"Armed Minorities": The Cold War, Human Rights, and Ethnicity in U.S.-Turkish

Relations

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

James C. Helicke, B.S., M.A.

Graduate Program in History

The Ohio State University

2015

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Peter L. Hahn, Advisor

Professor Jane Hathaway

Professor Jennifer Siegel

ii

Copyright by

James C. Helicke

2015

All Rights Reserved.

ii

Abstract

This dissertation examines international and domestic debates about minorities in

Turkey—Armenians, Greeks, Jews, and Kurds—during the first decade of the Cold War,

1945-1955. It argues that lingering problems of ethnic identity and minorities formed an

important backdrop to the emergence of the Cold War in the Middle East in a way that

American officials sometimes failed to understand fully. International Cold War political

intrigues also added urgency and complexity to Turkish official and public attitudes

toward minorities, related views of human rights, and formulations of security.

As the Kemalist regime consolidated power in Turkey in the interwar period, U.S.

official attitudes gradually perceived minority problems as potentially disruptive of

American business and strategic interests. As U.S. policymakers stressed the growing

threat of global communism and the importance of the Straits after the Second World

War, many Turks saw an existential threat in Soviet territorial claims on Turkey that were

backed by foreign Armenians and Kurds at the new United Nations.

Minority questions were also drawn into the postwar debates over the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights and Genocide Convention. The fact that the term

“genocide” first came into currency in the immediate postwar period reinforced Turkey’s

association of the Armenian Genocide with Soviet territorial claims. U.S. diplomats

dismissed international criticism of Turkey and emphasized Turkey’s national unity as

essential to American interests.

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Turkey’s government also advanced a new vision of minorities that synthesized

Turkish nationalism, international human rights discourse, and the fight against

communism. The election of an American citizen, Athenagoras I, as Ecumenical

Patriarch embodied that new, but problematic synthesis. Athenagoras’ efforts to insert

himself into global Cold War politics by vying for influence over Orthodox churches in

the Middle East and Eastern Europe also drew criticism from Turkish nationalists and

some American officials who thought his pro-Americanism went too far.

Simultaneous with its decision to send troops to Korea and its bid for NATO

membership, Turkey was forced to deal with the mass influx of ethnic Turks expelled

from Bulgaria. A growing Turkish nationalist emphasis on the plight of ethnic Turks

abroad infused Turkish conceptualizations of human rights and its position toward self-

determination for Cyprus. Tensions between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus spilled over

into a devastating 1955 anti-minority riot and signaled the endurance of minority

problems for the U.S.-Turkish partnership.

iv

For Melisa, Nurcan, Mary, and Jeanne.

v

Acknowledgments

Many people deserve credit for the completion of this dissertation. Foremost, I

thank Profs. Peter L. Hahn, Robert J. McMahon, Jane Hathaway and Jennifer Siegel, all

of whom enriched this project and my understanding of history. Not only did they all

inspire my intellectual formation and provide invaluable feedback on this dissertation,

each helped me to overcome obstacles that I encountered throughout my graduate school

career. Funding from the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and the

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation enabled research trips that were essential to this

dissertation. The views and limitations of this study belong to the author alone.

Special thanks are due to colleagues at Skidmore College, especially Ruth

Copans, Lori Acee, Sandra Brown, Andy Krzystyniak, Kevin Giampa, and Barbara

Norelli in the Scribner Library. William Mellon helped me with the preparation of my

bibliography and citations. Carol Goody, Susan Matrazzo, Michael Marx, Mehmet

Odekon, Pushkala Prasad, Paty Rubio, and Erica Bastress-Dukehart also helped me along

the way. Atilla Aydın helped me to navigate the archives in Ankara and Paula Nicolella

helped to solve a last minute technical glitch.

Many friends and family members in Turkey and the United States have offered

support and made this endeavor easier to handle. They include Ekrem Atalan, Nuriye

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Atalan, Yusuf Atalan, Nurdan Çayırezmez, Mehmet Çayırezmez, Nicolas Cheviron,

Nilgün Tutal, Nedra Stimpfle, Amy Frappier, Brian Frappier, Levent Sayan, and Emine

Kuzutürk. Catalina Hunt and Garrett Hunt deserve much more than a line of their own,

not only for intellectual stimulation, valuable suggestions, and encouragement, but also

for occasionally housing and feeding me. My parents, James A. Helicke and Mary E.

Helicke, not only fostered my interest in international affairs, but have encouraged me to

kindle the curiosity of my daughter, Melisa.

Above all, I would like to thank Melisa and Nurcan for their enduring patience,

inspiration, and love. Melisa’s inquisitiveness and Nurcan’s intellect not only motivated

me as I wrote this study, but their flexibility and endurance are also the reason that I

could finish it.

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Vita

1998...........................................B.S. Foreign Service, Georgetown University

2001...........................................M.A. International Relations, Bilkent University,

Ankara, Turkey

2001-2005 .................................Reporter, Associated Press, Istanbul, Turkey

2006-2007.................................Public Diplomacy Officer, U.S. Department of State, Iraq

2008-2014................................ Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio

State University

2011-present............................Lecturer, Skidmore College

Publications

"Turkey’s Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1945-52: A Qualified

Success?" in Melissa Yeager and Charles Carter (eds.), Pacts and Alliances in History:

Diplomatic Strategies and the Politics of Coalitions, London and New York: I.B. Tauris,

2012.

"Turks in Germany: Muslim Identity 'Between' States." in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and

Jane I. Smith (eds.), Muslim Minorities in the West: Visible and Invisible. Oxford:

Altamira Press, 2002.

Fields of Study

Major Field: History

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Table of Contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii

Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv

Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v

Vita .................................................................................................................................... vii

List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….x

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1: “An Unhealed Wound Both Painful and Exposed to Infection”: The United

States and Minorities in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey through the

Second World War ............................................................................................................ 17

Chapter 2: “Triangle of Intrigue”: Turkey, the United States, and Soviet, Armenian, and

Kurdish Territorial Claims, 1945-1946............................................................................. 76

Chapter 3: “Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?” The

Truman Doctrine, Turkish Nationalism, Human Rights, and Genocide, 1946-1950 ..... 130

Chapter 4: “Byzantine Intrigues," "Legitimate U.S. Interests," and the "Nylon Patriarch":

Cold War Politics and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, 1945-1955 .................................... 189

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Chapter 5: “A Flagrant Violation of the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights”:

The Plight of Ethnic Turks Abroad, Communism, and Minorities in Turkey, 1950-1955

......................................................................................................................................... 242

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 305

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………312

A

x

List of Figures

Figure 1: Administrative Map of Turkey and Contemporary Neighbors......................28

1

Introduction

The Sèvres Syndrome, Minorities and the Cold War

In Turkish eyes, the Patriarchate is at best an anomaly—an unwelcome reminder

of both the historic enmity with Greece and of the capitulations; at worst, a pro-

Greek conspiracy supported in its evil machinations by Moscow and Western

Christendom. – Fletcher Warren, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, April 10, 1958. 1

In December 2004, I was assigned to write a news story as a reporter for the

Associated Press. The story was about a minor diplomatic imbroglio between Turkey and

the United States that revolved around the arcane question of whether Istanbul-based

Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I was “Ecumenical Patriarch” or not. For those not so

familiar with Turkey, the question might seem an inconsequential matter left to

churchmen, not diplomats. Yet, for many Turks, it was an international scandal: The

Turkish government ordered public officials not to attend a reception hosted by U.S.

Ambassador Eric Edelman because his invitations referred to Bartholomew as the

“Ecumenical Patriarch.” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said it was “wrong” for

the United States to use a title which “none of our citizens has” (although many

Americans and the U.S. government have long done just that). The episode featured

prominently in Turkish newspapers. The mass-circulation Hürriyet coined it the

1 Enclosure to Chase to the Department of State, March 17, 1958. 782.00/3-1758, Record Group 59,

Department of State Records.

2

“Ecumenical Crisis.” The timing—two weeks before a major European Union summit

that would decide whether to open accession negotiations with Turkey—exposed Turkey

to unwanted criticism about its treatment of minorities and inflamed jittery relations with

the United States already strained by the Iraq war.2

Most Turks, Europeans and Americans have long forgotten the row, but the

pattern was a familiar one. Turkey’s leaders repeatedly and loudly have decried foreign

governments, including allies in the United States and European Union, when lawmakers

have moved toward calling the First World War killing of Armenians “genocide.”

Mentions of “Kurdistan” have sparked similar controversy.

Erdoğan explained the reason for Turkish outrage: The “ecumenical” issue had

been solved at the Lausanne Conference in 1923. The summit, which continues to hold

quasi-sacred meaning for many Turks, affirmed the nation-state’s independence and

borders that expanded on one occasion, but otherwise have remained unchanged. What

the premier implied, but did not say directly, was that the term “ecumenical” hinted that

that the patriarchate was not simply a Turkish domestic institution subject to Turkish

laws, but had international significance that extended beyond the bounds and sovereignty

of the Turkish nation-state.

A nationalist-leaning uncle of my wife, who ran a tiny business hawking small

glasses of hot Turkish tea, helped make the “ecumenical” issue clearer for me. He put it

simply: “They want to tear us apart.” (“They” referred to outside powers and minorities,

and “us” referred to the Turkish nation-state.) The relative was hardly alone in his views.

2 James Helicke, “Ahead of Key EU Decision, Arcane Spiritual Debate Raises Questions about Turkey's

Treatment of Minorities,” Associated Press (December 5, 2004).

3

Turkish nationalists have long insinuated that the Patriarchate, a vestige of the Ottoman

Empire, is a hotbed for anti-Turkish sentiment that aims to create a Vatican-like state on

Turkish soil. Likewise, any recognition of the Armenian Genocide might raise questions

about Turkish ownership of eastern Anatolia. The existence of a Kurdistan poses a

similar challenge. Turkish pundits have called this unending and perhaps paranoiac fear

of partition the “Sèvres Syndrome” – a reference to the 1920 peace treaty that divided

Turkey among minorities and European powers.3

Yet, Sèvres was a dead letter that was replaced by Lausanne only three years later.

By all accounts, the response of Turkey’s leaders and public to the “ecumenical crisis”

was overblown. Surely, nobody really believes that Greeks in Turkey—an aging

community of probably fewer than 3,000 members—think that they can reconquer the

former Byzantine capital and count on the support of Greece, Turkey’s NATO ally.

Likewise, I find it farfetched to think that Armenians—whose numbers are now

inconsequential in eastern Anatolia—have any serious chance of making a serious claim

to Kars or Van. Even if I concede the reality of violence in Turkey’s predominantly

Kurdish southeast, the prospect of a Kurdish state carved out of eastern Anatolia—a

scenario that not one major world power, nor a single neighboring country endorses—

remains only the remotest of possibilities. Nonetheless, the Turkish reaction to delicate

minority questions is real and it continues to spill over into Turkey’s foreign relations in

unexpected ways. For instance, in the fall of 2014, the question of Turkey’s Kurds

severely complicated the problem of how to combat the extremist group known as the

3 Taner Akçam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (London and

New York: Zed Books, 2004), 22.

4

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and how to aid the besieged Syrian border town of

Kobani.

This reality of ethnic problems and minority questions also played out in Turkey’s

experience of the Cold War. A few years ago, as I was searching for a dissertation topic

in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park,

Maryland, I ran across documents concerning the migration of Armenians across the

world to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic immediately after the Second World

War. Three decades after the First World War, Armenians continued to seek justice

following the atrocities of that conflict and were now bringing their demands for justice

to a United Nations in its infancy. In contrast to the interwar period, when the Great

Powers had effectively abandoned the Armenians, the Soviet Union was now actively

supporting efforts to bring the issue back to the international agenda as part of its own

territorial claims on Turkey. As one can imagine, Turkey’s government and public were

irate. Turks immediately saw Soviet support for the Armenians as a direct challenge to

Lausanne, to their borders, and their nation-state. Yet, for American policymakers, the

issue basically reduced an abstract geostrategic question that largely hinged on the Straits

that bisect Istanbul. This is the basic lesson of my dissertation: how the Turkish and

American leadership and publics experienced the opening chapters of the Cold War in

different—sometimes parallel and sometimes intersecting –ways. One was the story of a

new global superpower grappling with a region that it partially understood; the other a

nation-state that partially assessed the superpower rivalry as challenging the ethnic

foundations of the region.

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The decade immediately after the end of World War II was an important one for

Turkey. The country secured a new alliance with the United States. The decade witnessed

Turkey’s transition to multiparty politics, the emergence of a global Cold War, and the

development of new international institutions, including the United Nations and NATO.

The terms “human rights” and “genocide” entered the global lexicon. Decolonization and

Cyprus appeared on the international agenda. My research found that questions of

minorities and ethnicities were not simply a sideshow to major geopolitical developments

in Turkey’s Cold War, but often formed an integral dimension of Turks’ own experience

of important postwar episodes in a way that U.S. officials did not always appreciate.

Questions involving Turkey’s minorities or ethnicity played out in the Soviet territorial

claims, debates over the Truman Doctrine, attitudes toward human rights and genocide,

involvement in the Korean War and NATO, and relations with Greece and Cyprus.

The immediate postwar years were also a time of experimentation for both Turkey

and the United States: Turkey’s government posited new forms of national identity that

aimed to stifle criticism of its minorities by integrating human rights rhetoric with Cold

War politics. It even allowed a Greek-American, who vociferously preached

anticommunism and the American way of life, to be appointed Ecumenical Patriarch.

Yet, minorities also remained vulnerable and, for some U.S. and Turkish officials,

susceptible to communism. Anti-minority sentiment and anti-communism sometimes

converged. As Fletcher Warren, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, explained in 1958, the

6

Patriarchate was for Turks “an anomaly” or perhaps even “a pro-Greek conspiracy

supported in its evil machinations by Moscow and Western Christendom.”4

In sum, I argue in this dissertation that lingering problems involving questions of

ethnic identity and minorities form an important backdrop to the emergence of the Cold

War in the Middle East in a way that American officials often overlooked or failed to

grasp. At the same time, international Cold War political intrigues also added an

additional level of urgency and complexity to Turkish official and public attitudes toward

minorities, related views of human rights, and formulations of security.

