Kissinger and the Invasion of Cyprus : Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean [1 ed.] 9781443898485, 9781443831796

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Kissinger and the Invasion of Cyprus

Kissinger and the Invasion of Cyprus: Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean By

William Mallinson

Kissinger and the Invasion of Cyprus: Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean By William Mallinson This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by William Mallinson All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9737-X ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9737-2

To the victims of geopolitics

CONTENTS

Foreword .................................................................................................... ix Alan Sked Acknowledgements .................................................................................. xiii List of Abbreviations ................................................................................. xv Some Key Dates ...................................................................................... xvii Preface ...................................................................................................... xix Introduction ............................................................................................ xxiii Statesman or Political Opportunist? Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Kissinger’s Outlook Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 27 The Asset Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 41 The Art of Dismemberment Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 55 The Obsession with the USSR Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 65 Officials’ Views on Kissinger’s Views Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 83 Procrastination, Evasion and Invasion Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 121 Aftermath and Goodbye

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Contents

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 153 The Undermining of Diplomacy? Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 169 Then is Now Appendix ................................................................................................. 185 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 187 Index ........................................................................................................ 193



FOREWORD

Henry Kissinger seems to be once again in the news. In February 2016 in the New Hampshire primary in the United States the supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders used Kissinger’s friendship with Hilary Clinton to undermine the foreign policy credentials of that lady. They pointed out that in 2010 a White House tape from the Nixon era had been released on which Kissinger could be heard telling the president that helping Soviet Jews to escape oppression ‘was not an objective of American foreign policy,’ adding: ’And even if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.’ The Sanders camp also reminded voters that between 1969 and 1973, Kissinger’s policy of secretly bombing Cambodia had caused 100,000 deaths and the coming to power of the genocidal Pol Pot. The secret bombing of Laos for nine years had caused another 100,000 casualties. Academically, Kissinger was also in the news with the publication of Niall Ferguson’s first massive volume of Kissinger’s official biography, entitled Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist. This appeared in 2015 at about the same time as Greg Grandin’s Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman. Ferguson’s book is very defensive, while Grandin has little good to say about Nixon’s Secretary of State. Unflattering portraits of Kissinger, of course, are not new and have been drawn most famously by Christopher Hitchens, Seymour Hersh, Robert Dallek and others. The novelist Joseph Heller memorably referred to Kissinger as ‘an odious schlump who made war gladly’. His leading biographer, Walter Isaacson, however, was less hostile, merely calling him ‘a brilliant conceptualizer’ who was ‘slightly conspiratorial in outlook’. Ferguson tries to explain the near universal hostility to Kissinger by suggesting motives such as envy or even anti-Semitism, although critics like Hitchens and Hersh were Jewish. Also, Kissinger’s lack of solicitude for Soviet Jews rather undermines any sympathy for him in this respect, even if it were true. It certainly undermines Ferguson’s case that he was an idealist, as do the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and Laotians. When Cambodia was being bombed, Alexander Haig, apparently,

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was given the parameters ‘anything that flies or anything that moves’. Kissinger, of course, attempted to keep all this secret. His other policies showed little evidence of idealism either, whether it was the ‘Tar Baby Option’ of supporting the racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa in southern Africa or the aid given to the right-wing military regimes of Chile and Argentina in Latin America together with his defence of their subsequent records of torture and murder. He told Pinochet in 1976: ‘We are not out to weaken your position’. Before the invasion of East Timor, he told General Suharto of Indonesia: ‘It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly’. That brought about yet another 100,000 deaths. Gary Bass of Princeton has accused him of expediting Pakistan’s genocide in 1971 in Bangladesh. Ferguson argues—correctly—that the crimes of the Communists were much worse: ‘[A]rguments that focus on loss of life in strategically marginal countries—and there is no other way of describing Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Cyprus and East Timor—must be tested against this question: how, in each case, would an alternative decision have affected US relations with strategically important countries like the Soviet Union, China, and the major Western European powers?’ In a similar vein, Ferguson asks, given that since the West won the Cold War, how would different policies have provided better results? In his own review of Ferguson’s book, Grandin pointed out that the question was meaningless, given that there were millions of different possible counterfactual answers to it. More to the point, if all the areas in which Kissinger has been accused of war crimes were ‘strategically marginal’, why should different policies there have affected the outcome of the Cold War in any case? Grandin’s book argues that Kissinger’s legacy included the use of war as an instrument of policy and asks why Kissinger lurched consistently to the militarist right all the way from Vietnam in 1969 to Iraq in 2003. One answer according to Grandin was Kissinger’s fear of stasis in international affairs—the status quo had always to be tested by great power rivalry. Part of this fear was Kissinger’s obsession with the need to maintain credibility, which led in turn to a need for action, if only to avoid the appearance of being unable to act. (The same fear underpins Republican criticism of Barack Obama’s foreign policy today). His other legacy, of course, was secrecy, and his attempts to cover up the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, Grandin rightly asserts, was much worse a crime than Nixon’s futile attempt to cover up Watergate.

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Ferguson attempts to defend Kissinger from the charge that although always ambitious for personal advancement, he was two-faced about his employers. Grandin points out, on the other hand, that there are too many witnesses who can attest that while obsequious to Rockefeller and Nixon while in their company, he was derisive about them behind their backs. Again, during the presidential election of 1968, he was in contact with both the Republican and Democratic camps. Despite Ferguson’s best attempts, it is difficult to see Kissinger as a modest idealist or really sympathetic in any way. Grandin at least publishes one of his jokes. After dumping more than six million tons of bombs on Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people there, before negotiating a peace in 1973 not much different from the one on offer in 1968, Kissinger said: ‘We bombed them into letting us accept their terms.’ Very drole. Bill Mallinson’s book is his fourth on Cyprus, on which he is an acknowledged expert. In fact, he probably knows the British archives better than anyone does where the question of British policy in Cyprus is concerned. In this volume he uses these archives to great effect to discover Kissinger’s role in the Cyprus crisis of 1974. Large extracts are provided from key documents, and the British government—whose role in independent Cyprus was always to play off Greek and Turkish Cypriots against each other to secure possession of the British bases there (more than half the treaty establishing Cyprus’s independence is related to these bases)—is clearly shown as consistently and obsequiously submitting to Kissinger. For example, after informing the US Secretary of State that Britain in the aftermath of the crisis preferred to withdraw from the bases, Kissinger protested that this would undermine Western interests in the Middle East. Callaghan, the British Foreign Secretary, then replied: ‘We shall not in present circumstances proceed with our preferred policy of withdrawing from the bases altogether,’ adding that Kissinger’s argument was the ‘determining consideration’. Callaghan does not emerge well from the book. Mallinson proves conclusively that he denied to a parliamentary committee that he had foreknowledge of the Turkish invasions, when in fact the documents demonstrate that he did know. As for Kissinger, Mallinson uses a variety of original sources to demonstrate that he was hardly universally admired by his diplomatic contemporaries. Mallinson, too, is no admirer. Kissinger is seen as an inveterate cold warrior with a dislike of Greece, Greek Cypriots and of the Greek Cypriot leader Makarios. He was obsessed with keeping Turkey as

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an ally and an intermediary between the Soviet Union and the Arab world. Indeed, Cyprus was merely seen as a ‘staging post’ for the Middle East and its own interests were of little consequence as far as Kissinger was concerned. He was always in favour of partitioning it and, like Callaghan, knew in advance of the Turkish invasion. Whether he actively encouraged it, however, remains a moot point. Mallinson, who does not mince his words or restrain his opinions, describes Cyprus in this story as ‘a geopolitical victim’. Mallinson also reviews Kissinger’s works and his ideas. However, he is not impressed. Kissinger was trained as a political scientist, not a historian, and he finds his books unoriginal. Nor was he a trained diplomat. Hence, in Mallinson’s view, he was ‘a pseudo-diplomatic bull in a china-shop’. He ‘abused diplomacy’ and his impact on diplomacy was minimal. He was naïve about nuclear weapons, obsessed with ‘power’ and ‘power vacuums’, and in the medium term, his great achievement of separating Russia and China has now been reversed. He concludes: ‘Considering his studiedly incompetent behaviour over Cyprus, if he can be described as a statesman, he can also be described as a geopolitical engineer who treated people as geopolitical fodder and reduced morality to the status of a tactical tool, as did his wishful alter ego Metternich.’ Clearly, therefore, Mallinson does not agree with Ferguson. His book strengthens the critiques of Grandin and others by offering a very detailed, well-documented analysis of Kissinger’s role in the Cyprus crisis. It will have to be read by all those interested in either Kissinger’s reputation or the details of how the Cyprus crisis of 1974 was resolved. *** Alan Sked Emeritus Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank Zoran Ristic, for his help in locating some interesting articles and in producing a decent text (he was one of the above-mentioned victims of geopolitics, having been bombed illegally by NATO for 78 days); the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of yesteryear for improving my reading and writing skills and my understanding the importance of documents; and various retired and late British diplomats for writing incisively and knowledgeably.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AKEL CO EAM EDES EEC EOKA FO FCO JIC MBFR MOD NATO SACEUR SALT SBA TMT UN UNFICYP

Cypriot Progressive People’s Working Party Colonial Office National Liberation Front National Republican Greek League European Economic Community National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters Foreign Office Foreign and Commonwealth Office Joint Intelligence Committee Mutual Balanced Force Reductions Ministry of Defence North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Supreme Allied Commander Europe Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Sovereign Base Area Turkish Defence Force United Nations United Nations Forces in Cyrus

SOME KEY DATES

1191 1192 1473 1489 1571 1878 1914 1923 1925 1931 1953 1955 1957 1958 1960 1963

1964 1967

1969 1973

Richard Coeur de Lion captures Cyprus, selling it to the Knights Templar. Guy de Lusignan acquires Cyprus. Venice becomes protector of Cyprus. Venice introduces direct rule. Ottoman Turks capture Cyprus. Britain rents Cyprus. Britain annexes Cyprus. Henry Kissinger born. Britain introduces colonial constitution. Cypriots burn down Government House: constitution revoked. British Prime Minister refuses to discuss Enosis. EOKA enosis campaign begins; British-Greek-Turkish conference blows up; anti-Greek riots in Turkey. Kissinger’s book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy published. Turkish Cypriots riot against Greek Cypriots, having planted a bomb against themselves, in order to blame the Greek Cypriots. Cyprus gains nominal sovereignty over most of its territory. Archbishop Makarios introduces his ‘Thirteen Point Plan’, with the Foreign Office’s support, to amend the constitution; ‘communal troubles’ begin. Soviet and American pressure averts war between Greece and Turkey. Military government takes over in Greece; war between Greece and Turkey threatens; EOKA leader Grivas withdraws 12,000 men. Kissinger appointed National Security Advisor. Kissinger appointed Secretary of State, keeping his position as National Security Advisor and chairman of the ‘Forty Committee’ (clandestine operations); 17 November anti-junta demonstrations in Athens; Brigadier Ioannides takes over backstage.

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Some Key Dates

15 July: anti-Makarios coup in Cyprus; Kissinger does not denounce coup; Britain refuses to invoke Treaty of Guarantee; on 20 July, Turkey lands troops on Cyprus; on 23 July, Clerides appointed as acting president, thereby restoring constitutional order; Geneva conference 25 to 30 July; Turkey continues to slowly advance; conference resumes on 8 August; Turkey walks out of conference on 14 August, and consolidates invasion, occupying over one third of the island. 1974/5 Kissinger expresses strong opposition to British wishes to give up its bases. 1976 Kissinger introduces his ‘Principles Initiative’ for re-unifying Cyprus, leading to, so far, over forty years of fruitless negotiations. 1977 Archbishop Makarios dies.

PREFACE

I have never met Henry (né Heinz) Kissinger, and am therefore neutral about him as a private person. However, my thoughts about his reported actions and behaviour - gained mainly from official documents, his own writings and various books and articles by others -, while detached and dispassionate, are nevertheless critical, negatively and positively. I do not count among those such as the late Christopher Hitchens, who appears to have succumbed in Cyprus, Hostage to Historyͳ and The Trial of Henry Kissingerʹ to an element of annoyance. Wishing to sound neither negative nor positive, I need to state that I am impressed by the sheer volume of Henry Kissinger’s works after he left the formal trappings of power. Most people in his position, even at the reasonably young age of fifty-three, would simply have made as much money as possible, provided that they were still fit enough. But Kissinger appears to have had the mental and physical energy to both write and to have a strong line in international business consultancy, while remaining influential in Washington governmental circles and elsewhere. In contrast, Mr. Blair left formal politics at the same age as Kissinger but, having had only his - rather mediocre - memoirs published, is probably more interested in his business career than in writing. Without knowing anything about Kissinger’s internal moral make-up, I nevertheless suspect that he took his teaching seriously (at least before he had to stop it when increasing his consultancy workload for Rockefeller et al), and that his prolific, and occasionally promiscuous, writing since he left formal politics may be intended for students’ intellectual betterment as well as for profit. Yet the thought also lingers that he is worried that his name in history will be either besmirched, or even ignored, and that he therefore needs to explain, and even justify, some of his decisions, particularly those that led to mass overseas violent death. That may be one

 1

Hitchens, Christopher, Hostage to History, Verso, London and New York, 1997. Ibid., The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Atlantic Books, London, 2014; first published in 2002 by Verso.

2

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of his motives for having prevailed upon a well-known historian to write his biography.3 One can also wonder whether Kissinger has some difficulty in writing from the heart, unless it is expressed and hidden in bromides as, for example in his latest book. In his writings he does not come across as overly caring for people as human beings, but rather more for his perceived systems in which people live. I find this strange, and wonder whether he is using rationalisation and cognitive self-dissonance to explain to himself the unfortunate results of some of his decisions and wheelerdealing on Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Chile and Cyprus. I have to say that I have been intrigued, and possibly affected by, inter alia, Hitchens’s occasionally vituperative but nevertheless incisive and journalistic approach, and hope that the thought of hundreds of thousands of utterly innocent South East Asian families blown to pieces by, it has been claimed, Kissinger’s decisions, has not affected my writing. I do not think that it has, since I am not a judge dealing with the evidence or otherwise on such matters, but rather an academic, hunting, consulting, reading, analysing and evaluating documents on Kissinger’s dealings visà-vis Cyprus. Original documents form the basis of my views. At this point I must make it clear that this book specifically uses the case of Cyprus to demonstrate Kissinger’s behaviour in the Eastern Mediterranean, behaviour which may well have been replicated in other connected fora such as the Arab/Israel dispute (as we shall see, one of the reasons that Kissinger pressurised the British into retaining their military and intelligence territories in Cyprus was the Arab/Israel dispute). But it is up to diplomatic historians with expertise in the Middle East, South East Asia and South America to judge whether the documents covering their area bring out the same characteristics in Kissinger’s behaviour as those covering Cyprus. Brendan O’Malley’s and Ian Craig’s The Cyprus Conspiracy (an odd title) is also relevant here. They uncovered much, but since 1999, I have uncovered much more, plenty of which lends credence to much of what they state. Their book is racily written, hence the occasional odd slip,Ͷ but

 3

Ferguson, Niall, Kissinger, 1923-1969: the Idealist, Allen Lane, imprint of Penguin Books, 2015. 4 For example, on page 139, we read that Ioannides was ‘not a long-time client of the CIA’, while on page 165, they write: ‘[…] Ioannides, with whom the CIA, with

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nevertheless readable. While Eugene Rossides’s book Kissinger and Cyprusͷ is a robust attack on Kissinger’s rôle in the Cyprus fiasco, I learnt little new of significance. Had I met him, I might have slipped him a document or two. But the Greek lobby in the US can be surprisingly parochial, as well as being steppenwolfishly͸ torn between love of American anti-Russian ideals and frustration at American pro-Turkish policy. I have also been impressed by Niall Ferguson’s recent magnum opus, Kissinger 1923-1968: the Idealist,͹ although understandably Cyprus does not figure in his book. He has obviously done a great deal of homework, and despite his writing the book at Kissinger’s behest, does record, almost by default, some of Kissinger’s fence-sitting techniques and failures, such as when he was trounced by Michael Foot on his attitude over Vietnam.ͺ He also tries to dismiss not only Hitchens’s, but Seymour Hersch’s criticisms of Kissinger. That part of his book reads a little like a semantic battle, with Ferguson - surely inadvertently – managing to cast aspersions on, in particular, Hersch, who is known for his use of reliable sources. Thankfully, I am not in the Kissinger cheerleading league, and have only the documents to rely on. I nevertheless have little doubt that my book, a thankless task, will arouse vicious reviews as well as good and balanced ones. My first book on Cyprus, for example, attracted one of the most intemperate, emotional, thoughtless and uninformed reviews that I had ever read, possibly because the author of the review saw himself as the leading expert, and had never heard of me.ͻ Thankfully, his review made little difference, and has been more than counterbalanced by good reviews and decent sales. At any rate, this book might well attract some nastiness, simply because the combination of Kissinger and Cyprus is a nasty one.

 60 agents in the country, had long-term contacts.’ Despite the distinction between being a client and having contacts, this is confusing. See O’Malley, Brendan and Craig, Ian, The Cyprus Conspiracy, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 1999. 5 Rossides, Eugene, Kissinger and Cyprus: a Study in Lawlessness, American Hellenic Institute Foundation, Washington, D.C., 2014. 6 In Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, the chief character is torn between the urges of his ‘wolf-half’ and his ‘man-half’. 7 Op. cit., Ferguson. 8 Op. cit., Ferguson, Niall, pp. 671-2. 9 Robert Holland’s review in International Affairs, October 2005. I was allowed to reply in the following issue, but not at length. Holland did half-sheepishly seem to apologise to me at a conference in Cyprus just after his review had been published. I had actually referred to his own book several times in my book, in a positive manner.

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My twenty-two years of research on the diplomacy surrounding Cyprus, which has included my gaining access to previously unavailable files, sometimes with the help of the Information Commissioner, means that I can support my book with original source documents, rather than simply with other books or interviews. I am not a social scientist and international relations theorist, but simply a historian of diplomacy who hunts, captures, ravishes, devours, analyses and evaluates documents, the kind of documents with which I used to deal with in my first career as a British diplomat. I have done my best to avoid cherry-picking from those diplomatic documents about Kissinger that I have excavated, choosing to produce long tracts, rather than ‘soundbites’. Although the diplomatic documents generally seem to be somewhat negative about Kissinger, a few do come across as positive. When I had the idea of writing this book, I had already written four about Cyprus and related matters, in which Kissinger had figured. Documents that I had excavated for those books, allied to the new ones that I have found, cajoled me, quite legitimately, into seeing that Kissinger was a major factor, perhaps even the crucial lynchpin, in deciding Cyprus’s current kismet. Hence this book which, unlike my other books, focuses specifically on Kissinger within the context of Cyprus, and brings a tawdry tale up to date, a story which the battered people of that island deserve to know, since, as you read this, plans may well be afoot to further legitimise the Turkish occupation that Kissinger, at the helm of the foreign policy of arguably the world’s most powerful country at the time, apparently failed to prevent.

INTRODUCTION STATESMAN OR POLITICAL OPPORTUNIST?

[…] it is his manner of conceiving and conducting foreign policy without reference to, or knowledge of, the State Department or anyone else which is most worrying. It leaves one with the fear that any day something could go seriously wrong because the normal sources of advice, restraint and execution are by-passed.ͳ

This book sets out to demonstrate how Heinz Kissinger, a German Jewish émigré to the US in 1938, who then became a political scientist via accountancy studies and the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), was able to confuse, persuade or hoodwink - whether by design, default, jokingly sarcastic mannerisms, persuasive power, intellect, a lack of experience of professional diplomatic procedure, extenuating circumstances, or a combination of some or all of these - the various protagonists in the Cyprus débâcle of summer 1974, protagonists who included not only the governments of Greece, Cyprus, France and Britain, but even his own American government, all in the name, some might think, of his brand of balance-of-power politics which, if one considers the substance as well as the presentation, can be interpreted as a guise for simple power politics/political realism. By juxtaposing his own prolific writings with diplomatic documents excavated from the British Archives, sometimes with the help of the Information Commissioner, this book aims to show, chiefly in Chapters Six, Seven and Eight, not only the methodology he used to circumvent diplomatic norms, procrastinate and gyrate semantically, but his reasoning in acting as he did. This is where the documents come in so useful, particularly when juxtaposed with his own writings and with those of his apologists. Before weighing in, it needs to be stressed that any book on Kissinger - and on Cyprus, for that matter - is bound to be controversial, attracting some opprobrium as well as praise, given that he has his cheerleaders and apologists as well as his detractors.

 1

Tebbit to Wiggin, letter, 30 December 1971, NA FCO 82/62, file no. AMU 3/548/10.

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This book will be no exception, even though it is based essentially on documents, some of which suggest that he was rather unprofessional in his approach to his work. Kissinger, the quintessential well-educated Cold War warrior of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, is a pretty controversial figure internationally, even apparently taking French leave from Paris in April 2002 just after receiving a police summons to testify before a judge about the disappearance of five French citizens in Chile. One is inclined to wonder why Kissinger did not co-operate with French justice.ʹ He is also well-known for his involvement in the secret bombing of Cambodia and Laos, and the concomitant violent deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. And of course, there is more. A serious analysis and evaluation of his alleged crimes against humanity are however beyond the scope of this book: it would involve years of documentary research into South America and South-East Asia. But it is worth mentioning that one of the world’s most cited academics, Noam Chomsky, wrote in 2010 that Kissinger could certainly be brought to trial for his rôle in the bombing of Cambodia, ‘if the world were governed by justice, not forces.’͵ This book will however be useful in understanding his behaviour vis-à-vis his alleged acts against humanity, since the case of Cyprus serves as an accurate microcosm of, and pointer to, his behaviour in other world fora. That Kissinger is well-known is not open to question. But a number of qualifications need to be made: first, he was only in official policy-making and executive rôles for eight years, hardly comparable to his mentor Metternich’s long sojourn; second, it can be argued that he is as infamous as he is famous; third, although he is credited with negotiating an end to the Vietnam war, and was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it should be noted that the war continued with the invasion of South Vietnam by the North, albeit without American involvement. And not only did the North Vietnamese leader refuse to accept the prize, as Kissinger did, but two of



2 Ferguson, op. cit., p. 10, mentions attempts by various judges to question Kissinger, but does not take the matter further, understandably, since I doubt that he had access to the judges’ papers. I nevertheless assume that in part two of his biography, he will seriously address these issues, and Kissinger’s explanations as to why he avoided French justice. One also hopes that Kissinger will have allowed more of his papers to be released. 3 The Phnom Penh Post, October 2010.

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the members of the Nobel committee resigned in disgust. It is also possible that the Vietnam war would in any case have ended with or without Kissinger. Kissinger is also well known for having established relations with Maoist China. Although at the time this irritated the Soviet Union, whose relations with China were at a nadir, Kissinger nevertheless managed to become known as a leading exponent of détente, although it needs to be borne in mind that Willy Brandt, and arguably even his predecessor, had already begun the process. Kissinger himself has not been overly helpful in shedding light on many of his dealings in the Seventies. According to Christopher Hitchens, on leaving office, he classified many of his papers as personal, leaving them to the Library of Congress on condition that they be held privately.Ͷ To add insult to the injury of serious researchers, from 2001, the State Department was loth to release hundreds of Kissinger’s telephone transcripts covering the years 1973 to 1977, despite a Freedom of Information request and the National Security Archive itself recently filing suit.ͷ It was only in August 2015 that the State Department was obliged to release them, but some of them have been so heavily excised as to render them meaningless or open to misinterpretation. Serendipitously, this book reproduces parts of two transcripts, that were released by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, after three years of badgering by this author and the Information Commissioner. The Greek government is even more coy about the story, refusing, by a law passed in 1981, to release any serious papers on the Cyprus débâcle. Several skeletons still linger in the cupboard. It may strike some as odd that the man who almost singlehandedly helped to revive the term ‘geopolitics’ in the 1970s, by using it as a synonym for balance-of-power politics’,͸ recently told Der Spiegel:

 4

Op. cit., Hitchens, Christopher, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, p. 170. Burr, William, (ed.), The Kissinger Telcons: New Documents Throw Light on Sensitive Ford and Kissinger Views, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 526, The George Washington University, 19 August 2015, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB526-Court-Ordered-Release-ofKissinger-Telcons/ (Accessed 30 October 2015). 6 O’Tuthail, Gearóid, in O’Tuthail, Gearóid, Dalby, Simon and Routledge, Paul (eds.), The Geopolitics Reader, Routledge, London and New York, 1998, p. 1. 5

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You can’t accept the principle that any country can just change its borders and take a province of another country. But if the West is honest with itself, it has to admit that there were mistakes on its side. The annexation of Crimea was not a move towards global conquest. It was not Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia.͹

This viewpoint seems highly contradictory, given his behaviour over Cyprus, and his subtle condoning of the invasion, resulting in de facto changed borders, ethnic cleansing matched by that of Palestine in 1948 and since, and an occupation that continues as I write. One is inclined to wonder why he did not try to justify the invasion and dismemberment of Cyprus by saying that Turkey, like Russia, was also not aiming for global conquest. Instead, he chooses to blame the Watergate scandal for his apparently being caught on the hop over the Turkish invasion. On top of that, he delayed his account of the Cyprus invasion until the third volume of his memoirs,ͺ published in 1999, only touching on the question in the second volume, published in 1982.ͻ The delay itself speaks volumes, if one can pardon the accidental pun. As people near their deathbeds, they often tend to re-examine their past actions critically. One is inclined to wonder whether there is an element of this in Kissinger’s very recent pronouncements, or whether, rather than publicly wishing to atone for his diplomatic lack of savoir faire in a crisis, he is simply trying to deflect criticism - and even self-criticism - by his art of self-contradiction and possibly even self-deception, amounting to a form of cognitive self-dissonance. Or perhaps he is too realistic for any of that. Various examples of his possible intellectual inconsistency and semantic chicanery will crop up in this book. It is up to the reader to decide whether he has mellowed, and become less of a realist in terms of international relations theory, or whether it is but a question of semantic massaging, trying to protect his name in history, and ensuring that he will be remembered. At a meeting in Moscow in October 2013, Kissinger stated that although Russia and the USA disagree on some things, they no longer oppose each other. This might strike some as somewhat ingeniously ingenuous, since Russian academics were already wondering why

 7

Interview with Der Spiegel, 13 November 2014. Kissinger, Henry, Years of Renewal, Simon and Schuster UK Ltd., 2012 (first published 1999). 9 Kissinger, Henry, Years of Upheaval, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982. 8

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America was behaving towards Russia in an incipiently hostile fashion.ͳͲ On the other hand, he was playing to an audience of a new generation of Russian academics, and hardly wished to appear confrontational. Although Chatham House rules (also in operation at this meeting) forbid me from being more specific, Kissinger did appear somewhat sanguine about the state of the world, when in fact it was already sliding into a degree of chaos, which continues as I write. Was he just rationalising, in order to believe in a peaceful order, or did he underestimate the increasing level of chaos in international politics in our world? After all, today we are witnessing a harsh denial of the renowned strategist's opinions.ͳͳ In some of his books, Kissinger claims, as do his diminishing band of apologists, that he was not properly focused on Cyprus during the crisis that led to its illegal dismemberment. Thus he seems to be admitting that what happened was wrong, yet still saw fit to imply that the Cyprus problem was solved in 1974.ͳʹ One brace of apologists, supporting Kissinger’s contention that he was not closely involved in the Cyprus crisis, claims that Kissinger did not see Cyprus as a priority; they also claim, without offering any evidence, that the communications in the British Sovereign Base Areas did not merit the importance attributed to them by ‘conspiracy theorists’.ͳ͵ The precise opposite will be demonstrated in Chapter Six.



10 When I gave a keynote speech at Lomonosov Moscow State University (‘Sorokin Readings’, Eighth International Conference, ‘Social Inequality as a Contemporary Global International Problem’, 5-6 December 2013), the Head of the Sociology Faculty and other senior academics asked me (at a Ukrainian restaurant!) why America was being hostile towards Russia. They really seemed to have trouble understanding. I did attempt to explain that financial profit was a political ideology in the US. 11 Russian International Affairs Council, meeting in Moscow on 27 October 2013. 12 Op. cit., Kissinger, Years of Renewal. On page 239, he writes: ‘If success is measured by “solving” every problem, America’s Cyprus policy failed in restoring a unitary Cypriot state. But not every problem has a definitive solution, and not every status quo ante can be restored. The communal conflict between Greeks and Turks on Cyprus has proved intractable for centuries. However, preserving the general peace and the structure of the Western Alliance on which peace depended were important objectives in their own right. And those objectives the Ford Administration did achieve in the Cyprus crisis of 1974.’ 13 Lindley, Dan and Wenzke, Caroline, ‘Dismantling the Cyprus Conspiracy: The US Role in the Cyprus Crises of 1963, 1967 and 1974’, University of Notre Dame, 16 May 2008. Draft awaiting comments.

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Introduction

Another academic (who works in the occupied part of Cyprus) believes that there was no communication between Kissinger and the British Foreign Minister, Callaghan, on the first day of the invasion of 20 July 1974.ͳͶ Again, these claims will be torn apart, using the documents. While on the subject of ‘conspiracy theorists’, this is a label often applied unfairly by sloppy academics and government information departments. One of the better-known books that has come in for some criticism, for example by the above-mentioned brace of academics, namely The Cyprus Conspiracy,ͳͷ has in fact been proven to have been fairly accurate in some of its evaluation. Had a certain historian speculated eight years ago that Kissinger was desperate that Britain keep its bases, he would have been dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. So he held his fire, as any self-respecting historian must. But since then, he has obtained documents which show not only how important Kissinger considered the bases, but how he pressurised Britain into keeping them. The documents suggest that far from being a conspiracy, there was simply a secret high level idea to allow Turkey to invade and keep over one third of Cyprus, a plan which initially only Kissinger (and perhaps a small côterie) and his former student, the Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Eçevit, were really focused on. But we still do not know whether the invasion was agreed well in advance, or whether it was agreed on the hoof. We need more documents, and in particular all the above-mentioned telephone transcripts, unexpurgated. Of the better-known recent books which highlight Kissinger’s rôle in Cyprus’s destiny, Christopher Hitchens’s Hostage to History,ͳ͸ the abovementioned The Cyprus Conspiracy, Hitchens’s The Trial of Henry Kissinger,ͳ͹ and Eugene Rossides’s recent offering Kissinger and Cyprus: a Study in Lawlessness,ͳͺ are noteworthy for their critical stance. None of the authors are however historians. The first two books are by journalists, while the last one is by a retired US Treasury official. This book will put those books into a realistic current context through the documents

 14

Asmussen, Jan, Cyprus at War: Diplomacy and Conflict during the 1974 Crisis, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2008, p. 9. 15 Op. cit., O’Malley, Brendan and Craig, Ian, The Cyprus Conspiracy; I think that ‘conspiracy’ is too strong a word to use, although there was certainly plenty of skullduggery. 16 Op. cit., Hitchens, Christopher, Hostage to History. 17 Op. cit., Hitchens, Christopher, The Trial of Henry Kissinger. 18 Op. cit., Rossides, Eugene, Kissinger and Cyprus.

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excavated, as well as offer some criticism. This book will refrain from vituperation, allowing the documents to do their job. This author has never met Kissinger, and so is - perhaps thankfully – unable to feel anything personal about him. He hopes that he has time to read this book, as his reaction to the documents will be welcome and, surely, a help to international historians and students of relations between states, particularly given his clear penchant for those such as Kautilya, Richelieu, Metternich and Castlereagh.ͳͻ The book will also home in on various of Kissinger’s views which appear sensible per se, yet incongruous, and out of kilter with his general stance. It is a paradox that Kissinger is often referred to as a diplomat, for he was never trained as such. He was, rather, a political scientist who worked his way into three of the top jobs in the United States, namely Secretary of State, head of the National Security Council and Chairman of the Forty Committee, concurrently for a period, into the bargain. In its conclusions, this book will deal with this amassing of power and responsibility, juxtaposing his book Diplomacy with its much earlier namesake, by Harold Nicolson. As an academic, in 1957, several years before he hit the heady heights of international diplomacy, Kissinger wrote: But for the foreseeable future we should be able to count on […] Cyprus or Libya as staging areas for the Middle East, and on Great Britain as a staging area for Europe.ʹͲ

We shall see that this passion with Cyprus’s position (as well as that of Great Britain’s) as a Cold War asset will crop up as we proceed, reaching a climax in the mid-Seventies. Kissinger is a prime example of those who consider Cyprus as a cat’s paw of great power diplomacy.

 19

A review of Kissinger’s World Order comes out with the following: ‘Kissinger’s book takes us on a dazzling and instructive global tour of the quest for order, from Cardinal Richelieu to Metternich and Bismarck, the Indian Foreign Minister Kautilya of the 4th century BC and the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, and a succession of American Presidents beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, all culminating in a world order based on sovereign nation-states at the end of World War Two.’ See Isaacson, Walter, Time, 6 September 2014. 20 Kissinger, Henry, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Washington, 1957, p. 165.

xxx

Introduction

In the same year that Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy was published, so was his (1950) doctorate, in which his fascination with, and admiration for, Castlereagh and Metternich glimmer through.ʹͳ In particular, his support for the ‘Congress system’, agreed by the major powers in 1815 after Napoleon’s defeat, comes through, although he qualifies its failure by writing on page 174 that ‘Metternich’s policy should be measured, not by its ultimate failure, but by the length of time it staved off inevitable disaster.’ As we shall see, much of his thinking appears to have been influenced to a considerable extent by these two people, even if he criticises them a little. Thus, it would be reasonable for an insightful critic to claim that Kissinger’s ideas and actions are not selfmade, and that he is more of an academic turned top unelected politician than original thinker. This book should help the reader to make up his mind on how original Kissinger’s ideas were and are. But in defence of Kissinger’s ideas, let us recall Oscar Wilde’s dictum that most people are other people, their thoughts being someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, and their passions a quotation.ʹʹ This author sometimes finds himself wondering how many of his own ideas, even if seemingly original, have not been subliminally shaped by his parents, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Herodotus, Thucydides, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, Henry Williamson, Somerset Maugham, George Orwell, Ted Hughes, Graham Greene and John Le Carré, to mention just a miniminipinny number of people. For example, although this author thinks that his definition of a human being as a ‘bipedic memory’ is original, he has to accept that it may have originated in some pre-Socratic line he read, and then forgot, which then reappeared in new semantic colours years later; the same can possibly be said for his contention that in order to think, one need space not to think. At any rate, with Kissinger, it is not difficult to identify what influenced his writing and actions, tactical inactions, and studied procrastination and obfuscation. Some of his suppressed personal aversion to certain people and peoples comes through, for example, vis-à-vis the Greeks, just as Metternich’s aversion comes through. Indeed, the latter said of the Greeks:

 21

Kissinger, Henry, A World Restored, Echo Point Books and Media, 2013; first published in 1957. 22 Wilde, Oscar, ‘De Profundis’, The Works of Oscar Wilde, Collins, London, 1948.

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Over there, beyond our frontiers, three or four hundred thousand individuals hanged, impaled, or with their throats cut, hardly count.23

One can juxtapose this with Kissinger’s statement, reported in 1997: The Greek people are a difficult if not impossible people to tame, and for this reason we must strike deep into their cultural roots: perhaps then we can force them to conform. I mean, of course, to strike at their language, their religion, their cultural and historical reserves, so that we can neutralise their ability to develop, to distinguish themselves, or to prevail, thereby removing them as an obstacle to our strategically vital plans in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East.24

To add to this somewhat truculent statement, the dreaded Wikileaks offers us a brief insight into some of Kissinger’s backstage way of dealing with certain situations. A record of a meeting in Ankara on 10 April 1975 between top US and Turkish officials, where military aid was discussed, credits him with the words: ‘Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings: “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” ’25 Whether or not this statement betrays mere nervously studied humour, or something nastier, can remain a moot point for now, but by the end of this book, one might be tempted to wonder about Kissinger’s version of altruism. Before slowly turning to Chapter One, and Kissinger’s outlook on the world, let us quote from a letter, written by his father, to him and his brother, in 1946, as a starting point. […] “Der Mensch muss seine Schuldigkeit tun” (a human being must always fulfill his moral obligation). These simple words shall become a

 23

Sked, Alan (ed.), Europe’s Balance of Power, 1815-1848, Macmillan, London, 1979, p.7; Sked quotes de Bertier and Sauvigny in Metternich and his Times, Darton, Lonman and Todd, 1962, p. 251. 24 Economicos Tachidromos, 14 August 1997. The article took the words from The Turkish Daily News of 17 February 1997. Kissinger is said to have spoken these words to a group of businessmen in Washington D.C. in September 1974. The former editor of Economicos Tachidromos, Yiannis Marinos, confirmed the story’s veracity to me over the telephone on 17 July 2002. I reproduce it in my Cyprus, A Modern History, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2012. See also http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=168505.0. 25 Public Library of US Diplomacy, Memorandum of Conversation, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/P860114-1573_MC_b.html, (Accessed 20 October 2015).

xxxii

Introduction

principle in your life. Do always your duty to your mother in the first line, to your relatives, to the Jewish community, to this great country, to yourselves.26

Despite his father’s wish about duty/moral obligation, one can question Kissinger’s morality, to the extent of wondering whether human beings per se really figured in his calculations, as opposed to merely being pawns on a chessboard, and therefore expendable if necessary, in the interests of what Kissinger perceived as the common good, in his case the Atlantic Alliance, to which he refers often in his writings. If Kissinger took his father’s advice as it was written, then he would only fulfill his moral obligation towards his mother, the Jewish community, the USA, his brother and himself, the implication being that the rest of the world – call it humanity – was not overly high on the agenda. In A World Restored, he writes: The test of a statesman, then, is his ability to recognize the real relationship of forces and to make this knowledge serve his ends.27

If one stops and scrutinises that sentence, one realises that it is bland and lacking in intrinsic common sense: first, why should a statesman be tested about his ability to recognise ‘the real relationship of forces’, and if he must be tested, then on what criteria, and by whom? Second, what does Kissinger mean by the ‘real’ relationship of forces? The opposite of ‘unreal? Use of the word ‘real’ is simply bulimic linguistic pomposity. Third, what does Kissinger mean by the relationship (real or otherwise) of forces? Does he mean ‘relationship between different forces’? If so, then a modicum of clarity does at least appear. Fourth, why should a statesman’s putative knowledge about the ‘real’ relationship of forces be tested to make his knowledge serve his ends? Last, a statesman should serve his state, not his own ends. Be that as it may, Kissinger also writes, after praising Metternich’s ‘masterful manipulation’ and ‘remarkable diplomatic skill’: Metternich was aided by an extraordinary ability to grasp the fundamentals of a situation and a profound psychological insight which enabled him to dominate his adversaries.28

 26

Op. cit., Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 1079. For some reason, Kissinger has not translated correctly (it should read ‘a human being must do his duty’), in his translation of the letter. He has also inserted the word ‘always’. 27 Op. cit., p. 325.

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Here, Kissinger is simply praising Metternich’s alleged insight, dressing it up with the word ‘psychological’, and then paying lip-service to the idea of dominating adversaries, as if dominating is an important part of statesmanship. It may well be an ingredient, but Kissinger’s comment about dominating appears shallow. At any event, finding serious discussion about morality and Man killing Man is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack in Kissinger’s writings, although he does claim that Metternich was able to control events by defining a ‘moral framework’. But this ‘moral framework’ seems impossible to locate. In A World Restored, Kissinger does at least accord some recognition to the dreadful atrocities committed by the Ottoman Turks, with the bland statement that ‘the Greek rebellion continued with countless atrocities by both sides’.29 By doing so, he manages to equate Greek atrocities with Ottoman Turkish ones, which is really a bit rich, to put it mildly. One of the foreign stimuli to help Greece was the massacre of Chios, immortalised in Delacroix’s painting. As for the Armenians, one can rightly wonder why Kissinger does not mention, in any of his books, their mass slaughter (about one and a half million) by Ottoman forces in 1915. Kissinger appears loth to take the bull by the horns and address the blood and guts reality of the tendency of Mankind to slaughter Mankind, restricting himself to occasional vague references, hiding under Metternich’s ‘psychological insight’, and not therefore appearing to lower himself into the tough intellectual dungeon of frank verisimilitude, à la A.J.P. Taylor. At any rate, from what can be gleaned, Kissinger does not trouble himself too much with details, preferring to elevate horror to a more abstract plane. Therefore, it may look to some as if Kissinger has tended more towards political opportunism than statesmanship, strong on ideas – often other people’s – but shying away from tricky nitty-gritty. But we have until the end of this book to try and make up our minds as to his contribution or otherwise to diplomacy, and to the condition of humanity, using Cyprus as a tangible example. Let us now move into Chapter One, and begin to home into, and enquire into, Kissinger’s tactical and strategic ideas.

  28 29

Ibid., pp. 312 and 319. Ibid., p. 296.

CHAPTER ONE KISSINGER’S OUTLOOK

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.1

Introduction While this book is essentially about Kissinger and Cyprus, it is necessary to provide what insight one can into Kissinger’s views on Europe, the Soviet Union/Russia, the UK, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as on specific individuals, to provide a mental context and ease our way into what I maintain was his obsession with the island of Cyprus, underpinned as it was by his obsession with the Soviet Union and Communism, perhaps not as extreme an obsession as that promoted by McCarthy, but subtly strong nevertheless, in that he swam with the main current, ensuring that he occasionally criticised, so as to keep his intellectual distance. Kissinger is an intelligent child of the Truman doctrine par excellence (when working in Germany for the Corps of Intelligence Police, his ‘recommendations to combat Communist subversion were draconian’),2 but with the difference that in public he usually avoided the propagandistic zealous anti-communist and anti-Soviet language of some US politicians. He was too clever and subtle for that. Let us again quote his statement reproduced in the introduction, since it is a key to his view of the world during the Cold War. But for the foreseeable future we should be able to count on […] Cyprus or Libya as staging areas for the Middle East, and on Great Britain as a staging area for Europe.3

 1

Oscar Wilde. Op. cit., Ferguson, p. 199. 3 Op. cit., Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, p.165. 2

2

Chapter One

This compares nicely with his view almost twenty years later of Cyprus as an important piece of real estate on the world chessboard.4 Kissinger, described by one international relations expert, Christopher Hill, as ‘the arch-priest of the rational use of power’,5 saw the world more in terms of applying military power in inter-state relations than of multi-polarity and the ideas of freedom of the individual, at least as regards anyone outside the circle of his mother, the Jewish community, America, and him and his brother. He quotes Metternich again: For the strongest laws governing states are those of geography.6

The proponents of power politics often tend to put political solutions above legal and moral ones. Thus Kissinger also praises Metternich for transforming the Greek insurrection from a moral into a political issue.7 One can also argue that in the case of Cyprus, he put politics well above law and morals. Although in his various writings, Kissinger quotes the likes of Castlereagh, Disraeli and Metternich, men who saw their support of the Ottoman Empire as a vital piece of their strategy to prevent Russia from gaining influence in the Mediterranean, and although he has, as we shall see, a clear penchant for Kautilya8 and Richelieu, not once can I find reference to Guicciardini. And as regards great historians and experts on Metternich et al, there is only one brief and passing textual reference to A. J. P. Taylor, and a somewhat dismissive one at that, when Kissinger was writing about what led to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in 1939: Afterwards, there was the usual postmortem about who was responsible for this shocking turn of events. Some blamed Great Britain’s grudging

 4

Southern European Department, FCO, to Minister of State, 27 October 1976, NA/FCO 9/2388 file WSC 023/1, pt. H, in op. cit., Mallinson, William, Cyprus, Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations, p. 93. 5 Hill, Christopher, The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2003, p. 133. 6 Op. cit., A World Restored, pp. 309-310. Kissinger does not quote Napoleon, who stated: ‘Any state makes its politics suit its geography.’ See Malashenko, Igor, ‘Russia, the Earth’s Heartland’, International Affairs, Moscow, July 1990, p. 54. 7 Ibid., p. 302. 8 He does however distinguish between Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Machiavelli’s The Prince, alluding to Max Weber’s comment that the former exemplified truly radical Machiavellianism, and that The Prince was harmless compared to it. See Kissinger, Henry, World Order, Allen Lane, 2014, p. 199.

Kissinger’s Outlook

3

negotiating style. The historian A. J. P. Taylor has shown that, in the exchanges between Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the Soviets, rather uncharacteristically, responded much more quickly than the British did to Soviet messages. From this fact Taylor concluded, in my view incorrectly, that the Kremlin was more anxious for an alliance than London was. I believe it was more of a case of Stalin’s being eager to keep Great Britain in play and not rattle it prematurely – at least until he could determine Hitler’s intentions.9

Kissinger does not support his argument with documents; and given Taylor’s views on Metternich, it is in any case unlikely that Kissinger would be a Taylor fan (although he does cite his books).10 Taylor writes: His name was the symbol of resistance to the revolution – abused by the radicals, praised, though more rarely, by conservatives. His fall in 1848 was the decisive sign that the ‘springtime of peoples’ had begun. […] Metternich did not invent the Balance of Power, nor do much to develop it. The great powers of Europe existed without his assistance; […] His only answer to either liberalism or radicalism was, in fact, repression. If people were not allowed to think for themselves, they would be satisfied with material prosperity – and even this could be neglected. Since he had no genuine conservative ideas himself, he denied that radical ideas were genuine: and solemnly maintained that discontent everywhere was the result of a ‘conspiracy’.11

It is difficult to find a more unflattering picture of Metternich, one with which Kissinger would surely strongly disagree. But then, unlike Taylor, Kissinger was not a historian, but a political scientist, possibly influenced subliminally by his accountancy studies in the early Forties, in the sense that they could have added a calculating aspect to his developing view of the anti-Soviet Western world. Before turning to Kissinger’s views on Europe, let us see what some senior British diplomats thought about Kissinger’s writings: […] the book I would recommend the Prime Minister [Edward Heath] to begin with is the most academic of these productions: “A World Restored”.

 9

Kissinger, Henry, Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 347. Ibid., pp. 93, 117, 150, 192, 198, 199, 207, 218, 220, 286, 307, 414; Kissinger quotes fourteen times from A.J.P. Taylor. 11 Taylor, A.J.P., Europe: Grandeur and Decline, Penguin Books, London, New York etc., 1967 (first published in three volumes, 1950, 1952 and 1956), pp. 22, 24, 25. 10

4

Chapter One I think it offers a clue to the deeper roots of Dr Kissinger’s strange personality. Incidentally, my reference to Kissinger as “a romantic” drew a qualification from our Embassy in Washington, who said: “If to be a romantic is to admire great men who by cynical and ruthless action changed the course of history, then he is a romantic. He is also a romantic in the sense of seeing himself hopefully cutting as brilliant and successful a figure as those whom he admires. But it is quite clear for example from what we hear of his remarks in private that he enjoys making a cynical analysis of other people’s capacities and motives, and is introspective and aware of the fact that he may have an incipient folie de grandeur”.12

Clearly, Kissinger was not an overly popular figure in certain high level British diplomatic circles, arousing considerable disdain. We shall look more closely at his diplomatic credentials in Chapters Six and Nine. To now start to gain some insight into his views on Europe, we turn first to the above-mentioned Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, a book that, it can be argued, shaped and refined an American nuclear policy, and fuelled the arms race.

Europe In that book, he sees Europe as the object of Britain’s staging area in an East-West conflict.13 He regarded Europe (at least in 1957) within a NATO context alone, and one that must have American nuclear missiles: Almost as important as the possession of nuclear weapons would be the acquisition by our NATO partners of missiles, at least of intermediary range. […] The agreement between President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to make United States missiles available to Britain is a hopeful step in a direction which could become a model for all of NATO.14

The book is essentially an argument for letting the Soviets know that ‘our strength is great’, to serve as a deterrent.15 In advocating the feasibility of limited nuclear war, he certainly frightened many. Ferguson simply

 12

Cable to Acland, memorandum, 31 July 1973, NA/PREM 15/1983. Op. cit., Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, p. 165. 14 Ibid., p. 312. 15 Ibid., foreword, p. x. 13

Kissinger’s Outlook

5

describes Kissinger’s argument as ‘shocking’.16 It ends with the perhaps slightly questionable words: As the strongest and perhaps the most vital power of the free world we face the challenge of demonstrating that democracy is able to find the moral certainty to act without the support of fanaticism and to run risks without a guarantee of success.17

Put differently, Kissinger was implying that the Soviet Union must take America seriously. Europe had to be part of that, and should thus serve as a subset (although he would never put it thus!) of a subtly confrontational American Cold War strategy.18 As can be expected, Kissinger’s views on the world - and Europe is no exception – are predicated on geography and power. Just as he believes that Metternich maintained a balance of power system, so he writes that today’s Europe is moving away from that alleged system towards the subsuming of individual statehood into a common whole. Today, he appears to bewail this: Yet Westphalian principles are being challenged on all sides, sometimes in the name of world order itself. Europe has set out to depart from the state system it designed and to transcend it through a concept of pooled sovereignty. And ironically, though Europe invented the balance-of-power concept, it has consciously and severely limited the element of power in its new institutions. Having downgraded its military capacities, Europe has little scope to respond when universal norms are flouted.19

This somewhat simplistic representation of Europe subtly argues that Europe should adopt an American approach, to be armed to the teeth in order to show that it is ready to win wars if necessary. The problem here is that this leads to other countries doing the same, meaning a permanent arms race and muscle-flexing exercise, in what Kissinger would probably try to justify as a world system of balance of power, with America as the orchestrator, in the same way that within Continental Europe, Kissinger thinks that Metternich was the orchestrator. In this sense, America – and Kissinger – becomes a modern Metternich for the world. In his book Does

 16

Op. cit., Ferguson, p. 869. Ibid., p. 436. 18 De Gaulle put paid to US dreams of a totally subservient Europe, by developing the Force de Frappe. 19 Op. cit., Kissinger, World Order, p. 7. 17

6

Chapter One

America Need a Foreign Policy?,20 a sweeping comment on the changing world, and what America should do, he writes: The policy of seeking a European identity by challenging the United States works best when only one party resorts to it. If the United States retaliated systematically, as sooner or later it will, the strain with the European Union and, even more within it, could become severe.21

Recently Kissinger was continuing to criticise Europe: It isn't really absolutely clear when America wants to deal with Europe who exactly the authorized voice of Europe would be. Most importantly, on many issues, there doesn't really exist a unified European strategic approach.22

Kissinger appears to simply see Europe as part of the Atlantic system: For at least two other outcomes are possible: a Europe shrinking from global responsibilities, assuming the status of a mini-United Nations and delivering moral homilies while concentrating on economic competition with the United States: or, alternatively, there could emerge a Europe challenging the United States and constructing a foreign policy of mediating between America and the rest of the world, rather like what India attempted during the Cold War. With domestic politics reigning supreme and no looming security threat, Europe may feel in no hurry to choose between these options. It may thus wind up merging the two approaches, either of which would, step by step, erode the Atlantic partnership.23

Given Kissinger’s belief that the Marshall Plan restored Europe’s economic health,24 it is hardly surprising that he saw, and sees, Europe as a US-supported bulwark against Russia. One is inclined to wonder how deeply he has looked at the Marshall Plan, with its various controversial aspects: I doubt that he has read Alan Milward’s deep study, which makes it quite plain that as Marshall was espousing the plan, European countries

 20

Kissinger, Henry, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001. 21 Ibid., p. 51. 22 Wall Street Journal, 27 June 2012. 23 Op. cit., Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, pp. 51-52. 24 Op. cit., World Order, p. 282.

