The Long Slide Down
August 8, 1974
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Margaret Thatcher, announces that the policy of internment in Northern Ireland of PIRA suspects will continue.
General Bernard Rogers USA assumes command of the US Expeditionary Force in Syria, and overall military command of the Syrian operation.
August 10, 1974
The body of Patrick Kelly (33), a Nationalist councillor, was discovered in Lough Eyes, near Lisbellaw, County Fermanagh. Kelly had disappeared on 24 July 1974 after leaving Trillick, County Tyrone, to travel home.
DC District Court Judge John Sirica (who is presiding over the United States v. Nixon criminal case) orders a ban on publication of the contents of the Nixon Oval office transcripts. Judge Sirica also bans the sale of The Manchester Guardian in the United States. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals upholds Judge Sirica’s ban on the publication of the tape transcripts, but overturns the ban on selling The Guardian in the US. This forces The Guardian to produce a split-run edition for the US market which censors out any reference to the contents of the Nixon tapes.
President Gavin signs an executive order barring federally regulated banks from foreclosing on home mortgages for the next year.
August 13, 1974
Two British soldiers were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) in a remote controlled bomb attack near Crossmaglen, County Armagh.
August 14, 1974
The US Congress authorizes US citizens to own gold privately.
August 15, 1974
South Korean President Park Chung-hee was delivering a speech in the National Theater during a ceremony to celebrate the nation's deliverance from Japanese colonial domination 29 years before, when a presumed North Korean agent Mun Se-gwang fired a gun at Park from the front row. Park was hit by one of the bullets, another of which killed his wife Yuk Young-soo. The wounded President continued his speech as his dying wife was carried off of the stage.
August 16, 1974
President Park Chung-hee dies of blood poisoning from his bullet wound (leading to a major controversy over his medical treatment). Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil succeeds Park as acting President of South Korea. As the gunman who killed the President and his wife is considered a North Korean agent, tensions increase between the two Korean states over the incident. US and South Korean troops are put on alert, when an alert of North Korean troops is ordered by North Korean dictator Marshall Hyung Ju. The heightened alerts on both sides continue through the winter of 1974-1975.
August 25, 1974
Sixteen worshippers are killed in a second church bombing in Cyprus. The Samson military government begins cracking down on Turkish Cypriot communities, including the interning of young men of military age. Turkish Cypriots who flee the island for Turkey are stopped by Cypriot government patrol boats and young men and other suspects are pulled off. Some jump into the sea and drown rather than being taken prisoner.
Turkish President Fahir Koroturk denounces this activity and the internment of ethnic Turks on Cyprus. He ends all negotiations between the two sides in Geneva. The Turkish President begins pressuring the United States and his other NATO allies to aid Turkey in deposing the Sampson government. This further splits the fragile solidarity among the major partners (the US, the Soviet Union and Turkey) in the Syrian operation.
August 26, 1974
Soyuz 15 carries two cosmonauts to the Salyut 3 space station.
President Gavin proposes Congress act on the following two pieces of legislation before adjourning for the elections. The first, a proposed Mortgage Relief Act would establish a federal fund to assist homeowners facing foreclosure. The main proposal of the MRA would be to provide a fund which would assist unemployed and cash strapped homeowners with mortgage payments to prevent foreclosures. The other would amend accounting rules so that banks could claim the cost of not foreclosing as a tax deduction against their revenues and not carry it as bad debt on their books, thus giving banks an incentive not to foreclose directly on mortgages.
The other bill, the proposed Hunger Relief Act, would provide extended relief under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps) to assist in the creation of community food banks and to provide added funding for hot lunch programs in schools.
August 30, 1974
An express train bound for Germany from Belgrade derails in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), killing more than 150 passengers.
September 1, 1974
The SR-71 Blackbird sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London: 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds.
September 2, 1974
President Gavin signs into law the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
September 3, 1974
On Labor Day US unions organize large protests against unemployment and wage stagnation. They are joined by large, and less well organized or coordinated, demonstrations by unemployed people, many of whom are living in shelters or in temporary accommodation. Several of these protests become ugly as protesters clash with police and each other. One group of unemployed war veterans sets a bonfire in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House.
