Dismantling the Cyprus Conspiracy

At this point it seemed possible either that Sampson would establish himself as leader, especially since Makarios had fled the island, or that a civil war would develop between right-wing and Communist forces. Again, due to the fact that the situation was “too complicated” and the need to “see what develops on the island” in order to determine “who to support,” the U.S. decided to avoid the recognition issue and claim it simply hadn’t arisen yet.¹⁶⁸ The U.S. may merit criticism again for its failure to take a public stance against an unsavory leader installed by outside forces. However, the State Department was certainly not in favor of a continuation of his leadership and the U.S. reaction again in no way indicates that it was utilizing Sampson to encourage a Turkish invasion.

Finally, the U.S. also made clear that it supported the restoration of constitutional rule and the beginning of negotiations to reduce tension in the Eastern Mediterranean. The first affirmation of this policy was on July 15 in the SAG meeting where Kissinger stated that “we want to advise [the Turks] on preserving the present structure on the island,” and Sisco agreed.¹⁶⁹ He reaffirmed this position on July 18 when he argued that “an ideal solution would be to get negotiations started, within the Zurich framework, towards a solution on which all sides agree.”¹⁷⁰ This policy was then communicated to the U.S. ambassadors later that same day in a telegram that instructed them to encourage “conditions for the development of a compromise and negotiated settlement which would permit the maintenance of constitutional arrangements on Cyprus.”¹⁷¹ The next day, as rumors of Turkish troop movements began, Ambassador McCloskey confirmed that “a military solution is completely out of the question and we are working for a solution through diplomatic processes.”¹⁷² The evidence does not confirm the belief that the U.S. was intent on a change in the Cypriot government that better accommodated U.S. interests. Rather, it shows that the U.S. felt a return to the pre-crisis government system and the continuation of negotiations would create the best conditions for the establishment of peace. Therefore the documents portray the early role of the U.S. as pragmatic and distant rather than as a consistent supporter of invasion.

Chapter 7

Who is to Blame for the First Turkish Invasion?

The conspiracy theorists also argue that the U.S. must have been involved in or endorsed the Turkish invasion. They support this by stating that, again, the U.S. had plenty of warning, Kissinger did not effectively arm Sisco to conduct credible negotiations, and the U.S. explicitly refused to provide military support to the British as Foreign Minister James Callaghan requested. This evidence will be discussed further in this section and countered in a later section on the realities of the U.S.’s policy.

The conspiracy theorists again claim that the U.S. had sufficient warning to move against the Turks and prevent the invasion. First, the U.S. and British electronic facilities on the island and throughout the region should have detected the movement of thousands of Turkish troops during the days prior to July 20. The primary function of most of these spy stations was to “eavesdrop on military communications and spot the movement of aircraft,” and thus the Americans and British allegedly must have had information about the armada landing craft.¹⁷³ In addition, O’Malley and Craig cite general warnings from the CIA, U.S. diplomats in Nicosia and Ankara, as well as media reports that the State Department did not act on. This was reportedly the only time when State Department initiatives were inconsistent with intelligence reports.¹⁷⁴ In contrast, National Security Council and State Department officials, including Ambassador Tasca, claimed they had not received the information.¹⁷⁵ O’Malley and Craig state this is further evidence that Kissinger kept important information from the majority of his staff.

Secondly, the conspiracy theorists again claim that the U.S. was involved because Joseph Sisco was sent to negotiate between Greece and Turkey armed with nothing capable of convincing Turkey that it was in their best interest to avoid military interference in Cyprus. Sisco also allegedly made no suggestions of punitive actions against the Turks and had little or nothing to negotiate with. O’Malley and Craig cite George Ball who stated, “He [Sisco] wasn’t armed with enough in the way of American leverage to be able to accomplish anything with the Ankara government and they went ahead.”¹⁷⁶ This was apparently because Kissinger chose not to provide Sisco with more weapons to deter the Turks.

Lastly, the conspiracy theorists claim that James Callaghan requested joint U.S.-British action to deter invasion, but the U.S. refused to provide the necessary military support. The authors support this claim with evidence that the British were unable to mount an operation on their own due to a lack of firepower in the area and the statements of Callaghan’s military adviser, Tom McNally.¹⁷⁷ McNally reportedly stated in an interview that it was made “quite clear that Henry Kissinger was not going to get the Americans involved and didn’t think it was a good idea for Britain to get involved either.”¹⁷⁸ Thus any military or negotiated attempt to deter the Turkish invasion was hamstrung by Kissinger’s actions, which indicates that he supported and encouraged the move. In summary, O’Malley and Craig argue that:

