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316 TURBULENCE AND TERROR
messages of sympathy to the wives of Gordon Banner and
Charles Turner.53 In Istanbul the leftists protested against the
death of so many of their fighters with a series of bombings
around the city on 30 March and again on 5 April,54
It was only on 5 April, when Embassy officials received the
personal effects of the three GCHQ staff from their apartment
at Unye, that they discovered a lengthy ransom note left by the
kidnappers. The other five GCHQ technicians, who had been
held briefly but not taken, were security-conscious, and had
thrown scattered papers, including the ransom note, into a desk
and locked it. American officials observed that the existence of
the note had been kept a secret, and it had not been shown to
the families. They added that 'its late discovery is embarrassing
to the British Embassy'. The last section of the overlooked
ransom note read:
*
As our Peoples Revolutionary Vanguard we, expressing with
action this wish and protest say: if it is wished that in the
Turkey of 1972 a single patriots or vanguard warrior's life
should be ended by the rope of oligarchy, the Peoples
Revolutionary Vanguard, that is us, will liquidate with
bullets these British agents also.
If we may put it briefly: For saving the lives of these
British agents who work for NATO, the military organ of
Anglo-American Imperialism, the chief enemy of the people
of the world, our conditions are plain.
The executions will be called off immediately.
*
Richard Fyjis-Walker, the British Counsellor, commented that
while the late discovery of the note was embarrassing, had it
been found earlier it would not have changed the course of
events. More embarrassing was a further discovery made by
British intelligence officers who were working with GCHQ to
investigate the incident. It turned out that the kidnappers had
enjoyed easy access to the GCHQ technicians because they 'had
the misfortune to be living above the local cell leader of the