Office of the Historian

84. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Kissinger and the Soviet Ambassador (Dobrynin)1

Washington, July 15, 1974, 6:30 p.m.

D: Hello Henry. The Ambassador of Cyprus has just informed me that Makarios is alive and in UN troops [?], he is in another place.

K: I have seen that as an unofficial report.

D: This is what he mentioned to me. I don’t know if it is official.

K: I’m glad you called. I was just getting ready to call you. I just had an unofficial report that he is in a town called Phados.

D: I heard …

K: Well, we got the first letter the same. If that is true it puts a new complexion on the situation.

D: And it says he has asked the Secretary General to have Security Council tomorrow to discuss and according to this information the Ambassador has…in this area, where Makarios is, it is quiet, where the Archbishop is, but in Nicosia there is strong fighting. This is what he mentioned to me.

K: Let us see if we can keep our actions coordinated. The United States has no unilateral interests there. And we support the existing Constitution. Can we stay in touch with each other before we take any drastic moves?

D: I will send a telegram saying let’s coordinate our actions.

K: We are in favor of the existing Constitutional arrangement. Let’s check before doing anything. I will let you know if we plan anything. We don’t plan to do anything until we get a report but we have made those demarches2 I told you about.

D: Ok, Henry.

  1. Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box 396, Telephone Conversations, Anatoly Dobrynin. No classification marking.↩
  2. Presumably a reference to telegrams to the Embassies in Athens and Ankara instructing the Ambassadors to relay the American view that Cyprus was a sovereign state and that the current crisis should be resolved peacefully. See Document 82.↩