The Parable of the Blue Beads

There was once a sultan with a harem of jealous wives. Being a wise man, the sultan secretly gave to each wife a blue bead. When they sought proof of his affection, he would say, "I love the one who has the blue bead." Thus he was able to live happily ever after.

In Washington last week, both Turkey's Premier Ismet Inoenue, 79, and Greece's Premier George Papandreou, 76, wondered just who had President Lyndon Johnson's blue bead. They had come separately to the White House after the Cyprus crisis hotted up early this month when Turkey prepared to invade the island rather than allow enosis--the union of Greece and Cyprus. Putting his prestige as an international mediator on the line, Johnson conferred first with Inoenue. A wizened, wily little old man, Inoenue tried to enlist U.S. support for the Turkish plan to partition Cyprus, and had no basic objection to Johnson's suggestion that the Greeks and Turks settle their differences in bilateral talks.

President Johnson was considerably less successful with Greece's Papandreou, who bluntly rejected a proposed meeting with Inoenue, and implied that U.S. interference in the dispute was only marginally useful in view of the United Nations' mediation efforts. Stung by this response, State Department officials let it be known that they sympathized with the Turks' plight, and hinted that Washington might no longer be able to prevent a Turkish invasion of Cyprus, which would almost certainly precipitate war with Greece.

As both leaders headed for home, it was obvious that Johnson's mediation effort had failed. During his New York stopover, Turkey's, Inoenue commented that nothing could be settled about Cyprus "until the U.S. takes a stand" for either one side or the other. But rather than risk choosing between two NATO partners, the U.S. quickly returned the Cyprus hot potato to the U.N., which recently voted to continue its peace-keeping operation on the island for an additional three months.

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