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"War is the father of all and king of all. Some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free."
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Military historians have long said that war is no more than an extension of diplomacy. Dodecanese diplomacy reached that crisis after the diplomats had been at work for nearly two decades. The sending of the task force by Mrs. Karamanlis gave them a respite of only 50 days. As a result, those involved were not so much diplomats as medieval envoys. They hastened back and forth between Athens, Ankara, Washington, and New York with bargain after bargain, eventually seeking to forestall battle by no other argument than that one or the other side was bound to get beaten.
The Greek Foreign Ministry at the start of April was a shattered institution. It was like an army recoiling from a disastrous engagement in which it had lost its beloved commander-in-chief---murdered, many believed, by traitors on his side. Just as the Hellenic Navy discovered a new challenge in proving itself to its critics through the mobilization of the task force, the Foreign Ministry turned disaster into at least a temporary triumph with two remarkable diplomatic coups, first in New York and then in Brussels.
Greece's ambassador to the UN, Antonis Parsonis, had been posted to New York after leaving Teheran with the fall of the Shah. It wasn't an easy assignment, even for this gregarious diplomat of socialist inclinations. The UN under both Waldheim and his current successor, Javier Perez de Cuellar, appeared bogged down in a morass of 3rd World politics, its pronouncements ignored and its peacekeeping operations, notably in Cyprus and Lebanon, ossifying rather than resolving divisions. The principle of self-determination which underlay its foundation was mocked as one dictatorship after another took the rostrum to rant against the world's surviving democracies. At the same time, the leaders of two of its most important members, Britain and the US, treated its proceedings with either neglect or open contempt.
A sympathetic UN response to Turkey's invasion was central to Yilmas-Kayas's diplomatic offensive. Yet another indication of the junta's unpreparedness was that the distinguished lawyer, Erdem Kaya, had only just arrived to head the Turkish delegation in New York when the crisis broke. He had no time to learn UN procedure, let alone build up a constituency of support for his government. Yilmas-Kayas had always been convinced that Greece would not be able to summon the Security Council, and even if she did and gained enough votes for a condemnatory resolution, he was sure the Soviets could be persuaded to veto it. The US ambassador, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, is known even to have hazarded the view that no Western country would dare use the Security Council procedure to sustain a territorial possession in a Third World continent.
As it was, Parsonis displayed what a UN admirer called "good old-fashioned diplomatic legwork" to obtain the nine votes he required to have the Security Council summoned on Thursday, April 1, even before the invasion had occurred. He announced that a Turkish assault on the islands was imminent and secured an immediate call from the council's Zairean President, Kamanda wa Kamanda, for both sides to show restraint. The hapless Kaya was not sure what had hit him and stayed quiet. So much for Yilmas-Kayas's fait accompli. The invasion would now be in flagrant defiance of the Security Council presidential call.
With the Turkish occupation of the Dodecanese now a fact as of Friday, Parsonis once again moved with speed. Karamanlis might share with President Reagan the view that the less heard from the UN the better. But no nation likes to go to war without right on its side, and even Karamanlis was not averse to the banner of a Security Council resolution fluttering over her task force. Throughout the war, Parsonis's strategy was dominated by two considerations. The first was to secure a UN demand for Turkish withdrawal, to "legitimize" Greece's military response; the second was to avert any subsequent demand that Greece stall or recall the task force.
As soon as the invasion was confirmed, the Security Council was again summoned to confront a straightforward Greek request that it pass a binding resolution ordering the Turks to leave the islands. Rather than follow the normal procedure of circulating an advance draft to sound out opinions, Parsonis presented a "take-it-or-leave-it" final resolution. Such "black drafts" as they're known entitle the presenter to a vote within 24 hours. The vote would be held on Saturday evening. Yilmaz-Kayas raced to New York to support Kaya, still confident that he could avert a diplomatic disaster. The Security Council has 15 members, of whom five are permanent and ten are chosen on rotation every two years. Two-thirds support is needed for a binding resolution, which means a proposer must secure the votes of at least some of the "non-aligned" members. This seemed a near-impossible task for Greece and Yilmaz-Kayas's confidence was understandable.
