Breather

Heeding a piercing and highly public appeal for help from Archbishop Makarios, Nikita Khrushchev duly pledged Russian aid should anyone (read Turkey) invade Cyprus. But Khrushchev also called for moderation and warned Makarios to lift his economic blockade of the Turkish Cypriots. Still, even the remote prospect of direct Russian intervention seemed a little chilling to all sides.

President Johnson fired off messages to Athens and Ankara, once again urging Premiers George Papandreou and Ismet Inonu to settle the Cyprus problem and unite before the common Red enemy. Implicit, at least, seemed to be a threat that the U.S. cannot maintain aid to supposed NATO allies if they use U.S.-supplied arms against each other.

Tempers calmed slightly in Athens and Ankara. Turkey made the gesture of returning to NATO control the U.S.-built planes it had used to bomb and strafe Cyprus. Greece, which had also withdrawn units from NATO, followed suit. Cyprus itself had a breather. Though still calling down curses on Turkey for its recent air strikes, Makarios relaxed somewhat the blockade thrown around the Turkish Cypriot communities. For the first time in two weeks, running water was restored to the huddled refugees in Ktima, and badly needed fuel was delivered to Turkish Cypriot bakeries in Nicosia.

The U.N. peace-keeping force took a few aggressive steps. U.N. posts, manned by Swedish troops, were set up between the lines of the Turkish Cypriot defenders of Kokkina and the Greek Cypriot besiegers on the mountainside. Canadian, Finnish and Danish U.N. troops, moving forward with the bayonet, dismantled Turkish Cypriot gun positions that menaced a U.N. headquarters near Nicosia.

Even though the U.N. mediator, Finland's Sakari Tuomioja, suffered a stroke, negotiations in Geneva continued. Greek and Turkish representatives in Geneva pored over a plan, proposed by U.S. Special Envoy Dean Acheson, which apparently envisages a union of Cyprus with Greece (enosis), with special guarantees for the Turkish Cypriots and a permanent Turkish base on the island. Given suitable face-saving devices, Turkey and Greece might accept. The same old stumbling block is still Makarios, who was once a loud advocate of enosis but now seems to enjoy being head of a sovereign state.

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