Kissinger’s Outlook

7

were in a period of rising output and expanding foreign trade.25 Yet the American Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Clayton, wrote in 1947: Europe is steadily deteriorating […] one political crisis after another […] millions of people are slowly starving […] The US must run this show.26

As Milward writes, the plan was designed for political objectives.27 Going a little further: it was a clever ploy to combine two objectives: to create an East-West politico-economic divide, and to increase American economic and political control over Western Europe. In short, a political business plan. This kind of criticism, or even mentioning a well-held view that runs counter to the conventional, and often sloganised, Cold War wisdom, seems to be beyond Kissinger. When it suits him, he appears to prefer sweeping bromidic analysis to the strictly mentally rigorous. Had he remained an academic, perhaps matters would have been different. Although he pays lip service to European independence, he leaves us in no doubt that this is qualified by membership of the Atlantic Alliance, which implies subservience to US objectives. Thus, there is a measure of intellectual inconsistency here, since one cannot have it both ways. Sovereignty means sovereignty, after all, and to insist that Europe must be part of an Atlantic system contradicts the very sovereignty on which Kissinger appears so keen. He even goes as far as to describe as nonsense the argument that the EU would decouple from NATO if it were to assume some responsibility for the defence of its own territory.28 Similarly, he recently wrote that Europe’s Atlantic partners (one assumes he means America and Canada!) have a stake in Europe’s political evolution, and that the US should prevent Europe ‘from drifting into a geopolitical vacuum’.29 The phrase ‘geopolitical vacuum’ is an empty one (no pun intended), often used by power-mongers.

 25

Milward, Alan S., The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945-51, Cambridge University Press, 1987 (first published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1984), p. 3, in Mallinson, William, From Neutrality to Commitment, Dutch Foreign Policy, NATO and European Integration, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2010. 26 Ibid., Mallinson, William, p. 37. 27 Op. cit., Milward, p. 5. 28 Ibid., p. 63. 29 Op. cit., World Order, p. 95.

8

Chapter One

Vacuous Obsession It is here that we see his obsession with ‘geopolitical vacuums’, in other words the assumption that any independent country must belong to a joint security system of one kind or another, failing which there would be chaos. Yet this argument can be turned on its head by the assertion that chaos is created more by trying to ‘fill vacuums’ than ‘living and letting live’. The most obvious example of the simplistic concept of filling power vacuums is that by expanding NATO to the East, to ‘fill a vacuum’, the Cold War is again with us, but a far more dangerous and disordered one than existed until the fall of the Berlin Wall. NATO expansion to include atavistically anti-Russian, and therefore pro-American countries like Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, has put Russia very much on its guard. When one considers that NATO began to expand towards Russia at the same time as it began its illegal bombing of Yugoslavia, it is easy to understand the Russian point of view. The only written reference I can find to Kissinger’s view of the bombing of Yugoslavia is a brief statement that Kosovo ‘did not have United Nations sanction’. Kissinger does not choose to comment further in the book.30 And here we have of course the inconsistency of Kissinger’s recent pronouncement on the Ukraine, referred to above, in which he warns of the dangers of another Cold War, a war which he was himself instrumental in maintaining, and even nurturing, before his alleged policy of détente. Yet only twelve years before his comments on the Ukraine, he had written that the most important reason for admitting Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to NATO was to ‘eliminate once and for all the strategic vacuum in Central Europe that in the twentieth century has tempted both German and Russian expansionism.’31 If Kissinger is now admitting that the Crimea is traditionally Russian, that the sanctions are counter-productive, and that the Ukraine itself has a special significance for Russia, he could presumably go further by saying outright, that not only should the Ukraine not go anywhere near NATO, but that it was a mistake to expand the organisation to the East. After all, it could be argued that EU membership should be quite enough to fill Kissinger’s imaginary vacuums. Thus, some might think that Kissinger rarely gets completely off the fence, preferring to keep his options open. One waits for Godot to seek consistency in some



30 Op. cit., Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, p. 22. But Kissinger did go further, stating: ‘The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia, was a provocation, an excuse to start bombing.’ See The Daily Telegraph, 28 June 1999. 31 Ibid., p. 42.

Kissinger’s Outlook

9

of his argumentation, which from time to time seems to reflect the very volatility in the international picture he tries to describe and comment on. It is as if he is trying to please as many audiences as possible, and categorising the world. According to Kissinger, if the United States does not bolster the EU to prevent it ‘drifting off into a geopolitical vacuum’ (again, the obsession with imagined vacuums!), then Europe could turn itself into an appendage to the reaches of Asia and the Middle East (and America an island off the shores of Eurasia).32 Kissinger, and indeed most political realists, are implying that to avoid vacuums, countries must be controlled by bigger ones. This is twisted thinking, especially since some countries might choose to remain independent, or at least reasonably so, such as Switzerland and Sweden. As for the simplistic, far-fetched hypothetical depiction of America as an island, the result of an excessively logical and pedantic geopolitical line of thinking, it reminds one of a wonderful game played by many children (and adults) before the electronic age of computer games, called ‘Risk’. Let Kissinger’s opinion, which comes across as a rehash of Mackinder’s obsession with keeping Germany and Russia apart, now lead us in to what he appears to think about Russia.

Soviet Union/Russia In the tug of love for Europe between America and Russia, it is clear that Kissinger supports the American side, fearing that a Russia-EU (particularly German) alliance would weaken American interests and power. None of this is, of course, new or original, as we shall see. At the beginning of the Putin era, Kissinger wrote that as Germany’s relative rôle and power grew, and as Russia recovered, there would emerge temptations for a special Russo-German rapprochement based on the Bismarckian tradition that the two countries prospered when they were close and suffered when they were in conflict.33 Apart from the obvious observation that conflict creates suffering, Kissinger goes on to write that German rapprochement with Russia would tempt other European nations to court Russia, in part as a reaction to American dominance, in part as a counterweight to Germany. It is clear that Kissinger opposes such

 32 33

Op. cit., World Order, p.95. Op. cit., Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, p. 40.

10

Chapter One

developments, which were in any case occurring as he was writing his book. French and German foreign policy for example, was closer to Russia than hitherto, under President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, who both had a warm relationship with President Putin. Subsequently, the ChiracSchröder-Putin relationship fizzled out through the electoral process, to the glee of the Neocons and, I think, Kissinger, and peace was put on the back-burner. Behind the above lies Kissinger’s view of the world as a geopolitical chessboard; and his apprehension, even at times irrational, of Russia: Backward, mysterious, elemental, enormous, it exploded on Europe’s consciousness only in the eighteenth century. […] An institutional relationship between Russia and Europe that is closer than that of Europe with the United States, or even comparable to it, would spark a revolution in Atlantic relations – the reason why Putin is so assiduously courting some of America’s allies.34

In Diplomacy,35 he refers to Halford Mackinder, one of the chief early proponents of the crude science of geopolitics, as it came to be known. This primitive form of IR theory,36 closely connected to political realism, and owing much to imperial and then Nazi ideology, was almost singlehandedly revived by Kissinger as a synonym for the ‘superpower game of balance-of-power politics played out across the global political map’.37 Mackinder wrote: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.38

The fact that Eastern Europe, or most of it, has variously been ruled by a single power before, but that that power has not ruled the world, does rather detract from the theory. Nevertheless, it was simplistically attractive enough to attract those interested in power, such as Kissinger. Clearly, the heartland is Russia and/or the Soviet Union. Mackinder’s second

 34

Op. cit., Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, pp. 70 and 79. Kissinger, Henry, Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 814. 36 Op. cit., Hill, Christopher, The Changing Politics of Foreign Policy, p. 168. 37 Hepple, Leslie W., ‘The Revival of Geopolitics’, Political Geography Quarterly, in op. cit., The Geopolitics Reader, p. 1. 38 The Geopolitics Reader, p. 17. 35

Kissinger’s Outlook

11

obsession was with preventing an alliance between Germany and Russia, just as Kissinger has written above, albeit more subtly. Apart from Kissinger’s own wartime and immediate post-war work in the country of his birth, and his witnessing of, and involvement in, the beginnings of the Cold War, his attitude towards Russia and the Soviet Union has been influenced by the rumbustious President Theodore Roosevelt, about whom Kissinger wrote admiringly: Roosevelt commands a unique historical position in America’s approach to international relations. No other president defined America’s world role so completely in terms of national interest, or identified the national interest so comprehensively with the balance of power. Roosevelt shared the view of his countrymen, that America was the best hope for the world […] In his perception of the nature of world order, he was much closer to Palmerston or Disraeli than to Thomas Jefferson. […] In Roosevelt’s estimation, only mystics, dreamers and intellectuals held the view that peace was man’s natural condition, and that it could be maintained by disinterested consensus. To him, peace was inherently fragile and could be preserved only by eternal vigilance, by the arms of the strong, and by alliances among the like-minded. 39

In World Order, while Kissinger devotes a good deal of energy to Theodore Roosevelt, he also devotes plenty of space to the more idealistic Woodrow Wilson. As part of Kissinger’s justification of American aims, Theodore Roosevelt represents America as a world power, with Woodrow Wilson representing her as the world’s conscience. Even the hard-nosed Kissinger lends himself from time to time to such expedient and convenient over-simplified pronouncements, which would surely amuse some Russian strategic thinkers. Certainly, he comes across as admiring Roosevelt, as well as cleverly qualifying this by also having time for Wilson, with the latter’s more conscience-ridden and idealistic approach. The question that arises is to what extent Rooseveltian policy is relevant today, just as one wonders how relevant is Metternichian policy. After all, it can be argued that the realism/power political approach led to two of the most devastating wars known to Mankind. On the one hand, Britain declared war on Germany because of its violation of Belgian and Polish sovereignty respectively (realism’s emphasis on the sanctity of state sovereignty), while on the other, strategic considerations were also

 39

Op. cit., Diplomacy, pp. 39 and 54.

12

Chapter One

involved (the obsession with geopolitical economic power and the concomitant control of resources). When it comes to Cyprus, as a political realist, there is an element of self-contradiction in Kissinger’s books. If he had been consistent in his attachment to the concept of the nation-state (in his books, he often refers to the Peace of Westphalia), then he should have virulently opposed any idea of allowing Cyprus’ sovereignty to be violated as it was through invasion. We shall of course deal with this later. Although Kissinger generally avoids being too overtly Manichean and evangelical in his writings (bar occasional excesses), he has time for various other former ‘fearers of Russia’, such as George Kennan, one of the chief architects of American Cold War strategy. Kissinger refers to him several times in Diplomacy. In 1947, Kennan wrote: It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy with the Soviet regime. It must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena. It must continue to expect that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the Socialist and capitalist worlds, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and weakening of all rival influence and rival power.40

This was like manna from Heaven for the appetite of President Truman and his circle of advisers. Whether or not Kennan was right or not is a moot point. Certainly, the Soviets are unlikely to have agreed with its simplistic and confrontational line of thought. When Kennan saw the excesses of the way in which his policies were being applied, it was not long before he began to criticise the Truman administration’s way of doing things, even advocating a policy of tentative rapprochement. But it was too late: the paranoia was beginning, along with McCarthyism. Kennan nevertheless remained an influential academic until his death in 2005. Like Kennan, interestingly, Kissinger was criticised by the neoconservatives for pursuing détente with the Soviet Union.41 In supporting and admiring less fanatic political realists such as Kennan, Kissinger is able to deflect

 40

Kennan, George F., ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 25, no. 4, July 1947 in op. cit., The Geopolitics Reader, p. 64. 41 Heilbrunn, Jacob, ‘The Wisdom of Henry Kissinger and George F. Kennan’, The National Interest, 14 November 2011.

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13

suggestions that he, Kissinger, was, and perhaps still is, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But such suggestions are nevertheless strengthened by Kissinger’s clear respect for, and even slavish emotional attachment to, President Truman and his policies, in contrast to those of President Franklin Roosevelt: Roosevelt’s conception of the postwar world may have been far too optimistic. […] I recount this brief conversation [with Truman] because it captured so quintessentially Truman’s American nature: this sense for the majesty of the presidency and the responsibilities of the president, his pride in America’s strength, and, above all, his belief that America’s ultimate calling was to serve as a fount of freedom and progress for all mankind.42

To conclude this brief foray into Kissinger’s ideas on the Soviet Union/Russia, Kissinger goes out with a bit of a whimper in World Order (his latest book), in that he only mentions post-1991 Russia a few times, en passant. He does of course devote some negative space to Russia’s past expansion (one of Kennan’s justifications for adopting a combative approach in 1947). There is a whiff of contradiction in this, if one looks at America’s (later than Russia’s) manner of expansion. We now move to Kissinger’s staging post for Europe, Great Britain.

Great Britain Given that Britain was the major world power until the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and taking into account Kissinger’s fascination with power, it is not surprising that he mentions the country often. Here, we shall provide a few of Kissinger’s statements and comments, simply to see how he views Britain: For the special relationship with Britain was peculiarly impervious to abstract theories. It did not depend on formal arrangements; it derived in part from the memory of Britain’s heroic wartime effort; it reflected the common language and culture of two sister peoples. It owed no little to the superb self-discipline by which Britain had succeeded in maintaining political influence after its physical power had waned. When Britain emerged from the Second World War too enfeebled to insist on its views, it wasted no time in mourning an irretrievable past. British leaders often elaborated the “special relationship” with us. This was, in effect, a pattern of consultation so matter-of-factly intimate that it became psychologically impossible to ignore British views. They evolved a habit of meetings so

 42

Op. cit., Diplomacy, pp. 422 and 425.

14

Chapter One regular that autonomous American action somehow came to seem to violate club rules. Above all, they used effectively an abundance of wisdom and trustworthiness of conduct so exceptional that successive American leaders saw it in their self-interest to obtain British advice before taking major decisions. It was an extraordinary relationship because it rested on no legal claim; it was formalized by no document; it was carried forward by succeeding British governments as if no alternative were conceivable. Britain’s influence was great precisely because it never insisted on it; the “special relationship” demonstrated the value of intangibles.43

Kissinger goes on to say that he considered attacks from within his government on the special relationship as ‘petty and formalistic’. Given his admiration for British imperial leaders such as Castlereagh, Disraeli and Palmerston, this is hardly surprising: he clearly admired the foreign policy pragmatism of the latter. In this connexion, he quotes Sir Edward Grey: British Foreign Ministers have been guided by what seemed to them to be the immediate interest of this country, without making elaborate calculations for the future.44

While Kissinger has his ideal picture of Britain and its pragmatic imperial policies, not all Britons attract his praise: when he disagreed with a British leader, Edward Heath, he tended to become personal, and even slightly unkind: A product of the lower middle class, he had risen to leadership of a party still essentially upper-class in its orientation if no longer in its composition. He had the insecurity that the British class system inflicts on those not born into the upper echelons. Some compensate by disguise, affecting the accent, postures, and bonhomie of the well-bred. Ted Heath had clearly chosen a different course. He gave the impression of a man who was in essence warmhearted and must have been in his youth jolly and gregarious but who had steeled himself by iron self-discipline to rest his eminence not on personality but on performance […]. The similarity [with Nixon] in psychological makeup was just great enough to make the ultimate differences unbridgeable. […] Nixon began with

 43

Kissinger, Henry, White House Years, Simon and Schuster, London, 1979 (first published in 1979), p. 90. 44 Op. cit., Diplomacy, pp. 95-6. Grey was British Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916.

Kissinger’s Outlook

15

enormous admiration for Heath; he had exulted in Heath’s unexpected victory in 1970. He counted on establishing a close personal relationship. It was doomed.45

Having painted this personal and skewed portrait, Kissinger then goes on to bewail Heath’s attitude towards his (Kissinger’s) beloved ‘special relationship’. The technique of personalising Heath appears to be intended to subtly undermine Heath’s own views. It also detracts from clear analysis: Of all British political leaders, Heath was the most indifferent to the American connection and perhaps even to Americans individually. Personally, I liked and admired Heath immensely; in many ways I have had a longer friendship with him than with any other leading British political figure.46 Yet this did not keep him from being the most difficult British head of government we encountered. Whether it was the memory of the American pressure that had aborted the Suez adventure in 1956 when Heath was Chief Whip of the Conservative Party (and he did refer to it from time to time), or whether the reason was dedication to a vision of Europe quite similar to de Gaulle’s, Heath dealt with us with an unsentimentality totally at variance with the “special relationship”.47

Suffice to say that Kissinger was emotionally affected by Edward Heath’s attitude, since it undermined his deep and emotional attachment to the special relationship. He must surely have breathed an enormous sigh of relief when Heath lost the elections, and the Labour government came to power. He writes eulogistically of Wilson and Callaghan, in particular. His view of Britain seems to be predicated on a combination of his admiration for British Victorian imperial policy and the emotional mysteries of the special relationship. He is also fascinated by the British system of government: The British Civil Service is an extraordinary instrument. Whenever a new party takes over, only the ministers change, while all other officials remain in place. […] If my personal experience is any indication, the British system handles transitions with extraordinary aplomb.48

 45

Op. cit., Years of Upheaval, pp. 140-141. I am unable to resist: ‘With friends like Kissinger, one needs no enemies’. 47 Op. cit., Years of Upheaval, p. 141. 48 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 608. 46

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Chapter One

It is interesting to contrast this with what he writes about French policymakers: But the Cartesian, ultrarationalist education of French policy-makers causes them to believe that the United States will understand their somewhat cynical applications of raison d’état […].49

About that great survivor, Talleyrand, who managed to straddle both Napoleon and post-1815 France, he writes: Talleyrand failed of ultimate stature because his actions were not always precisely attuned to the dominant mood, because nothing ever engaged him so completely that he would bring it the sacrifice of personal advancement.50

One can safely conclude that Kissinger was not overly admiring of France, in the way that he was of Britain. His comment about Talleyrand is dismissive. With Greece, to which we now turn, matters are perhaps more subtle.

Greece, Cyprus and Turkey His views on Greece, Cyprus and Turkey appear to have been influenced by his knowledge of, and admiration for, Metternich, Castlereagh and Disraeli, along with a less positive view of Greece’s hero, Capodistrias. As we have seen above, Metternich and Castlereagh were central figures in the ‘Congress system’ – so admired by Kissinger - agreed by the major powers after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815. His views on Makarios may also have been sullied – or enhanced – by his perception of Capodistrias, a former foreign minister of Russia, and later Greece’s first leader (to Metternich’s chagrin), since he clearly regarded Makarios as Greek by nature. Kissinger appears to champion Metternich, and denigrate Capodistrias. The combination of the latter’s being pro-Russian, and disliked by Metternich, has clearly influenced Kissinger. As we have seen above, Metternich had already been arrogantly disparaging about the Greeks:

 49 50

Op. cit., Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, p. 51. Op. cit., A World Restored, p. 136.

Kissinger’s Outlook

17

Over there, beyond our frontiers, three or four hundred thousand individuals hanged, impaled, or with their throats cut, hardly count.51

Metternich was dead-set against the Greek revolution, not only because of his own anti-revolutionary make-up, but because of his allies the Ottoman Turks. He even believed that the Greek fight for independence was the work of a French conspiracy, and described Greece as ‘that vast sewer open to all revolutionaries’.52 As for Capodistrias, when he went off to Switzerland on extended leave, Metternich wrote: The principle of evil has been uprooted. Count Capodistrias is buried for the rest of his days.53

Metternich was frustrated in the end, since Greece did at least gain independence, albeit only as a protectorate, before the imposition of which Capodistrias was Greece’s first president until his murder in 1831, a murder from which Greece is still recovering. When the decisive Battle of Navarino was fought in 1827, Metternich called it a dreadful catastrophe.54 Kissinger makes it perfectly plain, as we have seen, that he admires Metternich, but certainly not Capodistrias, of whom he writes: […] a Greek noble, who managed to combine the liberal maxims of the Enlightenment with service to an autocrat [he was Tsar Alexander’s Foreign Minister] and whose dogmatism and suspected Pan-Hellenism soon earned him the almost obsessional dislike of Metternich.55

Kissinger is indeed correct about Metternich’s obsessional dislike of Capodistrias, but his own remarks about Capodistrias are also a mite over the top. While he mentions ‘threatening missives’ and ‘bitter despatches’, he appears unaware of Metternich’s obvious dislike of the Greeks themselves, although he certainly brings home Metternich’s antipathy towards Greek independence.

 51

Op. cit., Sked, Alan, p. 7. Bridge, Roy, ‘Allied Diplomacy in Peacetime: the failure of the Congress System’, 1815-1823’, in op. cit., Sked, Alan (ed.), p. 43. Bridge quotes from de Sauvigny, B., Metternich et la France après le congrès de Vienne, vol. II, p. 514. 53 Ibid., quoted from Woodhouse, C.M., Capodistrias, Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 291. 54 Woodhouse, C.M., Modern Greece, Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 1991 (first published in 1968), p. 148. 55 Op. cit., A World Restored, p. 217. 52

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Chapter One

On Greece in its more recent years, Kissinger says little, not even mentioning the country (or Cyprus) in World Order, other than a very brief mention about the Greek War of Independence. Turkey has three brief mentions. In White House Years, there is no mention of Greece or Cyprus, but five of Turkey. Things begin to warm up in Years of Upheaval. Strangely, although Kissinger should in chronological terms have dealt properly with the Cyprus crisis, he writes: I must leave a full discussion of the Cyprus episode to another occasion, for it stretched into the Ford Presidency and its legacy exists unresolved today.56

This comes across as a rather feeble excuse, considering that Years of Upheaval was published eight years after the invasion. The reference to the ‘episode’ stretching into another presidency is both irrelevant and specious, particularly since he also implies in Years of Renewal, as we have seen, that the objectives of preserving ‘general peace’ and the structure of the Western Alliance were achieved in 1974. At any event, Kissinger, in both Years of Upheaval and Years of Renewal, chooses to emphasise what he terms the ‘atavistic bitterness’ between Greeks and Turks, even referring to ‘primeval hatred’. Although he writes about hatreds generated ‘out of reciprocal cruelties’ (the only atrocities committed by the Greeks took place during the war of independence and following the internationally approved landing by the Greek army in Smyrna in 1919, while the Ottoman Turks committed various atrocities throughout their tenure, the massacre of Chios being one of the better known ones), he does at least refer to ‘frequent pogroms against the Greek population in Turkey, and its elimination by massacre and expulsion in the early Twenties’. Slightly oddly, he refers to Turkish fear of Greek intellectual subtlety. It would have been useful if he could have elaborated on this.57 Perhaps he was thinking of Archbishop Makarios, about whom we shall shortly read Kissinger’s comments. When he finally gives his ‘full account’ in Years of Renewal, he decides to label the chapter ‘Cyprus, a Case Study in Ethnic Conflict’, thus deflecting the serious analyst’s attention from the other most important factor, namely the interference of outside powers. While he is correct in writing that a tenuous civil peace had been possible while the island was

 56 57

Op. cit., Years of Upheaval, p. 1188. Ibid., p. 1188-1189.

Kissinger’s Outlook

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under foreign rule,58 he goes on to say that Archbishop Makarios reneged on what he had promised, and sought to create a unitary state. This is both over-simplified and mistaken: it was an unworkable constitution that was the prime cause of the breakdown (as Kissinger himself shows, as we shall shortly see), a breakdown that had actually been activated by Turkishinspired riots in 1958, before independence, following the planting and setting off of a bomb by Turkish Cypriots against the home of the Turkish Press Counsellor, in order to blame the Greek Cypriots, a fact actually known at the time by the Governor, Hugh Foot, to whom Denktash admitted the truth.59 This is an example of foreign interference being at least as important a factor as ‘atavistic bitterness’. We should also remember that most cases of ethnic conflict have been caused by outside rivalries as much as by intra-ethnic tensions. When the Dodecanese were handed to Greece in 1947, there were no problems with the Turkishspeaking and Muslim minority, who are there today, as Greek citizens. But then, Rhodes was not considered to be a piece of real estate on the world chessboard, as Cyprus was. Despite Kissinger’s clinging on to the ‘atavistic bitterness’ argument in his opening sally about the Cyprus ‘episode’, he does nevertheless, seemingly contradictorily, write about outside power involvement as a cause of the trouble: In 1959, Britain brokered an arrangement which was doomed from the start because it sought to address the essentially irreconcilable demands of all the parties by agreeing to all of them simultaneously. The so-called London-Zürich Agreements established an independent, sovereign and unitary Cyprus in 1960 with a Greek Cypriot President and a Turkish Cypriot Vice President, each elected by its own community. The Turkish Cypriot Vice President had an absolute veto on defense and foreign policy issues and, provided he was supported by a majority of the Turkish Cypriot members of the legislature, a veto on fiscal matters as well.60

 58

See, for example, Coughlan, Reed, Sources for the History of Cyprus, Vol. XI, Enosis and the British: British Official Documents 1978-1950, edited by Wallace, Paul W. and Orphanides, Andreas G., Greece and Cyprus Research Centre, 2004, in which we see various complaints by the Moslem community about ‘their Greek compatriots’ (particularly at Easter). 59 Governor to Colonial Office, 8 July [sic, should read ‘June’] 1958, NA FCO 141/3848, telegram 751. 60 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, pp. 196-197.

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Chapter One

This is an eminently sensible evaluation by Kissinger (as far as it goes), but one that begins to weigh against his own argument that the Cyprus ‘episode’ was essentially ethnic; and he chooses not to mention the fact that the Cypriots were hardly involved in determining their own future; that the treaties that created an ‘independent’ Cyprus were predicated on Britain’s bases – de facto annexed; and that an extreme form of positive discrimination was introduced, whereby eighteen per cent of the population was given thirty per cent of Civil Service posts, forty per cent of police and armed forces personnel and thirty per cent of the House of Representatives. Also, when Makarios tried to introduce his thirteen amendments to the constitution, which triggered the riots and Turkish selfimposed isolation, it was with the help of the Foreign Office.61 Kissinger says simplistically that Makarios ‘imposed the amendments’.62 Is he merely mistaken, or does he know that the Foreign Office encouraged Makarios? All this demonstrates how outside involvement (and interference, from Greece as well as Turkey) were the main immediate causes of the breakdown. Kissinger, in his occasionally strangely contradictory fashion, is hiding too neatly behind the ‘atavistic bitterness’ argument. This is perhaps a product of his tendency to enjoy the broad picture, mentally, but to miss out on some of the vital detail. He prefers the wood to the trees for his comments, let alone branches or twigs. He also displays a tendency towards a subtle form of superciliousness bordering on sarcasm, when describing people whom he does not take to. Makarios is a good example of this: The wily archbishop […] His ecclesiastical garb and utter self-assurance were somewhat vitiated by his shrewd, watchful eyes, which seemed always to be calculating the possibilities of gaining the edge over an interlocutor – the only item open to question being the extent of that advantage, never the fact of it. […] Makarios, the proximate cause of most of Cyprus’s tensions […] archbishopal legerdemain […] the hire-wire artist.63

Compare the above with what the British High Commissioner to Cyprus, Hunt, wrote in 1966:

 61

Secondé to Ramsbotham, 11 March 1971, letter, NA FCO9/1353-WSC 1/1. Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 200. 63 Ibid., pp. 199-203. 62

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Makarios has the intellectual abilities, which would enable him to make his mark in a country of a hundred times the population. His mind is both clear and agile. He is a good psychologist and, although he sometimes cannot keep back a trace of arrogance, he is good at managing men […] For a Greek, he is astonishingly undevious […] I do not believe that he has ever told me a deliberate lie […] perhaps because he thinks such a thing beneath him.64

It has to be said that one cannot escape the conclusion that personal antipathy, or even a measure of prejudice, does play a rôle in Kissinger’s assessments. This is another contradiction, in that Kissinger is coldly analytical, hard-nosed and seemingly dispassionate in his views of humanity per se and his ideas about the ‘balance of power’ (his cloak for a hegemonistic approach). Also, he betrays a certain ignorance about Cyprus, when he writes that eight hundred years of Greek rule since the days of Byzantium had entrenched a Greek majority of some 80 percent.65 If he had any sense of the Eastern Mediterranean, to which we shall now turn, albeit briefly, he would surely know that Greeks had been in Cyprus for some three thousand years, and that it was not therefore Byzantine rule that entrenched a Greek minority.

The Eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is clearly important to Kissinger, even if his knowledge of it is only rudimentary. Apart from the wish to keep Russia out, his view of Israel’s geographical position has affected his strategic thinking on Cyprus. Not only did he see Cyprus as a staging post for the Middle East, and as an important piece of real estate on the world chessboard (previously quoted), but also as important for the Arab/Israel problem: He was also concerned with United States policy over Cyprus on the resolution of the Arab/Israel problem, and he regarded this as more important than Greek hostility towards the United States.66

 64

Hunt to Foreign Secretary, 17 December 1996, Valedictory Despatch, NA/FO 371/185620, file CC1015/16, in Mallinson, William, Cyprus, A Modern History, I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2012. 65 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 196. 66 ‘British Policy on Cyprus, July to September 1974’, 14 January 1976, paper prepared by FCO, NA/FCO 9/2379, file WSC 020/548/1.

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Chapter One

Understandably, Kissinger devotes plenty of space in his writings to the Arab/Palestinian/Israel quarrel, since he was deeply involved. However, unlike many Jewish experts on the Middle East, such as Ilan Pappe and Professor Richard Falk, he does not mention the expulsion from their lands of over seven hundred thousand Palestinians in 1948 (the root cause of the problem) or the reprehensible murder by Zionist fanatics of UN peacemaker Count Bernadotte in 1948. He skims over the facts surrounding the creation of the Israeli State in 1948, merely saying that Israel was forced to defend itself against its Arab neighbours.67 We see here again a tendency of his to avoid discussion on morality, and to avoid the significance of truthful detail. And he certainly does not wish to annoy the Israeli government too much, since he refrains from mentioning Palestinian statehood, referring only to the ‘Palestinians’ aspirations towards self-governance.’68 More curiously, given his well-known emphasis on the importance of history, he adopts only a barely historical approach. As we shall see later, his academic work was more akin to historiography than history per se.

Morality This will be a short section, since it is difficult to find serious references to morality per se in Kissinger’s published writings. Also, it appears not to play an important rôle in Kissinger’s – and that of realists’/power politicians’ generally – thinking, perhaps because the interests of the state appear as more important in the quest for world order, than does the welfare of people pur et simple. Just as Metternich transformed the Greek question from a moral into a political issue,69 so one gains the impression that Kissinger is of a like mind. His words seem cold: The precise balance between the moral and the strategic elements of American foreign policy cannot be prescribed in the abstract. But the beginning of wisdom suggests that a balance must be struck […] In the post-Cold War world, America needs the leaven of geopolitical analysis to find its way through the maze of new complexities.70

Contradictorily, this is in itself an abstract sentence, devoid of intrinsic meaning. First, because to balance, you have to measure, value or weigh.

 67

Op. cit., White House Years, p. 342 Op. cit., World Order, p. 129. 69 Op. cit., A World Restored, p. 302. 70 Op. cit., Diplomacy, p. 812. 68

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And while one can list and even put a monetary value on strategic elements, which really means business interests in their many forms, no price can be attached to ‘moral elements’. How does one explain to the mother of a baby shot through the head by an American soldier in Iraq, that American interests outweigh morality? On Chile and the junta, Kissinger is obtuse when it comes to human rights. In Years of Upheaval, he writes: I do not mean to condone all the actions of the junta, several of which I consider unnecessary, ill advised and brutal. Nor do I question the humane motivation of many of its critics. But it did inherit a revolutionary situation in which government-sponsored violence played an important role. A serious analysis must come to grips with these issues.71

In Years of Renewal, he writes: Advocates of human rights, espousing the single-minded stance appropriate to their vocation, would have stated our objectives in more absolute terms. As Secretary of State, I felt I had the responsibility to encourage the Chilean government in the direction of greater democracy through a policy of understanding Pinochet’s concerns, without unleashing the forces on which Allende had relied for his revolution.72

Reading between the lines, this comes across as mere public relations and semantic sophistry. He also equates a democratic election which Allende had won fair and square, with ‘revolution’. Kissinger, it seems, like Metternich, fears anything which can be connected to the word ‘revolution’. To begin to conclude this brief allusion to Kissinger and morality, it is notable that, although he briefly mentions Diego Garcia twice (to criticise Congress for its negative attitude towards establishing permanent military facilities there), not once does he mention that the Americans insisted that its around two thousand inhabitants (British subjects into the bargain) would have to leave. The British actually forced them to leave for Mauritius, even gassing their animals.73 The secret record of the meeting of 26 April 1974 at the State Department between Kissinger and his

 71

Op. cit., Years of Upheaval, p. 413. Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 759. 73 Op. cit., Years of Upheaval, pp. 669 and 1006. 72

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Chapter One

officials and the Secretary of the British Cabinet74 does not bring up the inhabitants of the islands at all, but shows how desperate Kissinger was to secure the agreement, despite Indian and Russian worries about militarising the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is another of Kissinger’s controversial bequests. In Chapter Eight, we reproduce the record of the above-mentioned meeting. While still on the subject of morality, one cannot not at least mention the horror of the bombing of Cambodia and Laos, since it is this bombing that has led to suggestions that he should be tried as a war criminal. On the other hand, as Niall Ferguson quite rightly points out, no one has written a book entitled The Trial of John Foster Dulles. And apparently the United States used military action or threats of military action three times more often than in the Kissinger years.75 The response to that is that many wrongs do not make a right. This book however concentrates on Kissinger and Cyprus, using the documents to show Kissinger’s approach to broader issues as well, and cannot therefore go into the horror of the bombings. Yet they do serve as a backcloth to Kissinger’s attitude. On Iraq, Kissinger writes that he supported the decision to undertake regime change in Iraq, and goes on to support President George W. Bush who, he writes, ‘guided America with courage, dignity and conviction in an unsteady time’.76 But he does not once mention the blatant falsehood fed to the world about the weapons of mass destruction. This reduces what he writes about Iraq to a jejune level. We shall look at this more closely in our final chapter.

Conclusions To say that Henry Kissinger admired Metternich and followed – even if unconsciously - what he saw as his methods and outlook is an understatement. Kissinger devotes space to stating that under Napoleon, the ‘system of legitimacy’ of the eighteenth century disintegrated, but that Metternich restored it. This is a simplistic view, given the 1830 and 1848 revolutions in Europe, and the seeking of independence from the AustroHungarian and Ottoman yoke, thanks largely to the ideas of the French

 74

Record of Conversation between the Secretary of the Cabinet and the American Secretary of State, 26 April 1974, BNA-PREM 16/26. 75 Op. cit., Ferguson, p.11. 76 Op. cit., World Order, pp. 324-325.

Kissinger’s Outlook

25

Revolution and Napoleon’s quest to translate the moral claims of the French Revolution into reality. Kissinger states that Metternich was the supreme realist and his opponents the ‘visionaries’.77 This black and white view is somewhat dismissive of those who disagreed with Metternich. Let us leave it to some diplomats to begin to conclude this chapter. The British Ambassador to Washington wrote in 1971: Frank [German State Secretary] turned to the subject of Kissinger, with whom he had spent some time. He remarked that as officials, he and I [Ambassador to Washington] were used to the minor role appropriate to our status. Kissinger was something else again. He saw himself as a policymaker on the grand scale and whatever the degree of co-operation between the working level of the State Department and the White House might be, this made for considerable difficulties. He did not feel that he had obtained any concept of Kissinger’s inner-most thinking. He gave two examples of his utterances. He had said after making one statement that this represented his (Kissinger’s) personal view, but added “I can assure you that in two weeks’ time it will be White House policy”. As he parted from him, Frank had asked whether there were any particular points that he should bear in mind in advising Brandt preparatory to the latter’s meeting with President Nixon. Kissinger told him that the President should not be pressed with questions about his future policy. I felt that Frank regarded Kissinger with considerable misgivings. He thought he was far more in the mould of Metternich than a man with a full understanding of the inter-dependence of a modern world. Frank clearly feared that this 19th century approach was affecting White House thinking generally and perhaps the attitude of the President in particular.78

On reading the letter, the Minister at the British Embassy in Washington wrote: As you also know, we share Frank’s misgivings about the rôle of Dr Kissinger.79

The purpose of this chapter has been to provide an introduction to Kissinger’s ideas, to help one to better understand his behaviour during the Cyprus crisis, which we shall soon begin to work towards. One is left with the sense that Kissinger sometimes tends towards inconsistency, fence-

 77

Op. cit., A World Restored, p. 10. Jackling (British Ambassador, Washington) to Wiggin (Assistant Under Secretary, FCO), 8 December 1971, letter, NA FCO 82/63, file AMU 3/548/10. 79 Ibid., Tebbit (Minister, British Embassy, Washington) to Wiggin, 30 December 1971, letter. 78

26

Chapter One

sitting and obtuseness; has an obsession with what he terms ‘power vacuums’; and, of course, has an extreme interest in power, and how to use it. One finds oneself wondering whether responsibility for individual human beings figure to any serious extent in his calculations. Juxtapose this with his occasional tendency to use grand-sounding, sloganised language, lacking in specific meaning and assuming that there must be a challenge, such as: While traditional patterns are in transition and the very basis of experience and knowledge is being revolutionized, America’s ultimate challenge is to transform its power into moral consensus, promoting its values not by imposition but by their willing acceptance in a world that, for all its seeming resistance, desperately needs enlightened leadership.80

Another grandiose statement betrays inconsistency with his anti-revolutionary views: After all, the task of leaders is to take their societies from where they are to where they have never been.81

If Kissinger has any redeeming features, they are, at least for some, his love of family and country; his love of reading; his obvious and natural expertise at overcoming obstacles to his policies, by dressing up hardnosed policies and making them appear reasonable and presentable; a natural bent for persuasion; and an ability to circumvent tricky issues. Within an American context, he can be seen as having been very good at pursuing policies in the interests of his country, even if many disagreed with those policies. Let us now leave Kissinger alone for a while, and turn to the history of his staging area and piece of real estate on his world chessboard, Cyprus.

 80 81

Op. cit., Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, final paragraph. Ibid., p. 82.

CHAPTER TWO THE ASSET

Borders are scratched across the hearts of men By strangers with a calm judicial pen.1

Introduction Since time immemorial, humans have been scrabbling over land and resources. Certain islands have been considered key to controlling the larger areas around them, Cyprus being a good example, situated in the middle of the Eastern Mediterranean, a hostage to the bitten fingernails of geopolitical ambition, par excellence.

Geopolitical Victim Ever since Mediterranean history was first recorded, world powers have been obsessed with South Eastern Europe and, more specifically, the Dardanelles where, they believe, ‘East’ meets ‘West’. They are still obsessed. The theory is that whoever can exert most influence in the area can control the Middle East as well as the Mediterranean. It is hardly surprising that the Eastern Mediterranean is the most combustible part of our planet. It all started at least as early as the Trojan Wars, with the fight for control of the Dardanelles. And just over eight hundred years ago, the wily Venetians persuaded the marauding ‘crusaders’ to capture Zara (now Zadar, in Croatia), a Byzantine trading rival. After destroying Zara, these same chivalrous ‘gentlemen’ of the Roman Holy Cross went on to sack and then control Orthodox Christian Constantinople, together with the crafty Venetians, for some sixty years, creating suspicion among the Greeks about the barbarian West that still lingers in hidden corners of the Hellenic psyche. When the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople from the

 1

Marya Mannes, in Hitchens, Christopher, ‘The Perils of Partition’, The Atlantic, Boston, March 2003.

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Chapter Two

Greeks in 1453, they were surprised at the damage perpetrated by the barbaric Crusaders two hundred and fifty years previously. The Ottomans continued their manic expansion, eventually exhausting themselves, at least for a while. In the later days of what was to become an administratively sluggish and sometimes corrupt and brutal empire (viz. the treatment of, for example, the Armenians), a growing Russia pushed southwards, trying to control the Dardanelles. In 1770, Catherine the Great tried to free Greece through the Orlov brothers.2 The effort to free Greece and make Constantinople the capital of a new empire proved abortive, thanks partly to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Greeks; indeed, Alexei Orlov wrote that the Greeks were sycophantic, deceitful, impudent, fickle and cowardly, completely given over to money and to plunder.3 At any rate, whatever the behaviour of the Greeks, the subsequent Treaty of Küçük Kainardji gave Russia the right, inter alia, to make representations on behalf of the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire. A commercial treaty a few years later gave Greek-owned ships the right to fly the Russian flag. Russia continued to defeat the Ottomans and move south, bit by bit. Britain, already keen on maintaining good relations with the Ottomans, particularly because of the route to India, became worried, and in 1791, William Pitt the Younger denounced Russia for its supposed ambitions to dismember Turkey.4 By the time of Napoleon’s defeat, Britain was focusing on Russia as the main hindrance to its wish to control the Eastern Mediterranean. It is no exaggeration to say that throughout the whole of the nineteenth century, one of the British Empire’s main preoccupations was with Russia, owing to the latter’s usually hostile attitude towards the Ottoman Empire. But let us now look at Russia and Greece as a way to better understand why the power-mongers consider Cyprus as an asset.

Old Relationship and British Consternation Long before Russia existed as a definable cultural, linguistic and geographic entity, Greeks had settled around the Black Sea. When Russia began to emerge, it was the Greek Orthodox monks Cyril and Methodius

 2

According to Woodhouse, Christopher, in Modern Greece: a Short History (Faber and Faber, London and Boston, 1968, reprinted 1991), p. 119, the brothers obliged Catherine by murdering her husband, Peter III. 3 Ibid., Woodhouse, p. 119. 4 Wallbank, T. Walter et al. (eds.), Civilisation, Past and Present, volume II, Harper Collins, 1996, p. 721.

The Asset

29

who laid the foundations of Orthodox Christianity among the Slavs, creating a Slavonic alphabet, based on the Greek, but incorporating some non-Greek sounds. It is no exaggeration to say that the rôle of the Greekspeaking Christians in Russia rivalled that of the papacy in Western Europe. After the fall of Constantinople, the memories of the Byzantine Empire lived on, not only in the Greek psyche, but in Russia. Some high points of Greek-Russian co-operation were Catherine the Great’s above-mentioned dream of capturing Constantinople and placing her grandson on the throne of a new empire; the treaties; the establishment of a military academy for Greeks in Russia; and Russia's crucial help in the war of Greek independence, which forced the British to intervene, more out of fear of Russia than sympathy for Greece. Modern Greece’s first leader, Capodistrias, had actually been a Russian foreign minister. By the time of the struggle for Greek independence, Greece had become a mere geopolitical tool of the British Empire, the latter even owning some Greek lands, the Ionian Islands. Greece owes its qualified freedom to Russia more than to any other country (although revolutionary and Napoleonic France also have an intellectual claim). It was despite, not because of, Britain, that the 1821 Greek revolution ended in independence from the Ottomans. It was the Anglo-Russian Protocol of 4 April 1826 that did the trick: it stated that Britain would mediate to make Greece an autonomous vassal of the Ottoman Empire, but that if this proved impossible, Britain or Russia could intervene jointly or separately. Russia intervened, and by 1829, Greece, or at least some of it, was free. When the philhellenic Admiral Codrington and his French and Russian homologues sank the EgyptoOttoman fleet at Navarino, the Foreign Secretary, Wellington, is well known for having described the battle, in typical English understatement, as an ‘untoward event’, while his ally Metternich described it as a ‘dreadful catastrophe’ (see previous chapter). Somewhat arrogantly and cynically, the latter had also said, when speaking of the Greeks (see introduction): ‘Over there, beyond our frontiers, three or four hundred thousand individuals hanged, impaled, or with their throats cut, hardly count.’5

 5

Op. cit., Sked, p. 7. Sked quotes de Bertier and Sauvigny in Metternich and his Times, Darton, Lonman and Todd, 1962, p. 251.

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At any rate, the freedom that Greece won, with the help of Russia above all, can be interpreted qualitatively: owing largely to British pressure, Greece was to remain a protectorate until 1923. In 1841, Sir Edmund Lyons said: ‘A truly independent Greece is an absurdity. Greece can either be English or Russian, and since she cannot be Russian, it is necessary that she be English.’6 The Cold War began earlier than most people think! The Crimean War perhaps represents Britain’s most obvious attempt to keep Russia away from Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. During that war, Britain and its then compliant partner, France, actually blockaded Greece to prevent the Greeks helping Russia against a weakening Ottoman Empire. Twenty years later, the Great Eastern Crisis demonstrated British concerns about a large pro-Russian Bulgaria, and marked the entry of Cyprus into the geopolitical equation. The British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, wrote: If Cyprus can be conceded to your majesty by the Porte, and England at the same time enters into defensive alliance with Turkey, guaranteeing Asiatic Turkey from Russian invasion, the power of England in the Mediterranean will be absolutely increased in that region and your Majesty’s Indian Empire immensely strengthened. Cyprus is the key of Western Asia. 7

Britain now controlled the west of the Mediterranean, through Gibraltar, the centre, through Malta, and of course the east, through Cyprus. For the time being, it can be argued, Russian power in the Mediterranean was curtailed, while internal problems were beginning to manifest themselves in Russia. Now that Britain had Cyprus, her control of the Eastern Mediterranean was pretty complete. Cyprus had of course only ever been independent, and only briefly, under the harsh Isaac Comnenus in the late twelfth century. Before then, it had been dominated by all manner of outsiders: Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Macedonian Greeks, Romans (including Eastern Romans, during which period even the Goths tried to capture the island), Arabs, Franks, Venetians, Ottoman Turks and, finally, British. Britain’s takeover was controversial, angering in particular France, which felt duped by Britain’s secret arrangement. Britain promised to protect the

 6

Clogg, Richard, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 57. 7 Buckle, B.E., The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, John Murray, London, 1920, p. 291.

The Asset

31

Ottomans from Russian expansionism, in return for paying a rent, whereby Britain simply wrote off part of the crumbling Ottoman Empire’s debts.

Greece and Cyprus as Anglo-American anti-Soviet assets The next war8 demonstrated par excellence how Greece was a British tool, even if it was initially Mussolini’s braggadocio and aggression that forced Greece into the war. The British were quick to bring in their Russian obsession, despite the fact that the Soviet Union was their ally. To cut a contorted story short, extracts from a Foreign Office (FO) paper prepared for the Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, in June 1944, show how Britain betrayed her main anti-German Greek resistance allies, essentially because of her obsession with, and distrust of, Russia and thus the Soviet Union: […] Nor can any accusation be levelled against the Russians of organising the spread of communism in the Balkans. […] The Soviet Government’s support of the Communist-led elements in these countries is not so much based on ideological grounds as on the fact that such elements are most responsive to and are the most vigorous in resisting the axis. […] Furthermore, if anyone is to blame for the present situation in which the Communist-led movements are the most powerful elements in Yugoslavia and Greece, it is we ourselves [my italics]. Russia’s historical interest in the Balkans has always manifested itself in a determination that no other Great Power shall dominate them, as this would constitute a strategical threat to Russia. […] whereas in the nineteenth century we had AustroHungary as an ally to counter these Russian measures there is no one on whom we can count to support us this time. […] As a result of our approach to the Soviet Government, however, the latter have now agreed to let us take the lead in Greece [my italics].9

Apart from the clear evidence that the British obsession with Russia (and Britain’s schizophrenic support for the communists in Yugoslavia and the anti-communists in Greece) and the Eastern Mediterranean had not changed, we see here that Churchill’s and Stalin’s infamous ‘percentages agreement’ at Yalta a few months later, whereby Greece would be ten per

 8

What is still called ‘the Second World War’ is in fact the Fourth World War, since the first war fought globally was the Seven Years’ War, followed by the Napoleonic Wars and the Great War. 9 Top Secret Foreign Office Memorandum for Secretary of State, 7 June, 1944, FO 371/43646, file R 9092, in Mallinson, William, Britain and Cyprus: Key Themes and Documents since World War Two (really World War Four, see note 127), I.B.Tauris, London and New York, 2011, pp.12-14.

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Chapter Two

cent Russian and ninety per cent English, already existed in essence. Greece was merely a geopolitical tool for Britain, which was soon to replace Austro-Hungary with the United States of America to counter Russia. Some of the main ingredients of the Greek civil war, Greek quarrelsomeness apart, were: Churchill’s obsession with the return of an unpopular Greek king; Britain’s obsession with Russia; and, thus, the way in which Britain helped, whether by default or design, to polarise the forces in Greece. In this sense, the Cold War began in the Balkans since, as one can see, the Foreign Office was already doing its utmost to keep the Soviet Union well away from Greece, well before the struggle for Germany had begun. Indeed, the Allies had only just landed in Normandy. Following the end of the war, the Joint Planning Staff wrote in December 1945: Our strategic interest is to ensure that no unfriendly power, by the acquisition of Greek bases, can threaten our Mediterranean communications. On the other hand, we wish to liquidate our present military commitment as soon as possible.10

The following quote by a British politician in 1946 encapsulates Britain’s and Churchill’s cynical role in the Greek civil war: Instead of making Greek resistance more moderate, more democratic, more truly representative of the mass of Greek opinion, we drove it to extremes. Instead of helping to strengthen EAM [National Liberation Front] by encouraging non-communist elements to join, we tried to weaken its influence, to prevent it ‘monopolising’ the liberation movement, by aiding its political opponents. The ‘nationalists’ we tried to use were just those people with whom German propaganda was most effective. And Goebbels was working day and night to prove that all resistance was communistinspired. Little wonder that so many of our ‘nationalist’ friends turned frankly quisling.11

Cyprus now began to loom large in British calculations. Decolonisation had begun: India was to be handed back, the British would leave Palestine, the Dodecanese were to be handed to Greece, and self-determination was all the rage. But Cyprus bucked the trend. Although some powerful Foreign Office and political forces were in favour of handing Cyprus to

 10

Report by Joint Planning Staff, 3 December 1945, FCO 371/48288, file R 21028/G. 11 Noel-Baker, Francis, Greece, the Whole Story, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1946, p.43.