September 7, 1974
Canadian Prime Minister Robert Stanfield (Progressive Conservative) introduces a budget which is aimed at combating inflation, easing the unemployment crisis in Ontario and Quebec through easing regulations on business and corporate tax incentives, and allowing greater provincial control over resources and regional economic policy. The budget also includes temporary wage and price controls. Stanfield’s minority government survives an attempt to unseat him by interim Liberal Leader Donald Macdonald and NDP leader David Lewis by a vote of 134 - 129 in favour of the government budget. (11 Social Credit members from Western Canada agree to support the budget).
September 8, 1974
TWA Flight 841 crashes into the Ionian Sea 18 minutes after take-off from Athens, after a bomb explodes in the cargo hold, and kills 88 people.
September 10, 1974
A guerrilla war is now underway in Cyprus between ethnic Turkish resisters and the Greek backed Sampson government. Between September and December several hundred civilians are killed, along with over one thousand Turkish guerrillas and Cypriot Greek and Mainland Greek troops (which are operating in support of their Cypriot ally). Round-ups of civilians and suspected guerrillas by Greek Cypriot military police continue. There are allegations of torture and murder of prisoners.
September 11, 1974
The Prevention of Terrorism Act passes the British House of Commons with only a slim majority. After some debate in the House of Lords it is sent to the Sovereign on September 28 and signed into law that day.
On the first anniversary of the coup in Chile former Foreign, Defense and Interior Minister Orlando Letelier is released from prison by Chilean military authorities. Letelier goes into exile to become a prominent leader in the anti-Pinochet opposition.
September 12, 1974
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is deposed by the Derg.
Demonstrations were held in Belfast by Loyalists and Republicans in support of prisoners who were protesting about parole and food.
September 13, 1974
Japanese Red Army members seize the French Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands. The ambassador and ten other people were taken hostage and a Dutch policewoman, Hanke Remmerswaal, was shot in the back, puncturing a lung. After lengthy negotiations, the hostages were freed in exchange for the release of a jailed Red Army member (Yatsuka Furuya), $300,000 and the use of a plane. The plane flew the hostage-takers first to Aden, South Yemen, where they were not accepted and then to Iraq, where they were arrested and turned over to French authorities for trial. (Iraq was at the time involved in negotiations with the French government to acquire a nuclear reactor). The ransom money disappeared, but was believed to have been taken by Iraqi authorities (who claimed that the Yemenis had seized the cash).
September 14, 1974
Charles Kowal discovers Leda, 13th satellite of Jupiter.
September 16, 1974
The PIRA shot and killed a Judge, Rory Conaghan, and a Resident Magistrate, Martin McBirney, in separate incidents in Belfast.
A Catholic civilian was killed by a booby trap bomb planted by Loyalists in Pomeroy, County Tyrone.
2d Lt. John Ellis (Jeb) Bush USAF graduates from Air Force flight training school. He is assigned to air operations in Syria.
September 20, 1974
Armed gunmen seize the NYSE, killing 28 hostages. NYPD re-take the stock exchange; during their operation 2 officers and 2 hostages are killed, along with seven of the gunmen involved in the hostage taking. Civil Rights groups begin an immediate campaign to label the NYPD’s actions as a police massacre.
September 21, 1974
US Mariner 10 makes 2nd fly-by of Mercury.
September 22, 1974
Anti-government demonstrations in Athens are suppressed by the military. Analysts predict that Greece is on the verge of a second Civil War.
September 23, 1974
Ceefax (one of the first public service information systems) is started by the BBC.
The Gavin Administration announces that the President has signed an executive order directing the Attorney General and the FBI to co-ordinate national and state efforts to crack down “hard” on “thugs, criminals and terrorists who use violence as their stock and trade.” Presidential spokesman Roger Mudd also comments that the President may seek a modification in the Posse Comitatus Act from Congress to allow more US military “assistance” to domestic law enforcement “against violent criminals.”