Parsonis now set about the challenge. Of the Western bloc, he could assume he had the UK, the US, France, and Ireland in the bag, as well as Japan. The communist states, China, the USSR, and Poland, had to be ruled out, as did Muslim Albania. Saudi Arabia and the Arab League had already agreed to sponsor Turkey's case. That meant Greece needed all the remaining five for her two-thirds majority, a mixed bag of Third World nations comprising India, Togo, Zaire, Uganda, and Guyana. At times like this, a diplomat must draw on every resource at his disposal---an old favor done, a personal contact kept in good repair, a trade deal or cultural exchange in the offing, perhaps a simple friendship. Parsonis had less than two days for his maneuvering.
Guyana gave her vote to Greece, agreeing to any resolution that might deter Venezuela from pursuing a border dispute with her. Zaire did the same, as the nation of the affronted UN President, Kamanada. France was asked to square the Togo vote, which she did. Uganda remained doubtful until the last minute, but eventually sided with Greece on the grounds of Turkey's "aggression." But it was India who found herself in the sort of confusion normally reserved for the US delegation. The Indian delegate declared in favor of Greece but was then instructed by New Delhi not to vote for one side against another in a territorial dispute. Parsonis tried every pressure, but the Indians' hands were tied. Finally, he wheeled out his biggest gun. His office telephoned Athens, tried to reach Charalambos, failed, and went for the Prime Minister herself. Mrs. Karamanlis, who had other things on her mind that Saturday, responded to this warrior spirit. Parsonis had gained her respect (rare in the Foreign Ministry) when she had previously visited his embassy in Teheran. While Parsonis ingeniously stalled for time, Mrs. Karamanlis telephoned King Hussein and personally pleaded with him to support Greece. Parsonis got his ten votes.
Yılmaz-Kayas now went into conclave with the Soviet delegate to induce him to use his veto. It is Soviet policy not to use the veto except on resolutions directed specifically at their interests. But in an atmosphere of rare tension for the UN, Yilmaz-Kayas kept up the pressure to the bitter end. Parsonis's staff still felt the chances of a Soviet veto were even: Parsonis's betting was 6-4 against. In the event, the Soviets abstained. What became of the Security Council's Resolution 50s went through as drafted by Greece.
Turkey was now faced with a demand for the "immediate withdrawal of her forces, followed by one instructing both governments to seek "a diplomatic solution to their differences and to respect fully the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations." The charter reference was vital, enabling Greece to cite the principle of self-determination for the Dodecanesers in any subsequent negotiation over their future. It also gave her, under Article 51, "the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs....until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain peace and security." The article, often considered a belligerent's charter, was a particular favorite of Mrs. Karamanlis in the weeks to come.
Resolution 502 turned out to be a minor classic of Greek postwar diplomacy. To many at the UN, Greece's dispatch of a task force was a gross overreaction to what was seen as an anti-Western peccadillo by Turkey. To call the Security Council in aid, to win a 2/3 vote there, and to avoid the veto, all in 48 hours, was remarkable. A senior US delegate described it as "a stunning example of sheer diplomatic professionalism." Even Mrs. Kirkpatrick, who couldn't hide her pro-Turkish sympathies, later used the incident to compare Greek diplomacy with American "amateurism." Parsonis had given his Prime Minister a precious victory before the task force set sail. "All the Turks have to do," she would intone to all who cared to listen, "is honor UN Security Council Resolution 502." It was an improbable handrail for someone of her views to grasp, but all the more effective.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXaaO85ldNd
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The Foreign Ministry's Dodecanese Emergency Unit which was set up under the indestructible head of the Middle East desk, Alexandros Karasoulos, poured out justificatory paper through its overseas embassies. Within a week, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had promised full support. The new socialist government of France particularly gladdened Karamanlis's heart with the promptness of its backing. German's Helmut Schmidt, strong in his distaste for Karamanlis, was only slightly more dilatory. Japan came down on Greece's side. Even the communist states seemed little attracted to Turkey's brand of anti-Westernism. China counseled caution. The Soviet Union initially maintained a guarded neutrality.
