The First Move

Englishmen once again walked the streets of Cyprus freely, and in the capital of Nicosia long-idle cafe waiters scurried to serve capacity crowds. For the first time in months there even were queues outside the theaters near "Murder Mile," -downtown Ledra Street which E.O.K.A., the Greek Cypriot underground, had so long terrorized with its murders.

The tranquillity that settled last week over Britain's terror-torn Mediterranean base rested on a strange foundation. Field Marshal Sir John Harding, the peppery British Governor of Cyprus, had doggedly reiterated the terms on which Britain would abandon her "get tough" policy in the island: "Let the murderers make the first move if there is to be a stopping of violence." Unexpectedly, E.O.K.A. did just that. In leaflets scattered throughout Cyprus, "Dighenis the Leader'' of E.O.K.A. (presumably former Greek Army Colonel George Grivas) ordered "from today suspension of operations by all forces under my authority," in return for a military truce.

Pieces of Paper. E.O.K.A.'s offer caught both friends and foes by surprise. In Athens the Greek government, long at loggerheads with Britain over Cyprus, promptly drew up a communique praising E.O.K.A.'s "noble decision," then in a rush of doubt held it up for 24 hours on the ground that the leaflets might not be authentic. The British government's first reaction was equally cautious. "You must remember," said a British spokesman, "that this is only one man's offer, and it came from pieces of paper scattered in the street."

Assuming the offer genuine, it represented a major concessio -and comedown -by E.O.K.A. In Athens it was described as giving the British a chance to save face. In London it was seen as vindication of Harding's stern policy of military repression of terrorism. E.O.K.A., said the British, had been sobered both by its losses of men and material and by the fact that the Greek Cypriot populace, which once gave E.O.K.A. almost unanimous approval, has been increasingly distressed by bombings, riots and curfews. (In the past few weeks several Greek Cypriots, including an ex-member of the E.O.K.A., have made anti-E.O.K.A. broadcasts over Cyprus Radio.)

A third explanation was possible. The Suez crisis might increase British willingness to grant substantial political concessions to Cypriots in return for peace, but it has almost reduced to the vanishing point the possibility that Britain will voluntarily surrender her last military base in the Middle East to Greece.

Test of intentions. "A chance for a fresh start," Sir John Harding called it. Before the fresh start could be made, however, the sincerity of E.O.K.A.'s truce proposal had to await a week or two's test. The next step would be for the British to recall Greek Cypriot Leader Archbishop Makarios from his lonely Seychelles Islands exile.

Dighenis the Leader had concluded his offer with a threat to meet any British violation of the truce with renewed violence "on a fiercer and more intensive scale." But the British, too, were in a mood to test good intentions and to prove their own. Day after the truce leaflets appeared, the Cyprus supreme court commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence that had been passed on 18-year-old Chrysostomos Panayi for participating in the bombing of a military police barracks. The following day the District Commissioner of Nicosia lifted a four-month-old ban on nighttime use of motorcycles and bicycles. Cautiously everyone wondered: Can the good news be true?

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