Soldier's Revolt

As the skillfully elusive commander of the Greek Cypriot underground during four years of bloody strife with the British, Colonel George Grivas was content to let exiled Archbishop Makarios and Greece's Premier Constantine Karamanlis do the political talking. When peace came, the 61-year-old soldier returned to Athens for a hero's welcome, promotion to lieutenant general, a lifetime pension of $300 a month, and a well-earned rest. But it was not long before peace and quiet began to seem to the old soldier to be neglect. The only people who sought him out in his suburban home were Karamanlis' leftist opponents. Since they were well aware that in World War II Grivas led a secret right-wing movement called X, they presumably intended to use him only as a stick to beat Premier Karamanlis.

Nonetheless, Grivas was tempted. He began talking about making Greece a respected power, no longer "a corpse on which everyone is committing rape." He spoke mysteriously of wanting "a dozen butcher hooks to hang a dozen capitalists." He grumbled that Archbishop Makarios was not consulting him about events in Cyprus. Stunned Greek Cypriots began getting anonymous letters denouncing the archbishop as a deserter. Grivas now rejects the Anglo-Greco-Turkish truce agreements entirely, disclosed that he has sent a secret circular advising his former EOKA terrorist lieutenants that the settlement was "against the best interests of the Greek Cypriot people." He calls for an eventual absorption of Cyprus into Greece though this would involve a breach of Greece's pledged word.

Grivas' activity was a decided embarrassment to Archbishop Makarios, who has impressed even British and Turkish critics with his desire to bring peace to Cyprus before his expected selection next winter as President. Worried by Grivas' pronouncements, which seemed to many Cypriots the mischievous product of thwarted ambitions. Makarios last week sent his top aide, Bishop Anthimos, to Athens to plead with the old soldier to restrain himself. Sighed Makarios to a reporter: "For Cyprus the Cypriot problem is over. The problem now exists in Greece." So far, however, the bitter Grivas does not seem to have captured much public support in Greece.

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