This study is divided into five chapters: The first chapter, a prequel to the rest of

the thesis, explores how leaders of the late Ottoman Empire and early Republic of Turkey

conceived questions of minorities as intricately linked to their state’s security and foreign

policy. Americans joined a chorus of European criticism of the empire’s treatment of

minorities, including the Armenian atrocities of the First World War. As the Kemalist

regime consolidated power, U.S. official attitudes gradually perceived minority problems

as potentially disruptive of other vital interests, especially the expansion of opportunities

for American businesses. Eager to secure Turkey’s support in the Second World War,

the U.S. government worked to hush American public criticism over a severe tax—the

Varlık Vergisi —that heavily targeted religious minorities to pay for Turkey’s defense.

Chapter 2 explores how Armenian and Kurdish territorial questions were caught

up in debates about the postwar order. Whereas U.S. policymakers stressed the growing

threat of global communism and the importance of the Straits, Turks saw an existential

4 Enclosure Chase to the Department of State, March 17, 1958. 782.00/3-1758, Record Group 59,

Department of State Records.

7

threat in territorial claims that were backed by foreign Armenians and Kurds at the

United Nations and that challenged the Turkish regime. As many Turks expressed

outrage about Armenian Americans’ claims on Turkish territory, the U.S. leadership

rigorously defended Turkey’s territorial integrity and often reduced minority claims to

aspects of the Soviet “war of nerves” against Turkey.

The third chapter focuses on how the plight of Turkey’s minorities—Armenians

and to a lesser extent Kurds—was drawn into the postwar debates over human rights and

genocide. New human rights institutions and discourse slowly enveloped discussions of

Turkey’s minorities. Armenians would also employ a new term—“genocide”—for the

first time to describe the killing of Armenians during the First World War and to criticize

U.S. aid to Turkey through the Truman Doctrine. Amid international criticism, Turkey’s

government put forth a new, but problematic understanding of minorities that synthesized

Turkish nationalism, international human rights discourse, and the fight against

communism. Yet, Turkey’s government evaded serious discussions about minority or

human rights. U.S. diplomats also dismissed international criticism that Turkey violated

human rights or had perpetuated genocide, instead emphasizing Turkey’s national unity

as essential to American interests.

Chapter 4 examines how the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate became part

of Cold War political intrigues. Although Turkish nationalists now remember the election

of an American citizen, Athenagoras I, as patriarch as a reflection of U.S. meddling in

Turkish domestic affairs, reality was more complicated. U.S. and Turkish officials

initially resisted involvement and avoided Greek efforts to secure the American’s victory.

8

After his election, U.S. and Turkish officials eventually embraced his anti-communist

message. However, the patriarch’s efforts to raise his international profile and the

conflicting aspirations of Greece, Turkey, and the United States ultimately left the

patriarch and his community vulnerable.

The final chapter looks at how the plight of ethnic Turkish minorities outside

Turkey increasingly framed Turkey’s experience of the Cold War and its conception of

minorities. Simultaneous with its decision to send troops to Korea and its bid for NATO

membership, Turkey was forced to deal with the mass influx of ethnic Turks expelled

from Bulgaria. However, American policymakers avoided active involvement in the

problem and were caught off guard when ethnic troubles flared. A growing Turkish

nationalist emphasis on the plight of ethnic Turks abroad infused Turkish

conceptualizations of human rights and Turkey’s position toward self-determination for

Cyprus. Tensions between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus spilled over into a devastating

1955 anti-minority riot and signaled the endurance of minority problems for the U.S.-

Turkish partnership.

Sources and Methodology

Scholars studying the Republic of Turkey face a fundamental handicap. Unlike

the vast array of documents available to historians of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey’s

Prime Ministry Republican Archives in Ankara for the period for the republican period

presents only a very limited and sporadic collection of documents. Many of the

documents that would be of greatest interest to potential researchers are either off limits

9

or do not exist. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry documents for the period of this study are not

accessible to researchers. This availability of archives probably reflects both political

sensitivities and the sentiment that “Turkish history” basically ends on November 10,

1938, the date of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s death.

This dearth of documents also leaves the researcher with a dilemma of either

forsaking republican history altogether (the unfortunate path for many historians) or

writing history even when documentation remains limited. I made use of available

Turkish archival and published sources, which I largely accessed during visits to Turkey

in the summers of 2011 and 2012. Three collections of documents at the Republican

Archives (DAGM) were particularly helpful: Documents from the secretary to the prime

minister (Başbakanlık Özel Kalem Müdürlüğü, 030.01), the prime minister’s office

dealing with procedures (Başbakanlık Muamelât Genel Müdürlüğü, 030.10) and

documents of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, 490.01). Court

proceedings from military trial of Democrat Party leaders following the 1960 military

coup (Yassı Ada Mahkemesi Kararları 10.9.0.0) also offered some relevant leads.

Although selective and of limited utility given the scope of this dissertation, Turkey’s

military archives (Genel Kurmay Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt Başkanlığı Arşivi) offered

some insight into Turkish leaders’ views about Turkey’s understanding of security

through the Second World War. I also acquired a handful of useful documents, especially

those from the papers of Cami Baykurt at the Turkish Historical Society in Ankara. I also

examined a wide variety of publications at Turkey’s National Library, including a variety

10

of Turkish newspapers, periodicals, and brochures (especially related to human rights in

the late 1940s and 1950s).

Despite my efforts to include as many Turkish primary sources as possible in this

study, U.S. diplomatic reports offered a much fuller account of the episodes I examined,

simply because of the comparative number of American records available. Whereas

relevant Turkish archival sources might number several dozen, U.S. records numbered

well into the hundreds, if not even greater. These records, which I accessed through two

trips to the National Archives and Records Administration, largely consisted of the

Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State (Record Group 84) and

the General Records of the Department of State (Record Group 59). Many relevant

documents were also published in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) or

in microfilm form, such as the Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal

Affairs of Turkey, 1945-1949 (IAT). The problem of how to include Turkish voices,

while relying heavily on U.S. documents, is a conundrum that has also been described,

among others, by Ryan Gingeras, who has lamented U.S. officials’ shortcomings in

knowledge and language.5 Despite my own misgivings, these limitations contributed to

an important subtheme of this dissertation: how American officials often had an

incomplete understanding of how minorities and ethnic problems framed Cold War

questions. Although several scholars, including Melvyn Leffler and Bruce Kuniholm,

have examined a number of these records, my reading of the U.S. archival records in light

5 Ryan Gingeras, Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey (Oxford and New York:

Oxford University Press, 2014), 15-16.

11

of Turkish documentary evidence and Turkish studies literature offers very different

conclusions. 6

As the opening anecdote illustrates, minorities remain a sensitive question in

Turkey. The question of who is a minority and who is not is also deeply engrained.

Turkey only recognizes Greeks, Armenians and Jews as minorities with special legal

rights. Other groups—Kurds, Assyrian Christians, Arabs, Laz, and others—are not

afforded this recognition. The question of minorities and majorities is inherent to the

history of the nation-state. This dissertation has only hinted at the complexity of the

debate over who or what constitutes the Turkish “nation,” how those ideas have changed

over time, and the complex relationship of ethnic identity to religion.7 The idea that

Turkish leaders continued to view the extension of rights to certain groups—minorities—

as a potential threat to the security of the state is a fundamental theme of this study. This

dissertation focuses largely on ethnic and religious groups that featured in diplomatic

intrigues in the first decade of the Cold War: Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds within

Turkey, and, for the sake of comparison, ethnic Turks and Muslims in Bulgaria and

Cyprus. It also alludes to several other groups, particularly Jews. The heart of the study is

bookmarked by Turkey’s approach to minorities in the Second World War and the anti-

minority violence of September 6-7, 1955, events of great significance for historians of

Turkey that have received little attention as events in international history.

6 Bruce Robellet Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and

Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Melvyn P. Leffler,

"Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War: The United States, Turkey, and NATO, 1945-1952," The Journal

of American History 71, no. 4 (1985). 7 For an important discussion, see Carter Vaughn Findley, Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity: A

History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

12

Contributions

This dissertation is a work in international history, as well as Turkish studies. It

makes three broad contributions to historical literature. First, as a work of international

history, it contributes to literature on the origins of the Cold War. International historians,

such as Melvyn Leffler and Bruce Kuniholm, have long stressed the importance of the

Iranian crisis of 1945-1946, Soviet demands over the straits and territory in eastern

Turkey, the Greek Civil War, and British disengagement in the region in framing the U.S.

President Harry Truman’s 1947 Truman Doctrine speech. This dissertation corresponds

to a broader trend in international history to see beyond the “world according to

Washington” by exploring Turks’ own security motivations in the early Cold War period.

It likewise adds to a growing trend of scholarship that has highlighted the interrelatedness

of domestic consideration and international alignment in the Cold War.8 As a work of

Turkish studies, this dissertation also adds to several important recent books on Turkey’s

own experience of the Cold War, an area of increasing scholarly interest.9

Traditional diplomatic accounts have also offered insufficient attention to

questions of ethnicity, minorities, and nationalism in the emergence of the Cold War

broadly and in the Middle East specifically. Michael Hunt, for instance, notes the

importance of nationalism in the study of the history of U.S. foreign relations, which “is

after all to a large extent about the outlook and behavior of a nation-state with a powerful

8 Sally Marks, “The World According to Washington,” Diplomatic History 11 (Summer 1987). For a more

recent discussion, see Odd Arne Westad, “The Cold War and the International History of the Twentieth

Century,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War War, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 9 See Derya Çağlar, Hayali Komunizm: Soğuk Savaş'ın Türkiye Söylemleri (Istanbul: Berfin Yayınları,

2008).

13

sense of identity and purpose.” 10

Robert Knight points out that traditional scholarship has

oversimplified the Cold War “as a competition between two ‘modernising cousins,”

communism and liberal democracy, while downplaying the significance of national

identity. Ethnic identity also offered a boundary between the communist and capitalist

blocs that defined the Cold War. 11

International historians who have mentioned

Turkey’s ethnic questions, have largely approached these issues as a sideshow to other

ones—such as the Straits—rather than a main story in itself.12

In this thesis, I emphasize

both that lingering questions of ethnicity and minorities formed an integral dimension of

Turkey’s experience of the Cold War and that U.S. officials frequently reduced the

region’s ethnic complexities to broader Cold War strategic calculations.

This dissertation’s coverage of Athenagoras also makes a modest contribution to

the relationship between religion and the Cold War, a topic of increasing interest to

scholars.13

My analysis offers a corrective to the occasional claim that Athenagoras was

10

Michael H. Hunt, “Ideology,” in Michael J. Hogan and Thomas G. Paterson (eds)., Explaining the

History of American Foreign Relations Second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004):

229. 11

Robert Knight, “Introduction” in Robert Knight (ed.), Ethnicity, Nationalism and the European Cold War

(London and New York: Continuum, 2012): 7-8. In a similar vein, John Fousek argues that American

nationalism provided cultural roots for the Cold War. See John Fousek, To Lead the Free World: American

Nationalism and the Cultural Roots of the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,

2000). 12

See for instance, Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and

Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece. Jamil Hasanli’s study presents an important exception to this rule.

Jamil Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 1945-1953 (New York: Lexington Books,

2011): 189. 13

Dianne Kirby, "Religion and the Cold War-An Introduction," in Religion and the Cold War, ed. Dianne

Kirby (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 2; Andrew Preston, Shield of Faith: Religion in American

War and Diplomacy (New York: Knopf, 2012); Andrew Rotter, "Christians, Muslims, and Hindus:

Religion and U.S.-South Asian Relations, 1947-1954," Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (2000); Patricia R.

Hill, "Religion as a Category of Diplomatic Analysis," Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (Fall 2000); William

Inboden, Religion and American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment (New York:

Cambridge University Press, 2008); Jonathan P. Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's

Religious Battle against Communism in the Early Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011);

14

brought to power through active U.S. intervention in the patriarchal election—a view that

has sometimes reinforced the perception of an inherently meddlesome U.S. foreign

policy intervening in Turkey’s domestic affairs. 14

Although American officials came to

embrace his mission, they also feared too close of an association between Athenagoras

and the American government.

Second, this dissertation contributes to a growing body of literature on human

rights and the complex relationship of minority protection regimes to the international

system. In particular, two scholars have helped me to contextualize Turkey’s minority

problems. Eric Weitz has argued that the development of genocide and human rights

were two sides of the same coin, reflecting the overlap of imperialism and liberalism and

the transition from the Vienna to the Paris system. The treaty of Lausanne, which gave

multilateral approval to the forced exchange of populations, represented the logical

culmination of this transition.15

For the postwar period, Mark Mazower has argued that

lofty, individual-based notions of human rights meant a weakening of international

protections for minorities, since the new rights regime effectively had no binding legal

force.16

Other scholars, including Carol Anderson, have demonstrated the overlap of Cold

War politics with human rights. For instance, Anderson notes that the United States

Philip E. Muehlenbeck, ed. Religion and the Cold War: A Global Perspective (Nashville: Vanderbilt

University Press, 2012). 14

See, for instance, Elçin Macar, Cumhuriyet Döneminde İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi (Istanbul: İletişim,

2004); Nesim Şeker, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Midst of Politics,” Journal

of Church and State, Volume 55, No. 2 (Spring 2013): 264-285. 15

Eric Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System: International Politics and the Entangled Histories of

Human Rights, Forced Deportations, and Civilizing Missions," American Historical Review 113, no. 5

(December 2008). 16

Mazower, Mark “The Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933-1950.” The Historical Journal, Vol. 47,

No. 2 (June 2004), pp. 379-398 .

15

feared that the Soviet Union could mobilize public opinion around U.S. race relations and

took steps to maintain domestic jurisdiction over such issues.17

Thus, this dissertation

builds on a range of scholarship that shows how human rights became a plastic discourse

that served the needs of individual nation-states in the immediate postwar period. As

A.W.B. Simpson has noted, both the Soviet Union and the United States refused to

surrender sovereignty for the cause of human rights after the Second World War: “human

rights were for export only.”18

Similarly, as Turkey sought to deflect international

criticism, U.S. officials were increasingly sympathetic to the view that questions of the

Armenian Genocide or criticism of Turkey’s human rights only served Soviet interests.

