S/S–NSC Files: Lot 63 D 351: NSC 111 Series
Draft Report by the National Security Council1
Trade Between Turkey and the Soviet Bloc in the Light of Section 1302 of the Third Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1951
i. background
1. Section 1302 of the Third Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1951 (Public Law 45, approved June 2, 1951),2 directs that no economic [Page 1173] or financial assistance shall be provided to any foreign country which, after 15 days following the enactment of the Act, exports or knowingly permits the export of certain named categories of commodities to the Soviet Bloc during any period in which the Armed Forces of the United States are actively engaged in hostilities in carrying out a decision of the Security Council of the United Nations. In order to be eligible for economic or financial assistance each country must certify that after the prescribed period it has not exported or knowingly permitted the export of the prohibited items to the Soviet Bloc.
2. The Act requires that the Secretary of Defense certify to the Economic Cooperation Administrator a list of specified articles or commodities. The list in question was certified on June 5, 1951.*
3. The Act authorizes the National Security Council to make exceptions to the several provisions of Section 1302. Such exceptions are to be made only upon an official determination by the National Security Council that they are in the security interest of the United States.
4. Turkey received approximately $230 million under the ECA program through June, 1951. The foreign aid program for fiscal year 1952, currently before the Congress, contemplates the continuance of economic and financial aid to Turkey in support of its economic development and defense program.
5. Turkey’s trade with the USSR and the satellite countries during the post-war years ranged between 8 and 12 percent of the total trade in each direction. In 1950 exports to the Bloc amounted to $18 million or approximately 7% of Turkey’s total exports; imports from the Bloc were valued at $23 million or approximately 8% of the total imports. During 1950, trade with Czechoslovakia accounted for roughly half of these exports and imports, whereas trade with the USSR was negligible. Raw cotton, leaf tobacco, hides and skins, copper and valonia (tanning extract) were the principal exports. Smaller quantities of scrap iron, of manganese ore (of relatively low manganese content) and of chrome ore, both of which ores are in ample supply in the USSR, were also exported to the Bloc, chiefly to Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. Some of these exports are among the items certified by the Secretary of Defense as falling within the categories set forth in Section 1302. In return for these commodities, Turkey received steel products, machinery, textiles and paper manufactures, all of which Turkey considers essential to its economy. Turkey does not permit the export of arms, ammunition, implements of war or atomic materials to the Bloc.
[Page 1174]ii. problem
6. In the circumstances, therefore, the National Security Council has been faced with the choice of deciding that all economic and financial assistance to Turkey should be discontinued or of deciding that aid to Turkey should be continued in the security interest of the United States by making an exception to the provisions of Section 1302.
iii. discussion
7. It is the policy of Turkey to develop closer ties with the Western democracies. Turkey is already linked to the United Kingdom and France by a Treaty of Mutual Assistance concluded in 1939 and reaffirmed in 1949. Its relations with the United States have been traditionally friendly. Turkey is a strong supporter of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and has cooperated fully with the United Nations in its efforts to stop Communist aggression, sending a combat brigade to Korea which has been cited for heroism. Turkey’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now under consideration.
8. The objective of Section 1302 was favorably received by the Turkish Government. For an extended period, Turkey has limited trade relations with the Soviet Bloc to a minimal basis.
9. Discontinuation of economic and financial aid to Turkey would diminish the resources with which Turkey could pay for goods bought from the West, might necessitate increased trade with the Soviet Bloc and might force Turkey to increase shipments of strategic materials to the Bloc. This would result in a decrease of the shipment of important minerals to the Western countries, which now receive over 95% of Turkey’s mineral exports.
10. U.S. assistance to date has been primarily concerned with capital development, projects designed to strengthen Turkey’s domestic economy, and to enable Turkey to participate more fully in collective security. Therefore, over and above the specific trade involvements are the contingent dangers of inducing dependence on the Soviet Bloc of a strategically located sovereign state with recognized defensive capabilities.
11. The security interest of the United States has been repeatedly recognized by the Congress, since its enactment of the Greece-Turkey Aid Program in early 1947, to require the maintenance of Turkish independence and territorial integrity.3 Turkey has traditionally opposed Russian efforts to expand southward. Continued economic and financial assistance to Turkey is essential in order to further positively Turkey’s ability both to resist Communist imperialism and to [Page 1175] continue its participation in the United Nations system of collective security.
iv. determination
12. The National Security Council, in view of the considerations in Section III above, determines that it would be to the security interest of the United States to make an exception from the provisions of Section 1302 for Turkey.
v. instructions
13. The National Security Council directs its Special Committee on East-West Trade to:
- a.
- Continue its examination of trade between Turkey and the Soviet Bloc.
- b.
- Seek additional cooperative measures, consistent with over-all U.S. national security interests, to prevent the movement of strategic commodities, particularly those in short supply in the free world, from Turkey to the Soviet Bloc with a view to making appropriate recommendations to the National Security Council.
14. The National Security Council directs its Executive Secretary to declassify this Council document.4 This declassified document will be submitted as a National Security Council report to the Committees in Congress named in Section 1302 together with the trade analysis called for by that Section.5
- Attached to the source text was a memorandum by Executive Secretary Lay of July 18 that recommended that this draft report on trade between Turkey and the Soviet bloc be approved by the Council members.↩
- 65 Stat. 52. For further documentation regarding the implementation of Section 1302 of the Third Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1951, see vol. i, pp. 993 ff.↩
- NSC Determination No. 1, June 14, 1951. [Footnote in the source text]↩
- Greece and Turkey, An Act to provide for assistance to Greece and Turkey, approved on May 22, 1947, as Public Law 75, 61 Stat. 103.↩
-
In NSC Action No. 521, August 2, 1951, the National Security Council approved the report on trade between Turkey and the Soviet bloc, ordered that it be circulated for Council information and recorded as NSC Determination No. 5, and recommended that it be transmitted to the proper congressional committees (NSC–S/S (Miscellaneous) Files: Lot 66 D 95: Record of Actions by the NSC, 1951).
According to telegram 84 to Ankara, August 3, 1951, the Department informed Ambassador Wadsworth that the NSC decision had been made public that day and that the Department had already informed the Turkish Embassy of this decision (461.829/8–351).
↩ - Presumably the attachment to the source text, entitled “Supplement to NSC Determination Number 5 Under Section 1302 of the Third Supplemental Appropriation Act of 1951,” which is not printed, was the trade analysis under reference.↩