by Anne Conover
On the return journey, she again stopped over in Beirut and wrote to Rossides: “What a pleasure to see you in Nicosia, and how delightful to have another visit with His Beatitude.” She was giving considerable thought to the status of World Man:
If I understood you correctly, you think World Man should raise the necessary money before the land is transferred by the Cyprus Government. For my part, I think the land should be deeded to and accepted by the World Man Center, contingent upon our raising the money. This may seem like a minor difference to you, but it is a major difference to me. I would have much more difficulty getting the consent of artists and others to donate works to be auctioned if I did not have a document from the Government of Cyprus transferring a specific piece of land. I don’t think that any artist—even my good friends—would contribute their work to be auctioned off without such a document.
She ended the letter prophetically, “I am impatient, there is so little time.”
Caresse’s host in Beirut, John Fistere, wrote to Philip Isely in Denver: “I am not sure exactly what I promised Caresse I would do in connection with the World Constitutional Convention, but what ever I said I would do, I will most certainly try to do. It is so easy to promise Caresse anything.”
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In May, she heard from John McHale in Carbondale:
I have nothing to report from the WAAS. . . . My colleagues in the World Academy have assumed that the project has been abandoned in view of the involvements of Cyprus in the present Middle East crisis. . . . I can appreciate your disappointment after the time and energy you have expended in this venture, but I am sure that the personal idealism which this reflects will find some equally worthwhile undertaking in our presently troubled world. . . .
Caresse was indeed relieved to keep the World Academy of Art and Science out of the picture. “WAAS’s interest, I believe, is not wholly for One World led by artists, poets, and humanitarians of the earth, but may have a complicated political bias.” Michael Lekakis supported her stand:
I am not altogether convinced that something is there for artists—World Man seems to be a peace project. World Man artists can have a voice if organizable people will let them. The nature of creativity is against it. Lao Tze said the best government is possible when no-one wants to govern. Under present conditions, everyone wants to govern.
She proposed, as an alternative, representatives of other international organizations—the League for the Rights of Man, the Fellowship of World Citizens, the International Court of Justice at The Hague, the Humanist Society, followers of Gandhi for non-violence, the University Round Table, Parliamentarians for World Government, the Committee for a World Constitutional Convention, and the Cypriot Development and Tourism Office—with Archbishop Makarios and Rossides as over-all guardians of the project. Each of these groups or units would be given part of the 68 hectares of land, and leaders in each of the special fields would seek funds to construct their own units, using Cypriot labor. “It is to be hoped that U Thant could start a training school on Cyprus for a world police force, which has always been envisaged by those planning for eventual world government.”
In a letter to Rossides, Caresse outlined her grandiose plan for an art center, a world library, a world institute of research “to feed and house the exploding population of the earth,” and a “one-world basilica for the religious and humanist expressions of mankind . . . under Bucky’s dome.”
“Why not announce that all Cyprus will be ceded to World Man,” she suggested, “giving to the artists and scientists of the world the opportunity to work out Man’s destiny, free from the conflicting ideologies on Cyprus? President Makarios would go down in history as the greatest World Citizen of them all.” (Lord Bertrand Russell, Mrs. Rajan Nehru, and Professor Linus Pauling were among the 13 world leaders who had signed up, at that date, with World Man.)
Meanwhile, the island continued to fulfill its historic destiny as a place of conflict, with the Greek Cypriot struggle taking place against the backdrop of the broader crisis in the Middle East, the civil war in Lebanon. At the United Nations Assembly, Cyprus was an active member of the Afro-Asian group (though there could be no one more European than the chief Cypriot delegate, Zenon Rossides). The Archbishop attended two summit conferences with the nonaligned countries, and developed a close relationship with President Nasser of the United Arab Republic. Makarios’s policies were not popular with Turkey, Greece, or the United States, all of which supported NATO. But Caresse herself backed the Archbishop. “As President Makarios said to the press, the Center will help the inevitable trend toward One World accord.”
