, but because he objected to US plans to ‘solve’ the Cyprus problem by doing away with Cyprus’ independence, Cyprus’ ability to determine its out future, and making the island a NATO protectorate. Makarios opposition to the Acheson plans, devised by former secretary of state Dean Acheson, which envisaged abolishing the Republic of Cyprus and partitioning Cyprus between Greece and Turkey, was explained by Washington by suggesting Makarios was vain and enjoying the trappings of being head of an independent country.
Making Cyprus a NATO outpost is what mattered to Washington and Cypriot independence – embodied by Makarios – was the obstacle to its ambitions.
This is how Walter Silva, part of the State Department’s Cyprus Task Force in 1974 describes the prevailing US view of Cyprus:
‘It was such a small problem. There was a great deal of searching in the Department to find out what possible interest we had in whether Cyprus was divided between Greece and Turkey, whether it was united with Greece under the "enosis" plan or whether it all went with Turkey. In any of those scenarios Cyprus would be part of NATO and become a NATO stronghold, the head of the spear aimed at the heart of the Middle East sort of thing. I don't recall any strong feelings among those who had served in Greece, served in Cyprus or served in Turkey. They usually took the positions of their former hosts. There was some of that clientitis thing. But other than that it was hard to get anybody above the Desk level really excited. They were excited by the possibility that we could use Cyprus, that would be the thing. It would have been nice.’
Q: Use Cyprus how?
SILVA: As a military forward base. That would have been very nice, you see, if we could replace the British there and have naval and air forces that close to our interests in the Middle East. But it didn't turn out that way. Independent Cyprus was not about to become a forward base for the Sixth Fleet.’
American officials needed to justify Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus, which they knew was accompanied by atrocities and ethnic cleansing, by asserting that Greek Cypriots had it coming for the way they had supposedly mistreated the Turkish Cypriots – not just in the 1960s but, apparently, throughout Cyprus’ history. Partition, therefore, not only served NATO/US interests but was somehow justice being served to Greek Cypriots for their oppressive chauvinism.
This is James Morton, State Department Cyprus Desk Office 1975-6:
‘I think, and I had previously served in Greece, basically the feeling amongst most officers serving in Cyprus, and it wasn't a large embassy, was that the Greek Cypriot community had brought it on themselves. The distribution of population was such that small isolated pockets of Turkish Cypriots kind of sprinkled around the larger Greek sea within the island of Cyprus. We heard stories of how for fun on a Sunday Greek Cypriots would jump in their car and ride through villages and fire and even shoot and kill women and children in these pockets. The Turks were totally vulnerable. Finally because of all sorts of events… the coup, Nicos Sampson and a lot of stuff that has been recorded elsewhere… the Turks had just had it. I feel personally, and I can say it now more than I could say it then, that they were fully justified in coming in to protect their brethren.’
American maligning and dehumanising of Greek Cypriots continued after Turkey’s invasion. What Greek Cypriots had endured was minimised, if not dismissed.
This is Geoffrey Chapman, State Department Cyprus Desk Officer, 1977-79, claiming that the refugees were pampered and exerted undue influence in determining the island’s future:
‘The Greek Cypriot government was of course under heavy pressure from the refugee organizations, representing Greek Cypriots who had been forced out of their homes in the north and would settle for nothing less than returning to them. A lot of these refugees quite deliberately refused to integrate with the rest of Greek Cyprus, which they could easily have done, and instead maintained a refugee status. The U.S. taxpayer [through foreign aid] funded quite luxurious housing for them; they by no means lived in what one normally would conceive to be refugee camps. The refugees were a very powerful lobby and no Greek Cypriot president or other leading politician could afford to ignore them, and their demands were absolute. So Greek Cypriot flexibility and ability to compromise was circumscribed from the word go.’
In these oral histories, American officials overwhelmingly reject any responsibility for the Greek junta’s coup against Makarios and Turkey’s invasion and are contemptuous of Greek and Greek Cypriot anti-Americanism after 1974, believing it represented Greeks’ political immaturity, always looking to blame others for their own problems and mistakes.
US hypocrisy and deceit is also conspicuous whenever Nikos Sampson enters the Cyprus story.
Sampson is variously described in these oral histories as despicable, a psychopathic killer, an extreme Greek nationalist, a Turk-hater, a thug, etc, and that with him installed as president of Cyprus by the Athens junta, Turkey was fully justified in invading the island.
