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An Answer in Anger. As soon as he was in the air, the pilot of the Greek Airlines plane which had waited for Makarios at Nicosia airport radioed the news of the arrest to Greece. In Athens Premier Constantine Karamanlis called together a government council, which decided to recall Greece's Ambassador to Britain and in structed Greece's permanent representative to the U.N. to register a protest with the U.N. As the news traveled through
Athens, thousands of Greeks surged through Constitution Square, bearing aloft Greek flags and shouting anti-British slogans. The entire Athens police force (3,000 men) could not prevent angry Greeks from smashing windows and tearing down signs from British buildings or ripping the tires of the British-owned municipal trolleys.
Meeting in emergency session, the Greek Orthodox Church's Holy Synod cabled appeals to churches throughout the world, including its "sister church of Russia," which it called on to "display its traditionally strong protection, and use every power and influence" to end Makarios' exile. A general strike paralyzed Cyprus, while British paratroopers broke up small demonstrations with tear gas.
In London British military men confided to newsmen that the Eden government had made its move in the conviction that Israel and the Arab states will be at war within 90 days and that Cyprus must then be transformed into a vital military base. It would need a turn of events of this magnitude to justify what now Deemed to be one of the most muddleheaded decisions of Prime Minister Eden's indecisive tenure.