Greece's most urgent need was cooperation over sanctions, especially from the US and the Common Market. First and foremost, these had to embrace arms sales, with Germany due to build Turkey two frigates, and France to supply her with Super Etendard jets and Exocet missiles. Both orders were immediately frozen, confirming the fears of the more cautious Turkish planners who had wanted the invasion to await their delivery. Over the weekend, Greece banned virtually all trade with Turkey and blocked Turkey's financial assets in Athens. However t this would be largely symbolic without foreign support. Greece imported some ₯160 million worth of goods from Turkey in 1980 against over ₯1 billion imported by the rest of the EEC.
The Common Market is normally the most lethargic of diplomatic animals. With the Easter break beckoning at the end of the first week of the sailing of the task force, a concerted initiative that would hurt member states' pockets was almost unthinkable. It was more so at the request of Greece, whose relations with the EEC at this time were anything but good. On Tuesday, April 6, a senior Foreign Ministry diplomat, Mr. Damarion Evangeliadakis, arrived in Brussels to support the number two there, Aetheris Leonidopoulosia---the ambassador being away on vacation. There followed a sustained lobby of the members of the European Commission and national representatives, not unlike that mounted the previous week by Parsonis in New York. By Good Friday, with everyone yearning for his limousine, the Greeks made their bid: first a statement of political support and then, most remarkably, a package of economic sanctions including a six-week import ban and a suspension of trade preferences. As in New York so in Brussels, there is little doubt that the task force was the major factor in bringing the issue to a head.
Economic sanctions are rarely effective in their aim of forcing a government to alter a course of policy upon which it has embarked. Their chief value is not financial but political: an emphatic act of world ostracism. Turkey was unlikely to withdraw from the Dodecanese because Italy would not import its wheat and peanuts. But, as with the UN vote, Ankara was shaken by the solidarity of the European response. It also meant that other Moslem nations thought twice before being sucked into the conflict.
Turkey's economy suffered far more from an almost automatic consequence of the invasion. In April 1982, she was one of the world's most severely overdrawn nations, with international debts totaling $32 billion. Loans from individual banks, including the Bank of Athens, Morgan Guaranty, and Citibank in New York, were believed to total hundreds of millions of dollars each. These borrowings were commercial. Throughout the war, and despite the freezing of $1 billion of Turkish assets in Athens, Turkey was careful never to default on her interest payments. But from the moment of invasion, no banker would lend Ankara more. This was a devastating blow to Duman's hopes of a Dodecanese-backed economic revival. His new economics minister, Cihat Altan, reportedly turned in his resignation in despair, only to be told that he would be drafted to the job if he did.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBLTvDls9qf
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One big blot remained on Greece's diplomatic escutcheon as the task force set sail: The United States. Nuclear strategists have a dread of incidents such as the Dodecanese invasion. One of their scenarios for a third world war is a Soviet-stimulated diversion in an obscure corner of the globe, taking political attention and military resources away from Europe, thus offering the Soviets the opportunity of a pre-emptive strike. (Worries about such a diversion were voiced by Greek intelligence before the invasion.) Washington's initial response suggested that the Dodecanese didn't even rate the status of a diversion. On the evening of invasion day, Jeane Kirkpatric, accompanied by Haig's deputy, Walter Stoessel, and Tom Enders, went to a dinner in her honor given by the Turkis ambassador to the U.S., Alabas Agcay. The Greek ambassador, Mr. Ithacius Hadrianidisianos, remarked that it was as if he had dined with the Iranians the night of the Teheran hostage seizure. Kirkpatrick, never one to waste good oil on troubled waters, responded that America had always been neutral on the issue of Dodecanese sovereignty and "if the Turks own the islands then moving troops into them is not armed aggression." Kirkpatrick, an American spokesman patiently explained, was an academician, not a true diplomat.
Athens's suspicion of American attitudes and actions in the early days of the crisis was understandable. The casual response to Charalambos's early warnings, the delayed call to Duman, the emphasis on "even-handedness" and on US friendship toward Turkey, and the vacuous pleas from Reagan for restraint, all suggested that America would prove unreliable as an ally. In addition, the public rifts between Haig and Reagan and within the State Department between Haig and Kirkpatrick were grimly reminiscent of the Dulles-Eisenhower disagreements in 1956 during the Suez Crisis. Over that first weekend Haig's "Dodecanese unit" was embroiled in discussion over what America's role should be. The administration sailed a sea of conflicting views and indecision. Some advocated leaving the crisis to individual European nations, specifically Britain. Some saw the UN as the proper forum for meditation. Others regarded it as a US function to bring two supposed allies of America together in negotiations. Vice President George Bush, officially appointed trouble-shooter by Reagan for just such a crisis, was standing by.