Despite current interest in questions surrounding its contemporary human rights

practices, Turkey’s first generation (immediate postwar) human rights movement has

received little scholarly attention. This dissertation shows how a prevalent Turkish

formulation of human rights, rooted in Cold War security and an understanding of

nationalism that emphasized the plight of ethnic Turks abroad to the detriment of

minorities within the country, framed two important episodes that shook the Democrat

Party: Turkey’s reception of Turks expelled from communist Bulgaria and the anti-

minority violence of September 6-7, 1955.

17

Carol Anderson, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human

Rights, 1944-1955 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 48, 75. 18

A.W. B. Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European

Convention (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), v; In light of this plasticity, some

scholars—most notably, Samuel Moyn—have downplayed the significance of the first wave of human

rights in the development of a more activist wave that gained traction in the 1970s. Moyn’s contention has

brought a great deal of interest –as well as criticism—by scholars, including a featured article in the

American Historical Review and discussion in a 2011 issue of Diplomatic History on genocide, war crimes

and international justice. Samuel Moyn, "The First Historian of Human Rights," American Historical

Review 116, no. 1 (2011); “Special Forum: Genocide, War Crimes, and International Justice,” Diplomatic

History 35, no. 2 (2011); Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, Mass.:

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010).

16

Third, this dissertation adds to historians’ understanding of Turkey’s minorities.

Although scholars have given attention to several topics addressed in this dissertation,

including the World War II capital tax (Varlık Vergisi) and the riots of 6-7 September,

1955, they have largely approached these topics in isolation from each other and focused

on the domestic Turkish context. This dissertation represents one of the first serious

attempts to analyze the broader issues of international minority protection and human

rights in a global arena.19

My intent to situate Turkey’s conceptualizations of human rights and genocide in

a broader Cold War context also offers a novel perspective on why the term “genocide”

remains so controversial in Turkey. It suggests that the immediate postwar period, which

included Soviet and Armenian territorial claims, the repatriation of Armenians, and the

first use of the term “genocide” by Armenians, represented a key moment in the

development of Turkish and U.S. attitudes toward the Armenian Genocide. 20

19

Rifat N. Bali, The "Varlık Vergisi" Affair: A Study of Its Legacy, Selected Documents (Istanbul: The Isis

Press, 2005); Ayhan Aktar, Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türklelştirme Politikları (Istanbul: İletişim, 2000); Dilek

Güven, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Azınlık Politikaları ve Stratejileri Bağlamında 6-7 Eylül Olayları (İstanbul:

İletişim, 2005); Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7,

1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul (New York: greekworks.com, 2005); 6-7

Eylül Olayları, Fotoğraflar-Belgeler: Fahri Çoker Arşivi (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 2005). Alexis Alexandris,

Bruce Clark, and Alexis Alexandris also bring relevant contributions to the internationalization of Turkey’s

minority questions. Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations

(Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 1992); Lerna Ekmekçioğlu, "Republic of Paradox: The League of

Nations Minority Protection Regime and the New Turkey's Step-Citizens," International Journal of Middle

East Studies 46, no. 4 (November 2014); Bruce Clark, Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged

Modern Greece and Turkey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). 20

Historians have drawn attention to a variety of important and relevant issues including the relationship

between Hamidian massacres and the World War I killings, the role of the international community, the

significance of nationalism, the extent and manner of the killings and a variety of other related issues.

Ronald Grigor Suny, Looking toward Arara : Armenia in Modern History (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1993); Vahakn Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the

Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1995); Taner Akçam, From Empire to

Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (London and New York: Zed Books, 2004);

Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the

17

Chapter 1

“An Unhealed Wound Both Painful and Exposed to Infection”:

The United States and Minorities in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of

Turkey through the Second World War

He [Talat Pasha, the Ottoman Minister of the Interior] said they want to treat the

Armenians like we treat the negroes. I think he meant like the Indians. – Diary of

U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, August 8, 1915.21

They [Turkish negotiators at Lausanne] said that the Greeks and Armenians were

not wanted, partly because of racial antipathies and partly because any minority

becomes an instrument of foreign intrigue, like an unhealed wound both painful

and exposed to infection.— U.S. Special Mission to the Lausanne Conference,

November 22, 1922.22

If this ever gets into the press here there will be a first class scandal.—Office of

War Information concerning a tax in Turkey that heavily targeted minorities

during the Second World War, March 25, 1943.23

In late 1942 and early 1943, American policymakers were confronted with a

dilemma over U.S. policy toward Turkey: how to deal with growing American public

Ottoman Armenians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). For an important assessment of Turkish

literature on the Armenian Genocide, see Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, and Norman M. and

Naimark, eds., A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford

and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

21 Ara Sarafian, United States Diplomacy on the Bosphorus: The Diaries of Ambassador Morgenthau,

1913-1916 (Princeton and London: Gomidas Institute, 2004), 298. 22

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, November 21, 1922, Foreign Relations of the

United States, 1923 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1938), Vol. II: 901. 23

Parker to Berle, March 25, 1943. 867.512/230. Reel 31, Records of the Department of State Relating to

Internal Affairs of Turkey, 1930-1944 (IAT). Washington: National Archives and Records Service, 1982.

18

pressure amid accusations that Turkey’s government—which many Americans continued

to associate with the oppression of “starving Armenians” and other ethnic and religious

troubles—was again persecuting minority Christians and Jews. Jews had already been

concerned that Turkey was not doing enough to aid fleeing kinsmen, especially after the

sinking in February 1942 of the disabled MV Struma off Turkish shores killed over 750

refugees who were not allowed to disembark. Many Greeks and, especially, Armenians

remained incensed over a settlement from the First World War that granted coveted

territory in eastern Turkey and Istanbul, the former Byzantine capital, to Turkish forces

despite the documented civilian tragedies of the war. Now, Turkey’s government was

implementing a severe tax that especially targeted Armenians, Greeks, and Jews, who

were forced to make large, immediate payments or face deportation to work camps in

Turkey’s east. The problem facing American policymakers and diplomats was less how

to deal with this injustice, than how to deal with grievances from the small number of

American citizens affected and, most of all, how to contain the possibility of American

popular outrage at a time when Turkey’s position in the war remained uncertain.

The American administration response to the wealth tax—known as the Varlık

Vergisi in Turkish—not only coincided with broader decisions about the protection of

minorities during the Second World War, but reflected enduring questions about

intervention on behalf of minorities that extended to the Ottoman period. Scholars

continue to debate the actions of the United States to prevent the Holocaust and other

19

episodes of genocide.24

Although Turkey’s abuses during the Second World War did not

reach those of Germany in severity, the question of minorities in Turkey shows a longer

history that points to a divergence in U.S. interests toward Turkey, increasing eagerness

to avoid entanglement in complex ethnic problems despite popular agitation for

intervention, and the privileging of American interests over the plight of minorities more

broadly. U.S. Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt’s ability to navigate among these

conflicting currents— helping the administration to steer clear of American popular

agitation for intervention into the problems of minorities while putting American interests

first— won him praise from senior officials at the State Department. 25

His limited

intervention, concerned more about angering Turkish leaders than addressing the

problems of minorities themselves, also reflected the endurance of a longer pattern that

had prevailed since at least the First World War and continued to characterize relations

after the establishment of formal ties between the United States and the Republic of

Turkey in the 1920s.

This chapter offers a survey of the long sweep of U.S. involvement in minority

questions from the turn of the nineteenth century through the Second World War. For the

late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey, “internal” questions involving ethnicity

and minorities became inextricably linked to “external” foreign policy concerns. The fate

of Ottoman minorities—national groups in the Balkans, but especially Greek and

Armenian Christians, as well as Jews, spread across the empire—represented a

24

See, for instance, Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman, FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, MA: The

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 17. For a broader discussion, see Samantha Power, "A

Problem from Hell": American and the Age of Genocide (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 1-16. 25

Murray to Welles, February 19, 1943. FW 867.512/223. Reel 31, IAT.

20

fundamental component of the Eastern Question, the Eurocentric question of what to do

with an Ottoman Empire characterized as “the sick man of Europe” that gained

momentum through the nineteenth century. 26

As outside powers demanded reform, the

status of Ottoman minorities became a heightened concern—a sentiment that would

continue to shape the foreign and security policies of the Turkish Republic. This growing

distrust of minorities and Turkish leaders’ perception of them as a potential security

“threat” continued to resonate in Turkey’s foreign policy during the early years of the

republic, as well as during the Cold War.

U.S. policy toward Turkey and its attitudes toward ethnic and minority questions

underwent a gradual, but discernible shift through the settlement following the First

World War. For most of the first century of U.S.-Ottoman relations, missionaries were at

the center of U.S. policy in the region. Their relationship with Ottoman Christians not

only directed U.S. engagement toward the Ottoman Empire, missionary reports and

descriptions of suffering Christians, especially Armenians, influenced the attitudes of the

American public and policymakers toward Ottoman minorities and the Ottoman political

regimes under which they lived. The First World War opened a void in U.S.-Turkish

relations. The forced deportation and massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians

during the war sparked a lengthy debate about U.S. relations that coincided not only with

the emergence of a new Turkish nationalist regime based in Ankara, but with a broader

debate about U.S. involvement in world affairs more broadly.

26

Reynolds succinctly defined the Eastern Question as “the problem of how to partition the Ottoman

Empire without triggering a great power war.” Michael Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and

Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2011), 14.

21

This chapter is divided into three sections. Drawing on recent scholarship, the first

section explores the increasing politicization of ethnicity in the Ottoman Empire, how the

plight of minorities featured prominently in European and eventually American

diplomacy toward the Ottoman Empire, and, thus, how questions of ethnicity and

minorities became an integral dimension of security and foreign policy in the late

Ottoman Empire. An exclusivist understanding of security and national identity that

increasingly stressed the troubles of Turkish and Muslim minorities abroad and the

potential disloyalty of non-Muslims in Anatolia bore tragic consequences, most notably

in the case of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Minority problems were at the center of

U.S. policy toward Turkey, but the American response remained largely in private hands.

The second section shows how this politicization of ethnicity and minority

problems slowly eroded as a matter of diplomatic engagement in the interwar period. As

Turkish nationalists sought to consolidate their fragile, new Turkish nation-state, they

also continued to view minority claims as a direct challenge to their conceptualizations of

security. The strict provisions for minority protection in the Treaty of Sèvres also gave

way to more lax arrangements under the Treaty of Lausanne. Fearing that the United

States could be put at a disadvantage relative to European powers, U.S. government

officials advocated the normalization of relations with the new republic as quickly as

possible and increasingly sought to distance themselves from Turkey’s ethnic woes.

Ultimately, U.S. official attitudes toward Turkey viewed minority problems not as issues

22

to be addressed, but as potentially disrupting other “perfectly tangible American interests

in Turkey,” especially American business interests.27

The final section looks at how questions of national identity and assumptions

about minorities played out in Turkey during the Second World War, most notably in its

implementation of the Varlık Vergisi (the Capital Tax), which heavily targeted religious

minorities. Whereas U.S. officials had previously sought to cast the U.S. Government as

protecting minority Christians, they now attempted to draw attention away from the

plight of minorities, who were seen as potential problems for Turkey’s security. This

view not only colored official U.S. attitudes toward Turkey’s minorities in the postwar

period, but also framed their gaze toward the ethnic dimensions of regional problems that

would confront Turkey and the region in the Cold War period.

This chapter builds on new scholarship that has highlighted the relationship

between questions of ethnicity, diplomacy and human rights. Scholars have shown how

the politicization of ethnicity was intimately connected to other developments in the

international system, including problems of minority protection, the emergence of human

rights discourse, and violence including the question of genocide. 28

At the same time,

scholars of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey have offered new context

and insight into ethnic and minority troubles, ethnic or national consolidation (or

27

Quoted in John M. Vander Lippe, "The 'Other' Treaty of Lausanne: The American Public and Official

Debate on Turkish-American Relations," The Turkish Yearbook, Vol. 23, 1993, 56. 28

Eric Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System: International Politics and the Entangled Histories of

Human Rights, Forced Deportations, and Civilizing Missions," American Historical Review 113, no. 5

(December 2008); Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the

Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Mark Mazower, "The

Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933-1950," The Historical Journal 47, no. 2 (2004); Reynolds,

Shattering Empires; Carole Fink, Defending the Rights of Others: The Great Powers, the Jews, and

International Minority Protection, 1878-1938 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

23

“Turkification”), and state-building in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the

Republic of Turkey. Scholars have made the case for broad continuity in

conceptualizations of security, nation, and state from the late Ottoman Empire to the

Republic of Turkey and have explored the role of forced deportations and violence in this

process. Unsurprisingly, scholarly discussions about the Armenian Genocide of 1915

have often featured prominently in this analysis. 29

By examining American responses to

these ethnic questions in the Ottoman Empire from the nineteenth century through the

Second World War, this chapter presents a broad view of how ethnic questions

undergirded U.S. engagement toward Turkey prior to the emergence of the Cold War.