This is how James Williams, political officer Nicosia (1973-75) described his encounters with Sampson:
‘Sampson would usually be sitting at a huge desk when you went into his office with shelves that were lined with newspapers and magazines and books. I doubt he’d read many of them. But quite often, and I’m not joking, he would be looking at the centerfold of a Playboy magazine when you came in. I don’t know if this was for my benefit as an American diplomat, or if that was his standard reading material. But he was totally unembarrassed about it, put it to the side, and then would talk rather freely about how he saw the political development within the Greek Cypriot community, or within Cyprus.’
Not once is it recognised that Sampson was a long-standing CIA asset, valued for his anti-communism, and that the small media empire that allowed him to become well-off and prominent in Cypriot society was covertly funded by American intelligence services.
The ‘institutionalised tilt’ towards Turkey in US foreign policy, a result of Turkey’s perceived geo-strategic worth, leads to Turkish motives in Cyprus being taken at face value and rarely, if ever, described in negative or critical terms.
Rather, Turkey’s interests in Cyprus – defined as a desire to protect the ‘beleaguered’ Turkish minority and prevent the encircling of Turkey by Greek islands – are presented as rational and reasonable.
Even when the Turks tell the Americans to their faces the real reason they invaded Cyprus, the Americans don’t demur let alone understand the implications of what they have unleashed.
This is William Crawford, US ambassador to Cyprus, 1974-78 reporting a discussion he had with Turkey’s ‘ambassador’ in occupied Cyprus after the invasion:
‘The [Turkish ‘ambassador’] said, “Turkey is an imperial power and a continental power. That we are unnaturally prevented from breathing to the north and the east by the presence of the Soviet Union makes it all the more important that we be able to breathe to the south and to the west. 1974 solved the southern dimension. It remains to solve the western dimension.”’
America’s efforts to contribute to UN initiatives aimed at a Cyprus settlement after 1974 come across as half-hearted and cynical. Most American diplomats shared the Turkish view that the Cyprus problem had been solved in 1974 and that any attempts to reverse matters were superfluous.
Others, who did acknowledge that the status quo was not entirely desirable, expended most of their energy trying to get Greek Cypriots to agree a settlement that accepted the ‘facts on the ground’ created by Turkey’s invasion.
American interest in Cyprus after Turkey’s invasion only ever peaked when they believed a settlement would help Turkey. It’s clear from these oral histories that the entire Annan plan process was developed as a means to remove obstacles to Turkey’s accession to the EU.
The interests of Cypriots, fairness and functionality, were last on America minds when it came to devising settlement proposals. In fact, the US worked towards a bizonal bicommunal federation even though they knew such a plan, if ever implemented, would likely fail.
This is Nelson Ledsky, US special coordinator on Cyprus (1989-1991), giving his oral history in 2003, on the fairness and durability of a bizonal bicommunal federation:
‘I think there will be a negotiated solution. Whether that will also lead to peace on the island, I cannot say. I don’t think the agreement now being negotiated will actually work. I don’t think the country of Cyprus is a viable entity as it is currently envisaged by the draft agreement. This agreement does not provide for a workable solution; it provides for a solution, which over time will probably not be sustainable. Changes will have to be negotiated or imposed. I think, for example, that the Greek Cypriots will eventually take over the whole island. [Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf] Denktash’s fears may be realized. I think it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the agreement as presently constituted will fall apart, two or three or five years after it has been assigned. The governmental system now being envisaged is intrinsically unworkable.’
Finally, to bring things up to date, there is nothing new in the current Turkish insistence that before negotiations for a Cyprus settlement can start, the ’Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ and Turkish Cypriot ‘sovereign equality’ have to be recognised.
This is the same position Denktash took in the 1990s.
Alfred Moses, special presidential envoy for the Cyprus conflict, 1997-2000, describes how these seemingly impossible Turkish demands were overcome in 2000 during the Annan process:
‘We later had another long session in Geneva in November 2000. [I came up with an initiative] intended to deal with Denktash’s insistence that there be prior recognition of the sovereignty of the TRNC as a condition to moving to meaningful negotiations on a final agreement. I came up with language for Secretary General Annan to use which was to the effect that the parties would be equal in the negotiations, and that any final resolution would take into account the equal status of the parties. Denktash saw that as an enormous victory. It was really intended to move Denktash off his position on recognition of TRNC’s sovereignty. He played it as a big win, whereupon Clerides [Cyprus’ president] played it as a big loss, and withdrew from the talks. I had to hold his hand, literally, in his suite in the Waldorf Towers, before he announced he would continue the proximity talks.'