September 26, 1974
Negotiations begin between Socialist French President Francois Mitterand and Gaullist Prime Minister Olivier Guichard to end the on-going labour disruptions in France and develop a framework for “co-habitation” between the two political parties. French Communist Party General Secretary Georges Marchais later accuses the President of a “double-cross”
September 28, 1974
The Skylab 5 mission launches from Cape Canaveral. Skylab 5 is a short 20-day mission to conduct scientific experiments and to boost the Skylab vehicle into a higher orbit. The crew are Vance Brand (commander), Don Lind (command module pilot), and William B. Lenoir (science pilot).
John Lennon appears as guest DJ on WNEW-FM (NYC)
September 30, 1974
Gen Francesco da Costa Gomez succeeds Gen Spinola as President of Portugal
October 2, 1974
Mike Murphy, a senior PIRA operative in northern England comes under increased scrutiny by MI5 and Special Branch operatives. Under the new Prevention of Terrorism Act his telephone and flat are bugged.
South Korean acting President Kim Jong-pil wins a narrow plurality over opposition candidates (in a questionable election).
October 4, 1974
John Lennon releases "Walls & Bridges" album.
Surrounded by Congressional leaders, President Gavin signs the Mortgage Relief Act and the Hunger Relief Act into law. Both pieces made it through Congress, despite some opposition to the high costs associated with each program, because few Congressional leaders wanted to be seen as being opposed to these programs so close to an election during a recession (or depression, depending on your point of view).
President Gavin: "These bills remind us why America is great. Yes, we believe in individual initiative and self-reliance, those are bedrock American values. But the American people are generous and caring too; we are a good people who cannot turn our backs on the suffering of others. So in that spirit we reach out today to those who have been sorely affected by this crisis, and offer a hand of comfort and support. Not a hand-out mind you, but a hand up.”
Senator Bob Dole: “I understand that we have to end the foreclosures; Americans are going to have a hard time getting back to work if they don’t have a home, but still, do we have to spend so much? Aren’t we risking mortgaging our children’s future on this excessive spending?”
Governor Ronald Reagan: “I’ll say this for Washington, they never met a dollar they didn’t want to spend. Well, on this Hunger Relief thing, I remember reading once that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, but if you teach him to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime. I wonder if we aren’t just giving people too much, and not teaching them to do it for themselves. Then, like our fisherman, they’ll be ready to feed themselves - and their families - for a lifetime. Now isn’t that a better solution?”
Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr.: “Sure, should help those who are in need of help now; it would be cruel not to. I just worry that we’ll end-up with a dependency culture. They tried this stuff in England after the war – and they were in a pretty bad way back then, what with the Nazis having bombed out their country – but now they’re all standing in line, depending on a hand out – the dole they call it. We don’t want a dole in California or the United States, so we had better think long and hard before we start down that path.”
October 5, 1974
The Irish Republican Army (IRA) planted bombs in two public houses in Guildford, Surrey, England, which killed five people and injured a further 54. The pubs, the Horse and Groom and the Seven Stars, were targeted because they were frequented by off-duty British soldiers. Under the Prevention of Terrorism Act the Heath Government begins a massive crackdown on alleged and suspected PIRA and Sinn Fein sympathizers in mainland Britain. The Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas -Home delivers a formal protest over the activities of NORAID to the US Ambassador Annenberg (who was slated to resign, but convinced to remain in place for another six months by President Gavin).
October 7, 1974
A Turkish Cypriot infiltrates the Papal Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. During the mass he starts throwing stones at Pope Paul VI, before being subdued by the Swiss Guard and the Papal security force.
President Gavin attempts to develop a consensus in his Administration about the growing crisis in Cyprus. However, with Vietnam and Syria in the forefront, there is little support for any other military action. Diplomatic efforts by Henry Kissinger and Secretary of State George Bush have proven unsuccessful. The Administration does agree to impose an arms embargo on the Greek and Cypriot governments, hoping that this will force them to the negotiating table.
