The Ambivalent Kingmaker: Kissinger and U.S. Foreign Policy During the Cyprus Crisis

Abstract

This thesis examines American and Anglo-American diplomacy during the 1974 Cyprus crisis, in which a Greek military junta staged a coup against the democratically elected government of Cyprus, prompting a Turkish military intervention that partitioned the island into two ethnic zones. Drawing on original archival research at the British National Archives in London, the Documents on British Policy Overseas series, and the Foreign Relations of the United States series, it reconstructs the diplomatic history of the crisis from the perspective of the Nixon and Ford administrations, particularly Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who exercised predominant authority over U.S. foreign policy during the crisis. The thesis thus addresses three central questions. First, it evaluates whether the United States government conspired with malice aforethought to partition Cyprus between its Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot populations. It concludes that the conspiracy thesis is not supported by the documentary record, which instead reveals a government struggling to follow and manage a fast-moving crisis. Second, it characterizes the nature of American foreign policy during the crisis, arguing that Kissinger pursued a strategy of deliberate neutrality and constructive ambiguity between his two feuding NATO allies, Greece and Turkey. This strategy was primarily motivated by his overriding commitment to the integrity of the NATO alliance and the minimization of Soviet influence in the eastern Mediterranean. New primary source evidence from the British National Archives further reveals that Kissinger understood the Cyprus crisis through the lens of his recent shuttle diplomacy following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, treating the geopolitical situation and his diplomacy as an analog and model for the Cyprus crisis and his approach towards it, a misreading that shaped his assessments and ultimately contributed to his failures. Third, the thesis examines the relationship between American and British officials throughout the crisis, arguing that systematic divergences in their assessments of the diplomatic landscape produced what this thesis dubs misaligned solidarity. The two governments were generally aligned on ends but divided on means. This lack of coordination sent mixed signals to Turkish negotiators at the Geneva Conference and, this thesis argues, likely contributed in part to the Turkish government's decision to resume military operations and complete the partition of the island.