840.00/7–2148
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)
| Participants: | Huseyin Ragip Baydur, Ambassador of Turkey |
| Mr. Lovett—U | |
| Mr. LeBreton—GTI |
The Turkish Ambassador began by saying that before the recent French Cabinet crisis,1 M. Bidault had summoned Mr. Menemencioglu2 and told him that in any consideration of Western European security, the Mediterranean countries from Italy to Turkey could not be left out. On instructions from his government, therefore, Mr. Baydur was calling to inquire what would be the attitude of the United States toward the association of Turkey with the signatories of the Brussels Pact, and what guarantees or assurances would the United States Government be prepared to extend to such a grouping, with particular reference to the Vandenberg Resolution.
I said that no such proposal had yet been made by France. The Ambassador replied that he was assured that it was the French Government’s intention to make such a proposal. I then reviewed briefly for the Ambassador’s benefit the scope and limitations of the Vandenberg Resolution, which represents the “advice” of the Senate to the Executive Branch of the Government on the conduct of one aspect of our foreign relations. It provides a yardstick for measuring conditions under which the United States Government might furnish assistance to regional security groups. The primary criterion is that the security of the United States, not that of any or all of the participating countries, must be affected. In the second place, the regional arrangement must be continuous and effective. Thirdly, any assistance which we might render would necessarily be in the nature of a supplement to the efforts being exerted by the members of the group themselves, just as the ECA furnishes supplementary economic assistance to the 16 participating countries. In the fourth place, no assistance or assurances could be furnished without the consent of Congress. I added that we were already furnishing aid to Greece and Turkey to an extent exceeding anything the Brussels Pact countries had yet requested of us. I would not like to see our present satisfactory arrangements with Turkey jeopardized by any change in the existing situation.
The Ambassador adverted to his conversation of May 113 with the [Page 197] Secretary, in which the latter remarked that the security of Turkey was of vital importance. He added that the present United States policy of furnishing arms and equipment is not wholly satisfactory in that it relegates Turkey to the position of a constable who is given the means of defending himself if attacked. Assuming that the primary object of United States policy is to prevent a war rather than assisting the potential victims of aggression to defend themselves if attacked, he felt that it would be far more effective to give Turkey what he termed a juridical guarantee. If this were not done, the Kremlin might deduce that the United States was sufficiently concerned with the security of Western Europe to underwrite the Western European pact, whereas in the case of Turkey it would limit its efforts to furnishing the equipment by means of which the Turks would be expected to defend themselves. He added that his government considered it a dangerous policy for the United States to associate itself with the security of the 5 Western European countries and at the same time to leave the southeastern flank of Europe exposed.
Returning to the Vandenberg Resolution, I again warned the Ambassador of its limitations. In the first place, the State Department did not know exactly what geographic limitations Congress would impose on regional associations. The Western Union countries formed a compact, contiguous group. If this group were extended to include Turkey, new problems would arise. Suppose Turkey then entered into an arrangement with India, which was subsequently extended to China. Would this constitute a regional arrangement of the type envisaged by the Vandenberg Resolution? Obviously, the line must be drawn somewhere or the United States would find itself in the position of underwriting the security of the whole world. The primary criterion, I repeated, was the security of the United States. In this connection, we must be careful not to over-extend ourselves. We lack sufficient financial and economic resources simultaneously to finance the economic recovery of Europe, to furnish arms and equipment to all individual countries or groups of countries which request them, and to build up our own military strength.
The Ambassador interjected that Turkey was a special case, because it alone had been subject to outright demands by the U.S.S.R. for the cession of territory. He repeated in much the same language his previously expressed conviction that without a “juridical guarantee” from the United States the security of Turkey could not be assured.
I told the Ambassador that his government should properly address its proposal to the Brussels Pact countries rather than the United States. The problem, I admitted, had somewhat the nature of the old riddle of the chicken and the egg. It would be impossible for us in [Page 198] the United States to make any commitments until we knew what the nature of the arrangement was, what countries were participants, what was the extent of their participation, etc. I therefore advised him to inform his government that the United States was not able at the present time to make any statement of what its position would be in the event that Turkey, and possibly certain other countries, became associated with the signatories of the Brussels Pact.
The Ambassador said that our position was understandable but, since no pact under present world conditions could be effective without the active support of the United States, he hoped that it would also be appropriate for him to tell his government that the United States would give sympathetic consideration to a proposal of the type he had outlined, if such should be forthcoming. I assured him that we would give it our most careful and sympathetic attention, but urged him to keep clearly before him the position of the United States and the nature of our responsibilities. To illustrate what I had in mind, I asked the Ambassador to suppose that China rather than Turkey had made the proposal under discussion. He laughingly replied that he represented the Turkish Government, and was primarily interested in the security of Turkey. He again brought up the analogy of the constable, but no new ideas were developed during the remainder of the conversation.4