October 8, 1974
British Home Secretary Robert Carr announces that PIRA suspects and “those considered to be providing them material assistance” will be interned in mainland Britain as well as Northern Ireland.
October 9, 1974
A race riot occurs in Boston over the issue of school busing.
Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet announces that Chile will assist the Greek Military Dictatorship with arms sales in an act of “anti-communist solidarity.”
October 10, 1974
In a compromise vote the National Conference for Unification, stacked with supporters of the late President Park, elect Kim Jong-pil to a six year term as President of South Korea (1974 – 1980).
General George Brown USAF, the newly appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells an audience at Duke University that that Israel was becoming a burden to The Pentagon and believed that the reason for continual military aid was due to Jews having control over America's banks, newspapers and elected officials. His exact words were: “They own, you know, the banks in this country. The newspapers. Just look at where the Jewish money is.” General Brown is compelled to resign over his remarks by President Gavin and is replaced as Joint Chiefs Chairman by General Robert E. Cushman jr., the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. General Cushman is the first Marine Corps officer to hold the position.
Former President Richard M. Nixon is formally indicted on seventeen counts of breaking federal laws and he pleads not guilty (“Absolutely not guilty, so help me God!) during an arraignment before Judge John Sirica.
October 11, 1974
The PIRA carried out two bomb attacks on clubs in London. At 10.30pm a hand-thrown bomb with a short fuse was thrown through a basement window of the Victory, an ex-servicemen's club in Seymour Street near Marble Arch. A short time later an identical bomb was thrown into the ground floor bar at the Army and Navy Club in St. James's Square. Only one person was injured in these two attacks.
Stéphanos I Sidarouss, the Coptic Christian Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt is gunned down by two Islamist militants, who declare they are acting in solidarity with the oppressed Muslims of Syria and Cyprus. President Sadat orders his security forces to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other extremist forces in the country.
October 13, 1974
In London three Irish workers are killed and seven injured in a riot with a large mob of English workers protesting the recent PIRA attacks in Britain.
October 14, 1974
Prime Minister Heath announces that a state of marital law will prevail in Britain for the next forty days. A nationwide 10:00 pm – 6:00 am curfew is imposed. Police are given special powers to check identification and to intern suspects. British troops are assigned to back-up the police. The right of public protest, or to gather in large groups for “unapproved events” is suspended.
Ngô Quang Trưởng is elected President of the Republic of (South) Vietnam.
32 Turkish Cypriot school children are killed when government tanks fire on a school. The Cypriot military authorities later claim that Turkish guerrillas were firing at them with anti-tank rockets and using the school buildings as cover.
Turkish President Fahir Koroturk pledges Turkey’s complete support for the guerrillas on Cyprus. Turkey is openly arming their forces, and President Koroturk indicates that Turkey will not hesitate to invade again “no matter the cost or the damage to our alliances” in defence of the Cypriot-Turkish population.
October 15 – 16, 1974
A number of huts in the Maze Prison were destroyed by fires which had been started by Republican prisoners. British troops were called into the prison to re-establish control. [The estimated cost of damage to the Maze Prison, during disturbances on 15 October 1974, was put at £1.5m.]
On October 16 Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced that nine Republican prisoners from the Maze Prison had been hospitalised following disturbances at the prison the previous day. Fifteen prison officers and 16 soldiers were also hurt during the disturbances. The unrest spread to Magilligan Prison where a number of huts were destroyed. [Damage at Magilligan Prison on 16 October 1974 was estimated at £200,000.] In Armagh Women's Prison the governor and three women prison officers were held captive before being released following mediation by clergymen. Mrs. Thatcher announces that all prisoners will be “locked down” for twenty three hours a day, and that those who burned down huts at the Maze prison will be prosecuted for arson. Mrs. Thatcher announces that all prisoners will be denied matches, cigarettes and hot food in retaliation for the actions of the prison rioters.
“We will find out who did this monstrous thing,” Mrs. Thatcher declares. “Until we do, everyone will suffer. Let them understand, until they give-up the guilty, we will treat them all as if they had a part in it.”
