The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2011

24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 1 man hand, “they were consciously downgraded in favor of the more modern approaches; i.e., manage- ment and various technical spe- cialties.” Testing the Limits of Transparency The Watergate scandal domi- nated the political scene from 1973 to Nixon’s resignation in Au- gust 1974. Its shadow loomed over the Ford adminis- tration, putting the issue of accountability at the forefront of American foreign policy and presidential power, and revealing the absurdity of Nixon’s claims to be a candid and honest president who wished to create an open White House in which dissenting views would be welcome. Watergate became the exemplum of the “imperial presidency” and abuse of executive privilege that former government officials, journalists and aca- demics identified and denounced, thus shaping the his- torical legacy of the Nixon administration for decades to come. In the midst of this backlash against the imperial pres- idency, a public debate over a Dissent Channel message became the exception to the new earnestness in chal- lenging the abuse of executive power. For what it reveals about the limits of post-Watergate reform, particularly in terms of transparency in foreign policy, the case is worth illuminating in some detail. In 1975, the House Select Committee on Intelli- gence, also known as the Pike Committee (for its chair, Representative Otis Pike, D-N.Y.), began to investigate the process of gathering intelligence and making deci- sions in recent foreign affairs crises. As part of its inquiry, it subpoenaed an official dissent memo on U.S. foreign policy in Cyprus. The memo had been written in August 1974 by Thomas Boyatt, who had served as chief of the Cyprus desk during the coup in which the Greek military junta had overthrown the Cypriot president. Before the coup, Boyatt had sent a series of messages through the regular cable channels, predicting that continued passive support for the rebels would result in an overthrow of the Cypriot government, giving Turkey an excuse to invade the island on behalf of the Turkish minority there. Events played out according to his dire predictions. Months of war in the region re- sulted in the eventual partition of Cyprus between Turkish and Greek enclaves still in existence today. In his Dissent Channel mes- sage, Boyatt argued that Washing- ton could and should have done more to prevent the coup — specifically, by informing General Dimitrios Ioannides, the head of the Greek military junta and mastermind of the coup, that the United States did not support his plan and warn- ing him that it would lead to serious hostilities between Greece and Turkey. Yet in line with the administration’s passive attitude toward the Greek junta, the American ambassador in Athens, Henry Tasca, had resisted his sub- ordinates’ calls to this end. After the coup, Boyatt argued, the U.S. could have done more to prevent the Turkish invasion, by putting pressure on Greece to remove Nikos Sampson, who had taken over in Cyprus. But again, following the policy of passivity endorsed in Washington, the American ambas- sador did no such thing, thus making Turkey’s interven- tion inevitable. Boyatt critiqued the policy of partition, arguing that it did not solve the fundamental problem and warning that it was only a matter of time before the current instability erupted into renewed violence. Loyalty to Subordinates Experts on Cyprus generally agree that then National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was willfully ignorant of the area’s complex political dy- namic. “He knew nothing about Cyprus and did not bother to inform himself,” wrote George Ball, who had been critical in preventing such a disaster in the Johnson administration. Almost immediately after reading Boy- att’s dissent memo, Kissinger had Boyatt removed from the Cyprus desk. In so doing, he sent Boyatt and other would-be dissenters a clear message about the conse- quences of voicing opposition to the administration’s poli- cies. Yet, just as Macomber and others had originally pre- sented the Dissent Channel to the public in a rather rosy light, so did Kissinger now present his relationship with internal dissenters in a way that masked his actual hostil- ity toward them. In a letter to the Pike Committee, he F O C U S As its inaugural message demonstrates, the Dissent Channel reveals the limits of dissent in the diplomatic establishment.