The Asset

33

Greece, because it would help to strengthen the Greek government in the anti-communist struggle, others were in favour of hanging on to the island, claiming that if the communists won in Greece then, of course, Cyprus would be pro-Soviet: In more normal circumstances, the early cession of Cyprus might well be a wise policy, justified by considerations not only of justice, but also of expediency. But present circumstances are not normal […] so long as the internationally supported bandit war continues on its present scale, Greece’s independence must remain to some extent doubtful […] control of the island by a foreign power would be a danger to us. Various telegrams from Athens in recent weeks have given very pessimistic estimates of the Greek Government’s chances of victory.12

This argument was rather weak, since the massive military support of the so-called ‘Truman Doctrine’ was already being planned. Britain in effect replaced Austro-Hungary with the USA, to pursue its atavistic policy of keeping Russia out of the Balkans and Mediterranean. As for Cyprus, the Greek civil war helped Britain to keep Cyprus and bring in the Americans. The Cold War was essentially about strategic interests. Stirring up the ideological differences was a ploy to feed to the masses and justify huge military expenditure and meta-colonialism. Both the Greek and Turkish governments remained anti-communist and anti-Soviet, with the Communist Party outlawed, and thousands of left-wingers incarcerated. Propaganda was the order of the day. According to one expert, American agents as late as the Sixties were training Greek soldiers to kill pigs with a communist emblem painted on their (the pigs’) bodies, after being told to imagine that the pigs had raped their sisters.13 Both Greece and Cyprus were merely considered to be strategic assets: Cyprus is in fact the only bit of ground in the Middle East left to our strategic planners. From the purely strategic point of view, to sacrifice this one remaining asset at a time when it is not even certain that we shall get any strategic rights or facilities in any part of Libya would seem inconsistent with the policy of the firm hold on the Middle East which has been endorsed by the Prime Minister and Secretary of State, as well as by the Chiefs of Staff […] with Cyprus ceded to a Greece gone Communist,

 12

Wallinger, 24 October 1947, memo on file jacket, FO 371/67084, file R 13462/9. Lieutenant-commander Martin Packard, author of Getting it Wrong (AuthorHouse, Milton Keynes, 2008), and in charge of a UN team in Cyprus in 1963/4, told me this. 13

34

Chapter Two we should not only have created a vacuum in the Middle East, we should have gone halfway towards letting the Russians fill it.14

Then, as now, it was all about the obsession with the USSR/Russia. As we saw above, the Foreign Office had written in 1944 that Britain no longer had its alliance with Austro-Hungary to counter Russian measures in the Balkans. Thus, she simply replaced Kissinger’s beloved but now defunct Austro-Hungary with the US. As we shall now see, the US rôle was to become increasingly significant.

The Americans Arrive The persecution of the left, combined with a leniency towards former collaborators unprecedented in Europe, alarmed observers at the time.15

Britain is largely responsible, along with the Truman Doctrine, for bringing the US into the Balkans, essentially to maintain her interests in Greece and Cyprus, which were of course interlocked. In the last year of the war, the US appears to have had no particular interest in the Balkans, being more concerned with containing Soviet power in Germany. Britain seems to have wanted to have its cake and eat it, as the following quote (see above) shows: Our strategic interest is to ensure that no unfriendly power, by the acquisition of Greek bases, can threaten our Mediterranean communications. On the other hand, we wish to liquidate our present military commitment as soon as possible.16

This was not however as contradictory as it sounds (even though Britain was aware that the USSR would not interfere, as we have seen): the Foreign Office had been working hard on the Americans to convince them of the necessity of combatting communism, wherever they thought it was rearing its head, but particularly in Greece, because of their desire to maintain their imperial Disraelite policy of controlling the Mediterranean. Although the US had previously been highly critical of British entanglement in Greece,17 and had distanced itself from the fighting

 14

Op. cit., FO 371/67084, file R 13462/9, Johnston. Mazower, Mark (ed.), After the War Was Over, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2000, p. 38. 16 Op. cit., footnote 10. 17 Op. cit., Clogg, p. 140. 15

The Asset

35

between ELAS and the British army, the Truman-Bevin connexion proved to be a watershed, in that it imported the Cold War into the Balkans, via Greece. Massive amounts of US arms were exported to Greece, and US involvement thus began, increasing as Cold War attitudes hardened. Britain had essentially taken French leave of direct involvement in Greece, so as to avoid accusations of interfering in Greek affairs. Apart from that, her empire was already in the melting pot, and the US proved quite happy to fill the gap. On Cyprus, matters were different: the US initially wished Britain to give it up, but Britain countered US arguments about selfdetermination by using the perceived communist threat as an excuse to hang onto Cyprus. Trumanism was to come on board, albeit not immediately.

Britain’s American interest As the Greek and US governments became increasingly perplexed at Britain’s rigid attitude on Cyprus, Britain used the ‘special relationship’ to placate the US, and bring them in on their side. We need to remember here that Britain was still not utterly beholden to the US, whatever her economic weakness. It was not until the Suez crisis of autumn 1956 that the US was to stamp its foot down in the Middle East. For the time being, Britain concentrated on influencing the US to buck the trend towards decolonisation, at least in the case of Cyprus. As early as 1952, in the wake of the Nasserite revolution in Egypt, the Middle East Defence Coordination Committee had decided that she would move the General Headquarters, Middle East Land Forces and Headquarters, Middle East Air Force, and elements of the Staff of the Senior British Naval Officer and of the British Middle East Office to Cyprus.18 This was the very year in which Greece and Turkey joined NATO, to a certain amount of British consternation that Greek-Turkish rivalry would weaken NATO’s southern flank. The Cold War had moved south with a vengeance, and Britain’s attitude towards Greek requests to give up Cyprus became increasingly rigid, to American disquiet. While Britain remained inflexible, she nevertheless managed to persuade the Americans to ensure that the Cyprus question was kept off the UN General Assembly agenda in 1954. In the meantime, she was secretly coaching the Turkish government in the art of propaganda over Cyprus, even before the

 18

Ewbank to Governor, Cyprus, 7 March 1952, letter, BNA-FCO 141/4141, file MIL/1248/ME.

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Chapter Two

outbreak of the armed struggle against Britain, on 1 April 1955. An extract of a letter from the British Ambassador to Turkey explains: […] First, Turkish representatives abroad, particularly in London and Washington, might be more active in their publicity about the Turkish attitude to Cyprus. In the United Kingdom, their efforts might be directed (in this order) to: a) Members of Parliament, b) the weekly press (they have already been helped by the journalists’ visit last year). The same appears to be true in the United States and other countries. Turkish propaganda should however be presented with tact. For example, the Turkish Press Attaché in London has done no good by distributing leaflets of the ‘Cyprus is Turkish’ Association. This has already been discussed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs […] Secondly, the Department might be able to encourage a few selected Members of Parliament to come here on their own initiative, to learn something of Turkey generally and the Turkish attitude to Cyprus in particular […] The Turks will no doubt be glad to know in due course what course H.M.G. propose to follow between now and the next meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and Turkish policy is likely to be influenced by British views.19

Britain’s next ploy to hang on to Cyprus was to convene a tri-partite conference (Britain, Greece and Turkey) on ‘political and defence questions, as concerning the Eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus’. This semantic chicanery was designed to suggest that Cyprus was not the focus, when it clearly was. It was a specious attempt to skirt around Article Sixteen of the Treaty of Lausanne, which forbade Turkey from having any rights regarding Cyprus. Perhaps bizarrely, Greece accepted the invitation, but not without much dithering, soul-searching and argument. The Greek ambassador in Washington, in particular, saw it as the funeral of Greek-Turkish friendship.20 Little did he know what the Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office had written: I have always been attracted by the idea of a 3 Power Conference, simply because I believe that it would seriously embarrass the Greek Government.

 19

Bowker to Young, 15 February 1955, letter, BNA-FO 271/117625, file RG 1081/120. 20 Op. cit., Mallinson, Cyprus, A Modern History, pp. 24-27.

The Asset

37

[…] I shall not produce any British plan until a Greek-Turkish difference has been exposed.21

And little did he know what the British Foreign Secretary had told the Cabinet in July: Throughout the negotiations, our aim would be to bring the Greeks up against the Turkish refusal to accept enosis and so condition them to accept a solution, which would leave sovereignty in our hands.22

It is therefore not in the least surprising that the conference failed almost immediately, with Cyprus remaining under British sovereignty, and with serious damage done to Greek-Turkish relations. On the night of the day that the conference blew up, there were riots in Turkey. In Istanbul alone, twenty-nine Greek Christian Orthodox churches were completely destroyed, thirty four badly damaged, shops destroyed, tombs opened, and a monk burned to death. Neither police nor troops made any effective effort to protect property and restrain looters.23 The Americans now began to worry, mainly because of the potential damage to NATO. Perceived British colonial intransigence and American lip-service to self-determination were uneasy bedfellows, particularly as the fighting in Cyprus increased, with Britain declaring a state of emergency and deporting Makarios to another colony, the Seychelles. A senior Foreign Office Information Research Department24 official wrote: The Americans dislike the fact that we are having to use force in Cyprus […] Needless to say, we are plugging the constitutional proposals. We are explaining that the opposition of the Church is largely based on fear, lest political power in Cyprus shall pass from the Church oligarchy to democratically elected Cypriots.25

The Americans now began to formulate their own plans, and to pressurise Britain to be more accommodating. In August 1956 the State Department

 21

Kirkpatrick to Nutting, 26 June 1955, memorandum, BNA FO 371/17640, file RG 1081/535. 22 Op. cit., O’Malley, Brendan and Craig, Ian, p. 21. 23 British Consul General, Istanbul, to Foreign Office, 7 September 1955, telegram, BNA FO 371/117721, file RG 10110/1. 24 The Foreign Office’s version of the COMINFORM. Of course, the British Council also helped. 25 Peck to Stewart, 28 May 1956, letter, BNA-FO 953/1993, file PG 11926/8.

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produced a paper that was to get the ball rolling. Its goals included finding a solution that could be presented as a tangible NATO accomplishment; strengthening the Allied position in the area and freeing British troops in Cyprus for other Middle East operations; guaranteeing that the bases in Cyprus would be at Britain’s permanent disposal; and guaranteeing rights of self-determination and full protection of minorities.26 The Suez crisis, when Britain (and France and Israel) had to back down, cemented US influence in the Middle East, and Cyprus concomitantly assumed yet more importance to the US, which continued to apply pressure on Britain to be more flexible. The result was the freeing of Makarios in April 1957.27 Let us quote from President Eisenhower’s diary: The Prime Minister outlined the major factors in the whole Cyprus problem. They are quite complicated and he asserts that Britain wants nothing more to do with the island except to keep its base there, but any action that the British can suggest up to this moment antagonizes the Greeks or the Turks. The British believe that the antagonisms that would be created by dropping the British responsibility in the island might even lead to war between the Turks and the Greeks. I told them that I had certain important messages, particularly from the Greeks, asking me to urge upon Macmillan the importance of freeing Archbishop Makarios. I told them that in my opinion I didn’t believe they were gaining much by keeping him prisoner, so I would just turn him loose on the world.28

In essence, Britain had to bite the bullet. Unwilling to keep troops in Greece during the civil war, she had brought in the US. So it was to turn out with Cyprus, as the Cold War developed, even though the US had no legal locus standi in the British colony. Britain’s attitude was now a far cry from her attitude towards Makarios in 1956, when the Governor had even discussed with London the possibility of putting him on trial: I have considered this question carefully in consultation with the Acting Attorney-General and others concerned here. I am advised that the



26 Rountree to Secretary of State, 13 August 1956, memorandum attaching paper, in Foreign Policy of the United States (FRUS), 1955-1957, Volume XXIV, pp. 384392. 27 Op. cit., FRUS p. 466. Makarios was not allowed to return to Cyprus, for the time being. 28 Op. cit., FRUS, editorial note reproducing extract from President Eisenhower’s diary, at the Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries.

The Asset

39

disclosures made in Grivas’ diaries could render person named liable to prosecution on various charges under the Criminal Code (e.g. use of armed force against the Government, advocating the overthrow by force or violence of the Government etc.) However, it is considered most unlikely that the evidence at present available would be strong enough for us to be confident of obtaining a conviction. […] The general effect we want to produce is that we have a cast-iron case against him but that we are not proceeding with it because, in the wider interests of promoting a lasting settlement, we consider it expedient to treat him with magnanimity he does not deserve.29

Britain had realised that the colonial dream of hanging onto the whole island was a pipe dream. Her main focus – and the US’s – was to ensure the permanence of her military bases. The die was now cast for the unworkable solution that was to be imposed on the people of Cyprus in 1960.

Conclusions As we have seen, Cyprus, a ‘strategic asset’ and Kissinger’s ‘staging area’ for the Middle East bucked the decolonisation trend for several years, essentially for NATO’s strategic reasons. Although we cannot discount the atavistic element, by which I mean Britain’s emotional attachment to empire, it was hard-nosed strategic considerations that were to determine Cyprus’ future. In contrast, Crete, approximately the same size as Cyprus, with a greater proportion of Muslims, and a former Ottoman possession, did not suffer the same fate as Cyprus. Although after the Cretans revolted in 1897, the great powers sent a peacekeeping force, and forbade enosis, the island was united with Greece after the Balkan Wars. Many Muslims left for Anatolia, while the rest were forcibly sent to Turkey in 1923, following a controversial international agreement on the exchange of populations.30 It is tempting to think that had Britain had a military stake in Crete, then the latter would have suffered the same fate as Cyprus. The heritage of Nineteenth Century power politics, so admired by Kissinger, is still very much with us today. Turkey is still considered important to Britain, within the context of NATO, and to watch over a potentially unstable Turkey in the face of putative Russian aggression. Britain’s guarantee to the Ottoman Empire to protect it from Russia has simply been

 29

Governor, Cyprus, to London, undated, but received 29 August 1956, telegram, BNA FCO 141/4353, original file GH/TS/126/1. 30 Op. cit., Mallinson, Cyprus, A Modern History, pp. 2-3.

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replaced by Turkey’s membership of NATO. In power politics, matters have not changed. Cyprus is merely an asset. Let us sum up by again recalling Kissinger’s words: But for the foreseeable future we should be able to count on […] Cyprus or Libya as staging areas for the Middle East, and on Great Britain as a staging area for Europe.31

Kissinger had begun his quest for power: before he wrote the above words, the political scientist was already, in his early thirties, a consultant to the National Security Council’s Operations Coordinating Board, and director in nuclear weapons and foreign policy at the Council for Foreign Relations. Henceforth, Cyprus’ future would be predicated on American rather than British desires. The island’s future sovereignty was to be severely curtailed by American strategy, as we shall now see. Division, followed by dismemberment, was to be the order of the day. 

 31

Op. cit., Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, p. 165.

CHAPTER THREE THE ART OF DISMEMBERMENT

I should not produce any British plan or proposal until a Greek-Turkish deadlock has been defined.1

Introduction The dismemberment of Cyprus started well before the 1960 agreements that established the Republic of Cyprus. Even during the Ottoman occupation, the mere fact that Christians were treated as second-class citizens to Muslims, and as a separate entity, presaged troubles to come. Perhaps paradoxically for a divide and rule mentality, when the British arrived in 1878, everyone was treated equally under British law. But the gradual categorisation by the new colonisers of the inhabitants into Greek and Turkish Cypriots (to all intents and purposes, they were considered as Greeks and Turks), allied to pressure, mainly from the Church, for enosis, was bound to lead to nationalist feeling on the part of those so inclined. Under the Ottomans, religion rather than blood (and even language) was the determining factor in administering Ottoman subjects. When the British arrived in 1878, dividing the population of Cyprus was not British policy. However, although at first their treatment of the locals was evenhanded, the method of administration, particularly when Cyprus became a Crown Colony in 1925, was that while Cypriots were treated equally, they were divided unequally: in the Legislative Council, the British officials and Muslim representatives balanced the Christian Orthodox ones; since the High Commissioner had the casting vote, this meant that 18 per cent of the population could frustrate the wishes of the majority. The Council was a mere sop to democracy, representing a subtle form of apartheid, with its linguistic, racial and religious divisiveness. As the British entrenched themselves, the concept of Greek and Turk began to assume increasingly nationalistic proportions in Cyprus, even though Turkey was not to exist as a state until 1923. In their internal correspondence, the British authorities

 1

Op. cit., Kirkpatrick.

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constantly referred to ‘Greek’ and ‘Turk’, thus laying, inadvertently or otherwise, the psychological foundations for strife and division. While a Turkish national consciousness did not yet officially exist, enosis rioting, as in 1897 and 1912, did occur. Inter-ethnic violence also reared its ugly head, in particular in the 1912 rioting during the Balkan Wars, when five were killed and 134 injured.2 In the inter-war years, Venizelos’ pro-British stance meant that enosis agitation simmered underground, except for rioting in 1931, when Government House was burnt down. The colonial constitution was revoked, never to return, unless one considers the 1960 constitution as colonial, albeit subtly so, which one can. Let is now look more closely at the art of dismemberment.

The Seeds of Dismemberment Although British policy had not originally been to consciously divide the population of Cyprus, as pressure towards enosis mounted, the British decided to collaborate with the Turkish government, as we have seen in the previous chapter. Even before the outbreak of violence, ‘defining the differences’ was the order of the day, as Britain adopted a rigid attitude. In 1947, an official in the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department, John Peck, wrote: Finally, although the Turkish Government has never raised with us any questions affecting the Turkish minority in Cyprus, this minority should be protected.3

Thus followed Britain’s divide et impera policy. The Church of Cyprus’ reaction was to organise a plebiscite in 1950, in which 96 per cent of Greek Cypriots voted for enosis. In July 1954, a Cabinet paper concluded: We must, therefore, act on the assumption that deterioration in our relations with Greece is the price we must pay if we are to keep Cyprus. A point may even come at we should have to decide whether Cyprus is strategically more important to us than Greece.4

 2

Op. cit., Coughlan, Reed, Sources for the History of Cyprus, Bolton to Colonial Secretary, 2 June 1912, letter, p. 70. 3 John Peck, Internal Foreign Office paper on Cyprus, 22 December 1947, BNA FO 371/67084, file R-1683/8/G. 4 Secretary of State for the Colonies, paper, July 1954, BNA CAB 129/69.

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Only two months later, the radicalisation of the Cypriot population was well under way, and Britain even publicly – and threateningly - promoted the divisions which it had encouraged, when Selwyn Lloyd told the UN: The Turkish speaking Cypriots, who are Moslems, are bitterly opposed to Enosis […] As I say, there has up to now been no communal strife. Does the assembly really want to stir it up by keeping this matter on the agenda?5

As the forces of extremism and external interference grew, common sense was flushed down the lavatory bowl. Even the Foreign Office privately admitted that the Turkish case (created, or at the least aided and abetted, by the British government) was weak. The British Statistical Service wrote in 1956: Report shows a decline of the Turkish population from about one quarter to about one fifth – which does not really help the Turkish case very much.6

If we add to this Britain’s collaboration with the Turkish government (see previous chapter), it is little wonder that the seeds of Cyprus’ dismemberment in 1974 were sown by Britain in the early fifties. It was the cynically conceived tripartite conference in September 1955 that not only bedevilled Greek-Turkish relations until today, but which set the tone for the dismemberment of Cyprus, so subtly engineered by Henry Kissinger in 1974. Historically speaking, Kissinger was merely dealing with, rather than causing, a problem that Britain had itself initiated some twenty years previously. Despite American pressure, Britain continued to define the differences: apart from the hiring of auxiliary policemen who, naturally, were Turkish Cypriots, the Colonial Government tended to turn a blind eye to Turkish excesses. While banning Greek Cypriot political parties, it did not ban the ‘Cyprus is Turkish Association.’ In essence, Britain was loth to upset Turkey, and needed her to hang on to the island. She had, after all, as we have just seen in the previous chapter, brought Turkey into the Cyprus

 5

Report on Cyprus, Agenda, Ninth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, New York, 23-24 September 1954, BNA FO 953/1964, file G-11926/20. Selwyn Lloyd’s statement that there had ‘up to now been no communal strife’ is nonsensical. 6 Glass to Fletcher-Cooke, letter, 9 August 1956, BNA FO 953/1695, file PG11926/50.

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question in a highly questionable manner, by skirting around Article Sixteen of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1955, which stipulated that Turkey had no rights in territories beyond its frontiers. The most obvious evidence of British official bias was Britain’s attitude towards the anti-Greek rioting of summer 1958, which was to fuel Greek Cypriot indignation and anger after the 1959 agreement. After fifty-eight years, the retentive Foreign and Commonwealth Office at last released, in 2014, files on the bomb explosion that led to anti-Greek rioting. The files are worth scrutinising. Well before the summer 1958 rioting, the British were well aware of Turkish Cypriot extremism: on 9 September 1957, while the EOKA campaign against the British was in full swing, a British Intelligence report stated: 1.

A fairly reliable source has said that the Turkish house at OMORFITA where the explosion took place on 31st August 1957 has been used as a bomb making factory for some time. Twelve persons worked there in shifts and “thousands of bombs” have been made and distributed to various parts of the island.7

On 4 June 1958, at 18.30, the governor wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies: Turkish hooligans have been increasingly active over the past week or two and on Saturday last they organised demonstrations during which demonstrators tore down English signs. This, following on the TMT8 murders of Left Wing Turks and the increase of TMT leaflets in the most violent terms, seems to show that the Turks are prepared for further violence and this may occur before the statement of policy is made in Parliament.9

The Governor was right: on the night of 7 June, a bomb exploded at the residence of the Turkish press counsellor. On 8 June, at 2.30 a.m., the governor received the following report:

 7

‘PHANTOM Secret’ report by SECURITY INTELLIGENCE on “VOLKAN” ACTIVITIES, 9 September 1957, FCO 141/3840. 8 Turkish Defence Organisation. 9 BNA-FCO 141/3848, Governor to Secretary of State, 4 June 1958, telegram no. 724.

The Art of Dismemberment SITUATION REPORT There has been considerable rioting and arson tonight in Nicosia. It looked very much as though it was prearranged by Turks, particularly in view of the information we received a few days ago that they were planning just such a resort to riot and arson. Following is situation report at 2.00 a.m. Cyprus time. 2. At 22.00 hrs. bomb exploded on veranda of Turkish Press Counsellor. Very slight damage. Nothing more happened until midnight when Turkish youths began collecting in Kyrenia Gate area and in roads outside walls. They set fire to two cars and began stoning others. Youths observed carrying jerry cans. At about 0.100 [sic] hrs. fires started in Famagusta Gate area. Report, not yet confirmed, that six fires in all started one serious (timber yard) and all in Greek property. Police and Army fire brigades now at work on the fires and have them under control. Curfew imposed and is gradually taking effect. Mason-Dixon line manned with troops. Meanwhile Greeks had started ringing church bells and groups of Greek youths observed taking up positions in the town. Some fighting in Famagusta Gate area between groups of youths of both communities. Some casualties removed to hospital including two dead both Greek. Crowds being broken up and dispersed and for the time being situation appears to be under control. No report of Security Forces having to open fire. 3. Denktash and Turkish Consul-General were absent this evening at Larnaca addressing an unenthusiastic Turkish Youth Club meeting. Denktash returned after midnight and contacted by District Commissioner. He seemed genuinely upset and remarked “we (the Turks) have asked for it this time”. He gave the impression that he had no doubt that the trouble had been started deliberately by Turkish mischief-makers. This confirms our own impression that the bomb was probably planted by Turks themselves. Denktash addressed a crowd outside the Nicosia Divisional Police headquarters and persuaded them to disperse. 4. No incidents reported from other districts. 5. Present intention is to maintain curfew in Nicosia throughout tomorrow. 6. There have reports in local Turkish press of a mass meeting in Istanbul tomorrow. It seems possible that the trouble here may have been staged with that in view.10

 10

Ibid., SITUATION REPORT, 8 June 1958, 02.30 hours.

45

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At 4.45 a.m. on the same day, the Governor saw fit to send an emergency telegram, summarising the above, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, copied not only to the embassies in Athens and Ankara, and the Consulate General in Istanbul, but to the embassy in Washington;11 and only a quarter of an hour later, at 5.00 a.m., he sent another emergency telegram referring to the previous one, making it quite clear that the Turkish Cypriots had planted the bomb, planned the subsequent arson and rioting, and co-ordinated the rioting with the Turkish authorities.12 A little over eight hours later, at 13.45 (he must have needed some sleep), the Governor telegrammed the Colonial Office, reporting on his meeting with Turkish leaders. He, or whoever typed his telegram (in cypher) must have been rather sleepy or lacking in cool, since it was dated 8 July 1958, rather than June. The most poignant part stated that the Turkish [sic] leaders had not denied that the bomb had been planted by Turks [Turkish Cypriots], but that they could not admit this publicly.13 Now London acted, worried that the truth might become widely known internationally: the same day (no time given), the Secretary of State (FO) telegrammed the ambassador in Ankara, asking him to impress on the Turkish government that it should exercise all its influence to prevent violence by the Turkish [sic] community in Cyprus, and inflammatory propaganda by the Turkish media.14 As the Governor and his staff considered matters, tensions remained high. On 10 June, the Governor telegrammed the Secretary of State, and the ambassadors in Ankara and Athens. The telegram alluded to Turkish Cypriot leaders blaming the Greek Cypriots for the bomb adding: […] If we are compelled, as a result of continuing inflammatory allegations by the Turks on this subject, to make any official statement, the following are points which might be included: (1) On any assessment of the security and political considerations involved, it seems unlikely that Greek Cypriot terrorists would

 11

Ibid., 8 June 1958, unnumbered telegram. Ibid., 8 June 1958, telegram no. 744. 13 Ibid., Governor to Colonial Office, repeated to Ankara and Athens, 8 July [sic] 1958, telegram no. 751. 14 Ibid., Secretary of State (Foreign Office) to Ankara, 8 June 1958, telegram no. 1399. 12

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47

have attacked Turkish Government property at this time and in this way. (2) The timing and manner of the placing of the bomb suggest that it was intended to cause the minimum amount of damage and, in particular, to avoid injury or loss of life. (3) Expert examination of the explosive charge and fragments indicates that they were of a different kind from any known to have been used in the past by Greek Cypriot terrorists, but were of a kind known to have been used recently in bombs of Turkish Cypriot manufacture. 4. It is also on record that when Denktash arrived at the scene of the incident, soon after it occurred, he said to the District Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner of Police who were present: “Well, we’ve asked for it”. They asked him if he knew what sort of bomb it was, and he agreed that it was a Turkish bomb. The District Commissioner says that Denktash said: “Of course it is a Turkish bomb”. An expatriate Special Branch officer who was present says that the words Denktash used were: “We’ve asked for this. The Greeks would not dare to do it. We’ve gone too far this time. I can’t stop it”. After my meeting with the Turkish leaders yesterday, the Administrative Secretary took Denktash aside and reminded him, with reference to my remark that it would not be to their interest for Government to publish its conclusions about the incident, that he was on record as having made the remarks quoted above at the scene of the incident. Denktash did not attempt to deny this and, in fact, indicated that he personally had no doubt it was Turks who were responsible.15

Clearly, the night of 7 to 8 June 1958 was a sleepless one for the Governor and his staff, reflected in some small discrepancies in the above telegrams. First, the Governor sent a telegram (no.744) at 5 am, stating that he had met leaders of the Turkish community early that morning, obviously in the small hours before he sent the telegram. Yet telegram no. 751, sent at 1.45 pm, stated that he had met them at 5.30, and therefore apparently after he had sent a telegram stating that he had met them. More amusing about the telegram is that it was dated 8 July, rather than June. Such are the vagaries of moments of extreme crisis. As regards a curfew mentioned in the Governor’s telegram 744, the fact that he said that it would apply both to Greeks and Turks is bizarre. He

 15

Ibid., Governor to Secretary of State, 10 June 1958, telegram no. 774.

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could hardly have applied a curfew on only one of the two main communities, without being accused of blatant bias. At any event, the British government was loth to embarrass Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots, despite the fact that they were responsible since, had the truth become known, this would have strengthened Makarios’s hand. Britain was not impartial in its attitude towards the two main communities on Cyprus. Even before EOKA’s military campaign against British forces, Britain was secretly teaming up with Turkey, as we have seen, to keep its colony for as long as possible, by dividing the communities. An extract from a Cabinet meeting following the outbreak of the Turkish-inspired rioting shows British bias: The Colonial Secretary said that the Greek terrorist organisation in Cyprus (EOKA) was known to be planning a further campaign of violence. The Governor of Cyprus had requested authority to make widespread arrests of suspected members of this organisation and, at the same time, to proscribe the Turkish terrorist organisation (T.M.T.) and to arrest a smaller number of Turkish Cypriots suspected of belonging to it. In principle it was right that Greek and Turkish terrorist organisations should receive impartial treatment; but it might be unwise, in view of the present situation in the Middle East, to take action which might alienate Turkish and Moslem sentiment or provoke further Turkish disorders in Cyprus at a time when the number of British troops available for internal security duties might have to be reduced. […] The Cabinet agreed that the Colonial Secretary should have discretion, if he judged it necessary, to authorise the Governor of Cyprus to arrest suspected members of the Greek and Turkish terrorist organisations in Cyprus on the understanding that the proposed proscription of the Turkish organisation would be deferred for a time.16

Britain was in fact tutoring Turkey in how to promote its point of view, but had to appear even-handed to the outside world, especially since British fair play was important, at least presentationally. Despite British attempts to calm things down and get Turkey to control the extremist Turkish Cypriots, the opposite proved to be the case, and the riots continued, with over one hundred killed, including eight Greek Cypriots out of a group of thirty five dumped by the British near a Turkish Cypriot village when discovered crouching in a riverbed armed with sticks and stones.17 Many Greek Cypriots were forced out of their homes in Nicosia.

 16 17

Conclusions of Cabinet meeting, 16 July 1958, CAB 128/32. Op. cit., Mallinson, Cyprus, A Modern History, p. 32.

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Commenting some years later about the rioting, the Governor wrote: Zorlu, the Foreign Minister of Turkey, was the most ruthless of them and was, I think, the rudest man I ever met […] He had, I have no doubt, known of and perhaps given the orders for the Turkish riots and the attempt to burn Nicosia.18

Thus, it is clear that as a solution to the island’s troubles was being worked out, the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot actions described above poisoned the atmosphere and exacerbated any serious attempt to establish a viable and workable future. Extremism was the order of the day.

An Extremist’s Paradise In February 1959, the Greek and Turkish foreign ministers agreed in Zurich that Britain, Greece and Turkey would guarantee an independent Cyprus. The agreement was to turn out, as we shall see, to be an extremist’s paradise. Kissinger (see Chapter One) wrote: In 1959, Britain brokered an arrangement which was doomed from the start because it sought to address the essentially irreconcilable demands of all the parties by agreeing to all of them simultaneously.19

Although Kissinger does not then go on to say that partition was the answer, his later behaviour, as we shall see in Chapter Six, is certainly consistent with his view that not only was the arrangement doomed, but that partition was the answer. The British, for their part, were well aware of Turkish opposition: TMT is said to be planning an anti-Greek plot aimed at preventing any future relationship or co-existence between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities, with a view to securing a separate regime for the Turks in Cyprus. They are awaiting the results of the London conference. Resentment is now spreading against Dr. Kuchuk for not having protested against the terms of the Zurich agreement. […] TMT have [sic] decided to keep their organisation in being all over the island. They consider that sooner or later inter-communal trouble will occur again, and intend that their organisation shall be ready whenever that time may come. They have no faith in the talk of permanent reconciliation with the Greeks. […]

 18

Foot, Hugh, A Start in Freedom, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., London, 1964, p. 150. 19 Op. cit., Kissinger, Years of Renewal, pp. 196-197.

50

Chapter Three Information to hand today suggests that an off-shoot of TMT is contemplating the murder of MAKARIOS on his return to Cyprus.20

In Turkey itself, there was considerable opposition to the agreement: General INONU (leader of the C.H.P.),21 was heard accusing Mr. MENDERES22 of having sacrificed a strategically vital position in exchange for American bribes. He is said to have added that in time Cyprus could have become a second HATAY for Turkey.23

Opposition or no opposition, the negotiations leading to Cyprus’s independence in 1960 went ahead willy-nilly. We shall not deal here with the niceties of what led to this qualified independence, since this has been adequately covered in numerous books. Suffice to say that the patriotic yet realistic Makarios wrote later that ‘the least bad thing was to sign’. What, however, were the seeds of division? First was the obvious fact that the Cypriots were barely involved in determining their future. Makarios was only allowed in late in the day, and was presented with a fait accompli. Second was the main, albeit veiled, true purpose of the complex set of treaties that set up the republic: Britain’s permanent retention of two substantial parts of Cyprus. Fifty-six of the one hundred and three pages of the Treaty of Establishment were devoted to Britain’s territories and a plethora of connected rights which detracted from true sovereignty. What the Americans saw as ‘an accomplishment for NATO’ was hardly an accomplishment for the people of Cyprus, particularly since they had not been allowed to play a serious rôle in establishing their republic. Third was the fact that, despite the Greek Prime and Foreign Ministers’ responsibility in accepting a deal involving Turkish participation, the Greek government as a whole was unhappy with Turkish involvement.

 20

Office of the Chief of Intelligence, Police Headquarters, Nicosia, Intelligence Report, ‘Dissension among Members of TMT and the Turkish Cypriot Community’, 5 March 1959, BNA-FCO 141/3845, file SF/1032/9. 21 Turkey’s major opposition party. 22 Turkish Foreign Minister. 23 Ibid., Office of the Chief of Intelligence, Intelligence Report, ‘Subversion against the Republic of Cyprus’, 12 March 1959, file SF.1028/1/17. The Hatay is the Turkish name for a former part of Syria, that passed to Turkey in a highly controversial plebiscite.

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During the talks that led to the agreement, the British Ambassador to Greece wrote: The Greeks are angry at the UK plan to involve the Turks […] on the grounds that it introduced an element of Turkish governmental intervention […] and since it must lead to further antagonism and eventually to partition.24

Fourth, the constitution was based on an extreme form of positive discrimination, amounting to constitutional apartheid, an extremist’s paradise as regards partition. The ratio of Greek Cypriots to Turkish Cypriots for the Civil Service was 70:30; for the police and armed forces 60:40; and for the House of Representatives 70:30. Au comble de malheur, the Turkish Cypriot Vice President could block defence and foreign policy initiatives by the Greek Cypriot president. Fifth was the Treaty of Guarantee, which included the fateful sentence: ‘In so far as common or concerted action may not prove possible, each of the three guaranteeing powers reserves the right to take action with the sole aim of establishing the state of affairs created by the present treaty.’ In 1974, this clause was expressly and cynically exploited by the Turkish Prime Minister, Eçevit, and Kissinger, as we shall see in Chapter Six. That the 1960 arrangement was doomed to failure was a near certainty, since it created a tinder-box of contradictions and unsolved problems, as well as being a blank cheque for extremists and foreign interference. The treaties were a rat on the back of a new ‘sovereign’ state, just as much of the constitution was an anachronistic extension of Britain’s colonial ethnoreligious administration. Paradoxically, had Cyprus become a member of NATO, it would have been protected from invasion by Turkey, since, after all, an alliance is an alliance, with its members protecting each other. But although a ‘gentleman’s’ agreement was signed between Greece and Turkey in 1959, for Cyprus to join, nothing came of it. Britain feared that any dispute between Cyprus and itself would be exploited by the Soviet Union, but was also distrustful of the Cypriots themselves: The access of the Cypriot Government to NATO plans and documents would present a serious security risk, particularly in view of the strength of the Cypriot Communist Party […] The Chiefs of Staff, therefore, feel most



24 British Ambassador, Athens, to Secretary of State, 16 January 1959, Annual Review for 1958, BNA-FO 371/144516, file RG-1011/1.

52

Chapter Three strongly that, from the military point of view, it would be a grave disadvantage to admit Cyprus to NATO.25

On top of that, Makarios was hardly a NATO fan, preferring a policy of balance between the Soviet Union and NATO. He believed that when he put forward his thirteen amendments to the constitution, with the Foreign Office’s encouragement and help, Cyprus would actually become a functional state. Instead, from December 1963, the British took French leave of their responsibilities in having helped Makarios,26 and the Turkish Cypriots and their Turkish controllers reacted violently, leading to an even more violent reaction from the Greek Cypriots. The US had decided that de facto partition was the best way of keeping the lid on exploitation by the Soviet Union, and the Turks remained in the enclaves to which they had been encouraged to move by extremist forces. Matters were tense: the Soviet Union issued a statement that in the case of an armed foreign intervention, it would help Cyprus to defend itself.27 For the time being, American plans to partition Cyprus were however put on hold, particularly since, to Turkish anger but Soviet satisfaction, the United Nations now had a rôle in Cyprus, in the shape of peace-keeping forces. Thus when trouble again flared up in 1967, and Turkey threatened to invade, a public climbdown by the Greek government and Grivas’s withdrawal temporarily cooled matters. It was only to be a question of time, however, before de facto partition was to be forced on Cyprus, with Kissinger’s subtle help, notwithstanding the UN-sponsored intercommunal talks that began in 1968. Britain, having already seen that the 1960 treaties were a mess, and embarrassed by its treaty obligations, was happy to let the US make the running. The US-friendly Greek military coup of April 1967 also added a dangerous ingredient to the situation. In the meantime, however, the UN provided a temporary negotiating cover against overt extremist tendencies, but not for long: in 1970 there was an attempt on Makarios’s life, after which his Minister of the Interior, Polycarpos Georgkadjis, was assassinated.



25 Ministry of Defence paper, JP 59/163, I January 1960, BNA-DEFE 13/99/MO/5/1/5. 26 Op. cit., Packard, p. 338. 27 Joseph, Joseph S., Cyprus: Ethnic Conflict and International Politics, St. Martin’s Press, London and New York, 1997, p. 66.

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Conclusions To state that Cypriot political life was volatile from the mid-fifties until the mid-seventies would be an understatement. The seeds of dismemberment had been sown, and were allowed to germinate, and when the buds appeared, they were not nipped. The British government’s refusal to expose Turkey and the extreme Turkish Cypriots for having cynically created conditions to poison the future reflects Britain’s reliance on Turkish friendship, particularly within a NATO context. Although the Governor knew of Turkish responsibility for the riots, and did in his memoirs six years later criticise the Turkish Foreign Minister, it is galling that the information about Turkish responsibility for the bomb explosion at the house of the Turkish Press Counsellor in Nicosia, and the planned rioting and destruction, was only released recently, over fifty years after the event. Until now, we have been given a warped and incomplete picture. In this connexion, it is natural to think of 1955 and the Istanbul ‘pogrom’ within the same context as the Nicosia riots of 1958. The destruction of Greek properties in September 1955 began as the London conference failed (as it was planned to fail) and, like the Nicosia rioting, it was immediately preceded by a bomb explosion at the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki, which also happened to be the house where Ataturk had been born. Apart from Christopher Hitchens’s conviction that there was a definite pattern of organisation to the 1955 riots,28 the Turkish Foreign Minister – the rude Zorlu mentioned above – telephoned Istanbul from London to say that a ‘little activity would be useful’.29 It is fairly well known that truth is the first casualty of war, although it does often emerge years later. Had a historian speculated that the Turks had planted a bomb against themselves, without the documentary evidence now provided, he would have been branded a ‘conspiracy theorist’. One day, perhaps we shall be provided with incontrovertible evidence that it was indeed also Turks who planted a bomb at their own consulate-general in Thessaloniki, although enough books by serious academics already point the finger at the Turks. And while on the subject of agents provocateurs, it is unlikely that Greeks or Greek Cypriots murdered a British housewife in Famagusta in October 1958.30 It could have been an

 28

Op. cit., Hitchens, Hostage to History, p. 45. Op. cit., Mallinson, Cyprus, A Modern History, p. 27. 30 See Holland, Robert, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954-1959, OUP, 1998, p. 287. 29

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American, a Turk or even an Englishman. One hopes that one day the evidence will appear. Given events in Cyprus in the mid- to late Fifties, and British-Turkish connivance, it can be taken as a given that few rational thinkers deeply believed that the 1960 arrangement would be a proper solution. The convoluted set of treaties, unprecedented in international law, incompatible with the UN Charter, and predicated on the British bases and NATO’s strategic Cold War requirements proved to be a house of cards. It was mainly Makarios’s stature and balancing skills that kept the lid on matters, at least for a while. On the one hand, he had to cope with American attempts to push for double enosis, and on the other with an increasingly hostile junta in Athens, particularly after the death of the moderate Greek Foreign Minister, Pipinelis. Grivas’s return to Cyprus was also a complicating factor. Because of his pro-NATO and extreme anticommunist stance, the Americans favoured him, while even the British communicated with him through his right-hand man, Eliadis. The British High Commissioner to Cyprus summed up the situation accurately: Although Makarios remains supremely confident and believes that time is on his side, the threat of a Turkish invasion remains. The backdrop of the intercommunal talks, which have been the symbol of the benign stalemate which suited our interests so well over the past three years, obliges us to face the prospect that this stalemate may now be turning malignant.31

And malignant it did turn, particularly after the infamous Athens Polytechnic rioting and killings of 17 November 1973, which saw the unstable and extreme anti-communist head of the military police, Ioannides, take increasing power into his hands behind the scenes. As we shall see in Chapter Six, the hand of Kissinger, combined with the political chaos in Greece, facilitated Turkey’s invasion. We shall now consider the obsession with the Soviet Union, an obsession which was, after all, the essential cause of Cyprus’ problems. By way of introduction to the next chapter, let us again repeat Kissinger’s words: But for the foreseeable future we should be able to count on […] Cyprus or Libya as staging areas for the Middle East, and on Great Britain as a staging area for Europe.32

 31

Edwards to Secretary of State, Draft Despatch, 27 August 1971, BNA-FCO 9/1355/WSC1/1. 32 Op. cit., Kissinger, Henry, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, p. 165.

CHAPTER FOUR THE OBSESSION WITH THE USSR

The most serious consequence of all would be that our withdrawal would lead to the ultimate establishment of Soviet influence on the island.1

Introduction We have seen earlier how Britain’s obsession with Russia led to her acquiring Cyprus. This imperial obsession continues to this day, albeit in different colours. Although Britain no longer rules the waves (but does occasionally waive the rules, as do many other countries), the US has now replaced the defunct Austro-Hungary as a pro-Turkish and anti-Russian force. Cyprus, and Greece to a lesser extent, is an instrument of the West’s obsession with Russia. Knowing this background, let us now turn, in this short but sharp chapter, to the Soviet reaction to the Zurich talks that created the dysfunctional republic, and then look at Soviet policy up to the anti-Makarios coup in Cyprus.

Moscow’s Critique When the Greek and Turkish Foreign Ministers agreed to try and cut the Gordian Knot in early 1959, Moscow’s reaction was truculent. A British Embassy, Moscow, press summary gives a clear picture: i)

the imperialists view the national liberation movement in Cyprus primarily as a threat to the strategic position of the island as a spring-board for aggression in the Middle East; the United States became intensely anxious to eliminate AngloGreek-Turkish differences in order

ii)

a) b)

to preserve the position of N.A.T.O. in the Eastern Mediterranean; to revive the Balkan Alliance;

 1

Foreign Office paper, 13 March 1964, DO 220/170, file 2-MED 193/105/2.

Chapter Four

56 iii)

iv)

v)

vi)

vii)

viii)

for the above reasons the United States brought decisive pressure to bear on Greece to come to terms with the United Kingdom and Turkey over Cyprus in order to achieve a speedy solution (Izvestia, of February 14, in a review of Greek press comment, quoted “Vima” as saying that the United States had exerted such pressure by threatening to cut off economic aid to Greece); the proclamation of a republic in Cyprus will not materially affect the Cypriots since the United Kingdom is to retain the right to keep military bases there in perpetuity, and the island will remain shackled to N.A.T.O; the decisions taken behind the backs of the Cypriot people ignore their just demands and represent a colonialist plot directed against Cypriot interests and against peace and international security; the Greek Government has abandoned its former position and capitulated to United States pressure. The reason for this is that “certain circles” in Greece are seeking a way out of their internal difficulties and aim to distract attention from their persecution of progressive forces in their preparation of increasing antidemocratic terror; the Soviet public stands for the right of all peoples to decide their own future and condemns the Zurich “plot” as a threat to peace and a dagger in the back of heroic Cypriot patriots; in Greece, public hostility towards these new imperialist manoeuvres in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans is increasing.

2. Other articles in the Soviet press today and yesterday have supported this general line, mostly by using selected quotations from the Greek newspapers “Avgi”, “Vima” and “Eleftheria”.2

The Soviet view has transmogrified into today’s Russian view. The Soviet reaction apart, it is clear that the 1960 so-called settlement was predicated more on the military bases and an anti-Soviet strategy than on proper independence and democracy. The seeds of partition were certainly incorporated in the settlement itself. During the 1963/64 troubles, when Britain seriously considered giving up its bases, there was much talk of enosis: The most serious consequence of all would be that our withdrawal would lead to the ultimate establishment of Soviet influence on the island. Though this is perhaps not very likely, it is not impossible that an

 2

British Embassy, Moscow, to Foreign Office, 17 February 1959, telegram no. 18 Saving, FCO 371/ 144616, file RGC 10338/2.

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independent Cyprus Government, deprived of the economic benefits of our bases, might bring it upon themselves by seeking Soviet aid.3

The British were privately pressing for the union of Cyprus with Greece as a way to create a stronger front against the Soviet Union, which had made clear its intention to involve itself more closely in Cypriot affairs. An extract from a Cabinet meeting throws the British view into full relief: But it was becoming increasingly urgent that some political solution should be found; and it was therefore very desirable to ascertain whether the Greek Government still adhered to the assurance, which they had recently given us, that their objective was to ensure Enosis and that they would be prepared, if necessary, to supplant Archbishop Makarios for this purpose or whether they had now capitulated in effect to the Archbishop’s own view that Cyprus should become a unitary and independent state. In discussion there was general agreement that an independent Cyprus would represent an unwelcome threat to our strategic interests in the eastern Mediterranean and that we should therefore seek to secure a solution based on Enosis, coupled with some form of compensation to Turkey for the loss of her position in the Island and the provision of safeguards for those Turkish Cypriots who might choose to remain in Cyprus even after Enosis.4

The Soviet view was of course to prevent anything that would strengthen NATO, such as enosis, hence their support for an independent, demilitarised and unitary Cyprus, which, they thought, would not be a threat to them. They were even prepared to go as far as threatening Turkey with military action, as they did in summer 1964,5 were it to invade Cyprus, since they believed that this would lead to enosis in one form or another. But their position altered subtly thereafter, as they did not wish to burn their boats with Turkey, and saw some advantage in NATO-weakening tension between Greece and Turkey. Thus they hosted a visit by the Turkish Foreign Minister in autumn 1964, and referred, in a joint communiqué, to the lawful rights of both national communities, thereby lending some succour to the separationists.6 Almost a year later, the Soviets were sticking to the same line, in another joint statement, when the Turkish

 3

Op. cit., DO/220/170. Conclusions of a Cabinet meeting, 18 August 1964, CAB 128/38. 5 Foreign Office Research Department Memorandum, ‘Soviet Policy towards the Middle East’, 1965, DO 220/11, file 2-MED 14/38/1, Part B. 6 Ibid., ‘Soviet Policy towards the Middle East’. 4

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Prime Minister visited Moscow.7 In their dealings with the Cypriot Progressive People’s Working Party, AKEL, the Soviet Communist Party was not quite so specific, referring simply to the ‘benefit of the whole Cypriot people, Greeks and Turks’.8 A particularly perceptive comment on Soviet policy on Cyprus, which has some resonance today, was made in 1965: A new trend, which has revealed more clearly the Russians’ lack of interest in promoting any immediate solution of the Cyprus problem and their intention of playing off the parties directly involved one against another, was initiated by the renewed invitation to the then Turkish Foreign Minister, M. Erkin, to visit the Soviet Union in the autumn of 1964. The communiqué on his visit stated concerning Cyprus: “Both sides express themselves as in favour of the peaceful settlement of the Cyprus question on the basis of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the republic of Cyprus, on the basis of the observance of the lawful rights of both national communities, ensuring their peaceful life, and of the recognition of the fact of the existence of two national communities in the island.” Since then the Soviet Union has regularly defined its attitude with reference to this cautious formula, which affords little encouragement to any of the parties involved.9

Another perceptive Foreign Office comment, in 1966, was: What is beyond dispute, I am sure, is that the Russians are showing considerable skill in keeping all parties in play. Their word-juggling is curiously similar to the sort of dexterity which we ourselves have had to use in the past two years in framing answers to Parliamentary Questions etc. which mean to the Turks that we uphold the 1960 Treaties and to others that we would willingly see some new settlement.10

This comment betrays the legal quandary in which British officials found themselves whenever it came to the 1960 package of treaties, which turned out to be a veritable legal landmine. Even though the Foreign Office had seriously considered giving up the bases, it was clear that Turkey and the United States (even though the latter had no legal locus standi vis-à-vis Cyprus) would not countenance British withdrawal. We shall see later how

 7

British Embassy, Moscow, to Foreign Office, 17 August 1965, telegram no. 1726, DO 220/11, file 2 MED 14/38/1, pt. B. 8 DO 220/11. File 2 MED 14/38/1, pt. B. 9 Op. cit., Soviet Policy towards the Middle East. 10 Lewis, FO, to Lewis, British High Commission, Cyprus, 16 February 1966, letter, FO 371/185624, file CC 103138/2.

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Kissinger exerted pressure on Britain not to give up the bases, demonstrating that Britain had little choice but to follow American wishes, and remain involved. Fear of the Soviet Union, and today, of Russia, took precedence. In this connexion, another important aspect of Soviet policy is worth mentioning: although the Soviet Union advocated a sovereign Cyprus free of external interference, without the British bases, it supported, as did Britain and the US, the existence of two communities in Cyprus. But on the question of self-determination, it is unlikely that she would have supported any referendum on enosis, since this would have strengthened NATO. Thus, although she had always supported an independent Cyprus, any agreement based on independence would have had to preclude the right to enosis, which would have meant only qualified independence.

Moscow’s Junta Dislike Following the rejection of various Anglo-American plans for a solution through separation and a form of double union with Greece and Turkey, matters intensified, with an arms build-up on both sides, resulting in fighting in 1967 and the withdrawal of some twelve thousand Greek troops and General Grivas, the leader of the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA), to Greece. The Soviets tweaked their position slightly: unlike in 1964, when they had been prepared, at least presentationally, to intervene militarily to prevent an invasion, they were now rather more circumspect, mainly because of their distaste for the overtly anticommunist Greek junta, which had grabbed power in April, occasioning them to simply make the British government officially aware of their opposition to an invasion and/or enosis. During the crisis, they did however warn Turkey not to intervene militarily.11 The British ambassador in Athens thought that the Soviets had been critical of the Greek Cypriots for not doing more to avoid the crisis. Generally, the Foreign Office was not far off the mark in its assessment that Soviet policy was to keep Cyprus formally independent but internally divided.12 During the crisis, the British embassy in Turkey wrote: On the one hand, the Russians are very hostile to the Greek Junta; on the other they are pledged to support the territorial integrity of Cyprus and

 11

British Ambassador, Athens, to Commonwealth Office, 22 December 1967, letter, FCO 27/82, file MF 2/1. 12 Foreign Office to British Embassy, Moscow, 16 September 1967, telegram no. 8156, FCO 27/82, file MF 2/1.