October 18, 1974
Chicago Bull Nate Thurmond becomes first player in the NBA to complete a quadruple double-22 pts, 14 rebounds, 13 assists and 12 blocks.
Skylab 5 returns to Earth. The mission has managed to raise the Skylab vehicles orbit by several hundred miles, extending the orbital laboratories projected lifespan.
Military forces break-up another demonstration in Athens.
October 20, 1974
The new President of South Korea introduces a plebiscite to amend the Yusin constitution to create the office of Deputy President.
October 20 – December 23, 1974
Operation Holy Oak. US, South Vietnamese and Cambodian forces push Khmer Rouge forces further north toward the Loatian border, creating a greater cordon of security for the Lon Nol government in Phom Penh. Allied forces also skirmish with North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia. Allied casualties are reported at 312 U.S, 2,100 South Vietnamese and approx 2,000 Cambodian. Estimates of enemy dead range between 5,000 and 8,000.
October 21 - 22, 1974
Two Catholic civilians, Michael Loughran (18) and Edward Morgan (27), were shot dead by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) at the junction of Falls Road and Northumberland Street in Belfast.
A member of the Territorial Army (TA) was shot dead by the PIRA in Belfast.
John Hume, then deputy leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), said that his party had lost confidence in Margaret Thatcher. Mrs Thatcher replied that she regretted Mr. Hume’s announcement, but “ that this government will not give-in to terrorists, no matter who disapproves.”
October 24, 1974
Billy Martin named AL Manager of Year (Texas Rangers).
The PIRA carried out a bomb attack on a cottage in the grounds of Harrow School in northwest London. No one was injured in the explosion. The time bomb, estimated to have contained 5lbs of explosives, exploded shortly before midnight just outside the cottage which had until just before this date been occupied by the head of the school's Combined Cadet Force. At 11.30pm a telephone warning about the bomb had been given to the Press Association.
Regular Police and military sweeps of areas known to be frequented by PIRA supporters begin.
October 25 - 26, 1974
A makeshift bomb explodes outside of an Army recruiting office in Los Angeles, California. It occurs at night, so there are no injuries. California Governor Reagan appears outside the damaged building the next day with Republican Gubernatorial candidate Barry Goldwater Jr.. Both men denounce the violence and repeat calls for law-and-order polices. Governor Reagan announces he will use his remaining time in office to work toward giving the state police forces “effective power to stop this barbarism.” Governor Reagan does not rule out using the National Guard to impose order, if necessary. Rep. Goldwater pledges if elected that he will continue Governor Reagan’s work, and “that includes using the National Guard to give the police extra muscle, if they need it.” He also says, of his Democratic challenger, “Jerry Brown will give them a civics lesson and a lollipop. I don’t mind giving them the lollipop, but the only civics lesson I’ve got for these scumbags comes from the end of my boot.”
October 27, 1974
After a series of contentious meetings the Arab OPEC nations and Iran agree to extend the oil embargo against the west. This is presented as an expression of Islamic solidarity for the people of Syria, and the “oppressed, endangered muslim brothers and sisters in Cyprus.” OPEC calls on the west to protect the Turkish population of Cyprus and remove the Sampson military government from power. The Shah of Iran and Venezuelan President Carols Perez had argued for lifting the sanctions. However, even the moderate Islamic governments in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait would not endorse that position, for fear of a backlash against them by their populations. There have been large pro-Syrian and pro-Turkish Cypriot demonstrations in many Arab cities, and the Cyprus violence in particular has become a political hot potato for Islamic governments. The Shah agrees to go along with his fellow Islamic leaders, but Venezuela formally withdraws from OPEC after this meeting.
The Ayatollah Khomeini denounces the Shah’s position at the OPEC conference as outright treason to Islam – “the blood of all the martyrs of Cyprus flows from the claws of this heretic”. Khomeini issues a fatwa calling for the Shah’s death.
October 28, 1974
The Soviet Union launches the Luna 23 unmanned probe. It lands on the Moon on November 6.
