Abstract
The crisis broke on Christmas Day, 1963, and did not subside until towards the end of the following year. Throughout this period many members of the Western alliance were anxious – severely so on occasion – about the threat presented to their interests by events in Cyprus. Most notably was this true of Britain, the ex-colonial overlord, who had retained a foothold on the island. But the United States was not far behind Britain in her concern; and many of Nato’s other members were also exercised about the matter. In consequence, they were emphatic about the need for a very early restoration of internal calm, and also clear that to keep the crisis off the boil some form of third-party intervention was required. Not all of them displayed a comparable keenness to contribute to it; indeed, there was a discernible reluctance to get involved. But that did not mean that the declaratory statements of the Western states lacked substance. The Cyprus crisis caused genuine, and sometimes acute, alarm. Only France, expressing her leader’s disdain for Anglo-Saxon states, tended to dissociate herself from this concern. And even she would without doubt have been deeply worried had the crisis got out of hand.
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Notes
See further, W.L. Dale (Legal Adviser at the CRO), Time Past Time Present. An Autobiography (London: Butterworths, 1994) 167.
K.A. Kyriakides, ‘British Cold War Strategy and the Struggle to Maintain Military Bases in Cyprus, 1951–60’ (University of Cambridge: PhD dissertation, 1996) 161.
Air Chief Marshall Sir David Lee, Wings in the Sun. A History of the Royal Air Force in the Mediterranean, 1945–1986 (London: HMSO, 1989) 184.
For sigint generally, see M. Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
See T. Bower, The Perfect English Spy. Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–90 (London: Heinemann, 1995) 90.
See R.D. Landa, J.E. Miller, D.S. Patterson and C.S. Simpson (eds), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Vol. X, Part 1, Eastern Europe Region; Soviet Union; Cyprus (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1993), 820: National Security Council, ‘Statement of U.S. Policy Toward Cyprus’, NSC 6003, 9 February 1960.
But the United States was unwilling to pay the amount Makarios demanded, it ‘being well out of line with prices paid for other stations’: J.E. Miller (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Vol. XVI, Eastern Europe; Cyprus; Greece; Turkey (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1994) 527, 533–4, and 537, n. 1.
The position of United States’ intelligence and communication facilities in Cyprus was regularized by an Exchange of Letters between the two states on 22 January 1968: see, B. O’Malley and I. Craig, The Cyprus Conspiracy. America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion (London: Tauris, 1999) 129.
See also, for a reference to ‘Egyptian aggressive aspirations’, PRO: DEFE 11/452, Annex to DP.79/64(Final), the covering note with which is dated 10 June 1964; and, for the view that Egypt’s record in encouraging subversion and insurgency during the 1960s was ‘second to none’, Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations. Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (London: Faber, 1971; pbk edn 1991), 19.
Turkey was said to have a ‘very limited amphibious capability’: PRO: WO 305/3094, Ankara to FO 188, 29 January 1964; see also G.S. Harris, Troubled Alliance (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1972) 107,
quoted in C.W. McCaskill, ‘Cyprus Twenty-Five Years Later: An American Diplomat Looks Back’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 9 (1991) 24.
See C. Foley (ed.), The Memoirs of General Grivas (London: Longman, 1964) 97, 127, and 172.
A. Verrier, ‘Cyprus: Britain’s Security Role’, The World Today, 20 (1964) 132, observed that a small number of terrorists could wreak havoc at Akrotiri airfield.
It was then closed, the transmitter being passed to the BBC: R. Beeston: Looking for Trouble. The Life and Times of a Foreign Correspondent (London: Brassey’s, 1997) 23–4.
G. Robertson, The Justice Game (London: Chatto & Windus, 1998) 105.
This and the next three paragraphs rely heavily on Lee (n. 4); A.J. Pierre, Nuclear Politics. The British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force, 1939–1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972);
H. Wynn, The RAF Strategic Nuclear Deterrent Forces: Their Origins, Roles and Deployment, 1946–1969. A Documentary History (London: HMSO, 1994); and on interviews.
I also made use of A.S. Bennell, Defence Policy and the Royal Air Force 1964–1970 (London: Ministry of Defence, Air Historical Branch, 1994);
A. Brookes, V Force. The History of Britain’s Airborne Deterrent (London: Janes, 1982);
N. Brown, ‘Britain’s Strategic Weapons. I. Manned Bombers’, The World Today, 20 (1964);
I. Clark, Nuclear Diplomacy and the Special Relationship. Britain’s Deterrent and America, 1957–1962 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Kyriakides (n. 3); and Verrier (n. 41).
But this did not necessarily mean that such weapons were always stored there; and there is some evidence to suggest that they were not kept at the SBA during the crisis of 1963–64: interviews; and R. Moore, ‘Where Her Majesty’s weapons were’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 57, January/February 2001, 63 (to which Lorna Lloyd kindly drew my attention).
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© 2002 Alan James
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James, A. (2002). The West’s Interest in a Peaceful Cyprus. In: Keeping the Peace in the Cyprus Crisis of 1963–64. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403900890_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403900890_4
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