She wrote to Rossides that “This World Man territory is to be protected by a United Nations police force and kept free from all national interference by NATO forces; not to be stationed on Cyprus.” In her view, Cyprus would be a good testing ground for the disarmament agreements between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. “It will undoubtedly have to be One World or none, and time grows short.” Despite the problems in the Middle East, “I still want to try to establish the Center at Kyrenia.”
In February, Caresse was enroute to Beirut again with Robert Boone, the aide-de-camp, she wrote to Rossides: “On or about March 14 we plan to fly over to Cyprus to spend a day or two at the Ledra Palace . . . [then] Bob will drive me around the island. You know I have never been to Famagusta or to many other interesting towns, nor seen the home of the Marine Venus. I will be a tourist.” While sightseeing on Cyprus, Caresse discovered an historic plaque attached to the wall of the Government Cottage near a small village in the Troödos mountains—all pine trees, bracken, and red earth:
Arthur Rimbaud, poète et génie français au mépris de sa rénomée contribua de ses propres mains à la construction de cette maison MDCCCLXXXI.
An early British High Commissioner had engaged Rimbaud, a self-described vagabond aux semelles de vent, to supervise construction of the summer cottage there. Rimbaud had starved in Paris, survived attempted murder by his friend Verlaine, grown rich in Africa, joined the French Army, and deserted to the West Indies to trade in gold, ivory, coffee, and spices. When he landed in Larnaca five months before the British troops, he was 24 and poor, glad to pick up 150 francs a month to take charge of Cypriot laborers quarrying stone near the village of Vorokline. What curious happenstance that Caresse’s destiny led her to the young rebel who was Harry Crosby’s idol, whose poetry Harry emulated.
After the week in Cyprus, Caresse stopped off at another place close to her heart. She described her visit to Madame Alexi Stephanou at the Greek Embassy on Cyprus.
Our trip back via Delphi was most heartwarming. . . . All the blossoms on the almonds were in full bloom, a sea of white, on the crest of the hill where the Amphictyony used to meet in 470 B.C. [It] was radiant with promise for the world. I was given an ovation by the village—the Mayor and the Chief of Police said they wished me to become an honorary citizen of Delphi—so I was very happy. The four years of exile were worth the return.
Back in Rome, she discovered important new developments in the World Man project. Philip Isely had arranged to let the Center use its tax-exempt status. She wrote to Rossides:
We can raise money for the school, the library and art gallery on land at Kyrenia, using the Association for Human Emergence, Inc. [of WCC] as our tax exemption claim, allowing them to declare their world government from the World Man Center under Bucky’s dome at Kyrenia, with the assurance that a protective world police training school will function there also.
Max Habicht, who helped to draw up the Declaration for a World Government at the Wolfach Conference, offered to meet Caresse in Rome to discuss ways and means of declaring the World Man Center extraterritorial if Caresse would provide a round-trip air ticket.
Another project for World Man was taking shape through the efforts of John Foster in London. Jacques Cousteau, the French oceanographer, was looking for a friendly government to cooperate in an exciting n
ew venture. Foster proposed that Cyprus might offer its offshore shelf of the ocean to Cousteau. Doxiadis was already working on a plan for an undersea city.
I have written to Bucky asking him if he can build underwater. . . . It would be a great coup if Cyprus could initiate the project. It would be a protection for Cyprus as well as a great step forward. The ocean bed can yield so many marvelous treasures and provide a source for feeding and protecting the world from atmospheric assault.
Caresse was again a woman ahead of her time in voicing environmental concerns.
On March 8, she wrote to the Archbishop, asking for “the honor of meeting with you again.”
The purpose of my visit would be a final discussion of a possible date later this year for an announcement that a plot of land is being given near Kyrenia for the establishment of a World Man Center. . . .
