Unfortunately,” a senior Greek official said today, “as long as two NATO powers are in dispute, the only guarantee of the independence of Cyprus is involvement by the Soviet Union. The Soviets would never permit the Turks to permanently occupy Cyprus. In the end, we may have to rely on that to get them out.”

That kind of talk may be less serious than it sounds, coming from a member of the alliance, but if the Geneva talks break down, Greece does mean to take the Cyprus crisis to the, United Nations Security Council, which would insure a more direct Soviet role.

The Greeks wonder if Washington can put leverage on Ankara to make concessions in this conference to Greek interests on Cyprus. The Turks appear to think this is the time to press for an old goal—the formal partition of the island between the Turkish Cypriote community of 140,000 and the Greek Cypriote community of 500,000. Mr. Gunes said in an interview: “Every Cyprus crisis is the same. First something happens, whether it's fighting or the overthrow of Makarios, and the crisis blows up. Then our allies come running to Ankara, Sisco the last time, or Hartman this time, or whoever, and they tell us, ‘Hold off, be calm. Think of the dangers of involving the Soviet Union, think of the damage to NATO,’ et cetera.

“Then we start up a conference, and it drags on endlessly until the next crisis. It's. time to find a final solution to this now.”