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Chapter Four therefore would not welcome a Turkish landing on the island if that would lead to partition. At the same time, continued trouble over Cyprus and in the Eastern Mediterranean generally is in the Soviet interest.13

By mid-1968, the Soviet position, at least in private, was not however as nice to Turkey as their bilateral diplomacy made it appear, as the following suggests: His [Zavazov, Counsellor at Soviet Embassy, Nicosia] government had made their position clear: they wanted a peaceful settlement and the withdrawal of all foreign troops, including the bases, and direct talks between the parties on the island. If Britain insisted on maintaining the Zürich and London Agreements, talks could not begin. He suggested that we were using Turkey to maintain these agreements. He […] understood that we, and particularly the Americans, were giving very substantial aid to Turkey. Why, he asked, should Turkey go, from her own meagre resources, spending so much on aid to the Turkish Cypriots? Mobilisation had cost them a lot. They could not afford this without our aid. […] He laughed at the idea of Turkey having any really sincere regard for their minority, and seemed convinced that Turkey would abandon them if she were not ‘kept up to it’.14

By 1970, the Soviets were worried about a Greek coup in Cyprus. Rumours abounded, in early 1970, of a plan by Greek junta officers to arrange a coup in Cyprus and get rid of Makarios, which appear to have been confirmed by the British Embassy in Moscow, which wrote: […] it seems clear that the Soviet Government did indeed have prior warning of what has turned out to be the common denominator of intelligence from almost all sources on the Cyprus affair: that Greek mainland officers of the National Guard were involved in the preparation of a move against Makarios. We see this, on the evidence available to us here, as the only reasonable explanation for the Soviet role. 3. Assuming that the foregoing is correct, it seems clear that the Russians really did fear that the consequence of the coup, if it succeeded, would be either Enosis or (worse still) Double Enosis, which would have led to the suppression of AKEL and the de facto incorporation of the island into NATO […] We therefore think it most unlikely that the Soviet role was “a further attempt to assert Soviet claims to be a Mediterranean power and to

 13

Pemberton-Pigott to Davidson, 28 November 1967, letter, BNA-FCO 9/71, file CC3/5. 14 Daunt to Tyler, 5 April 1968, letter enclosing extract of minute by Jenkins on his lunch with the Soviet Counsellor, FCO 27/83/MF2/1.

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use the Cyprus situation as a potential means of distracting attention from their problems in the Middle East” […] The Soviet Union is already a major Mediterranean power by virtue of both her naval presence and her relationship with the Arab states, and it is not easy to see who would be distracted, or how, from the crucial problems of the Middle East – certainly there has been little attempt here to divert the Soviet public’s attention from them. 4. In short, we see the Soviet role as one aimed not so much at the enhancement of the Soviet position, as at the defence of the Cyprus status quo which, if upset, would have done serious damage to Soviet interests both in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East as a whole. […] 15

The Soviets continued to follow events closely, and made a series of démarches, warning about the possibility of an enosis coup in Cyprus, engineered by the junta-influenced National Guard, not long before the coup actually took place, leading to the first stage of the Turkish invasion on 20 July 1974. The Soviets were aware of the links between the junta in Athens, EOKA B16 and the Cypriot National Guard, which Makarios – correctly, in view of subsequent events - viewed with considerable suspicion. When the Turkish invasion took place, the Soviets were however surprisingly compliant, perhaps having been persuaded by Kissinger that Turkey would merely restore constitutional order, and then withdraw.17 Although they went through the motions of the UN resolution calling, inter alia, for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the Turkish Prime Minister was happy with their conduct,18 and was happy to watch as the Greek post-junta government left the integrated military structure of NATO. A particularly perceptive comment by the FCO’s Information Research Department gives us at least some insight into the Soviet/Russian way of strategic thinking: The available evidence suggests that independent Soviet moves in response to the crisis (such as naval movements) have been purely precautionary. In substance, Soviet diplomacy and propaganda since the coup have concentrated on securing recognition for the continued independence and

 15

Edmonds to Bendall, 16 April 1970, letter, FCO 9/1158, file WSC3/303/2. National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters. The ‘B’ was added after Grivas’s death. 17 It is also possible that Moscow was ready to accept some Turkish presence, given the problems that this would cause for cohesion on NATO’s southern flank. I have not yet however located documents unequivocally proving my contention that Kissinger persuaded the Soviets. 18 FCO Information Research Department paper, August 1974, FCO 9/1946, file WSC3/303/1. 16

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Chapter Four territorial integrity of Cyprus, the withdrawal of ‘foreign’ armed forces from the island and the restoration of Archbishop Makarios as head of state. In short, the ideal outcome from the Soviet point of view would be the restoration of the status quo ante the coup plus the evacuation of all British, Greek and Turkish troops from the island. This betrays the overriding Soviet concern to prevent the subjugation of Cyprus to NATO purposes through Greece or Turkey or both.19

Conclusions British and American obsession with the Soviet Union meant that the Cypriots were not trusted to have their own independent foreign policy, which was in any case bedevilled by the British military territories arbitrarily taken/kept from Cyprus by Britain in 1960. The Soviet Union was quite happy to see NATO’s southern flank being weakened by the Greek-Turkish tensions engendered by the 1960 arrangement, and had only to ensure that its interests were not immediately threatened by a NATO-friendly enosis or double-enosis;20 hence the close interest that the Soviet Union took in Greek and Cypriot affairs, and its repeated warnings about a coup in Cyprus, which certainly proved justified in 1974. Its insistence on an independent Cyprus free of foreign military forces and the meta-colonial shackles of 1960 was consistent with its aim of ensuring that neither Greece nor Turkey could, in tandem with their Anglo-Saxon masters, engender any kind of enosis. Thus, in antithesis to Kissinger’s failed attempts to sideline Makarios (as we shall see), the Soviet Union supported his return to Cyprus after the coup, since he had won his spurs as a leader who did not wish to be drawn into the NATO camp. To some, the Soviet position in 1974 might seem to conflict with their stance in 1964 and 1967, when they had made their opposition to a putative Turkish invasion particularly plain. On the other hand, Cyprus was not as vital to Soviet security as, for example, its eastern satellites, at least in terms of geographical position. Moreover, there was no realistic guarantee that a fully independent Cyprus, even demilitarised, would, after Makarios, have wished to remain outside NATO. Better, then, to keep the lid on the simmering pot. A quote from an expert sums up matters neatly:

 19

Ibid. Double-enosis meant abolishing the Republic of Cyprus, and dividing it between Greece and Turkey. 20

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Archbishop Makarios was the dominant figure on whom, according to the British, Soviet interests depended. It also brought to the fore the risk of enosis, which would lead to the subjugation of Cyprus to the right-wing Greek military regime and the loss of its non-alignment. The Turkish invasion of 20 July removed the danger of enosis, and it was, in the British analysis, perhaps the main reason for the absence of a general or specific foreign condemnation of the Turkish invasion, even though almost all countries expressed either concern about the situation or, in the case of communist countries, vague accusations against Western imperialism. After the coup, Soviet diplomacy and propaganda concentrated on securing recognition for the continued independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus, the withdrawal of “foreign armed forces” from the island, and the restoration of Archbishop Makarios as head of state. That is, the Soviets called for the restoration of the status quo ante the coup, plus the evacuation of all British, Greek, and Turkish troops from the island. They also called, with increasing vigor, for the UN’s role to be strengthened. Thus, while making strong statements and accusations against Western imperialism and NATO’s “behind-the-scenes diplomatic manoeuvres intended to dismember Cyprus and create a NATO stronghold in the Eastern Mediterranean”, popularized by AKEL’s propaganda, Moscow was in fact anxious not to jeopardize good Turkish–Soviet relations and carefully avoided condemnation of the Turkish invasion.21

To this we can add that the Soviet Union wished to avoid a serious crisis with the US, given the prevailing fashion for détente, and Kissinger’s attachment, in particular, to détente with China, which was at the time a headache for Moscow. In this respect, Kissinger had in fact been particularly clever in his dealings with Moscow. Although, as we have seen, and shall see, one of his main preoccupations was to check Soviet power and influence, he was far more subtle than his successor as National security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who appeared openly hostile towards the Soviet Union. By way of introducing Kissinger’s rôle in the Cyprus crisis of 1974, in Chapter Six, let us first look at what various senior officials thought about him and his methods.

 21

Stergiou, Andreas, ‘The Communist Party in Cyprus and Soviet Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, vol. 30/31, 2014/15, p. 211.

CHAPTER FIVE OFFICIALS’ VIEWS ON KISSINGER’S VIEWS

I consider some of the views he expounded, though not completely irrational, both naïve and romantic.1

Introduction We have already intimated, using various official quotes, that some fairly rum views abounded about Henry Kissinger. The purpose of this small chapter is twofold: to put together more officials’ comments (some quite kind) about Kissinger, and to serve as an entrée to the key chapter on Kissinger’s behaviour over the Cyprus crisis. All the comments are from the early Sixties to mid-Seventies. They paint a picture of someone who had the knack of getting away with some pretty dismissive comments about some of his US colleagues; who was able to criticise US foreign policy negatively (when an academic); who was seen as naïve and romantic; and who was rather keen on his own image. It is of course true that politicians are often fairly keen on their image, and can even suffer bouts of vanity. The question has however to be posed whether being keen on one’s image is the mark of a statesman, as opposed to that of a simple politician.

London, 1963 By the late Fifties, the combination of Kissinger’s writings on nuclear matters and his being an adviser to Nelson Rockefeller had assured him a strong international profile. In 1958, the German government invited him on a lecture tour, during which the somewhat bellicose Defence Minister, Franz Joseph Strauss, publicly endorsed Kissinger’s views.2 The following year, at the Atlantic Conference (to celebrate NATO’s tenth birthday), he

 1

Freeman to Greenhill, 6 June 1970, letter, BNA-FCO 73/131. Op. cit., Ferguson, p. 428. This was the very same Strauss who was to resign as Defence Minister, after lying to the Bundestag over the notorious ‘Spiegel Affair’. 2

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met a Foreign Office Minister of State, the head of the Labour Opposition, Hugh Gaitskell, and his deputy, Aneurin Bevan,3 while in 1960, he met both the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and the Mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt.4 His association with Nelson Rockefeller, whom he advised on foreign policy, and wrote speeches for (and even a brief flirtation with Kennedy),5 obviously added to his aura. Kissinger was being taken particularly seriously by the Foreign Office, on account of his book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (see above); his association with Rockefeller; his having worked in various advisory capacities for the Eisenhower administration; and his position as director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program. When he visited London in May 1963, just before his fortieth birthday, he requested meetings with ministers and officials dealing with foreign and defence policy, and despite his known disagreements with the Kennedy Administration, was afforded the red carpet treatment, consecutively meeting, over two days, an Under Secretary at the Ministry of Defence (MOD); Earl Mountbatten and the Chief Scientific Adviser at the MOD; a senior Cabinet Office official; the Deputy Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office; an UnderSecretary at the Foreign Office; the Lord Privy Seal; and the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. The briefing and comments explain: […] Professor Kissinger is one of the foremost writers on strategic and nuclear problems in the United States and worked in various capacities in the last Administration. He holds a number of posts at Harvard and is a director of their Defense Studies Program. Though he is out of favour with the present Administration, his views always command their respect. His article “The Unresolved Problems of European Defense” published in “Foreign Affairs” last July caused a minor sensation. In this he challenged the Administration’s nuclear policy and advocated either a substantial increase in N.A.T.O. conventional forces in Europe, or the adoption of a new doctrine of war based on extensive use of tactical nuclear weapons. He went on to advocate the formation of a N.A.T.O. tactical multilateral force and United States assistance in delivery vehicles to the British and French to assist the creation of a European nuclear force. Since then he has

 3

Ibid., p. 427. Ibid., p. 431. 5 Of course, he later attacked Kennedy’s defence policy. 4

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adapted his ideas to take account of the Nassau Agreement6 and reformulated them in a recent article in “The Reporter”. […]7

The record of Kissinger’s conversation with the Lord Privy Seal sheds more light on his thinking at the time, which includes a certain lack of deep understanding about French foreign policy aims: Professor Kissinger called on the Lord Privy Seal on May 21. He confirmed that he was as depressed as he looked.8 Nuclear Questions 2. Professor Kissinger said that the Americans kept putting forward proposals to please the Europeans which the Europeans felt bound to favour in order to please the Americans. No one in Europe really wanted a mixed-manned NATO force, except perhaps some Germans who thought membership might give them a special relationship with the Americans. From every other point of view the proposal was nonsense. His own solution to the Western nuclear dilemna [sic] was to establish a European deterrent based on collaboration between British and French nuclear forces. The United States Government should do all they could to help in this, but the British and French must themselves have the responsibility for production of warheads and delivery systems, and undertake joint planning and research. The Germans, who did not want nuclear weapons of their own, would welcome a development of this kind. Many of them saw it as a means of bringing Britain into Europe.

One can see here that Kissinger was perhaps a little too sanguine in thinking that de Gaulle’s France would seriously entertain the idea of a joint nuclear force with Britain, when de Gaulle had just expressed his irritation with the Nassau Agreement between Britain and the US, whereby the US would gain vital strategic influence in the European

 6

The Nassau Agreement of December 1962 between Macmillan and Kennedy provided for the manufacture and delivery of US nuclear missiles for British submarines. It irritated de Gaulle, who saw it as US interference in European independence, and was one of the reasons that he rejected Britain’s application for EEC membership. 7 Tickell, 7 May 1963, memorandum, BNA-FO 371/173328, file WF 24/3. 8 President de Gaulle had of course thrown a serious spanner into the works of Kissinger’s hopes by not only attacking the Nassau Agreement, but by rejecting Britain’s application to join the EEC.

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defence pie by supplying nuclear missiles for British submarines. De Gaulle’s vision of Europe was Eurocentric, and the Nassau deal increased his mistrust of Britain as an American Trojan horse in Europe. The record continued: 3. The Lord Privy Seal said that this scheme presupposed the support of the French and to a lesser extent that of the Americans, to whom we were already bound by our existing agreements. Was there any evidence that either had shown any interest in it? Professor Kissinger replied that the only Frenchman against such collaboration was General de Gaulle; and surely he would have welcomed it before the Nassau agreement. Was it not this which had caused the breakdown of the Brussels negotiations? The Lord Privy Seal said there was no evidence that the French had ever wanted full nuclear collaboration: the Nassau agreement was the occasion rather than the cause of the Brussels breakdown. Professor Kissinger thought that if the British were now to propose nuclear collaboration with the French on a European basis, General de Gaulle would have to accept if he did not want to look un-European. Now was the time for a British initiative. The Americans might be more flexible than we thought about Anglo/French nuclear collaboration and would not stand on the letter of their agreements with us. When he was in London the British said the Americans would never agree; when he was in Washington the Americans said the British never would. The Lord Privy Seal said that if there was any question of the Americans helping the French, would they not prefer to collect the credit themselves by doing it directly rather than through modifying their agreements with the British? Professor Kissinger doubted this. Anything the Americans gave General de Gaulle would be accepted without thanks. It was in the American interest that the British should be the vehicle of American help because this would help build British influence in Europe. 4. The Lord Privy Seal asked Professor Kissinger to elaborate on his suggestion that an Anglo/French nuclear force could develop into a European one. Professor Kissinger said that the Germans and Italians could be given a share in its political control, perhaps by devising some arrangement on the lines of the E.E.C. Commission. But he had not really thought this through. 5. Professor Kissinger said that during his visit to Brussels he had found the E.E.C. Commission in a state of severe malaise. The effects of the British exclusion had been much greater than he had expected. The Lord Privy Seal was the hero of the hour. No-one seemed prepared to accept General de Gaulle’s ideas about the way Europe should go. The Lord Privy Seal said the General was confident that he could steer Europe the way he wanted. France was riding high: the economy was

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growing fast, the population was rising and the French considered that by 1970 they would be the richest and most populous country in Western Europe. The Lord Privy Seal then gave an account of British tactics during the negotiations. The reason for their failure was simply that General de Gaulle saw that British membership of the Communities would frustrate French domination of Europe.9

Before we comment on Kissinger’s stance and opinions in 1963, let us reproduce part of a letter from the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office to Philip de Zulueta, Private Secretary to the Prime Minister: […] Kissinger was at one time a White House consultant but is now much less in Washington. He is fairly closely linked with Governor Rockefeller, whose speeches he helps to write. His views on nuclear deterrence and counter-force strategy are very critical of Mr. McNamara’s10 policies in particular. In criticising the multi-lateral force and in advocating a separate European deterrent he is entirely at variance with the policies which the United States Administration is now pursuing. After returning to America Kissinger wrote to the Lord Privy Seal that “after visiting Paris I am no longer so sure about the receptivity there of the ideas that we discussed”. This presumably means that he did not find much favour for the idea that the French force de frappe should be sunk in a European deterrent. […]11

If we extrapolate the above quotes, and read between the Foreign Office lines, we can conclude that Kissinger was not only bent on criticising the policies of the Kennedy Administration, but that he was a shade naïve in his comments about French policy, about which the Foreign Office was far more au fait. This accords of course with the views he expresses (see Chapter One) about France and Britain. We can conclude that his views, for all the bonhomie of the ‘special relationship’, were not properly accepted as realistic. For good measure, de Zulueta even minuted to the Prime Minister: ‘Kissinger turns out alas to be a Republican’.12

 9

Op. cit., BNA-371/173328, file WF 24/3. Western Organisations and Planning Department, 3 June 1963, record of conversation between the Lord Privy Sea and Professor Henry A. Kissinger, 21 May 1963. 10 US Secretary of State for Defense. 11 Foreign Office to de Zulueta, 26 June 1963, letter, BNA-PREM 11/4223. 12 Ibid.

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As for his views on limited nuclear war, British officials were not overly enthusiastic, as the following extracts from a Foreign Office Top Secret summary show: Dr. Kissinger’s thesis of limited war contains much that is persuasive. But it seems to depend too much on the continuous and correct calculation of the advantages of limiting by both sides in the heat of battle. He argues that a policy of limited war would certainly be advantageous to the west. But this is doubtful. Dr. Kissinger’s attack on the United States for relying solely upon H bombs is rather out of date. He assumes perhaps too easily the possibility of keeping “peripheral” wars limited. The adoption of a theory of limited war in Europe might destroy the efficacy of the deterrent. It might also damage NATO morale. It would certainly be beyond the economic capacity of NATO members. Has not SACEUR’s apparent partial adoption of Dr. Kissinger’s theory many of the same drawbacks? In particular it might diminish the deterrent and make necessary a substantial increase in NATO ground forces in Europe. Moreover, what actual situation is it designed to meet? The solution of NATO’s and especially the United Kingdom’s problems in defence against limited attacks may perhaps depend upon the provision of tactical nuclear weapons as a deterrent. In spite of the disadvantages involved, if the NATO strategic concept were such as to enhance the deterrent value of the shield without weakening the value of the greater (H bomb) deterrent, might this not serve both to strengthen the Alliance, and to solve the equation between the minimum forces required by NATO commanders and the forces actually available? 13

 13

Ibid., ‘Implications of current theories of limited war for the United Kingdom’s strategic concept for Europe’, summary.

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What is interesting here, is that despite considerable disagreement with Kissinger’s views on a limited nuclear war, and despite the Foreign Office having a more realistic and accurate view of French foreign policy than what Kissinger seemed to have, senior Foreign Office officials took him seriously. We can conclude that Kissinger was interesting enough, and clever enough, to impress his hosts. Against that, we have to balance the fact that the Foreign Office was still smarting from de Gaulle’s rebuttal of Britain’s application to join the EEC, which naturally brought them closer to the Americans. Let us now turn to Kissinger’s political heyday, when his tireless energy gained him the appointment as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in 1969, then supplemented by his appointment as Secretary of State in 1973. Some might argue that he felt that the world was his oyster. In a way, it was.

‘Self-seeking Bastards’ The above title might seem to be a non sequitur, but it is what Kissinger was said to have said about those surrounding President Nixon. We thus turn to a letter from the British Ambassador in Washington to the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (as it had now become). The letter was classified ‘Secret, Personal and Guard, addressees eyes only’:14 I conclude my stream of correspondence about the private conversation I had with Henry Kissinger on 3 June [1970] by following up my Secret and Personal letter to you of 15 May. 2. Leading out of an exchange about the Middle East, I was able to refer to the talk between the Foreign Secretary [Michael Stewart] and the President on 14 May. Kissinger was relaxed and good-humoured, and spoke with apparent candour. The President had been irritated by what the Foreign Secretary had said to him. It was partly a matter of what the President had considered Mr. Stewart’s ‘patronising’ manner (less than fair, I think); even more by the fact the representations were very generalised and seemed not to lead to any specific proposals for action.15

 14

‘Guard’ means: ‘Don’t show to the Americans’. Of Stewart, Kissinger writes in op. cit. White House Years, somewhat condescendingly and patronisingly: ‘Well meaning, slightly pedantic, Stewart delighted in moral disquisitions that could drive Nixon to distraction. He had been a schoolmaster, and showed it […].

15

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Chapter Five 3. I pointed out that this was scarcely true at least in the case of the NATO communiqué. Kissinger agreed that this part of Mr. Stewart’s remarks had been pointful, but it was not particularly effective, since the President was not briefed at all about the problem. For the rest, the President had felt that the Foreign Secretary had been exhorting him to pursue objectives with which he agreed, without offering any practical advice or suggestions about how they might be achieved. This, coming at the end of a very tiring day, had left the President feeling irritated and somewhat baffled. 4. He would have been very much more so if his visitor had been anybody other than Mr. Stewart for whom he had previously conceived a high respect. Kissinger went on to say that no long-term harm had been done. The President still held Mr. Stewart in regard and had recovered his good humour by the time they all reached Florida two hours after the talk. It was however as well that I should know the truth; and it was worth bearing in mind that the President was apt to get restive when visitors took his time to talk at him without coming to a specific point. 5. I think this is a somewhat ungenerous (though not altogether unwarrantable) comment on what I heard the Foreign Secretary say, and I said as much to Kissinger, adding that Mr. Stewart spoke as he did out of the most profound personal conviction and in the belief that he had established the right to speak in friendly candour to the President. It is worth noting, however, that the President had not responded well to this particular occasion, and he had tried to explain to me why this was. 6. I am sure that the essential point in all this is that no harm has been done, but that serious meetings with the President perhaps need rather more careful preparation (on both sides) than this one was given. 7. Since I assume that this letter will be given the most restricted distribution, if any at all, I think it might be appropriate to use it to wrap one or two other very private fragments of this long conversation. 8. The President, said Kissinger, was not an easy man to read even by those who knew him pretty well. For years he had represented in Kissinger’s eyes all that was most objectionable in political life. But working with him had changed this view. Mr. Nixon was a ‘good’ man, generous in his responses and basically warm-hearted. At work he was cautious and extremely thorough in his approach to problems, and very ruthless at the moment of decision. Indeed he saw the function of the President as being almost entirely that of the ultimate decision-maker; and his reputed inaccessibility (which was exaggerated) arose from his determination to leave himself with enough time to approach decisions with personal care. Kissinger believed that the President saw positive value

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in appearing to outsiders and enemies as an unpredictable man; but not to his friends, ‘which is why we tell your government so much’. 9. Kissinger’s main criticism of the President was directed against those who surrounded him. He said: “I have never met such a gang of selfseeking bastards in my life” [author’s italics]. When I observed that the same criticism had been levelled at other national leaders and that perhaps this sort of thing was always said, he replied: “No, I used to find the Kennedy group unattractively narcissistic, but they were idealists. These people are real heels”. I find this convincing testimony, and Kissinger is not the only inside-man to think like this.

We can see here one of the reasons why Kissinger is considered by many to be a controversial figure: his policies on Cyprus, Indo-China and South America apart, it was his very way of talking about other people behind their backs, that must in turn have got some of his fellow interlocuteurs’ backs up. Some might have worried about what he would say about them. At the same time, we need to bear in mind that he is not alone in this. The high-, as well as the low-level international diplomatic circuit is ridden with petty gossip. Nevertheless, Kissinger could be criticised for not being discreet enough. In this sense, one can understand why some high-level professional diplomats, American ones included, found his manner of conducting diplomacy frustrating, and even bordering on unprofessional. 10. Finally, I hope you will not misunderstand my motives in reporting, as I think I should, a very bizarre incident which took place later the same evening and is clearly related – though I’m not sure how – to the conversation with Kissinger. At about 11.30 p.m. my telephone rang, and the President was on the line. After a polite exchange about his TV speech on Cambodia/Vietnam, which he had delivered about a couple of hours earlier, Mr. Nixon said that he was relaxing with Kissinger. Kissinger had been telling him that we had had a long and intimate talk during the day. He was glad to hear this and hoped we would do so whenever the opportunity offered. He wanted me to know that Kissinger much valued my friendship and was stimulated by our conversations. The President was grateful for this. Kissinger carried a tremendous load of work and responsibility, and he had few people to talk to in intimacy. It was important that he should be able to do so. After some further amiable remarks of no consequence, the President rang off. 11. I am completely unable to interpret this incident,*which astonished me. I am inclined to think that possibly Kissinger had given the President some account of our earlier exchange over Mr. Stewart’s visit and that this was the President’s oblique way of saying: ‘Don’t worry. No harm done.’ But that is pure guesswork. The reason the incident is probably worth reporting

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Chapter Five (though obviously to you only) is that it does appear to illustrate there is an extraordinarily close link between Kissinger and the President – at least sometimes and on some matters [author’s italics]; I hope it offers some justification for the almost neurotic and, no doubt, irritating fussiness with which I’ve tried to handle the whole business of relations with the White House. *In view of the notorious Lincoln Memorial conversation with a group of protestors a month ago, I think I should say that Mr Nixon spoke seriously and appeared completely rational. Thus, while the telephone call was probably made on impulse, I don’t doubt that he was trying to convey something which he considered of importance.16

In a letter the following day, about the Middle East, the ambassador wrote: [...] I consider some of the views he [Kissinger] expounded, though not completely irrational, both naïve and romantic. [author’s italics] I see no reason to believe that the basic understanding with the Russians would be easily or painlessly achieved. I repeat that Kissinger gave me no reason to think that these views were in any way accepted by either the President or the State Department – indeed, the reverse. However his position is so crucial that it may be of interest to you to know how his mind seems to be working and, particularly, his two primary points: that there is nothing likely to come from the ‘word-game’ in New York; and that an ‘imposed’ settlement, backed by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. is the best bet. In fairness to Kissinger I must record my view that he is a man of outstanding intellectual honesty who could easily be influenced by the good arguments of others, especially perhaps in the NSC,17 where some of his colleagues are his intellectual equals.18

The above two letters, while couched in reasonably polite language, reveal both some doubt about Kissinger’s judgment and ability, and that he was already considered to have an almost mesmerising influence on President

 16

Freeman to Greenhill, 5 June 1970, letter, BNA-FCO 73/131. The ‘Lincoln War Memorial’ conversation refers to Nixon’s impulse to visit the memorial at 04.40 in the morning to talk to student anti-war protesters, a visit which many considered irrational and risky. Among other things, Nixon volunteered the following: ‘But I pointed out that what we had done to the American Indians was in its way just as bad. We had taken a proud and independent race and virtually destroyed them. And that we had to find ways to bring them back into, into [sic] decent lives in this country.’ See CNN Politics, article by Mike Ahlens and Athina Jones, 11 November 2011. 17 National Security Council. 18 Ibid., Freeman to Greenhill, 6 June 1970, letter.

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Nixon.19 As to the ambassador’s comment above that Kissinger was a man of outstanding intellectual honesty who could easily be influenced by the good arguments of others, one cannot help but wonder whether Freeman slipped in his comment as a self-protective counterweight to his earlier comment that Kissinger’s views were not completely irrational, and that they were both naïve and romantic. In this sense, the ambassador’s comment comes across as slightly oxymoronic. As for Kissinger’s views on colleagues, they betray a certain element of superciliousness. Views on Kissinger’s views and behaviour had not altered by the following year.

19th Century Approach We begin with the German State Secretary, Frank, who visited Washington in December 1971, to discuss, inter alia, MBFR, and whose views on Kissinger (see Chapter One) were accurately recorded by the British Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany: 1. State Secretary Frank paid a flying visit to Washington last week. This visit had first been planned some months ago, but in the event President Nixon’s invitation to Brandt to go to Florida at the end of the month gave it added topicality. For Frank, it was his first return visit to the United States since he left the German Observer Mission in New York in, I think, 1963. As you know he has been very much a European animal in recent years, and I was interested to find out how Washington and the States had impressed him after an absence of 8 years. I therefore called on him yesterday. […] 6. This round-up of his impressions of particular topics over, Frank turned to the subject of Kissinger, with whom he had spent some time. He remarked that as officials, he and I were used to the minor role appropriate to our status. Kissinger was something else again. He saw himself as a policy-maker on the grand scale and whatever the degree of co-operation between the working level of the State Department and the White House might be, this made for considerable difficulties. He did not feel that he had obtained any concept of Kissinger’s innermost thinking. He gave two examples of his utterances. He had said after making one statement that this represented his (Kissinger’s) personal view, but added “I can assure you that in two weeks’ time it will be White House policy”. As he parted from him Frank had asked whether there were any particular points that he should bear in mind in advising Brandt preparatory to the latter’s meeting with President Nixon. Kissinger told him that the president should not be



19 One can be inclined to wonder whether Kissinger’s heavy German-Hebrew accent and his horn-rimmed spectacles enhanced his conversations with Nixon.

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Chapter Five pressed with questions about his future policy. I felt that Frank regarded Kissinger with considerable misgivings. He thought he was far more in the mould of Metternich than a man with a full understanding of the interdependence of a modern world. Frank clearly feared that this 19th century approach was affecting White House thinking and perhaps the attitude of the President in particular.20

In a letter responding to the above, the Minister at the British Embassy in Washington wrote to an Assistant Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as follows: As you also know, we share Frank’s misgivings about the role of Dr Kissinger. In this connection you may like to arrange for Roger Jackling to be sent, on a personal basis for his own background information, a copy of Lord Cromer’s letter of 12 November to the PUS about the making of American foreign policy. Since this was written our misgivings have been further increased by the White House’s handling of the Indo-Pakistan crisis, where it seemed – and seems – to us impossible to square Kissinger’s expressed views with reality. But it is not so much as a rule the direction of Kissinger’s foreign policy ideas that upsets us; for example his late intervention in the monetary crisis seems to have been most helpful. It is rather his manner of conceiving and conducting foreign policy without reference to, or knowledge of, the State Department or anyone else which is most worrying. It leaves one with the fear that any day something could go seriously wrong because the normal sources of advice, restraint and execution are by-passed. [author’s italics]21

Folie de Grandeur Lest any Kissinger apologists dismiss the above as superior British diplomatic tittle-tattle, we now quote from a letter from the Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary about the views of the French Foreign Minister, Michel Jobert: During the weekend when President Pompidou was at Chequers, the subject of Dr. Kissinger came up in the course of a conversation which I had with Jobert. It was clear that the French found his style and activities extremely distasteful. Jobert said that Kissinger was a “show-off” man. When they were in the Azores President Nixon stayed at the American Air Base and President Pompidou at a hotel about 15 miles away, “and

 20

Jackling to Wiggin, 8 December 1971, letter, BNA-FCO 82/63, file AMU 3/548/10. 21 Ibid., Tebbit to Wiggin, 30 December 1971, letter.

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Kissinger seemed to spend most of his time in the car between the two places”. He insisted on coming to have breakfast with President Nixon, and constantly intervened in the talks between the two Presidents.22

Not to be outdone by the French and British, senior American officials also had their complaints. In September 1972, William Hyland, a senior CIA officer on loan to the White House, stopped in London on his way back from Moscow, where he had been with Kissinger. Malcolm Mackintosh,23 an Assistant Secretary at the Cabinet Office, reported on Hyland’s views. The following extracts speak volumes about Kissinger’s approach: […] By the end of President Nixon’s second term, Kissinger hoped to see a Soviet/American relationship in which the two super powers were linked together in a network of legal, political and strategic arrangements which would to some extent restrict the Soviet Union’s freedom of movement, while leaving the United States with greater flexibility because of her wealth and her better relations with the other world powers and groupings of consequence: China, Japan and Western Europe. […]24 11. On the subject of India, Kissinger thought that, while Mrs. Gandhi was in charge, India’s policies would be an irritant to America’s interests, and could, through shortsightedness rather than real malice, play the Soviet game. America should seek to help Pakistan recover an important position in the area.25 12. Finally, Hyland reflected on the strengths and weaknesses of the Kissinger system in formulating and carrying out American foreign policy. He said that Kissinger was at the height of his power, and had registered a number of important successes, especially this year. But Hyland felt that it had two weaknesses: a) The excessive reliance on secret diplomacy, while it pleased the Russians, had already had some unfortunate consequences elsewhere, eg, when, after the May Summit meeting, both the American and Soviet

 22

Armstrong to Greenhill, 20 March 1972, letter, BNA-PREM 15/1272. (John) Malcolm Mackintosh seems to have arrived at the Cabinet Office in a somewhat unconventional manner, having been a programme organiser at the BBC and then being ‘engaged on research’ at the Foreign Office. He was probably well connected to the security services. 24 Thus we see that Kissinger’s real agenda was containment and subtle domination, whatever the lip-service paid to co-operation. 25 Kissinger’s legacy is there today: Pakistan became a nuclear power, and has caused untold problems for Afghanistan and India. 23

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Chapter Five Governments had independently informed President Sadat of Egypt that no decisions or secret deals had been made over his head – in almost identical terms, Sadat had suspiciously assumed the opposite; and one of the reasons for his expulsion of the Soviet military personnel from Egypt had been a desire to hit back at the only super power within range.26 b) The relative disregard of important expertise from the State Department had gone too far. Hyland, whose parent organisation was CIA, believes that Kissinger is needlessly depriving himself of the services of true professionals in the art of diplomacy and policy formulation. Although a number of people in the White House staff agree with Hyland’s views, there was little chance of changing Kissinger’s practice on this point. […] 14. Hyland concluded by saying that, although Kissinger had acquired the reputation of an authoritarian administrator, he was open to “in-house” criticism, and always listened carefully to opposing views from his staff, many of whom had known him in his university days. During the flight from Munich to Moscow Hyland had shown Kissinger an article critical of his, Kissinger’s, system and methods of operation written by Anthony Hartley in a recent issue of “Encounter.” After reading it, Kissinger commented, “Yes, it’s good, if you have to criticise my system, this is as good a job as I’ve ever seen!”27

The article in question, published in August 1972, was entitled ‘American Crisis: Between Old Idealism and a New Despair’. In it, Hartley, inter alia, juxtaposed ‘Campus Idealists’ with ‘Nixon/Kissinger’. Thus, ‘idealism’ was set against ‘realpolitik’; ‘democratic ideology’ against ‘ideological neutrality vis-à-vis other countries’; ‘international community based on cooperation’ against ‘balance of power’; ‘judicial, monetary and economic international structures’ against ‘power politics based on powerful individual states’; and ‘democratic control and public discussion of policy’ against ‘secrecy and centralisation of diplomacy’. Tellingly, Hartley added: ‘What seems to have happened as a result of the Viet Nam War is that the elements of moral judgment and power politics, which had always been present in American foreign policy, have been dissociated.’ This epitomises much of the nature of this book.



26 An unnamed official has commented in the margin: ‘True. This suits the US!’ It does seem strange to imply that the expulsion of Soviet personnel betrays a weakness in the Kissinger system. US shareholders then proceeded to make billions in arms sales to the Egyptian armed forces, who are today virtually a branch of the US military. 27 Mackintosh, undated (probably late September 1972), report, BNA-FCO 82/197, file AMU 3/548/15.

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Whether Kissinger was at the ‘height of his power’ at the end of September 1972 or not is a moot point. Certainly, he was not only head of the shady ‘Forty Committee’, responsible for covert operations, but, more publicly, Nixon’s Special Assistant on Security, which seems to have given him an entrée to Nixon’s mind. Shortly before his appointment as Secretary of State (a position which he was somehow able to occupy with his two other main positions), the head of Planning Staff at the FCO, responding to a request by the Prime Minister to study Kissinger’s books, wrote (see Chapter One): […] the book I would recommend the Prime Minister to begin with is the most academic of these productions: “A World Restored”. I think it offers a clue to the deeper roots of Dr Kissinger’s strange personality. Incidentally, my reference to Kissinger as a “romantic” drew a qualification from our Embassy in Washington, who said: “If to be romantic is to admire great men who by cynical and ruthless action changed the course of history, then he is a romantic. He is also a romantic in the sense of seeing himself hopefully cutting as brilliant and successful a figure as those whom he admires. But it is quite clear for example from what we hear of his remarks in private that he enjoys making a cynical analysis of other people’s capacities and motives, and is introspective and aware of the fact that he may have an incipient folie de grandeur.”28

These negative criticisms were to continue. Three weeks later, Richard Sykes,29 Minister at the British Embassy in Washington, was to write: […] a lot of the trouble we have run into must be attributed to Kissinger’s highly idiosyncratic way of doing business […] what I find difficult to judge is where the President ends and Kissinger begins.30

 28

Cable to Acland, 31 July 1973, minute, PREM 15/1983. Very much a diplomat of the old school, hard but fair, Richard Sykes ended his career as Ambassador to the Netherlands. I was Third Secretary in Chancery there. He was murdered one morning in March 1979, along with his footman. Subsequently, I visited the footman’s family with a letter of condolence from the Queen. At first, it was assumed to be an IRA operation, and then a Provisional IRA one, but at a morning prayers meeting, it was said that gangsters had been hired in Amsterdam. It seems surprising that the IRA or the ‘Provos’ would hire gangsters, particularly since that could compromise their internal security. 30 Sykes to Brimelow, letter, 22 August 1973, BNA-FCO 82/286, file AMU 3/507/1, part F. 29

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A month later, a senior FCO official wrote: […] I was a bit disturbed by Dr. Kissinger’s apparent difficulty in comprehending the procedures of the Community.31

Yet more damningly – for Kissinger critics and apologists alike –, the British ambassador in Washington was clearly rather miffed about Kissinger’s methods, as the Cyprus crisis was breaking into the open, just two days after the coup against Makarios, and as Kissinger sent his envoy, Joseph Sisco, on a firefighting shuttle to Athens and Ankara, via London: My conversation with Kissinger was apparently not recorded in the State Dept., and we have just received the somewhat bizarre request that we should give the gist of it to Sisco before he leaves for London. We have accordingly given Sisco the bulk of my tel. under reference omitting the last sentence of para.3 and the second sentence of para.6.32 We also stressed to Sisco our special position both as a guarantor power, and because of the existence of the Sovereign Base Areas. Sisco was most grateful. He said that naturally he was aware of Kissinger’s views and that my conversation with Kissinger contained nothing new to him, but that it was most useful to have such a concise summary. He also fully took the points about our special position. 3. I fear it is all too likely, given Kissinger’s idiosyncratic methods of working, that he may not record the telephonic conversations he has with the Secretary of State. I hope therefore that you can arrange for the gist of these to be telegraphed to me as soon as possible after they have taken place. Otherwise, improbable though it may seem, I fear there will a danger of both the State Dept. and this embassy working in the dark with all the resultant risks of confusion and misunderstanding.33



31 Overton to Hankey, letter, undated, but received in registry on 1 October 1973, BNA-FCO/304, file AMU 3/548/9. Registries no longer exist. 32 Telno. 2414; the last sentence of paragraph three reads: ‘Kissinger was clearly suspicious that Makarios, returned to power in those circumstances, would not hesitate to regard the Russians as his saviours and allow an already strong Communist Party to gain further strength. BNA-FCO 9/1915, file WSC1/10, part C. 33 Ramsbotham to Private Secretary, 17 July 1974, telegram, ibid. Peter Ramsbotham was the British Ambassador in Washington, scandalously replaced by a non-diplomat, Peter Jay, Callaghan’s son-in-law and friend of the new Foreign Secretary, David Owen, in 1977, in a case of obvious nepotism. Henceforth, we shall refer to Ramsbotham, rather than to ‘British Ambassador to the US/in Washington’.

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Conclusions We have just read some pretty rough stuff, not so much in the language used by the author for the sake of clarity and readability, but in the comments by senior officials, private at the time, which are pretty dismissive of Kissinger’s methods. If one reads between the diplomatic lines, they are even rather damning. Let us recall some of the words: ‘not completely irrational’, ‘considerable misgivings’, ‘naïve’, ‘romantic’, ‘extremely distasteful style and activities’, ‘show-off man’, ‘strange personality’, ‘folie de grandeur’, and ‘highly idiosyncratic way of doing business’. If one then adds that Kissinger appears to have mesmerised President Nixon into a state of quasi-dependence on his views, the proposition that he really did engineer himself into a virtual one-man show in charge of a huge and nervous nation just as the Cyprus crisis was coming to a head, is compelling, particularly if one accepts the criticism that he tended to be both a one-man show, and not to delegate enough. We have seen how President Nixon implied to the British ambassador that Kissinger was one of the few people to whom he could talk in intimacy; how the ambassador’s minister wondered where the president ended and Kissinger began; how Kissinger was thought to have extraordinarily close links to the president; how Kissinger himself told officials, albeit in private, that what he had said would soon become White House policy. And we have seen how he appeared to revel in denigrating others in private, possibly as part of his bravura style. This is the picture of the Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Forty Committee that emerges. This was the man on whom Nixon appears to have depended more than on any other while he was going through the Watergate scandal, a man who by-passed ‘the normal sources of advice, restraint and execution’, who was ‘needlessly depriving himself of the services of true professionals in the art of diplomacy and policy formulation.’ This was the man who, rather than try to bite the bullet and give a proper account of the Cyprus crisis in Years of Upheaval, published five years after the invasion and dismemberment of Cyprus, waited until 1999 to have his account published. The foregoing chapters have tried, essentially through official documents and Kissinger’s own writing, to show his mind and policies, and to introduce modern Cyprus, his ‘staging area’ for the Middle East. In the following key chapter, we shall explore Kissinger’s motivation – or lack of it - during the crisis, by again using official documents, and juxtaposing and comparing them with what he wrote.

CHAPTER SIX PROCRASTINATION, EVASION AND INVASION

If success is measured by ‘solving’ every problem, America’s Cyprus policy failed in restoring a unitary Cypriot state. But not every problem has a definitive solution […].1

Introduction This is the central chapter of this book. So far, we have considered Kissinger’s outlook and views on Europe, Britain, Russia, Turkey and Cyprus (his staging area for the Middle East); his admiration of Metternich; and my ideas on the crude theory of geopolitics.2 We have then looked at Cyprus as a strategic asset within the context of the Eastern Mediterranean, moving on to how the US became involved, through Britain, in Greece and Cyprus; what led to the unworkable 1960 arrangement imposed on Cyprus; the Soviet view; and officials’ views of Kissinger and his methods. In this chapter, almost ‘a book within a book’ in its own right, we shall first consider the immediate period before the two-stage invasion of Cyprus, comparing it to Kissinger’s account; second, the invasions themselves; and third, Kissinger’s approach to the crisis, and his tactics, then comparing them with his own account.

Warnings of a Coup Given Kissinger’s three senior positions, which placed him firmly at the heart of the US intelligence network, it is stretching the limits of credibility beyond normality to suggest that he was not on top of developments shortly before 15 July regarding the Greek junta and Cypriot EOKA B plans to depose Makarios. Before we look more closely at this,

 1

Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 239. For a serious critique of geopolitics, see op. cit., Mallinson, William, Cyprus, Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations.

2

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let us again quote Ramsbotham, simply to understand the environment which it appears Kissinger had himself created: His unwillingness to delegate has lowered the morale and effectiveness of the Department of State and has made American diplomacy lop-sided. […] His handling of the Cyprus crisis has, so far, been damaging to his reputation as a trouble-shooter and underlined, in an unwelcome way, that the United States is powerless to control even her weaker allies. In each of these cases, his critics see evidence of either his apparent lack of scruple in implementing foreign policy; of his lack of concern for human rights; or his sacrifice of ideals in the interests of realpolitik.3

It is tempting to think that Kissinger simply had his own agenda, which he was loth to share with anyone who might try to upset his own plans, notwithstanding some of the sensible-sounding but often platitudinous statements he makes in Years of Renewal. Kissinger was well in the know on the Cyprus/Greek junta problem that led to the invasion. Before looking at this, let us turn now to the American Deputy Chief of Mission in Cyprus between 1968 and 1972, and Ambassador to Cyprus from 1974 to 1978, William Crawford. He gave a long interview in 1988 to the (American) Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, from which we shall now reproduce relevant extracts: […] the Greeks, with their very substantial assets in Cyprus, decided that Makarios had to go. They made several attempts on his life, cut the fuel lines in his helicopter, etc. Put in fictional terms, nobody would believe it, but the die was cast, and the colonels were determined to get rid of him. Watching these attempts build up was an absolutely fascinating detective story. The writing of it made me the 1970 or 1971 runner-up for the director general's reporting award. […] Let me just say that in a general sense, the Central Intelligence Agency felt that the officers of the junta in Greece were proven friends of the United States. […] At one point, when I went up to Athens with what I considered proof positive of the way the mainland Greeks were playing around in Cyprus and that they were going to pull the whole house of cards down if they continued their foolishness, I was told by our chief of station in Athens, Jim Potts, that that was just absolutely impossible. He couldn't agree with me: these people were friends with whom we'd worked for 30 years, and they would never conduct anything so foolish, and furthermore, we had

 3

Ramsbotham to Killick, 14 March 1975, letter, BNA-FCO 82/541, file AMU 1/5.

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absolute assurances that they weren't up to any of the kinds of things we were reporting from Nicosia. Well, this had been totally contradicted by a really dramatic conversation I had had, as chargé with the Greek ambassador [author’s italics], whose name was Panayotakos. He, although a career diplomat, was very close to the junta. About 7:00 or 7:30 one night, Panayotakos telephoned to ask me to come to his office. I was ushered into his office. He was a fat man and was wearing a dark brown turtleneck jersey. There was no light except a hooded lamp on his desk, one of those things with the metal shade faced down toward the desk and not onto his face or illuminating any of the rest of the room. He said, "Mr. Crawford, I'm calling you in as the representative of a country with which Greece is allied. I want you to know of some important developments." (We were aware pretty well of what was going on, and Panayotakos was, in fact, just confirming information we had from many other sources.) He said, "We have today told Archbishop Makarios that he must leave Cyprus." […] It was interesting that two years later, of course, when the Greeks made the last of their several unsuccessful efforts to kill Makarios, in July of 1974, once again the evidence in Cyprus was overwhelming that this was just about to happen. It was convincing enough to Washington to cable instructions out to Tasca saying, "Approach the Greeks and tell them this just won't wash. The information has now become conclusive." The agency was concurrently tasked, I believe, to go to a longstanding asset who was very close to General Ioannidis, who by that time had replaced Papadopoulos as prime minister.4 Ioannidis was actually in charge. We triggered this asset to try to find out what was up. He came back and said, "No, there's nothing to it, I can assure you." Of course, this was believed, because he, in turn, had worked so long and faithfully for the United States. But nobody ever considered the possibility that he might still be loyal to his boss and reporting to him, Ioannidis, the whole time he was also working for the United States. So Ioannidis succeeded in throwing the US off track in 1974. […]

The above certainly lends credence to the probability that the secret part of the US embassy in Athens was not properly coordinating its work with the regular career diplomats. Given Kissinger’s position as chairman of the Forty Committee,5 as well as his other rôles, he ought to have been aware of this problem. If he was not, then that suggests a certain measure of lackadaisicalness, studied or otherwise. Crawford continued:

 4

Crawford was mistaken: Ioannidis, although he orchestrated events, was never Prime Minister, unless Crawford meant Markezinis or Androutsopoulos. 5 A division of the Executive branch of the US government responsible for overseeing covert operations.

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Chapter Six I said […] “The next thing that's going to happen is that Turkey is going to invade, and nothing that we do will stop them. We stopped them twice before, and this time they're going to view this as such a serious disruption of the status quo, that under their treaty rights they will almost certainly invade Cyprus. We won't be able to stop them. […] They'll go for the northern third, which is enough to establish strategic control over the island. Finally, one gratuitous comment, and that is look for the early fall of the junta, because Greeks cannot, in their pride, stomach a government which has so seriously misbehaved and jeopardized Greece's reputation around the world. So look for the early fall of the government in Athens.6

We can safely say, drawing on the above reminiscences, that as Deputy Chief of Mission, Crawford was aware of the CIA’s good relations with the Greek junta, but differed with its opinion that the junta was not playing dangerous games in Nicosia. And in 1974, Crawford believed that the CIA had been duped by their asset, who had claimed to them that Ioannides, the Head of the Military police, and post-November 1973 de facto backstage controller of the junta, was not involved in anti-Makarios skullduggery. Thus, according to Crawford, the CIA was therefore caught on the hop when the coup took place. Others might claim that the CIA was caught with its pants down, and was even duping the US Embassy’s regular diplomats. This is where the Boyatt story comes in: he was the Desk Officer in the State Department responsible for Cyprus, and had written forcefully in May 1974 about the danger of a Ioannides-planned anti-Makarios coup, and the likelihood of a Turkish invasion. Kissinger, as head of the Forty Committee as well as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, must have known very well of the anti-Makarios plans, and was obliged to act. The ambassador in Athens, Tasca, was therefore authorised to make representations to Ioannides. The problem, however, was that only the CIA dealt with Ioannides, through their CIA asset.7 Tasca did not therefore warn Ioannides, but only the Foreign Minister, President and Archbishop Seraphim of Greece. But Kissinger was aware of Boyatt’s prediction. The following month, the National Intelligence Daily wrote about Ioannides’ claim that Greece was capable of removing Makarios.8

 6

Interview of former US ambassador to Cyprus, William R. Crawford, Jr., by Charles Stuart Kennedy, for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training’s Foreign Affairs and Oral History Project, 24 October 1998. 7 There would of course also have been some lower level contacts. 8 Op. cit., Mallinson, William, Cyprus, A Modern History, p. 80.

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How does Kissinger deal with this in Years of Renewal? First, he avoids mention of the National Intelligence Daily article. He also avoids mention of what occurred at a meeting he called on 20 March 1974, at which Tasca raised concerns about the Ioannides-controlled government and pushed for a US statement calling for the restoration of democracy in Greece. The meeting did not come to a firm conclusion.9 The way he handles Boyatt’s concerns is disingenuous. At the Pike Committee’s10 investigation into the activities of the CIA, FBI and NSA, Kissinger used all his mental faculties to avoid the danger of being pinned down (at the height of the Cyprus crisis, he had already removed Tasca and Boyatt from their positions!). One of Kissinger’s obfuscation methods was to subsume specific memoranda into general summaries, without even necessarily mentioning the specific authors, such as Boyatt. The committee chairman, Pike, who distrusted Kissinger’s unprecedented power in US foreign policy, saw a ‘relationship between Kissinger’s foreign policy power and his power to control and contain the writing of his subordinates in the State Department.’11 Kissinger devotes a fair amount of space to denigrating the committee, and tries to justify his behaviour with a considerable degree of sophistry: If every recommendation by every junior officer came to be written with an eye to having to be defended before a congressional committee, perhaps years after the event, those committees would, in effect, turn the day-today tactics of the State Department into a political football.12

If one considers the implications of these words, we can see that Kissinger actually appears to be arguing for total state secrecy in matters of national security, whereas, in a democratic system, every single state employee should always be aware of the implications of what he writes. In this, Kissinger betrays his impatience with transparency, something he may have feared – and fears. As it is, Kissinger lost the first part of his battle, and Boyatt, at first forbidden by Kissinger to appear before the committee, was later able to appear, but only in ‘executive’ session,13 in other words without staff, media and the public.14 President Ford actually invoked

 9

National Herald, 17-17 February 2002. United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 11 Gurman, Hannah, The Dissent Papers: the Voices of Diplomats in the Cold War and Beyond, Columbia University Press, New York, 2012, p. 183. 12 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 333. 13 Op. cit., The Trial of Henry Kissinger, p. 129. 14 Op. cit., O’Malley and Craig, p. 158. 10

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executive privilege to counter various subpoenas. The story still reeks, but until all Kissinger’s papers and telephone conversations are released, unexpurgated, the jury has to remain handicapped.