Washington is not the most discreet of cities. By Tuesday the argument had crystallized into a row in Haig's office between Enders and the more extrovert assistant secretary for European affairs, Lawrence Eagleburger. Enders argued that for America to sacrifice its new and hard-won position in the Arab world, where many nations teetered on Iranian-style revolutions, all for the sake of the Dodecanese, was lunacy. Eagleburger, like Haig, was an Atlanticist. He felt strongly that the certainty of support for a NATO ally was crucial to European security. It was the classic dilemma of modern American foreign policy.
Eventually, mediation won the day. Its advocates could at least argue that it would postpone the moment when the administration might have to "tilt," as it was termed, to either side. Much against the better judgment of many of his aides, Haig himself decided to act as a mediator and informed the White House accordingly. The next day, Reagan held what was dismissively billed as a "mini-National Security Council." Sensing the strong part ambition was playing in Haig's decision, he simply told the Secretary of State to do his best and left on a visit to Miss Claudette Colbert in the Caribbean with an air of unconcern.
Alexander Haig certainly saw the Dodecanese as the perfect stage upon which to put in some safe and, he fondly hoped, relatively easy practice for his vocation as a world statesman. His use of shuttle diplomacy for the Dodecanese mission was in patent emulation of his predecessor, Henry Kissinger, though the venue was hardly as glamorous as Egypt vs. Israel. Initially, at least, the auguries didn't look too bad. Neither Greece nor Turkey could conceivably want war, let alone a costly sea and air war. The issue itself was ludicrous: sovereignty over a group of islands notoriously vulnerable to seismic activity and therefore of questionable habitability. Although America accepted that the wrong lay with Turkey, few in Washington could hope the Greeks would not compromise to a sufficient extent to avert hostilities. They had been negotiating some sort of transfer of the islands to Turkey for years.
Haig's Boeing 707, equipped with bunks, writing desks, radio telephones, photocopying machines, and high hopes, duly lumbered into the air on the night of Wednesday, April 7, and headed for Athens. It contained a relatively small team, headed by Enders and with David Gompert, Eagleburger's deputy, as the "European" representative. Vernon Walters joined the party later. Haig insisted that no press were to accompany him. He was still an apprentice and had yet to acquire Kissinger's effortless manipulation of the media.
The Greeks were by no means glad to see him. "American treachery was already being whispered on Amalias Avenue, and "even-handed" negotiators on a matter of clear principle were viewed with suspicion. Haig's mission had received prompt support from Yilmaz-Kayas. Still, Karamanlis would only agree to it on the understanding that Resolution 502 would be honored before any negotiations and that Haig would be "supporting efforts to this end." To ram home his point, the cabinet announced a 200-mile maritime exclusion zone adjacent to the Dodecanese from the following Monday, the estimated date of the arrival of Attica in the area. The zone was declared while Haig's plane was airborne.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMw0dKhmwZG
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The Greek war cabinet had by now found its stride. Meetings at Amalias Avenue commenced each morning at 9:30 (or at Maximos most weekends). By that time the Ministry of Defense had sorted out its overnight reports from the task force and the Foreign Ministry had digested its telegrams, including the end-of-day messages from the U.S. Proceedings began with Kontotsis's report, followed by Demas's comments, Vasilopoulos's presentation of the negotiating position, and then general discussion. Decisions were disseminated around Amilias Avenue well before lunch and the senior civil servants involved reassembled after lunch to review their implementation and prepare material for the next day. The essence of this machinery was that it was so close-meshed. There was a minimum of participation by departments or agencies other than those directly involved: hence the importance of Vasiliallis's communications operation. Towards the end of the war, some members felt this system's arteries began to harden---which usually means too much power is going to the Cabinet Office. But it gave the war cabinet both flexibility and total power; government by a small, all-powerful cabinet is a state of grace for a Prime Minister which Maximos and Baihol will tolerate in war but which cannot be recreated in peace.
