Blimp Rides Again

The fat shadow of Colonel Blimp, that imperturbable British master of ineptitude and lost opportunities, hung over Cyprus last week.

A fortnight ago, when E.O.K.A., the Greek Cypriot underground, offered to call off its campaign of terrorism (TIME, Aug. 27), the troubled island of Cyprus began to sense a degree of peace. British Governor Sir John Harding conceded that the E.O.K.A. truce offer might well represent "a chance for a fresh start" on Cyprus. And it might have, had the British risen to the occasion.

Encouraged, many Cypriots hopefully jumped to the conclusion that the British would take the next logical step: bring back the exiled Archbishop Makarios and resume negotiations. After all, why was it necessary to continue to demand of him a denunciation of violence if violence had ceased?

In their optimism Cypriots forgot the traditional stiff-necked British reluctance to negotiate with "rebels and outlaws." They also overlooked the fact that Colonel Nasser's as yet unpunished defiance of Britain at Suez made it politically attractive to the Eden government to continue a tough line in Cyprus (a restive group of Tory backbenchers known as the "Suez group" keeps urging on Eden the dated simplicities of gunboat diplomacy).

Amnesty Offer. Six days after E.O.K.A.'s truce offer, soldierly Sir John Harding made his response: leaflets scattered by jeep and plane offering amnesty to all E.O.K.A. men who would lay down their arms and surrender. Harding's terms: any terrorist who surrendered within three weeks was free to renounce British citizenship and emigrate to Greece; those who chose to remain in Cyprus must stand trial for any physical violence they had committed. All other crimes would be for given, but all E.O.K.A. members who stayed in Cyprus would be held prisoner "until released either by the ending of the state of emergency or by virtue of an order of the governor." These terms to E.O.K.A. were not accompanied by any offer to the peaceful citizens of Cyprus.

Greek Cypriots were enraged. Said the mayor of Nicosia: "E.O.K.A. was not defeated. This was not what we expected." From Athens Greek opposition leader George Papandreou heatedly declaimed: "The attitude of the British government and Executioner Harding leaves only one answer, an implacable fight for freedom." Disdainfully, E.O.K.A.'s "Dighenis the Leader" (whom the British identify as former Greek army Colonel George Grivas) echoed the classic answer that Leonidas the Spartan reportedly made to Xerxes and his Persian hordes at Thermopylae: "Molon lave" ("Come and get us").

"Reasonable & Generous." Undisturbed, British authorities on Cyprus announced that Sir John's offer would stand. Blithely they predicted that all E.O.K.A. members except "a few fanatics" would surrender. And to justify its stubborn refusal to deal with Makarios, the Colonial Office announced that recently captured E.O.K.A. documents proved "beyond doubt" that Archbishop Makarios helped establish E.O.K.A. and was "actually involved in the choice of individual victims for murder." Said Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd: "We knew something of [Makarios'] complicity before. I must confess I found it very distasteful to negotiate in a friendly way, knowing his duplicity."

At week's end the Colonial Office was still insisting that Harding's offer was "reasonable and generous." To the London Observer, however, it was "an inadequate response to E.O.K.A.'s truce. The public will find it hard to forgive the government if events should show that last week's opportunity for ending the Cyprus tragedy has been missed." Privately and with the helpless air of passengers in a runaway bus, even some officials in London conceded that in all probability E.O.K.A. violence would soon resume, and "we shall be right back where we started."

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