Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, Western Europe, Volume IV

840.20/2–1749

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Secretary of State

secret

[Washington,] February 17, 1949.

Participants:	The Secretary
	The Turkish Ambassador
	John D. Jernegan, Chief, GTI

Mr. Erkin recalled previous conversations which he had had with Secretary Marshall and other officers of the Department regarding Turkey’s interest in the proposed North Atlantic security arrangements and other possible regional groupings in which Turkey might participate. He said that he and his Government had come to the conclusion that Turkey could not appropriately participate in the North Atlantic arrangement but continued to be interested in the possibility of a Mediterranean pact in which Turkey could and should play a leading role.

Recently, the Ambassador continued, his Government had heard from various sources that the powers concerned with the Atlantic Pact were contemplating the inclusion in the Pact of a declaration with regard to Turkey identical with or similar to “President Truman’s Statement”. (It appeared that he was referring to the so-called “Truman Doctrine”, as specifically applied to Turkey, enunciated in the President’s speech of March 12, 1947.¹) In a previous conversation with Mr. Satterthwaite, the Ambassador had expressed the personal opinion that such a declaration by the members of the Atlantic Pact would add nothing to the assurances already received by Turkey as a result of the Anglo-Turkish Alliance and the Truman statements. He personally would not be inclined to welcome such a declaration. He had reported this to Ankara and had now received instructions approving his views. The Turkish Government considered that it might weaken the Turkish position to be placed in the position of receiving a unilateral assurance of support from such countries as Luxembourg and Holland.

The Turkish Government hoped, furthermore, that any declaration which might be issued would be regarded merely as an interim step preparing the way for an additional regional arrangement in which Turkey could participate directly. Turkey would prefer that the declaration be issued solely by the United States and would like to have an opportunity to discuss it with us before it was issued.

I remarked that I had never seen a draft of a declaration and asked whether one had ever been prepared. Mr. Jernegan replied that one draft had in fact been prepared, though not by the United States, but there had been no serious discussion of any text. He added that it was not expected that the declaration would be identical with the Truman Statement; it might go farther in certain respects. He also said that it had never been decided that the declaration should be issued by all of the members of the Atlantic Pact.

In the course of his remarks, the Ambassador emphasized the exposed position of Turkey and the concern of the Turkish people and the Grand National Assembly lest this exposed position and the security needs of Turkey should be overlooked. He stated that Soviet agents were already telling the Turkish people that Turkey’s exclusion from the Atlantic Pact proved that the United States was not really interested in Turkey. The Turkish Government desired, therefore, to clarify and strengthen its already close relations with the United States. In this connection, Admiral Radford had told President Inonu that Admiral Conolly would be prepared to undertake high level military conversations with the Turkish authorities during his visit to Ankara.² However, when President Inonu raised this subject with Admiral Conolly recently, the latter had replied that he had no instructions in this regard and that any such talks would have to be preceded by an understanding on a high political level. The Ambassador remarked that this was quite right.

I said that I had been reading the minutes of the meetings of the group which had been negotiating the Atlantic Pact and that it seemed clear to me from these minutes that the countries concerned had had clearly in mind from the beginning the need for some declaration or statement which would clearly show that the conclusion of a North Atlantic agreement would not mean the lessening of interest in the security of nations, such as Turkey, which were not to be members of that agreement. However, it did not appear that there had been any real discussion of the exact form which this statement might take. I was very glad to have the observations of the Turkish Government, which had helped to clarify my own thinking, and the Ambassador could be sure that we would talk further with him about the matter.

With respect to the possible eventual development of additional regional arrangements, I did not feel that I could say anything at this time. In undertaking the creation of regional security arrangements, we had to start somewhere. We had been confronted in the beginning with two main alternatives: to attempt an all-embracing security arrangement which would include all the countries in the world except the Soviet bloc, or to begin with a smaller group such as the North Atlantic area. The all-embracing idea simply presented too many difficulties. Among other things, it would have aroused opposition from people who would have seen it as a rival to the UN. We had decided on the second alternative, and believed that we must make the first step the conclusion of the North Atlantic arrangement before we even thought about any other arrangement. To attempt at this time consideration of a Mediterranean pact would complicate things to an impossible extent, especially with relation to Congress. I felt that I had to be free to assure the Congress in presenting the North Atlantic arrangement that I did not have in mind at this moment any further regional groupings. This did not mean that such regional groupings were necessarily excluded, but only that we could not give them consideration as yet.

The Ambassador said that he would be satisfied if he could report to his Government that we considered the proposed declaration regarding Turkey as only a partial step and that we would be disposed at a later date to study the question of a regional pact including Turkey. I replied that I would not wish him to go that far on the basis of what I had said today. I was simply not able at this time to say that we would consider or would not consider the creation of a Mediterranean pact. I wished to confine our thoughts at this moment purely to the question of the proposed declaration. I went on to say that after all a treaty between Turkey and the United States was not necessary to make it clear to the Soviet Union that the United States would inevitably become involved as a result of any Russian aggression against the part of the world in which Turkey was located. The Russians must know this quite well.

At the end of the conversation, Mr. Jernegan asked the Ambassador whether his Government would have misgivings about a declaration which might be signed by Great Britain, or Great Britain and France in addition to the United States. In other words, did the Turkish Government wish a declaration issued solely by the United States or would it be willing to accept one signed by the other great powers in the Atlantic Pact but not including the small states? The Ambassador replied that he believed his Government would be willing to agree to a declaration signed by the United Kingdom as well as the United States. He implied that the adherence of France would also be acceptable.

(After leaving my office, the Ambassador was asked by newspapermen whether he had discussed with me the question of a Mediterranean pact. He replied that any such discussion at this time would be “premature”, that it was a subject for speculation but not for discussion. He also said that his call had been for the purpose of making my acquaintance and that we had discussed American-Turkish relations and had found them highly satisfactory.)

D[ean] A[cheson]

1. Message before a joint session of the Congress on March 12, 1947, requesting aid to Greece and Turkey. For text, see Department of State Bulletin, March 23, 1947, p. 534. For documentation on this subject, see Foreign Relations, 1947, vol. v, pp. 1 ff.
2. On December 21, 1948, during a brief visit to Ankara, Vice Adm. Arthur W. Radford, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, called on Turkish President Ismet Inönü. Adm. Richard L. Conolly, Commander in Chief of U.S. Naval Forces in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, visited Ankara from January 31 to February 2, 1949. Accompanied by members of his staff and Ambassador George Wadsworth, Admiral Conolly conferred with President Inönü and high-ranking Turkish Government officials on January 31, 1949. Documentation on the Radford and Conolly meetings with Inönü is included in the materials on the problems and policies of relations with Turkey, scheduled for publication in volume vi.