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  3. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume X, Part 1, Eastern Europe Region; Soviet Union; Cyprus
  4. Document 254

254. Memorandum of Conversation0

Athens, August 9, 1958.

SUBJECT

  • Middle East and Cyprus

PARTICIPANTS

  • Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis
  • Foreign Minister Evangelos Averoff
  • Alexis Liatis, Greek Foreign Office
  • Dimitri Bitsios, Greek Foreign Office
  • Deputy Under Secretary Robert Murphy 1
  • Ambassador Riddleberger
  • Minister-Counselor Penfield
  • Counselor Horner

The conversation, which lasted about three hours, was conducted principally in English, with Mr. Liatis occasionally serving as interpreter for the Prime Minister. The atmosphere was a relaxed and friendly one.

Mr. Murphy began by giving a general description of his recent trip to the Middle East, his impressions of the root causes of such events as the Iraqi coup d’etat and the Anglo-American troop landings in The Lebanon and Jordan and the present and anticipated future attitude of UAR Prime Minister Nasser towards these events. There were frequent questions from the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and they interjected views of their own on lines which are generally familiar. They seemed to take a more understanding attitude towards US landings in The Lebanon than they have recently evinced to Ambassador Riddleberger, although they made the point (with which Mr. Murphy emphatically agreed) that military actions cannot be a substitute for political agreements and activities. The Prime Minister and Mr. Liatis seemed particularly interested in Mr. Murphy’s concept of the extent of Soviet and UAR interference in Jordan, Iraq and The Lebanon. The importance of the Orthodox Church in the Middle East was emphasized by the Foreign Minister, who stressed the need for action to prevent the Soviets from infiltrating the church.

The subject of Cyprus came up somewhat after halfway through the conversation. While the Prime Minister opened the discussion of [Page 694] this topic by saying he had not really meant to talk on Cyprus, the presence of Mr. Bitsios, who is the Foreign Office expert on the subject, seemed to belie his words. Both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, speaking alternatively, expressed the view that the recent Macmillan visit,2 while it had resulted in no notable progress on the substance, possibly was useful in permitting a calm discussion of the positions of the respective governments. The Greek leaders spoke of the Cyprus problem in terms with which the Department is familiar; they were pessimistic but not overly emotional. They thought the GOG had made the ultimate concession, namely, it had agreed to shelve self-determination, and now wanted only a greater measure of self-government, within or outside the Commonwealth. Turkish intransigence was due, they thought, to their knowledge that they had the support of the European members of NATO, while the United States was neutral or even tending to support the Turkish thesis. The internal effects in Greece were described as being ominous: Mr. Averoff particularly felt that a good chance of the ERE government losing its majority through defections of deputies was in the cards, while the emotional response of the people was becoming more and more unfortunate from the viewpoint of the Atlantic Alliance. Mr. Averoff said that even in the present cabinet the Prime Minister was having difficulty in maintaining a conciliatory position; he had had to work hard to secure cabinet agreement on the moderate reply made by the GOG to the latest British plan. If the Government were to fall (and this could only be brought about because of the Cyprus issue), whatever followed would be less conciliatory; the opposition is waiting eagerly to attack the Government.

Mr. Karamanlis, towards the end of the meeting, had a message from the Minister to the Prime Minister, Tsatsos, that Macmillan had given full details of the Anglo-Greek talks to British correspondents;3 this was now known to Greek correspondents, who were besieging the GOG for news. Mr. Karamanlis suggested that Mr. Macmillan had committed a breach of faith, since it had been agreed that both Governments were to be quite noncommittal.

  1. Source: Department of State, NEA/GTI Files: Lot 61 D 249, Enosis—August. Secret. Drafted by Horner. The meeting was held at Prime Minister Karamanlis’ residence.↩
  2. Murphy stopped at Athens during his return from Lebanon where he had been acting as a special emissary for the President.↩
  3. August 7–9.↩
  4. Macmillan held a background briefing for the press immediately prior to his departure from Athens.↩