The Eastern Question, Ottoman Reform and Minorities

Although historians of the Ottoman Empire have increasingly distanced

themselves from the notion of the inherent “decline” of the Ottoman Empire and Europe

as the singular model for “modernity” or reform, there can be little question that

European pressure remained a persistent reality throughout the nineteenth century.30

At

29

Reynolds, Shattering Empires; Uğur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in

Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Ryan Gingeras, Sorrowful Shores:

Violence, Ethnicity and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912-1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2009); Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, and Norman M. and Naimark, eds., A Question of

Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford and New York: Oxford

University Press, 2011); Taner Akçam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian

Genocide (London and New York: Zed Books, 2004). 30 For earlier generations of scholars, Ottoman “decline” formed the backdrop to understanding the

Ottoman Empire at the turn of the nineteenth century. According to this paradigm, the Ottoman Empire

found itself in a state of perpetual “decline” beginning in the late sixteenth century. This description was

based on Ottoman writers who demanded a restoration of Ottoman grandeur by calling for the empire to

revert to the administrative practices of an earlier, purer “golden age” under Mehmed II (“the Conqueror,”

1451-1481) or Süleyman I (“the Magnificent,” 1520-1566). As western historians attempted to explain

Ottoman military weakness vis-à-vis European powers, they also incorporated assumptions concerning

Ottoman decline into literature on Ottoman reforms in the nineteenth century, as well as into scholarship on

the Eastern Question: how to maintain the balance of power in Europe as increasing territory fell out of

24

the same time, the status of Christians in the Ottoman Empire and Muslim communities

in former Ottoman territories became diplomatic questions between European powers and

the Ottoman Empire. Scholars have given a great deal of attention to Ottoman minorities,

their relations with Europeans over time, challenges to the millet system and other

profound transformations to a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire.31

Whether for

their own interest or genuine concern, European publics and governments gave

significant attention to the plight of Ottoman Christians, especially after the eighteenth

century. In 1774, the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca gave Russia the Crimea (which it

annexed in 1783) and passage rights through the Dardanelles. Ottoman sultans also began

giving new emphasis to their spiritual role as caliph over Muslims outside the Ottoman

Empire, while Russia claimed the right to protect Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman

Empire.32

Conflicting French and Russian claims to be the protector of Ottoman

Christians not only provided an excuse to press for reforms, but provided the pretext for

the Crimean War (1853-6).33

As Virginia Aksan has noted, the Treaty of Paris (1856) was

Ottoman control and came under the sway of European states. More recently, scholars of the Ottoman

Empire have disputed the notion of decline, as well as the centrality of Europe in the narrative of Ottoman

modernization. For examples of Ottoman decline and Eastern Question literature, see Bernard Lewis,

"Ottoman Observers of Ottoman Decline." Islamic Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 1962), 71-87; Bernard

Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); M.S. Anderson,

The Eastern Question, 1774-1923: A Study in International Relations (New York: St. Martin's Press,

1966). For critiques of the decline paradigm, see Douglas Howard, “Ottoman Historiography and the

Literature of ‘Decline’ of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Journal of Asian History, Vol. 22, no.

1 (1988): 52-77; Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change, 1590-1699,” in An Economic and Social History of

the Ottoman Empire, Vol. 2, ed. Halil Inalcık with Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1994), 411-636; Linda Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance

Administration in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1996), 1-21; Jane Hathaway with Karl

Barbir, The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800 (Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2008), 59-62. 31

An important collection of scholarship remains Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, eds., Christians

and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, two vols. (New York and London:

Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1982). 32

Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 323-5; Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1-6. 33

Norman Rich, Great Power Diplomacy: 1814-1914 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1991), 106-7.

25

not signed until the Ottomans expressed support for reform in the Hatt-i Hümayun

(Imperial Edict of 1856), affirming greater equality among members of Ottoman religious

communities in areas such as schooling, courts, and state appointments and also

illustrating minorities’ position at the intersection of diplomatic wrangling and reform. 34

National struggles within the Ottoman Empire and European imperial designs

from outside only intensified Europeans’ interest in Ottoman Christians. European

popular scrutiny of Ottoman “atrocities” or “massacres” of Christians—Greeks (1821-

1833, 1866-69), Christians in Lebanon and Syria (1860-2), Bulgarians (1876-8), and

eventually Armenians (1894-96, 1915)—brought growing public pressure on European

governments. In the first half of the nineteenth century, perhaps no instance more

symbolized to Europeans the persecution of Christians than the public hanging of Greek

Orthodox Patriarch Gregory V in front of the patriarchate in 1821. Yet, direct

humanitarian interventions in the Ottoman Empire were limited and tended to be “based

on the same basic assumptions of imperialism,” perhaps even rendering groups, such as

Armenians, more vulnerable.35

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the arrangements that held the

multiethnic and multireligious empire together also underwent change. Although many

historians of the Ottoman Empire have long assumed that the millet system—an

34

Virginia Aksan, Ottoman Wars: 1700 -1870: An Empire Besieged (Harlow, England: Pearson

Longman, 2007), 476-9. 35

Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 67, 12; Vahakn Dadrian, The History of the Armenian

Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus (Providence, RI: Berghahn,

1995); R.J. Crampton, Bulgaria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 92-3; Moshe Ma’oz, “Communal

Conflict in Ottoman Syria during the Reform Era: The Role of Political and Economic Factors,” in

Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Volume Two: The Arabic Speaking Lands, ed. Braude and

Lewis, 91-106; Samir Khalaf, “Communal Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Lebanon,” in Christians and

Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Volume Two, ed. Braude and Lewis, 107-134.

26

administrative framework providing relative autonomy for each religious community

empire-wide (millet)—had been in effect for centuries, Benjamin Braude has contended

that the term millet did not encompass Ottoman Jews and Christians before the nineteenth

century. Millet, according to Braude, had implied sovereignty. It had been used for

foreign Christians or Jews, but not non-Muslim subjects.36

The association of millet with

sovereignty points to enduring challenges facing Ottoman religious communities and, for

Ottomans, their association with foreign powers. Under the Tanzimat, a period of

intensified reforms, Ottoman statesmen promoted an egalitarian understanding of

citizenship—Ottomanism— in a bid to tamper separatism. Yet, new regulations for the

Greek Orthodox in 1860-2, Armenians in 1863, and Jews in 1864 also drew further

attention to differences. The idea of millet increasingly acquired ethnic significance and

was used to translate the idea of “nation” into Ottoman Turkish. Separatist nationalism in

the Balkans reinforced that association. 37

The Congress of Berlin of 1878, which included representatives of Europe’s Great

Powers, demonstrated the problem of ethnicity for European statesmen. Initiated after

the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78, the Congress simultaneously sought to limit the

scramble for the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, by recognizing sovereignty or

autonomy for Montenegro, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria, the congress also

acknowledged ethnicity as grounds for specific political claims. However, claims by

smaller or scattered ethnic groups to sovereignty also presented a practical dilemma for

36

Benjamin Braude, “Foundation Myths of the Millet System,” in Braude and Lewis, eds., Christians and

Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Volume I, 69-88.

37

Carter Vaughn Findley, "The Tanzimat," in Turkey in the Modern World, ed. Reşat Kasaba, Cambridge

History of Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 28-30.

27

Europeans. These groups, thus, received the label of “minorities.” The Congress of Berlin

also offered the Great Powers an opportunity for intervention if Ottoman authorities did

not commit to administrative reforms benefiting Armenians in eastern provinces.38

At the

same time, European powers “diluted” the impact of the reforms by making oversight for

the reforms collective in implementation.39

The settlement of the Russo-Ottoman War

had other long-lasting implications for the Ottoman Empire and Turkey: as part of its

settlement, Russia was awarded Kars and Ardahan, territories that would be returned to

Turkey after the First World War, but would remain contested by Armenians and the

Soviet Union even in the Cold War (discussed in Chapter 2). In exchange for protection,

Britain received control over Cyprus, and that legacy continued to pose a foreign policy

challenge for Turkey and Greece into the Cold War (discussed in Chapter 5).40

Ottoman statesmen were also forced to grapple with the growing potency of

ethnicity in the Empire, a reflection of broader shifts toward an international system that

increasingly valued the ethnic homogeneity of the state.41

The mass influx of Muslim

migrants from the Caucasus and the Balkans increased the Muslim population by at least

forty percent between 1862 and 1882. This influx further underscored a growing sense of

difference between Muslims and Christians. The Berlin Treaty further exacerbated

attention to Christian-Muslim differences. As he pursued centralization policies that often

stoked resentment among Ottoman nationalities, Abdulhamid II was critical of ethnic

38

Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 14-15; Fink, Defending the Rights of Others, 1-38. 39

Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 16; Richard G. Hovannisian, "The Armenian Question in the Ottoman

Empire," East European Quarterly VI, no. 1 (March 1972). 40

Anderson, The Eastern Question, 210. 41

Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System," 1313-43.

28

Figure 1: Administrative Map of Turkey and

Contemporary Neighbors (U.S. Central Intelligence

Agency, 2006).

28

29

conceptualization of “nation” and “race,” which he believed were being used by foreign

powers to divide the Ottomans and pursued his main goal of maintaining the territorial

integrity of the state by seeking political solidarity through Muslims’ common faith. 42

Yet, as Reynolds has argued, Ottomans slowly began to recognize that “maintenance of

statehood in the emerging global order required accommodating the national idea.”43

Americans were relative latecomers to what Donald Bloxham has called a “Great

Game” of European imperialism and nationalism involving the fate of Ottoman

minorities. 44

Spearheading U.S. engagement in the region were American missionaries.

Stymied in their efforts for “spiritual conquests” of Muslims by Ottoman authorities,

American missionaries turned to proselytization and education as means of converting

Ottoman Christians.45

Thus, the interests of American missionaries, U.S. officials, and

minorities became increasingly entangled. Missionaries not only sought to spread their

faith, but missionary schools, such as Robert College in Istanbul, simultaneously

embodied notions of “American progress and economic growth.”46

As Armenians and

other religious minorities sometimes acquired foreign citizenship, including American,

the distinction among them sometimes blurred in the eyes of Ottoman authorities, thus,

leaving officials from each country deliberating on their citizenship status.47

Writing to

42

Kemal Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith and Community in the

Late Ottoman State (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 77- 87, 97, 149. Hundreds of

thousands of Muslims from the Balkans were killed or displaced by the war of 1877-8. 43

Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 17. 44

Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide. 45

Ussama Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle

East (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 67-76, 91-100. 46

Vander Lippe, "The 'Other' Treaty of Lausanne," 33. 47

Hirsch to Blaine, June 17, 1891. The Executive Documents of the House of Representatives for the First

Session of the Fifty-Second Congress, 1891-'92 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1892), 751-2; Said Pasha to

30

the U.S. government, D.A. Richardson of the American Board of Foreign Missions also

noted that Ottoman authorities did not always clearly distinguish missionaries from

consuls representing the American government. In eastern Anatolia, Ottoman officials

were especially suspicious of all foreigners due to “the nearness of the Russian frontier

and the prominence of the so-called Armenian question,” Richardson observed.48

Thus,

officials of the Ottoman Empire increasingly viewed missionaries as potential threats and

“rival centres for the loyalties of its subjects.”49

Missionary descriptions of the Ottoman Empire were also influential in shaping

U.S. popular attitudes toward the Ottoman Empire. Not only did their accounts leave a

lasting (and sometimes misleading) self-perception of inherent American benevolence

toward the region, they also reinforced the scathing image of the “terrible Turk.”50

Missionaries were among the first to describe the killing of thousands of Armenians in

1890s, which coincided with Armenian political agitation. The massacres prompted

significant European and American criticism and renewed calls for Ottoman reform.51

Although a number of scholars have called into question the notion of drawing a straight

line from the Hamidian Massacres to the Armenian Genocide of the First World War,

Hirsch, January 9, 1892. The Executive Documents of the House of Representatives for the First Session of

the Fifty-Second Congress, 1891-'92, 533-4. Ottoman and Turkish officials were also hesitant to allow

Ottoman citizens to give up their citizenship, fearing that they could then return and act with the relative

impunity afforded by their new nationality. 48

Richardson to Blaine, October 13, 1891. The Executive Documents of the House of Representatives for

the First Session of the Fifty-Second Congress, 1891-'92, 762-4. 49

Erol Ülker, "Contextualising 'Turkification': Nation -Building in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918,"

Nations and Nationalism 11, no. 4 (2005): 621. 50

Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East;

Justin McCarthy, The Turk in America: the Creation of an Enduring Prejudice (Salt Lake City University

of Utah Press, 2010). 51

Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914, 191-202.

31

both reflect the underlying premise of Armenian Christians as a perceived threat to the

security of the state. 52

Amid uncertainty about the fate of Ottoman Christians, restrictions on missionary

activities under Abdülhamid and interest in expanding trade, the U.S. Government

quickly welcomed the accession of the Young Turk government and restoration of the

Ottoman constitution in 1908. Expressing an optimistic view of reform, U.S.

Ambassador John G.A. Leishman, a former Carnegie Steel executive, wrote: “What

European diplomacy failed to accomplish Turkey has done for herself, and, as if by

magic, the reforms which combined Europe sought for years to impose have been

accomplished overnight.” He noted that the Young Turk revolution had restored stability

and also “practically removes the fundamental causes of most of our troubles with

Turkey—i.e., missionaries and naturalized citizens of Ottoman origins—and enhances the

opportunities of extending our commerce many folds.” 53

Although this attitude would

not go unchallenged, Americans would prove eager to embrace Ottoman and Turkish

reform efforts.54

The Balkan Wars represented a fundamental challenge to the Young Turk regime

and its understanding of security. Initially, the Young Turk regime appeared to pursue an

52

Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide. 53

Leishman to the Secretary of State, September 28, 1908, FRUS 1908 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1912),

749. 54

The sentiment was not unlike Cold War political rhetoric that often took Turkey’s modernization efforts

at face value. The similarity of U.S. official views toward both Ottoman reform and Cold War

modernization was not a coincidence. Nate Citino, "The Ottoman Legacy in Cold War Modernization,"

International Journal of Middle East Studies 40, no. 4 (November 2008): 579–97.

32

“inclusive” understanding of Ottomanism that included non-Turks and non-Muslims.55

Tensions between the state and nationalities largely centered on the problem of

continuing centralization by the Young Turk regime.56

However, the loss of its remaining

Balkan provinces by 1913 not only altered the empire’s religious composition and

relations among ethnic and religious groups, but transformed the leadership’s

understanding of what constituted its “national core.” In the wake of the Balkan Wars, the

Young Turk leadership increasingly turned to a project of Turkification to create a

heartland rooted in Anatolia, while experimenting with other approaches elsewhere. The

Young Turk regime also sought to purify Anatolia of non-Muslims through population

exchanges. An exchange between the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria resulted in the

forced migration of nearly 50,000 Muslims from Bulgaria and the deportation of a similar

number of Bulgarian Christians from Ottoman Thrace. Around 435,000 Muslims flocked

to the Ottoman Empire following the Balkan Wars and during World War I. The

government attempted to settle them in in villages of non-Muslims, especially Greeks.57

The focus of Ottoman propaganda on atrocities committed against Muslims in the

Balkans further “reinforced the ‘otherization’ of local non-Muslims” who were conflated

with the perpetrators of atrocities, further exacerbating anti-Christian sentiment and

helping to justify violence against Christian communities. 58

In line with a broader

55

Hasan Kayalı, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire,

1908-1918 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997), 4. 56

Ülker, "Contextualising 'Turkification,'” 621; Kayalı, Arabs and Young Turks. 57

Ülker, "Contextualising 'Turkification,'” 613-26; Stephen P. Ladas, The Exchange of Minorities:

Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (New York: MacMillan, 1932), 20. 58

Y. Doğan Çetinkaya, "Atrocity Propaganda and the Nationalization of the Masses in the Ottoman Empire

During the Balkan Wars (1912-13)," International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 4 (November

2014): 774.

