782.563/5–850
The Embassy in Turkey to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1
confidential,
Aide-Mémoire
When presenting his note No. 2449 of May 4, 1950, the American Ambassador observed to His Excellency, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that the project could now be considered as agreed upon in all essential respects and that implementation thereof would begin almost at once, notably by:
- (a)
- the despatch of the necessary American personnel, and
- (b)
- the setting up of a liaison office in the Ministry of National Defense.
With respect to ((a), it is expected that some 70 Defense Department personnel (four or five Army Engineers and the balance civilian employees) and some 150 contractor personnel (all United States citizens under contract with the Engineer group) will proceed to [Page 1258] Turkey. This personnel will be under General McBride’s general administrative control and, as such, will be accorded the same treatment and privileges as those now enjoyed by other members of the military and civilian personnel of the Mission.
With respect to (b), the Turkish Liaison Office will arrange for necessary land purchases, transportation movements and costs, quarry rights and related matters, and will constitute the principal clearing house for the Chief of the Engineer group.
- Enclosure 1 to despatch 354, May 8, from Ankara. Ambassador Wadsworth left this aide-mémoire with the Secretary-General of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Faik Zihni Akdur, at the same time that he presented the Embassy’s note no. 2449 of May 4 (supra), with regard to the Turkish military airfields project.↩