Nicos Sampson island's two-community constitution. later in Greek military camps, revealed That constitution alread,y stood violated detailed preparations for annexing the Greek Cypriot when, in December lbOg, Makarios island to Greece. There were also clear guerrilla leader ejected all Turkish Cypriot elements, indications that both Britain and the US Nicos Sampson and including the vice president and three were in the know of the putsch and eight-day president cabinet ministers from the government poised to recognise the Sampson coup. of the Greek and declared that the Zurtch and That is why instead of helping to restore (Cypriot) Republic London agreements were no longer the legitimate government of Makarios, (75-23 July 1e7 4) , valid. Now, with Nicos Sampson Britain had flown him out of the died in Nicosia, 9 heading the regime in Nicosia, the country and Kissinger was trying to Muy 2001. As the threat of Cyprus being 'united' with force a ceasefire upon Turkey. However, Turkish Cypriots Greece (enosis) had become real and having failed to stop the creation of an thought of him as 'the most hated imminent. independent Turkish Cypriot republic, Greek Cypriot', they were horrified The Turks, therefore, wanted Britaln, the US i-posed milrtary sanctions when they heard on 15July 7974 Nicos a guarantor power, to intervene in against its Nato aILy, Turkey. Sampson declare on the Nicosia radio: order to restore the constitution and It is pretty evident that both the British 'In the name of God and the people, save Turkish Cypriots from being killed and Americans had become quite fed and in the name of armed forces, I have and cleansed from the island. But as up with Makarios, his non-alignment, assumed the presidency of Cyprus.' Britain parried. and played the 'peace his hobnobbing with the Soviets and his It was 8.30 in the morning. The then process', Turkey went ahead to land its i*perious posturing. It is highly president Archbishop Makarios forces in northern Cyprus on 20 July i*probable that they had no prior (d.1977 ) was welcomitg a Greek 197 4. Article 4 (2) of the Treaty of knowledg. of the intentions of the anti- Orthodox youth delegation, when the Guarantee empowered Ankara to Communist junta in Athens. On the day Presidential Palace came under mortar intervene to protect the peace and the coup took place, the Cypriot Greek attack. Within a few hours the palace independence of Cyprus. ambassador to Washington, Nikos had been razed, and the announcement Henry Kissinger says that during the Dimitriu, went to see Kissinger who came, Makarios was dead. He was not. night of 2L-22 Jrly, when Turkey had asked the ambassador to tell him what The Archbishop had managed to occupied only a small enclave on the he thought of Sampson. 'An escape to a mountain hideout in the island, the US forced a ceasefire by egomaniac,' said Dimitriu. Well, they Paphos area from where he announced threatening Turkey that they 'would used to describe me too as an on the local radio that he was alive and move nuclear weapons from forward 'egomaniac', riposted Kissinger. The going to struggle 'against the position - especially where they might ambassador was surprised by Kissinger's dictatorship which the Greek junta is be involved in a war with Greece'. remarks which seemed to suggest his trying to i-pose'. Flowever, with However, within 48 hours of the approval of the coup. armoured cars and tanks moving Turkish intervention, the pro-Us Greek \Ahat no one - neither the Greeks, nor towards Paphos and a National Guard junta in Athens suddenly collapsed on the American or the British - had naval ship shelling the Bishopric of 22 July giving away to another pro- expected was a Turkish intervention Puphos - where he was sheltering - American government under because twice in the past Ankara had barely 24 hours later Makarios decided Constantine Karmanlis. huffed and puffed, only to back away to leave Cyprus rather than fall into the In Nicosia, too, the eight-day when told to do so by the Americans. hands of the junta. The British seemed presidency of Nicos Sampson came to 'The Turks have formed a habit of to approve the putsch; they sent a an end. On 23 Jwly, the president of the going out to sea every year or two just to helicopter to bring the ousted president House of Representatives, Glafcos breathe the Mediterranean air and then to their base from where he was flown Clerides, was sworn in as president by a return home,' a Greek official told to London via Malta. defrocked dissident priest. No matter David Tonge, BBC correspondent in The island's Turkish Cypriot what Kissinger claims, frustrated by a Athens, adding the Turkish na\ry had population had little reason to mourn fresh round of negotiations in Gen eva, been put to sea to test Greek reaction. the overthrow of Makarios, but they had on 31 July, the Turkish armed forces Even the Turkish commanders were no reason to welcome a self-admitted seized Lapithos and Karavas on the not so sure about their own killer with a long history of terror and north coast; in a second round of government's resolve. 