Before the Invasion On 15 July 1974, the anti-Makarios fanatics struck, in line with Boyatt’s prediction.15 Kissinger states that the United States, ‘preoccupied with Watergate’, did not believe that the situation was approaching a critical point, and that ‘no one, not even Makarios, expected it.16 Whether Kissinger, as opposed to the United States, did believe that the situation was approaching a critical point is a moot point. Given that only two weeks before the coup, Makarios had sent a letter to the junta, highly critical of its conduct over Cyprus, demanding that Athens recall its officers from Cyprus, stating that he was an elected leader of a great section of Hellenism, and asking that he be treated appropriately ‘by the mother country’,17 and given that this letter was widely publicised, Makarios may well have hoped that the letter would forestall any rash behaviour by the adventurists in the junta, Ioannides in particular. But a combination of studied inaction by the wary Soviets (who were happy to watch an intra-NATO crisis unfolding, as long as their red lines were not crossed)18 and Kissinger’s apparent ignorance of the precise coup plan meant that Makarios may well have been surprised at the coup.19 Thus, on this point, Kissinger may be right, even writing that a week before the coup, neither he nor Callaghan considered Cyprus ‘sufficiently threatening’ to discuss.20 Perhaps rather protestingly, he even claims that his watching the World Cup soccer final on 9 July was a ‘certain indication’ that he did not believe a crisis was imminent. One hopes however that all the Kissinger papers and transcripts will be released, to prove whether or not he had precise foreknowledge of the coup. Some

 15

Boyatt had not given an exact date, however. Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 206. 17 Mallinson, Cyprus, A Modern History, p. 80. 18 Their main red line was enosis, since it would strengthen NATO. 19 On 17 July, Makarios, having been flown by the British to Malta (and then delayed expressly, being obliged to spend the night of the 16th in Malta), arrived in Britain. A senior FCO official wrote that it appeared from his (Makarios’s) account, that he had been taken by surprise. Yet the official than added that Makarios had been expecting trouble. Odd. See Note for the Record, 17 July 1974, BNA-FCO 9/1982, file WSC 1/10, part C. 20 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 204. 16

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foreknowledge he must have had. Yet despite Kissinger’s claim above that the situation was not approaching a critical point, he telephoned Callaghan the day after the coup: He [Kissinger] was concerned to avoid legitimising the new regime in Cyprus for as long as possible. He was also concerned to keep other powers from becoming involved [obviously the USSR, and possibly France]. The United States Government would under no circumstances support proposals for enosis [he may well have let Moscow know this, to keep it sweet]. […] Mr Callaghan asked Dr Kissinger to give careful thought to the problem in general and to what might be done with President Makarios in particular. They agreed to keep in touch.21

Neither Kissinger nor Callaghan discussed any actual action. More tellingly, for the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom to need to ask his American counterpart ‘what to do with Makarios’ is farcical, particularly since the US had no legal locus standi regarding Cyprus, whereas Britain did. To add to the intrigue, the Turkish delegation to a meeting at the FCO refused on 17 July to agree to a tripartite meeting of the Guarantor Powers, and the meeting broke up in the early hours of the 18th without even a joint communiqué.22 This section would not be complete without the story of how Kissinger refused a request from Senator Fulbright, at the suggestion of the Greek journalist Elias Demetracopoulos, to send the American Sixth Fleet on a goodwill mission to Cyprus. Kissinger claimed that this would be interfering in Greek affairs.23 And this from the man who had sent various instructions to his embassy (see above), albeit belated, to tell the Greeks not to interfere in Cyprus. A lack of clear action undoubtedly contributed to Turkey’s decision to invade. Unlike in 1964, when the US had firmly warned Turkey not to

 21

Private Secretary to British Embassy, Washington, 16 July 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1891, part B. 22 Op. cit., Cyprus, Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations, p. 80. 23 Op. cit., Cyprus, A Modern History, p. 82. I interviewed Elias Demetracopoulos in Athens on 30 November 2002.

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invade, the expressly dilatory half-hearted way in which Kissinger dealt with a clear threat was more than enough to convince Turkey that while it did not have a blank cheque to invade, it certainly knew that it could do so with impunity.

The Art of Stalling As regards the invasion (of 20 July), Kissinger admits that he received ‘ominous warnings’ of Turkish preparations to invade Cyprus (his reaction being to send Sisco to Athens and Ankara via London to negotiate). Kissinger’s account is studiedly vague, promiscuous, unconsecutive and obtuse in places, particularly on the question of the withdrawal of the Greek officers in the Cypriot National Guard. Kissinger simply writes that Makarios’s demand that Athens withdraw the Greek officers controlling the Cypriot National Guard would ‘greatly reduce, if not eliminate, Athens’ influence in Cyprus and enable Makarios to rely even more on the local Communist Party and on the Nonaligned Movement’24 internationally. Yet the only immediate way of forestalling a Turkish invasion, whether just before or even just after the coup, was to immediately withdraw those Greek officers. This is what Britain, for all its dithering and refusal to act with Turkey militarily in defence of the Treaty of Guarantee, tried to insist on. But Kissinger did not wish to put insurmountable obstacles in the way of Turkish plans. The following telegram from Ramsbotham, two days after the coup in Cyprus, shows how Kissinger used his ‘fear of communism’ as an argument to counter his theoretical and alleged wish to prevent Turkey from invading: Kissinger seemed puzzled as to why we were wanting to move so quickly and in such absolute support of Makarios. Was there not a risk here of doing Makarios’ work for him, without tying his hands in any way? It was surely a mistake to commit ourselves now to Makarios and thus narrow our options when it was far from certain that Makarios could return to power. Kissinger was also concerned at the line we were taking about the withdrawal of Greek officers in the National Guard. Whatever other role they had been playing, they had at least acted as a force against communist infiltration in Cyprus. Kissinger was clearly suspicious that Makarios, returned to power in those circumstances, would not hesitate to regard the Russians as his saviours and allow an already strong communist party to



24 The Non-Aligned Group, also known as the G77, was an independent grouping of countries, in which President Tito of Yugoslavia played a leading rôle.

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gain further strength.25

The above is the reality, so disingenuously and misleadingly re-interpreted by Kissinger. Apart from again betraying his obvious efforts to undermine Makarios, he refers to Makarios’s ‘work’ in a pejorative fashion, without specifying what this work was, then bringing in the hackneyed ‘red’ threat. This is sheer nonsense, revealing Kissinger’s inconsistency of argument, given his later words: We never for a moment thought that he was the “Castro of the Mediterranean”, and in fact, if we had had our preferences, there would not have been the coup, and we would have coexisted with him very well. It wasn’t a question of coexistence; we didn’t consider him anti-American particularly. His major drawback, if he has any, is that his talents are too large for his island and therefore, he could be subject to the temptation to play on a scale which is disquieting – not to us, but to the other parties interested in the Cyprus question.26

Thus we see here Kissinger’s inconsistency, back-pedalling and even changing the script a posteriori. As we shall see in the next chapter, he continued (albeit unsuccessfully) to try and undermine Makarios’s legitimacy, short of daring to question in public his credentials as president. The question of the withdrawal of the National Guard Officers, which Britain at least did, but too belatedly to have any effect, set out to achieve, is crucial. Although the Greek junta did agree to withdraw them, it was at the last minute, and just before the invasion. And even though Britain had been prepared to intervene militarily, the reason given by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to its High Commissioner in Nicosia for not doing so is revealing of the US stance: I would not risk British troops in such a situation unless it was clear that we would have the wholehearted backing of the United States.27

Had Britain and America acted quickly and decisively by making public representations to Athens calling for the immediate withdrawal of the officers, and emphasising Makarios’s legitimacy, Turkey would have had

 25

Ramsbotham to FCO, 17 July 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1982, file WSC 1/10, part C. 26 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 199. 27 ‘British Policy on Cyprus: July to September 1974’, paper prepared by Southern European Department, in Callaghan’s name, 14 January 1976, BNA-FCO 9/2379, file WSC 020/548/1.

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to think twice, even thrice, about the wisdom of an invasion. But Kissinger was more interested in keeping Makarios out of the picture, and did not wish to have an immediate withdrawal of the officers. The week of 15 to 20 July was crucial to Turkish preparations, just as the delays of the subsequent Geneva negotiations were going to be used by Turkey to complete its conquest, with Kissinger in the background, claiming to be distracted by Watergate. On 19 July, Callaghan made a number of points to Kissinger, including asserting the legitimacy of President Makarios (without becoming committed to him for all time); working for the disappearance of the Sampson regime; and exerting very great pressure on the Greeks.28 Kissinger replied on the day on which the invasion took place; remaining true to his studied delaying tactics, he wrote: As I promised you by phone, here is the message you and I discussed. It is for your scrap book. I was about to send it to you when our Ottoman friends cut loose. Dear Jim, I appreciate your full message sent through Peter Ramsbotham. […] We regard Archbishop Makarios as the de jure head of state, but we feel we should avoid any particular emphasis on this point as we search for a solution. […] I agree with this point [working for the disappearance of the Sampson regime], but feel that we should not precipitate the downfall of the de facto situation in Cyprus until there is a viable alternative. […] I am quite prepared that pressure may eventually have to be exerted on the Greeks. But I think that this can only usefully be done when we have a better idea of what the Turks will accept. Any premature action on our part might well lessen our ability to be effective with the Greeks later. Moreover, if pressure from the outside be brought to bear to restore Makarios, this will only solidify the regime in Athens.29

Stalling tactics apart, Kissinger’s contention that Makarios’s return would solidify the regime in Athens is both specious and contradictory, since it was far more likely that an immediate statement of support by Britain and the US would have provoked the junta’s downfall. The regime was in any

 28

Tomkins to British Embassy, Washington, 19 July 1974, telegram, BNA9/1985, file WSC1/10, part F. 29 Ibid., Ramsbotham to FCO, 20 July 1974, telegram.

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case collapsing, even as Kissinger wrote, and within three days, Karamanlis would be interim Prime Minister of Greece. Two days after the invasion, Kissinger was continuing to stall, telling Callaghan that the Americans did not ‘want Sampson as the final outcome’, but before they ‘turned on him’, wanted to see ‘what the general package looked like’.30 Yet more blatantly, Kissinger told Ramsbotham the following day that he would ‘like to procrastinate’ until he could ‘see clearly how the forces were balanced.’31 It is logical to think that Kissinger in any case knew how the forces were balanced, especially since he himself seems to have been doing the balancing: for example, on 20 July, he had instructed Tasca to tell the Greek government that if they attacked Turkey and announced enosis, the US would immediately cut off military aid.32 In contrast, as we shall see, despite the Turkish invasion, he fought tooth and nail against Congress, to keep Turkey supplied with American arms. This was simply double-track diplomacy at best, or two-faced, at worst. As Kissinger’s pressure brought Britain fully into his plans, the French were indignant, suspecting that the Anglo-American special relationship was moving into top gear. The French Foreign Minister, Sauvagnargues, told Callaghan on the eve of the Turkish invasion that the Americans had told them that their main objective was to avoid unilateral Turkish action and the possibility of giving the Russians a pretext to invade. Yet despite this, Sauvagnargues said that the Americans were against having a resolution in the Security Council specifically asking for the withdrawal of the Greek officers. Revealingly of Kissinger’s approach, the Frenchman said that while the Americans ought to exert strong pressure on the Greeks, they were not sure that they were in fact doing so. Worse, and particularly revealingly, Sauvagnargues said that the French embassy in London had had some difficulty in obtaining information from the FCO in the previous two days.33

 30

Acland, 22 July 1974, Note for the Record, BNA-FCO 9/1897, file WSC 1/10. Part F. 31 British Embassy, Washington to FCO, 23 July 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1898, file WSC 1/11, part I. 32 FCO to British Embassy, Washington, 20 July 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1895, file WSC 1/10, part F. 33 Callaghan and Sauvagnargues, 19 July 1974, record of conversation, BNA-FCO 9/1984, file WSC 1/10, part E.

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The above reveals Kissinger at his most typical in the Cyprus affair: procrastinate, while engaging in double-track diplomacy, thus maintaining an image of flexibility disguising a hard-nosed agenda, which he tended to keep to himself. He therefore paid lip-service to the French and others, claiming that Turkish military action should be avoided, while doing nothing serious about it. The UN Secretary General certainly had a very different view to Kissinger’s, calling a meeting with the British Representative to the UN, Ivor Richard, three days before the invasion: 1. The Secretary-General asked to see me a deux today about the possibility of the Security Council deciding on enforcement action to restore Makarios’ government. 2. Waldheim said that he thought it likely that the Council would, within the next 48 hours adopt unanimously a resolution calling for the restoration of the legal government. It might not deal with the means to be used to enforce this action. But at some stage, the Council might go on to decide on such action. It was clear that, with only some 2,000 troops on the island, UNFICYP was in no position to take effective action on its own.34 The obvious place to look for reinforcement was the British government, which already had troops in the Sovereign Base Area and could presumably reinforce them discreetly over the next few days. Following Security Council authorisation, British troops could move from the SBAs to reinforce UNFICYP in action to reverse the coup. They would be under U.N. command and probably under a non-British force commander. 3. It was however probable that the very threat of such action involving the promise of British military power being deployed would lead to a swift Greek withdrawal and probably the collapse of the Nicosia regime. [author’s italics] 4. In response to my enquiry, Waldheim said he thought that, with the possible exception of the United States, all members of the Council would agree to this sort of action. And he thought that, in the event, the Americans would be prepared to acquiesce. He asked me to acquaint you with his contingency thinking and to seek your reactions. 5. I have not discussed this with any other delegation. In the course of a

 34

Having been a Wehrmacht officer in the war, Waldheim would have understood the military aspect.

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general conversation with Scali35 I got the impression that they would be distinctly sceptical of direct U.N. intervention. Waldheim was speaking personally without prior reference to his staff or any of his experts. 6. It seemed clear to me that he had not thought out the details beyond the general feeling that in the event of the Security Council’s demanding action it would require the use of British troops. As seen from here there are many difficulties in the British proposals, not the least being the lack of any clear political aim. Nor, from what we hear of views in the corridors, is Waldheim being realistic in thinking that there is much unanimity about restoring the legal government. This evening there is a disposition on the part of some of the non-permanent members of the Council to go for a meeting of the Council tomorrow (before Makarios gets to New York) and to try to get agreement on a resolution which would fall well short of what Makarios would like. We hope to get later this evening the draft of a resolution being floated by the President.36

Kissinger had got there first. He had already spoken to the British ambassador, who had sent Kissinger’s ‘stalling’ views to Britain’s UN representative (Richard), as well as to the FCO, received just before Richard’s telegram. On top of that, the British ambassador had also discussed with Kissinger non-aligned pressure for a condemnatory resolution and the chances of pre-empting or avoiding it. Clearly, Kissinger convinced the British that Makarios must be kept at bay, and not arrive in New York early enough to influence UN proceedings. He was indeed delayed in Malta, when the British invented a technical problem with the aeroplane that had flown him to Malta.37 Although he was able to speak at the UN on 19 July, he had had no time to establish his presence at the UN and counter the US-British strategy to allow Turkey the space it needed to invade. The somewhat anodyne draft resolution had already been agreed. Surrealistically, it was passed on 20 July, as the Greek Cypriots were trying to fight off the Turkish invaders. Before we look at the second invasion, and Kissinger’s reasoning about it, let us quote from a telegram of 17 July 1974 about the American

 35 36

US representative to the UN. He was echoing Kissinger’s wishes. Richard to FCO, 17 July 1974, telegram, BNA- FCO 9/1982, file WSC1/10, part

C. 37

Op. cit., Cyprus, A Modern History, pp. 80-81. A retired British ambassador confirmed the story to me. He had been a member of the British High Commission in Malta, and even told me that when Makarios stepped off the aeroplane to stay in Malta, he said sarcastically: ‘Another triumph for British diplomacy!’.

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(Kissinger’s) attitude towards Makarios: He [Stabler]38 thought that the Americans might have some difficulty with the reference [in a draft UN resolution] to the President of Cyprus. They had been careful in public not to commit themselves on the status of Makarios: for example, he has been invited to Washington by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and the administration will be keeping out of it […] In an attempt to draw him on the American position on Makarios, we asked Stabler what was in the Americans’ mind in avoiding a public statement about this; Stabler said that on the assumption that Makarios could be restored only by force outside Cyprus, the Americans were tempted to wonder whether it might not be possible to build on the first of the three Turkish objectives and to bring about the replacement of Samson by a third party who “emerged from the original constitutional arrangements”, eg Clerides. If such a solution were to be worked out, Makarios’s retirement would be the price, and the problem would be how to achieve that.39

Understandably, given his Houdini-like tendency to escape from moral cages, Kissinger mentions none of these details in Years of Renewal, writing only that he met Makarios twice, on 22 and 29 July 1974. Let us now turn to the further machinations of the Geneva conferences that led to the dramatic consolidation of Turkey’s invasion plan, reminding ourselves that Kissinger was keen to maintain Turkish goodwill.

Maintaining Turkish Goodwill Negotiations between Greece, Turkey and Britain took place in Geneva from 25 to 30 July and from 8 August until Turkey attacked again. Various books have given a blow-by-blow account of how Turkey stonewalled at the negotiations, even though constitutional order in Cyprus had been restored on 23 July, with the appointment of Clerides as acting president of Cyprus. We do not need to repeat all that here. Rather, we shall compare Kissinger’s account and explanation to those of the FCO. In the face of Turkey’s blatant ignoring of the first ‘ceasefire’ of 22 July, and her continuing violations even during the Geneva conferences, Kissinger was loth to alienate her. He blandly writes: I had rejected a policy of isolating and humiliating Greece – whatever my

 38

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. Ramsbotham to FCO, 17 July 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 1914, file WSC 1/10, part Z. 39

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reservations about its government – because I considered it to be an essential pillar of our NATO strategy. From the geopolitical point of view, Turkey was, if anything, even more important. Bordering the Middle East, Central Asia, the Soviet Union, and Europe, Turkey was indispensable to American policy in each of these areas. Turkey had been a staunch and loyal ally in the entire Cold War period. Turkish troops had fought with distinction at our side in Korea. Twenty-six electronic stations were monitoring Soviet missile and space activities from Turkish territory. All this made me extremely reluctant to impose sanctions. A provision of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibited the use of American weapons for purposes other than national self-defense, the aim being to preclude domestic repression or civil war being carried out with American assistance.40

All fairly obvious so far, but then Kissinger adds: But to Turkey, Cyprus involved key issues of international security. I believed that Congress and the executive branch would, given the stakes involved, find some means of dealing with the legal ambiguities.41

This shows Kissinger’s somewhat sceptical attitude to international law, as well as a contrived subtlety disguised with a semantic veneer of common sense. He does not choose to specify what the legal ambiguities were. He also admits to rejecting Callaghan’s request to support the threat of a British air strike against Turkish cease-fire violations. He does not actually write that he condoned the Turkish invasion, to keep Turkey US- and NATO-friendly. But the documents do suggest that he did. The negotiations at Geneva between 25 and 30 July ended with a joint declaration agreeing to a cease-fire, the phased withdrawal of outside forces and a buffer zone. Kissinger writes little about the bad behaviour of the Turkish delegation, nor does he dwell on their breaking the agreement almost immediately. He writes: […] Callaghan achieved a cease-fire agreement on July 30 […] On July 31, the State Department’s Cyprus Task Force was dissolved. For a fleeting moment, we all wallowed in the illusion that the crisis was on its way to being diffused.42

 40

Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 227. Ibid., p. 225. 42 Ibid., p. 226. 41

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Given the obvious fact that the crisis was clearly not in the process of being diffused, particularly given the continuing Turkish attacks, Kissinger’s statement appears bizarre. He also forgets to mention who dissolved the Task Force, which was achieved with indecent haste. In fact, it seems that he does not wish to claim responsibility for having dissolved it, when it obvious that such a serious and sudden step would undoubtedly have required his authority, at the very least. Oxymoronically, he writes that a postponement of the second round of negotiations would have represented the best chance to develop a compromise proposal to prevent a second round of fighting,43 whereas any clear-thinking person could see that the longer the postponement, the more territory Turkey would grab. For a reasonable degree of veracity, we have to turn to the British archives, rather than to Kissinger. The Americans were now well ensconced behind the scenes; Britain was not prepared to take any initiative that the Americans would not like, and appeared ready to hide behind American coat-tails where possible. On 3 August, Kissinger sent a personal message to Callaghan: Dear Jim, For some time now we have not had a really good picture of the political forces at work in Greece (quite frankly, a part of the problem lies in our embassy in Athens). I am, of course, encouraged by the return of Karamanlis and the new situation in Athens. However, if we are to be in a position to encourage this favorable evolution, it is essential that I have a much more accurate perception of the basic political elements in Greece and of the effect on Greece of area developments.44

This was stretching credibility beyond normality, since the US embassy apart, the CIA had an enormous contingent in Athens. As CIA escapee Philip Agee wrote ‘the Agency’s hands were into everything in that country [Greece].45 Kissinger was in fact possibly the only member of the Administration in America who had the most comprehensive picture of what was happening in Greece and Cyprus, the Watergate crisis notwithstanding. Clearly, he did not agree with his ambassador in Athens, Tasca, who was reported by the British embassy in Athens to be highly

 43

Ibid., p. 227-8. British Embassy, Washington to FCO, 3 August 1974, telegram, BNA-82/471, file AMU 18/6. 45 Agee, Philip, On the Run, Bloomsbury, London, 1987, pp. 130-1. 44

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incensed at Turkish duplicity, describing Turkish conduct as ‘outrageous’, particularly since the Turkish government had inordinately delayed clearance for Sisco’s flight to Ankara.46 Some months later, the new US ambassador to Cyprus, Crawford (see above), was to tell a British diplomat that the only way he could discover US policy on Cyprus was to go home every few months and talk with Dr Kissinger personally.47 The above message from Kissinger continued: I have, therefore, asked Arthur Hartman, who is, as you know, the Assistant Secretary in charge of this area, to visit Athens early next week, to talk with Karamanlis, Mavros, Averov, and others so that he can give me the reading we so badly need. I have also asked Art while he is in the area to visit both Nicosia and Ankara. It would be useful for him to have a firsthand look at the situation in Cyprus. I am confident that these visits will improve our thinking and analyses, enabling us to provide you with still better support in the next phase of the Cyprus negotiations. If you think it would be useful, he could stop in London on the way back to see you just prior to your departure for Geneva. I also thought it would be useful to have somebody in Geneva when the negotiations resume on August 8. I have instructed Wells Stabler, who is Art’s principle deputy, to be in Geneva on Thursday – though in a very low-key way. He will, of course, be in immediate touch with your delegation.48

Hartman did indeed stop in London on his way back, meeting Callaghan on 8 August, before the latter’s flight to Geneva. But at Callaghan’s request, Hartman also flew to Geneva with him. Here we see that the US was beginning to act as Callaghan’s minder, the essential aim being to ensure that Callaghan did not do anything to seriously annoy Turkey, and to upset its plans of conquest, such as threatening military action. Extracts from the record of the meeting show this clearly: Mr Callaghan said that what worried him was that despite the agreement which had been signed in Geneva the Turks were not just mopping up. They were clearly pushing west. Mr Hartman agreed that the Turks were

 46

Athens to FCO, 20 July 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1895, file WSC 1/10, part

F. 47

Weston to Morgan, 28 April 1975, minute, BNA-FCO 9/2152, file WSC 1/5, part C. 48 Op. cit., British Embassy, Washington to FCO, 3 August 1974, telegram, BNA82/471, file AMU 18/6.

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Chapter Six pushing west. […] The key issue was to keep Mr. Mavros49 at the table and prevent him from going to the Security Council. [author’s italics] […] Mr Callaghan wondered if he should take part in the talks at all if the fighting was continuing. Mr. Hartman said that the important thing was to keep the process going. [author’s italics]. […] The fact was that there were “new realities” in Cyprus. It was now generally recognised that there were now two communities. It was also clear that no-one wanted Archbishop Makarios back. [author’s italics]50

Apart from the fantastic statement that no-one wanted Makarios back, the above shows that it was now increasingly clear that Callaghan was unable to operate without the US holding his hand; he was nevertheless sufficiently indignant at Turkish behaviour to have written to the Turkish Prime Minister, Eçevit, on 4 August, as follows: I am increasingly disturbed by reports from several sources reaching me from Cyprus that villagers [Greek Cypriot] are being evicted from their houses in the Kyrenia area controlled by you and your armed forces and that their men are being held as hostages […] I can assure you that Her Majesty’s Government will continue to exercise their influence to ensure that both communities are treated with humanity. Otherwise I fear that we shall get nowhere at the next round in Geneva.51

To establish some clarity to counter Kissinger’s very brief anodyne account of the second round of negotiations, which he ends with the words ‘on August 14, Turkey cut the Gordian Knot by seizing the territory it had been demanding’,52 we turn to the British archives and the FCO, which make it abundantly clear that Kissinger did not seriously wish to stop Turkey. Callaghan himself was fully aware of the Turkish plans to, as Kissinger puts it, cut the Gordian Knot: on 10 August, the Assistant Chief of Defence Staff, Mellersh, sent Callaghan a Top Secret message: The Turkish army is looking for an excuse to continue operations. Their next likely objective is to increase the size of their area to take in the entire North-East of Cyprus, bounded by a line five miles east of Morphou, through the southern suburbs of Nicosia and along the old Famagusta road to Famagusta. […] The army units at present in the SBAs would be required to guarantee the security of the SBAs and any extra contribution

 49

Greek Foreign Minister. Record of Conversation, 8 August 1974, BNA-FCO9/1947, file 3/304/2, part A. 51 FCO to Ankara, 4 August 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1907, file WSC1/10, part R. 52 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 231. 50

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HMG wished to make to UNFICYP would have to come from outside the Island.53

Mellersh then sent a Top Secret telegram to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff for Operations: 1. Foreign Secretary is most concerned at hard line attitude being adopted by Turkish delegation at Geneva and the strong indications that they may soon attempt a major breakout from the area at present under their control. MOD reps have been asked to offer advice in general terms on the likely form a break out would take and what UNFICYP suitably reinforced could do by interposing itself and making it quite clear to the Turks that they would have to take on a UN force in achieving their objectives. The force would have to be large enough and so armed as to give good account of itself, but I have emphasised that deterrence is all we could hope for and that any question of holding the Turks is out of the question with the estimated Turkish force levels and in the face of Turkish air [sic].54 2. Foreign Secretary has also asked for advice on options open to us with British dependents. I have already explained the many dilemmas and the possible reactions of National Guard and Greek Cypriot population. 3. I will draw on earlier Chiefs of Staff advice in presenting a personal opinion of questions posed but would be grateful if I could be given preliminary guide lines for future use. Clearly we are in a new dimension and I will emphasise the problems of the availability and movement of any British reinforcement of UNFICYP and the threats which might develop to SBAs even though action would be under UN auspices. 4. Foreign Secretary has asked that Phantoms be held at Akrotiri and that withdrawal of ABLAUT55 forces be halted immediately. I would be grateful if I could be sent details of present force levels in SBAs and of naval deployment in Eastern Mediterranean. It would also be most useful if I could have an idea of what reinforcements could be made available and



53 Mellersh to Secretary of State, 10 August 1974, memorandum, BNA-FCO 9/1915, file WSC 1/10, part Z. 54 The missing word is presumably ‘power’. 55 Britain’s operation to reinforce the Sovereign Base Areas. See also Constandinos, Andreas, ‘Britain and the Cyprus Crisis of 1974: “Responsibility without Power”, paper for the 3rd Hellenic Observatory Ph. D. Symposium at the London School of Economics and Political Science on Contemporary Greece: Structures, Context and Challenges, 14 and 15 June 2007. Constandinos also writes (p. 22) that Callaghan admired Kissinger and that some British officials were virtually in awe of him, quoting from BNA-FCO 49/548.

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102 in what time scale.56

Thus we can see that Britain was at least considering military action, although worry about the security of the SBAs appeared to take priority over stopping Turkey from taking over the North of the island. However, as we have seen, Britain was loth to risk a military confrontation with Turkey without American support. On 12 August the British ambassador in Washington lunched with Kissinger and wrote to Callaghan: […] It was, he [Kissinger] said, most important to him to maintain the complete frankness and trust he enjoyed with you. The fact was that he had, I could imagine, been totally preoccupied this past week with the change of presidency and had not been able at all to focus on current work. Between 6 and 10 August he had been virtually out of touch with the Cyprus problem and it was only on the Saturday afternoon that, in response to your request to stop a possible Turkish military expansion, he had intervened with a letter to Ecevit. He had not then been sufficiently familiar with the background, but had thought it right, beside warning Ecevit against a military move, also to offer him a way out by encouraging him to put forward his own proposal in Geneva. […] He was determined to avoid the United States incurring the hostility of both Greek and Turkish governments, as this could only weaken NATO. He would be frank in saying that he perhaps cared less about events in Cyrus itself. [author’s italics] […] Our discussion was then interrupted by a phalanx of advisors bearing a message from the US ambassador in Ankara that the Turks had delivered an ultimatum that, unless they were at once accorded the widely expanded zone across the North of Cyprus, they would leave Geneva. Kissinger asked what he should do. His advisors urged a message to Ecevit threatening to cut off military assistance. Kissinger said that on no account should he ever do this. [author’s italics] He was not prepared to jeopardise the American position with Turkey. […]57

A follow-up telegram stated: During the conversation, Kissinger mentioned that Mavros asked some time ago whether he could come to Washington to see him. Having your own problems at the negotiation table very much in mind, Kissinger suggested that he delayed until this round of talks at Geneva was over, but came soon afterwards. I said that I thought that there would be no objection

 56

Warburton (on behalf of Mellersh) to FCO, 10 August 1974, telegram, BNAFCO 9/1915, file WSC 1/10, part Z. 57 Ramsbotham to Callaghan, 12 August 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1947, file WSC 3/304/2, part A.

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to that on our part.58

Clearly, while Turkey was continuing to break the cease-fire, and planning to seize much more, Mavros’s appearance in Washington to meet Kissinger might have embarrassed Turkey and Kissinger, and highlighted Turkey’s breaking the ceasefire. Kissinger did not seem keen to exercise serious pressure on Turkey to stop advancing: Hartman also gave the answer to the question I [Callaghan] put to him yesterday about the attitude the US Government would adopt in the event of a major Turkish infringement of the ceasefire line. According to Hartman: (A) Kissinger continues to support my efforts to solve the Cyprus problem diplomatically; (B) Kissinger has made it clear to the Turks that they will not support the Turks in the Security Council if the Turks take military action; (C) If the Turks do take military action, there will be a major US diplomatic effort in NATO and bilaterally to stop them (it is not clear in what terms this has been put to the Turks though Hartman said they could be under no illusions as to what would be involved); (D) The United States could not consider military action at a time when a new US administration was taking office; (E) Kissinger does not consider threats of military action are helpful in present circumstances. Such gestures tend to create problems for Ecevit and with the extremists in Turkey. 5. It has been made clear to Hartman that I am not contemplating any further military action at the moment and that all new action on reinforcements has been suspended since yesterday. […]59

The die was now cast for Turkey to act with virtual impunity, as she did. As the Turks began their massive second attack on 14 August, Ramsbotham summarised American (i.e. Kissinger’s) ‘intentions and moves’: At the forefront of Kissinger’s mind is the need to avoid giving the Soviet Union an opportunity to expand their influence and presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. He is therefore determined not to jeopardise the American position in Turkey, whose contribution to NATO he regards as more important than Greece’s. Also important in his mind, but of lesser priority, is the goal of reaching a settlement of the Cyprus problem. (As the State

 58 59

Ibid. Ibid., Warburton to FCO, 12 August 1974, telegram.

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Department said yesterday, the United States supports Turkey’s desire for a greater degree of autonomy for the Turkish community in Cyprus). Kissinger would much rather this goal should be achieved by negotiation, and he is prepared to put pressure on the Turks to try to stop them fighting. But, in view of the long-term interests of the Alliance as he sees them, he has not been willing to threaten to cut off military assistance (nor, perhaps, could he be sure that this threat would be effective). 3. It follows that, while the Turks could not justifiably claim to have American approval for their position, particularly now that they have started fighting again, they could reasonably gamble that American disapproval would not be so forceful as to compel them to stop. [author’s italics].60

The Turks indeed knew that they could act with impunity, as another FCO record shows: The Turks seem to have concluded early on that American pressure would not be backed by anything stronger [e.g. military action]; this was no doubt a factor in their tactics at the second Geneva conference. It is certainly the case that Dr. Kissinger was concerned with the maintenance of Turkish goodwill as a bulwark between the Soviet Union and the Arab States as well as the continued use of the US bases in Turkey.61

Although he does not admit it, it is clear that Kissinger was happy for Turkey to take over at least one third of Cyprus. The most obvious proof of his continued stalling to give Turkey what it wanted is that he did not want a NATO meeting before 19 August. After all, Turkey could hardly have continued taking territory at the same time as attending a NATO meeting in Brussels. Unsurprisingly, Kissinger does not even touch on the following in his account: Diary: 14 August, 1974 2330 The Secretary of State spoke to Dr Kissinger on the telephone and asked whether he had received a request from the Greek Government to support their plans for a counter-attack in Cyprus. Dr Kissinger said that he was unaware of these plans. He also said that they intended to invite Karamanlis to the United States for talks. At the Secretary of State’s



60 Ramsbotham to FCO, 14 August 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO9/1947, file WSC 3/304/2. 61 See FCO Secret and Eclipse paper ‘British Policy on Cyprus: July to September 1974’, 14 January 1976, BNA- FCO 9/2379, file WSC 020/548/1. ‘Eclipse’ means ‘don’t show to the Americans’.

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suggestion, Dr Kissinger agreed to telephone Mr Ecevit to ask how far south the Turks were planning to advance. The Secretary of State asked Dr Kissinger whether he would be prepared to attend a NATO Ministerial Meeting if the Secretary of State called for one. Dr Kissinger agreed as long as it was not held before Monday (19 August).62

All that remained to ensure that Turkey achieved its fait accompli with relative impunity was for Kissinger to ensure that Greece did not counterattack. On 20 July, the Americans had already threatened to cut off military aid to Greece, if Greece carried out its threat to declare war on Turkey.63 And in a curiously Kissingeresque message to Karamanlis on 16 August, as the Turks were grinding slowly to a halt, Callaghan wrote: The arrival of the Greek forces [in Cyprus], whatever their purpose, would increase the risk of further Turkish forces being sent to the island and of those already there moving yet further forward. It would almost certainly lead to murderous assaults on Greek Cypriots in the area now held by the Turkish armed forces. It would also raise the spectre of a disastrous extension of the fighting outside Cyprus, with little prospect of outside intervention to protect the interests of Greece.64

Needless to say, Greece did not declare war on Turkey, standing by as Turkey completed its conquest, with Kissinger’s full knowledge. A memorandum of 14 August to Kissinger, from Hal (Helmut) Sonnenfeldt, who had also left Germany in 1938, and known as ‘Kissinger’s Kissinger’, stated: You wanted some brief ideas on what we do next. Nothing I can think of will stop the Turks now from trying to secure by force what they demanded in their ultimatum. In fact, as has always been true, the only conceivable modus vivendi will have to rest on a de facto division of the island, whatever the form. If the Turks move fast and can then be gotten to stand down, it may preempt Greek counteraction and then give us a chance to try for a deal. (It may also save Karamanlis.) While the Soviets can serve as a bogey, we must keep them at arms [sic]

 62

Diary, 14 August 1974, BNA-FCO 9/1909, file WSC 1/10, part T. FCO to British Embassy, Washington, 20 July 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1895, file WSC 1/10, part F. 64 FCO to Athens, 16 August 1974, telegram, BNA-9/1911, file WSC 1/10, part V. 63

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length. They cannot become the arbiter between US allies. Their interests differ drastically from ours: we want a modus vivendi between Greece and Turkey, they want a non-aligned Cyprus, preferably with Greece or Turkey or both disaffected from NATO. Thus, we should -

urgently try to contain Greek reaction; 24 hours at a time;

-

bluntly tell the Turks they must stop, today, tomorrow at the latest;

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warn the Turks that Greece is rapidly moving leftward;

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send high-level US man to Athens to exert continuing direct influence on Karamanlis;

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assuming the Turks quickly take Famagusta, privately assure Turks we will get them solution involving one third of island, within some kind of federal arrangement;

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assure Greeks we will contain Turk demands and allow no additional enclaves etc.

You should not get involved directly till the fighting stops; then you must, since there is no alternative and only we have the clout. I do not think Brussels/NATO is the place to use when the time comes. The Greeks are probably too sore at NATO and the vehicle of a ministerial meeting is awkward. Anyway, you need Ecevit and Karamanlis. London may be unacceptable to the Turks because of Callaghan’s blast at them. You should not shuttle. This may mean Geneva. Washington, at the President’s initiative, would be all right but hard to get the parties to come to. Also provocative of the Russians. New York would make it difficult to keep the Russians away. You could also try Rome.65

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Venizelos, Kostas and Ignatiou, Michalis, ȉĮ ȂȣıIJȚțȐ ǹȡȤȘİȓĮ IJȠȣ ȀȓıȚȞIJıİȡ (The Secret Archives of Kissinger), Livanis, Athens, 2002, pp. 434-5.

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All right, Henry Callaghan was of course fully on board with Kissinger by now, despite his anger at Turkey’s behaviour. An extraordinary telephone conversation with Kissinger on 14 August explains: Foreign Secretary Hello. Henry? Dr. Kissinger Good morning. How are you? Foreign Secretary It’s late night for you, isn’t it? Dr. Kissinger No, no, it’s early in the morning. Foreign Secretary Early in the morning. Dr. Kissinger Yes, that’s right. Foreign Secretary Oh, I see. I was suggesting to Harold [Wilson] that he might like to have a word with the President perhaps a bit later today, just to exchange views…. Dr. Kissinger I think that’s a good idea. Foreign Secretary All right, I will get him to do that then. Dr. Kissinger Let me talk to the President for a minute about this. Foreign Secretary Yes Dr. Kissinger He thinks that’s an excellent idea. Foreign Secretary Right.

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Dr. Kissinger Jim. What is your view on where we stand? Foreign Secretary Well. I was just thinking – I think in military terms, obviously the Turks will carry on until they have got this line that they have figured out on the map, and cynically, let’s hope they get it quickly. Dr. Kissinger I agree. Foreign Secretary They will then stop, and there will be no political solution. We shall have a continuation of guerilla warfare between Eoka B and the Turks. They will eventually, and I think you ought to make a fresh assessment of the south east corner of NATO, because neither of them are of very much use to us at the moment. Dr. Kissinger Well do you think, Jim – we were talking here about ways to move this negotiation – if you think it has any chance. Foreign Secretary Not in the slightest. Dr. Kissinger Do you think a NATO ministerial would be a good framework to get them started again? Foreign Secretary Henry, I don’t want to be negative because it’s not my approach, but I really don’t. I think NATO would get itself embroiled in it with even more dire consequences for its future without being able to solve it because at the moment no Greek Cypriot can sit down with a Turkish Cypriot, or with a Turk. And by rushing into this, the Turks have made a settlement impossible. My own very strong view is that if I reproach myself with one thing it is that I didn’t put more pressure on the Greeks earlier than I did. Dr. Kissinger I quite agree. Foreign Secretary To try to get them to give way. I think if we’d had this thirty-six hours without military action – if the Turks hadn’t rushed into military action – we could have got it. But now, Henry, I don’t think there’s the slightest chance of them moving.

Procrastination, Evasion and Invasion Dr. Kissinger And frankly I didn’t recommend myself, so we’re all wrong. Foreign Secretary Well, that’s right. Well, if we want to excuse ourselves, Gunes didn’t put his plans forward until 10.30 on Monday night and then wanted a meeting that night in order to settle it. So none of us really knew what we were finally up against, even though we’d read it in the newspapers. However, that is no good looking back. But as to the future. Dr. Kissinger You don’t think there would be any sense, Mavros has been eager to come over here – would there be any sense in doing that? Foreign Secretary Well yes there would because I think Greece needs massaging now. You’ve got to be careful that you don’t give them more of an appearance of doing something without doing anything. Because they’ll turn on you very, very quickly, as they’ve begun to turn on us a bit. Dr. Kissinger The Greeks? Foreign Secretary The Greeks will, yes. Because they want some action. You’re not going to act, we’re not going to act unilaterally and the UN is going to get out of the way. Dr. Kissinger O.K. Why don’t we let the thing sit then for a day and see how it looks tomorrow morning. Foreign Secretary I would. I don’t think it will look much better tomorrow morning except we may know more how far the Turks have got. And where they are going to stop. But in terms of diplomatic action, Henry, we haven’t got a chance here unless something breaks that I can’t foresee for some weeks. That’s my feeling as of today. Dr. Kissinger We will not do anything without consultation with you. Foreign Secretary No Sir, very good. And likewise the same. Just let me put it in a nutshell.

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110 Dr. Kissinger We won’t do anything today. Foreign Secretary All right.

Dr. Kissinger Let me put the President on. He wanted to say hello to you. Foreign Secretary That’s very kind of you, yes. President of the United States Good morning Mr. Minister. Foreign Secretary Mr. President, Sir, may I offer my respectful congratulations? President Well, thank you very much and I want you to know that we appreciate what you have been trying to do in a very difficult situation. Foreign Secretary Well, that’s very kind of you. You know that Henry and I – well I have a great respect for him, and I hope we’ve got a great friendship together and Mr. President, I just want to say this to you, Sir, that in the end, when the chips are down it’s only the United States who can really pull the chestnuts out of the fire, and there are times when not even you can do that. This was one of them. President I fully appreciate that, but we have to have good friends and allies like Great Britain to work with and for that reason we are darn grateful for all that you have been trying to do. Foreign Secretary Well, thank you Sir, very much, I look forward to meeting you I must say in the near future, and may I wish you the very best of good luck. You’ve got a hell of a job but it’s a wonderful challenge too, and we’ll all be rooting for you and hoping for great success for the United States. President Thank you very much and give the Prime Minister my very best. Foreign Secretary Yes, I will Sir. Shall he call you later?

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President Yes, I would like to have him do so, Sir. .

Foreign Secretary All right, I’ll do that Mr. President. Could I have just one more word with Henry? President Yes, Henry is right here. Foreign Secretary Henry, if I can put the position in a nutshell, I think it comes to this: that the Turks have got a good case. In my view they can now only be resolved by the creation of a zone. A zone in which they will have autonomy within a federal republic. This could be got by negotiation but in the temper of today, no one can begin to get anything like this. And so you have a military solution for the time being, in which they will police their own boundary. You’ll have a great exchange of population with the Greeks moving out and we’ll then just let diplomacy take over when we see the opportunity once more, to see if we can get a peaceful solution in the island. Now as regards Greece and Turkey, it is Greece who will need massaging because the Turks are too jingoistic, indeed too close to Hitler for my liking. All right? Dr. Kissinger I completely agree with you Jim. And the tragedy is that it could have worked out that way through diplomacy… Foreign Secretary I believe you. Well, goodbye old man and all the best to you with your preoccupations. Dr. Kissinger Thank you Jim. You’ve been… Foreign Secretary Thank you goodbye.66

Apart from this curious discussion, Callaghan was not even prepared to

 66

Record of a telephone conversation between the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and Dr. Henry Kissinger, and the President of the United States at 2.45 pm on Wednesday, 14 August 1974, BNA-PREM 16/20.

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meet Karamanlis ‘before he (Karamanlis) had talked to the Americans.’67 Britain was now clearly playing second fiddle to the US as regards Cyprus. To illustrate this more clearly, the following report of (yet another) telephone conversation, on 15 August, near midnight in London, between Kissinger and Callaghan, reveals Kissinger’s studiously and expediently dilatory approach: […] I [Callaghan] expressed my concern about Turkey’s intentions in the rest of the Aegean […] Had the Americans thought what they would do in the event of Turkey trying to capitalise outside Cyprus […] Kissinger said he would crack down on the Turks in those circumstances. I told him that I was not sure that we could wait until the Turks acted. If for instance they created a situation where the de facto position of the island resulted in enosis, whether double or otherwise, the consequences could only be unfortunate. An alliance between Makarios and Papandreou would result in a neutralist government in Greece. Kissinger said that he would ask his staff to do a study of the issues I had raised [my italics].68

This author has not been able to locate this study, and has some doubts that Kissinger asked his staff to undertake it. At any rate, it shows that Kissinger now considered the problem solved. His criticism of Turkey’s actions are most muted, unlike that of the FCO, which wrote that ‘the Turks regarded the conference as little more than an opportunity to secure more time and diplomatic cover to prepare for a second attack.’69

The Apologists Various academics have countered the idea that Kissinger played the rôle of a subtle facilitator in Turkey’s invasion plans. One even writes, apparently oblivious to the archival evidence, that ‘there had been no communication between him [Kissinger] and Callaghan that day [20 July 1974]’.70 Yet the Secretary to the Cabinet wrote that ‘between 1445 and 0700 [on 20 July] the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs spoke twice to Dr Kissinger’.71 Then we have Kissinger’s written



67 FCO to British Embassy, Washington, 15 August 1974, telegram, NA-FCO 9/1910, file WSC 1/10, part U. 68 Ibid., FCO to British Embassy, Washington. 69 Op. cit., ‘British Policy on Cyprus: July to September 1974.’ 70 BNA-CAB/129/178. 71 Asmussen, Jan, Cyprus at War: Diplomacy and Conflict during the 1974 Crisis, I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2008, p. 9. It is also worth mentioning that

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response (see above) to Callaghan’s written message, on the day of the invasion. Two other academics claim in a paper that Kissinger did not see Cyprus as a priority. They appear to be unaware that on 21 July 1974, Kissinger spoke to Callaghan alone seven times.72 As we have seen, and shall see in the next chapter, Kissinger quite clearly did see Cyprus as a priority. The authors (political scientists) also claim, without original documentary evidence, that the communications and the Sovereign Base Areas did not merit the importance attached to them by the ‘conspiracy theorists’.73 Yet, from as early as 1957, Kissinger had seen Cyprus as a staging area for the Middle East, as we have seen. In the next chapter, we shall see yet more. The authors of the paper, using the label ‘conspiracy theorist’ for those with whom they disagree (despite the evidence that the latter present), state that Kissinger and the State Department were caught unprepared for the crisis, and therefore adopted a ‘wait and see’ strategy in the hope that the path most beneficial to the US would become clear. This is absurd, since Kissinger was very much on the ball. If any criticism can be levelled, it is that Kissinger was keeping his cards close to his chest, thus bedevilling the work of his regular diplomats in Athens, and expressly delaying clear policy formulation and, above all, incisive action. Lindley and Wenzke make the occasional omission, as does Kissinger; for example, although they emphasise Makarios’s announcement of thirteen amendments to the constitution in 1963,74 they do not say that the Foreign Office itself encouraged Makarios (see Chapters One and Three), even helping with the drafting. As regards the outbreak of intercommunal

 Asmussen was teaching in occupied Cyprus, at ‘Eastern Mediterranean University’ in Famagusta. 72 Record of Conversation in Chronological Order, between the Prime Minister (in his former capacity as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs) and Dr. Henry Kissinger, during the period March 1974 to April 1976, BNAPREM 16/727. 73 Lindley, Dan and Wenzke, Caroline, ‘Dismantling the Cyprus Conspiracy: the US Role in the Cyprus Crises of 1963, 1967 and 1974.’ Paper presented to a workshop Programme, University of Notre Dame, 20 May 2008. 74 The 1963 troubles, and the rush of many Turkish Cypriots into enclaves, broke out when Makarios announced thirteen amendments to the constitution, amendments which he had been encouraged to make by the FCO. See op. cit. Mallinson, Cyprus, A Modern History, p. 35.

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hostilities in 1967, they do not mention that the Turkish Cypriots had started the shooting.75 Like Kissinger, they revel in stressing that Kissinger did not regard Cyprus as a priority. Indeed, their paper generally mirrors Kissinger’s account in Years of Renewal, to which I have referred constantly, and which we shall now briefly review, before concluding this chapter.

The Ethnic Partitionists While it is true that peoples with entirely different religious worldviews do not generally co-exist with ease, as history so readily informs us, it is also true that academics and others who emphasise ethnic differences tend to support partition as a solution, sometimes forbearing to mention that interethnic tensions have often been exacerbated by colonial powers. For the purpose of this brief commentary, let us be aware that the very word ‘ethnic’ is often misused. Thus, it is more realistic to assume that the word refers to a group of people with similar customs, religion and origin. Kissinger manages to superficially legitimise his account of the Cyprus crisis of 1974, and his behaviour, with the academically respectable title ‘Cyprus, a Case Study in Ethnic Conflict’. In emphasising the ethnic aspects, he detracts from the rôle of outside powerpaths in fomenting dissent. Thus, in Years of Upheaval, he refers dramatically to ‘atavistic bitternesses’ and a ‘lethal cocktail’.76 This may be all very well and good, but there is no reference to Britain’s rôle in dividing the communities, let alone of the fateful 1955 conference. Thus the uninitiated reader will be slightly misled, and think ab initio that the core of the problem lies in atavistic bitterness, and hardly at all in the machinations of outside powerpaths like Anthony Eden and Kissinger himself. Kissinger provides the reader with little factual historical basis for what he terms a ‘case study’. As, at least, an academic case study, it is inadequate and misleading for students. In his next section, ‘The Wily Archbishop’, Kissinger accuses Makarios of lacking the ability to inspire confidence, and of being the ‘proximate cause of most of Cyprus’s tensions.’ This is simply petty, as well as incipiently personal. Let us recall here the words (see Chapter One) of the

 75

United Nations Security Council Document 5/8248 of 16 November 1967, BNAFCO 9/165/CE3/8. 76 Op. cit., Years of Upheaval, p. 1189.