Kissinger’s action ensured the Turks knew their only hope of keeping the Greeks off Cyprus was to intervene militarily themselves, as was their right under the Treaty of Guarantee. Despite the culminating crisis over Watergate in Washington, Kissinger chose to act against the advice of experts in his own department, and in a way that ran the greatest risk of provoking a legally justifiable Turkish military intervention in Cyprus. The most logical explanation of why Kissinger pulled his punches with the Turks is that he believed the threat of Greece going to war over such a move could be contained.¹⁷⁹

The conspiracy theorists’ describe a U.S. policy of secrecy and intrigue incompatible with the actual development of State Department actions and goals. There are four major reasons why this is the case: the U.S. handled the warnings of invasion in a manner consistent with its policy up until that time, Joseph Sisco’s mission was nearly impossible from the beginning, the U.S. never intended to provide military support to an intervention mission, and the facilities on the island were no longer a U.S. priority.

The first indicator that the U.S. was not involved in a conspiracy concerns the warnings of the coming invasion. The primary State Department reaction to the rumors of Turkish troop movements was based on Sisco’s shuttle diplomacy. On July 19, Kissinger acted in a manner consistent with prior U.S. policy when he instructed Sisco, via Ambassador McCloskey, to “tell them [the Turks] that we object strongly to their actions, that it has strong consequences for everybody, [and] we now believe that the Clerides solution is the only one,” by which he meant Clerides’ establishment as the President of Cyprus.¹⁸⁰ In the meantime, he contacted a number of advisers including the Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and Director of Central Intelligence William Colby for advice on how to handle the situation. Kissinger informed Schlesinger that “we think the best solution now is to have a negotiation as rapidly as possible looking for the return to constitutional government,” and qualified his statement by saying “we don’t think this will really fly but at least it’s a slender thread.” Schlesinger felt “the Turks at this stage aren’t going to settle for anything less than a piece of the island,” but Kissinger responded that “they are willing to stabilize their forces and willing to accept the existing structure.”¹⁸¹ While this plan of action and confidence in Ecevit’s ability to control his military may have been misguided, it is also inconsistent with encouragement of an invasion. Colby’s recommendation was “to get the Greeks not to fight. To say all right, let’s negotiate and discuss what ought to be done,” and Kissinger appeared to agree.¹⁸²

Critics may claim this was another example of Kissinger’s “two-track” diplomacy, but his instructions to the foreign ministers in Paris, London and Bonn early in the morning of July 20 indicates otherwise. McCloskey reported that the U.S. position was to support a ceasefire, begin negotiations between the guarantor powers in London, and reestablish constitutional rule in Cyprus. In addition, he confirmed that Kissinger had instructed Sisco “to be brutal towards the Turks in the sense that he can say that we will withhold all military aid in the event there is an all-out war.”¹⁸³ Thus the evidence indicates that the U.S. did react to the warnings of the impending invasion and their reactions were completely consistent with the prior policies: support the independence of Cyprus and a constitutional government through negotiations and diplomacy.

Secondly, to add to the consistency, Joseph Sisco’s mission to the governments in Athens, Ankara, and Nicosia fit in smoothly with both the contingency plans recommendation of a “low-key diplomatic initiative” in the event of a crisis.¹⁸⁴ It began on July 18, but by the following day Sisco had already reported back to the State Department, “I have the distinct impression that no matter what is done in this situation, the Turks see it as an ideal time to achieve by military intervention a longstanding objective, namely double enosis.”¹⁸⁵ Therefore he recognized the limited effectiveness of his own actions during this time to create stability on Cyprus. As he wrote the telegram on July 19, the Turks were in fact already amassing troops in preparation for an invasion. Kissinger later stated in August that Sisco’s mission was, “First, to clarify the real intentions of all of the parties…And secondly to convey to the parties…our analysis of the situation and an explanation of our motivation,” rather than an explicit attempt to reach a solution.¹⁸⁶

In fact, Sisco worked to establish an agreement and a cease-fire, but shuttle diplomacy was not as effective in 1974 the way it had during the previous two crises. This was primarily because Turkey had already reached the conclusion that military intervention would be the most effective means to achieve their country’s goals. This was due in part to the frustration that resulted from the outcome of the previous two crises as well as internal pressures on the Turkish government from the public and the military. In addition, the situation in 1974 was distinct from the previous crises because both Cyprus and Greece lacked a legitimate government with international support. Turkey was able to attack an internationally recognized “professional thug” in Cyprus and a despised dictatorship in Greece to “protect the Turkish Cypriots” from a serious threat.¹⁸⁷ The lack of government also made Sisco’s negotiations in Athens and Nicosia next to impossible. Therefore, despite Kissinger’s instructions to “be brutal towards the Turks in the sense that he [Sisco] can say that we will withhold all military aid in the event there is an all-out war,” there was little that Sisco could do to prevent the escalation of the conflict.