Ever since the general agreement in 1966 between you, Ambassador Rossides, Dr. Fuller and myself to proceed over the Kyrenia project, I have been obtaining promises from artists all over the world to contribute their works to a fund-raising project for the World Man Center. What is needed is the signing of the deed for the property as evidence to the contributors that the project is going ahead. I hope that Your Beatitude will be able to give me that assurance and fix a date for the public signing of the deed.
Life and other mass-media publications requested advance notice of the meeting, to give “the whole Kyrenia project the attention . . . it deserves.”
Caresse was welcomed by Makarios, “who was as polite and charming as ever.” However, as she wrote to Lekakis, “he made it quite clear that he must see ‘the color of my gold’ before any signature was given to cede the property at Kyrenia to World Man.” There were other unforeseen problems:
I believe that since the land that Makarios offered belongs to the Church, and since Makarios is the Head of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus, it is possible for him to remove his sovereignty from the 68 acres—but is it actually enough to accept the Cypriot land as World land? I have always felt that it should be something that was voted upon and granted by the Government of Cyprus.
The Minister of Justice informed Caresse that the Cypriot Government, which includes the Turks and other minorities, would not by any means be willing to cede land. “I was, perhaps, too trusting” she wrote, “and that is possibly why the land I chose in the first place, and for which I paid half, was outside of Church property and therefore unacceptable to Makarios.” Caresse was reminded of the debacle at Delphi. “I was judged by the [Greek] Supreme Court in plenum session and the verdict was that as a private citizen I might keep my land in Delphi, but not express any World or Socratic ideas there. . . . They judged me as a sovereign power and not as an individual. So, history repeats itself.”
Rossides appeared to be subtly withdrawing his support of the Center. Caresse wrote:
I think that perhaps the best solution, if you cannot accept my principles . . . is for the Archbishop to cede or assign to me as World Citizen the eight acres (for which I paid $2,000) within the 68 acres allotted on the outskirts of Belle Pais, which site you and I chose in 1965 and for which I hold President Makarios’ cancelled check. On these eight acres I could offer the sovereignty to the League for the Rights of Man, Women Against War, or the youth movement of Citizens of the World, which embraces all creeds, colors, faiths and ideologies for peace versus violence. I must not be kept in the dark as to what is being done in the name of World Man Center, Inc., of which I am president.
She asked Mike Lekakis to call on Rossides to give her a candid report. Lekakis replied that “[Rossides] asked me to reassure you about World Man on Cyprus. It is your idea, and that will be respected beyond any question. He regrets that he was not present in Cyprus when you went there. The problem evidently is that Mr. Rossides has not been able to explain your position to the Archbishop.”
Rossides mistakenly assumed that Caresse herself had great wealth and would be able to endow the Center with a substantial sum. “However I am sure that the Archbishop is not interested in ‘the color of gold’ as such, but in implementing the World Man Center.” Lekakis wrote. An anonymous donor, a Cypriot woman, had given $200,000, but so far, no one else had come through.
With no precedent and no history, “[World Man] must be justified to the people of Cyprus, and that means Greek, Turks, Armenians, Jews, and many others. Mr. Rossides has been the catalyst and his performance has been remarkable thus far.” If—in her view—Caresse (as she perceived it) had been put in an awkward position, the $2,000 would be returned with no strings attached.
You still remain the one who inspired the World Man Center in Cyprus. You should not be discouraged by the indirectness with which these matters have been put together. It seems to me that under the circumstances, it cannot be otherwise. Somehow ideas take their own form, and going along with them, our experience and knowledge have the opportunity to give [them] the most noble form.
Rossides himself wrote later to Caresse that “World Man has all along been in my mind, and we are certainly not abandoning it.” He reassured her that Archbishop Makarios was prepared to carry out his part of the agreement, as stated in the public announcement of July 1966. “Needless to say, if the project in Cyprus is achieved, you will have a preeminent position in it, and your recognition will be universal. The idea and the dedicated efforts over the years for the attainment of this goal are yours, my dear Caresse, and you certainly deserve all honor.”
