The United States and the Cyprus crisis of 1974

Based upon two recently published volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States series of declassified diplomatic documents for the period of the Nixon and Ford presidencies, this article focuses upon the crisis which erupted in Cyprus in the summer of 1974 at the time of the transition between the two administrations. A Greek-sponsored coup on the island led to a Turkish invasion and the threat of war between two of America's NATO allies and culminated in the collapse of the Greek military junta and the de facto partition of Cyprus. Emphasis is placed upon the role of Henry Kissinger and his advisers in their efforts to defuse the crisis, efforts which were only partially successful. The conspiracy theories which surround the episode are found wanting and the limitations of the Anglo–American 'special relationship' highlighted.     

20世纪70年代美国的西藏政策

美国最新解密文件显示,20世纪70年代美国西藏政策发生了新变化:美国中央情报局虽然继续对西藏分裂势力进行援助,但是削减了援助资金的数额,尼克松政府对待达赖"访美"的立场经历了从拒绝到有条件支持的转变;福特政府时期,随着中美高层互访和交流的深入,西藏问题首次公开进入双边会谈议事议程,并就此拉开中美关于西藏问题对话的序幕。与此同时,美国国会也卷入西藏事务,其对西藏事务的干涉主要包括为达赖集团提供经济援助和政治支持,为日后国会以立法的形式干涉西藏事务埋下了伏笔。     

美国对中国“文化大革命”的反应(1966～1968)

196 6年 7月 ,迫于国际局势的压力 ,约翰逊政府提出了“遏制但不孤立”中国的政策 ,但该政策提出后并没有得到有始有终的实施。美国学者的一种观点认为 ,其原因在于中国的“文化大革命”运动阻碍了美国的外交努力 ,使中美之间失去了一次改善关系的重要机会。然而 ,美国国务院最新解密的外交政策档案显示 ,这一观点的准确性值得怀疑。美国对“文化大革命”运动的反应有自己的政策考虑 :它为中国这场内乱设定了目标 ,即希望这场运动导致中国政局发生有利于美国的变化。 1 96 7年中后期 ,随着“文化大革命”局势的渐趋稳定 ,美国的期望落空 ,美国政府内强硬派人士拒绝进一步尝试新的对华政策     

The Strategic Importance of Cyprus and the Prospect of Union with Greece, 1919–1931: The Greek Perspective

The outbreak of the First World War brought about an important change in the status of Cyprus which was officially annexed by Great Britain. In the years that followed, successive Greek governments preferred not to pose openly the prospect of the island's cession to Greece. Athens understood that, given London's strategic interest in Cyprus, a favourable solution of the issue was inevitably related with the satisfaction of British strategic interests in the wider Eastern Mediterranean region. In other words, the prospect of the creation of British military bases on Cyprus in the event that London actually consented to the island's union with Greece was not rejected on the part of Athens; on the contrary, it was seen as a necessary sacrifice in order to serve the final goal of Enosis.     

Britain's central role in the search for an international peacekeeping force for Cyprus, 1963–64

Abstract

This work examines the way in which the British, Greek and Turkish Governments established a peacekeeping force, the Joint Truce Force, in Cyprus in December 1963 and how the United Kingdom, aided by the United States, subsequently handled the creation of a replacement international peacekeeping force. Although the United Kingdom did everything in its power to keep peacekeeping efforts under its own control for as long as possible, when this was no longer feasible it tried to create a NATO-based peacekeeping force. This was opposed by the (Greek Cypriot) Government of Cyprus which favoured a United Nations peacekeeping force. Given the tensions between the British Government and the Government of Cyprus over which of these two international bodies should be responsible for peacekeeping it is strange that the United Kingdom never took seriously Greek Cypriot calls to have the Commonwealth considered as an alternative to the other two. This work examines these processes and analyses why the United Kingdom favoured NATO, opposed the UN and to all intents and purposes ignored the Commonwealth.     