Thirdly, the conspiracy’s claims regarding U.S. refusal to involve themselves militarily in support of the British also fail to prove that the U.S. was involved in the Turkish invasion. As discussed above, the U.S. had a long established plan to use only diplomatic means to handle any crisis on Cyprus. The involvement of U.S. military forces, even in support of a British preventative movement, was never considered or discussed as a possibility up until the 1974 crisis. Thus Kissinger’s refusal to permit the use of U.S. troops was consistent with State Department policy and does not indicate his encouragement of a Turkish invasion, but rather his confidence in the ability of diplomacy to re-establish peace.

A significant part of the conspiracy theorists’ argument concerns the U.S. facilities and British Sovereign Base Areas (SBA’s) on Cyprus. These facilities were allegedly so important that the Turkish invasion was permitted in order to maintain their existence and ability to fulfill their intelligence-gathering functions. On the contrary, however, State Department and CIA documents from the early 1970s clearly state that their value was not enough to risk a Greek-Turkish war, indicate that both the facilities and the bases were of limited significance, and assure the State Department that the Cyprus Government will continue to permit their operations.

In the early 1970s, America’s primary objective in the Eastern Mediterranean was to prevent war between Greece and Turkey and not to maintain access to the British SBA’s and the communications facilities specifically located on Cyprus. This is clear in the documents from the crisis itself, where the State Department’s five major priorities include the prevention of the conflict’s internationalization and not the protection of the bases, as described above. This point was also made clear prior to the crisis in March 1970 in a memorandum from Thomas Davis of the Near Eastern Affairs Cyprus Desk. The memorandum detailed the Cyprus Desk’s view on the different “analytical axes for approaching Cyprus’ impact on U.S. policy in the Mediterranean area,” and stated that “[w]e hope that this millennium would not bring the issue of the British bases and our communications facilities to the fore but this risk is distinctly preferable to [the] danger of [a] Greco-Turkish conflict over an unsettled Cyprus situation.”¹⁸⁸ The consistency in the State Department’s evaluation of the Cyprus facilities’ importance between 1970 and 1974 indicates that the Department’s policy did in fact prioritize peace between Greece and Turkey over salvaging the communications operations in Cyprus.

One reason why the State Department developed this policy may have been because of the limited significance these facilities and bases had for the U.S.. The British bases were less significant because of their declining importance for the British government as well. Several documents from the Near Eastern Affairs desks support this assertion in 1970 and 1971. In June of 1970, Thomas Davis sent another detailed memorandum to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s (INR) Philip Stoddard regarding the British SBA’s at Akrotiri and Dhekelia. According to Davis’ report, the British had 3,749 Army personnel and 5,369 RAF personnel stationed in the SBA’s as of April 1970 and, “[f]or the time being, the UK is expected to maintain these force levels.”¹⁸⁹ In addition, Davis states that “[b]efore political considerations…the bases…played important operational roles in the management of Britain’s overseas activities.” As of 1970, however, “the role of Cyprus in the UK’s global strategy seems headed for decline” since the UK depends more on its “West About” route overflying the U.S. in order to supply its bases in East Asia rather than the Middle Eastern route through Cyprus.

The SBA’s decline in importance was also because the U.S. appeared unwilling to use them for strategic purposes. This same memorandum from Davis makes clear that Cyprus lacked strategic value for any mission against the U.S.SR. He states that “[t]he U.S. Sixth Fleet has its own offensive-defensive capability against the Soviet Squadron in which the UK forces on Cyprus play no role.” In addition, NATO has no interest in the Cyprus bases because “anything that NATO (i.e., the U.S.) might contemplate doing from Cyprus against the U.S.SR and Eastern Europe could be accomplished more readily from Incirlik, Cigli, [Turkey] and Athens where U.S. forces are already in being.” The memorandum states that, while the U.S. receives intelligence information collected by the British, “the U.S. duplicates most of these with its own missions out of Athens” and the information the UK provides primarily concerns Cyprus and the UAR. Finally, the U.S. has decided at least once not to use Cyprus as a base for a special mission—in early 1969, according to Davis—and the Near Eastern Affairs desk also provided several compelling reasons why the U.S. should continue this policy in January of 1971. Their primary objections include the difficulty in obtaining Makarios and UK’s approval, the unlikelihood that the U.S. would be able to use the facilities again, and the backlash from the Cypriot people through propaganda.¹⁹⁰ While it is unclear whether the State Department agreed with this assessment or not, these reasons are undeniably compelling.

The communications facilities had decreased in importance for the U.S. as well due to the previously described reductions after the 1967 crisis. In addition, as a memo from the INR to Cyprus Ambassador David Popper indicates, the State Department had established plans to “phase out RRO [another of the State Deaprtment’s Radio Relay Office] in Cyprus, perhaps as early as Fiscal Year 1973,” by September 1971.¹⁹¹ These documents indicate that Cyprus’ strategic value had depreciated significantly by the beginning of the 1970s. The picture they provide of Cyprus is quite different from the “unsinkable battleship” O’Malley and Craig describe.