The PIRA killed two British soldiers in a bomb attack outside Ballykinlar British Army base, County Down.
Greek military forces announce they have thwarted a plot to use a bomb to kill the Greek President Phaedon Gizikis.
October 30, 1974
The Rumble in the Jungle takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire, where Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman in 8 rounds to regain the Heavyweight title, which had been stripped from him 7 years earlier.
Cypriot troops burn down two Mosques they claim are being used as operation centers and arms depots by anti-government guerrillas. News of this inflames feeling throughout the Islamic world.
October 30 – November 2, 1974
An overnight riot in the London working class neighbourhood of Stepney evolves into a two day clash with British police and military as mobs set fire to buildings and police equipment, as well as rioting in gangs drawn on ethnic lines against each other. There are also reports of clashes between Muslim and non-Muslim groups as well.
The initial spark is later thought to have been a sports dispute that got out of hand, but the Stepney Riot comes to embody frustration at the martial law restrictions and the PIRA violence in mainland Britain. There is also an expression of rage at “the system” by some rioters. Extensive property damage is thought to exceed several hundred thousands of pounds. Seventeen rioters are left dead, well over two hundred are seriously injured. Five police and one solider are killed, more are injured, but the authorities do not disclose how many. After the riot Stepney is placed under military control. “Looks like bloody Belfast,” one resident comments of the military presence on the streets after the riot.
November 1, 1974
Ngô Quang Trưởng is inaugurated as the sixth President of the Republic of (South) Vietnam. The American interim administration of South Vietnam under General Earle Wheeler ends.
Paris police are called in to quell rioting by North African immigrants in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The source of the disturbance is later concluded to be an inflammatory sermon given at the local Mosque during which the speaker calls for a Jihad against all Christians over what is happening in Cyprus and Syria.
November 2, 1974
The people of South Korea vote to approve the amendment of the Yusin Constitution. Former Army General and Korean Central Intelligence Agency Director Kim Jaegyu is elected as Deputy President by the National Assembly on November 4, after being nominated by President Kim. The Deputy President cannot be removed by the President, only by the National Assembly.
November 3,1974
Walter H. Annenberg, the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, is killed when an improvised rocket grenade is fired at his limousine. Ambassador Annenberg, who was in an armoured vehicle, survived the initial blast. However, perhaps in a state of shock, he exited to provide assistance to a wounded British police escort officer. Ambassador Annenberg was then shot from a nearby building. The British government immediately blames the PIRA for Annenberg’s assassination. The PIRA vehemently denies that they had anything to do with it, and casts the blame at “Unionist gangsters working for Bloody Maggie Thatcher.”
November 4, 1974
Opposition leader Denis Healey (Labour) rises in the House to declare that his party and the British people have “lost all confidence and trust in this government of lies and brutality. We hold the government responsible for escalating the cycle of violence in our country, and I call for the Prime Minister and his ministers to step down at once.” Prime Minister Heath calls Healey “soft as an old down pillow” on security issues and calls for the Opposition leader to resign.
The Duke of Edinburgh, a hereditary Prince of Greece, is fired on during a public appearance by an armed man of Turkish ethnicity. The gunman fails to actually shoot anyone.
(from Thomas L. Friedman Sleeping in Sand: American Policy and the Jihad Wars)
The Western Intervention in Syria (commonly the Syrian Intervention) played out over this crucial three-month period against the growing Civil War in nearby Cyprus – which tended to overshadow it for a time – and the domestic political difficulties of the various powers involved.
In May and June the initial allied coalition, consisting of the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Turkey, France and Jordan (with some other minor allies in supporting positions), quickly removed the Bayanouni clerical regime from power by force. That renegade regime, and the fear that it would destabilize the Middle East by spreading its revolutionary message to other countries, had been the source of a collective fear that brought these disparate powers, including Cold War rivals, together. The Syrian intervention was the first joint US-Soviet military operation since World War II, while the historic rivalry between the Soviets and Turkey extended far back into their history, long before the current regimes that ruled them in 1974. With the Bayanouni threat gone (he was killed along with a number of key followers in June) the common thread that held the alliance together began to fray.
