Correspondents' Correspondence

...All that its patrons—ranging from university students to business executives, with a smattering of Japanese hippies thrown in—have in common is a liking for good coffee and classical music...

...After the 1967 coup, successive military governments had encouraged American businessmen to invest in Greece, and had provided port facilities for the U.S...

...Ironically, among Ankara's first objections to enosis was the difficulty it would face if Athens and Nicosia should be under the same Leftist government...

...This is the single greatest pleasure in my life now," says the bespectacled, scholarly-looking Isao...

...Yet that is unlikely, given L'ambre's long history and the ongoing popularity of coffee houses here...

...Deciphering Cyprus New York—The delicate balance that the United States has been forced to maintain between Greece and Turkey during their confrontation over Cyprus starkly reveals the pre-cariousness of the American position in the Mediterranean today...

...used Turkish bases without consulting Ankara) and the 1962 Cuban crisis (when Washington treated Turkish bases as expendable pawns), the Turks came to doubt the value of the American alliance...

...During the 1964 strife, the U.S...

...Perhaps more important, while in Athenian exile during the early '50s, Makarios had been linked with the Greek Center of George Papandreou and with the Left, because the ruling Right under Constantine Cara-manlis was trying to discourage popular concern about Cyprus for fear it would hinder Greek entry into nato...

...On Cyprus, the powerful Communist party was more than willing to support the island's independence...

...supported this proposal but refused to give Ankara any assurances when the USSR threatened to intervene against a planned Turkish landing on Cyprus...

...Sixth Fleet to Turkish ports have become increasingly rare—and have often led to disputes...

...Geopolitical constraints on U.S...

...That agreement, signed by Greece, Turkey and Britain, provided strict constitutional safeguards for the protection of the 18 per cent Turkish minority on the island, most of whom lived in enclaves effectively under the control of Ankara...

...Already smarting over U.S...

...policy in the 1958 Lebanon crisis (when the U.S...

...To the extent that Japan's coffee houses—numbering about 100,000 throughout the country?reflect the upbeat tempo of contemporary times, L'ambre remains a monument to the past...

...Originally this group had a veto power over the decisions of the Cypriote government, which ruled the areas inhabited by the 82 per cent Greek majority...

...For one thing, Greece had lower standards of living and literacy, yet union would relegate the island to the status of a remote province...

...But the junta clearly enjoyed less support than a democratic regime would have, as evidenced by Senator Henry Jackson's call for suspension of military aid to the colonels...

...Besides music, many of these establishments offer attractions like art works, stained glass windows, bathing facilities, and cots for napping...

...And Turkey was exempt from the Arab oil cutback, receiving supplies from pro-Soviet Iraq as part of the two countries' cooperative effort to quash Kurdish revolts along their mutual border...

...One even operates in conjunction with a clothing store, allowing customers to sip coffee and watch fashion shows...

...Located on Tokyo's famed Ginza, L'ambre seats over 300 persons on three intimate levels...

...was denied use of Turkish facilities to aid Israel...

...Everybody is in too big a hurry...

...The source of Isao's happiness is the vast selection of classical records at L'ambre, one of the last bastions of such music among Tokyo's approximately 4,000 coffee houses...

...Stephen Oren Coffee and Symphony Tokyo—Every day promptly at 3 p.m., an elderly Japanese gentleman walks into a coffee shop here, sits down at the same table and spreads out a musical score...

...Last October, during the Arab-Israeli conflict, Greece also afforded a haven for American citizens fleeing the Middle East...

...officials privately welcomed the transfer of power to Makarios' long-time associate Glafkos Clerides in Nicosia, and the return from exile of Caramanlis to form a civilian government in Athens...

...No matter how skillful the mediating, however, it is as difficult to see any resolution of the struggle that will aid the long-suffering Cypriotes as it is to see a solution that will not further complicate the American position in the eastern Mediterranean...

...could do in UN debates and public statements was give the benefit of the doubt to both Sampson and Greek strongman Demetrios loannides...

...Despite remaining a nato member, Ankara has improved its relations with Moscow and the non-aligned nations...