Colonial Rule,Cultural Relations and the British Council in Cyprus, 1935–55

ABSTRACT

This article offers an examination of the British Council’s early stages of expansion in Cyprus under British rule, from 1935 to 1955, before the start of the Greek Cypriot anti-colonial struggle (1955–59). It argues that the British Council’s development and quality of activities in the British colony were affected by various factors such as the peculiar political difficulties encountered in the island due to the rise of Greek nationalism and the growing influence of the Church of Cyprus over the local public; the mismanagement of the local British Institutes by some of the Council’s representatives; and the financial stringencies hindering the Council’s ambitions. Through the investigation of primary material, accessed at the Cyprus State Archive in Nicosia (Cyprus) and at the National Archives in London (UK), the article traces and critically analyses for the first time the Council’s early steps in colonial cultural policy-making, using Cyprus as a case study. During the 20-year period under examination, British experiments in culture attempted to attract the Cypriots’ interest and convince them of the importance of the British connection. The British and colonial governments envisaged that through cultural influence they could safeguard the consent of the governed. In this way, British presence in Cyprus could be retained and Britain would be able to protect its strategic, political and economic interests in the region. However, research reveals that the Council’s efforts in the colony were more often than not misguided, its activities proving ineffective, its hopes misplaced. Although the aspiration was that the British Council should be a powerful instrument of Britain’s foreign policy in the colonies, this article shows that in Cyprus it had a tumultuous childhood. Caught up in the realities of the Second World War, the rise of nationalism, the thread of communism, and amid the climate of Cold War, the British Empire was coming at an end, while the British Council was fighting to survive.     

麦克米伦政府与塞浦路斯独立

麦克米伦执政时期,塞浦路斯已成为英国的一种负担。岛内希腊族人要求归并希腊,为此与土耳其族人、英国殖民当局发生的武装冲突愈演愈烈。由于希腊和土耳其的介入,塞浦路斯问题日益复杂化和国际化。出于现实的考虑,麦克米伦政府不断修改对塞浦路斯的政策,最终在保留英国军事基地主权的前提下同意塞浦路斯独立。英国由此从塞浦路斯的泥淖中得以脱身,塞浦路斯岛内则获得了短暂的和平。     

The Matabeleland Massacres: Britain's wilful blindness

This article explores an episode of post-colonial state violence in the newly independent Zimbabwe, namely state-sanctioned atrocities by the army unit known as Fifth Brigade, perpetrated against the Ndebele of Matabeleland and Midlands region. This episode of political and ethnic violence that occurred between 1983 and 1987 is referred to as both the Matabeleland Massacres and Gukurahundi. Members of the British government in Zimbabwe, which included a British Military Advisory Training Team (BMATT) on the ground, were intimately aware of the violence that resulted in the death of between 10,000 and 20,000 people. This article analyses official British and US government communications between the British High Commission, Harare, and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Defence, London, as well as between the US Department of State and the US Embassy in Harare. Analysis of the documents dated between January and March 1983 sheds a critical new lens on Gukurahundi, establishing what knowledge was available to the British and US governments about the persistent and relentless atrocities taking place; the diplomatic approaches pursued by both governments in response; and their rationale for same. The hitherto unavailable material presented here was obtained by Freedom of Information requests to various British Government offices and to the US Department of State. Analysis establishes that the British High Commission, Harare, had detailed knowledge of events unfolding in Matabeleland from an early stage of Gukurahundi, yet senior members of BMATT and the British diplomatic team in Harare, in contrast to their US counterparts, were consistent in their efforts to minimise the magnitude of Fifth Brigade atrocities. That the British government chose to adopt a policy of wilful blindness towards the atrocities undoubtedly constituted naked realpolitik.     

The Cyprus Proposition: Lord Curzon and Cyprus in British Imperial Strategy, 1914 to 1919

Abstract

Debate about the strategic importance of Cyprus to Britain during and immediately after World War I has been overlooked by historians. During this period several key departments, politicians and officials argued strongly and in a concerted way for British retention of the island. This article investigates their reasoning and the arguments of those who championed its cession to Greece. Particular attention is given to the opinions of Lord Curzon, whose career was steeped in long-standing Anglo-Russian rivalries in Asia and the strategic doctrines which underpinned it. Reference is also made to the political, diplomatic and strategic context in which Curzon and his colleagues debated the issue.     