In September, Caresse heard from Fuller that “The Cyprus potential is too important now to be treated lightly.” He had attended a luncheon meeting with Rossides, U Thant, both the Turkish and Greek ambassadors to the United Nations, the president of Columbia University, and a half-dozen other important people interested in Cyprus. One of Fuller’s primary concerns was the danger of leaving the World Man territory unprotected. “International gamblers with armed guards might move in and be extraordinarily difficult to dislodge.” Rossides had proposed to U Thant a 50-year United Nations trusteeship, with the U.N. providing a small special guard for Cyprus, in addition to its regular armed forces.
Both the Greek and the Turkish ambassadors agreed that the World Man Center might pour oil on troubled waters and provide comfort to Cypriots divided by conflict. They also discussed the possibility of enlarging World Man territory to include all Cyprus, and “officially recognized” Caresse as the pioneer—together with Makarios—in initiating World Man. The donation of the critical matching fund of $200,000 eliminated the necessity of holding the art auction, but Fuller suggested that already-pledged artists’ works might be displayed at the Center.
Fuller, who was invited to give the Nehru memorial lecture, had stopped off in India en route to Cyprus to discuss World Man with Prime Minister Gandhi. With the support of a major nation like India at the U.N., Fuller suggested, they might consider issuing a “World Man Territory” passport. He projected that “millions, if not billions, of young people around the world will apply for such passports and identify themselves as ‘World Humans’.”
I think well of my fellow man. I admire all those who dedicate themselves to the elimination of wars, but I am personally convinced that . . . any special idea group operating within the framework of present . . . political structures can only add to the voices of all history that have decried destruction and injustice. I do not expect them to have much effect. Nations must go . . . because their functions are rendered evolutionarily obsolete.
Caresse viewed Fuller’s use of the term “World Man” to replace “World Citizen” as a great ideological leap forward . . . “It is comprehensive and philosophical and could inspire the young more than any other term. . . . You have gone Socrates one better, for which I congratulate, admire, and love you,” she wrote.
Several points in Fuller’s letter puzzled her, especially the thought that the Center should be placed under the trusteeship of the United Nations. “I a
m anti-nationalist and I pray that the beautiful idea conceived for Cyprus with Zenon and Makarios in 1957 when His Beatitude was still in exile in Athens will not now be taken over by a body of nations, with the largest nation, China, not even recognized . . . I see only arguments and discord . . .”
In her last letter to Rossides, Caresse was still carrying the torch. As if she had a premonition of her own passing from the scene, she asked: “Who will be carrying on the organizing, the coordinating, the deeding of the land?”
I may have spoken too strongly about a United Nations armed force being caretakers of the Center, but I feel very strongly on this point. I suggest a triumvirate of: His Beatitude or you Zenon of Kitium, for Cyprus; U Thant, a United World of people, not nations; and Bucky the scientist and bookkeeper and prime coordinator, to be caretakers . . . a directorate of five or seven individuals but not an unwieldy amount—the League for the Rights of Man, the Federalists, the World Citizens . . . would be represented.
At the time of her death, Caresse was still actively involved with promoting the World Man Center on Cyprus, though she must have known that her larger dream might never be realized:
My alternative is that I accept the few acres that His Beatitude and I bought above Belle Pais and build myself a small house with a courtyard just big enough for a “Soglia di Pace.” . . . I do not want my $2,000 back, it must remain there in the spirit in which I gave it. I am sorry I did not turn out to be a millionairess, but I never was. . . . faith and love and venture are the values I’ve built my life on. I don’t think they are going to fail on Cyprus.
Caresse never built the small house with a courtyard. Her Soglia di Pace found a home in a 15th century castello, larger than even her most grandiose dreams.
Chapter XV
THE PRINCIPESSA OF ROCCASINIBALDA
“There is nothing as strong as an idea whose time has come, but it must be given an eagle’s nest from which to soar.”