...on the one hand and.of Turkish air fields and ground forces to nato on the other made it imperative to move the belligerents to the negotiating table without irreconcilably antagonizing either one...

...Now, my customers still seek the music, but they don't seem to have so much time...

...From the moment it was learned that Archbishop Makarios had been overthrown by Greek officers of the Cypriote National Guard (under the control of the military junta in Athens), Washington tried to avoid "tilting" toward either the ousted President or the pro-enosis (union with Greece) newspaper publisher Nikos Giorgiades Sampson, who served briefly as the insurgents' head of state...

...Indeed, the extent to which most domestic and world opinion rallied around Makarios following his escape from Cyprus and his appearance at the UN further restricted Kissinger's already narrow room for diplomatic maneuvering...

...Sixth Fleet...

...One hand—pale, frail, delicate of finger—waves as if conducting an orchestra, the other adroitly turns the score, and his whole body sways with the music...

...Classical music was once common in these establishments, but in keeping with current trends and the taste of younger customers, the majority today feature popular songs or hard rock...

...I suppose this place is outdated," muses 40-year-old Tadashi Mori, who manages a chain of eight coffee houses, including L'ambre...

...As the sounds of a classical Western symphony rise in the background, a rapt expression comes over his face and he drifts off into a world of his own...

...In terms of pure self-interest, the importance of the Greek naval bases to the U.S...

...In the old days," recalls Mori, "people would spend five or six hours here listening...

...Such actions had created a formidable pro-Athens lobby in Washington...

...The most the U.S...

...He is Adachi Isao, a 72-year-old former banker who has been making his daily appearance at this coffee shop to direct the recorded symphony of his choice since his retirement in 1955...

...The USSR, in turn, has moved closer to the Turks on the Cyprus issue...

...But increasing ethnic strife led to complete separatism in 1964, when UN forces were brought in to keep the peace...

...It still opposes partition, but it has stopped supporting enosis as a means of getting the Greeks out of nato, and it now favors the island's continued independence...

...But U.S...

...L'ambre is his favorite and he spends most of his working time there, even though he says "the other shops are more profitable," because their popular music not only draws more customers but a larger percentage of those who tend to purchase liquor...

...diplomacy in the region contributed not only to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's inability to dissuade Ankara from invading the island, but also to the difficulty he encountered in arranging a cease-fire...

...Certainly, none of the others is more distinctive...

...Everybody, that is, except Adachi Isao.?Arnold Abrams...

...It has offered only classical music since opening some 20 years ago...

...After Makarios became President of Cyprus in 1960, he suspected Right-wing Greek governments of plotting to make a deal with Turkey...

...Requests are encouraged, and Isao, whose choices receive top priority during his regular visiting hours, says the selection is so wide, "sometimes it is difficult to decide what to ask for...

...During the Yom Kippur War, Soviet planes were allowed to overfly Turkish territory to resupply the Egyptian and Syrian Armies, while the U.S...

...The Turkish government, however, recognizing that the coup represented more than an internal conflict among Greek Cypriotes, decided to assert its rights as one of the three guaranteeing powers under the 1960 Zurich Treaty establishing Cyprus as an independent binational state...

...Everything in our society is louder and faster these days, especially music...

...thus the 1967 military coup in Athens ended any interest he ever had in merging with Greece...

...At L'ambre, however, good music will remain the primary appeal...

...For another, as Archbishop of Nicosia he ranked sixth in the hierarchy of Eastern Orthodoxy, and to become part of the state-controlled Greek Church?subordinate to civil and ecclesiastical parvenues in Athens—would indeed be a comedown...

...In addition to insisting on Cypriote independence from Greece, Turkey has long advocated formally partitioning the island into separate ethnic zones...

...At the same time that U.S.-Turkish relations have been deteriorating —a process marked most recently by Premier Bulent Ecevit's decision to permit the resumption of opium poppy cultivation—U.S.-Greek relations have been improving...

...Isao worries, too, that "somehow all this will be taken from me...

...Though President Makarios was once associated with the enosis movement, after the British left he turned into a champion of Cypriote independence...

...Visits of the U.S...

...Well, I like the old ways better, and I try to preserve them—in this shop at least...