Between East and West

     If there were a competition for the greatest international hatred in the world, the winners would probably be Greece and Turkey. Admittedly the competition would be heavy. When I was in Turkey I listened to vehement attacks on U.S. support for Greece, and in Greece to the reverse. The U.S.cannot win. Hoda Makar is the wife of Hoover National Fellow Seth Sanders, whose family came from the island of Chios. I told her that Victor Hugo had written a famous poem about the Turkish massacre of its inhabitants, and WAIS Fellow John Anton, a distinguished Hellenist, has sent me information about Hugo's Hellenophilia, similar to Byron's. The Greeks still dreams of Istambul as Constantinople, and lament that after World War I the Allies did not carry out their plan to give it to Greece. There must be some research on that topic, but I do not have it. ("By jingo, the Russians shall not have Constantinople!")
     There is a symmetrical hatred of Turkey among the Kurds, but they have no Byron or Hugo and little efffective international support. However, their present plight will not continue indefinitely, although heaven knows what will happen. Turkey's alignment with a major power, Germany, did not help it in World War I. Will its present alignment with the U.S. serve it better?

Ronald Hilton - 12/20/98