During the summer Turkey suffered a humiliating military defeat during its attempt to intervene in the Cypriot Civil War. That Turkish military operation failed in part because they could not deploy enough forces to Cyprus to be effective against the Greek Cypriot government and its backers in the Greek military. Turkish armour and support troops were tied-up either in operations in Syria, or in guarding against a feared assault by Soviet Red Army troops who had been allowed to cross Turkish territory en route to Syria, under heavy Turkish and American guard. The civil government of Turkey fell as a result of the Turkish military defeat in Cyprus that summer. To prevent a military coup, President Fahir Koroturk instituted direct Presidential rule and dissolved parliament. Turkish democracy was the first victim of the Syrian intervention and he Cypriot Civil War.
Turkish authorities, from the President on down, bristled at the situation, and were particularly aggrieved as they watched ethnic Turks being attacked by the Greek Cypriot military. Although Turkey armed ethnic Turkish partisans, who started a guerrilla war against the Cyprus government, and sent American trained Special Forces units into Cyprus to help them with tactics and training, the situation on mainland precluded a direct Turkish military intervention. This was highly unpopular at home, and became a point of great criticism of the Turkish regime throughout the Islamic world. A revival of Islamism in secular Turkey gained many new adherents during this period.
As the Turks sought to sooth their national pride, they became more bellicose with their American and Soviet allies in Syria. Ankara, which had been given a role in bringing together a new Syrian regime once the Muslim Brotherhood forces had been defeated, became increasingly more truculent in vetoing candidates for the new government. This caused a tremendous headache for the other allies because each of them knew that unless Turkey was appeased and reassured of security on its southern border, any solution in Syria was doomed in the long run.
Apart from the Turks, the other allies had difficulties of their own. The election of Socialist Francois Mitterand as President of France lead to the withdrawal of the French elements of the coalition force. Their replacements, mostly recruited from former French colonies in Africa and the Spanish Legion, proved barely adequate to the task of patrolling Syria and maintaining order amidst a restive population. The British contingent was distracted by increasing violence back home, and although a professional force, their numbers were kept at a minimum by the Heath government (which had held secret from the British people during the February general election that it was going to participate in this action). Increasingly, the United States, the Soviets and the Turks became the principal partners in the exercise, and none of the three was on the best of speaking terms with the others.
The United States and the Soviet Union, through their intelligence agencies, began to intrigue to push their preferred candidates to the head of the new Syrian government. Bayanouni’s body was barely cold before the Cold War reasserted its ugly head. It is not clear that this was completely a product of US policy as made at the White House; then CIA Director Paul Nitze was a hawk on Cold War matters, and opposed détente: there seems ample evidence that he was using the agency he headed to pursue an agenda of his own, namely supplanting the former pro-Soviet Syrian military regime with a pro-western one, which in his Cold War calculus would be a strategic victory for the United States.
The Soviet commander, General Sergey Akhromeyev, complained loudly and often about this activity to the American commander, General Bernard Rogers, who was also – nominally – the overall commander of the Allied force. General Rogers indulged Akhromeyev, and may have had his own suspicions about what Nitze’s field operatives were up to, but he did not share Langley’s confidence, so often he was as much in the dark about CIA activity as Akhromeyev. Rogers wrote a number of long cables to Washington complaining about the intelligence activity, and on several occasions tried to override the authority of CIA officers in the field; all with limited effect.
The KGB meanwhile had been tasked by the Soviet leadership in Moscow – of which their boss Yuri Andropov was now an even more important member since the fall of Leonid Brezhnev from power the previous spring – with restoring the old Soviet client regime in Damascus. Mikhail Suslov, the Party ideologue and Communist hard liner, who was in effect the new Communist Party General Secretary, did not have absolute control in Moscow, but he was now one of the more powerful voices in the Soviet regime. Suslov had only allowed the joint exercise with the Americans because his advisors told him that this was the only way that the Soviet Union could get its own boots on the ground in Syria. Akhromeyev had gone into Syria with a clear understanding from his bosses that nothing short of a return by Syria to its position as a Soviet client state was an acceptable outcome for the Kremlin. General Akhromeyev, unlike his American counterpart, gave full license to the Soviet intelligence service to do what it wanted.
