Lyndon Johnson Sends George Ball to Cyprus, 1964 George Ball was
one of America=s premier diplomats in the 1960s. He was under
secretary of state in 1964 when he became involved in the Cyprus
problem. This excerpt is from his memoir. It demonstrates very
clearly how the United States regarded the ACyprus problem,@
mainly as a venue of superpower intrigue. The Americans were
concerned about Cyprus becoming a AMediterranean Cuba,@ and
their diplomacy was geared toward bringing Cyprus under control
of NATO, possibly through Adouble enosis.@ This 1982 excerpt
from Ball's memoir, The Past Has Another Pattern, is also
valuable for insights into how high-level diplomacy was
conducted. Threat of Greek-Turkish War Watching from Washington,
we could see that open warfare was imminent. Since the Turkish
Cypriote population was suffering the greater casualties, Turkey
was on the verge of intervening. To defuse the situation, Sir
Duncan Sandys, the British Secretary of State for the
Commonwealth and Colonies, proposed a p