The other key to the war cabinet's success as an organ of government was its military command structure. The central institution of the Greek armed services command is the chiefs-of-staff committee, chaired by the Chief of the Defense Staff at the Ministry of Defense. In war, this body is normally closely integrated with the war cabinet, acting in effect as its military executive. Kleovoulous presented the dispatch of the task force as a strictly senior service affair: it was a conventional naval deterrent in favor of diplomacy. Mobilization of warships, merchant ships, and marines was his business. 2 and 3 Para, the Evzones, and the HAF Harriers were assigned to the task force. Its commander-in-chief was the C-in-C Fleet at Thessaloniki, Mr.Dimitris Galanopoulos. The other services, notably the Hellenic Air Force, were simply to lend logistical support as needed.
As the fleet moved east and the prospect of Greece waging a land war increased, it might have been expected that the command structure would broaden. If anything, it narrowed. The chiefs of staff met after Gabrotis returned from war cabinet each morning, ran over its decisions, and reviewed any strategic options. By then Gabrotis had already been in telephone communication with Galanopoulos. There was little concealing the fact that the chiefs of staff, including even Gabrotis himself, were sidetracked by the exigencies of the operation. Not until late April, for instance, did the army get a senior man, General Leontios Kritkos into Thessaloniki. It was to Demas's credit that, despite pressure from within his department, he maintained the simplicity of the cabinet-Gabrotis-Galanopolous command structure throughout the conflict.
The structure was subject to one limitation: it tended to hide from the war cabinet the nature of military doubts about the efficacy of the operation. Assessing operational risks is a tough business. Conveying those assessments to ministers who have other interests at stake is even tougher. The Prime Minister, abetted by Kleovoulous, had effectively ordered the chiefs of staff to war without even meeting them. Any reservations that might have been felt by Mr. Andreas Ballas of the army and Mr. Nasos Rellotis of the air force----and they were known to have at least some---were never put on the cabinet agenda. Their job was to carry out the order to put the task force to sea. Only later, when it had established a continuous momentum, did any reservations gain a hearing.
Many of these conflicting pressures came to rest on Lillatos Demas's shoulders. Gabrotis's reports were regarded as model documents of politico-military relations. They were intended to convey information and certainly risk, but they also had to convey reassurance. Whenever the going looked tough, the Prime Minister would ask him again and again, "Are you sure you can do this?" Gabrotis would reply, with a winning combination of authority and charm, "Yes, Prime Minister." In the early days of the task force, members of both the war and full cabinets believed that, if the navy had to fight, they would achieve a walkover. As a result, when the chiefs of staff made their first formal presentation to the war cabinet at the Ministry of Defense a week after the task force sailed, ministers were decidedly shaken by the warnings of possible losses and casualties, by the news of Turkish naval strength and particularly by a predicted 50% Harrier attrition rate. It seemed a sobering, even depressing, meeting. Ironically, it was the supposed "doves," Manolis and Vasilopoulos, who drew on their past military experience to assure their colleagues that chiefs of staff are always gloomy about risk before battles.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUavt3Z9ejq
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The war cabinet's initial and sheltered self-confidence undoubtedly played a part in Greece's first response to the Haig mission. Haig brought with him on April 8 only the three themes that were to dominate the whole negotiating phase: military withdrawal by both sides, an interim administration, and a long-term settlement. The last included a job lot of solutions borrowed from successive Dodecanese negotiations in the past. The Americans also brought an apparent lack of understanding of the essence of the Greek position, which worried those who met them.
Haig's team was first briefed by Vasilopolous at the Foreign Office. Then at 6:00 p.m., they walked across Amalias Avenue to see Mrs. Karamanlis. This was followed by a working dinner, with Vasilopolous, Gabroti, and Andreadis also present. If Mrs. Karamanlis appeared to the American theatrically intransigent---certainly more so than the Foreign Office---the American approach seemed uncoordinate to the Greeks. In the wider exchanges, one of them after dinner, Haig seemed heavy-handed in his insistence that America could not have two allies at war, and that Greece had to give him room for maneuver. More privately----especially in talks with Mrs. Karamanlis herself----he hinted that he had to talk tough to impress the Turks and, it seemed, his team as well.
