"UN Peace-keeping in Cyprus"

   Brigadier Harbottle was Chief of Staff for 26 months to Lieutenant General Armas Martola of Finland, Commander of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Cyprus (June 1966-August 1968). His account of his experiences, sponsored by Chatham House, is a very well-written and thoughtful book. In addition to a personal account, he gives a good view of the organizational, logistics, and political aspects of a very tricky assignment. The result is a volume which is both readable and valuable, containing numerous suggestions for future peacekeeping efforts.

   Few military operations are more difficult than one like this, in which contingents from six countries were called upon to maintain peace among larger forces yearning to get at each other. The UN Force of about 4,000 stood between a Greek force of 950 and a Turkish Force of 650, both legally on the island by treaty agreement between the two. But there was also a Turkish Cypriot irregular force of about 10,000 with about a thousand Turkish regular troops, a Greek army force of about 7,000 which had come in secretly, and a Greek Cypriot National Guard of about 30,000 officered from the Greek regular army. Great credit is due to all concerned with the UN effort to keep peace in this situation and very great credit to Harbottle for his modest and lucid account of how it was done.

-- CARROLL QUIGLEY
Georgetown University