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“” “” I remember the Greek vs Turk Cypriot war in 1974. I was living in a dorm of international students, one of whom was Turkish. She said to our group ‘I hope you are all for the Turks!’. I clearly remember being a supporter of the Greeks. I had no idea of the atrocities.”” “”

— Lyndon B. Johnson, Context: ##ck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked good... We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament and constitution, he, his parliament and his constitution may not last long... Comment to the Greek ambassador to Washington, Alexander Matsas, over the Cyprus two-state solution in June 1964.

And Nixon was even more of a Turk cheerleader than LBJ.

A coup had just overthrown the government of Archbishop Makarios on Cyprus and the Turks used the fear that the government of Greece would try to unite Cyprus with Greece as a pretext for their invasion, occupying a third of the island and forcing all the Greek Cypriots in that part of the island to flee from their homes. The only good result was that the dictatorship in Greece was overthrown in the aftermath.

A few years ago I met an American professor who was living in Cyprus in 2001. She was fluent in Greek and living happily there but she was warned after 9/11 to leave. I suppose it was because of resentment over the US government's failure to take the Greek Cypriots' side in 1974.

I was in Greece for a few days while the dictatorship was in power and had a conversation on the acropolis with an American nurse who had recently entered Greece from Turkey. She was an African-American (light complexioned). She told me that the Greek border officials had beaten her up claiming that she was a Turkish woman smuggling drugs. That's not a slam on Greeks generally but on the kind of people who were working for the dictatorship--assuming the woman was telling me the truth but I have no reason to think she was lying.

I knew much more about Landslide Lyndon than most people.

Got an early education from a family friend who was an Asst. AG in Texas. He served under 7-8 administrations. He loathed Lyndon. Every time he came to town to see his father (who was a local doctor and a state representative) he would stop at my grandfather’s home (a congregation point for many) and have a shot of whiskey and tell my grandfather everything that was going on in Austin.

Had another relative in Whittier CA who was a die hard Nixon Fan.

What you wrote about Johnson would fit his lack of character and his personality well. I’m not in a position to know if what you said was really something LBJ said.

There are tales and then there are tall tales and then there is conspiracy theory. Some of them are true. Not all.