The point that all this missed was that while Bayanouni was dead, and his nascent Caliphate liquidated, the inspiration that he had represented to hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of Muslims across the Middle East had not faded away. That soon became clear as the level of violence in Syria against western and Soviet troops began to rise. It began with sniping and an occasional grenade being thrown at allied forces.
Then insurgents began to operate in small units, often crossing the border from Lebanon to attack US or allied formations or bases. Lebanon was largely ignored in the Syrian operation, and this proved to be a fatal error in judgment. During his brief Caliphate Bayanouni had sent a number of disciples into Lebanon to recruit followers among the Palestinian Diaspora encamped there, and among disaffected Lebanese Muslims. They found a receptive audience. When Bayanouni’s regime fell, and Bayanouni himself was killed, the remainder of his followers melted into Lebanon and began to tell the story of the great leader’s martyrdom at the hands of infidels. The nascent Jihad soon had an abundance of new recruits, all young, zealous – and some already trained by the PLO and other Palestinian militant organizations in the use of arms. Before long they were organizing guerrilla bands to sneak back across the border to strike their blows against the infidels. The worsening situation in Cyprus, and especially the burning of mosques by the Greek Cypriot military forces, only added fire to their zeal.
A turning point came at a battle known as Petraeus’ Stand. Second Lieutenant David Petraeus of the 509th Airborne Combat team was leading a squad in support of a local meet and greet of village elders being conducted by a JAG Corps officer assigned to a civil affairs unit, a Captain William J. Clinton. While traveling between villages the American unit was attacked by guerrilla forces, and Petraeus lead a successful counterattack which saved the unit. Only one soldier, a Private Bruce Willis from New Jersey, was killed in that action. But it wasn’t long before this incident was being portrayed in Lebanon and among the Syrian population as an example of western soldiers attacking peaceful Muslims (in this version the Petraeus’ soldiers attacked peaceful travellers). Attacks soon escalated.
General Rogers tried to maintain restraint among allied troops, having learned in Vietnam the value of a measured response against an enemy who moved among the local population. Akhromeyev showed no such restraint: he ordered Soviet tanks to bombard a village from which some of his troops had been shot at. The insurgents had already fled the location, and the allied command soon had a massacre on its hands. This incident in late October, together with the Petraeus incident two weeks earlier, became the typing point as Syria opened-up into a full scale war.
As events developed in Cyprus, and the Turks stood by helplessly, and the west seemed unwilling to intervene with the same force they had used in Syria – this time to save a Muslim population – the battles in Syria became an expression of wrath over both conflicts.
For the U.S. the conflict escalated further from a political perspective just before the November elections when a reporter for the The Tennessean, who was in Syria reporting on a Tennessee National Guard unit that was a part of the U.S. force, was taken hostage by anti-western guerrillas. The reporter was Albert Gore Jr., the son of a once prominent U.S. Senator from Tennessee, Albert Gore Sr. Photos of an obviously cowed Gore Jr. tied to a chair before an Islamic banner, surrounded by masked, heavily armed men, soon appeared in various newspapers and magazines around the world. The hostage takers seemed to have some appreciation that Gore came from a prominent family, because they directed their threats to his safety to Gore senior by name.
“Gore, father of Gore, we urge you to tell your President to leave the lands of Islam. The life of your son is in our hands, and in yours. Father of Gore, tell your President who has no sons, that he must act to save yours.”
The retired Senator did in fact become a vocal opponent of the Syrian intervention.
When General Rogers had taken command of the allied force at the beginning of August he had been told that he would be withdrawing by the time of the U.S. mid-term elections in November. On November 5, 1974 he had forty U.S. casualties and a serious hostage incident on his hands, and there was no sign that any meaningful Syrian national government would be formed anytime soon.
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