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British High Commissioner to Cyprus in 1966: ‘His mind is both clear and agile […] He is a good psychologist […] he is good at managing men […] For a Greek, he is astonishingly undevious […] I do not believe that he ever told me a deliberate lie […] perhaps because he thinks such a thing beneath him.’77 In contrast, Kissinger claims that ‘Great Britain did not have any particular confidence in the archbishop’. Having ‘dealt with’ Makarios, we are treated to the next section, to a light-hearted, slightly humorous title, ‘Greek-Turkish Minuets’, where Kissinger claims that Makarios imposed the thirteen amendments to the constitution, whereas in fact the Foreign Office helped.78 Shockingly for serious diplomatic historians, Kissinger does not even touch on the expulsion of almost all the Christian Orthodox community of Turkey in 1964, thus again leaving the uninitiated reader with a warped and potentially pro-Turkish view. Towards the end of this promiscuous section, in which he finds the space to attack the ‘cottage industry of investigative journalists’, in which he says that he did not believe a crisis to be imminent, and in which he claims that Makarios was mistaken in reducing the size of the National Guard and in demanding the withdrawal of the Greek officers, he manages to fire off yet another poisonous barb at the archbishop, describing him as a Machiavellian in clerical garb. We then come to the section, ‘Cyprus Erupts’, in which Kissinger does at least admit that Callaghan wanted Kissinger to exert his influence on the junta to withdraw the Greek National Guard officers and thereby accomplish the return of Makarios. But Kissinger hides behind the proposition, as we have seen, that this would strengthen the communists in Cyprus, and that Makarios would appeal to the G77: anything for inaction and procrastination. He finishes the section by coming close to justifying the Turkish invasion, with the words: ‘Nixon was on the verge of impeachment, the Cyprus regime was not recognized by any state, and the Greek junta was an international pariah. Eçevit found the temptation provided by this combination of circumstances impossible to resist.’ This actually summarises virtually the whole of his following section, ‘The Turkish Invasion’. Kissinger does at least state that he and Callaghan spent most of Sunday 21 July on the telephone, having managed, as we have seen from the

 77 78

Op. cit., Hunt to Foreign Secretary, 17 December 1966, Valedictory Despatch. Op. cit., Cyprus, A Modern History, p. 35.

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British documents, to express his puzzlement on 17 July to the British ambassador in Washington as to why Britain wanted to move so quickly and in such absolute support of Makarios, as well as to question the proposed demand for the withdrawal of the Greek officers from Cyprus. Regarding the ‘Second Turkish Intervention’, Kissinger claims, as we have seen, that on 31 July, following the dissolution of the State Department’s Cyprus Task Force, ‘we again wallowed in the illusion that the crisis was on its way to being diffused.’ He then says that, given the Nixon crisis, it would have been wise to postpone the next round of the Geneva negotiations. This is not entirely logical, since the longer the delay, the more territory Turkey would take. But most illogically, he now talks about a second intervention, rather than an invasion, as in the earlier section. Turkey has of course always insisted that it intervened, rather than invade. One wonders whether the inconsistent headings are simply intellectual sloppiness on Kissinger’s part, or whether he wants to have his cake and eat it, pleasing all and sundry. At any event, the closest Kissinger comes to being critical about Eçevit (compare with his darts against Makarios) is when he writes: ‘Once he had conquered all the disputed areas, Ecevit on August 15 made another of his empty goodwill gestures. He authorized me to inform the Greek government and the U.N. Secretary General that Turkish military operations would cease at noon the following day. By that time, Turkish forces had occupied even more territory than they had asked for originally, and seized about 35 percent of the island, including the port city of Famagusta, which contained few Turkish inhabitants.’ Kissinger then writes that ‘if mediation were to succeed, speed was of the essence’, thus contradicting his earlier express procrastination. This appears to expose a tendency to be rather expedient, given that he had implied to Callaghan on the telephone on the day of the ‘second’ Turkish invasion that there was no urgency (see above): Dr. Kissinger O.K. Why don’t we let the thing sit then for a day and see how it looks tomorrow morning.79

The most realistic and accurate view of Turkish behaviour comes from the

 79

Op. cit., Record of a telephone conversation between the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and Dr. Henry Kissinger, and the President of the United States at 2.45 pm on Wednesday, 14 August 1974, BNA-PREM 16/20.

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Foreign Office, and certainly not from Kissinger: At this point, I should stress the disastrous effect of the manner in which the Turkish Foreign Minister approached his task. He behaved in an erratic and irresponsible way from time to time. The records do not, mercifully, give his speeches in full: they would be as intolerable to read as they were to hear. Nor do they draw attention to the weary hours of waiting in which no meetings took place, while the Turkish Cabinet deliberated or the Turks disputed a minor point of protocol and Mr Günes absented himself from the Palais des Nations, at, it was said, a casino across the French border. He enjoyed the confidence neither of his staff, who complained to mine privately that he gave them no directives, nor of his Government, who regularly instructed him to repudiate commitments he had already undertaken. This meant, especially in the more informal exchanges with him, that I was frequently unable to assess the weight to be placed on what he said. In particular, it led to confusion in the last hours of the second Geneva conference, when discussion was prolonged in the expectation, which ultimately proved false, that Mr Günes’s stance would be changed by instructions from Ankara.80

Kissinger’s last section is simply entitled ‘Congress and Cyprus’, in which he subtly bewails the cutting off of military aid to Turkey, implying that it made Turkey more obdurate in its post-invasion negotiating stance on Cyprus. He fires another barb at Makarios, saying that his return to Cyprus restricted the freedom of action of all the parties, yet then contradictorily says that he gradually edged towards a settlement he would have rejected indignantly two years earlier. Kissinger’s ‘case study in ethnic conflict’ does not appear to pass academic muster.

Conclusions It has to be said that that there is, at least as yet, no ‘smoking gun’ to prove that Kissinger secretly colluded with Turkey and expressly and cynically misled Callaghan, to ensure the partition of Cyprus through a Turkish invasion. However, when and if Kissinger’s ‘private’ papers and all the telephone transcripts are released, unexpurgated, it would not be surprising if his private agenda is proven. Perhaps this book will encourage the powers that be to counter my insinuation by ensuring that everything is released. Until then, it is quite right, indeed vital, to speculate. This chapter has pinpointed, inter alia, the following: Kissinger’s wish

 80

Op. cit., ‘British Policy on Cyprus: July to September 1974’.

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to ‘avoid legitimizing the new regime in Cyprus’ for as long as possible, while not denouncing it immediately; not wishing ‘to precipitate the downfall of the de facto situation [sic] in Cyprus’ (i.e. the Sampson regime); questioning Britain’s moving quickly to support Makarios; questioning Britain’s wish to apply pressure on the Greek junta to withdraw their officers from Cyprus; speciously using communism as an excuse to delay supporting international law; Kissinger’s refusal to support Britain militarily over Cyprus; illogically stating that pressure to restore Makarios would strengthen the Athens junta; not wishing to have a NATO ministerial meeting while Turkey was attacking; and suggesting to Callaghan on 20 July, just after Turkey was ‘cutting loose’, that one sit on ‘the thing’ (the invasion) for a day. The overall impression gained from juxtaposing Kissinger’s account with various documents is one betraying a lack of specificity on Kissinger’s part, tactical omission, tactical and strategic procrastination, contradictoriness of argumentation, studied vagueness, occasional contrived humour, semantic sliding, and a personal attitude towards those who disagree with him, such as Makarios. Although one cannot yet say with utter certainty that the US specifically encouraged the invasion, the following extract from a letter by a British Embassy official in Athens makes interesting reading: 1. I called on Elias Gounaris,81 the Desk Officer in the Cyprus and Turkey Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on 23 September, principally as a courtesy on my return to Greece after leave. 2. We had an interesting general discussion, some of which is reflected in our telno 568. Towards the end of the meeting, however, he raised one point in a manner which impressed me considerably. 3. He asked me what I considered to have been the basis of American policy during the summer and I gave him an account of my own view, which is essentially that at the beginning of the crisis, the US had been determined to avoid playing the leading role; they had under-estimated the risks and, after the Turkish invasion, though prepared to play a helpful supporting role, did not wish to take control of the crisis or to mediate directly between their two allies. I further suggested that the Soviet Union’s policy had mutatis mutandis been comparable. To this, Gounaris replied that he had attended all the significant meetings between the Foreign Ministry and the Greek military during the period of the Sampson

 81

Later posted to London as ambassador.

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coup and the Turkish invasion. He had “indications” which did not amount to proof, but which satisfied him that the Americans had allowed the Greek military to believe that the Sampson coup would be acceptable to them. They had made no protest after the fact and the Greek military had thought themselves safe from Turkish retaliation because of some implicit or explicit American assurances. 4. This view of American complicity is, of course, widespread. I was shocked to hear that he himself was so convinced. 5. What Gounaris said does, nevertheless, fit in with other impressions we have formed here. In particular, John Denson recalls the calm way in which the Greek military and some Americans in Athens played down the risk of any Turkish response to the Sampson coup (and it does seem to me that any Greeks who saw Sisco between 15 and 20 July might well have concluded that he also did not expect the Turks to go in.) […] 7. We do not suggest that this is the whole story, but I have set it out because it is of rather more than historical significance here.82

Reading between the diplomatic lines, particularly the last two, this is both perceptive and significant. As we now move into our pre-penultimate chapter, a final word on ‘conspiracy theory’. This is a label often applied by Cold War propagandists seeking to belittle serious research. If, ten years ago, one had dared to suggest that Britain had tried to relinquish its bases on Cyprus in the aftermath of the invasion, but was pressurised by Kissinger not to do so, one would have been labelled a conspiracy theorist. However, one was then able to obtain the evidence, with the help of the Information Commissioner. In a way, it is the accusers who become conspiracy theorists, by apparently believing the lie. In this connexion, we shall now slide into the aftermath, which comprises Callaghan’s economy with the truth about his foreknowledge of the invasion; how Kissinger continued to hope that Makarios would not return to Cyprus as president; Kissinger’s obsession with the British bases, and how Britain tried to relinquish them; FCO views on Kissinger’s hanging on to his position, despite the change of American president; and, importantly, how, in his twilight official days, Kissinger introduced his



82 Tomkys to Cornish, 25 September 1974, letter, BNA-FCO 9/1947, file WSG/304/2.

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plan for Cyprus, a plan which continues today to bedevil attempts to solve the Cyprus problem. Even as the so-called inter-communal negotiations continue today, the institutional and psychological divide on the island becomes ever wider, with over 160,000 illegal settlers swamping a remaining 59,000 original Turkish Cypriots in occupied Cyprus.83 This is a veritable ‘ethnic cleansing and replacing’, on a par with what happened to Palestine from 1948 onwards. In a sense, occupied Cyprus has become a demographic dustbin. When the Ottoman Turks captured Cyprus from Venice in 1571, they began the process that we see today, by settling Janissaries84 and some ethnic Turks. But one can doubt whether they foresaw de facto territorial partition. I think that Kissinger, however, may well have foreseen and favoured it, and then saw the opportunity to translate his wishful thinking into his kind of political reality.

 83

Miltiadou, Miltos and Coufoudakis, Van, The Cyprus Question: a brief Introduction, Press and Information Office, Nicosia, 2008, p. 51. Turkey contests these figures, claiming that there are many ‘seasonal workers’. 84 The word is derived from ‘yeni çeri’ (new soldier), the élite guards of the Sultan, usually Greek or Serb toddlers taken from their families and trained as soldiers. This explains why many Turkish Cypriots are actually descended from Greeks.

CHAPTER SEVEN AFTERMATH AND GOODBYE

I gathered from Kissinger that he does not have much hope of putting off Makarios’ return to Cyprus.’ – British Ambassador to the USA

Introduction There was a good deal of speculation that when Ford replaced Nixon, Kissinger would bow out gracefully, but in fact he hung on like a limpet until Ford lost the election to Carter. What transpires from this chapter is further evidence of his antipathy towards Makarios, and the importance that he attached to Turkey and the Arab/Israel conflict and, therefore, to the British bases and Cyprus, his ‘staging area’ for the Middle East. We have already intimated that as the Cyprus invasion crisis continued, Callaghan succumbed increasingly, even willingly and thankfully, to Kissinger’s suggestions and advice. In this connexion, Callaghan later hid his foreknowledge of the invasion (see previous chapter) since, apart from the fact that he was being groomed to take over from the ailing Harold Wilson as Prime Minister, the FCO did not wish to embarrass the USA, preferring to let sleeping dogs lie, even if direct denial of the facts was involved. Let us begin with that aspect, before returning to Kissinger and Makarios; to the British bases and Kissinger’s obsession with them; and to Kissinger’s parting shot, namely the so-called ‘principles initiative’.

Yes, Minister Although this is an academic book, the above title is meant to encourage readability in an apt, even if slightly humorous, fashion. Nevertheless, the story is not amusing. We have seen above how Callaghan, and of course Kissinger, were both well aware on 10 August 1974 of Turkish plans to take over more than one third of Cyprus. But it is worth noting that Callaghan was also made aware on 19 July 1974 of the plan to undertake the first invasion of the following day: on the 19th, the Joint Intelligence Committee had informed Callaghan’s Private Secretary of their

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expectation of an invasion ‘in the next few days.’1 Yet on 19 February 1976, when he appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee on Cyprus, and was asked whether he recognised that ‘there was to be an immediate invasion by the Turks into at least northern Cyprus at the time and that that was imminent’, he answered ‘No’. And when asked whether ‘events still continued to indicate that there was a real danger of further advance’, he replied: ‘No, I do not think that was indicated at all’.2 Notwithstanding that this is essentially a polite academic book, it has to be said that if the documents in the British National Archives are genuine (and I cannot possibly see how they are not), then it does seem clear that the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs denied the facts to a parliamentary committee. To compound his denial, he was accompanied by three FCO minders, namely the Head of Southern European Department, Alan Goodison, the Second Legal Adviser, John Freeland, and the head of Claims Department, Derrick Burden. One can immediately understand the presence of the first two officials, but not that of Burden. But when one thinks further, one sees that if Callaghan had admitted that he was aware of Turkish plans, he could then have been accused of not having protected the interests of thousands of Commonwealth citizens, not to mention a fair number of British subjects (most with Greek names) who lost their homes and who could therefore sue the British government for compensation. But there was of course even more to it than that. First, Callaghan was being groomed to take over the premiership from Wilson, which he duly did two months later. Had the truth come out, his image of the solid, trustworthy avuncular politician would have been besmirched. More to the point, he could easily have been portrayed (with considerable justification, as we have seen) as having succumbed to Kissinger’s ‘suggestions’, as well as to Turkey’s bulldozing, particularly regarding the Treaty of Guarantee. And crucially, it would have embarrassed Kissinger. To add to this tawdry tale of backstage double-dealing, it was during a particularly lively bout of Greek and Cypriot media speculation about the British rôle in the invasion that Callaghan (or, rather, his minders) instructed their embassy in Athens and High Commission in Nicosia to ‘as necessary deny that HMG had any advance intelligence about the coup or the invasion’, and to say that Callaghan had denied this to the Select Committee. It is little wonder that

 1

Thomson to Private Secretary, record of meeting, BNA-FCO 9/1984, file WSC 1/10, part E. 2 The Select Committee on Cyprus: Minutes of Evidence, Thursday, 19th February, 1976, BNA-FCO 9/2192, file WSC 3/548/10, part C.

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the report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Cyprus stated unequivocally: ‘Britain had a right to intervene, she had the moral obligation to intervene, she had the military capacity to intervene. She did not intervene for reasons which the Government refuses to give.’3 On that unfortunate note, let us now have a last look at Kissinger’s opinion of Makarios. The committee had probably not had access to the documents that I was able to obtain years later, however. Had they been able to, one can rightly wonder whether Callaghan would have become Prime Minister.

Makarios: Kissinger’s Capodistrias Just as Kissinger was not an admirer of Capodistrias, nor was he of Makarios, about whom he peppers his description with snide comments (‘high-wire artist’, ‘archbishopal legerdemain’, ‘wily archbishop’). In Years of Renewal, he does not say specifically that he wanted Makarios out of the way; indeed, he implies quite the opposite, when he writes that Makarios was the ‘best long-term peaceful solution.’4 As so often, we have to turn to the diplomatic documents to arrive at some specificity to combat Kissinger’s express vagueness, contradictoriness and semantic slithering. On 10 September 1974, almost two months after Makarios had left Cyprus, Kissinger told Edward Heath at a lunch at the State Department that ‘Archbishop Makarios was unlikely ever to be acceptable again in Cyprus’, adding that the reason that the Americans had not backed him more clearly in the first days of the crisis was their fear that he might have sought Soviet support in addition to their own. So much for Kissinger’s renowned policy of détente.5 By December, even Kissinger had accepted that he would be unable to prevent Makarios’s return to Cyprus as president, which occurred on 8



3 Mirbagheri, Farid, Cyprus and International Peacemaking, Hurst and Company, London, 1998, pp. 102-3. 4 Op. cit., Years of Renewal, p. 199. 5 I think that Kissinger in any case jumped onto Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik bandwagon, both to gain credit and to control it. See Bender, Peter, Neue Ostpolitik, ‘Vom Mauerbau bis zum Moskauer Vertrag’, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München, 1986, pp. 183-4, in Lippert, Werner D., ‘Richard Nixon’s Détente and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik: the Politics and Diplomacy of Engaging the East’, Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, August 2005.

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December. His preferred candidate to replace Makarios had been Glafcos Clerides, the interim president, to whom Makarios was to refer to as ‘that traitor Clerides.’6 Kissinger continued to snipe at Makarios behind his back, before the latter’s return to Cyprus. On 16 November, the British ambassador in Washington wrote: I gathered from Kissinger that he does not have much hope of putting off Makarios’ return to Cyprus, though he agrees that its immediate effect could only be unhelpful. With his recent experience of Congressional pressures and of the Greeco [sic]-American lobby, I doubt whether Kissinger will want to get out in front in preventing Makarios’ return.7

The same day, Kissinger wrote to Callaghan: […] I did want you to have my impressions of my meeting with Makarios here on November 13. As usual, he was full of benign ambiguities. It was evident that he intends to return to Cyprus within the next few weeks, at least initially as President. I told him his return at this time would cause a setback in efforts to reach a negotiated settlement, and I urged him at least to delay his decision until we have a better idea of the position of the new Turkish government. In our discussion of the future of Cyprus, I told Makarios that in my view any solution would have to be based on a geographical federation and that only a bi-zonal arrangement would be acceptable. He is reluctantly beginning to accept the idea of a federation, but he insists that there must be a multiplicity of cantons under a strong central government. I understand that since our meeting, Makarios has let it be known that the United States still holds open the idea of a multi-cantonal arrangement. I want to assure you that we support the bi-zonal concept as being the only practicable arrangement and on this I think we are in complete agreement. It is clear that Makarios is not in touch with the realities on the island and I am not sure that there is very much we can do at this stage to open his eyes. […]8

 6

In a minute of 28 April 1975, a senior FCO official wrote: ‘The Archbishop had no intention of encouraging a policy of guerrilla warfare, but on the other hand he knew that the Turks would never agree to a settlement which he or any other Greek, except that ‘traitor Clerides’ could sign.’ Weston to Morgan, minute, 28 April 1975, BNA-FCO 9/2152, file WSC 1/5, part C. 7 British Embassy, Washington to FCO, 16 November 1974, telegram, BNA-FCO 9/1947, file WSC 3/304/2. 8 Henry A. Kissinger to The Right Honorable James Callaghan, M.P., 16 November 1974, letter, BNA-FCO 9/1948, file WSC 3/304/2.

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Apart from the bizarre assessment that Makarios, with his acumen, intelligence and information network, was not in touch, Kissinger was sensitive about Makarios’s mention of a cantonal arrangement. This is because towards the end of the Geneva talks the Turkish delegation had given the Americans a proposal for a ‘five or six cantonal solution’, which the Greeks had, according to Kissinger, then rejected.9 But in fact Clerides, the Cypriot negotiator, had asked for thirty six hours to consider the proposal, whereupon Günes had simply left the talks, and telephoned Eçevit with a secret message to begin the second phase of the invasion.10 Apart from the Turks refusing to contemplate waiting thirty six hours, the American rôle is curious, since the US was not a party to the treaty, and had no official negotiating position, even as a facilitator. Kissinger’s sensitivity comes across in an FCO telegram: He [Kissinger] was uncomplimentary about Makarios, whom he had seen a few days ago. He had to guard himself against Makarios’ practice of misinterpreting their conversations to the press and elsewhere. Makarios had tried to make out that a multi-regional solution was still a possibility, since the Americans could persuade the Turks to accept it. Kissinger had denied this and had told him that if a bi-regional solution was obtainable, the Americans had already shown that they would not object to it. He had been careful not to say flatly that the bi-regional solution was the preferred American one, nor to leave Makarios in a position to quote him as saying that, because the latter was only too capable of making this into an issue, portraying the Americans as bullying the Greeks into accepting humiliating terms.11

From all the above, we can see that Kissinger had not been forthcoming with the facts, and was squirming semantically: for it was the Americans, and therefore Kissinger, who had ‘induced the Turks to table a multicantonal proposal’,12 and Makarios knew this. Kissinger was thus not happy with Makarios’s veracity, and was perhaps also frustrated that the Archbishop had come bouncing back. Unlike the Soviets, who had remained on the sidelines at Geneva, the Americans played a prominent



9 Record of a meeting between the Prime Minister and the United States Secretary of State at No. 10 Downing Street, 7 March 1975, BNA-PREM 16/727. 10 Op. cit., Mirbagheri, Farid, pp. 89-90. 11 Op. cit., British Embassy, Washington, to FCO, 16 November 1974, BNAFCO/9, file WSC 3/304/2. 12 Op. cit., ‘British Policy on Cyprus, July to September 1974’, paragraph 11, BNA-FCO 9/2379, file WSC 020/548/1.

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part, mainly as facilitators, in the negotiations; and a man of Makarios’s calibre and integrity would be unlikely to expressly misrepresent Kissinger’s words following a later meeting with him. It was, rather, Kissinger who appeared to be indulging in misrepresenting, as it was indeed the Americans who had fed the Turkish delegation with the cantonal idea. It would be useful to have the precise official American records of the exchanges, rather than Kissinger’s protestations to the British ambassador, but perhaps they are among Kissinger’s private papers, or have been destroyed. Or perhaps they were never even recorded, although the FCO did write the record to which I have referred above. As regards British views on Makarios, we do at least have the British High Commissioner’s words (Chapters One and Six): ‘astonishingly undevious […] I do not believe that he ever told me a deliberate lie […] perhaps because he thinks such a thing beneath him.’ So much for the personality clash. We now turn to Kissinger’s obsession with power and strategy, and his fear of the Soviet Union and Communism. Within the context of Cyprus, these factors come across most obviously in the saga of the Sovereign Base Areas. But first, a little background, bearing in mind that Kissinger considered Cyprus as a staging area for the Middle East, and Britain as one for Europe.

Kissinger’s Base Story In 1957, Kissinger, although not in an official government position, already had much influence, one reason being the impact of his abovementioned book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, which brought, inter alia, the unfortunate idea of limited nuclear war onto the agenda. His mention of Cyprus as a staging post may well have played a rôle in American policy in this respect, and in particular in the US’s pushing Britain to find a solution to the problem of Cyprus and the colonial war it had been undergoing since 1955. Kissinger’s interest in Cyprus was of course simply strategic. Cyprus was a mere chess-piece. Following the Suez crisis of 1956 and the transfer of Britain’s Middle East listening posts to Cyprus, Britain slowly succumbed to American pressure, first releasing Makarios from captivity in the Seychelles, and then acceding to Cyprus’s – albeit qualified – independence, simultaneously ensuring the permanence of the British bases, which, as we shall see, were to be considered more important by the Americans than by the British.

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It is little wonder that the whole complicated package that established the republic was doomed, a major part of the complication being that over half the 103-page Treaty of Establishment was devoted to the Sovereign Base areas and various British military rights in the rest of Cyprus. To this bizarre treaty were added the Treaty of Alliance, between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, and the Treaty of Guarantee, which included the fateful sentence (an inadvertent pun): ‘[…] each of the three guaranteeing powers reserve the right to take action with the sole aim of restoring the state of affairs created by the present Treaty.’ In 1977, a Deputy Under Secretary wrote that the existence of the bases was ‘rooted in the treaties’.13 In fact, it could also be argued that the treaties were rooted in the birth of the bases, in the sense that from the mid-Fifties onwards, the USA’s and Britain’s concern was itself rooted more in a military presence in Cyprus than in sovereignty for the new republic. Put another way, the base horse pulled the independence cart. Britain began to get cold feet about its bases as early as the 1963/4 crisis. After considering ‘a unitary state’, enosis and giving the base at Dhekelia to Turkey, a briefing paper concluded: The bases and retained sites, and their usefulness to us, depend in large measure on Greek Cypriot co-operation and at least acquiescence. A ‘Guantanamo’14 position is out of the question. Their future therefore must depend on the extent to which we can retain Greek and/or Cypriot goodwill and counter U.S.S.R. and U.A.R. pressures. There seems little doubt, however, that in the long term, our sovereign rights in the S.B.A’s will be considered increasingly irksome by the Greek Cypriots and will be regarded as increasingly anachronistic by world public opinion.15

Henceforth, Britain was happy to keep as low a profile over Cyprus as it could, hiding behind the USA, as the following letter from the British High Commission in Nicosia shows: As you know, we have been particularly careful to avoid comment and activity that could be (mis)construed locally as appearing to support any of

 13

Hibbert to Private Secretary, minute, 27 October 1977, BNA- FCO9/2388, file WSC 023/1, Part H. 14 In 1964, Cuba cut off supplies to the American base at Guantanamo Bay, since the US refused to return it to Cuba, as a result of which the US took measures to make it self-sufficient. 15 Briefing paper, 18 June 1964, BNA-DO/220/170, file MED 193/105/2, part A.

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Chapter Seven the political parties, although we have continued with our usual IRD16 activities. This policy has so far been justified in that the Americans and now the Greeks have been attacked in recent weeks for involving themselves in the internal affairs of Cyprus, while we have been exempt from criticism.17

If the 1963/4 crisis had shaken British confidence in the bases, then the 1974 one began to thoroughly undermine it, particularly when Britain was reluctantly thrust back into the world limelight. Shortly after the initial Turkish invasion, the Head of the FCO’S Planning Staff wrote: In the long run British interests in Cyprus are the same as general Western interests: that the situation in the island should no longer disturb the peace and disrupt the flank of the North Atlantic Alliance. Our particular interests are of lesser priority [here, one and a half lines have been excised by the powers that be] Anglo-American relations, our military bases on the island have usually been more of a liability than an asset. We have in any case considered sacrificing them as part of the economies contemplated by the Defence Review and could afford to dispense with them if that would facilitate the attainment of wider objectives. In the short run, however, these bases, the presence of numerous British subjects on the island and our responsibilities under the 1960 Treaty give us a special interest not shared by our allies and partners. It should be a long term objective to eliminate liabilities and responsibilities disproportionate to our interest.18

The desire to give up the bases grew. Six weeks later, a steering brief for Callaghan’s discussions with Kissinger in New York stated: The Secretary of State has decided not to raise the subject of British tenure in the Sovereign Base Areas. If Dr Kissinger raises it, he intends to be



16 In November 1947, the Information Research Department (IRD) was created in the Foreign Office, the culmination of increasing concern at Soviet propaganda directed against colonialism, the British Empire and the rôle of the British – and then American – troops in Greece. IRD’s essential rôle was to combat, in Britain and overseas, communist policy and tactics considered as a threat to British interests. Above and beyond the usual information work of any British embassy, namely the projection of British policies, the work of IRD included the preparation and dissemination of unattributable texts to trusted contacts in the media, Civil Service and parliament, at home and abroad, in a brown envelope. IRD was wound up by the Foreign Secretary, David Owen, in 1977; but it would be naïve to think that it has not transmogrified into something else, especially these days, with an enormous NATO-Russia propaganda war in full swing. 17 Empson to Seaward, letter, 19 March 1969, BNA-FCO 9/786/WCG 1/9. 18 Cable, paper, 22 July 1974, BNA-FCO 9/1916, file WSC 1/11.

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guarded. If necessary, he could say that, during the recent crisis, our presence in the Sovereign Base Areas proved on balance to be an embarrassment to us. If pressed to say what conclusions he draws from this, he could say that the future of the Bases will probably be discussed in the context of the Defence Review but that action on this has of course been suspended until after the election. As Dr Kissinger knows, we shall wish to talk to the Americans about plans on a worldwide basis before we talk to anyone else.19

A month later, the Head of Planning Staff in the FCO wrote: […] I suggest we need to make up our minds from the outset whether we are going to hang on indefinitely in the hope of promoting agreement or whether we are determined to withdraw anyway, because the choice we make will mean a radical difference in the nature of our planning. […] a fairly early decision will be required between two objectives which are likely to be incompatible: retaining the Sovereign Base Areas unless and until there is agreement in Cyprus; or deciding to withdraw whether or not there is agreement.20

This must obviously have been worrying to Kissinger, who was obsessed with the bases. The Foreign Office disagreed fundamentally with Kissinger’s assessment, writing: British strategic interests in Cyprus are now minimal. Cyprus has never figured in NATO strategy and our bases there have no direct NATO role. The strategic value of Cyprus to us has declined sharply since our virtual withdrawal from east of Suez. This will remain the case when the Suez canal has reopened.21

But Kissinger was not to be stopped, writing to his friend Jim in November 1974: Dear Jim, I appreciate your invitation to consult with us further on Cyprus in advance of what must be a difficult decision connected with the British Sovereign

 19

Steering Brief for Secretary of State’s discussions with Dr Kissinger in New York, 24 September, 1974, BNA-FCO 82/446, file AMU 3/548/8, part B. 20 Cable to Goodison, minute, 22 October 1974, BNA-FCO 9/1916, file DP 13/441/2, part C. 21 ‘British Interests in the Eastern Mediterranean’, draft paper, 11 April 1975, BNA-FCO 46/1248, file DPI/515/1.

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Chapter Seven Base Areas on Cyprus. I have asked Wells Stabler, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, to head our group in discussions in London on November 18 with Sir Geoffrey Arthur22 and his colleagues. I do want you to know of my very strong belief that elimination of the SBA’s in Cyprus could have a destabilizing effect on the region as a whole, encouraging the Soviet Union and others to believe that the strategic position of the West has been weakened in that area, and damage Western flexibility to react in unpredictable situations. I hope, therefore, that whatever decision you feel obliged to make can be flexible enough not to undermine our overall position in the Mediterranean. While the strategic situation also argues most forcefully for the retention of the SBA’s, I believe it is also important to take no action at this time which could have a further unsettling effect on the situation in Cyprus. Mr. Stabler and his colleagues will be prepared to discuss these and other matters in greater depth in Brussels in early December.23

Callaghan’s reply epitomises how Britain was simply incapable of pursuing its own independence vis-à-vis its American cousins. Perhaps the Suez debâcle still smarted; maybe the ‘special relationship’ took precedence over British common sense; perhaps, as Edward Heath was to write years later, Britain ‘piggy-backed’ American foreign policy; maybe Callaghan was in awe of Kissinger; or perhaps it was a cocktail of all these factors. They certainly show that the ‘special relationship’ was lopsided in America’s favour: […] First, let me say that we greatly welcomed the visit of Mr Stabler and his colleagues. They gave our people a very clear presentation of the implications, as you saw them, of a decision by the British Government to withdraw from the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus. The British participants in Monday’s discussions made an immediate report, and my Cabinet colleagues and I were thus able to take fully into account all your thoughts and concerns. Our conclusions with regard to Cyprus were that, although we shall embark almost at once on a rundown of our forces there – particularly Air Force units – on the lines indicated to you by John Hunt24 and his team in Washington on 12 November, we shall not in present circumstances

 22

Deputy Under Secretary of State. Kissinger to Callaghan, letter, 16 November 1974, BNA-FCO 46/1178, file DP 13/441/2, part C. 24 Secretary to the Cabinet. 23

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proceed with our preferred policy of withdrawing from the bases altogether. The fact that the US Administration and you personally attach such importance to our presence in Cyprus, together with your argument of the generally adverse effect of our withdrawal on the region as a whole, was the determining consideration. I would not pretend that we would accept without reservation each and every argument and point in your case, as presented by Mr Stabler and his colleagues: and our people may well be discussing some of them further with yours. In the specific context of Cyprus, I am not entirely happy with the prospect of [sic] which our decision to stay in Cyprus entails. Throughout the recent crisis, the existence of the Sovereign Base Areas has been a complicating factor in our efforts to discharge our role in relation to Cyprus and, as you know, I have been unhappy about my position of “responsibility without power”. Even if we succeed in the end in achieving a Cyprus settlement requiring no external guarantees, the mere fact of our continued presence in the island, albeit technically not in the Republic itself, is bound, whatever we may say, to imply some kind of continuing special role and responsibility for the British Government. [The next few lines have been excised, leaving scholars and others irritated] I hope that this outcome will give you satisfaction and the feeling that, in matters of this sort, we continue to give full weight to the views and interests of the United States wherever these can, even at some cost, be reconciled with our own.25

This looks like a desperate attempt to retain some degree of self-respect, self-respect that had been battered by Britain’s inability to go it alone on Cyprus. It needed America, which meant Kissinger. Britain, having decided to annex almost three per cent of Cypriot territory, granting the rest a form of alleged independence that was underpinned by a complicated and legally precarious set of interconnected treaties was, only a few years later, seeking a way out of a maze that was largely of its own creation. Britain had not yet however completely succumbed to Kissinger’s desires about his staging area, and the internal debate continued, with the British High Commissioner in Cyprus, Stephen Olver,

 25

Callaghan to British Embassy, Washington, telegram, 26 November 1974, BNADEFE 68/373 (copied to A.P. Hockaday, MOD).

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writing that the bases were ‘not diamonds’.26 In March 1976, the Secretary of State for Defence told the Commander of British Forces in Cyprus that he could not foresee when the final withdrawal from Cyprus would take place.27 American pressure increased, albeit in a fairly subtle form. For example, at the Americans’ behest, the American ambassador, Crawford, accompanied by his Deputy Head of Mission and his Defence Attaché, visited the Commander of the British forces in Cyprus at the end of May 1976. The report on the visit concluded: In summary, we find it difficult to understand why the visit was pressed on CFBC at such short notice and conclude that it was primarily with a view to assessing the future of the British presence in Cyprus with particular reference to intelligence gathering. It did, however, give CFBC the opportunity to meet the Ambassador informally and proved to be a relaxed occasion.28

Although the British were still considering leaving the bases, at least in their dreams, the lack of action became frustrating for some senior officials, in particular John Hunt, Secretary to the Cabinet, who wrote an almost plaintive letter to Michael Palliser, the Permanent Under Secretary of the FCO. The impression gained is that officials were beating about the bush, and were coy about finding the gumption to cut the Gordian Knot: […] I understand the JIC already have in hand an assessment of the value of the intelligence facilities in Cyprus both to ourselves and to the Americans. Perhaps I could say however that I hope very much that the review will answer three questions which puzzle me: (a) There is a link between how long we expect to stay in Cyprus and the measures we might take to concentrate and economise. Thus on one extreme, if we knew we could be out in three years we would leave things exactly as they are: and conversely, if we expected to be there indefinitely there are a number of changes it would be worth making. But I have never been clear where the balance of advantage crosses over and this seems to



26 Olver to Secretary of State, Valedictory Despatch, Diplomatic Report no. 353/75, 10 October 1975, BNA-FCO 9/2169, file WSC 1/12. Olver quoted the Secretary of State for Defence. 27 Note for the record prepared by Secretary of State for Defence’s Office, 23 March 1976. BNA-DEFE 11/832. 28 Barton to Secretary, Chiefs of Staff Committee, letter, 8 June 1976, BNA-DEFE 11/832, file BFC/1120/21.

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me highly relevant. And is there just one cross-over point? Or would we do some things if we thought we were going to be there for, say, four years and others if the planning assumption was, say, eight years? (b) What are the arguments for and against discussing our problems frankly with the Americans? I am not suggesting that we should appear to go back on the assurances given to them last year, but they know that we do not want to say there indefinitely and it seems that we could reasonably probe their attitude, and whether they see any way of helping us, in the context of their own wish to expand their Over the Horizon radar. (c) Do we foresee any circumstances in which getting out or concentrating into one Sovereign Base Area would be a positive card to play politically, or is it just a question of waiting until the political constraints against getting out are removed? There is also a suggestion I would like to make. We all know how difficult this question of Cyprus is, and part of the difficulty is that there are separate political, economic, military and intelligence interests which have to be fitted into the jigsaw and if possible reconciled. I wonder therefore if you feel it would be helpful if I were to hold a meeting of yourself, Frank Cooper,29 Mike Carver30 and Douglas Wass31 to discuss the results of the review before it is submitted to Ministers? I am not saying that we should necessarily have anything further to contribute to help Ministers reach a decision, but I would certainly find such a discussion helpful before I have to brief the Prime Minister and the rest of you might feel similarly. I am sending copies of this letter to Frank Cooper, Mike Carver and Douglas Wass.32

This letter, above all, shows that even one of Britain’s most senior officials was almost beholden to the views of the United States, and that British defence and, therefore, British foreign policy, was simply not independent, even though America had no legal locus standi whatsoever vis-à-vis Cyprus. But Britain had got into the habit of ‘slipstream diplomacy’. Two months later, another paper prepared by the FCO at the Cabinet’s request again demonstrated how policymakers were influenced by American wishes:

 29

Permanent Under Secretary of State, MOD. Chief of Defence Staff. 31 Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. 32 Hunt to Palliser, letter, 27 July 1976, BNA-DEFE 68/372, file D/DPS (C) 103, part 8. 30

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[…] The considerations which led Ministers to agreeing in 1974 to stay in Cyprus for the time being were: a. The value of the bases to HMG and the United States in an East/West emergency or a renewed Middle East crisis; denial to the Soviet Union; and the destabilising effect of an already disrupted Southern flank. b. [paragraph blanked out by the powers that be] d. […] A handover in the absence of agreement would lead to Turkish occupation of the eastern SBA at least, and quite possibly of the whole island. […] 4. It is however unlikely, even in the event of a settlement, that the US Government would agree to our withdrawal. […] Conclusions 10. Our policy should continue to be one of complete withdrawal of our military presence on Cyprus as soon as feasible. […] 11. In the circumstances I think that we should make the Americans aware of our growing difficulty in continuing to provide a military presence in Cyprus while sustaining our main contribution to NATO. […]33

Again, it was American policy that was really dictating matters, whatever the internal discussion, plus, understandably, the fact that Turkey’s strengthened position vis-à-vis Cyprus meant that, extraordinarily, Britain was admitting that Turkey could possibly occupy the whole island if the bases were relinquished. Of course, Britain did not want that, but the mere mention of the possibility, without stating that Britain would use force to prevent a complete Turkish takeover, might strike some as worrying. On 27 October, a paper prepared by Southern European Department considered all the apparent options, including leasing arrangements; a NATO base; intelligence gathering; what to give up if necessary; and the various implications. It was a sine qua non that giving anything up would require a revision of the 1960 treaties. A key extract gives the true underlying flavour, as well as showing Kissinger’s shadow: […] The Americans’ recent serious difficulties over the use of their leased bases in Turkey and Greece for intelligence-gathering will not incline them to accept leasing as a reasonable alternative to sovereignty in the British

 33

Cabinet paper, 29 September 1976, ibid.

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bases in Cyprus. Dr Kissinger has frequently spoken of the value of this “real estate” and the necessity to keep it as a “British square on the chequer board”.34

Commenting on the above paper, a Deputy Under Secretary of State noted that failing a local settlement between the Greeks and Turks in Cyprus,35 the government was hooked on the sovereign base areas, since their existence was rooted in the treaties, adding that the bases could not be given away except by revision of the treaties, which could only be achieved with Greek and Turkish assent.36 The shadow boxing and semantic gyrations continued into 1977. The Prime Minister, by now Callaghan, requested the MOD to give its views on the question of a withdrawal. From the response, it is quite clear that it was considered feasible; also, no mention of the Americans was made, in contrast to the various FCO papers: […] Although Ministers agreed in 1974 that United Kingdom forces should remain in Cyprus for the time being it remains HMG’s preferred policy to withdraw completely. […] 6. If a withdrawal from Cyprus were approved it would be sensible to aim to leave as early as possible commensurate with an ordinary rundown. The method of evacuating in an unfavourable politico-military environment would require further examination beyond the scope of this paper. For various practical reasons the earliest possible date for withdrawal, assuming a decision were taken now, would be mid-1978. The implications discussed below assume that withdrawal would be completed by then. […] 12. Royal Navy. If the Skynet terminal in Cyprus were withdrawn there could be some degradation in effectiveness of those Skynet-fitted ships deployed in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific until alternative facilities become available in April 1978. It would therefore be desirable to retain the facility in Cyprus until then. 13. Army […] The loss of the Cyprus training facilities would be serious and it is hoped that it will be possible to negotiate with the Cyprus Government for this training to continue.

 34

Paper, 27 October 1976, BNA-FCO 9/2388, file WSC 023/1, part H. A curious description, since all internal FCO correspondence, at least from the Sixties, refers to Greek and Turkish Cypriots. 36 Ibid., Hibbert to Private Secretary, minute, 27 October 1976. 35

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14. Royal Air Force. Given one year’s notice of final withdrawal the Royal Air Force expects to be able to absorb Cyprus personnel elsewhere by adjustment of intakes and natural wastage. […] 17. Since it is unlikely that HMG would consider a military withdrawal from Cyprus while retaining sovereignty over the SBAs, any plan for a military withdrawal must take into account the need to transfer the sovereignty of the SBAs to the Government of Cyprus.37

Reading these papers chronologically, it becomes increasingly clear that Britain really did wish to leave Cyprus, but at the same time argue nicely with the Americans, just in case they would agree. One gets the sense that Britain was banging its head against a wall. In March 1977, Callaghan met the American Secretary of Defense, Brown, in Washington. His arguments appeared more cogent and direct than when he had been dealing with Kissinger, who had now left the overt political scene with the election of Jimmy Carter: Cyprus The Prime Minister asked whether the new Administration had yet been able to look at the Cyprus situation. Our presence on the island involved us in a substantial expenditure on something which was not an exclusively British interest; on the contrary, it was in the interests of the whole Western world. Speaking frankly, if we looked at Cyprus through solely British eyes, we would have left before now. We had only stayed there 18 months ago because we were aware of the implications of our departure. It was however costing us between £35 and £40 million a year, and we would like to explore ways of sharing the costs. Dr. Brown said that he thought it would be very dangerous to pull out of Cyprus in the Turkish context. The Eastern Mediterranean was in a critical situation and he would be glad to discuss the problem further, without commitment. He was not sanguine about the possibility of the United States participating in either a major or an open way. The Prime Minister said that he was not suggesting open participation. On the contrary, it was important for historical reasons that the presence in Cyprus should be seen to be a British one. Dr. Brown said that he had written yesterday to Mr. Mulley38 about upgrading the American involvement in Cyprus. Personally, he believed

 37

Bliss, covering note, 24 February 1977, BNA-DEFE 24/1525, file D/DS8/24/2. part 36. 38 Secretary of State for Defence.

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that the political interest in a continued presence on Cyprus was as great as either the military or intelligence interest. The Prime Minister said that for us our presence was largely symbolic since the presence of families in the Sovereign Base Areas meant that our presence could not easily be used in a military role. The real criterion for us was the intelligence and communications one, but he believed that we should continue to assess the situation.39

Internal FCO discussion was to continue for a while, with the same arguments that we have seen being bounced around. The only policy that seemed to emerge was that Britain was beholden to American wishes, but wanted the US to finance some, or all, of the costs. It is also worth mentioning here that the UK-friendly Clerides (promoted, as we have seen, by Kissinger as an alternative to Makarios) told the Foreign Secretary of his doubts that anyone, with the possible exception of Lyssarides’s (left-wing) party, was seriously worried about the SBAs, adding that the bases were an important source of work for Cypriots.40 At any rate, the idea of the US financing, or at least co-financing the bases, was treated very seriously, perhaps as a sop to the British, who were fearful of insisting to the Americans that they would definitely leave. In 1975, the US ambassador in Nicosia had told the British High Commissioner that the US would be prepared to finance the bases, secretly if necessary,41 while the Foreign Secretary referred, as late as September 1977, to the talks with the Americans about financing the bases.42 Despite the arrival of Margaret Thatcher’s pro-American Conservative government on 4 May 1979, there were still some minor FCO rumblings for a brief while: for example, Henry Hogger of Southern European Department wrote that were it to become clear that the final achievement of a settlement depended on relinquishing of sovereignty over part or all of the SBAs, then ‘we should be prepared to consider this’,43 while the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Europe was brave enough to write that the history of recent decades was ‘not encouraging for the future of the SBAs



39 Note of a meeting between the Prime Minister and the United States Secretary of Defense, 10 March 1977, BNA-FCO 82/759, file AMU 026/2, Annex. 40 Record of meeting at FCO between Dr. Owen and Glafkos Clerides, 2 February 1977, BNA-FCO 9/2547, file WSG 026/2. 41 Weston to Morgan, minute, 26 April 1975, BNA-FCO 9/2152, file WSC 1/5, part C. 42 Record of meeting, 19 September 1977, BNA-FCO 9/2505, file WSC 014/4. 43 Hogger to Permanent Under Secretary’s Department (responsible for liaison with the Secret Intelligence Service) and Defence and News Departments, minute, 24 May 1979, BNA-FCO 9/2827, file WSC 063/1, part A.

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in Cyprus.’44 But by 1980, in an extraordinary U-turn, the relationship between a settlement and giving up the bases had been settled for the foreseeable future, as we shall now see.

Bases before Settlement At the end of 1980, the Foreign Office was telling itself that it now, after all, considered the bases to be more important than a solution to the division of the island. A senior official wrote: The benefits which we derive from the SBAs are of major significance and virtually irreplaceable. They are an essential contribution to the AngloAmerican relationship. The Department have regularly considered with those concerned which circumstances in Cyprus are most conducive to our retaining unfettered use of our SBA facilities. On balance, the conclusion is that an early ‘solution’ might not help (since pressures against the SBAs might then build up), just as breakdown and return to strife would not, and that our interests are best served by continuing movement towards a solution – without the early prospect of arrival. [author’s italics]45

This might strike some observers as pretty cynical. At any rate, from Kissinger’s viewpoint, this was clearly a major strategic success, even if he was no longer overtly dictating his policies. Thenceforth, it appears that the bases were sacrosanct, and that there would be no more serious consideration to relinquish them.

Kissinger’s Cypriot Swan Song For the avoidance of doubt about the hard-nosed realism of Kissinger’s attitude towards Cyprus, and before we conclude this chapter with Kissinger’s so-called ‘principles initiative’, let us recall two of his ‘Cypriot epithets’, as reported by British diplomats. In early 1975, the British ambassador in Washington reported: Kissinger said that […] Cyprus was a peripheral issue from the US perspective, when compared with the importance of Turkey to the security of the Eastern Mediterranean. In particular, Turkey’s role was crucial to

 44

Ibid., Bullard to Head of Southern European Department, minute. Fergusson to Foreign Minister’s Private Secretary, minute, 8 December 1980, BNA-FCO 9/2949, file, WSC/023/1, part C. 45

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US-Soviet relations on the Middle East.46

And one year later: It is certainly the case that Dr Kissinger was concerned with the maintenance of Turkish goodwill as a bulwark between the Soviet Union and the Arab states as with the continued use of US bases in Turkey. He was also concerned with the effects of United States policy over Cyprus on the resolution of the Arab/Israel problem, and he regarded this as more important than Greek hostility towards the United States, despite the effect of this dissension on the Southern Flank of the Alliance.47

Let us remember that although the FCO considered (see above) British interests in Cyprus to be minimal, and although Cyprus was, for Kissinger, a ‘peripheral issue’, the latter kept very much in touch with the ‘issue’ (not a very pleasant way of describing an island full of people), and ensured, obsessively in my view, that his policies would continue, by throwing in his so-called ‘principles initiative’ not long before he had to step down at the end of 1976. It was this ‘initiative’, rather than the British wish to give up the bases, that was to lead to over forty years (so far) of mainly fruitless negotiations, during which time Turkey has consolidated its position and altered the demographic structure of the island beyond repair. The ‘initiative’ was also the forerunner of the so-called abortive ‘Annan Plan’ of 2004.48 Although intended to unify Cyprus before the island joined the European Union, the plan was built on failure, in the sense that it was built around confirmation of the 1960 treaties that had been considered, even by Kissinger, as failed, and which had been shown to be incompatible with UN law.49 It also reconfirmed the continued existence of the British bases which, as we have seen, had led to various attempts by Britain to give them up, in the wake of the Turkish invasion. If it had been put into practice, it would have resulted in a weak state akin to a protectorate; detracted even more from sovereignty by obliging Cyprus to support Turkey’s accession to the European Union; created potential deadlock by stipulating that the heads of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and

 46

Ramsbotham to Callaghan, telegram, 9 January 1975, BNA-PREM 16/321. Op. cit., ‘British Policy on Cyprus: July to September 1974.’ 48 See Palley, Claire, An International Relations Debacle, Hart Publishing, Oxford and Portland, Oregon, 2005, for a very comprehensive yet incisive book on the Annan Plan. 49 See Mallinson, William, ‘Turkish Invasions, Cyprus and the Treaty of Guarantee’, Synthesis – Review of Modern Greek Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1999. 47

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European Union Affairs could not come from the same component state; legalised the presence of tens of thousands of illegal settlers; deprived Cypriots of some rights under the European Convention of Human Rights; and ignored previous UN resolutions. In short, it might have created a weak and failed state.50 Disagreement could have set in, as in 1960, and there would then have been no guarantee that the Turkish troops would leave. So what actually happened? Kissinger was on his way out in the late autumn of 1976, after Carter had won the presidential elections, but had already ensured, as we have seen, that the British bases would remain, and that his Cyprus policy of being nice to Turkey would continue. Before we set out Kissinger’s plan, let us look at Kissinger’s letter of 15 November 1976 to the Foreign Secretary,51 bearing in mind that the greater someone’s vanity, the greater the possibility that that someone will need to leave his mark: Dear Tony, I very much appreciate your personal interest and that of the European Community in working with us these past months in developing a set of Cyprus principles. The paper we have put together seems to be balanced and fair, and should in any objective sense be of utility to the parties in moving toward a sustained discussion of the Cyprus problem. Moreover, with the passage of a new UN Resolution on Cyprus last week, calling for a renewal of intercommunal negotiations, it would seem opportune to give our ideas to the parties in the hope that they might now provide a useful basis for these talks. Alas, when it comes to considering the Cyprus problem, logic seems of little avail. We have received indications in recent days that the Cyprus communities may be unwilling to engage in serious Cyprus negotiations any time soon. We have also seen signs that the Greek Cypriots may well attack and seek to undermine the principles themselves. Before reaching any decision on whether to proceed further, I would very much welcome your views on the timing question. Arthur Hartman has just returned from London, where he gained the impression that your associates were interested in advancing our set of principles as a means of getting a “body of doctrine” on the table to serve as a point of reference whenever negotiations might resume. Peter Ramsbotham, however, seemed to have

 50 51

See op. cit., Mallinson, Cyprus, a Modern History, Chapter 15. At the time, Tony Crosland.

