THE MIRACLE A True Story the interest of Turkey which, needless to say, was very happy to oblige. As a result, Greece was persuaded to take part in the 3-day London Conference which opened on 29th April, 1955, to discuss the Cyprus problem with Britain and Turkey. The real purpose of the conference was to confirm Turkey's active involvement in the Cyprus issue. Failure was merely a matter of time. Everything naturally served the British policy, which in this case was one of "divide and rule". But it was not an opportunity that the Turks were going to let pass, and they didn't. On 6th September, 1955, Turkey staged its night of terror.    Now in 1964, my father held the view that, as on all previous such occasions, Turkey would seize the opportunity presented by the current circumstances in its relations with Greece and deal with its problem of the "Greek minority" once and for all. A year earlier, the Anglo-Turkish alliance in Cyprus had brought Greece to the brink of war with Turkey. After condemning to failure all the attempts to draw up a Cypriot constitution, the Turks tried to invade Cyprus using their fleet. However, intervention by the United States forced them to stop, especially when the American president of the time, Lyndon Johnson, sent a letter to the Turkish prime minister, Ismet Inonu, warning him that if Turkey invaded Cyprus, the United States would remain a neutral observer should Russia take any action against Turkey.    The American president then invited the prime ministers of Greece and Turkey to the United States for talks. The Greek prime minister, Georgos Papandreou, declined the invitation, saying the meeting would be "a parody enacted by deaf people" which would lead nowhere, as had happened in London in 1955. Mr Inonu, on the other hand (who, as it happened, was actually deaf), accepted the invitation, thereby creating a favourable international climate for Turkey which it would naturally turn to full advantage.    Any decisive blows meted out by Turkey during the course of the twentieth century have been inflicted by taking advantage of a "suitable opportunity". The Armenian genocide that took place during the First World War, the Capital Tax known as the Varlik Vergisi which was imposed mainly on Turkey's Greek population in the Second World War, the pogrom of 1955 and the expulsions in 1964 - all these occurred at times when circumstances were "suitable".    "Are you Gerasimos Koumakis?" a stern voice asked in Turkish, bringing my father back from his thoughts with a bump. It was the afternoon of 9th July, 1964.    "That's me!" replied my father, his heart pounding.    "You're to report to the officer on duty at police headquarters at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning!" came the order. "Now close your shop and go home - and don't get any ideas about moving any stock out of here until an inventory has been carried out!"    My father went pale.    "What's going on?" he asked. "Why do the police want to see me? I haven't done anything that needs explaining to the police."    "We don't know that. Maybe even you don't know. Anyway, we needn't discuss that now. Make sure you're there at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, as I told you. Now get your things together and close the shop."    My father realised the moment had come, the moment he had been thinking about for years. He remembered the words his father had spoken in Kadikoy (a district in Constantinople) when he said the Greeks of Constantinople had roots that went back not to the Emperor Constantinos 23 and 24 Leonidas Koumakis THE MIRACLE A True Story If you prefer a hard copy of the book, please send an email to HEC-Books@hec.greece.org Previous Page | Initial Page | Site Map | Next Page (25th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.