867N.00/451: Telegram

The Ambassador in Turkey ( MacMurray ) to the Secretary of State

16. I regret that because of Turkey’s special unwillingness to take a position at odds with the Arab peoples (particularly in view of the Sanjak question4), her present policy of close cooperation with Great Britain, her hard-boiled post-war policy with reference to minorities and her sensitiveness towards the idea of intervention in any form on behalf of minority groups, I could not in honesty encourage the hope that the Turkish authorities would receive favorably the views set forth in the first paragraph of your telegram No. 26, April 27, 6 p.m. I apprehend on the contrary that their presentation would be more likely to meet with a humiliating rebuff and impairment of such confidence and good will as our country enjoys in Turkey.

MacMurray
  1. The status of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, nominally a port of Syria, was being considered by the Council of the League of Nations as a result of differences between France and Turkey. See League of Nations, Official Journal, January, February, May–June, 1937.