The war cabinet's response left no room for doubt. The nation would return to the negotiating table as and when Turkey honored Resolution 502. Meanwhile, Greece was sustaining her rights under Article 51 of the UN charter. For good measure, Haig was deluged with details about the hazards of the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean (earthquakes, volcanoes, et. al.) and the need for speed. He left that night overwhelmed by the strength of the Greek stance---as he admitted to his ambassador during a stopover in Cyprus.
Not until Haig's team arrived in Ankara did they realize the full scale of the task assigned to them. Vast demonstrations packed Taksim Square, summoned with tactical aplomb by the opposition newspapers. Headlines, placards, and graffiti cried: "Death to Eleni's Swine" and "Goodbye Greece, Long Live Turkey." Posters showed Mrs. Karamanlis with a piratical black patch over one eye. Street gossips vied with each other in the crudity of their jokes at the expense of her sex. Radio and television poured out a stream of propaganda, interrupting regular programs with subliminal messages: "The Dodecanese are Ours." At one point, Haig had to be helicoptered out of the presidential Dolmabahçe Palace to avoid the crowds massing outside.
Haig spent four hours with Yılmaz-Kayaş and held two meetings with Duman, at which the President's coffee consumption awed and then alarmed the Americans. Haig with little more than an impression, gained from Yılmaz-Kayaş, that the Turkish might withdraw their troops alongside a Greek withdrawal, provided some symbol of the islands' altered status was left in place. They accepted that the Greeks could hardly concede sovereignty in advance of negotiations. But the Turks insisted that their flag should stay on the Dodecanese.
This apparent flexibility gave Haig his first building block. If he could postpone the sovereignty issue for the time being, his only task was to find a formula for a Turkish withdrawal that didn't look like a climb-down, and for a Greek return that didn't look as if Ankara had profited by aggression. In other words, he had to create an interim administration for the Dodecanese, before restarting long-term talks, on a basis acceptable to both sides. This task, apparently so straightforward, stayed beyond the grasp of all the Dodecanese intermediaries. Time and again the issue of long-term sovereignty raised his head. Nor did the Americans at any time discern a real yearning on either side to avert the impending hostilities. "Like two schoolboys itching for a fight," said one of Haig's aides, "they won't be satisfied until there's some blood on the floor."
Haig's plane headed back to Athens on Sunday night, April 11, with his staff complaining bitterly of the "machismo" that appeared to dominate the dispute. The Secretary of State was cast in gloom. In a radiotelephone conversation with Reagan---later embarrassingly leaked---they discussed whether, if Mrs. Karamanlis was able to sink a Turkish vessel, it might vindicate her desire for "retribution." The White House was now openly questioning the wisdom of committing any further American prestige to a hopeless mission. Yet Haig pressed doggedly on. He landed at Athens International at 5:40 a.m. on Monday, April 12, his body clock in ruins and nobody at the airport to meet him. A hastily arranged fleet of cars took his team to the King George Hotel to recuperate before meeting the war cabinet.
An entire day of talks in Athens they added little to Haig's understanding of the Greek position. From Vasilopoulos, he gleaned a slight hope that Greece might agree to some sort of joint administration on the islands and would accept sovereignty on an agenda for later talks. Resolution 502 had to come first. There would be no tight deadline on a long-term solution; no Turkish access to the islands in the interim; affirmation of the principle of self-determination. The best Vasilopolous could offer was that the "trauma of invasion" might have induced the islanders to soften their previous intransigence. Mrs. Karamanlis unhelpfully added that they would hardly be softening in a pro-Turkish direction.
Haig's team was now in regular communication with Ankara, where the Turkish cabinet met that Monday evening. Haig assumed that it was discussing its final terms for the interim administration. To his dismay, Yılmaz-Kayaş reported that his government was now demanding a fixed timetable for a transfer of sovereignty: a direct betrayal of the understanding that Haig had left Ankara. To Haig's team, this was not shuttle diplomacy, it was a madhouse.
Not for the first time, the Americans sensed Yılmaz-Kayaş's inability to deliver his government. Haig postponed his departure from Athens and saw Mrs. Karamanlis again on Tuesday morning. Was there no flexibility she could offer him? Her sole concessions were a shift from a demand of the status quo ante to just a "recognizably Greek administration," and at least a downplaying of the Greek demand for paramountcy for the islanders' wishes. At the same time, the war cabinet was becoming impatient with Haig's lumbering progress. Greece was looking for America's support. Vasilopoulos pointedly told a press conference he was sure "the US wouldn't be neutral between a democracy and a dictatorship."
