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TURMOIL ON CYPRUS 331
their country. At a stroke, the United States lost the use of
numerous intelligence-gathering facilities which had cost tens of
millions of dollars to create and had been staffed by literally thousands
of operatives. This was an earthquake in the sigint world,
and the net result was that NSA became more dependent on
CypruS. 43 Kissinger regarded the loss of the Thrkish bases as nothing
short of 'a disaster'.44 NSA's relations with Thrkey had been difficult
for some time. During the 1960s the deal had been that NSA
would help Thrkey to expand its own sigint capability in return
for access to 'certain intelligence sites'. However, by the early
1970s the cost of sigint assistance to Thrkey was rising 'astronomically'.
The Americans had tried to revise the agreement, but
this had been indignantly rejected by Ankara. 45
In February 1975 Sir John Aiken was told that British forces
on Cyprus were not going home after all. However, the island
was now reshaped into an intelligence-only base. This meant
the sigint, communications and radar facilities would stay,
together with airfields to provide a foothold for British and
American intelligence-gathering aircraft. Beyond this, the only
other forces remaining were those required to defend them. In
practice this meant about a thousand personnel, including two
hundred civilians from GCHQ. 46 The search for economies was
a strain for GCHQ, with quite a few duties being done by staff
on short visits, and there was a struggle to find volunteers. 47
Little of the cost of staying on Cyprus appears to have been
drawn from the intelligence budget. 48 The British were now
keen to assist the Americans in using all the facilities in Cyprus.
In April 1975 America requested spy flights to investigate Soviet
arms shipments to Syria via the ports of Latakia and Tartus.
These needed to be launched frequently and at short notice,
yet there was 'no suitable US programme that would provide
the intelligence'. Predictably, British intelligence officers were
delighted to offer a Cyprus-based operation, and explained that:
*
When faced with attempting to provide some return for
the enormous amounts of intelligence material provided