The Careless Smokers

During a 24-hour period on Cyprus last week, only nine shots were fired in anger. This was practically dead silence for the small, cantankerous island that threatens the southern hinge of NATO with dissolution and all of the eastern Mediterranean with embroilment in war between Greece and Turkey.

Cyprus remains a powder keg surrounded by careless smokers. Chief among them is bearded, baffling Archbishop Makarios, President of Cyprus, whose attempt to overrun the Turkish Cypriot beachhead at Kokkina brought swift retaliation from Turkey in the form of jet fighters. What Makarios could not win by force, he now tried to gain by blockade. Bowing to the ceasefire order of the U.N. Security Council, Makarios fixed a grip of iron around the 80 villages and the fortified quarters of the cities that house the 100,000 people of the Turkish Cypriot minority.

Two bakeries in Nicosia have closed down for lack of fuel. The wells supplying 3,000 Turkish Cypriots surrounded in Ktima are drying up, and a U.N. tank truck was barred from entering the town with emergency water supplies. In many parts of the island fruit and vegetables are rotting in the fields.

Up Goes Grivas. Makarios spent his week gently agreeing with every visitor from the U.N. commander, India's General Kodendera Thimayya, to U.S. Ambassador Taylor G. Belcher, and then going his own way. He seemed unperturbed by the blast from Athens, where Greece's Premier George Papandreou accused him of launching the drive against Kokkina in violation of a firm promise not to attack without Greek knowledge and consent. When the Greek army officer commanding Makarios' National Guard resigned for the same reason. Makarios simply appointed in his place General George Grivas, the tough old resistance fighter who led the four-year guerrilla war against the British.

Visiting burned and wounded air-raid victims, Makarios wept as he was surrounded by sobbing relatives. He denounced Turkey's "cowardly, barbaric and brutal attack" and cried that Ankara would never succeed, because "Greeks die but do not surrender."

Expelled Greeks. As Makarios spoke, his Greek Cypriot forces were building up their strength in the Kokkina area for what the U.N. feared might be a second strike against the small Turkish Cypriot redoubt, where refugees from other villages huddled in caves. Such a step would certainly provoke another wave of Turkish retaliation from the mainland; in fact, many expect the Turks to attack again. In Thimayya's opinion, Turkey may "bomb Cyprus to save its people from starvation and make Makarios lift the blockade." In the Turkish capital Premier Ismet Inoenue was desperately trying to placate hotheads at home and come to agreement with Greece abroad. The Turkish air force commander, General Irfan Tansel, emerged angrily from a meeting with Inoenue, crossed his wrists to show newsmen that he was being handcuffed by the halting of air strikes against Cyprus. Inoenue sent a personal message to Papandreou, urging an early meeting and optimistically declaring that agreement on Cyprus could be reached in a month. To put pressure on Athens, Turkey continued the expulsion of 12,000 Greek citizens living in Istanbul.

In Athens, Papandreou seemed both angered and disgusted with Makarios, but he neverthelesss rebuffed Inoenue's offer of direct negotiation, which, he said, "would only produce false solutions that would worsen the situation and lead to disaster." If the efforts at U.N. mediation should fail, Papandreou added, the Cyprus problem should go to the General Assembly--exactly what Makarios wants, because he hopes that the Assembly will back his stand that repression of the Turkish Cypriots is an internal affair.

Turkish Cuba. Papandreou must move with special care because, if it comes to war, Greece is at a great disadvantage. Not only are there 30 million Turks to 8,500,000 Greeks, but geography also favors Turkey. Cyprus lies only 40 miles off Turkey's coast within easy reach of its planes and ships, while the nearest Greek air base is on Crete, 450 miles from Cyprus. As NATO partners, both armies are using U.S. equipment, but Turkey has far more planes, tanks and other weaponry than does Greece. The Greek navy is more of a match for Turkey, but it could not move to the aid of Cyprus without outrunning its air cover.

In Cyprus at week's end, cicadas droned in the midsummer heat and sentries dozed over their Bren guns in sandbagged positions on the high ridges. But the quiet was deceptive, openly characterized by U.N. Commander Thimayya as "only a breather." Without much success, he was frantically trying to get U.N. troop units sandwiched between the opposing sides at Kokkina as a way to prevent another outbreak. At the same time, he appealed to U.N. headquarters for more troops, arguing that his 6,000 men were not enough to keep the peace; but no one was volunteering. Meanwhile, the careless smokers lingered at the powder keg. Declared Thimayya at week's end: "I am completely pessimistic."

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