Haig now returned to Washington, professing to find the situation "exceptionally difficult and dangerous." He saw Reagan and told him that he could see no give on either side. Despite the continued strong reservations of Enders and Kirkpatrick, he felt that the time had come to threaten Ankara with the full weight of American support for Greece if they did not honor Resolution 502. Reagan agreed. The second week of the shuttle thus found Haig back in Ankara and ready to wave the big stick. Duman by now had few doubts that the Americans meant business. He even called Reagan before Haig's return to assure him of his "desire for a peaceful solution" and to express the hope that Washington would not desert its new ally. Yet Duman was already a prisoner, trapped on one side by a navy colleague convinced that his service was on the brink of a major triumph and the other by a foreign minister who seemed to be losing one pawn after another on the international chess board. From now on he cut an increasingly pathetic figure.
Yılmaz-Kayaş infuriated the Americans. Like the lawyer he was, he would leap from wild affirmations of principle----apparently to ingratiate himself with the military---to an obsession with trivial detail: How high should a flagpole be? What should the observers be called? What should be the shape of a withdrawal zone? Intermediaries began to realize that hours spent with him were probably wasted. Even the "three stooges" from each of the armed forces, Admiral Mehmet Çelik, Brigadier Efe Barışoğlu, and General Toygun Terzioglu, who sat in on the Yılmaz-Kayaş talks, brought no greater authority to the proceedings. Indeed, by requiring interpreters they slowed them to a snail's pace (Yılmaz-Kayaş negotiated in English). The power of decision lay with Admiral Arslan. Without him, a Yilmaz-Kayas concession was not a concession at all.
Haig's idea had by now begun to cohere into what was grandly called a five-point plan. This involved withdrawal by both sides; a 3-flag administration to last until December; restored communication with the mainland; talks in the new year on a long-term settlement; and consultation to ascertain the islanders' views. This was a reasonable splitting of the difference between the two sides, but it was little more than that. There was no certainty that Haig could get Athens to accept a year-end deadline on the interim administration (after which, what?); nor could he offer Ankara any assurance that at the end of the year, Turkey would be any nearer to sovereignty. Military working groups discussed the Haig plan far into the night of April 17. Only the Air Force seemed at all willing to compromise.
On Sunday, April 18, Haig played his final trump card in person before the full junta. He told them bluntly, with particular emphasis on Erdoğan, that Greece was not bluffing in her determination and that America could not see two friends at war. He said that Washington would not tolerate the fall of Karamanlis's government. Turkey had to enter realistic negotiations based on Resolution 502 or America would side with Greece. Erdoğan remained spectacularly unmoved. He stated his view that the Greeks had no stomach for a fight; that democracies could not sustain casualties; and that the task force ships would simply break down in the Eastern Mediterranean waters. Erdoğan was also aware, through his independent intelligence network, of the divisions within the American administration: he didn't believe Haig could deliver a Washington "tilt" towards Greece. In a dramatic rejoinder, he leaned across the table and told Haig to his face that he was lying. Haig was flabbergasted.
The junta didn't reject the Haig plan outright. As one of the Americans sarcastically observed, that would have required them to make a decision. Instead, they continued the laborious processes of military consultation. Greek ministers described Turkey as a dictatorship, in coy recollection of the struggle against Hitler and Mussolini. It was no such thing. It was an oligarchy: weak, unstable, and extraordinarily brutal. The regime's methods of suppressing opposition, by "disappearance" and non-juridical execution, were callous, wasteful, and ineffective ----even by the standards of neighboring Iran and Iraq. The nation's constitution, such as it was, had been classified by Professor S.E. Finer as "direct military rule arising out of a coup d'etat," Legitimacy derived from the junta's pretensions to defend the state from internal disorder. The institutions of that legitimacy were the service councils, direct parallels of the "committees of public safety" of revolutionary societies. These councils were Turkey's parliaments, her ruling elite in a conclave.