'We are ready, violence against them. After his operations (14-16 August 197 4), they but we are wondering if you are also overthrow Makarios disclosed to the were able to liberate 36% of territory in freadyJ ,' the chief of the general staff, Italian journalist, Oriana Fallaci (The the north and put it under the control General Sancar, told a midnight Washington Post, 17 November 197 4) , of the Cypriot Turkish Administration. meeting at the military headquarters that Nicos Sampson and Brigadier The territory is known as the Turkish held on 16 July. Prirne Minister Bulent Ionnaides had visited him in 1963-64 Republic of Northern Cyprus. Ecevit still wanted to know,.'in how with a proposal to attack the Turkish The Turkish Cypriots had narrowly many days can you complete your Cypriots suddenly and to eliminate escaped becoming Greek subjects and preparations?' He was told: 'We can them to the last man, but which, he being subjected to killings and ethnic land on Saturday morning'-2}Jrly. claimed, he did not approve. A member cleansing. Nicos Sampson himself told The government agreed that inter- of the Greek security service, Ionnaides the Athens newspaper Apoyeumatini (15 vention was essential but asked E,cevit to was then attached with the Cyprus Jrly 7975) that he was 'about to declare make diplom atic contacts with Britain National Guard. enosis' (union with Greece) when he was and the rest of the world. Ecevit flew out The independence agreement of 1960 forced to hand over the presidency to to London hoping to persuade Prime had provided for three guarantor Clerides. Minister Harold Wilson (d.1995) and powers against the breakdown of the The Orders of the Day, discovered his foreign secre tary, Ji- Callaghan, impact TNTERNATToNAL . JUNE 2001 that as a guarantor power, Britain he had no part in the putsch and that gallery, Makarios told him: 'To you should intervene before the island was he had been asked by Brigadier more than anyone the supreme boon of annexed by Greece. But Callaghan Ionnaides to become the president. freedom is due, You are the incarnation showed little concern or sense of Ionnaides was head of the dreaded of the spirit of Greek virtue.' urgency, and told Ecevit that that was Greek police. This incarnation of Greek virtue out of the question. Nicos Sampson was most probably established his own newspaper Makhi Flowever, hardly had Ecevit taken off telling the truth. Born on 16 December (Combat) and soon he was upstaging from London when the (Turkish) 1935 into a publishirg family in Makarios for enosis as the Archbishop General Staff Headquarters told the Famagusta (Gazrmagusa) and baptised seemed to have become less Landing Units Command in Mersin: as Nicos Georghiades, he had a rather enthusiastic about putting the island 'Unless orders to the contrary are adventurous if also a shadowy political under the sovereignty of Athens. Nicos received, operations will commence at career. It started with changing his Sampson's role was to keep stirring one 8.30 hours.' In fact the forces had rather heavy surname,'Georghiades', thing or another, including the British, already moved out to the sea. into a little flamboyant,'sampson'. He who he claimed had planned to The military command was still unsure had joined the Times of Cyprus as a assassinate Makarios. of Ecevit. Then leader of opposition, photoj ournalist and the by-line The Turkish Cypriots were of course Sulaiman Demirel, believed the threat Sampson sounded impressive. Sampson the enemy and his inciting the Greek to the strategic interests of Turk.y was was also making 'scoops' all the time; and Turkish Cypriots to clash in 1963 greater than that to the security of the he had the extraordinary gift of arriving paved the way to the establishment of a Turkish Cypriot community, and that at the scene of a shooting before UN Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus intervention would be a historic everyone else. (UNFICYP) in March 1964. In 1964 he blunder. (Demirel was later to become In 1955, the Greek Cypriots had set up had personally led a mob of thugs prime minister and president of a guerrilla group Eoka (National against the Turks who used armoured Turkey, but his timid character showed Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) to bulldozers to knock down Turkish up again during the genocide in Bosnia fight the British and make enosis, that is houses.