Multilateralism and the Shaping of an ‘Active Foreign Policy’: Sweden during the preparatory phase of the CSCE

This article deals with the early reactions of Swedish decision-makers and diplomats on the idea and preparations for the convocation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), mainly during the years 1969–1971. On the basis of recently declassified diplomatic sources from the archive of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, the study outlines the role of Swedish diplomacy in the preparatory phase of the security conference as part of the wider context of European neutrality during détente. It is the very first contribution to the historiography of the Helsinki process based on Swedish archival material, and suggests that the picture of Sweden's widely mentioned active foreign policy at that time should be further scrutinized. It also sheds new light on the paradox between Swedish involvement in European and global politics.     

Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer and George Finlay

Abstract

The collection of Finlay Papers in the British School at Athens though throwing invaluable light on the character of George Finlay and on conditions in the Greece and western Europe of his day, are by no means complete in their coverage. The diaries cover only certain years; the Letter Book records mainly family and business correspondence; the actual copies of surviving letters both to and from Finlay—apart from Finlay to Leake or Leicester Warren—seem to owe their preservation to chance rather than policy. Yet Finlay was no less interested in the history of Trebizond than in Greek topography or in numismatics, and a stray survival among his papers seems to indicate that he had closer relations with Fallmerayer than is suggested by the almost total omission of any reference to him in the works on the Fragmentist (as Fallmerayer called himself). The editor of Fallmerayer's collected works, his best friend G. M. Thomas (the ‘carissimus Thomas’ of the Tagebücher), does mention the generosity of Fallmerayer's attitude towards Finlay's work on Trebizond, but that is about all.     

A Social History of Trans-Imperial Diplomacy in a Crisis Context: Herbert von Rathkeal's Circles of Belonging in Pera, 1779–1802

ABSTRACT

This article explores the multiple circles of diplomatic agents and their social belonging in the context of the international crisis in late eighteenth-century Istanbul, drawing upon the private papers of the imperial internuncio at Pera between 1779 and 1802. The son of an Irish Jacobite supporter who became a Jesuit and then a radical reformer in Vienna, Peter Herbert von Rathkeal was also a member of the Pera society in which he was born and raised. An agent of one of the most influential trans-imperial households established in Friuli, and a member of the Austrian and British nobilities, Herbert sought to become an eminent actor of the Ottoman diplomatic scene while remaining the patron of a cosmopolitan commercial-cum-political clientele. To study Herbert's actions is to question the model of diplomatie de type ancien in a cross-cultural and fast-changing context of crisis. Despite the collapse of the old diplomatic order with the breakdown of the French Revolution, and despite rising tensions generated by the increasingly sensitive ‘Eastern Question’, this article reveals how Herbert von Rathkeal managed to maintain a certain stability in Istanbul due to the economic and social resources, which his different circles of belonging opened up for him.     

Engagement or empire? American power and the international order

Three recent surveys of American foreign relations lie at the intersection of topical academic and policy debates. Robert Lieber's Eagle rules? makes a case for American primacy as a precondition for global stability, and in so doing reflects an agenda for US foreign policy that is broadly associated with the current Bush administration. By contrast, Joseph Nye's The paradox of American power argues against US unilateralism, and may be read as an implicit critique of the apparent recent shift in American strategy. Nevertheless, both Lieber and Nye make a case for extensive American engagement with the world as a basis for international stability. By contrast, Chalmers Johnson's Blowback views America's global ‘engagement’ as a thinly disguised diplomatic veil for imperialism. Although they make very different arguments, these three books are usefully considered together. Nye's stress on the importance of soft power, multilateral diplomacy and wider structural changes in the nature of world politics is a useful corrective to Lieber's emphasis on US primacy. But Johnson is right to criticize the excessive and ultimately counter‐productive level of military involvement of the United States around the world. In the absence of a more effective global balance of power, the preconditions for a robust system of international diplomacy as well as the management of globalization will not be satisfied.     