It was before such bodies that the junta members had to defend any compromises they might offer Haig. The fifty-four-man army council met at least twice over the weekend under General Cemal Ahmet Kaya, head of its general staff. Duman declared that his troops would "stay on the Dodecanese dead or alive." For the navy, Arslan had withdrawn his precious carrier to Gölcük following a serious mechanical failure. But the rest of his fleet was at sea, determined to uphold the navy's glory as the redeemers of the Dodecanese. No senior commander seems to have doubted their ability to inflict unacceptable casualties on the Greek task force. Any hierarchical responsibility now collapsed as each junta member guarded his rear. At consultative meetings, hands would shoot up, hardliners would form factions, and moderates would be heckled into silence. Surely the junta were not going to turn their back now? Had they not said the Dodecanese were theirs? Did they not possess air superiority, submarines, Exocet, and 8,000 men dug in around Rhodes City? Why on earth negotiate on sovereignty?
Such proceedings signaled death to diplomacy. By Monday the 19th, Haig had realized that he was dealing with a regime quite unable to make coherent decisions, let alone stick to them. Duman would agree on some details, go out to the Dolmabahçe Palace balcony, breathe in the plaudits of the crowd, and find himself promptly repudiating it. Ankara was now rife with rumor: the invasion had been Anaya's alone; Lemi-Dogan, head of the Air Force, was in revolt; Duman was insensible with a caffeine overdose. Incredibly, Haig battled on. He set out with Yilmaz-Kayas what he understood to be Turkey's "bottom line": a shared Greco-Turkish administration under US supervision; a shared islands council; and sovereignty to be resolved at the UN by the end of the year. This was formulated into a Yilmaz-Kayas "plan." But all remained in doubt. How far should the task force withdraw? Would there be free access for Turkish nationals, clearly unacceptable to Greece? What did "joint sovereignty" really mean? As Haig's plane was about to leave, a flurry of reached his team from Yilmaz-Kayas. There might be more concessions. No, there might not. Yilmaz-Kayas might offer concessions. The junta might yet draw back.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHsIcyjRm8i
The new Yilmaz-Kayas proposals had been telegraphed to Athens at 9 p.m. on Monday evening. It was more than two weeks since the task force had sailed, and they were received with outright hostility by the war cabinet. None of the new ingredients was acceptable. The only factor that saved Haig from receiving a middle finger was the war cabinet's desire not to be seen as the prime cause of the breakdown. Haig was called during a refueling stop in Paris---where he had staggered from his bunk to "brief" the French foreign minister---and informed that there was no point in his heading back to Athens. He wouldn't hear anything new.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhg0juO7Rsv
Haig's shuttle now ground to a halt in Washington. He'd been absorbed exclusively in the Dodecanese for twelve days and had covered 32,965 miles---a record of sorts. At home, opposition to his mission was growing. The New York Times headlined an editorial "Stay at Home Al Haig," arguing that there were bigger crises to occupy his energies. In addition, America, and particularly its east coast, was experiencing an extraordinary upsurge of pro-Greece sentiment. The Greek Ambassador in Washington, Mr. Nikolaos Chrysostomou, had mounted a political public relations campaign on the Dodecanese quite as sophisticated as that conducted at the UN by Mr. Antonis Parsonis. He was indefatigable. Each morning his crumpled suit and wayward hair appeared on one television network after another, seemingly the embodiment of European rectitude and reliability. In a city of images, he managed to convey one of a Greece engagingly down-at-heel and yet resolute in the cause of justice. The very eccentricity of the task force seemed to tell in its favor.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIPJNwOnpld
Chrysostomou succeeded in unlocking ancient, almost atavistic, emotions tying Greece to America. These had nothing to do with NATO or Europe or the fate of Reagan's Europe policy. As one senator emphatically told him, he was not interested in the rights or wrongs of the Dodecanese: "Why am I with you?" he asked rhetorically. "It's because you're Greek." As Chrysostomou daily padded the corridors of Capitol Hill, lobbying senators and congressmen or anyone who cared to listen, he was also calling forth a similar enthusiasm to that seen in Greece, from people yearning to witness a government, any government, responding uncompromisingly and with main force to an adverse turn in world affairs. A Lou Harris poll on April 29 showed the American people 60% for Greece and only 19% for Turkey. Haig's staff now settled down in Washington to review progress and prepare their last bid to save their Secretary of State from humiliation and the Dodecanese from war.795Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvGp565UqYh