33

foreign policy that was “bursting with good intentions” but not yet participating the great-

power system, the United States shrugged off appeals for any direct involvement.59

The First World War ultimately combined the Young Turks’ attempt at nation

building with the perceived exigencies of war. As Mustafa Aksakal has pointed out, the

empire’s international security had long been “one and the same as the empire’s

nationalities question.”60

Population exchanges and ethnic cleansing were regarded as

legitimate means of preventing future territorial claims. Talat Bey, the Ottoman minister

of interior, viewed the existence of ethnic minorities backed by foreign powers as a

posing a threat to the stability and very existence of the state. Fearing the prospect of war

in spring 1914, the Ottomans, in their words, “cleansed” Greeks from coastal areas. 61

This politicization of ethnicity was not unique to Ottoman statesmen, but reflected the

broader politicization and securitization of ethnic issues at the international level. The war

helped to encourage “the creation of an international system that prized the homogeneity

of the population under the state.”62

The orders for the expulsion of Armenians from the Anatolian core coincided

with the broader development of the First World War. After its declaration of “Holy

War” in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire sought to incite rebellion among Muslims

59

The Charge d’Affaires of Greece to the Secretary of State, October 18, 1912, FRUS 1912: (Washington,

D.C.: GPO, 1919) 1342-3; George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since

1776, ed. David M. Kennedy, Oxford History of the United States (Oxford and New York: Oxford

University Press, 2008), 337. 60

Mustafa Aksakal, "The Limits of Diplomacy: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War," Foreign

Policy Analysis, 7, no. 2 (2011): 199. 61

Ibid. 62

Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System," 1315. As part of efforts to stop instability from crossing

over into its territory, Russia built ties with Ottoman Kurds, “ironically destabilizing Eastern Anatolia and

eroding their own confidence in the security of the Caucasus.” By the outbreak of the First World War,

Russia itself was removing Muslims from the Caucasus, as well as Germans and Jews from its western

front. Reynolds, Shattering Empires,, 42-43,70, 148.

34

across the border, but its army soon suffered devastating defeats in its Caucasus

campaign. Fearing potential unrest among Christians, Armenian authorities turned their

attention to Van in April 1915, the center of Armenian political activity. Talat ordered the

arrest of prominent Armenians throughout the empire on in April 1915. In May, the

Ministry of War proposed the deportation of all Armenians in the border regions of

Erzurum, Bitlis, and Van. Those orders were soon extended to include Cilicia and parts

of Mosul province and wherever else Ottoman military commanders deemed appropriate.

Orders were given for the appropriation of Armenian property—an indication of efforts

to transform permanently the region’s demography and fitting into a broader plan for a

Muslim-dominated economy.63

The ensuing atrocities and the debate over whether the

massacres that accompanied the deportations constituted genocide remain the topic of

much scholarly inquiry and occasional denial, especially from the Turkish government

and its supporters.64

Nonetheless, it is clear that Young Turk statesmen by the outbreak of the First

World War viewed minorities with great suspicion and as a problematic element for the

security and territorial integrity of the state. A purported proclamation ordering the

63

Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide; Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in

Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950; Hilmar Kaiser, "Genocide at the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire," in The

Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, ed. Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses, Oxford Handbooks

Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 64

Most notable in this regard is the work of the late Stanford Shaw and his student, Justin McCarthy. See

Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. V. 2.

Reform, Revolution, and Republic: the Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975 (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1977), 314-17; Justin McCarthy, The Armenian Rebellion at Van (Salt Lake City:

University of Utah Press, 2006); Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman

Muslims, 1821-1922 (Princeton, N.J.: The Darwin Press, 1995); Justin McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities:

The Population of Ottoman Anatolia at the End of the Empire (New York: New York University Press,

1983); See also Guenter Lewy, The Armenian Massacre in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide (Salt

Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2005). For a discussion of pro-Turkish historiography, see Fatma

Müge Göçek, "Reading Genocide: Turkish Historiography on 1915," in A Question of Genocide.

35

deportation of Armenians declared that Armenians had come under “foreign instigation,”

propagated “ideas of a nature to disturb the public order,” caused violence, and

“attempted to destroy the peace and security of the Ottoman State.”65

Although Turkish

nationalist historians have raised questions about sources, about who caused the initial

turmoil, about the death toll, and about the ultimate objectives of the deportations, there

is little debate over the reality that Armenians and other Christians were seen as posing a

threat to the state and as suspect foreign agents. As Salahi R. Sonyel’s pro-Turkish

account has put it, Greeks, Armenians and national groups “began to demand autonomy

or independence, with covert and overt assistance of the great powers,” bringing

“instability … insurrection and terrorism” to the Ottoman Empire. Leaders of the

empire’s Christian minorities “used every occasion that weakened the strength of the

Ottoman state to create disturbances and incidents, particularly when the country was at

war, hoping to capitalise on this, and very often they offered their services to the enemies

of their country.”66

The fact that nascent human rights discourse also overlapped with Great Power

intrigues reinforced Ottoman and Turkish statesmen’s attitudes about minorities and their

protection. Armenians, along with Jews, experienced both promises of protection and

minorities rights, as well as forced deportations and genocide—the product of an

international system that precariously cobbled together liberalism and imperialism.67

65

James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916:

Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden by Viscount Bryce. (Princeton: Gomidas Institute,

2000), 655. 66

Salahi R. Sonyel, Minorities and the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire (Ankara: Turkish Historical

Society Printing House, 1993), 450. 67

Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System," 1321.

36

Russia, for instance, hoped reforms imposed in the wake of the Balkan Wars would not

only prevent instability, but also offer an opportunity to gain a foothold in eastern

provinces.68

The fact that the term “crimes against humanity” was used for the first time

ever in criticizing the Ottoman Empire for the Armenian atrocities likely further

reaffirmed Ottoman and Turkish leaders’ attitudes about the convergence of human rights

discourse with imperial designs on their state. (The phrase was mentioned in a late May

1915 memorandum initiated by allies France, Great Britain, and Russia, which

denounced the forced Armenian deportations as “crimes against humanity and

civilization for which all the members of the Turkish Government will be held

responsible together with its agents implicated in the massacres.”) The term would also

reappear in Greek and Armenian claims after the Great War.69

The violence against the Armenians immediately became a topic of intense

interest for U.S. diplomats. The ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, was already relaying

reports of destruction of Armenians at the commencement of the campaign in April and

May 1915. By July, he informed Washington that the “Persecution of Armenians [was]

assuming unprecedented proportions” that was being justified “in the name of military

necessity,” while Ottoman authorities informed him that he had “no right to interference

68

Reynolds, Shattering Empires, 41-2. 69

Egon Schwelb, "Crimes against Humanity," in The British Year Book of International Law, ed. H.

Lauterpacht (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 181; Peter Holquist, "The Politics

and Practice of the Russian Occupation of Armenia, 1915-February 1917," in A Question of Genocide:

Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, and

Norman M. Naimark (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 151-74; Margaret M.

deGuzman, "Crimes Against Humanity," in Research Handbook on International Criminal Law, ed.

Bartram S. Brown (Northhampton, MA: Edgar Elgar Publishing, 2011).

37

with their internal affairs.”70

Morgenthau pressed for stronger U.S. involvement, but

Ottoman and U.S. officials seemed to recognize the limits of one state’s appeals for

humanitarian intervention to another. Talat Pasha, the minister of the interior, reportedly

told Morgenthau that the Ottomans wanted “to treat the Armenians like we treat the

negroes.” Morgenthau commented in his diary that he thought Talat “meant like [the

United States treated] the Indians,”—an apparent reference to Americans’ own history of

deportation and violence against Native Americans.71

Although there can be little doubt about the sincerity of Morgenthau’s pleas for

American involvement, it is noteworthy that discussions about U.S. involvement were

couched in terms of broader American interests in the Ottoman Empire. 72

Of particular

concern to U.S. officials was the unilateral abrogation of all capitulations in October

1914, which the Young Turk regime saw as an affront to its ongoing efforts to assert total

control over the state, society, and economy. 73

In a document frequently cited by

contemporary Armenian activists and historians, Morgenthau described Ottoman actions

as “a campaign of race extermination under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion.”

Morgenthau framed his appeal in terms of Ottoman “absolute disregard of capitulations,”

which simultaneously touched on the rights of minorities, American missionaries and

70

Morgenthau to the Secretary of State, July 10, 1915, FRUS, 1915, Supplement, the World War: 982 -4.

Morgenthau’s appeals on behalf of Armenians are well known. See, for example, Peter Balakian, Burning

Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004); Jay Winter,

ed. America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Power,

"A Problem from Hell,"1-16. 71

Sarafian, United States Diplomacy on the Bosphorus, 298. 72

Morgenthau to the Secretary of State, August 11, 1915, FRUS, 1915 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1928),

Supplement, the World War: 986. 73

Kaiser, "Genocide at the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire." Vander Lippe, "The 'Other' Treaty of

Lausanne," 36.

38

commercial interests. The State Department gave Morgenthau limited room to act as long

as American citizens had not been injured and also wished to avoid upsetting its relations

with the Ottoman Empire.74

Secretary of State Robert Lansing also defended American

inaction by noting that Armenians appeared to be engaged in armed rebellion against the

Ottoman government.75

Popular sympathy for the Armenian cause exerted increasing pressure on U.S.

policy. Even as the United States remained neutral in the war, Morgenthau sought public

support for humanitarian relief for Armenians. Morgenthau’s calls reached James L.

Barton, foreign secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,

and ultimately Cleveland Dodge, who would direct the American Committee on

Armenian Atrocities’ campaign. Although the cause was privately funded—ultimately

raising more than $116 million for the Armenian plight (more than $1 billion in today’s

terms)—it also enjoyed strong support from the American politicians, including Wilson.

Organizations ranging from women’s clubs to the Lions contributed to the campaign for

“Starving Armenians” and the cause prominently featured in American newspapers,

including The New York Times, which featured frequent recounting the “Armenian

Horrors.”76

The Armenian cause coincided with other American humanitarian relief

efforts that spanned from Belgium to Russia and Serbia.77

74

Morgenthau to the Secretary of State, July 16, 1915. Printed in Balakian, Burning Tigris, no page

number given; Lansing to the Ambassador in Turkey, July 16, 1915, FRUS, 1915 Supplement, the World

War: 984. 75

Lansing to Barton, July 19, 1915, FRUS, 1915 Supplement, the World War: 984-5 76

Peter Balakian, Burning Tigris (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004), 277-96. 77

Michelle Tusan, Smyrna's Ashes: Humanitarianism, Genocide, and the Birth of the Middle East

(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012); Julia F. Irwin, "Taming Total War:

Great War-Era American Humanitarianism and Its Legacies," Diplomatic History 38, no. 4: 770; Bruno

39

Morgenthau’s outspokenness also proved a liability as the United States sought to

maintain relations with the Ottoman Empire even as the two states found themselves on

opposite sides of the war.78

In 1917, Morgenthau was replaced by Abram Elkus, who

continued to express exasperation about the continuing violence against Armenians, but

maintained a more reserved tone than his predecessor and sought to maintain “friendly

relations” with Turkey even after the United States severed relations with Germany.79

Citing justice for Armenians, prominent Americans, including Theodore Roosevelt, urged

U.S. intervention.80

In briefing the Senate, Secretary of State Robert Lansing also warned

against any declaration of war against Turkey, since “Turkish interests in the United

States are very insignificant, while the interests of the United States in Turkey are very

large.” The plight of Armenians was only mentioned as afterthought; intervention, it was

argued, might make their situation worse. 81

The United States never declared war on the

Ottoman Empire, a fact that would also complicate its diplomatic standing after the war.

U.S. leaders remained sympathetic, but non-committal to the Armenian cause.

Armenians lobbied for the formation of an independent state that would comprise most of

eastern Anatolia and extend to the south to include Cilicia, Mersin, and Alexandretta.82

Cabanes, The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism, 1918-1924 (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2014). 78

Power notes that Morgenthau “earned a reputation as a loose cannon” and did not receive another

appointment under Wilson. Power, "A Problem from Hell,” 13. 79

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Turkey, February 5, 1917, FRUS, 1917 (Washington, D.C.:

GPO, 1931), Supplement 1, the World War, 113; The Ambassador in Turkey (Elkus) to the Secretary of

State, February 11, 1917, FRUS, 1917, Supplement 1, the World War, 134; The Charge in Turkey (Tarler)

to the Secretary of State, April 23, 1917, FRUS, 1917, Supplement 1, the World War, 598. 80

Balakian, Burning Tigris, 292-4. 81

The Secretary of State to the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, December

6, 1917, FRUS, 1917 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1932), Supplement 2, the World War, Vol. I, 448-50. 82

The President of the Armenian National Delegation (Boghos Nubar) to the Secretary of State, May 24,

1917, FRUS, 1917, Supplement 2, the World War, Vol. I, 792.

40

Wilson’s January 1918 Fourteen Points speech embodied these competing interests and

the uncertainty of the U.S. stance. Wilson’s twelfth point noted that Turkish parts of the

Ottoman Empire “should be assured a secure sovereignty,” but other nationalities were

entitled “to an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of

autonomous development.” The president was more clear in emphasizing free passage on

the Straits for international commerce.83

As the Peace Conference convened in Paris in 1919, petitions on behalf of

oppressed groups from around the world flooded the city. Women’s groups, African-

Americans, labor organizations, and national groups from French Indochina to central

Europe pinned their hopes on the summit. A variety of conflicting claims rooted in

Wilsonian ideas of self-determination centered on former Ottoman territory. Zionists

sought a Jewish homeland in Palestine, while Egyptians pressed for independence from

Britain, which first occupied Egypt in 1882 and officially declared it a protectorate in

1914.84

Armenians wanted justice. “The voice of all Armenians, dead and alive, must be

heard,” an Armenian petition declared. It demanded that “an independent Armenian State

… be placed under the collective guarantee of the Allied Powers and the United States, or

the League of Nations.” That Armenians were not the majority in all the areas they

demanded was an issue that could be overcome. The “Armenians, for the benefit of the

two peoples, shall have the mission to offer the Kurds the advantages of modern

83

"Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" Speech, 8 January 1918,"

http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/fourteenpoints.htm. 84

Margaret McMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York: Random House,

2003), xxviii, 398-401.

