Manoeuvring for a Solution

Abstract

As Makarios travelled towards Greece he gave a series of press conferences that showed he had lost none of his fighting spirit in the enervating atmosphere of the tropics. At Tamatave in Madagascar, where he landed from the tanker, he attributed his release to the influence of the United Nations and was quoted as saying that he thought the Greek Cypriots would soon achieve Enosis. A few miles further on, at Tananarive, he called on the British Government to show the same goodwill as EOKA and said he would later go to London to contact public opinion there and particularly to meet members of the Labour Party. The Archbishop had evidently been impressed by demands from such Labour leaders as Hugh Gaitskell and James Callaghan that the Government should resume talks with him. (In this context it is interesting to note that an opinion poll sponsored by the News Chronicle on the question ‘Do you think that the Government was right to release Archbishop Makarios?’ found the British public evenly divided between ‘Yes’, and ‘No’ and ‘Don’t know’. Oddly enough, 42 per cent of Conservatives said ‘Yes’; only 32 per cent of the Labour voters consulted thought the Government had done the right thing.) At Nairobi the Archbishop declared he would not negotiate until he was allowed to return to Cyprus.