Flight to the East

I have ordered every activity against the English and Turks to cease, but I declare that if the provocations by the English and Turks continue in any way whatsoever, then from the 10th of this month I will be free to order immediate action against them both.

Hundreds of leaflets bearing this terse message fluttered through the streets of Nicosia one evening last week just before curfew. Men and women, waiting until British military patrols rounded the corner, furtively scooped up the leaflets, eagerly read the truce offer of Colonel Grivas, leader of the Greek Cypriot EOKA. Next day the British government --still seething at the recent murder of Lieut. Colonel Fredrick Collier as he watered his flowers at his bungalow near Limassol--was officially silent. But the nameless leader of the Turkish Cypriot underground movement, T.M.T., also agreed to call off all attacks "until further notice." Cyprus, which has seen 127 killed in gangland-type slayings in less than two months, breathed a sigh of relief.

Sussex Gardens. The sigh was echoed in Britain, where Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was weekending in the gardens of his Sussex home. The idea struck him that this might be the time for a personal visit to Athens and Ankara in the hope that one quick, bold move, at a time when both sides were weary and fearful, might finally clear up the bloody mess on Cyprus. For six weeks an apparent softening had been noticeable in the Greek position, a willingness to explore a settlement that would not insist on the future rights of enosis, i.e., the union of Cyprus with Greece. Turkey, too, was so absorbed by the revolutionary turmoil of her Arab neighbors that Cyprus for the first time in months was off the front pages of Turkish newspapers.

Within 24 hours of his decision, Macmillan was on his way, declaring: "The first thing we need to do is end all the horrible bloodshed and misery." Arriving at Athens' Ellinikon airport, Macmillan shook hands with Greece's handsome Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis, who attributes his rapidly greying hair to the Cyprus question. At almost the same time, Cyprus Governor Sir Hugh Foot flew to Athens to talk privately with bearded Archbishop Makarios, the exiled ethnarch of Cyprus.

Green Table. But the Prime Ministers' talks did not go easily. Four and a half hours were spent around a green-draped table in the Anahtora Palace. Another conference was held the following day. The Greeks argued for liberal self-government for Cyprus that would "unite Cypriots, not divide them," and shied away from the British concept of "partnership" (Greece, Turkey and Britain all to have a voice in governing the island), and separate assemblies for Turkish and Greek Cypriots, because this seemed too close to the partition demanded by Turkey. Besides, argued the Greeks, such a plan would freeze into law the hostility between Greek and Turkish Cypriots that has developed only in recent months.

As the British Prime Minister took off for Ankara and similar conferences with Turkey's Premier Adnan Menderes, Macmillan was jauntily confident, but Greek officials shrugged despondently. Some observers thought that Greek pessimism was mostly for Turkish consumption and was intended to make it easy for Turkey to retreat from its insistence on an unworkable partition. Basically, Turkey only wants to make sure that Greece does not take over this key island 43 miles off Turkey's southern shores.

On troubled Cyprus, five Greek Cypriots had been murdered since the date of Colonel Grivas' truce offer. They had all been killed by EOKA gunmen as "Greek traitors." Colonel Grivas' ceasefire apparently extended only to Turks and British, not to fellow Greeks against whom he held a grudge.

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