41

civilization.”85

Kurds presented their own, contrasting petition for an independent state.86

In a petition that presumably stoked Turkish nationalist resentment and reinforced the

growing sense of minorities as a threat to Ottoman territorial integrity, Dorotheos, a

senior cleric at the Ecumenical Patriarchate, wrote to Lloyd George in Paris in February

1919 to report Turks’ continuing mistreatment of Constantinople’s Greeks and sought

self-determination by giving the city to Greece.87

An organization dedicated to Wilson’s

principles was founded in Constantinople, while Turks in Izmir (Smyrna) demanded self-

determination and union with Turkey after the conference authorized the occupation of

their city by Greece.88

U.S. policy toward Turkey after the First World War reflected broader questions

of U.S. engagement in foreign affairs and the conflicting tugs of politics. In January

1919, Wilson appointed Mark Bristol as American High Commissioner in Turkey to

oversee the armistice. Wilson ordered him to warn Turkish authorities to take immediate

steps to prevent future atrocities or risk the “absolute dissolution of the Turkish

Empire.”89

On May 14, 1919, Wilson in a meeting of the Big Four also signaled his

willingness to accept a mandate for Armenia, pending approval by the U.S. Senate. 90

However, the U.S. position continued to waver. Facing Senate opposition to his plans, the

Wilson administration in August made clear to its allies its desire to avoid “the apparent

85

The Armenian Question Before the Peace Conference: A Memorandum Presented Officially by the

Representatives of Armenian to the Peace Conference in Versailles, on February 26th, 1919, ed. The

Armenian National Union of America Press Bureau (New York1919); McMillan, Paris 1919, 377. 86

McMillan, Paris 1919, 375. 87

Elçin Macar, Cumhuriyet Döneminde İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi (Istanbul: İletişim, 2004), 73. 88

McMillan, Paris 1919, 367; Smyrne Turque: Publication de la Société de Défense de Droits Ottomans-

Smyrne. Turkish Historical Society, Ankara. Cami Baykurt Arşivi CB/83/9/9/80. 1912-20/05/1919. 89

The Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace, August 16, 1919, FRUS, 1919

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1934), Vol. II: 831. 90

McMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, 379.

42

assumption that the United States would take over responsibility for order” in the

Ottoman Empire.91

Diplomats emphasized that the government was not a signatory to the

Paris Treaty of 1856 and the Berlin Treaty of 1878. U.S. aid to the Ottoman Empire, the

State Department noted, was “on humanitarian and altruistic grounds without the feeling

that American is in any way responsible.”92

From Sèvres to Lausanne

Two simultaneous developments shaped U.S.-Turkish relations and the settlement

after the war: The demise of the “Wilsonian moment” in foreign affairs and the

surge of the Turkish Nationalist movement in Anatolia.93

Both of these developments

contributed to the acceptance of the bounds of a Turkish nation-state. Whereas Turkey’s

leaders saw minority questions as an impediment to national sovereignty, U.S. officials

increasingly saw the endurance of these problems as endangering ties between the two

states.

Even in Paris, Wilson’s vision for the Ottoman Empire faced significant

challenges. In a bid to prevent Italian occupation of southern Anatolia and under pressure

from Britain and France, Wilson agreed to allow Greek forces to occupy Izmir in May

1919 to counterbalance Italy’s claims under the pretext of preventing “imminent

91

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Davis), August 23, 1919, FRUS, 1919, Vol.

II: 834. 92

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Davis), August 26, 1919, FRUS, 1919, Vol.

II: 836. 93

Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial

Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

43

massacres.”94

A new scramble for Ottoman territory had begun. Supportive of an

American mandate, the sympathies of Wilson remained with Christian Armenians, but

his vision of world affairs faced strong Senate opposition. Even then, Wilson sent teams

of experts to study the region. In a Wilsonian spirit, the King-Crane commission,

dispatched in June, sought to avoid “a selfish settlement” by employing “scientific”

methods to study the region’s demography and attitudes, although the report was not

released until 1922.95

Another team of experts, the American Military Mission, known as

the Harbord Commission, was sent in August. Its report, released in April 1920,

recommended that a single power—presumably the United States—direct a mandate over

Anatolia, including both Turkish and Armenian-claimed areas. 96

Wilson’s plan for a

mandate over Armenia was shot down by the Senate in June 1920, following a similar

fate for the Treaty of Versailles: Some senators had rejected the idea that the United

States should assume responsibility for the distant, new nation. Other prominent

politicians, including Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the chairman of the Committee on

Foreign Relations, and Charles Evan Hughes, who would soon become secretary of state,

lent their support to the American Committee for the Independence of Armenians, which

94

McMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, 431. 95

Ibid., 406; James Gelvin, "The Ironic Legacy of the King-Crane Commission," in The Middle East and

the United States: History, Politics and Ideologies., ed. David W. Lesch and Mark L. Haas (Boulder:

Westview Press: 2013), 15-32. 96

James G. Harbord, Conditions in the Near East: Report of the American Military Mission to Armenia

(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920).This report noted the region was “ethnographically

one of the most complicated in the world,” but quickly fell back on stereotypes of the “the wild, ragged

Kurd” and “the able Armenian.”

44

supported Armenia’s immediate independence as a “barrier against the pan-Turanian

ambition of the Turks of Anatolia.” 97

The settlement imposed by the Great Powers, the Treaty of Sèvres, divided

Anatolia among European powers and the empire’s nationalities. In addition to

internationalizing Istanbul, Greeks were given control of Izmir, while an independent

Armenia received much of eastern Anatolia. Wilson retained the task of drawing the

borders for the independent Armenia, to which the United States extended de facto

recognition in 1920. Ironically, he gave little consideration to the experts he had

dispatched or ethnicity of the areas, noting that “the existing ethnic and religious

distribution of the population … could not, as in other parts of the world, be regarded as

the guiding element of the decision.” Instead, he believed “consideration of a healthy

economic life for the future state of Armenians should be decisive.”98

The treaty also

provided for the possible establishment of an independent Kurdish state. Turkish territory

would be limited to northern and central parts of the country, while other regions would

be internationalized (as in the case of Istanbul) or handed over to foreign powers (as in

France’s acquisition of Cilicia). Minority rights would be guaranteed by the League of

Nations. 99

It was soon obvious that the Treaty of Sèvres was dead upon arrival. In February

1920, Turkish Nationalists had adopted their National Pact, a broad set of principles

guiding the collective approach of this ragtag group of former Ottoman military officers

97

Vander Lippe, "The 'Other' Treaty of Lausanne," 41. 98

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Wallace), November 24, 1920, FRUS, 1920

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1936), Vol. III: 790-1. 99

"Treaty of Sèvres," in Major Peace Treaties of Modern History, 1648-1967., ed. Fred L. Israel (New

York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1967), 2055-214.

45

and impromptu militias toward achieving a settlement in their favor. Ultimately, their

approach reflected a continuing understanding of national identity rooted in an Anatolia

core of Muslims, who increasingly framed their identity as Turkish. The pact demanded

“complete independence and sovereignty,” and called for the peoples of Kars, Ardahan,

Batum, and western Thrace to determine their own fate. Finally, the National Pact

implied an understanding of “minorities” as distinct from the “Ottoman Muslim

majority.” It pledged to respect the “rights of minorities,” but only “on condition that

Muslim minorities in neighboring countries benefit from the same rights.” 100

The New

Republic of Armenia proved to be short-lived. Kazim Karabekir, an ally of Mustafa

Kemal who led the Nationalist forces, defeated Armenian forces by November 1920. The

Soviets quickly gobbled up the remaining Armenian territory in the Caucasus. By the

following year, internationally-isolated Turkish and Soviet leaders signed a treaty of

friendship that confirmed an end to Armenian independence. 101

Meanwhile, the United States gradually distanced itself from internal questions

surrounding minorities. By early 1921, a powerless and sick Woodrow Wilson refused to

mediate between Turks and Armenians.102

In sharp contrast to Wilson’s internationalism,

U.S. President Warren G. Harding was more direct in expressing his opposition to U.S.

involvement. As the Nationalists made unexpected gains and consolidated their grip on

Anatolia in 1921 and 1922, new reports of abuses by Nationalists against Christians

surfaced. Harding argued that the United States had little to gain by participating in an

100

Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 348. 101

William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 49-51. 102

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Belgium (Whitlock), January 18, 1921, FRUS, 1921

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1936), Vol. II: 926.

46

international inquiry, noting that there would ultimately be “no American support for a

proposal to send an armed force there to correct any abuses which are proven.” For

Harding, American, “impotence” might “be more humiliating than our non-

participation.” 103

Under pressure from U.S. Secretary of State Hughes, Harding agreed to

appoint American representatives to the inquiry. Nonetheless, the Harding administration

made clear that it would “not take action which would involve us in military operations

or the forcible pacification of the Near East.”104

U.S. officials also assumed an incremental and more pragmatic approach toward

accepting the new Turkish regime. Bristol, who had long downplayed the level of

atrocities committed against Christians and argued against the “wrong impression” cast

by missionaries and relief organizations, appealed to the opportunities of working with

the Nationalists: “a new regime has been established and is successfully maintaining [the]

highest principles of civilization and humanity.” In his view, the Nationalists were

“statesmen in whom not only the minorities living within the boundaries of Turkey but

the entire world can have confidence.”105

Nonetheless, new reports of deportations from

the Black Sea, Eastern Anatolia, and even Constantinople continued to pour in.106

Even

Bristol suggested that the Nationalists wished “to get rid of entire Greek and Armenian

population of Anatolia and Constantinople” before any minorities problems arose at a

103

President Harding to the Secretary of State, May 20, 1922, FRUS, 1922, Vol. II: 922. 104

The Secretary of State to President Harding, July 24, 1922, FRUS, 1922, Vol. II: 931; President Harding

to the Secretary of State, July 24, 1922, FRUS, 1922, Vol. II: 931. 105

The American High Commissioner (Bristol) to the President of the Turkish Council of Ministers

(Hussein Raouf), September 8, 1922, FRUS, 1922, Vol. II: 937; Nur Bilge Criss, "Shades of Diplomatic

Recognition: American Encounters with Turkey (1923-1937)," in Studies in Ataturk's Turkey: The

American Dimension, ed. George S. Harris and Nur Bilge Criss (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), 106;

Vander Lippe, "The 'Other' Treaty of Lausanne," 42. 106

Memorandum by the Secretary of State of a Conversation with the British Ambassador (Geddes),

November 10, 1922, FRUS, 1922, Vol. II: 952.

47

new peace conference. As he explained, Turks believed “that the presence of these people

has offered most of the pretexts in the past for the political inroads of Western powers

and further inroads of this sort are abhorrent to the newly awakened idea of Nationalism

in Turkey.”107

Hughes ordered Bristol to advocate on behalf of the protection of

minorities. 108

But there was little to back up those demands. Even when fire engulfed the

Greek and Armenian quarters of Izmir in September 1922, the acting Secretary of State,

William Phillips, spoke of the “barbaric cruelty of the Turks.” However, he conceded that

it would be “futile now to talk of this country going to war when all the other Powers are

arranging to make peace.”109

The new administration’s eagerness to reach peace played out in its changing

policies toward minorities. Hughes saw the protection of Ottoman minorities as important

and intricately connected with the maintenance of capitulations, provisions for relief

work, and protection of American philanthropic organizations. But he saw other interests

as important too, including freedom of the Straits and access to Turkish markets for

American firms.110

Just an hour later, another telegram from Hughes’ office gave only

passing mention to the protection of minorities. Since there were few minorities left in

Turkey, it stated that the most feasible solution might be an exchange of Christian and

Moslem minorities between Turkey and Greece. Moreover, more settled conditions in

107

The High Commissioner at Constantinople (Bristol) to the Secretary of State, November 19, 1922,

FRUS 1922, Vol. II: 961. 108

The Secretary of State to the High Commissioner at Constantinople (Bristol), September 30, 1922,

FRUS, 1922, Vol. II: 938-9. 109

The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Herrick), November 1, 1922, FRUS, 1922,

Vol. II: 947-8. 110

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Herrick), October 27, 1922, FRUS, 1923

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1938), Vol. II: 885.

48

Russia might allow Armenian refugees to be settled there.111

Indeed, the United States

gave increasingly less attention to the question of Christian and Jewish minorities, in

large part their remnants were now so small. 112

At the Lausanne Conference, the Turkish delegation, led by İsmet İnönü, stood

firmly to its positions on territory and what it regarded as any limitations on its

independence. As Lerna Ekmekçioğlu has pointed out, there were “three chief culprits” at

Lausanne for Turkish nationalists: the Great Powers, the minorities who supported them,

and the dysfunctional Istanbul government.113

Thus, Turkish diplomats opposed the

creation of any Armenian national home and were adamant in resisting capitulations and

special protections for minorities—both of which it saw as “restrictions upon its

sovereignty.” 114

The United States sent a delegation, but its influence remained limited,

both because the United States had not declared war on the Ottoman Empire and because

of the appearance of an official U.S. retreat from entanglement in foreign affairs.

Although Hughes continued to emphasize the welfare of minorities and avoidance of any

expulsion of minorities during the winter, the United States had little leverage to back up

this demand.115

111

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Herrick), October 27, 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

887. 112

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, November 21, 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

901. 113

Lerna Ekmekçioğlu, "Republic of Paradox: The League of Nations Minority Protection Regime and the

New Turkey's Step-Citizens," International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 4 (November 2014):

666. 114

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, January 7, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 948;

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, January 15, 1923, FRUS 1923, Vol. II: 951. 115

The Secretary of State to the Special Mission at Lausanne, November 24, 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

902-3.

