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SIGINT IN THE SUN - GCHQ'S OVERSEAS EMPIRE 163
of territory, and eventually settled for ninety-nine square miles. 61
By this time the aerials and antennae of the largest sigint base
on Cyprus, Ayios Nikolaos, had begun to encroach on the municipal
area of Famagusta itself. The ruler of Cyprus, Archbishop
Makarios, protested, and GCHQ agreed that it could retreat a
little without serious damage to its operations. 62
The main problem for GCHQ was that the two Cyprus
Sovereign Base Areas were increasingly expensive to run. This
partly reflected an ongoing insurgency by a guerrilla force known
as EOKA, which wanted unification or 'enosis' with Greece.
Matters were made worse by the intense divisions between the
Greek and Turkish communities on Cyprus. As a result, the
security of the two sigint stations required a minimum land
force garrison, including a heavy RAF presence. GCHQ's extensive
aerial farms were also vulnerable to sabotage. However,
once the Chiefs of Staff had accepted that the major bases 'must
be retained because of the SIGINT facilities', other things
followed. Typically, the RAF decided to keep its main regional
stockpile of nuclear weapons, code-named 'Tuxedo', at Dhekelia.
In other words, while the Cyprus garrison was not there solely
for sigint, it was the sigint facilities that made it irreplaceable. 63
The periodic outbreaks of inter-communal strife on Cyprus led
to questions from the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home,
who asked in December 1963 whether Britain really needed
bases there. Peter Thorneycroft, the Defence Secretary,
responded with an unqualified yes, explaining that Cyprus
'houses most important SIGINT stations and it also provided a
base from which special reconnaissance flights are carried out'.
Thorneycroft said that while most of the other activities could
be relocated, intelligence was the sticking point, since it was
'not considered that SIGINT facilities could be adequately
replaced elsewhere'. 64
The impact of GCHQ's work in the Middle East is best illustrated
by the Yemen Civil War. This conflict had its origins in
a coup by the leader of Yemen's republican faction, Abdullah
as-Sallal, who overthrew the newly crowned Imam al-Badr in