An Island Divided: Politicised Landscapes,Modern Borders,and Shifting Identities

Abstract

This paper looks critically at the division of Cyprus into North and South (the politically unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus respectively) and will consider how this physical division emphasised and further developed a divided identity based on 'ethnic' differences (and the development of the 'other') between the two major populations—Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The Green Line is just one of several recent manifestations in the landscape of social contestations between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. This paper outlines how the Green Line has structured the lives of people in relation to the ways that they conceptualise their environment, the past and, importantly, the 'other' side. Further, it addresses how this division, this physical line across the landscape, impacts upon the social landscape as it defines and reinforces identity through the processes of memory and forgetting.     

美国中央情报局在中国西藏的准军事行动新探(1949～1969)

1949～1969年,美国中央情报局在中国西藏从事了一系列准军事行动,其实质是为美国远东战略利益服务,目标是利用西藏分裂势力遏制与分裂中国。其具体内容包括:为西藏叛乱分子提供情报和准军事训练技术;在西藏实施公路袭扰和破坏行动;为达赖集团提供军事物资和活动经费;开展针对中国的情报活动,等等。     

Corvalán for Bukovsky: a real exchange of prisoners during an imaginary war. The Chilean dictatorship,the Soviet Union,and US mediation, 1973–1976

Based on Chilean, Soviet, American, and Italian declassified documents, this article examines a particular case in the global Cold War: the only international exchange of political prisoners during that period, involving the general secretary of the Chilean Communist Party Luis Corvalán and Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. It emphasises the intersecting agendas, purposes, and consequences of multiple state and non-state actors in this episode: from the governments of Chile, the US, and the USSR, to the Chilean Communist Party, the Soviet dissident movement, and finally to the European communist parties, Cuba, international solidarity, and human rights movements.     

Scholars at War: Australasian social scientists, 1939–1945

ABSTRACT

In 1858, a scandal rocked Sydney – the captain and the owner of the Sydney-based barque Sutton were accused of kidnapping 65 Pacific Islanders to sell to sugar planters on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. While Dorothy Shineberg highlighted this incident in a 1984 publication, she based her story on official documents located in the French and British archives and, understandably, largely portrayed it as a diplomatic dispute between the colonial powers. This paper revisits this notorious yet little known episode, taking into account the press coverage the affair received in Australia as well as the archival correspondence. It repositions the narrative in the complex colonial space of Sydney, where culpability was very much tied to local politics, class and notions of nationality. Set against the backdrop of the British anti-slavery laws, it considers the implications of this affair on future recruiting ventures in the region, including the introduction of indentured labour to Australia in 1863.     

Toads and Informers: How the British Treated their Collaborators during the Cyprus Emergency, 1955–9

ABSTRACT

During the Cyprus Emergency the British administration made considerable use of both Cypriot and Turkish collaborators as policemen and civil servants. Most were able to sink back into the safety of their own ethnic community after the Emergency, but some had become pariahs and had to look to the departing British for succour. They were the small group of Greek Cypriots who actively collaborated with the British against EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters), and the even smaller group of Turkish Cypriots who worked with them against the Turkish underground organisation, TMT. This article uses newly released archival materials to explore the history of these collaborators, asking questions about their recruitment, their actions, and the risks and dangers they faced. Evidence emerges as to how the British rewarded and subsequently treated these collaborators, how those who applied for asylum fared, and what happened to them once they arrived in Britain.     

60年代美国对华政策研究现状述评

国内外对于 50年代的中美关系和美国对华政策的研究已经取得了丰富的成果 ,而对 60年代美国对华政策的探讨还远远不够深入。美国学者对这一段外交史的研究带有较大的缺陷 ,其主流观点也经历了三次偏摆 ;相比之下中国学者的研究则相当滞后 ,零星的成果也是相当粗糙的。造成这种局面的原因有两个方面 :首先是大部分学者只关注这一时期的主要事态———越南战争 ,认为这一时期美国对华政策基本上承继了 50年代美国对华政策的遗产 ;其次很重要的一点是 ,决定 60年代美国对华政策的最重要的一部分外交档案———约翰逊政府时期的“美国外交文件集”于年前刚刚解密。本文试图依据已获得的这部分档案材料对 60年代的美国对华政策及中美关系的研究现状做一次综述性探索 ,以期抛砖引玉 ,引起同仁对这一主题的重视 ,并展开争鸣。