49

A reflection of convergence between private and public interests in the interwar

period, popular American support for a settlement favorable to Christians sometimes

pervaded U.S. attitudes at Lausanne. During the proceedings, the American delegation

presented letters from organizations, such as the Armenia-America Society and the

Federal Council of the Protestant Churches of America, outlining their positions,

including proposals for an Armenian national home in Cilicia. Delegates also noted that

“large bodies of American citizens” were opposed to Turkish proposals to abolish or

eliminate the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, an ancient spiritual center of world

Orthodoxy with direct oversight over Greek Orthodox churches in the United States. 116

Under pressure from other countries, including Greece and the United Kingdom, Turkey

ultimately agreed to maintain the patriarchate in Istanbul, but that agreement was

excluded from the text of the Lausanne Treaty or other agreements. Turkish officials

insisted that the Patriarchate would be a Turkish domestic institution, rather than an

international one.117

However, this symbiosis of public and private interests also came under

increasing stress when it came to the question of Turkey’s minorities. Hughes expressed

surprise that the American delegation had spoken out on the question of the Patriarchate

116

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, December 16, 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

924. 117

Harry Psomiades, "The Ecumenical Patriarchate Under the Turkish Republic: The First Ten Years,"

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/articles/40-ecumenical-patriarchate-under-the-turkish-republic; Macar,

Cumhuriyet Döneminde İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi, 99-115; Bilâl N. Şimşir, ed. Lozan Telgrafları : Türk

Diplomatik Belgelerinde Lozan Barış Konferansı, 2 vols. (Turkish Historical Society Printing House,

1990), 362-3.

50

and questioned whether the issue was essential to the protection of minorities.118

A

diplomat noted that perceived attitudes of the United States toward the Patriarchate and

Armenians were “greatly resented,” but had been “misunderstood.” Turks thought these

issues were of little concern to the United States and U.S. attitudes had been dictated by

churches and missionaries.119

The State Department, therefore, requested the delegation

avoid relaying private American proposals unless they supported U.S. official views.120

There is also little evidence that American negotiators pressed the issue of

minority protection strongly in behind-the-scene dealings with their Turkish negotiators.

They instead emphasized capitulations and economic issues.121

When Eleftherios

Venizelos, who represented Greece at Lausanne, pressed the American delegate, to

intervene to allow Greek and Armenian refugees to return to Anatolia, envoy Joseph

Grew, though sympathetic, was noncommittal. 122

Privately, he questioned whether it

would be helpful for the Armenians to return and accepted the ethnic and territorial

parameters of a new Turkish nation-state: “I am inclined to feel that the most effective

solution of the Armenian question will be found in noninterference by the powers and the

lapse of time.” Rather than asking for their return to Anatolia, it might be better to

118

The Secretary of State to the Special Mission at Lausanne, December, 21 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

930. 119

The Vice Consult at Constantinople (Imbrie), Temporarily at Angora, to the Secretary of State, February

15, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 971. 120

The Secretary of State to the Special Mission at Lausanne, January 2, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 942-3. 121

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, January 18, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 951-

3. 122

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, May 23, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 1010.

51

consider “the welfare of both the expatriated Armenians and the Turkish state.” Hughes

accepted Grew’s recommendation.123

The Treaty of Lausanne reflected the Great Powers’ unwillingness to be drawn

into a deepening conflict over Anatolia and willingness to forsake liberal principles for

diplomatic expediency through ethnic homogeneity. In addition to settling boundaries for

the nation-state that would emerge, the treaty erased any immediate plans for an

Armenian or Kurdish state. It granted rights to non-Muslims, which constituted

“obligations of international concern … under the guarantee of the League of Nations.”

Nonetheless, the treaty also made exceptions for “public order” and “national defense.”

Turkey would also limit its subsequent interpretation of who constituted a minority to

Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. 124

Turkish nationalists saw the consolidation of an

ethnically-unified state as integral to Turkey’s security. At Lausanne, U.S. officials

observed, the Turkish delegation made clear that “the Greeks and Armenians were not

wanted, partly because of racial antipathies and partly because any minority becomes an

instrument of foreign intrigue, like an unhealed wound both painful and exposed to

infection.”125

In his memoir, one of the negotiators, Riza Nur, recalled telling an

American at Lausanne that Armenians had fought with the enemy and murdered Turks:

“Tell them, the people in Turkey swear to massacre 10,000 Armenians for every Turk

killed.”126

He saw his duty at Lausanne as saving “Turkey from the factors which made

123

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, June 6, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 1016; The

Secretary of State to the Special Mission at Lausanne, June 8, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 1019. 124

"Treaty of Lausanne," in Major Peace Treaties of Modern History, 1648-1967. 125

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, November 21, 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

901. 126

Şimşir, ed. Lozan Telgrafları: Türk Diplomatik Belgelerinde Lozan Barış Konferansı, Volume 1: 289.

52

Turkey weak, caused rebellions, and allowed Turkey to be used by foreign states.”

Making “Turkey homogenously Turkish” contributed to those efforts.127

Most importantly, the treaty signaled multinational embrace for the principle of

nation-states with homogenous populations and marked a crisis for international minority

protection. Its solution to minority problems was the “exchange” of some 1.2 million

Anatolian “Greeks” to Greece and the repatriation of some 400,000 “Turks” to Greece.

The transfer sealed the demographic transformation of Anatolia, which consequently

became at least ninety seven percent Muslim in population.128

In a sign of international

approval for the “exchange,” Fridtjof Nansen, the League of Nations high commissioner

for refugees, took up the task, which he considered “of great importance for the peace of

the world.”129

For Weitz, the population exchanges legitimized at Lausanne represented

less a violation of the liberal idea of self-determination, than a fulfillment of its premise

of nationally homogeneous states, sanctioned through a multinational treaty.130

At the

same time, the “exchange” of Turks and Greeks also ran contrary to the League’s efforts

to serve as a guarantor for the protection of minorities with guaranteed social and

political rights for minorities. 131

For Turkish nationalists, the exchange did not go far

enough. Riza Nur explained to reluctant lawmakers that “it would be better if they were

127

Ayhan Aktar, Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türkleştirme Politikaları (Istanbul: İletişim, 2000), 41- 42. 128

Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 3rd edition ed. (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 164. 129

Nansen’s efforts on behalf of prisoners of war and famine in Russia, as well as his ongoing “work for

the refugees in Asia Minor and Thrace” were cited in awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1923. Sarah

Shields, "The Greek-Turkish Population Exchange, Internationally Administered Ethnic Cleansing,"

Middle East Report, no. 267 (Summer 2013): 4; “Fridtjof Nansen-Facts.”

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1922/nansen-facts.html; Bruce Clark, Twice a

Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 2009), 95. 130

Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System," 1313-43. 131

Mazower, "The Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933-1950," 379-98; Weitz, "From the Vienna to

the Paris System,"1313-43.

53

non-existent,” but the small number of minorities no longer posed a significant threat to

Turkey.132

American diplomats expressed concern about “new precedents which tend to

establish the right of nations to expel large bodies of their citizens to become burdens

upon other nations.”133

Yet, American policymakers also moved toward acceptance of the

population exchange, noting that there was little hope of reversing its provisions.134

The minorities question continued to present problems for the U.S.-Turkish

relationship despite U.S. and Turkish efforts to move beyond it. The State Department

remained concerned that the United States might not approve any settlement that did not

ensure the protection of minorities or, at least, seem to do so.135

Concern that the treaty

could impose requirements on the United States prompted the U.S. Senate to reject it in

1923. Subsequently, the United States sought to negotiate a separate treaty with Turkey.

State Department officials, including Hughes and Bristol, started a public relations

campaign that stressed the pragmatic benefits of normalizing relations. Bristol, backed

by business groups, emphasized his inability to understand “why perfectly tangible

American interests in Turkey should not receive that measure of proper and normal

support which our government extends to similar American interests in other parts of the

world.”136

Bristol believed the main purpose of government was to represent the goals of

American business: “championing the rights of Christian minorities in the defunct

132

Aktar, Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türkleştirme Politikaları, 41-2. 133

The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, December 13, 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

922; The Special Mission at Lausanne to the Secretary of State, December 7, 1922, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

916. 134

The Secretary of State to the Special Mission at Lausanne, June 1, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 1014. 135

The Secretary of State to the Special Mission at Lausanne, June 11, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II: 1087;

The Acting Secretary of State to the Special Mission to Lausanne, June 19, 1923, FRUS, 1923, Vol. II:

1090. 136

Vander Lippe, "The 'Other' Treaty of Lausanne," 56.

54

Ottoman Empire had no place in the foreign policy of a modern industrial state.”137

By

contrast, the Committee Opposed to the Lausanne Treaty saw the treaty as surrender to a

despotic Turkey and insinuated that hundreds of thousands of Christian girls were being

held hostage in Turkish harems. Despite Secretary of State Kellogg’s stress on the

newness of the Turkish regime, the treaty was again defeated by the Senate in January

1927. Backed by Coolidge, a treaty normalizing relations between the United States and

Turkey was finally approved in September 1929.138

The formal restoration of relations

ultimately reflected official eagerness to sidestep minority problems that challenged

business and other American interests in the country.

Within Turkey, the regime pursued a gradual, but radical process of consolidating

the bounds of the new nation-state, for which minorities remained a problem. Radical

reforms implemented by Mustafa Kemal’s regime not only sought to transform Anatolia

into a modern nation-state, but consolidate its hold over a divided nationalist movement.

Reforms eliminated Islamic religious institutions, including the Şeyhülislam and caliphate

(among other institutions), as well as religious authorities’ control over education. The

government stipulated that men should wear European style hats (rather than the fez),

ordered the adoption of the European calendar and clock, required the use of the Latin

alphabet, and imported legal codes from Europe. 139

Secularization also had a negative

impact on minorities. The implementation of a secular civil code in February 1926 not

137

Thomas A. Bryson, “Admiral Mark L. Bristol, an Open-Door Diplomat in Turkey,” International

Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4 (September 1974): 467. 138

Vander Lippe, "The 'Other' Treaty of Lausanne," 47-62. 139

Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 166-83. A new account of the reforms is offered by Hale Yılmaz,

Becoming Turkish:Nationalist Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey, 1923-1945

(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2013).

55

only weakened Islam as a basis for political authority, but strengthened the power of the

Turkish state by eliminating any separate status for minorities and promoted their cultural

assimilation into a Turkish nation-state, a goal that, paradoxically, often remained

elusive. 140

Under pressure, Jewish, Armenian, and Greek minority groups each

renounced separate legal status as outlined in article forty-two of the Lausanne Treaty. 141

Limiting minority institutions such as the Grand Rabbinate, the Armenian Patriarchate,

and Ecumenical Patriarchate to spiritual functions also curtailed the strength of non-

Muslim communal institutions. Minority religious leaders were brought under strong

Turkish state control. The Jewish community did not even have a Grand Rabbi between

1931 and 1953 and the Armenian patriarchate went vacant from 1943 to 1951. Their

authority was further diminished by the fact that legislation approved in 1935 gave

authority over minority religious institutions to the state bureaucracy.142

Americans gradually embraced Turkey’s reform process. Bristol believed the

reforms of Mustafa Kemal might free the way to American economic

penetration.143

Armenian-Americans continued to express their grievances about Turkey,

while some writers expressed doubts about the long-term effects of the reforms. As one

American journalist put it, “the leopard does not change his spots as easily as a Turks

140

Aktar, Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türkleştirme Politikaları 110; Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of

Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 1992), 198; Ekmekçioğlu,

"Republic of Paradox: The League of Nations Minority Protection Regime and the New Turkey's Step-

Citizens." 141

Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 135-39. 142

Ibid., 149-54. Stanford Shaw, "The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey," ( Basingstoke:

MacMillan, 1991), 268. 143

Bryson, “Admiral Mark L. Bristol, an Open-Door Diplomat in Turkey,” 458.

56

does his headgear.”144

Meanwhile, some American missionaries began to warm up to the

new Turkey. Officials from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,

which oversaw Robert College in Istanbul, hailed the new government in their 1926

report as “a continual surprise. The time-worn epithets of ‘sick man,’ ‘effete,’

‘unchanging,’ which used to apply, no longer fit.”145

Few were more enthusiastic than

American Ambassador Grew, who in his diary compared the reforms to the American

revolution of 1776 and saw Atatürk as throwing away “the retarding trammels of

orientalism.” He and his successors put U.S. commercial expansion at the top of their

agendas as they also sought to improve the image of the “terrible Turk.”146

Similar

efforts to move beyond minority problems were also evident in the conclusion in 1934 of

an agreement to address remaining American claims on Turkey from the war, which

resulted in Turkey providing $1.3 million as a lump sum payment. Negotiators avoided

consideration of individual petitions and U.S. citizens who had held Ottoman citizenship

(such as Armenian- or Greek-Americans) were largely excluded on legalistic grounds.147

The following year, the Turkish ambassador, Münir Ertegün, also expressed his “hearty

appreciation” to the State Department after the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation,

144

Roger R. Trask, The United States Response to Turkish Nationalism and Reform 1914-1939

(Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1971), 69. 145

Ibid., 72. 146

Ibid., 82-93. 147

Claims Agreement Between the United States of America and Turkey, Signed at Ankara, October 25,

1934, FRUS, 1934 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1951), Vol. II, Europe, Near East, and Africa: 933-934; The

Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the American Embassy in Turkey, June 28, 1933, FRUS, 1934, Vol.

II: 901-2.

