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Foreign Policy
The Cyprus Conspiracy: America, Espionage and
the Turkish Invasion
By Brendan O’Malley and Ian Craig
Reviewed by Michael Cox
Cyprus has suffered for its strategically important position in the eastern Mediterranean. Colonized by the Greeks in the middle of the second millennium B.C., it went on to iform part—and sometimes an important part—of the Persian, Roman, Byzantine, and finally, in 1751, Ottoman empires. The Turks retained possession of the island until it was annexed by Great Britain in 1914 and given the status of a British Crown Colony in May 1925.
At this point ts troubles really began. From the 1930s onward Greek Cypriots agitated vociferously—and after 1955 militarily—for independence from Britain and union with Greece. It was a nasty little war, with few heroes and scores of mainly civilian victims. Finally, in 1960, the Greek and Turkish Cypriots agreed on a constitution for an independent Cyprus, with the Greek Archbishop Makarios III as its first president. In late 1963, however, the Turks withdrew from the government; a decade of internecine warfare and assassinations followed between the two communities that were mediated or, more precisely, “observed” by the United Nations.
Ultimately—and some would argue, inevitably—the two most interested powers were drawn toward direct intervention: first Greece, which attempted to unite the island under its own form of benign military dictatorship on July 15, 1974; and then Turkey, which responded far more effectively and invaded the place five days later. The island was then divided (like Ireland more than 50 years earlier) and has remained so ever since—a sort of Ulster in the sun without the gallows humor. Bristling with troops and electronic spying stations, not to mention a large number of tourists who come for the ancient history and the cheap booze (something that Northern Ireland surely cannot boast), Cyprus constitutes one of the great unresolved conflicts of the late 20th century.
But was the course of events that led to partition inevitable? Could it have been avoided? And what part did the great powers in general and the United States in particular play in all this? These are at least three of the questions that British journalists Brendan O’Malley and Ian Craig set out to answer in this gripping, well-researched, and controversial study.
The story they tell at a galloping pace explodes what they see as at least three myths about the events of 1974: that they were the necessary result of the deep ethnic divisions within Cyprus itself, that the United States played the role of honest broker between its erstwhile nato allies Turkey and Greece (indeed, may have even stopped them from going to war), and that the division of the island represented something of a setback for American foreign policy.
What O’Malley and Craig seek to show is that 1974 was no defeat for the United States. Rather, it was the realization of a long-standing plan to save its strategic assets on the island (top-secret defense and spying facilities) from what U.S. officials feared might be a left-wing takeover if the crisis in Cyprus were not resolved. Cyprus, the authors believe, had become invaluable to Washington for monitoring both Soviet nuclear missile activity in Central Asia and potential military threats in the Middle East. Ongoing instability threatened these assets. By mounting an invasion, Turkey saved them.
One man in particular emerges as villain: former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The book takes Kissinger to task not just for misrepresenting the 1974 crisis in his memoirs (a somewhat naive charge to those familiar with Kissinger’s various efforts to rewrite his own role in history) but for being one of the main architects of the Turkish intervention itself. The authors maintain that, deeply worried as Kissinger was at the time about nato’s southern flank and the various political threats it faced in countries such as Italy and Greece, he put “no credible pressure” on Turkey “not to go ahead with an invasion.” He then did “everything” he could “to help the Turks make up their mind that intervention was the only way they could get satisfaction.” And having quietly encouraged the Turks to invade, while systematically “ignoring the advice of his own experts,” he played what even the Turks called a “constructive and helpful role” by not protesting the invasion and the subsequent division of the island.
Perhaps the only people who will not be surprised by all this are Greek Americans and the Greeks themselves. They have always suspected there was a conspiracy and have always insisted that Turkey could not have acted alone. As Makarios put it just after the Turkish attack: “The United States is the only country which could have exerted pressure on Turkey and prevented the invasion.” Radical Greek feeling was summed up even more forcefully at the time by Andreas Papandreou. The later-to-be Greek prime minister was overcome with anger at the way in which “the U.S. and NATO” had “handed over Cyprus” to Turkey. But this was no spontaneous event. “This was blueprinted long ago in the Pentagon and the CIA,” he maintained. Indeed, as far back as 1967, he had suspected that the Americans wanted partition of Cyprus and would use the Turks to achieve it.
The charge itself is not entirely original. Nor is it so incredible either. After all, the United States always tended to tilt toward the more powerful and stabler Turkey over Greece; and there is evidence—though much of it circumstantial—to support the argument that Kissinger not only knew about Turkish plans to invade Cyprus (hardly surprising given the close relationship between the United States and Turkey) but might have tacitly approved. The main worry for him, it appears, was not so much the fate of Cyprus but the prospect of a direct conflict between Greece and Turkey as a result of the crisis in 1974.
But there was still fallout, especially with the British. Deeply disturbed by the Turkish action, at one point London considered placing part of its own fleet between Cyprus and Turkey to deter the Turks. However, according to a leading British policy maker at the time, “the Americans vetoed the action.” It would even appear that Britain proposed “joint military action” with Washington: Again, the United States refused to do anything. This refusal was critical. As James Callaghan, then British foreign secretary, later admitted in his memoirs: “I was determined that if military force had to be used in Cyprus there must be a clear understanding with the United States, with their support fully guaranteed.” Without this understanding, however, Britain would not—in fact, could not—act. And if it had tried to act, it would have courted not one but two disasters: a likely war with an important NATO ally in the Mediterranean and a possible diplomatic rift with the United States on the scale of Suez. Little wonder that Callaghan privately conceded to colleagues at the time that 1974 was “the most frightening moment” of his career.
But what of the man whose face appears on the cover of the book and who emerges as the éminence grise of this whole sorry affair? Well, to be fair to the authors, they did interview Kissinger. However, Kissinger conceded nothing and denied (and continues to deny) most of what the authors claim. Thus he denies—or more precisely cannot recall—ever being asked by the British to deter the Turkish invasion by placing the U.S. Sixth Fleet alongside British warships. He also denies ever having colluded with Turkey. And he denies American responsibility for partition. According to the third volume of his memoirs, Cyprus’ division had more to do with the bitter and irreconcilable differences between the two communities on the island than anything hatched by the United States.
Trying to sort myth from fact and rumor from reality is an especially daunting task. And whether O’Malley and Craig have managed to do so will remain a hotly disputed topic among historians. Yet they have done their homework. More important, they have drawn our attention to one of the great critical moments in the history of the Atlantic Alliance, when at least four of its members—the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, and Turkey—stood on different sides of the fence, and two might have even gone to war. It can be argued that this circumstance was the real story behind the crisis. Kissinger may be guilty as charged. But according to one logic, his guilt or innocence is far less important than the absolutely crucial role that nato played in 1974: not in preventing a Russian invasion of Cyprus or in stopping a communist takeover, but in ensuring that Cyprus did not shatter the West irrevocably and undermine what others had so carefully put together after establishing the nato alliance in 1949. Some might feel that a little bit of conspiracy was a price worth paying for such a valuable prize.