The Cyprus Crisis: Examining the Role of the British and American Government's During 1974 - Hardcover

Andreas Constandinos

9781841023113: The Cyprus Crisis: Examining the Role of the British and American Government's During 1974

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841023116 ISBN 13: 9781841023113

Publisher: University of Plymouth Press, 2012

The Cyprus Crisis examines recently released and declassified British and American government documents, in order to scrutinize the roles played by both of these countries during the Cyprus crisis of 1974. It evaluates British and American aims towards Cyprus, analysing in particular the roles played by British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan and US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger, and their respective relationships with the Cypriot, Greek and Turkish governments. Also, the book considers Whitehall and Washington s responses to the Greek military coup, the Turkish invasion the two Geneva conferences on Cyprus, the second, consolidatory, phase of the Turkish invasion as well the events post-invasion up to and including the death of President Makarios. Ultimately, the book seeks to ascertain whether there exists any credible evidence to support the belief that Britain and/or America were complicit in the coup against Makarios as well as whether they colluded with Ankara in her subsequent partition of the island.

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Product Description:

This book examines recently released and declassified British and American government documents, in order to scrutinize the roles played by both of these countries during the Cyprus crisis of 1974. It evaluates British and American aims towards Cyprus and their respective relationships with the Cypriot, Greek and Turkish governments. It considers Whitehall and Washington's responses to the Greek military coup, the Turkish invasion, the two Geneva conferences on Cyprus and the second, consolidatory, phase of the Turkish invasion. Ultimately, the paper attempts to ascertain whether there exists any evidence to support the belief that either Britain or America or both were complicit in the coup against President Makarios as well as colluding with Ankara in its subsequent partition of the island.

Review:

The most comprehensive account of this crucial period of Cypriot history yet undertaken. In doing so, it challenges the widely-held view that the events of 1974 amounted to an Anglo-American conspiracy to let Turkey divide Cyprus. --Dr James Ker-Lindsey, LSE

Of all the books I have read on the subject yours best captures the atmosphere and feel for events. --Tom Boyatt, US Ambassador

This is a formidable book. Not only because it is thick enough and heavy enough to crush a small mammal, but also because it succeeds in demolishing some lingering conspiracy theories surrounding the role of US and British diplomacy and intelligence in the period up to, during and after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July 1974. Based on recently declassified archival governmental sources as well as interviews with some of the figures involved, The Cyprus Crisis is required reading for scholars and anyone interested in this tragic period in Cypriot history, one that remains disputed and unresolved almost 40 years later. Having spent five years researching it, author Constandinos concludes with a plea for a renewed and more responsible take on these controversial events: until both (Greek and Turkish) Cypriot communities are able to take responsibility for the events of 1974 and accept the roles played by their respective motherlands, he writes, the prospect of the two communities peacefully co-existing in a unified Cypriot state will continue to look bleak. More specifically, the conspiracy theories the author challenges in the The Cyprus Crisis, which have survived among some Greek and Greek Cypriot circles, hold that Britain, the former colonial controller of Cyprus, and the US assisted the military junta in Athens in its overthrow of Cypriot President and Archbishop Makarios, and then assisted a Turkish invasion of the island. The intensity of these feelings registered not only in protests but in the assassinations and threatened assassinations of officials from both countries in the days and years after the events, and in a legacy of anti-Americanism in Greek politics that had a negative impact on Greece s diplomatic clout for many years. In some ways, the truth is even worse than the theory. For rather than a malevolent and cunning master plan that would have at least required a certain amount of evil genius, the actions of the UK and US exemplified a range of less flattering attributes - cowardice, cynical disinterest, incompetence, arrogance and poor intelligence assessment, to name a few. Occurring as it did during a time of considerable external distractions (most conspicuous being the ignominious end of the Nixon presidency), this situation created the ideal conditions for both the Greek and Turkish governments to vie for control of the island. The British come off as timid but righteous arbiters with a certain moral sympathy for the island they were legally obliged to protect, but little military capacity to do so, embarrassingly reliant on the Americans to influence the relevant parties. The US dominated by the towering presence of Henry Kissinger comes off as perceiving the conflict only within the grand geo-strategic parameters of the Cold War. The author proves how Kissinger's one-man show approach to diplomacy left him tone-dear to the views of more informed diplomats and led him to ignore important local intelligence from what he disparaged as a third-rate island. Still, the voluminous amount of official transcripts cited indicate that both British and American officials followed events closely, but did not find sufficient national interest to carry out measures that could have stopped the coup against Makarios, first of all, or the first and second Turkish invasions of the island thereafter. The great tragedy that The Cyprus Crisis reveals: that the unwarranted bloodshed in Cyprus could easily have been avoided. In hindsight, it does not appear that whatever temporary diplomatic hiccups would have occurred at any stage of the game could possibly have been worse than everything that has happened since, right up to the present day. Of course, there is a reason for everything. --Chris Deliso, Editor, Balkanalysis.com

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