87. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Kissinger and United Nations Secretary General Waldheim1

W: This is Waldheim speaking.

K: Yes, Mr. Secretary General.

W: Mr. Secretary, I am grateful for you returning my call. The reason is, you have probably heard from Buffum, that we have a serious development and I wanted to inform you of a cable that we have received. This would give a clear picture of the situation. I received from my special representative and Commander in Chief in Cyprus—I don’t know if you have been informed by Buffum.

K: I think Sisco has told me about it.

W: Makarios may request a meeting of the Security Council to discuss, what he terms, Greek military intervention in Cyprus. We know four members of the Greek Government are being treated for wounds received during the coup d’etat in the last two days, so there was some involvement. I want you to know that we have these indications that the Greek military contingent is involved. And he also asked me to convey to you and others to help keep Cyprus independent and sovereign. I sent a message to the government of Athens and Ankara stressing the importance of maintaining…

K: I notice the Greek Government has affirmed this.

W: Yes, the important thing is, well it is not so important, but that the Archbishop asked that the British send a helicopter to evacuate him to a British base on the island and the British High Commissioner accepted this on the condition that the Archbishop would accept evacuation to the United Kingdom and in the meantime, our commander in chief there has asked for protection, so Makarios refused to evacuate the island and I have now authorized our commander in chief to grant protection. Of course, that will cause problems in the future. This will be a problem.

K: Yes.

W: This is most important information which I got this morning. I asked Rossides whether he will ask for a meeting of the Council. He did not…I consultated with the President of the Council and we decided there should be a meeting at 3:00 this afternoon. The situation is [Page 296] very confused and all kinds of rumors around the world and I think it is important that the Council be informed.

K: I appreciate this very much and your information is later than ours.

K: I talked with Callaghan who reports they were evacuating Makarios and that didn’t sound right to me.2

W: I agree. But for us it will be a problem if the new military government is in control and no President is sworn-in, then we have a problem of what to do with Makarios.

K: How about you and I talking tomorrow and exchanging information then.

W: Yes. I think it is important to avoid intervention by the Turks. Our information is that the Turks… will report that they will not provide or do anything which could create deterioration of the situation, but this is the real danger.

K: We are dealing with the Turks today and I will keep you informed and I understand we are going to get together next week or soon.

W: Yes. I want to talk to you.

K: Very nice to talk to you and I appreciate your keeping me informed.

W: If I hear anything else I will let you know immediately.

  1. Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 384, Telephone Conversations, Chronological File. No classification marking. Kissinger was in Washington; Waldheim was in New York.
  2. See Document 86 and footnote 3 thereto.