The Cyprus Crisis

Abstract

Cyprus became a British colony in 1878, having previously been a part of the Ottoman Empire. Its value lay in its strategic location close to the Suez Canal and in its provision of bases suited both to intervention in the Middle East and to fighting the Soviet Union. As it was described in a secret 1955 report, ‘This is the place where we have decided to erect a base which is to be the key to the Eastern Mediterranean, and on which the defence policy not only of the United Kingdom but of the West hinges’.¹ The island also had great significance in the intelligence field. It was well positioned for listening to the primary missile test sites in the southern USSR and was home to the regional Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or MI6) headquarters. Richard Aldrich describes the island’s signals intelligence capabilities as ‘immense’. In addition to the original presence of 800–900 Royal Air Force (RAF) personnel at Ayios Nikolaos— which increased after 1958—and 9 Signals Regiment, the United States also had several sites and a growing presence.² Britain therefore looked likely to hold on to Cyprus for the foreseeable future. In 1954, Henry Hopkinson, Minister of State at the Colonial Office, told the Commons that ‘there can be no question of any change of sovereignty in Cyprus’, continuing that ‘it has always been understood and agreed that there are certain territories in the Commonwealth which, owing to their particular circumstances, can never expect to be fully independent’.³