The New Black Mask (No 5)

William Haggard Commentary on Timeo Danaos

This story was written after a holiday in Cyprus which produced more shock than pleasure. I knew that the Turks were in a minority but did not know that they were treated as helots in an island which had once been part of their own proud empire. Every Greek I met was uneasily proclaiming that Turkey would never dare intervene. To me it seemed obvious that she would; and she did.

It is a pleasure to recall that the State Department for once got it dead right. It issued a cool little statement deploring the use of American-donated weapons in a private war and thereafter did nothing that mattered. The British were even cooler. It is at least arguable that they were treaty-bound to go to war with Turkey, but they sat on their hands and stared out of the window. Both were exercises in classic realpolitik.

For despite a noisy Greek lobby in the United States, the simple fact is that Turkey is a valuable ally of NATO, Greece almost worthless. The commander of the American Sixth Fleet would hardly lose sleep if he heard that the entire Greek navy had sunk at anchor overnight; and any soldier would much prefer one stolid Turk, the formidable mehmetchik, to a platoon of quarreling Hellenes obsessed by a past which has gone forever.

The story wasn’t written to convey a message, and if one can be read into it, it is nothing new. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes — ‘I fear Greeks bearing gifts.’ Or bearing anything else for that matter, particularly the military begging bowl. To fill it is a waste of precious arms. At the first sign of real trouble Greece will let both Britain and the United States down, as I privately fear that France will too.