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some doubts and to feel that a brief, further delay might be in order. My own view is that if the principles will clearly contribute to negotiations, we should go ahead and introduce them soon. Moreover, whatever its effects on the negotiating process, this may be the time for those of us most concerned about Cyprus to put our own position on the record. On the other hand, we should probably hold back if introduction at this stage would have a totally negative effect, by further poisoning the atmosphere between the two communities on Cyprus, or giving one party another convenient excuse for further inaction. I am addressing a similar letter to Max Van Der Stoel52 in an effort to solicit his comments and those of your other European Community colleagues. Warm regards, Henry53

Kissinger kept up the pressure in the dying days of his diminishing diplomatic hegemony, calling on the Prime Minister on 10 December. The FCO brief prepared for the meeting was cautiously positive: CYPRUS Line to take 1. The principles initiative suggested by Dr Kissinger is a promising idea which should not be allowed to lie fallow for too long. We should like to hear Dr Kissinger’s views on whether the Carter Administration is likely to attempt to take it up and if so how soon. There would be value in laying the foundation of a body of doctrine on which the parties could build. It may be necessary at some state [sic] to carry the principles initiative, or whatever version the Carter Administration may suggest, further by exploring more closely with Cyprus, Greece and Turkey their minimum and maximum desiderata; but clearly much careful thought must be given go the best way of proceeding. (If asked whether the Nine contemplate an initiative of their own on Cyprus) We would not rule out an initiative by the Nine if it seemed appropriate, preferably of course with the concurrence of the US Administration.



52 Dutch Foreign Minister when The Netherlands was at the helm of the presidency of the European Communities for its six-month stint. 53 US Ambassador, London, to Foreign Secretary, covering letter, 16 November 1976, enclosing one of previous day from Kissinger to Crosland, BNAFCO73/224.

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Chapter Seven Background 2. In September Dr Kissinger suggested, after consulting HMG, that a set of principles (final version at annex) should be tabled by the US Government and the Nine with the Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots and the governments of Greece and Turkey in an attempt to provide the parties with a body of doctrine on which they could build and in order to help overcome the procedural impasse in the inter-communal talks. It was decided, however, mainly at the instigation of the French, that no action would be taken on the principles initiative until after the debate on the Cyprus item in the UN General Assembly. In the meantime, President Ford failed to win re-election, a fact which was greeted in Cyprus with unconcealed jubilation since Dr Kissinger has become the Greek Cypriots’ scapegoat for their tribulations. President Makarios went so far as to condemn the principles initiative, although he later explained that it was its source rather than the initiative itself which was at fault (neither the Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Greek or Turkish Governments have been formally told about the principles initiative although the text has clearly been leaked to them).54 The Greek Cypriots expect the Carter Administration to be more pro-Greek although the Cyprus Government may not be more sanguine. [The new Greek Prime Minister, Karamanlis, was not a natural political friend of Makarios]. Before the principles initiative can be taken any further it will be necessary to find out the intentions of the Carter Administration.55

And now to the principles themselves: ANNEX: THE PRINCIPLES INTIATIVE 1. The parties will agree to negotiate all aspects of the Cyprus problem with a view to arriving at a package arrangement which preserves the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cyprus. 2. The parties will agree to negotiate a territorial arrangement which takes into account the economic requirements and self-respect of the two communities, recognising that the present dividing lines must be modified to reduce the area currently controlled by the Turkish side to provide for the return of Greek Cypriot displaced persons. 3. Simultaneously with agreement on territorial modifications, the parties will agree on constitutional arrangements for the establishment of a federal

 54

I have not been able to ascertain from the documents whether this means that the author of the brief had leaked the document, or whether he was making assumptions or speculating. If it were leaked, then even Kissinger could have done so. However, I have not found evidence that he did so. By such seeming minutiae can, nevertheless, people’s lives be affected. 55 PREM 16/727.

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system on a bizonal basis with relatively autonomous zones which will provide the conditions under which the two communities will be able to live in freedom and to have a large voice in their own affairs, and will agree on the powers and functions of a central government. 4. The parties will agree to negotiate the withdrawal of all foreign military forces other than those present under the authority of international agreements. They will agree to negotiate at the same time all the necessary arrangements which will guarantee the security of both communities. 5. The parties will agree to discuss the conditions under which persons can be re-settled in safety and conditions under which free circulation of persons on the Island may be assured.56

This was music to Turkey’s ears. There was no reference to the UN or the illegal occupation. Rather, the ‘principles initiatives’ was offering de facto partition, whatever the semantics. Despite alleged missed opportunities from then until today, two British diplomatic quotes encapsulate the Turkish approach towards the intercommunal negotiations - or, in the words of one expert57 – post-operative therapy: And the Turkish Cypriots, supported by Ankara, have consolidated their hold on the north to an extent that makes them more than ever reluctant to yield anything near the minimum acceptable to the Greek side as a basis for a settlement.58

and The prime minister said that his experience of the Turks was that they pocketed whatever was offered and asked for more.59

Thus, Kissinger was active on the Cyprus problem until the end of his short career at the top of American foreign policy, doing his best to ensure that Turkey was not unduly troubled by its illegal occupation of over one

 56

Ibid. Michael Perceval, Head of Chancery at the British High Commission in Nicosia. A bit of a rum character, with an unconventional career path: he joined the Office via Oxford, the Royal Air Force in Cyprus, a job as a film production assistant in Athens, and freelance journalism in Madrid. One is tempted to wonder whether he was a ‘South of the River’ man, in other words an S.I.S. employee. His diplomatic reports were pithy and well-written, displaying considerable powers of observation and a strong sense of reality, seeming to border at times on incipient cynicism. 58 Phillips to Foreign Secretary, despatch, 24 August 1976, BNA-FCO 9/1178, file WSC 10/14. 59 Private Secretary to Prendergast, letter, 30 March 1978, PREM 126/1671. 57

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third of Cyprus. It is little wonder that he had been so keen on emphasising the ‘ethnic conflict’ aspects so strongly, since to have concentrated on the interference of outside powers, and their fanning the flames, would have detracted from his objectives of supporting partition, and of promoting his ‘principles initiative’, which was little more than partition in disguise, something forbidden by the 1960 treaties. Before concluding this chapter, let us have a brief look at how he slid out, using some very insightful British diplomatic comments.

Sliding Out There was a fair amount of speculation that Kissinger would wish to stay on in his three positions, or at least in one of them, even after the election of Carter. But it was not to be, although he did hang on until then. To give some of the flavour at the time, when Kissinger was under attack, let us reproduce a letter – all of it, since it is so clearly written – from Ramsbotham to the Deputy Under Secretary, John Killick, in March 1975: 1. Henry Kissinger’s reputation has been in decline ever since his outburst at Salzburg last July. That cry of anguish betrayed that he, like Aristophanes’s Dionysos, was less than superhuman. In recent weeks the criticism has intensified in volume and in bitterness. There is speculation about the possibility (and even the timing) of his resignation – speculation which the publicity surrounding Elliot Richardson’s60 departure has stimulated. There is a growing tendency to look beyond Kissinger to his successor. As examples of the more cogent statements against him, I enclose speeches by senators Bentsen and Stevenson last month. You may also like to read, if you have not already done so, the enclosed copy of Larry Eagleburger’s61 letter to the New York Times, published last week, defending his master against the more cynical and malicious attacks in the press. 2. There are several issues which serve to weaken Kissinger’s domestic position; and in fact, it is an indication of the strength and relative indispensability of the man that he has remained afloat for so long. In the first place, he is stained with Nixon. Elliot Richardson cleared his Watergate slate in a way that Kissinger was not able to do; and there are plenty of people who have refused to accept that Kissinger was not criminally involved with the wire-tappings. (I hesitate to express any firm

 60

US Attorney General, who honourably resigned, rather than obey Nixon’s instruction to fire the Special Prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. 61 US diplomat and former assistant to Kissinger.

Aftermath and Goodbye judgement but I think he may have known rather more than he has admitted). To his critics, not even his achievements, with Nixon, in the field of foreign policy provide an argument for keeping him now. It is being said that the methods and concepts which served well when Nixon and Kissinger were changing the direction of American foreign policy are now out-dated; and that Kissinger, the Middle East perhaps apart, has served his purpose. You will recognise the theme in the Bentsen piece arguing that Kissinger’s methods of conducting diplomacy and of managing the institutions which control foreign policy have become counter-productive. There is some validity in this. His unwillingness to delegate has lowered the morale and effectiveness of the Department of State and has made American diplomacy lop-sided. The condition of the relations with Latin America and Africa is an example of that. 3. Second, Kissinger has no natural power-base: he must exist on success. I had a private discussion about this with him in December, reminding him that Dean Acheson, one of his greatest predecessors, had not let a hostile press and Congress ruffle him unduly. Kissinger pointed out that there was a significant difference between his position and Acheson’s. The latter had an important power-base in the Establishment itself, which gave him the support with which to contend with Congressional and other criticism; whereas he himself had no such support, either in the Establishment or in any other political quarter. Even within the present White House there was no love lost for him. He went on to talk about Nelson Rockefeller – this was just before their six day holiday together in Puerto Rico – in a way that suggested that he looked to his friendship with Rockefeller to fill some of this gap for him. This association underpinned his position in the White House, which was never in danger; but it can never really provide him with the breadth of support in the country which he needs. Rockefeller himself, incidentally, is none too secure within the Republican Party, where the conservative wing is highly displeased with his filibuster rulings. 4. There is a third factor at work, to Kissinger’s disadvantage: the propensity of the American public to react unfavourably to any manifestation of outstanding ability in public life, often after a reputation has been built up, perhaps exaggeratedly, in the media. Individuals possessing great qualities, particularly if they are in any way arrogant (and Kissinger himself has arrogance in plenty, even if it is mitigated by an admirable sense of humour, frequently directed against himself) must be cut down to size. To some extent, this attitude is shared by other democracies and, on balance, it is an entirely healthy instinct. The “insolence of office” existed long before Hamlet. But this sentiment is carried too far in this country, becoming at times a positive handicap and pushing sensible men into ridiculous postures. The “post-Watergate morality” only serves to accentuate this habit. Kissinger has tried to counter it by cultivating good relations with the press and by developing

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Chapter Seven his swinging image. But Watergate has eroded his position with the press; and his marriage, and several failures of his magic wand abroad, have reduced the swing in his image. 5. Finally, politics apart, there is a natural suspicion of Kissinger’s policies amongst a large number of Americans – of distrust of détente and a scepticism about the benefits which it has brought, and will bring, to the United States. This has made it that much harder for him to turn the blame for the Soviet trade failure62 onto Congress. Again, the apparent support that the United States has given to oppressive regimes outside the communist bloc, notably the Greek junta, the Chilean regime and the governments in South Korea and South Vietnam, has surrounded Kissinger with a distastefully reactionary aura. His handling of the Cyprus crisis has, so far, been damaging to his reputation as a trouble-shooter and underlined, in an unwelcome way, that the United States is powerless to control even her weaker allies.63 In each of these cases, his critics see evidence either of his apparent lack of scruple in implementing foreign policy; of his lack of concern for human rights; or his sacrifice of ideals in the interests of realpolitik.64 The dissatisfaction with him now amounts to a pretty solid wall and explains his inability, so far, to make any headway with Congress on Cambodia, Turkey or energy questions. 6. On Kissinger’s side is the fact that the President is standing solidly behind him and wants him to stay. In a speech on 23 February Mr Ford powerfully reinforced Kissinger’s Los Angeles plea for Congress’s cooperation, recalling the role played in the 1940s by Senator Vandenberg in developing a bipartisan foreign policy, and urging Congress to show an “enlightened national concern”. But the sort of working partnership between Congress, the State Department and the White House which emerged in Vandenberg’s time is not something which can be built up overnight. It would require a willingness by Kissinger to share the responsibility for formulating foreign policy, which he has never exhibited to date and which would be alien to his whole style. It would also require a greater consensus on foreign policy within Congress itself, and a more effective way of conducting business than now exists. Furthermore, it would require a more influential leadership than either part has in Congress at present. 7. Calls to renew the Vandenberg era seem likely to fall on deaf ears. But

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The Soviet Union had renounced a 1972 agreement, which had been connected to freer Jewish emigration. 63 I cannot resist: surely, Britain was not one of the weaker allies, re the Cyprus fiasco? And which of America’s allies was not weaker than America? 64 I wonder whether Ramsbotham really meant political realism/power politics, which is considerably more extreme than (Bismarckian) realpolitik.

Aftermath and Goodbye there is a change of attitude which could work in Kissinger’s favour. Many people have begun to express concern that Congress has gone too far. There have been good editorials in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal on this theme; also a thoughtful piece by Congressman Symington (son of the Senator), suggesting that Congress should play its proper role of encouraging long-term courses of action, rather than involving itself in day-to-day affairs. Nor is there unanimity of view within Congress as to what its role should be. Some pundits are forecasting that Congress will be drawing back from its exposed positions. But I doubt it. There are too many Congressmen around, who have yet to learn that there are practical constraints on their influence, and that they have a greater responsibility than that of responding to the mail-bag from their constituents. 8. Much depends on Kissinger’s trip to the Middle East. In terms of his relations with the Hill, I think that the Arab/Israeli question is still his key card. His tactical skill is seen at its best there and, with matters poised as delicately as they are, his continued direction of policy in that area is acknowledged to be vital. If he can pull off a further agreement with Egypt and then point the way forward thereafter, he may recover, temporarily at any rate, some of his lost ground. But even a successful negotiation this month may, paradoxically, cause him trouble in Congress. If it comes to the point where he has to apply fierce pressure on the Israeli government to make concessions, he will have to face searching criticism from the Jewish lobby that he has been too kind to the Arabs. 9. I know that some of Kissinger’s advisers have been urging him to resign within the year. Technically, he may stay as long as the President wants him; and he ducks questions in public by giving this answer. But he has his pride and the President’s position is not a strong one. The 1976 elections will further complicate things for him. Public opposition to him may be stronger by the end of this year – there is already an anti-Kissinger bandwagon – and the President might even come under pressure from White House advisers to drop Kissinger as an electoral embarrassment. In such circumstances, he might, I suppose, decide to forestall his chief’s dilemma by himself resigning. Nor can one wholly exclude the possibility of the President’s getting rid of him. But I think this, on the whole, unlikely. Ford’s re-election, or Rockefeller’s election, could mean another four years for Kissinger in the State Department and he would feel foolish if he saw that he had thrown this away because he could not face the fire. Two years is not a long period when measured against the terms of Acheson or Rusk. I believe this is a crucial element in his thinking. He must first see whether his Middle East diplomacy bears fruit: he will be needed at Geneva whether or not there is an Egyptian-Israeli agreement. Then the SALT continuation and the Brezhnev visit will beckon and we shall be near the end of 1975. If the President wants him in the election

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Chapter Seven year, his strong feelings of loyalty to the President will weigh against any thought of resigning, whatever the public pressure. Having born [sic] so much, why discard the option of an extended term? The primaries will be starting in early in 1976 and he will wish to see how Mr Ford fares. If Kissinger follows this logic, as I think he will, he will be left to stand or fall with Gerald Ford in 1976. 10. And if he were to leave his high-office – more or less under a cloud – what would this astonishingly energetic and dynamic man find to do? He has no private means and is ever said to be in debt. Perhaps retire to London as he once told me would be his choice of habitat after leaving public office? But let us hope that he continues to enjoy his present job, despite the slings and arrows which are being aimed at him.65

Killick then sent the letter to the Permanent Under Secretary, Thomas Brimelow. Extracts of his covering letter read: ‘He is, I think, open to legitimate criticism for his perhaps excessive willingness, in pursuit of realpolitik, to maintain close working relations with governments whose democratic credentials are to say the least of it doubtful. […] I doubt whether he has the patience to wait two years in order to resume a further four years of fruitful activity in 1977, however much he enjoys the seat of power.’66 Brimelow in turn sent Ramsbotham’s letter to John Hunt, Secretary to the Cabinet, writing: […] Ramsbotham’s conclusion is that Kissinger will probably not resign now, but will hang on to see how President Ford fares in next year’s Presidential Campaign. I hope he is right, for, although Kissinger is difficult to work with, he has for the most part pursued foreign policy aims which we share. But I wonder whether there is not too much of the prima donna in Kissinger to allow him to linger on for the rest of Ford’s term, in the hope of his re-election, should the present wave of criticism be maintained.67

To provide some of the critical flavour surrounding Kissinger at the time, one can do no better than reproduce some of what Arthur Schlesinger Junior wrote to Kissinger himself (remembering that they had been friends at Harvard, and that Schlesinger had arranged for Kissinger to write

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Ramsbotham to Killick, letter, 14 March 1975, BNA-FCO 82/541, file AMU 1/5. 66 Ibid., Killick to Permanent Under Secretary, minute, 17 March 1975. 67 Ibid., Brimelow to Hunt, letter, 19 March 1975.

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Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy). Personal November 5, 1974 Dear Henry: We have known each other for a long time. I think you will agree that I have displayed my friendship and admiration for you on more than one occasion over the years. So I will write with the candor that an old friendship deserves. I have some sense of the pressures you have been under and refrained for a long time from any form of criticism. I did not, for example, join in the rush to judgment of some of our former Harvard colleagues in 1970. [about the bombing of Cambodia] Watergate made such abstinence more difficult. I thought your plea early on for compassion for Haldeman and Ehrlichman was most distasteful, especially in the case of an administration that had never shown any compassion for anyone. At Salzburg you brought up your honor and in effect demanded from Congress an unconditional vote of confidence if you were to stay in office. The outsider can only feel that it is a remarkably flexible and tenuous conception of honor which permitted you to serve, and on occasion to defend, a crooked President and lawless administration for so many years. I do not quarrel with your decision to stay with Nixon; I can see strong reasons for it; but I don’t think it was a decision that would have led a prudent man thereafter to make a big deal of his honor. Nor, as a matter of simple manners, did I much like your Salzburg outburst. Would Dean Acheson, whom we have both admired, ever have made a statement of that sort? Honor was for him a deeply private concern. Though his honor was impugned a good deal more mercilessly than yours has ever been, he never went public on it. What I felt in your Salzburg remarks—and feel even more, I must frankly say, in your letter—is that you seem almost to have come to suppose that any criticism of you is indefensible. I hope fervently that this is not the case. You have enjoyed the most consistently favorable, not to say enraptured, press of any maker of American foreign policy in this century. I don’t think anyone has been more generally exempt from criticism. It is hardly seemly, when criticism at last begins, for you to start talking about “the growing wave of McCarthyism of the left.” Don’t you think it is possible for informed, disinterested and responsible people to have legitimate disagreements with some of your policies—or even to doubt that a man who put up with Nixon for five years is well advised to make thereafter a great public issue of his honor?68

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The Atlantic, 30 October 2013.

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Over four years earlier, Schlesinger had written to Kissinger about Cambodia in the following terms: May 7, 1970 [New York] Dear Henry: I have forborne from writing because of my confidence in your own intelligence and purpose and because of my full awareness of the difficulty of judging complex internal situations from the outside. But you have said to me more than once that, if the time should come when your own situation begins to seem indefensible, you would appreciate it if your friends were to let you know. In all candor I think that time has come. I honestly cannot imagine what circumstances could justify the Cambodian adventure.69

This was pretty strong stuff, and also shows how from well before Watergate began in earnest, Kissinger was seriously criticised by academics such as Schlesinger, as well as by diplomats. The wily powermonger did in the event manage to hang on until Carter came to power. It must have been slightly frustrating for a fifty-three year old to be out of public office after a near seven-year stint, covering three positions. His career henceforth was still to be beset with controversy from time to time, particularly as more and more information came out: we have seen how he had to skedaddle sharpish from France in 2002 over a police summons. His fame, as well as the growing aura of controversy, kept him well employed in one form or another in the private sector, right up to, and perhaps beyond, my writing of this book. But he had his difficulties. For example, following protests, he was unable to take up an endowed chair at Columbia University (but was appointed to Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies). In November 2002, President Bush appointed him as chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States, but he chose to resign the following month after refusing to reveal his client list (he had founded Kissinger Associates in 1982). So he kept busy, sounding off from time to time about various international developments. Interestingly, he criticised the Rambouillet agreement that led to the 78-day bombing of Serbia and Montenegro, in the following terms: ‘The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia as a provocation, was an excuse to start bombing. Rambouillet is not a document that any

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Ibid.

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Serb could have accepted. It was a terrible diplomatic document that should never have been presented in that form.’70 One can but wonder whether he would have espoused the same view if he had still been the wheeler-dealer of power that he had been, given his natural, almost spasmodic, albeit subtle, aversion to any pro-Russian leader such as Milosevic. His words seemed out of character, unless he had mellowed. Before concluding this chapter, and since we are on the subject of Kissinger’s post-government years, and how he has been haunted ever since by the likes of the late Christopher Hitchens, we need to mention, without passing judgment, the latter’s reference to how there may be a prima facie case to show that Kissinger may at least have been involved in some way with Greek junta plans to kidnap and possibly kill a Washington-based journalist, Elias Demetracopoulos; only prima facie, because after seven years of letters to Kissinger from Demetracopoulos’s lawyer, asking for a copy of a letter referred to in an official document, Kissinger replied that he could not find such a copy. It is the suppression of documents and telephone records that understandably increase suspicion that Kissinger had been involved in some pretty rum happenings.71 It is surely up to Kissinger to prove his innocence regarding such skullduggery, by producing the documents requested.

Conclusions We have seen how Kissinger subtly promoted Turkey’s interests, and how supine were the British in their attitude towards the bases. If Suez was the coffin of British subservience to the US, then Cyprus put the nails in. We have seen how sensitive Kissinger was vis-à-vis Makarios, and his perhaps dishonest denial about the ‘cantonal initiative’. An apparent detail perhaps, but one on which people’s lives can depend. We have seen how, although the FCO considered British interests in Cyprus to be minimal, that ‘in the

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Daily Telegraph, 28 June 1999. Op. cit., The Trial of Henry Kissinger, pp. 167-186. I met Demetracopoulos on 30 November 2002, and discussed, inter alia, this matter. Demetracopoulos later sued Kissinger, but from what I can gather, the case has disappeared into the maze of the rather clientelistic Greek legal system. Hitchens has certainly performed a service to transparency in his book, as well as in Cyprus: Hostage to History but, like Kissinger, he appeared to be prone to occasional oxymoronic tendencies, such as when he supported the invasion of Iraq. This led to George Galloway apparently calling him, in 2005, on the occasion of a debate on Iraq, ‘a drink-sodden neoMarxist popinjay.’

71

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final analysis Turkey must be regarded as more important to Western strategic interests than Greece and that, if risks must be run, they should be risks of further straining Greek rather than Turkish relations with the West.’72 The situation had barely altered a quarter of a century after the Turkish invasion, as a letter to me a few years ago from the Counsellor for Political Affairs at the American Embassy in Athens shows: US military cooperation with Turkey and Israel is a matter of longstanding policy and practice. As a NATO ally and friend with Turkey and as a special ally with Israel, both democracies and key regional players, the United States shares core values and actual security and political objectives in the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel and Turkey have likewise found that they share common objectives, in part from confronting the same set of neighbors which have pursued weapons of mass destruction programs [sic!], have been sponsors or supporters of terrorism, and which have been inimical to democracy, the rule of law and regional stability.73

Matters have hardly altered today, at least in terms of American support for Turkish and Israeli objectives. Unknown to many, Israel and Turkey have ‘enjoyed’ a military co-operation agreement since 1958,74 which, despite Erdoganesque pro-Palestinian rhetoric, continues. As for Britain, it is tied more firmly than ever to American foreign (military) policy, as recent events demonstrate. Now is the moment to look at what I have chosen to term ‘the undermining of diplomacy?’ I was tempted to slip in the term ‘fifty shades of diplomacy’, but it was suggested that doing so might detract from the book’s academic nature.

 72

Op. cit., ‘British Interests in the Eastern Mediterranean’. Karagiannis, Alexander to Mallinson, letter, 12 August 1998. 74 Fuskas, Vassilis, Zones of Conflict, Pluto Press, London and Sterling (USA), 2003, p. 114. 73

CHAPTER EIGHT THE UNDERMINING OF DIPLOMACY?

I fear it is all too likely, given Kissinger’s idiosyncratic methods of working, that he may not record the telephonic conversations he has with the Secretary of State. I hope, therefore, that you can arrange for the gist of these to be telegraphed to me as soon as possible after they have taken place. Otherwise, improbable though it may seem, I fear there will a danger of both the State Dept. and this embassy working in the dark with all the resultant risks of confusion and misunderstanding. – British ambassador, Washington.

Introduction Behind Kissinger’s approach to the positions he held lie not only his perception of, among others, Metternich’s behaviour and methods, but the writings of Immanuel Kant, one of his favourites. It is generally accepted that Kant saw morality as being rooted in reason. However, many before Kant’s heyday, especially Giambattista Vico, had seen the opposite, the latter criticising Descartes’s1 emphasis on reason, with the pithy words that while science could explain how something is made, it could never explain its essence. Kissinger certainly tended towards the rational in his approach, with morality taking very much a back seat. Cyprus was for him just a ‘peripheral issue’, ‘a piece of real estate’, ‘a staging area on the world chessboard’. Kissinger also skillfully used his above-average knowledge of history books as an intellectual and professional underpinning for his own - at least public - persona. He said that when he entered office, he brought with him a philosophy formed by two decades of the study of history. According to a fellow student, as a first year postgraduate, he quoted

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I am not simplistically equating Kant with Descartes, especially since the former did not agree with all the latter’s ideas on ontology.

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Thucydides2 as writing that ‘the present, while never repeating the past exactly, must inevitably resemble it. Hence, so must the future.’3 I can find little reference to Thucydides in Kissinger’s writings, however. And we do need to point out that international relations academics like Kissinger are not historians per se, but rather tend to use the academic label of history for respectability’s sake. Many international relations pundits have tried to transmogrify Thucydides into an international theorist on power-politics (I am not accusing Kissinger himself of having done so), whereas he was but a general who took part in a dreadful war, subsequently writing a very good history, analysis and evaluation of that war. Otherwise expressed, Thucydides was primarily an expert chronicler, only rarely venturing to give his own judgments, let alone theories. If he did, and it is a big if, it only came out by default, through his record of what other people had said. It is a shame that many international relations theorists have latched so strongly on to his comments about the strong ruling the weak, claiming that he believed in this. He may in fact have actually been bewailing the concept of the strong bullying the weak, when he mentioned it. Similarly, in contrast to powerpaths like Mackinder and Haushofer, two other giants beloved by political realism disciples, Machiavelli and Hobbes, were not advocating hegemony over other countries, but rather why absolutism might be a standard to follow in their own countries. Yet many international relations ‘experts’ put words into the mouths of these great thinkers to promote their mania for power politics/political realism at an international level. It is possible that when an undergraduate student, Kissinger began as one of these, but then, with his wartime experiences and anti-communist intelligence work, quickly became more careful and, being more experienced than the typical Ivy League student, was able to adopt a slightly less naïve approach towards international relations. The essential point here is nevertheless to understand that, academically speaking, Kissinger was not a historian, but rather a student of political science. Thus, it is unlikely that he spent months concentrating on researching original documents in government archives. The hard scrutiny of

 2

And course Guicciardini wrote that things have always been the same, that the past sheds light on the future, and that the same things return with different colours. This looks like a development of Thucydides’ words. He also pioneered and advocated the use of documents for the study of history. I can find no mention of this giant in Kissinger’s writings. 3 Allison, Graham, ‘The Key to Henry Kissinger’s Success’, The Atlantic, 27 November 2015.

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documents was not for him; rather, reading what others had written about these documents and related events, and then writing about them, was his métier. Like many international relations people, he draws on others’ views, and then re-interprets or propounds them, as the case may be, to suit his particular views and objectives. There is nothing original in his books. He simply brought the crude field of geopolitics back into fashion. And although he succeeded, resuscitating controversial theories is hardly an original activity. As to his ability to locate and scrutinise archives, it is possible that he did indeed locate and read the impressive list of sources in A World Restored, which was based on his doctorate. It would be useful to turn to the original doctorate, but is difficult to come by.4 However, one can assume, whether charitably or not, that the reasons for the difficulty in locating and reading his original doctorate are simply commercial. Yet it would have been useful to compare it with the published book. But we have some perceptive comments by Niall Ferguson on Kissinger’s senior thesis, ‘The Meaning of History’, which covered an enormous number of thinkers and their views, and was so long (388 pages), that it led to the ‘35,000-word rule’. I was unable to locate the thesis, and can therefore but quote Ferguson, with whom I have no reason to disagree: It is unmistakably a young man’s book: an exercise in academic exhibitionism, marred by jejune slips like misspelling Sartre as “Satre” and treating data and phenomena as singular and polis as plural (reminders that Kissinger had been denied a classical education in Germany). Much of the dissertation is taken up with detailed exposition of the three key authors’ arguments, but – partly because Kissinger omitted phrases like “As Spengler says” in order to save space – it is sometimes hard to tell where the author’s views end and Kissinger’s commentary begins.5

We shall now set out to try and demonstrate what is meant by the term ‘undermining of diplomacy’. Some might prefer the term ‘erosion’, while extreme critics might even refer to ‘degrading’. Conversely, geokissingeresque cheerleaders would say that Kissinger enhanced and improved diplomacy.



4 When I googled ‘Where can I find Henry Kissinger’s Ph. D. Thesis?’, I came up with a Marcia J. Bates, UCLA Professor Emerita of Information Studies, who wrote: ‘Kissinger’s dissertation itself is very tightly controlled. Copies cannot be bought from Proquest, which normally sells dissertations. It exists in paper form in only a small handful of libraries, according to OCLC’s Worldcat. It looks like Kissinger only wants the published book out there.’ 5 Op. cit., Ferguson, p. 237.

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We shall begin with an embarrassing event, that of the case of Diego Garcia, to see how Kissinger handled an important meeting with British officials; then we shall move on to his style of conducting diplomacy; next, we shall juxtapose and compare his book with of that of Harold Nicolson, both of which bear the same title, namely Diplomacy; finally, we shall consider Kissinger’s impact or otherwise on diplomacy.

Diego Garcia The story of Diego Garcia and its surrounding islands is one of Britain’s most embarrassing semi-revealed skeletons in the cupboard. It still is. When I was in the FCO’s United Nations Department, I remember that the ‘tactics’ section of our brief for the UN General Assembly stated: ‘avoid discussion where possible’. Here, par excellence, was an example of how the US called the shots when it came to defence co-operation, even before the Cyprus debâcle. It has parallels with Cyprus in that both the latter and Mauritius lost territories on independence in legally questionable deals, with the US then exploiting those territories in equally legally questionable military ‘arrangements’. A meeting was held at the State Department in April 1974, between Henry Kissinger and officials, Peter Ramsbotham and John Hunt. First, some brief background: in 1966, the Wilson government signed an agreement with the United States, giving them various military rights for fifty years on the island of Diego Garcia, which had been hived off by Britain in 1965 from Mauritius in a slightly shady deal, whereby a new British colony, the British Indian Ocean Territories, was created. Part of the deal happened to involve the forced removal of around two thousand British subjects and the gassing of their dogs. On 20 March 1974, thanks to a parliamentary initiative by Tam Dalyell, the British government was put on the defensive, even saying that it was reviewing the matter.6 The US was planning to develop its military facilities in the archipelago, including the creation of a deep port on Diego Garcia to accommodate nuclear submarines, and was obviously worried by Dalyell’s speech. Hence the meeting at the State Department. Here we see Kissinger at his most threatening and blunt. Extracts from the record of the meeting are: In response to Dr Kissinger’s enquiry about when he could expect to hear from Her Majesty’s Government about Diego Garcia Sir John Hunt said

 6

Hansard, 20 March 1974.

The Undermining of Diplomacy? that the new Government had not really had time to think about the matter yet. But Her Majesty’s Government had had representations from a number of Indian Ocean states and there were strong feelings at home also. He could not forecast the Government’s decision but his personal advice was that it might be easier to deal positively with the American request in a few months rather than now. He wondered if Dr Kissinger could say how much importance the Administration attached to expansion of the facilities at Diego Garcia., and how urgent the matter was from their point of view. Dr Kissinger said that he was bound to tell us that the United States Navy was so eager to go ahead on Diego Garcia that anything which might be perceived as foot-dragging on the part of Her Majesty’s Government would cause a great deal of ill-will. Mr Sonnenfeldt said that it might prove difficult to secure the necessary funds from Congress. Dr Kissinger said he thought the Navy would get its way. It might be that once the budgetary category was established there would be less pressure for an early decision on the part of Her Majesty’s Government provided the Americans had an informal indication that there would be a positive outcome in the end. Sir John Hunt said he was not in a position to give any assurance on the outcome. He could only reiterate that the Prime Minister wished to be helpful, but that the chances would be better if a decision could be delayed for a few months. Dr Kissinger said he feared that Her Majesty’s Government might pay a price out of all proportion to the importance of the issue if the eventual decision was negative. The Department of Defense had invested a great deal on Diego Garcia. However, he would be prepared to give an assurance that he would prevent the Department of Defense from putting too great a pressure on Her Majesty’s Government in the next two months on two conditions: first that there should not be statements by members of Her Majesty’s Government which cast doubt on the ultimate decision; and second that he could receive some assurances that the Ministers directly concerned would work for a positive outcome. Sir John Hunt said that he did not think that United Kingdom Ministers would wish to comment on the matter until they had reached a decision and that it would be a pity if the impression got out that the United States and the United Kingdom were in a confrontation on this issue. Dr Kissinger agreed. An appearance of confrontation would not help the Administration, indeed it might prevent them from getting funds. Mr Schlesinger7 would certainly wish to talk to Mr Mason8 about it, and he would speak to Mr Schlesinger first saying that the matter should not be rushed too much. The real problem would arise if the Administration was unable to get Congressional approval for the necessary funds until they had secured British approval. Sir John Hunt observed it was a chicken and egg situation since United Kingdom Ministers would also be anxious to know whether the Administration would be able to go ahead if they gave their agreement.

 7 8

American Defense Secretary. British Secretary of State for Defence.

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Chapter Eight Mr. Sykes9 said that in recent weeks the aspect of British agreement had not received much attention in Congress. Sir Peter Ramsbotham asked whether Dr Kissinger saw any attraction in Senator Kennedy’s resolution proposing, in effect, a self-denying ordinance on the part of both super powers in the Indian Ocean. General Scowcroft said the Russians had indicated some interest in this, but only under pressure from the Indians. Sir John Hunt asked whether Dr Kissinger thought that there would be any advantage in arranging some sort of Indian Ocean Conference. Dr Kissinger said he saw no advantage in this. He believed the Indians would soon calm down on the issue of Diego Garcia and that the other countries concerned would accept the decision once it had been taken. Mr Sonnenfeldt referred to the forthcoming Anglo-United States talks on the Indian Ocean and said that in view of what Sir John Hunt had said the American side would be instructed not to raise Diego Garcia. He hoped that the British side would not raise it either. […]10

We see above a good example of the backstage of relations between states, and how Kissinger could on occasion be pretty direct when he wanted something. His reference to foot-dragging and ill-will are, at least in diplomatic terms, somewhat brusque, and possibly threatening, as is his statement that he ‘feared that the British government might pay a price out of all proportion to the issue if the eventual decision were negative’. In the event, we know today that the US got its way. It was Kissinger who played a central rôle in militarising the Indian Ocean, dismissing the idea of a conference, which the Russians could well have supported. So much for his policy of détente. It seems that he could be pretty incisive and direct when he wanted something. Let us now again recall some of the negative criticisms of Kissinger, nearly all by senior professional diplomats (which give them added weight). It would be pedantic to repeat all our earlier quotes, so let us just print a smattering of words and phrases: ‘regarded Kissinger with considerable misgivings’; ‘in the mould of Metternich’; ‘nineteenth century approach’; ‘something could go seriously wrong because the

 9

Minister at the British Embassy, Washington. Record of Conversation between the Secretary of the Cabinet and the American Secretary of State, 26 April 1974, BNA-PREM 16/26. Strangely, PREM 16/26/1 states: ‘Retained extract: Record of Conversation on 26 April 1974.’

10

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normal sources of advice, restraint and execution are by-passed’; ‘style and activities extremely distasteful’; ‘a show-off man’; ‘prima donna’; ‘The relative disregard of important expertise from the State Department had gone too far. Kissinger was needlessly depriving himself of the services of true professionals in the art of diplomacy and policy formulation;’ ‘He enjoys making a cynical analysis of other people’s capacities and motives, and is introspective and aware of the fact that he may have an incipient folie de grandeur’; and ‘what I find difficult to judge is where the President ends and Kissinger begins.’

Telephone Diplomacy We have already seen a smattering of Kissinger on the telephone at the height of the 1974 crisis. Let us now look at how he dealt with Prime Minster Callaghan during a crisis in Greek-Turkish relations. In August 1976, at the height of a crisis caused by the Turkish exploration ship Sismik-1 operating illegally in Greek waters, and when the UN Security Council was discussing the question, Kissinger telephoned Callaghan. Some of the dialogue is hilarious:  Kissinger: […] The Greeks are trying to ram a resolution through with a lot of support from Europeans. And my fear is that once that resolution is through and if the Turks violently object we still have the problem of the ship. And I wondered whether we shouldn’t aim for a resolution that’s more balanced. Prime Minister: I see. I’m out of touch with it really, Henry. What’s the present position on the resolution? Is it going through tonight or what? Kissinger: No, no. It’s not going to come up till tomorrow. Are you in London? Prime Minister: I’m in Sussex. I’m on holiday really. Kissinger: I’m sorry. Prime Minister: No. It’s all right. But I haven’t been following this one in particular except in the newspapers. Kissinger: Well let me get you to 10 Downing Street what the state of the play in New York is, to supplement the African thing. Prime Minister: I’ll get No.10 to tell me what it is. And what is it you would like me to do? Do you want a more moderate resolution?

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Kissinger: It’s the French who are pursuing a very pro-Greek line. Prime Minister: Ah, yes. Well, they would, of course. Yes, I see. And what about the others? Kissinger: We are not anti-Greek. We just don’t see any point in humiliating the Turks right now. […] Prime Minister: What’s the line up? This is within the Security Council, is it? Kissinger: That’s right. Prime Minister: What’s the line up at the moment then? Anybody with the French? Kissinger: You and the Italians. Prime Minister: We’re with the French, are we, at the moment? […] Prime Minister: This problem of the Greeks and the Turks is a difficult one because none of us in the European Community likes to look as though we are opposing the Greeks. You know, we all go around saying that we want them very badly as part of the Community. Everybody goes on on these lines. Kissinger: But they do have a tendency to overplay their hands. Prime Minister: That’s right. Well I know they always did from 1945 onwards, and indeed before then. Righto Henry. […]11

This conversation, which would grace the television show Spitting Image, and even Monty Python’s Flying Circus, actually took place. Apart from the clear lack of diplomatic protocol of going through the correct



11 Prime Minister’s conversation with Dr. Kissinger, 16 August 1976, PREM 16/1157.

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diplomatic channels, which would have meant an arranged telephone call, and the US president telephoning Callaghan, or Kissinger telephoning his equivalent, the British Foreign Minister, Anthony Crosland, Kissinger caught Callaghan completely on the hop, and was able to virtually order him what to do. Clever, maybe, but not overly responsible. The telephone conversation also shows Kissinger’s pro-Turkish bias, when it came to Greek-Turkish relations. It is such behaviour that could earn Kissinger the embarrassing epithet of being a pseudo-diplomatic bull in a China shop.

Kissinger and Nicolson To fully grasp Kissinger’s view of diplomacy, we can compare his book Diplomacy,12 published in 1994, with its namesake by Harold Nicolson,13 published in 1939, and updated in 1963 and 1969. In Kissinger’s 906-page book, Nicolson is quoted but once, from his book Peacemaking 1919.14 The books, despite their identical titles, are like chalk and cheese, and Kissinger’s is surely a misnomer, even if he did not intend it to be similar to Nicolson’s (see below). Let us seek some precision for the sake of clarity. First, Kissinger’s book draws on an impressive number of published sources (although one has to go through the endnotes to locate them as, oddly, there is no bibliography). Second, it is not an original work, not using archival research à la Taylor. Third, it is therefore a summary, through Kissinger’s eyes, of world history from a Western/Kissinger viewpoint. He makes several thoughtful and interesting observations, for example when he compares the liberal Gladstone with Woodrow Wilson. For the uninitiated, it makes interesting reading, as it is essentially a history of history books and published documents, free of obviously crude bias, in that the many history books referred to are not all by American Cold War warriors. It lacks an introduction or at least a prologue, and thus the reader has no raison d’être to latch onto at the beginning. Fairly soon, however, we see that it is more about America and the world, rather than the world per se, and as such is interesting, in that it provides the European, Russian and Chinaman with a conservative American view of the world through a chronological prism. Kissinger’s immediate audience appears, however, to be ‘the men and women of the

 12

Op. cit., Kissinger, Diplomacy. Nicolson, Harold, Diplomacy, Oxford University Press, 1969. 14 Kissinger quotes from Nicolson’s Peacemaking 1919, Constable and Co., London, 1933, p. 187, as follows: ‘We came to Paris confident that the new order was about to be established; we left it convinced that the new order had merely fouled the old.’ 13

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Foreign Service’, to whom he devotes the book. We are told in Chapter One that ‘no country has influenced international relations as decisively and at the same time as ambivalently as the United Sates’; and that ‘America serves its values best by perfecting democracy at home, thereby acting as a beacon for the rest of mankind’, but that ‘America’s values impose on it an obligation to crusade for them around the world.’15 This really is a little too much to stomach for many a moderate, tolerant type. In Chapter Two, we are told somewhat superciliously: ‘America found that it would have to implement its ideals in a world less blessed than its own and in concert with states possessed of narrower margins of survival, more limited objectives, and far less self-confidence. And yet America has persevered. The postwar world became largely America’s creation, so that, in the end, it did come to play the role Wilson had envisioned for it – as a beacon to follow and a hope to attain.’16 This is fairly emotional and emotive language. The next twenty-eight chapters deal with well-known historical figures and events, beginning with Richelieu, William of Orange and Pitt, and ending with ‘the end of the Cold War’. One gains the sense that Kissinger is trying to place himself on the same foreign policy level as these wellknown and established statesman, and somehow equating his own experience at the top to theirs. In the final chapter, he attempts to reconsider what he terms the ‘New World Order’ (viz. Bush’s 1990 speech). But it seems that his prognostications in 1994 are way off the mark, especially since his book ends with the words: ‘The certitudes of physical threat and hostile ideology characteristic of the Cold War are gone. The convictions needed to master the emerging world are more abstract: a vision of a future that cannot be demonstrated when it is put forward and judgements about the relationship between hope and possibility that are, in their essence, conjectural. The Wilsonian goals of America’s past – peace, stability, progress, and freedom for mankind – will have to be sought in a journey that has no end. “Traveller”, says a Spanish proverb, “there are no roads. Roads are made by walking”’. In view of what is happening in the world today, it appears that Kissinger was very mistaken in his prognostications about physical threat and hostile ideology, and in his assumption that the Cold War had ended. When it allegedly ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, this author

 15 16

Op. cit., Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 18. Ibid., p. 55.

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thought to himself that it had never really been about ideology, in any case. Ideology was the excuse used propagandistically by both sides to disguise the real truth: the propagation of territorial, strategic and economic interests, combined with a slightly irrational atavistic fear of Russia, beginning with William Pitt the Younger (see earlier), and then British and Austro-Hungarian support for the Ottoman Empire, with Britain replacing the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire with America, once Russia had again demonstrated its power in the Forties. Thus the fall of the wall was but a stage in the continuing Cold War, which would continue, albeit in different colours. To turn from the above brief digression, it should be stressed that this is not a review of Kissinger’s Diplomacy, but rather relevant comments within the context of a comparison with Nicolson’s book. Kissinger’s book is not so much a history of diplomacy as of his view of people and events which he thinks have shaped the world. He writes nothing about the origins of the very word ‘diplomacy’, of organised diplomacy, the Greek city states, the Romans, the Italian city states’ establishment of permanent embassies, Guicciardini, how modern diplomacy came about, Bodin, Grotius, international law, or of the development of diplomatic theory, and avoids the actual nitty-gritty details of diplomatic training and practice. To defend Kissinger from these observations, let us point out that his publishers did insert the following note (one can only wonder at what point it was inserted), stating the following: The title Diplomacy has been used before: Both the author and the publisher pay tribute to the late Sir Harold Nicolson’s book (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939), which was quite different in scope, intentions, and ideas.17

The main criticism nevertheless remains: Kissinger’s book does not pass muster as a history, or even as an accurate and informed description of diplomacy, but rather as his account of, and ruminations on, how he has seen the development of relations between states, with particular emphasis on the United States and its objectives. An apter title would have been A History of Top-Level Inter-State Relations (or Foreign Policy), even if it sounds boring. It is interesting how a single inappropriately used word can cause havoc. And that is in itself a lesson in diplomacy. Let us now look at Nicolson’s book, to emphasise the difference in scope, intentions and ideas.

 17

Op. cit., Kissinger, Diplomacy, p. 8.

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There is actually one significant similarity: a main intended audience of both books is diplomats. The foreword to Nicolson’s book states: ‘[…] his own treatise would, I would have thought, be invaluable to any young man entering the service, and to any student of history versed or interested in foreign politics.’18 There the similarity begins to end: content apart, Nicolson’s book is a modest 160 pages long. Obviously, because he was writing about diplomacy rather than world events, as Kissinger was, his objective was more of an instructive nature, albeit with pertinent historical references, than an attempt to promote or explain American (in his case, British) values to the world. To gain an understanding of that occasionally contentious word ‘diplomacy’, one has to turn to Nicolson rather than to Kissinger. Although the latter refers to diplomacy changing in style between the nineteenth century and the Great War, he does not scrutinise the term per se, as does Nicolson: In current language this word “diplomacy” is carelessly taken to denote several quite different things. At one moment it is employed as a synonym for “foreign policy” [I suspect that Kissinger is attached to this definition in his book], as when we say “British diplomacy in the Near East has been lacking in vigour.” At another moment it signifies “negotiation”, as when we say “the problem is one which might well be solved by diplomacy.” More specifically, the word denotes the processes and machinery by which such negotiation is carried out. A fourth meaning is that of a branch of the Foreign Service, as when one says “my nephew is working for diplomacy.” And a fifth interpretation which this unfortunate word is made to carry is that of an abstract quality or gift, which, in its best sense, implies skill in the conduct of international negotiation: and, in its worst sense, implies the more guileful aspects of tact.19

Nicolson then tells the reader that he will use the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition in his study: ‘Diplomacy is the management of international relations by negotiation; the method by which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys; the business or art of the diplomatist.’ A more recent definition shows the definition has withstood at least the test of recent time. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as ‘1a the management of international relations. b expertise in this. 2 adroitness in personal relations; tact.’ My own definition is more basic: ‘the nuts and bolts of relations between states’.

 18 19

Op. cit., Nicolson, Diplomacy, p. vii. Ibid., p. 4.

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Turning now to the qualities of an ideal diplomat, Nicolson writes that the basis of good negotiation is moral influence, founded in turn on seven specific diplomatic virtues: truthfulness, precision, calm, good temper, patience, modesty and loyalty.20 I think that of these, only the last one could apply to Kissinger, as his loyalty, at least to America, is indisputable. Perhaps patience, as a cover for studied procrastination, could also apply, but as to the other qualities, we have seen in the foregoing chapters enough examples of economy with the truth and vagueness to suggest that Kissinger could never be Nicolson’s ideal diplomat. And it is highly doubtful that Kissinger would put moral influence at the top of his agenda. Let us quote from Nicolson’s Diplomacy some words that would somehow sit rather incongruously in Kissinger’s one: If truthfulness be the first essential of the ideal diplomatist, the second essential is precision. By this is meant not merely intellectual accuracy, but moral accuracy. The negotiator should be accurate both in mind and soul.21

While the scope of Nicolson’s book is different to Kissinger’s, the former does nevertheless come up with the occasional pertinent reference to Metternich et al - which run counter to Kissinger’s admiration of the man by comparing Metternich’s ideas with those of the more progressive ones of the British Secretary of State, Canning: To a diplomatist of the old school such as Metternich the very idea that the public should have any knowledge of, or opinion upon, foreign policy, appeared both dangerous and fantastic. Canning, on the other hand, regarded public opinion as something which, so far from being avoided, should actually be invoked. It was mainly for this reason that Metternich described him as “a malevolent factor hurled by divine providence upon Europe.”22

Impact on Diplomacy On diplomacy as a profession, or indeed as a calling, Kissinger’s impact, particularly on the mechanics of diplomacy, can be considered minimal, even on US diplomacy. But that is taking diplomacy at its most basic, namely as the nuts and bolts of relations between states. If one however

 20

Ibid., p. 55. Ibid., p. 60. 22 Ibid., p. 37. 21

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takes the broader definition, that of foreign affairs, then clearly, Kissinger has made some impact, particularly in the field of policy formulation and of the American approach to it. Geopolitics and power politics can be a heady cocktail for some international relations pundits, and when one considers Kissinger’s description in Diplomacy of America as a beacon for the world, one does wonder at the effect of his book on the thousands of students, both American and overseas, who lap up this sort of thing, and then naïvely believe that it is diplomacy. One needs to remember that Diplomacy was written on the back of his two previous careers as an academic and in government, and that he was already an emerging foreign affairs heavyweight as early as 1956, thanks in particular to his connexion to the Rockefellers and the publication of Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy. By controversially advocating the possibility of limited nuclear war, he became de rigueur, in Britain as well as the US, as we saw with his 1963 visit to London. Only a well-respected top academic would be able to meet with top British officials and politicians, as he was able to. Of course, the special relationship helped. An academic who is given the red carpet treatment by Whitehall is on the way up, as he indeed was. Only six years later he had reached the top echelons, where he remained for seven years. But once he had got there, he tended to ignore diplomatic procedures, thus often annoying diplomatic and political colleagues alike, and not only in his own country, as has been seen in this book. He appears to have been entrapped in his own Nineteenth Century ‘balance of power’ cocoon (knowingly or otherwise), while dealing with non-Nineteenth Century questions, such as nuclear proliferation, which could not rightly be solved by simplistic recourse to a selective mixture of Kautilya’s, Richelieu’s, Metternich’s, Disraeli’s, Castlereagh’s and Theodore Roosevelt’s policies, nor by reference to Kant. In their days, armies moved more slowly, communications were slower, and people were less informed about foreign affairs. More to the point, however, diplomatic procedures and precision were crucial, particularly after 1815. And even if Kissinger did understand that times had changed since Metternich’s heyday, it is paradoxical that, while apparently gleaning so much from the Nineteenth Century in terms of policy aims, he often ignored the painstaking understanding of procedure required to help maintain equilibrium. Being aware of this, he ought to have delegated more but, often having his own agenda, simply picked up the telephone and charged ahead. In this sense, rather than use the enormous apparatus

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of diplomacy, he simply ignored, abused and misused it, relying on a small handful of trusted officials, such as Sonnenfeldt, when it suited him. This comes through in the Cyprus affair. A nasty critic might go as far as to say that Kissinger violated diplomacy. At any event, he did not actually undermine diplomacy, but rather skirted around it, sometimes cherry-picking from it, as when he sent Joseph Sisco on a doomed mission. If one takes diplomacy as foreign policy, then Kissinger made an obvious impact, in that he was able to continue to describe and promote his past decisions and post-retirement thinking after he had left formal office, for example by supporting the invasion of Iraq and expressing his admiration for George Bush Junior (see next chapter), and of course through his prolific, and somewhat prolix, volumes.

