283. Message From Prime Minister Macmillan to President Eisenhower0
Dear Friend: I am afraid that the Greeks have been very weak about Cyprus. As I understand it, there was a very close vote in the Greek Cabinet1 and they were finally swung against the idea of an immediate conference by the opposition of Makarios. The Archbishop in his turn had been frightened by the extremists who had attacked his recent utterances.2
All this is very regrettable, but the Foreign Secretary and I were luckily able to see Spaak today, as he had an engagement to make a speech in this country. We discussed the whole question with him very frankly and we agreed that the right course was to let the Greeks simmer for a period. In their hearts, most of the Greek Government realise that their attitude is indefensible; if we run after them now it will only consolidate them; but if we do nothing, their self-doubting will take effect. All I think that we should do is to make it quite clear that nothing on our part has prevented the conference.
Accordingly I propose in my speech on the opening of the new session of Parliament tomorrow to give a paraphrase of the Spaak proposals [Page 733] which will show that we were prepared for a frank discussion of the Cyprus question including possible long-term solutions.3 I think that on Wednesday Spaak will arrange for publication of the basic document and of his covering letter.4 This will at least ensure that the Greeks cannot re-open everything again when the time comes for them to decide that they would like a conference after all.
Although all this is disappointing, I am not unduly depressed. We have, after all, made great progress in the last few months and the Greeks have at least dropped all their talk about leaving N.A.T.O. The Greek Government is fundamentally weak and, at the moment, over-influenced by Makarios; we shall try to bring them along slowly. I am sure that you will help in this.
With warm regards,
As always,
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, Dulles-Herter Series. Secret. Enclosure to a letter from Hood to Eisenhower, October 27.↩
- On October 24.↩
- Makarios formally rejected proposals for an international conference on October 26. The Archbishop had been under pressure from Grivas and from hard line clerics on Cyprus, who favored enosis, since his proposal of September 28 for an independent Cypriot state.↩
- For text of Macmillan’s October 30 speech, see House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, vol. 594, cols. 37–48.↩
- The documentation was subsequently published as Discussions of Cyprus in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cmd. 566, October 1958.↩
- Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