of North and South America, exercised an equally powerful voice. He was born Demetrios Koukouzis on the Aegean island of Imbros in the Ottoman Empire in 1911 and came to the United States when he was twenty-eight years old. He was ordained a priest in 1940 and became archbishop in 1959; he would serve in that post until his resignation in 1996. A strong supporter of the civil rights movement, Iakovos joined hands with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Selma march in March 1965. He appears next to King in the iconic photo at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
On Friday, July 26, the archbishop telephoned Congressman John Brademas, one of only five Greek Americans in the House of Representatives. Brademas, a Rhodes scholar, had become the first Greek American member of Congress when he was elected to the House in 1958, and he was now the spokesman for this small group of representatives. The archbishop expressed his concern about the buildup of Turkish forces on the island. Iakovos seemed to be out ahead of the Indiana congressman, who knew few details and initially argued that Turkey’s actions were justified, given the coup against Makarios. Iakovos told Brademas that the Greek Orthodox Church could not look the other way when humanitarian issues were involved. From the outset, he also believed that the United States had encouraged the Turks to invade Cyprus. Brademas promised to contact the archbishop again on Monday, after his meeting with the other Greek American congressmen and a possible briefing at the State Department.26 That same day (July 26), Brademas and his Greek American colleagues—Skip Bafalis (R-FL), Peter Kyros (D-ME), Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), and Gus Yatron (D-PA)—sent a congratulatory note to Prime Minister Karamanlis, praising Greece’s return to free and democratic political institutions.27
In recent years, the Greek American community had split over how to relate to the military regime in Athens. Those who opposed the junta and wanted to cut US arms to Greece organized groups such as the US Committee for Democracy in Greece to lobby the US government. Others tolerated the junta and seemed content to carry on business as usual, just as the Nixon administration had done. With the junta’s disappearance, they could all unite in their criticism of Turkey’s actions in Cyprus.28
As arranged, Brademas spoke again with Iakovos and shared what he had learned at the State Department about the situation on Cyprus. He assured the archbishop that he and the other Greek American congressmen would work together on behalf of Cyprus. He suggested that Iakovos and other Greek American leaders write to officials in Washington to protest the continuing Turkish buildup on the island.29
Iakovos was one step ahead of the Indiana congressman, having called an important meeting for Tuesday, July 30, in New York City, where he resided. He convened the Archdiocesan Council and the presidents of many Greek American federations and societies at the St. Moritz Hotel in Manhattan. The gathering’s purpose was to organize and take immediate action to bring relief to the people of Cyprus. The archbishop was clearly in charge. After much discussion, it was unanimously decided that he would appoint members to a committee to coordinate assistance. He would also select a representative in each state to organize a local committee to expedite the national program’s work. The attendees decided to ask Congress to cut off all aid to Turkey if that nation had not complied with the UN cease-fire resolution within thirty days.30
Kissinger struggled amid the rising chorus of ethnic protest. On August 21, 20,000 Greek Americans marched in Chicago’s Grant Park. AHEPA sent circulars to all its chapters instructing them to send telegrams asking their congressmen to cosponsor House Resolution 1319, calling for an aid cutoff. On August 18 AHEPA’s annual convention opened in Boston, and over the next week, delegates representing the organization’s 50,000 members focused on Cyprus and what they considered the failed policies of the Nixon and Ford administrations. On August 21 a delegation visited UN headquarters to meet with Undersecretary-General Frank Bradley Morse to express their concerns. Two days later, AHEPA supreme president William P. Tsaffaras and two other delegates met with the secretary of state in Washington to hear his defense of US policy. They reported a subdued Kissinger who blamed the US failure to respond to the threatened Turkish invasion on the disordered situation in Washington, with one president on the point of resigning and another unelected president about to take office. The delegates told him that if justice for Cyprus were not forthcoming, AHEPA members and Greek Americans in general would turn their anger against the president. “We will know what to do in the next election,” they warned.31
Kissinger introduced the delegates to the new US ambassador to Greece, Jack Kubisch. On the spur of the moment, in response to an invitation from the delegates, Kissinger told the ambassador to go to Boston immediately and speak to the convention. He did, and for a moment, Kubisch became a symbol of the new administration’s good intentions.32
On August 24, the final day of the conference, AHEPA took two important steps. It voted to raise $100,000 through its many chapters to continue to seek justice for Cyprus. It also approved the creation of an ad hoc Justice for Cyprus Committee to lead the campaign.33
It is little wonder that the Ford administration often seemed overwhelmed at the extent and vociferousness of these lobbying efforts. Activists seemed to be everywhere, sending postcards and telegrams; placing ads in local, regional, and national newspapers; and sponsoring rallies for Cyprus. Gerald Ford had assumed the presidency in the middle of the Cyprus crisis, and he had no time to ponder this issue or any of the others he had inherited from his predecessor. He had little choice but to retain most of Nixon’s appointees, even if their personalities clashed with his own, such as that of Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. In time, these awkward relationships would be resolved. Fortunately, Ford worked well with Kissinger, who was delighted to continue his tenure as secretary of state and national security adviser.
President Ford, Secretary of State Kissinger, and other top State Department officials met on numerous occasions with the AHEPA committee, Archbishop Iakovos, and delegations of congressmen who supported an embargo. The administration tried to be patient, but increasingly it came to view the Greek American activists as representing a special interest, to the detriment of the broader American interest. The executive needed to have a relatively free hand to negotiate with foreign countries, and the White House believed that an embargo would make the Turks less amenable to compromise. President Ford liked to tell visitors that he was a member of the AHEPA chapter in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and that he counted a number of Greek Americans there as his friends. But these connections were of little help to him in Washington.
When President Ford appeared on television and stated that “our foreign policy cannot be simply a collection of special economic or ethnic or ideological interests … the executive must have flexibility in the conduct of foreign policy,” AHEPA responded with a challenge. “One can only assume,” it said, “that the President believes that Americans of Greek descent need to be ‘put in their place’ and that we should be reprimanded for voicing our opinions on the Cyprus matter! … Is foreign policy the sole possession of one, two, or twenty men?”34
In part, the president was grappling with a new phenomenon spawned by the civil rights movement: an ethnic revival that exhibited nationalist fervor whenever issues related to the homeland cried out “for emotional involvement.” For many, ethnicity had become a social good. As historian Salim Yaqub recently wrote, “By 1970, it was much safer and more acceptable for people with dark complexions, strange names, and in some cases foreign accents to criticize the United States … boasting their own long heritage of stable and industrious ethnic communities in America.” This movement was a protest against “the very fabric of WASP culture,” and in this case, President Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and even Secretary Kissinger represented the WASP establishment, which was trying to dictate how Greek Americans should behave. But that minority was not going to be shamed into silence.35
At the local level, too, new activist groups sprang into existence around the country to pursue goals similar to those of the national organizations. In Minneapolis–St. Paul, for example, a group calling itself the Minnesota Friends of Cyprus (MFC) actively engaged these issues in the Twin Cities, seeking
