The Assassination of the US Ambassador in Cyprus (1974)

By Evangelos Venetis, Expert on Islam and the Middle East…

Attila II, i.e. the manifestation of the second Turkish invasion of Cyprus on the eve of the major Christian Orthodox commemoration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 14, 1974, resulted in the increase of the territories occupied by Turkey by 7% of the total territory of Cyprus by Attila I ( 20.7.1974) at 37%. The Greek coup d’etat by Ioannidis against Makarios and the two-phase Turkish invasion constitute the two main parameters of the Cypriot tragedy of the summer of 1974. Part of the Greek public in Greece and Cyprus blamed the US for its tolerance of the Turkish invasion and the destabilization of Cyprus. The consequence of the Greek coup against Makarios and the Turkish invasion was the disruption of security and the polarization of public opinion in Cyprus. It was in this context that the death of the American ambassador to Cyprus Roger Paul Davis (1921-1974) in Nicosia took place on 19.8.1974.

Davis, an Arabicist, who until 1970 served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asia, was appointed Ambassador to Nicosia in May 1973, but reportedly took up his duties with a regular physical presence in Nicosia three days prior to the Ioannidis-Sampson coup against Makarios (15.7.1974). It was on 12.7.1974 that Davis re-assured Makarios that the US did not support any attempt against the disruption of order in Cyprus.

Davis’s death occurred, five days after the start of Attila II, by Greek Cypriot gunmen during a Greek anti-American demonstration outside the US embassy in Nicosia, on the occasion of the US not preventing the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. The demonstration of 300-600 Greek Cypriots against the American embassy demanding the suspension of Attila II quickly turned violent with a series of shootings against the American embassy. At the start of the shooting, Davis was in the yard of the embassy compound and tried to cover himself, but died instantly when a bullet hit him in the heart. Along with him the 31-year-old Antoinette Barnabas, a ten-year-old US embassy staffer died too.

Davis was the third incumbent U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty, and six more would follow, the last one Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya in 2012. Of particular interest is the fact that of the nine American ambassadors killed, except the case of Guatemala, seven succumbed to areas and developments related to Palestine and the Islamic world and one to the geographically close Cyprus issue. The assassination of Davis demonstrates on the one hand the geopolitical importance of the developments in Cyprus in relation to the Palestinian Issue, on the other hand the rise of anti-Americanism amongst Greeks. Washington immediately replaced Davis in Nicosia with the US ambassador to Yemen, William Crawford Jr., trying in vain to control the wave of Greek anti-Americanism.