316. Memorandum of Conversation0
SUBJECT
- Turkish Economic Program
PARTICIPANTS
- Hasan Polatkan, Turkish Minister of Finance1
- Ali S. H. Urguplu, Turkish ambassador
- Hasan Isik, Assistant Secretary General, Turkish Ministry of Finance
- Memduh Aytur, Director General, Turkish Treasury
- Munir Mostar, Inspector, Turkish Ministry of Finance
- The Secretary
- Owen T. Jones, Director, GTI
Mr. Polatkan opened the meeting by conveying the greetings of the Turkish Prime Minister to the Secretary. He then thanked the Secretary for the financial assistance recently arranged for Turkey in Paris, which formed the basis of the important economic program his government was presently undertaking. The Minister commented particularly on the assistance and cooperation of the American officials in Paris. This, he said, represented an example of United States efforts to raise the standard of living of countries such as Turkey and proved wrong the Russian [Page 758] propaganda that the United States was not prepared to help its friends. The Minister stressed that for the program’s success it was essential that the new resources be speedily realized in order to assure the continued flow of goods. This was essential not only to sustain economic activity but to assure a favorable psychological impact for the program on the business community. There had been some delay among the OEEC members in making such resources available. The Minister concluded by saying that Turkey desired to be strong economically and militarily and hoped to eventually carry out programs to these ends out of Turkey’s own resources.
The Secretary expressed gratification over the Turkish efforts to regularize their economic affairs. There had been concern, he said, in recent years that though the Turks were stout of heart, their economy was not a healthy one, due in part perhaps at one time to an over-ambitious development program. The balance of resources for investment in healthy economies was always small and austerity was frequently required in order to achieve an order of investment of desirable proportions. Such austerity was difficult in a democracy. The courage and wisdom of the Turkish Government in now facing up to its economic problems was recognized here and the United States was glad to contribute to the success of the program even though we had budgetary problems of our own. The Secretary commented on the cost of our defense and research programs, which we were not doing solely for ourselves but for our allies as well. As a consequence, our budget had gotten temporarily out of balance, perhaps because of the recession, but we still felt justified to divert a part of our resources to help our friends.
In parting, Mr. Polatkan expressed again his government’s determination to carry out its economic measures, said that they knew that they had a friend in the United States to help them, and that they knew of the United States’ wishes that they carry out their program with determination.