Regardless of the facilities’ significance for the U.S., both the Cypriot and British governments made clear that the facilities were not at risk before the crisis occurred. The British repeatedly asserted that Makarios had not questioned the bases’ existence since the crisis in 1963, most likely because of the significant economic support they provided to Cyprus. In addition, in 1968, UK Defense Minister Healey stated that the British “could not make use of Malta for all the purposes for which we now need facilities in Cyprus.”¹⁹² These claims combined with the SBA’s previously mentioned intelligence functions offer support for the assertion that these bases were not going to be completely phased out at any point.

The communications facilities also appeared secure according to the Cyprus government’s statements. In November of 1973, Representative Vassos Lyssarides made a statement in the Cypriot Parliament against the U.S. communications facilities, referred to them as “a blow against Cyprus,” and asked whether the government planned to “wind them up.” The Foreign Minister responded with a brief statement confirming that the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs is satisfied that the interests of friendly and neighboring countries are not affected by the presence of American monitoring stations in Cyprus.” The U.S. responded by notifying the Foreign Ministry that, as of November 2, the U.S. expected “we would be substantially reducing American communications operations [at Mia Milia and Yerolakkos] here,” which further confirms the declining importance of these facilities.¹⁹³ Cypriot support of the Foreign Minister was confirmed on November 29 when the House of Representatives defeated Lyssarides’ motion to close the communications facilities.¹⁹⁴ Thus the official policy of the Cyprus government did not question the continued operation of these facilities—although they may not even exist in the future. These documents thus do not describe the U.S. facilities as the lynchpins in the Cold War intelligence system upon which the conspiracy theorists base their argument. Further problems with the conspiracy theories are visible as the narrative of the 1974 crisis continues following the first Turkish invasion on July 20.

Chapter 8

July-August 1974: The Aftermath of the First Turkish Invasion

By this point, the Turkish forces had complete control over Kyrenia and an approximately 20-mile-wide corridor between there and the Turkish-Cypriot quarter of Nicosia. On July 23, Nicos Sampson resigned as President and Glafkos Clerides took his place based on the law of the Constitution. Confrontational skirmishes continued within Nicosia along the UN established “Green Line” dividing the two communities. Regardless of the continuing conflict, talks between the Greeks, Turks, and British were arranged in Geneva for July 25. The U.S. sent Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs William Buffum as Kissinger’s personal representative. O’Malley and Craig criticize Buffum and Kissinger for their “extraordinary failure to criticise Turkish action in breaking the ceasefire…even after the illegal Sampson regime had been replaced by Clerides,” during the Geneva negotiations.¹⁹⁷ The talks continuously faltered, however, as the three sides struggled to remain on speaking terms. Kissinger saved the talks at least once through long-distance telephone calls to the British, Greek, and Turkish leaders and ultimately managed to broker an agreement that called for the removal of Turkish troops after a settlement on Cyprus’s future, a standstill in fighting, and the creation of a UN buffer zone.

A second round of talks, again in Geneva, was arranged for the beginning of August. The Cypriot representatives were to be included for the first time. They opened on August 8 with immediate tension over the continued movement of Turkish troops and Makarios’ refusal to accept any form of partition. Meanwhile, Nixon resigned from office on August 9 to avoid impeachment over the Watergate scandal and Gerald R. Ford became President. Kissinger stayed on with the new administration and this time sent Arthur Hartman to Geneva as his representative and the U.S.’s observer. The talks repeatedly stalled as a result of Turkish Foreign Minister Turan Gunesh’s frequent demands for an immediate agreement based on partition and rumors of Turkish plans for a second invasion. O’Malley and Craig argue that Kissinger denied the likelihood of a second invasion and “made it clear that the United States was content with Ecevit’s reassurances of military restraint,” despite British mediator James Callaghan’s conviction that the military movement was imminent.¹⁹⁸ Thus the conspiracy theory holds that the U.S. prevented the British from moving in militarily and preventing the establishment of further Turkish military control over territory.

Despite later shifts in the Turkish position, the Greeks and Greek Cypriots refused to even consider the plans for separate Turkish cantons and division of the island. The talks began to break down on August 13 and 14 as Turkish forces began to move. O’Malley and Craig argue that Kissinger exacerbated the situation when he released a State Department statement that said, among other things, that “the position of the Turkish community on Cyprus requires considerable improvement and protection. We have supported a greater degree of autonomy for them.”¹⁹⁹ The implication is that the coup, which the U.S. reportedly knew about in advance, gave the Turks the right to seize control of more guarantees for the Turkish Cypriot community, including autonomous zones.²⁰⁰