Exercise Checkmate II, 1961
Diplomat Claude Roquet at the Canadian Embassy in Türkiye reported on the Turkish-Greek meeting in Alexandroupolis that discussed common defense matters to the Under-Secretary of Canadian External Affairs. While not initiated by NATO, the NATO military authorities were “particularly happy” to see better Turkish-Greek military cooperation. However, the United States Embassy found that Bulgarian relations with Greece soured as a direct result of the Alexandroupolis meeting, which had led to the withdrawal of the Greek representative in Sofia. Despite this, the United States confirmed that NATO would go ahead with Exercise Checkmate II even though it required the landing of Turkish forces on Greek soil only thirty miles from the Bulgarian border. Though, Mr. Roquet feared that the Exercise could give the Soviet bloc a “useful propaganda weapon” and hoped that, by notifying External Affairs, Canadian officials could resolve these potential political tensions before they burst [CDEX00748].
Nevertheless, an urgent correspondence was passed from NATO headquarters to External Affairs on August 23rd, 1961, in light of leaked reports of Exercise Checkmate appearing in Soviet press. Headquarters scrambled to get ahead of the propaganda by publishing a press release stressing the routine nature of the exercise as soon as possible. The release also discussed the location of planned NATO maneuvers and the nationalities that would be involved [CDEX00757].
Despite NATO’s attempts to handle the situation, on August 30th the Soviet representative in Athens charged Greece with the “dangerous aggressive plans” of NATO in the Balkans and noted that the Soviet Union would not be responsible for any consequences on Bulgaria’s part that may result from “such hostile demonstrations.” The Greek Deputy Minister repeated the general sentiments laid out in NATO’s press release and said he would discuss later if the nature of the exercise changed [CDEX00764]. On September 2nd, Bulgarian Charge d’Affaires Mr. Lambrev paid a visit to his Greek counterpart, Mr. Averoff-Tossitza. Mr. Lambrev emphasized the gravity of Greece’s participation in the NATO exercise. He felt Exercise Checkmate targeted Bulgaria and suggested that such demonstrations would soon be “realized under conditions of eventual nuclear war,” and threatened to involve the Warsaw Pact if Greece did not put an end to Exercise Checkmate. Mr. Averoff-Tossitza replied that he would not accept his request in light of Bulgaria’s series of unprovoked attacks on Greece in the last year, but stressed that Greece had no intention of going to war with Bulgaria in the future [CDEX00771].
Fortunately for Bulgaria and NATO, Exercise Checkmate proceeded with few military or political issues, despite a Dutch aircraft accidentally flying into East Germany without the Soviets noticing [CDEX00777].