Conclusions To say that Kissinger undermined diplomacy, or the art of negotiation, is going too far: although his secretive and idiosyncratic methods were dangerous, and appear to have caused considerable confusion and damage at times, he preferred to simply avoid nitty-gritty traditional diplomacy: instead, he circumvented procedures, using the telephone too liberally and inappropriately, and not always doing his homework (for example, on the workings of the European Communities). He was not prepared to be controlled by the trappings and morality of Nicolson’s ideal diplomat. As such, rather than undermine, he destabilised the proper way of doing things. Paradoxically, he played with diplomatic niceties in an anarchic fashion, sometimes acting like a loose cannon, despite his apparent conservative credentials. A quote from Nicolson demonstrates the danger of his kind of behaviour towards diplomacy: It will always be desirable that the foreign policy of any great country should be carried out by professionals trained in their business. Amateur diplomatists (as the United States and the U.S.S.R. are coming to recognize) are prone to prove unreliable. It is not merely that their lack of knowledge and experience may be of disadvantage to their governments, it is that the amateur diplomatist is apt out of vanity and owing to the shortness of his tenure to seek for rapid successes; that he tends, owing to diffidence, to be over-suspicious; that he is inclined to be far too zealous and to have bright ideas; that he has not acquired the humane and tolerant disbelief which is the product of a long diplomatic career and is often assailed by convictions, sympathies, even impulses; that he may arrive

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with a righteous contempt for the formalities of diplomacy and with some impatience of its conventions; that he may cause offence when he wishes only to inspire geniality; and that in his reports and despatches he may seek rather to display his own acumen and literary brilliance than to provide his government with a careful and sensible balance-sheet of facts.23

Although Kissinger was never an ambassador, much of the above is relevant, and connects effectively with some of the officials’ comments we saw in Chapter Five. The final chapter will try to provide a synopsis of Kissinger’s view on the world, and on Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as to juxtapose the crude term ‘geopolitics’ with what Dr. Kissinger wanted, assuming that he really knew what he wanted. By bringing geopolitics back into fashion, Dr. Frankenstein was reviving his monster, to live another day.

 23

Ibid., pp. 39-40.

CHAPTER NINE THEN IS NOW

A dwarf who climbed the shoulders of a cruel giant.1

Introduction In this, the final and most intricate chapter, Kissinger’s lines of thinking will be considered, using in particular his earliest and latest books, separated by almost sixty years, to detect what lay behind Kissinger’s actions vis-à-vis Cyprus when he was in power. The terms ‘idealist’ and ‘realist’ will first be considered, to see how comfortably or otherwise Kissinger fits into one or both categories. The question will then be considered as to whether he was simply a clever person who disguised a cynical and hard-nosed Manichean attitude to life by dressing up nasty decisions and actions in philosophical-sounding clothes and soft criticisms; and whether in so doing, he was able to make realist decisions look moderate and reasonable. In this context, Kissinger’s views on Iraq, Libya and Syria will be looked at, to see how he avoids specificity. The art of professional diplomacy today will then be considered, and how it has been battered by globalisation and technology (Kissinger comes up with a very pithy and observant statement on this, as shall be seen), followed by the concept of the balance of power; this author’s thoughts on geohistory; and Cyprus now, within the context of Kissinger’s behaviour as Secretary of State then.



1 Attributed to Pierre de Blois by Ukolova, Victoria, The Last of the Romans and European Culture, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1989, p. 3. She wrote: ‘At the height of the Middle Ages, Pierre de Blois, certainly not the greatest of medieval poets, said we were like dwarfs who had climbed the shoulders of giants, and that if we saw farther than our predecessors, we owed it to those giants.’

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Realism and Idealism Kissinger has been labelled by many as a typical political realist, yet also as an idealist,2 at least in his earlier years. One needs to be extremely careful here, as there are various definitions of realism and idealism, not to mention various subsets of each. Here, by political realism, often interchanged with the term power politics, is meant an approach to world politics that sees the state as the starting point and basis of world organisation. The more ‘realistic’ one is, then the more emphasis one places on the concept of the strong states ruling the weak, since that is the only way to avoid disorder and anarchy. Experts have already divided realism into classical, neoclassical, and strategic realism, as well as simple neorealism, while there are sub-divisions of these that can start to addle some brains.3 For our purposes, and within the context of Kissinger’s mind, his behaviour and writing have proven too shifting and unpredictable to be able to pin him down to a particular sub-category. It is however safe to say that he is a realist of the anti-revolutionary variety (whatever the occasional contradiction that we have sifted out in this book). The only mental (rather than intellectual) consistency that one has been able to sift out with a degree of certitude is that Kissinger has always been anticommunist (as well as suspicious and fearful of the Soviet Union/Russia), that he is anti-revolutionary, in the sense that he believes in order rather than anarchy, and that he appears to dislike to some extent the ideas of the French Revolution that so contributed to the emergence of new states, often through revolution. Of course, matters cannot be quite as simple as that: for example, Kissinger seems to have seen the Russian Revolution as anti-establishment, and that he seems to have therefore considered the Bolshevik upheaval as antithetical to order. But here some may see an inconsistency, since the Soviet system soon settled down into a form of conservatism. Given that Kissinger believed in power politics/political realism and in American ideals and their propagation, if a loaded gun were put against this author’s head and if he were then asked to categorise

 2

The very title of Niall Ferguson’s book Kissinger, 1923-1969: the Idealist is pertinent here. 3 Over-categorisation can sometimes go over the top, leading to stultification. Some social scientists appear to believe that one can catch and define the human mind in a model. They then try to apply the model to reality, and become unstuck.

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Kissinger, he would say that he developed from being a pragmatic idealist4 into a nationalist pragmatist and realist, who used his version(s) of the balance(s) of power(s) to argue, pursue and justify his decisions. Before commenting further on the relationship between realism and idealism, one also needs to attempt an intellectually palatable description of what is meant by idealism. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary definition is: ‘(Philos). Any system in which the object of external perception is held to consist, either in itself, or as perceived, of ideas’. An idealist is of course one who holds this doctrine. Kissinger’s admiration, notwithstanding some criticism, of Kant, as expressed in The Meaning of History, but also in his recent World Order, has led to his being associated with philosophy. Yet one should remember that he is neither a historian nor a philosopher, but a political scientist. Admiring the likes of Kant, Thucydides or Metternich does not make one a philosopher, historian or statesman. But it can make one’s decisions and policies appear more palatable, heavyweight and reasonable. The other common meaning of ‘idealist’ is as the antithesis of realist, and thus someone who subordinates ‘might’ to supranational laws and courts. Kissinger was not this kind of idealist;5 quite the opposite. He was, arguably, in his early academic years, a pragmatic idealist,6 in the sense that by bringing in a dash of philosophy, allied to normative concepts, he sweetened the less savoury aspects of power politics by bringing in a flavour of idealism. It could be that in his various meetings with his biographer, he has tried to come across as a moderate thinker, which is presumably how he would wish to be remembered. While Ferguson has made an admirable attempt to categorise Kissinger and explain what kind of idealist he is or was, this author has been unable to find anything more than Kissinger’s semantic sophistry. It is difficult to pin him down. Kissinger appears to be essentially Manichean in his thinking, although he does his best to disguise the fact, aware that the more Manichean one shows oneself to be (viz. Truman), the less flexible and tolerant one will be considered to be. This explains why the black and white of his ideas are juxtaposed and then expressed as balanced argument. Thus, although he



4 See Melakopides, Costas, ‘Pragmatic Idealism Revisited: Russia’s post-1991 Cyprus Policy and Implications for Washington’, Mediterranean Quarterly, 23:4, Fall 2012. 5 Op. cit., Ferguson, p. 28. 6 Op. cit., Melakopides.

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contrasts Theodore Roosevelt with Woodrow Wilson, he uses the contrast to show that he takes both sides seriously, even if he has already decided to favour only one. One reads, for example, of his references to idealism and realism in World Order,7 and his tendency to compare not only Theodore Roosevelt with Woodrow Wilson, but also Disraeli with Gladstone. This suggests that Kissinger’s line of thinking and analysis depends on juxtaposition and comparison, both to show that, whatever his innermost - extremely realist - thoughts, he will always at least think about and tolerate other views and arguments, so as to sugar the pill when deciding on and presenting harsh realist decisions. This author doubts that Kissinger has ever been remotely idealistic in the broad sense, in other words ‘starry-eyed’ and Utopian, even if some of his bromides, as we have seen, come across as ‘missionary’. The reason they do, is that he is playing to an audience, and mainly an American one.

Iraq, Libya and Syria Turning now to specificity, let us consider Kissinger’s views on the illegal invasion of Iraq. Were he even slightly idealist, believing in international law rather than power to solve problems, he would surely have been highly critical of the attack on Iraq in 2003. Instead, he writes: I supported the decision to undertake regime change in Iraq. I had doubts, expressed in public and governmental forums, about expanding it to nation-building and giving it such universal scope […] George W. Bush, who guided America with courage, dignity, and conviction in an unsteady time […] It is a symbol of his devotion to the Freedom Agenda that Bush is now pursuing it in his postpresidential [sic] life and made it the key theme of his presidential library in Dallas. Implementing a pluralist democracy in place of Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule proved infinitely more difficult than the overthrow of the dictator.8

This is simply an attempt to avoid stating the obvious fact that the attack on Iraq was illegal, and destroyed the country and its people to a far greater extent than Saddam Hussein could ever have done. Despite Kissinger’s alleged emphasis on state sovereignty, we see here that international law and morality are simply irrelevant. The inadequate a posteriori postulation that ‘implementing a pluralist democracy’ (not very Metternichian!) was infinitely more difficult than the overthrow of the

 7 8

Op. cit., World Order, p. 329. Ibid., pp. 324 and 325.

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dictator is an insult to my – even if fairly limited - intelligence. Kissinger is clearly playing to his audience. Perhaps understanding that his brief comment on Iraq is intellectually and morally inadequate, he then perhaps inadvertently – rubs salt into his own self-inflicted intellectual wound, by slipping in an endnote: The world will long debate the implication of this military action and the strategy pursued in the subsequent effort to bring about democratic governance in Iraq. Yet this debate, and its implications for future violations of international non-proliferation principles will remain distorted so long as the unilateral background is omitted.9

The last sentence is truly an example of weasel language, in that it confuses the issue, detracts from factuality, and leaves loose ends. There is no mention of previous American support for Saddam Hussein against Iran, of the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction, of the hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed, of the underhand business activities of Haliburton/Blackwater/Academi, the chaos caused across the Middle East and the concomitant threat to world peace, and no mention of the danger posed by Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Thus, despite Kissinger’s attempt to procure a ‘philosophical’ image, the above two quotes show, par excellence, an utterly neo-con approach to relations between states, which no amount of tactical omission, fence-sitting, and prolific and prolix writing can disguise. The impression gained is that Kissinger does not wish to put certain noses out of joint. For example, when writing about the Arab/Israel dispute, he mentions the ‘Palestinians’ aspirations towards self-governance’.10 To mention, as most of the world does, the idea of a Palestinian state, would have irritated Israeli officials. In World Order, he also ‘deals with’ Libya and Syria. Although he describes Qaddafi as a murderous dictator, he is kind and understanding about Pinochet in Years of Renewal, as has been seen. This is a clear case of double standards. Although he does admit that the overthrow of Qaddafi ‘had the practical effect of removing any semblance of national governance’, there is no criticism of the utter failure of the attack on Libya, the lack of any workable plan, and the fact that the attack has destabilised the country, and provided an entrée to ISIS et al.

 9

Ibid., p. 401. Ibid., p. 129.

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On Syria, one sees a similar approach: he quotes Obama as saying that ‘Assad must step aside’, and then describes the complexity of the situation, both inside and outside Syria. He chooses not to mention the importance of preserving the state structure, obliquely accusing Russia for not agreeing with Obama. Again, he does not care to admit that one of the American objectives was to install a US-friendly and therefore anti-Iranian regime. His approach is simply not critical, and he sits on the fence, with his legs nevertheless on the American side of the anti-Assad propaganda. His book is simply not adequate academically. It comes across as a subtle form of propaganda. Let us now return to real diplomacy.

The Ideal Diplomat In 1596, Ottaviano Maggi contended that an ambassador should be a trained theologian, well versed in Aristotle and Plato, and able at a moment’s notice to solve the most abstruse problems in correct dialectical form: he should also be expert in mathematics, architecture, music, physics and civil and canon law. He should speak and write Latin fluently and must also be proficient in Greek, Spanish, French, German and Turkish. While being a trained classical scholar, a historian, a geographer and an expert in military science, he must also have a cultured taste for poetry. And above all, he must be of excellent family, rich, and endowed with a fine physical presence.11 It is little wonder that some of the Italian city-states, based as they were on Ancient Greek ideas to some extent, were centres of culture and learning beyond the wildest dreams of most places today. One would need to be a superman today to match up to such a description. So one can certainly not criticise Kissinger for not possessing all the above qualities. He can however be criticised for his written imprecision, as has been seen. As regards his work as an international negotiator, the importance that he attached to the telephone and oral negotiations sometimes proved unfortunate. For however pedantic it may sound to some, written precision is absolutely vital in successful diplomacy, since the less precision, the more vagueness, and therefore the more misunderstanding and even express misinterpretation. One is entitled to wonder whether Kissinger knew this, and was thus able to turn a closed (but not blind) eye to Turkey’s objectives in Cyprus in a morally and legally opaque labyrinth, just as he does not mention the detrimental Turkish rôle in Syria, let alone the Israeli one.

 11

Op. cit., Nicolson, Diplomacy, p. 56.

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Technology and Globalisation It is thanks to this author’s having read as much as he could of Kissinger’s writings (just to ascertain why he allowed Turkey to behave illegally over Cyprus), that he is able to insert his ideas about the threats to diplomacy, but particularly British diplomacy, today: for out of the prolific and prolix Kissinger writings, one finds the following gem: ‘The distinction between information, knowledge, and wisdom is weakened.’12 This reminds one of T.S. Eliot’s pithy words – foreseeing the information explosion – ‘Where is the wisdom lost to knowledge, where is the knowledge lost to information, and where is the word we lost in words?’13 Whether serendipitously or not, Kissinger’s maxim resonates. He does not elaborate on his statement, but his observation is surely based on the result of the combination of speed and greed encouraged by the irresponsible use of technology, expressed in such once revered institutions as the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whose top ‘managers’ now praise ambassadorial twitting, eschew decent and clear writing, and praise political correctness.14 Kissinger does not specifically elaborate on the deleterious effects of the abuse of technology on diplomacy, preferring to limit himself to his wise maxim. But he then seems to spoil the apparent wisdom of his brief words by following up twenty lines later with: ‘Order should not have priority over freedom. But the affirmation of freedom should be elevated from a mood to a strategy.’15 Here, by first appearing to place freedom above order, he then tries to imprison that very freedom by saying that it should be a strategy. This is a subtle form of selfcontradiction, and expresses above all Kissinger’s own intellectual steppenwolfishness. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comes to mind.

 12

Op. cit., World Order, p. 357. Eliot, T.S., The Rock, Faber and Faber, London, 1934, in Menzeniotis, Dionisis, ‘Demystifying Knowledge Society and its alleged Education’, Cosmothemata, vol.2, no. 2, New York College, Athens, July 2005. 14 Further elaboration lies outside the immediate scope of this book, particularly since Kissinger does not elaborate on his words. Those wishing to consider the demise of the English language and its connexion to Britain’s submission to US foreign (military) policy can read Mallinson, William, Behind the Words: the FCO, Hegemonolingualism and the End of Britain’s Freedom, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014. 15 Op. cit., World Order, p. 357. 13

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This is where Kissinger’s drafting skills enter the picture: although he has clearly read very widely, his writing can be slightly long-winded, and occasionally betrays a lack of clear thinking, or at least sometimes a tendency to beat about a semantic bush. ‘A clear drafter is nearly always a clear thinker. Conversely, most people who can think clearly can teach themselves to draft. In practice, the two things go together: improving our drafting improves our thinking, and improving our thinking improves our drafting: no one can tell which comes first.’16 In Kissinger’s case, I am inclined to wonder whether the occasional lack of clarity in his writing reflects a tendency to hedge what he thinks with various caveats, so as not to appear too single-minded and Manichean. Certainly, the distinction between information, knowledge and wisdom sometimes seems blurred, technology or no technology. Let us now begin to end this book.

Kissinger’s Authority Despite Kissinger’s semantically reasonable approach, bar some of the missionary language in World Order and in Diplomacy, a certain singleminded and thrusting self-assurance in some of his views does escape from time to time, which detracts slightly from an image of flexibility and moderation. It is this self-assurance that has bestowed him with the authority to get where he has. As this book was being finished, the author’s thoughts were interrupted by the name ‘Kissinger’ being announced on the television, by a Sky News broadcaster.17 Kissinger was being interviewed, mainly about ISIS.18 Likening ISIS to Hitler and Nazism, he said that one could not negotiate with them. But he did not analyse, and mention that it was largely because of US policy in Iraq that ISIS suddenly appeared (some even say that the US uses ISIS as a back door into Syria, to topple Assad.). Nor did he mention Turkish support for ISIS. When asked about the rôle that Europe should play in destroying ISIS, he said that there should be ‘an Atlantic effort’. There was no mention of Russia, let alone of the enormous work it has undertaken to destroy ISIS and other extremists, work that makes the US’s efforts pale by comparison. One would have been correct in hoping for a rather more thoughtful set of responses from him, particularly since he was described in the introduction to the interview as a ‘diplomatic

 16

Op. cit., Mallinson, Behind the Words, p. 14. Sky News, 7 January 2016, 17.40 GMT. 18 Known variously as ‘Islamic State’, ‘ISIL’ or ‘Daesh’. 17

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colossus’, and in a later broadcast as ‘the man with a flair for dramatic diplomatic gestures that changed the world.’19 Negative critics might describe him as a would-be diplomat with a tendency to copy-paste others’ ideas, perhaps unconsciously. In mitigation, most of us take others’ ideas. Let us recall Oscar Wilde’s dictum (see introduction) that most people are other people, their thoughts being someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, and their passions a quotation. Kissinger’s authority stems from: his own self-confidence; having had a good sponsor in Nelson Rockefeller; being endowed with the cheek to produce a controversial and dangerous book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy; the well-earned kudos of being a Professor at Harvard; the exotic aura of being a European Jewish immigrant who kept a very strong German-Jewish accent; being able to have virtually mesmerised Nixon; and his constant references to the so-called balance of power, a concept that has been quoted by both historians and political scientists for many years. Let us look briefly but piercingly at this ‘balance of power’.

The Balance of Power A perfect balance of power – between states – would mean, at least theoretically, a perfect world, free of war. One might argue that the world has been trying to achieve this since it began. At any event, it is a nicesounding idea, since the alternatives are, broadly speaking, anarchy or totalitarianism. The problem arises, nevertheless, when one realises that many people have their own idea of how to achieve this Utopian balance. Kissinger is one of them, and his obvious enthusiasm with the term has been dealt with piercingly by Ferguson. Let us recall the valid view that Kissinger used the term ‘geopolitics’ as a synonym for balance of power politics,20 and also Taylor’s view that Metternich did not invent the balance of power, nor do much to develop it, and that the great powers of Europe existed without his assistance.21 Be that as it may, it is an old idea. Although Thucydides did not specifically talk about it, his juxtaposition of the power centres of Athens and Sparta has been understandably used as an early example of the idea. Guicciardini was the first to seriously

 19

Op. cit., Sky News, 8 January 2016, 14.40 GMT. Op. cit., O’Tuthail, Gearóid, in O’Tuthail, Gearóid, Dalby, Simon and Routledge, Paul (eds.), The Geopolitics Reader. 21 Op. cit., Taylor, A.J.P., Europe: Grandeur and Decline. 20

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consider the concept, while the first known specific reference is in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713.22 The revered Martin Wight wrote perceptively: Compared with the pattern of power, the notion of the balance of power is notoriously full of confusions, so that it is impossible to make any statement about the ‘law’ or principle of the balance of power that will command general acceptance.23

Although the book in which Wight wrote his article was published in 1966, there is no mention of Kissinger. Wight provides nine definitions of the concept, including ‘an even distribution of power’; ‘the principle that power ought to be evenly distributed’; ‘the existing distribution of power’; ‘the principle of equal aggrandizement of the Great Powers at the expense of the weak’; ‘the principle that our [sic, should read ‘one’] side ought to have a margin of strength in order to avert the danger of power becoming unevenly distributed’; ‘(when governed by the verb “to hold”): a special role in maintaining an even distribution of power’; ‘(ditto): a special advantage in the existing distribution of power’; ‘predominance’; and ‘an inherent tendency of international politics to produce an even distribution of power.’ Where does Kissinger fit into this quagmire? Given his reference, inter alia, to Britain’s having been ‘the balancer of the equilibrium’,24 and his subtle penchant for the policies of Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman, he looks to stand somewhere between ‘predominance’ and ‘a special role in maintaining an even distribution of power’. But wherever he may or may not stand, depending on the circumstances, his notion(s) of the balance of power are predicated on not only his own academic fascination with the likes of Metternich and Castlereagh, but on his rigid antipathy towards Soviet/Russian influence in Europe and his concomitant support for NATO. Despite his playing with balance of power concepts to suit the occasion, this rigidity detracts from a genuine critical approach. After all, it could be equally well argued that the world would be better balanced if NATO were disbanded, or if Europe were independent of NATO’s combative stance towards Russia. It is here that Kissinger’s ideas in World

 22

Evans, Graham and Newnham, Jeffrey, The Penguin Dictionary of International Relations, Penguin Books, 1998, pp. 42-43. 23 Wight, Martin, ‘The Balance of Power’, in Butterfield, Herbert and Wight, Martin, Diplomatic Investigations, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, Hertford and Harlow, 1966, p. 149. 24 Op. cit., World Order, p. 32.

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Order appear coagulated in a Cold War mentality. Given Kissinger’s reference in the previous chapter to Thucydides, that the present, while never repeating the past exactly, must inevitably resemble it, one can justifiably wonder why Kissinger does not allow any leeway for arguing that this inexactitude could involve NATO disappearing, or at least not expanding manically. Here one sees Kissinger’s habit of leaving loose ends: in World Order, he simply writes: The expansion of NATO up to the borders of Russia– even perhaps including it – was now broached as a serious prospect. The projection of a military alliance into historically contested territory within several hundred miles of Moscow was proposed not primarily on security rounds but as a sensible method of ‘locking in’ democratic gains.25

When juxtaposed with NATO’s behaviour only ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and since, Kissinger’s comment looks simply jejune. With the end of the Warsaw Pact, there was a general assumption that NATO would modify its Cold War stance and, if not disband, at least alter its raison d’être to reflect new realities. But far from that, the Cold War neocon warriors won the day. The first, and most obvious, warning that NATO, spearheaded by the US, wished to become a world policeman, came when the US Balkan envoy, a professional diplomat, Robert Gelbard, described the Kosovo Liberation Army on 23 February 1998, as ‘without question, a terrorist organisation’,26 thus providing Yugoslav President Milosevic with the excuse that he was looking for to clamp down on the terrorists. Yet only four months later, Gelbard was replaced by Richard Holbrooke – a banker, and very much an amateur in diplomacy -, who then cosied up to the terrorists, even being photographed, smiling, with a Kalashnikov-wielding terrorist. This about-turn then led to Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joining NATO – just before the North Atlantic Treaty was due to expire. Thus, NATO was granted a new lease of life as the seventy-eight day bombing of FR Yugoslavia began, infuriating pre-Putin Russia. Since then, for many, but in particular for Russians, NATO has ended up as a threat to world peace, sustaining itself through often illegal bombings and further expansion to a current twentyeight members, with more on the way.

 25

Ibid., p. 91. Pettifer, James, ‘We Have Been Here Before’, The World Today, vol. 54, no. 4, Chatham House, London, April 1998.

26

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Far from re-establishing a new and sustainable ‘balance of power’, NATO has expanded up to Russia’s borders, and set up an aggressive missile defence system, including even Turkey. Further infuriating Russia, there is even talk of the Ukraine joining. In World Order, Kissinger simply avoids these issues, although he does at least say, without giving an opinion, that ‘events in Ukraine may resolve this ambivalence in the direction of Cold War attitudes.’27 Here we see a tricky flaw in Kissinger’s balance of power ‘logic’ about NATO’s importance and the need to keep Europe with the US, when he nevertheless admits the historical importance of Kiev to Russia.28 To this we can add his comment in our introduction, that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was not a move towards global conquest. The impression gained, intellectually speaking, is one of fence-sitting, and commenting, rather than analysing and coming to firm conclusions. It is clear that Kissinger is not seriously prepared to offer criticism, even constructive, on NATO’s behaviour, as, for example, his anodyne comments above on Libya have shown. This may reflect an element of intellectual confusion, or at least avoidance of digging deep, rather than an attempt to at least put forward a coherent idea of the current balance of power(s) in the world. Let us turn now to geohistory,29 which represents this author’s reaction to the ‘crude science of geopolitics’, referred to earlier in the book.

Geohistory Far from packaging thoughts, ideologies, paradigms, approaches, conceptual frameworks and events into personal interpretations of history to suit one’s territorially-based views on relations between states and on the ‘balance of power’, geohistory represents history as a neutral continuum that remains perforce entirely unaffected by any interpretation. Territories and power relationships alter, unlike human characteristics and behaviour, which remain remarkably constant. History is simply a reflection of human characteristics and behaviour alone, which are what cause the inconstancy of relations between states. The constancy of human characteristics such as greed, ambition and fear, paradoxically causes potential strife. This is the essential way of understanding how and why

 27

Op. cit., World Order, p. 145. Ibid., p. 51. 29 I have found but one serious reference to this word, which I vainly thought that I had invented. See Unzué, José Luis Orella, Geohistoria, Universidad de Deusto (Campus de San Sebastián), 24 July 1995. 28

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states behave as they do, and thus the rôle played by ideology, greed, fear, ambition and desire. The past is the past, which blends into the future. We can say that the same things have been happening, happen, and will happen, however we choose to interpret them, simply because they are predicated on immutable human characteristics. In short, human beings, and thus their characteristics, create the state, and not the other way round. But political realists seem to be assuming – whether by design or by default – that the state existed before the first humans appeared. It is not that history repeats itself, but rather that the similar behaviour of the human species manifests itself with different colours to suit our own selfish desires, new technology and allegedly new ideas. Given Heraclitus’s well-known dictum that everything flows, it follows that the physical is always developing, and that to therefore attempt to apply a rigid international relations doctrine to capture and control any given situation is bound to coagulate and cause problems. It is better, therefore, to learn from history, not how to repeat our mistakes, but how to learn from them by adapting to new developments. Thus, a true and dispassionate scrutineer of geohistory in 1989 might well have concluded that, rather than continue the Cold War by expanding NATO, it would have been better to engage in immediate dialogue about how to wind it down or transform it, albeit slowly, by treating a then confused Russia as an equal partner, instead of trying to make NATO a world policeman and expanding eastwards. What Kissinger would think of the above is difficult to say, but he is at least healthily devoid of the pitfalls of over-theorising about the confusing plethora of international relations theories, where people attempt to impose their own Procrustean models on the world, cherry-picking what suits them, by cutting off the tricky extremities when they do not fit.30 Perhaps Kissinger’s constant emphasis on his balance of power idea(s), which appears to be founded on geopolitics rather than geohistory, explains the difficulty he has, particularly in World Order, in taking the bull by the horns, thereby confining himself to more platitudes than are strictly necessary. As such, his intellectual flexibility appears to be constrained by his Manichean limits. Thus he understands Pinochet, but has no flexibility

 30

For a critique of the dangers of over-reliance on international relations theory, see op. cit., Mallinson, Cyprus, Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations.

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for Assad. Now we end with Cyprus, whose problems led to the researching and writing of this book.

NATO, Turkey and Cyprus Were one to repeat here the various references in this book to Kissinger’s approach to the Cyprus crisis of 1974, but particularly in chapters five, six, seven and eight, one would have at least a long academic paper simply repeating what has already been demonstrated. Suffice to say that Kissinger’s exaggerated secrecy31 has led to much criticism not only of his methods, which we have seen, but to further problems. Although Kissinger is often considered to have ended the Vietnam War, it continued in a horrible fashion in the region. It is also possible that Kissinger had no choice but to negotiate an end to the American presence in Vietnam. As regards the SALT 1 treaty of 1969, Kissinger was not in the government until the final negotiations were thrashed out in Helsinki. He did well, and was acclaimed for the agreement. It was not however sufficiently cast in stone to work for long, and the US never ratified SALT 2. He was also praised for ‘opening up’ with China, although the qualification needs to be made that one of his motives was to ‘detach China permanently from the Soviet Union’, at least according to one of Kissinger’s admirers, Margaret Thatcher: One of the first statesmen I met after becoming leader was Henry Kissinger, President Ford’s Secretary of State. Over the years my respect for Dr. Kissinger steadily grew and – though starting from different perspectives – our analysis of international events increasingly converged. At this time, however, I was uneasy about the direction of Western policy towards the Soviet Union, of which I was the acknowledged impresario. I did indeed recognise the importance of ‘opening to China’, achieved under Richard Nixon in the power-play with the Soviets. It was a crucial element of victory in the Cold War to detach China permanently from the Soviet Union.32

 31

It is a generally accepted norm of diplomacy (viz. Nicolson), that while the details of negotiation should be kept private, for fear of destabilising the situation, the aims of policies to be pursued should be revealed. In the case of Kissinger’s negotiations in the Cyprus crisis, as well as in some other situations, Kissinger seems to have kept his real general objectives away from public scrutiny, while publicising the actual procedures. 32 Thatcher, Margaret, The Path to Power, Harper Collins Publications, London, 1995, p. 348.

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Like Kissinger, Thatcher is well known for having been friendly towards Pinochet, and antithetical towards the Soviet Union. Be that as it may, it is important to note that whatever ‘detachment’ Kissinger may have achieved, the policy failed in the medium term, since Russia and China are now closer strategically than they have ever been, largely as a result of the US’s and NATO’s sabre-rattling excesses. Thus Kissinger’s perceived successes can be qualified to some extent through serious scrutiny. Geohistory will be the judge. Before we conclude this book, let us look at Cyprus today, and Kissinger’s rôle in its fate. We have seen how Kissinger considered Turkey’s contribution to the US’s and NATO’s military strategy towards the Soviet Union far more important than international notions of state sovereignty, and UN law. We have seen how he prevented Britain from calling immediately for the withdrawal of the Greek officers from Cyprus when the anti-Makarios coup took place; how he ensured that Britain would not threaten Turkey with military action, as it was entitled to do; how he made plain that he would not support such action; how he cajoled Britain to come on board; how he refused to countenance an arms embargo against Turkey; how he delayed and obfuscated; and how he essentially ensured that Turkey could act with impunity, and occupy over two thirds of the island. Following the crisis, we have seen how dead set he was against Britain giving up its bases, and how he worked to try and ensure the political demise of Makarios. Then becomes now: the US, with its still rather subservient NATO allies, continues to condone Turkey’s illegal occupation of Cyprus (as well as Turkish help for Islamic State), and sees a political, but hardly legal, solution in continuing with Kissinger’s ‘Principles Initiative’ that led to the abortive Annan Plan, and is likely to lead to yet another one soon, to keep Turkey solidly under NATO control as an anti-Russian asset. Needless to say, Russia will oppose it, seeing it is a way to ensure that the anachronistic military bases, American in all but name, have another lease of life. For all Kissinger’s lip-service to state sovereignty, Cyprus is one of his exceptions. From Kissinger’s perspective, morality is subservient to the bases, the only acceptable solution being a NATO one predicated on the failed 1960 treaties, just as the Annan Plan was. The only cat among the pigeons is the increasing power of Russia. But whether Russia will be prepared to truly flex its strong muscles is a moot point: better from the Russian standpoint to simply let matters simmer on and on, causing problems on NATO’s southern flank. For a strong element of Russian

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policy is to weaken NATO, and understandably so. Cyprus, Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and Syria are just some of the obvious reasons for Russia to keep involved in Cyprus, but whether as a spoiler or otherwise is still a moot point. Cyprus today is the result of Kissinger’s alleged balance of power policies, where morality and law take a backseat to political realism.

Conclusions Kissinger still appears to have much to hide on Cyprus. Many of his documents are still kept under lock and key, classified as ‘private’, while around nine hundred telephone transcripts were only released in August 2015, having been the subject of legal action by the National Security Archive against the reticent State Department. That alone arouses justified suspicion about the pseudo-diplomatic skulduggery surrounding Cyprus that we have read about in this book. Although documents have been released, some of them are so heavily excised as to render them meaningless or open to misunderstanding. Kissinger’s disagreement with the US Secretary of State for Defence, Schlesinger, does at least come across, for example when Kissinger made it plain that he did not wish to warn Turkey about its military actions in Cyprus on 19 August 1974. In the end the truth does usually come out, but access to all relevant documents, unexpurgated, is, as the Greeks say, like squeezing fat from a fly. Worse, one can justifiably wonder how many telephone conversations were never even recorded. Can Kissinger be classified as a statesman? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a statesman thus: 1 a person skilled in affairs of state, esp. one taking an active part in politics. 2 a distinguished and capable politician.’ Kissinger can be described as skilled in affairs of state, but not in traditional diplomacy, and in a broad sense, he was certainly a good political operator. I do not think that he fulfills the criteria of being a distinguished and capable politician, since he never stood for elected office. Considering his studiedly incompetent behaviour over Cyprus, if he can be described as a statesman, he can also be described as a geopolitical engineer who treated people as geopolitical fodder, and reduced morality to the status of a strategic and tactical tool, as did his wishful alter ego, Metternich.

APPENDIX

The Kissinger family moved to America via Britain in 1938. Heinz’s brother, who was younger, was called Walter. I recently dug up in the National Archives a document about a Walter Kissinger. It is entitled ‘Male enemy alien exemption from internment – refugee’. He is described as having been born in Nurnberg, as a German. The address given is 70, Hurstwood Road, N.W.11. [London] His police registration certificate number was 771725, his normal occupation ‘merchant’. The document is dated 27 November 1939. What intrigued me is that his date of birth is given as 10 August 1910. I assume that this Walter is an uncle or cousin, or even an unrelated Kissinger. I wonder if any reader can shed some light on this.1

 1

BNA-HO 396/46.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archivalia Consulted British National Archives: files of Colonial Office, Foreign Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Cabinet Office, Prime Minister’s Office, War Office and Ministry of Defence; Foreign Relations of the United States (in published form).

Works Cited The following comprises only those sources cited in the book. There are many more publications that cannot be included, owing to both the danger of repetition and space. The fact that I have not cited everything should not necessarily be seen as my not considering them as worthy of being read, but merely that I do not wish to stray too far from diplomatic history. For a good legal analysis, see Chrysostomides, Kypros, The Republic of Cyprus: a Study in International Law, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague, 2000; for a good critique on US foreign policy and Cyprus, see Stern, Lawrence, The Wrong Horse, Times Books, New York, 1977. Although written almost forty years ago, it is particularly pertinent. Asmussen, Jan, Cyprus at War: Diplomacy and Conflict during the 1974 Crisis, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2008. Buckle, B.E., The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, John Murray, London, 1920. Burr, William, (ed.), The Kissinger Telcons: New Documents Throw Light on Sensitive Ford and Kissinger Views, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 526, The George Washington University, 19 August, 2015, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB526-Court-OrderedRelease-of-Kissinger-Telcons/, [Accessed 30 October 2015]. Butterfield, Herbert and Wight, Martin, Diplomatic Investigations, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, Hertford and Harlow, 1966. Clogg, Richard, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

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—. Years of Renewal, Simon and Schuster UK Ltd., London, 2012 (first published 1999). —. Years of Upheaval, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982. Lindley, Dan and Wenzke, Caroline, ‘Dismantling the Cyprus Conspiracy: the US Role in the Cyprus Crises of 1963, 1967 and 1974.’ Paper presented to a workshop Programme, University of Notre Dame, 20 May 2008. Lippert, Werner D., ‘Richard Nixon’s Détente and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik: the Politics and Diplomacy of Engaging the East’, Ph. D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, August 2005. Malashenko, Igor, ‘Russia, the Earth’s Heartland’, International Affairs, Moscow, July 1990. Mallinson, William, ‘Turkish Invasions, Cyprus and the Treaty of Guarantee’, Synthesis – Review of Modern Greek Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1999. —. Behind the Words: the FCO, Hegemonolingualism and the End of Britain’s Freedom, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014. —. Britain and Cyprus: Key Themes and Documents since World War Two, I.B.Tauris, London and New York, 2011. —. Cyprus, A Modern History, I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2012. —. Cyprus, Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations, I.B.Tauris, London and New York, 2010. —. From Neutrality to Commitment, Dutch Foreign Policy, NATO and European Integration, I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2010. Martin Packard, Getting it Wrong, AuthorHouse, Milton Keynes, 2008. Mazower, Mark (ed.), After the War Was Over, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2000. Melakopides, Costas, ‘Pragmatic Idealism Revisited: Russia’s post-1991 Cyprus Policy and Implications for Washington’, Mediterranean Quarterly, 23:4, Fall 2012. Menzeniotis, Dionisis, ‘Demystifying Knowledge Society and its alleged Education’, Cosmothemata, vol. 2, no. 2, New York College, Athens, July 2005. Miltiadou, Miltos and Coufoudakis, Van, The Cyprus Question: a brief Introduction, Press and Information Office, Nicosia, 2008. Milward, Alan S., The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945-51, Cambridge University Press, 1987 (first published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., London, 1984).

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INDEX

A

C

A World Restored xxx, xxxii, xxxiii, 2, 3, 16, 17, 22, 25, 79, 155. Acheson, Dean 145, 147, 149. Acland, Antony 4, 79, 93. Admiral Codrington 29. Aegean 112. Agee, Philip 98. AKEL 58, 60, 63. Akrotiri 101. Ankara xxxi, 46, 80, 90, 99, 100, 102, 117, 143. Arab xii, xx, 21, 22, 61, 104, 121, 139, 147, 173. Athens 33, 46, 51, 54, 59, 61, 80, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 98, 99, 105, 106, 113, 118, 119, 122, 143, 152, 175, 177. Austro-Hungary 31, 32, 33, 34, 55. Averov 99.

Cabinet Office 66, 77. Callaghan, James xi, xii, xxviii, 15, 88, 89, 92, 93, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 128, 130, 131, 135, 136, 159, 161. Cambodia ix, x, xi, xx, xxiv, 24, 73, 146, 149, 150. Canning, George 165. Capodistrias 16, 17, 29, 123. Carver, Mike 133. Castlereagh xxix, xxx, 2, 14, 16, 167, 178. Chile x, xx, xxiv, 23, 146. China x, xii, xxv, 63, 77, 182, 183. Chios xxxiii, 18. Chomsky, Noam xxiv. Christian Orthodox 37, 41, 115. Churchill, Winston 31, 32. CIA xx, 77, 78, 86, 87, 98. Clerides, Glafcos 96, 124, 125, 137. Cold War x, xiv, xxix, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 30, 32, 33, 35, 38, 54, 97, 119, 161, 162, 163, 179, 180, 181, 182. Communism 1, 31, 34, 90, 118, 126. Communist 1, 31, 33, 35, 51, 58, 63, 80, 90, 128, 146. Constantinople 27, 28, 29. Cooper, Frank 133. Crawford, William 84, 85, 86, 99, 132. Crimean War 30.

B Balance of power xxiii, xxv, xxxi, 3, 5, 10, 11, 21, 78, 166, 170, 177, 178, 180, 181, 184. Balkan 39, 42, 55, 179. Balkans xxxi, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 56. Berlin Wall 8, 162, 179. Bevin, Ernest 35. Bismarck xxix, 9, 146. Boyatt, Thomas 86, 87, 88. Brussels 68, 104, 106, 130. Byzantine Empire 29.



194 Crosland, Antony 140, 141, 161. Crusaders 27, 28. Cyril (Christian monk) 28. Czechoslovakia xxvi

Index F

Dalyell, Tam 156. Dardanelles 27, 28. Demetracopoulos, Elias 89, 151. Denktash 19, 45, 47. Der Spiegel xxv, xxvi. Descartes, René 153. Détente xxv, 8, 12, 63, 123, 146, 158. Dhekelia 127. Diego Garcia 23, 24, 156, 157, 158. Diplomacy xii, xxii, xxix, xxxiii, 60, 61, 63, 73, 77, 78, 81, 84, 93, 94, 95, 111, 133, 145, 152, 153, 155, 156, 159, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 174, 175, 179, 182, 184. Disraeli 2, 11, 14, 16, 30, 34, 166, 172.

FBI 87. FCO 79, 80, 88, 89, 93, 95, 96, 100, 104, 112, 113, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 137, 139, 141, 151, 156. Ferguson, Nial ix, x, xi, xii, xxi, xxiv, 4, 24, 155, 170, 171, 177. FO 31, 46. Foot, Hugh 19, 49. Foot, Michael xxi. Foreign and Commonwealth Office xxv, 44, 71, 76, 91, 175. Foreign Office 20, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 52, 58, 59, 66, 69, 70, 71, 77, 113, 115, 117, 128, 129, 138. Forty Committee xxix, 79, 81, 85, 86. Frank, Paul 25, 75, 76. French xxiv, 10, 16, 17, 24, 25, 29, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 76, 77, 93, 94, 117, 142, 160, 170, 174.

E

G

Eastern Crisis 30. Eastern Mediterranean xx, 1, 21, 27, 28, 30, 31, 36, 55, 56, 57, 60, 63, 83, 101, 103, 136, 138, 152, 168. Eçevit, Bulent xxviii, 51, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106, 115, 116, 125. Eden, Anthony 31, 114. EEC 67, 71. Egypt 35, 78, 147. ELAS 35. Enosis 37, 39, 41, 42, 43, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 88, 89, 93, 112, 127. EOKA 44, 48, 59, 61, 83, 108. Estonia 8 EU 7, 8, 9. European Union 6, 139, 140.

Geneva 92, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 116, 117, 125, 147. Germany 1, 9, 11, 32, 34, 75, 105, 155. Gibraltar 30. Gounaris, Elias 118, 119. Greece xi, xxiii, xxxiii, 1, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 42, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 62, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 93, 96, 98, 103, 105, 106, 109, 111, 112, 118, 127, 128, 134, 141, 142, 152. Greek Civil War 32, 33. Greek Cypriot(s) xi, 19, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 59,

D



Kissinger and the Invasion of Cyprus 95, 100, 101, 105, 108, 127, 140, 142. Greek revolution 17, 29. Greek War of Independence 18. Greeks xxvii, xxx, 16, 17, 18, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 37, 38, 41, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 58, 84, 85, 86, 89, 92, 93, 106, 108, 109, 111, 119, 120, 125, 128, 135, 159, 160, 184. Greene, Graham xxx. Grey, Edward 14. Günesh, Turan 109, 117, 125. Guicciardini xxx, 2, 154, 163, 177. H Hartman, Arthur 99, 100, 103, 140. Harvard 66, 148, 149, 177. Haushofer, Karl 154. Heath, Edward 3, 14, 15, 123, 130. Heraclitus xxx, 181. Herodotus xxx. Hibbert, Reginald 127. Hitchens, Christopher ix, xix, xx, xxi, xxv, xxviii 27, 53, 151. Hitler xxvi, 3, 111, 176. Hughes, Ted xxx. Hunt, John 20, 21, 115, 130, 132, 148, 156, 157, 158. Hyland, William 77, 78. I Indian Ocean 24, 135, 156, 157, 158. Information Research Department 37, 42, 61, 128. Inönü, Ismet 50. Invasion x, xi, xii, xxiv, xxvi, xxviii, 12, 18, 30, 51, 54, 59, 61, 62, 63, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 125, 128, 139, 151, 152, 167, 172.



195

Ioannides, Dimitris xx, 54, 86, 87, 88. Ionian Islands 29. IRD 128. Isaac Comnenus 30. Israel xx, 21, 22, 38, 121, 139, 152, 173. Istanbul 37, 45, 46, 53. J Janissaries 120. Japan 77. Jefferson, Thomas 11. JIC 132. Jobert, Michel 76. Joint Intelligence Committee 121. K Karamanlis, Constandinos 93, 98, 99, 104, 105, 106, 112, 142. Kautilya xxix, 2, 166. Kennan, George 12, 13. Kennedy 66, 67, 69, 73, 158. Killick, John 84, 144, 148. Kosovo 8, 179, 184. L Laos ix, x, xi, xx, xxiv, 24. Latvia 8. Le Carré, John xxx. Library of Congress xxv. Lithuania 8. Lloyd, Selwyn 43. London xii, 3, 19, 36, 38, 46, 49, 53, 60, 65, 66, 68, 77, 80, 90, 93, 99, 106, 112, 130, 140, 148, 159, 166. M Machiavelli xxx, 2, 115, 154. Mackinder, Halford 9, 10, 154.

196 Makarios xi, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 37, 38, 48, 50, 52, 54, 57, 60, 61, 62, 63, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 100, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 137, 142, 151, 183. Marshall Plan 6. Maugham, Somerset xxx. Mavros, Georgios 99, 100, 102, 103, 109. Mellersh, Francis 100, 101. Menderes, Adnan 50. Methodius (Christian monk) 28. Metternich xii, xxiv, xxix, xxx, xxxii, xxxiii, 2, 3, 5, 11, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 76, 83, 153, 158, 165, 166, 171, 172, 177, 178, 184. Middle East xi, xii, xx, xxix, xxxi, 1, 9, 21, 22, 27, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 48, 54, 55, 61, 71, 74, 81, 83, 97, 113, 121, 126, 134, 139, 145, 147, 173. Milosevic, Slobodan 151, 179. Milward, Alan 6, 7. Moscow xxvi, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 77, 78, 89, 179. N Napoleon xxx, 2, 16, 24, 25, 28. National Security Advisor 63, 81. National Security Council xxix, 40, 74. NATO xiii, 4, 7, 8, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70, 72, 88, 97, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 118, 128, 129, 134, 150, 152, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184. Navarino 17, 29. Near East 164. Neocons 10, 12.



Index Nicolson, Harold xxix, 156, 161, 163, 164, 165, 167, 182. Nixon, Richard ix, x, xi, 14, 25, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 115, 116, 121, 144, 145, 149, 177, 182. Nobel Peace Prize xxiv. Normandy 32. North Vietnamese xxiv. NSA 87. Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy xxx, 4, 40, 66, 126, 149, 166, 177. O Olver, Stephen 131, 132. Orwell, George xxx. Ottoman xxix, xxxiii, 2, 17, 18, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 39, 41, 92, 120, 163. Owen, David 80, 128, 137. P Palestine xxvi, 32, 120. Palliser, Michael 132, 133. Palmerston 11, 14. Paris xxiv, 69, 161. Parmenides xxx. Peck, John 37, 42. Perceval, Michael 143. Pike Committee 87. Pinochet x, 23, 173, 181, 183. Pitt, William the Younger 28, 162, 163. Poland 8, 179. Principles initiative 121, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 144, 183. Pythagoras xxx. R Rambouillet 8, 150.

Kissinger and the Invasion of Cyprus Ramsbotham, Peter 80, 84, 90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 102, 103, 104, 139, 140, 144, 146, 148, 156, 158. Rhodes 19. Richard, Ivor 94, 95. Richelieu xxix, 2, 162, 166. Ristic, Zoran xiii. Rockefeller, Nelson xi, xix, 65, 66, 69, 145, 147, 177. Roosevelt, Franklin 13. Roosevelt, Theodore xxix, 11, 166, 172, 178. Rossides, Eugene xxi, xxviii. Russia xii, xxvi, xxvii, 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 21, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 39, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 74, 77, 80, 83, 90, 93, 106, 128, 158, 161, 163, 170, 174, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184. S SACEUR 70. SALT 147, 182. Sampson, Nikos 92, 93, 118, 119. Sauvagnargues, Jean 93. SBA 94, 100, 101, 102, 130, 134, 136, 137, 138. Schlesinger, Arthur, Junior 148, 150, 157, 184. Seychelles 37, 126. Shaw, Bernard xxx. Sisco, Joseph 80, 90, 99, 119, 167. Skynet 135. Slav 29. Slavonic 29. Sonnenfeldt, Hal 105, 157, 158, 167. South Vietnam xxiv, 146. Sovereign Base Areas xxvii, 80, 101, 113, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 135, 137. Soviet ix, 1, 3, 4, 12, 31, 33, 34, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 77, 78, 83, 88, 97, 105, 123,



197

125, 128, 139, 146, 170, 178, 182. Soviet Union ix, x, xii, xxv, 1, 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 31, 32, 51, 52, 54, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 77, 97, 103, 104, 118, 126, 130, 134, 139, 146, 170, 182, 183. Suez 15, 35, 38, 126, 129, 130, 151. Stabler, Wells 96, 99, 130, 131. Stalin, Joseph 3, 31. State Department xxiii, xxv, 23, 25, 37, 74, 75, 76, 78, 86, 87, 97, 113, 116, 123, 146, 147, 156, 159, 184. Sykes, Richard 79, 158. T Talleyrand 16. Taylor, A.J.P. xxxiii, 2, 3, 161, 177. Thessaloniki 53. Thucydides xxx, 154, 171, 177, 179. TMT 44, 49, 50. Treaty of Alliance 127. Treaty of Establishment 50, 127. Treaty of Guarantee xviii, 51, 90, 122, 127. Treaty of Kücük Kainardji 28. Treaty of Lausanne 36, 44. Truman 12, 13, 35, 171, 178. Truman Doctrine 1, 33, 34. Turkey xi, xvii, xviii, xxvi, xxviii, 1, 16, 18, 20, 28, 30, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 83, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 111, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 127, 134, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 151, 152, 174, 175, 180, 182, 183, 184. Turkish Cypriot(s) xi, xvii, 19, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52,

198 53, 57, 60, 108, 113, 114, 120, 135, 142, 143. Turks xvii, xxvii, xxxiii, 17, 18, 27, 30, 36, 38, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 58, 92, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 117, 119, 120, 122, 124, 125, 135, 143, 159, 160. U UN 22, 33, 35, 43, 52, 54, 61, 63, 94, 95, 96, 101, 109, 139, 140, 142, 143, 156, 159, 183. UNFICYP 94, 101. United Nations 6, 8, 36, 52, 156. USSR 34, 55, 89. V Venetians 27, 30. Venice xvii, 120. Vico, Giambattista 153. Volkan 44.

Index W Waldheim, Kurt 94, 95. Wass, Douglas 133. White House ix, 18, 25, 69, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 145, 146, 147. White House Years 18, 71. Wikileaks xxxi. Wilde, Oscar xxx, 1, 177. Williamson, Henry xxx. Wilson, Harold 107, 121, 122. Wilson, Woodrow xxix, 11, 15, 156, 161, 162, 172. World Order xxix, 5, 11, 13, 18, 22, 162, 171, 172, 173, 176, 179, 180, 181. Y Yalta 31. Years of Renewal 18, 23, 84, 87, 96, 114, 123, 173. Years of Upheaval 18, 23, 81, 114. Yugoslavia 8, 31, 90, 150, 179. Z Zara 27. Zorlu, Fatin 49, 53.