57

under Turkish and U.S. pressure, dropped its plans to produce a film version of The Forty

Days of Musa Dagh, a novel account of the atrocities of the First World War.148

Turkey’s government also demonstrated pragmatism in its approach toward

lingering transnational questions, including issues involving Turks outside Turkey. Not

only did Mustafa Kemal generally eschew pan-Turkism, his government pragmatically

resigned to the fact that multiethnic and multireligious Mosul—part of the National

Pact—was ceded to Britain and instead focused on the consolidation of the national

borders defined at Lausanne.149

Initially, international minority questions, such as

Turkey’s expulsion of Ecumenical Patriarch Constantine in 1924, plagued Turkey’s

relations with Greece. Greece took the issue to the League, while Turkey insisted that the

League had no authority. Turkish officials insisted the Patriarchate was subject to Turkish

domestic laws and accused Greece of trying "to make the Patriarchate into an

international institution” and “interfere in Turkish domestic affairs.”150

The patriarch’s

replacement by Basil Georgiadis in May 1925 helped to normalize relations between the

two neighboring states.151

Despite the bitterness that had characterized their recent

relations and the endurance of a variety of cross-border claims, Turkey and Greece were

able to put their relations on sounder footing in the 1930s. Venizelos, who served as

148

The Turkish Ambassador (Münir) to the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Murray),

October 4, 1935, FRUS, 1935 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1953), Vol. I, General, the Near East and Africa:

1055-6; Michael Bobelian, Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long Struggle for

Justice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 82-85. 149

Andrew Mango, Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey (Woodstock and New York:

Overlook Press, 1999), 332-3; Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, 50; Sarah Shields, "Mosul, the

Ottoman Legacy and the League of Nations," International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies 3, no. 2

(2009): 217-30. The legacy of pan-Turkism remains complex. For a discussion see Holly Shissler, Between

Two Empires: Ahmet Ağaoğlu and the New Turkey (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003). 150

Psomiades, "The Ecumenical Patriarchate Under the Turkish Republic: The First Ten Years." 151

Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, 59.

58

Greek prime minister, and Atatürk both sought not only to build a peaceful

neighborhood, but also to preserve their new, fragile nation-states by forging new ethnic-

based national identities.152

In 1934, Turkey also endorsed the Balkan Pact with Greece,

Romania and Yugoslavia, each of which had significant Turkish or Muslim minorities.

Although Bulgaria’s demands on Greece limited the impact of the agreement, all of these

countries agreed to “mutually guarantee the security of their Balkan borders,” a testament

to regional resolve to overcome ethnic tensions and promote normalized regional

relations.153

As Turkey’s government sought to eliminate perceived threats to the country’s

fragile sovereignty, questions of minorities and security remained closely linked. The

1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits overlapped with

pressure from European powers for revision to the settlement of the First World War. By

1936, Nazi Germany reasserted control over the Saarland, which had been administered

by France since the war’s end, and remilitarized the Rhineland, contrary to earlier

German pledges not to do so. Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia further exposed the weakness

of the League of Nations. Amid this uncertain international climate, Turkey successfully

pushed for changes to the regime governing the Straits. The Montreux Convention

eliminated the Straits Commission set up after the First World War and restored the

strategic waterways to Turkish control and permitted their remilitarization. The

multinational agreement also represented a foreign policy triumph for Turkey and its

152

Clark, Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey; Alexandris, The

Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations. 153

İsmail Soysal, Tarihçeleri ve Açıklamaları ile Birlikte Türkiye'nin Siyasal Andlaşmaları, 1. Cilt (1920-

1945), (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2000), 446-8; Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, 62.

59

ongoing efforts to remove any perceived barriers to its national sovereignty. Yet, a series

of attacks against Jews in northwestern Turkey in 1934 were based at least partially on

the premise that Jews continued to threaten Turkey’s security in strategic parts of the

country.154

No issue better revealed the continuing relationship between minority questions

and security than the lingering question of Turkey’s Kurds, whose assertion of national

identity has been violently suppressed since the early years of the republic. Turkey’s

government perceived the outbreak of a rebellion with Kurdish and religious overtones in

1925 as both a threat to the new state and, probably erroneously, as inspired by Britain’s

efforts to secure Mosul. 155

In response, a draconian law—the Law on the Maintenance of

Order—enabled the government “to stifle all reaction and rebellion,” any “instigation,”

and all publications “susceptible of troubling the order, tranquility or social harmony of

the country.”156

Turkey’s government subsequently denied the very existence of Kurds as

a distinct ethnic group and Kurdish revolts, including a major one in 1930, were violently

suppressed. The forced resettlement of Kurds from Dersim (now known as Tunçeli)

province in 1937-1938 to other areas resulted in thousands of deaths and reflected

broader attempts to create an ethnically Turkish Anatolia using policies similar to those

of the Young Turks.157

Recently released archival sources show that at least some

Turkish officials feared that the unrest of 1937-38 was provoked by foreign Armenians,

who were teaming up with Kurds against the Turkish state. Italy, Turkey’s greatest

154

Rıfat Bali, "1934 Trakya Olayları," (Istanbul: Libra, 2012), 450. 155

Muhittin Ataman, "The Kurdish Question and Its Impact on Turkey’s Foreign Policy, From 1923 to

2000," Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies XXIV, no. 2 (Winter 2001): 37. 156

David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, 3rd ed. (New York and London: I. B. Tauris), 195. 157

Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950.

60

foreign security concern in the interwar period, was seen as fomenting unrest in an

attempt to secure the settlement that it had been denied at Sèvres.158

Indeed, Turkey’s

own Kurdish population represented the only significant target for Turkey’s military until

the Korean War. Moreover, Turkey’s air force was primarily used “to secure control of

eastern Turkey and to crush Kurdish nationalism.”159

Cooperation to contain Kurdish

nationalism also represented an important tenet of the 1937 Saadabad Pact grouping

Turkey, Iran, and Iraq by ensuring that these states would not allow Kurdish rebels to use

their territory for cross-border attacks. 160

U.S. officials offered surprisingly little criticism of violent attempts to assimilate

Kurds and increasingly appeared to support official Turkish attitudes toward them. One

American intelligence report optimistically noted that Kurds remained the subject of a

“thorough Turkification program” and would “probably be fully assimilated in the course

of a very few generations.”161

Another suggested that Kurds were incapable of self-rule:

“As an unorganized—some say, unorganizable —people who apparently have no genius

for and certainly no experience in modern political behavior, they have been a serious

problem to the Turks.”162

Although the issue is little known today, Turkey’s acquisition of the territory of

158

Serap Yeşiltuna, ed. Devletin Dersim Arşivi (Istanbul: İleri Yayıncılık, 2012), 267-73. 159

Robert Olson, "The Kurdish Rebellions of Sheikh Said (1925), Mt. Ararat (1930), and Dersim (1937-8):

Their Impact on the Development of the Turkish Air Force and on Kurdish and Turkish Nationalism," Die

Welt des Islam 40, no. 1 (March 2000): 92; McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, 198. 160

Ataman, "The Kurdish Question and Its Impact on Turkey’s Foreign Policy, From 1923 to 2000," 39;

Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, 62. 161

Turkey: Characteristics of the Population, 1942, Reel III, O.S.S./State Department Intelligence

and Research Reports, Part 7, the Middle East (OSS). Washington, D.C.: University

Publications of America, 1977. 162

Turkey: Minorities, 1942, Reel III, OSS.

61

Alexandretta from France marked a significant shift for minorities as an issue in Turkey’s

foreign policy. Whereas Turkey had previously sought to avoid politicizing ethnic issues

at the international level, the Turkish government itself brought the question of

Alexandretta to the League of Nations in December 1937. As France made promises of

independence for Syria, Turkey demanded that France grant self-determination for the

multiethnic and multireligious province. Ethnic tensions soon embroiled the territory,

which became the nominally independent Republic of Hatay in September 1938 but was

ceded to Turkey the following summer. Despite references to self-determination, strategic

interests and politics, rather than identity, encouraged France’s handover of the sanjak to

Turkey. Whereas Turkey feared the territory could be used by Italy to stage an invasion,

France saw the handover as a means to cement an alliance with Turkey. 163

Despite the government’s dubious public claims that the territory was “Turkish,”

Turkey’s security forces and other authorities remained deeply concerned about the

ethnic dynamics of the Alexandretta and nearby areas. Turkey’s military especially feared

that Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, or other ethnic groups could destabilize the district. In

January 1937, the governor of Urfa province relayed reports to the head of Turkey’s

military that Kurds, Armenians and Arabs were teaming up with France to keep

Alexandretta in Syria.164

Intelligence officials also reported that France was arming

163

Sarah D. Shields, Fezzes in the River: Identity Politics and European Diplomacy in the Middle East on

the Eve of World War II (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 232-49. For a pro-

Turkish account, see Yücel Güçlü, The Question of the Sanjak of Alexandretta: A Study in Turkish-French-

Syrian Relations (Ankara: Turkish Historical Society Printing House, 2001). 164

Governor of Urfa (Ulusoğlu) to the Chief of the General Staff, January 24, 1937. 7-026-1 , Genel

Kurmay Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt Başkanlığı Arşivi (ATASE).

62

Armenians and that ethnic Turks were moving away in fear of violence or looting.165

Authorities conducted searches for weapons purportedly belonging to Armenian militias

and reported finding little more than a fleeing, disorganized and “ragtag” (derme çatma)

band of Kurds and Arabs. 166

By late 1938, intelligence officers described the migration

of Christians away from the territory due to fears associated with its probable cession to

Turkey.167

Nonetheless, conspiracy theories continued to swirl. Turkish intelligence

officials suggested that France was encouraging Armenians to move to Syria where they

might form a majority in border areas and threaten Turkey. 168

The fear that Armenians

could “threaten the safety and security of our border” was so serious that it reached the

office of Turkey’s foreign minister, who contacted the French ambassador, who, in turn,

denied the report.169

Although many of the claims are dubious, the intelligence reports are

revealing because they show how ethnic questions and fears about minorities, including

Armenians and Kurds, remained a matter of intense and exaggerated fear for Turkey’s

state security apparatus.

By the outbreak of World War II, U.S. intelligence officials seemed to look with

increasing favor at the homogeneity of Turkey’s populations and as a benefit to Turkey’s

overall security. According to one U.S. Government report, the fact that Turkey was now

165

Head of Central Security Services (Ögel) to the Chief of the General Staff, January 23, 1937, 7-028-1,

ATASE; Commanding general of the Sixth Army in Kayseri to the chief of the General Staff, January 18,

1937, 7-0333, ATASE; No title, January 15, 1937, 7-041-1, ATASE. 166

Head of Central Security Services (Ögel) to the Chief of the General Staff, November 7, 1938,8-010,

ATASE; Deputy Head of Central Security Services (Perkel) to the Chief of the General Staff, September 3,

1938. 8-025-1, ATASE. 167

Head of Central Security Services (Ögel) to the Chief of the General Staff, November 11, 1938, 8-007-

1, ATASE. 168

Commander of the Sixth Army Corps (Ergüder) to the Chief of the General Staff, June 8, 1939, 8-048-

1, ATASE. 169

Menemencioğlu to the chief of the General Staff, July 25, 1939, 8-047, ATASE.

63

ninety eight percent Muslim reduced the potential for sectarian strife: “Minorities

problems, one of the characteristic features of Ottoman Turkey, are less prominent in

modern Turkey than in most of Europe.” The report spoke glowingly of the assimilation

of minorities and “active participation in the secular life of the majority.” It examined

several religious and ethnic groups in terms of their perceived significance for Turkish

security: Armenians remained a problem, but “intensive efforts by the Nazis to turn them

into an instrument for use in destroying the economic and military strength of Turkey had

little success” in part because of their memory of the atrocities of the First World War.

Kurds represented “the only really troublesome non-Turkish group in Turkey today.” 170

The Second World War and the Varlık Vergisi (Capital Tax)

During the Second World War, Turkey’s leaders pursued policies that reflected

long-standing conceptualizations of security, Turkish national identity, and minorities. At

the international level, Turkey’s foreign policy sought to keep Turkey out of the war

through a policy of “active neutrality.” The men who wielded power in Turkey had

experienced the “humiliations of the First War” and were eager to avoid its repeat.

Despite a pact pledging mutual support concluded by Turkey, Britain, and France in

October 1939, Turkey resisted pressure to enter the war. Turkey’s leaders became

increasingly nervous as the Axis occupied Greece and Bulgaria and, in June 1941,

Turkey also concluded a treaty of friendship with Germany. However, the German defeat

at Stalingrad in November 1942 tested Turkey’s neutrality in the war. Beginning in late

170

Turkey: Minorities, 1942, Reel III, OSS.

64

1942, the Allies increased pressure on Turkey to join the war effort, but Turkey

successfully maintained its neutrality until the war was nearly over. 171

Ethnic and minority questions offered an important backdrop to Turkey’s wartime

experience. Kazim Karabekir, a hero from the War of Independence, suggested moving

minorities “who suck the blood of Turks” to the interior and replacing them with Muslim

Turks as part of efforts to secure the borders. Preparing for a possible Axis invasion, the

government also created a reserve force of minorities in May 1941. These soldiers carried

out manual labor, but received no weapons training for fear that Armenians or other

minorities might collude with foreign powers. 172

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 also emboldened pan-

Turkish sentiment. At the popular level, a variety of pan-Turkish publications drew

attention to the plight of Turkic and Muslim groups within the USSR and suggested that

Turkey should join the war on Germany’s side. Germany also attempted to entice Turkish

officials. Turkish military officers, including Nuri Pasha—the brother of Enver Pasha,

the Young Turk minister of war—even toured the front with their German

counterparts.173

The German ambassador to Turkey, Franz von Papen, attempted to woo

German leaders by promising them influence over Turkic groups freed from the Soviet

Union.174

However, Turkish flirtation with Germany also proved a liability for Turkey,

especially after the German defeat at Stalingrad. As pan-Turkists marched in the streets

171

Selim Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy during the Second World War: An “Active” Neutrality

(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 58. 172

Rifat N. Bali, The "Varlık Vergisi" Affair: A study of Its Legacy, Selected Documents (Istanbul: The Isis

Press, 2005), 46. 173

Jacob Landau, Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation (London: Hurst, 1995), 112-14. 174

Charles Warren Hostler, Turkism and the Soviets: The Turks of the World and their Political Objectives

(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1957), 176.

65

in early 1944 to denounce communism, Turkey’s government recognized the danger of

increasingly sour relations with the Soviet Union and cracked down in early 1944. But

for the Soviet Union, this proved too little, too late. A reflection of their own pan-Turkish

fears, Soviet authorities in May 1944 ordered the mass deportation of the Turkic

population of Crimea to “liquidate,” what they argued were “accomplices of German-

fascists occupants.”175

By late winter 1942, Jewish organizations were critical of Turkey. The departure

of more than 750 Jewish refugees from Romania aboard the MV Struma ended in a

disaster in February 1942: Britain refused to grant the passengers permission to seek

refuge in Palestine, and Turkey refused to allow the passengers to disembark from the

disabled ship, which sank off the Turkish coast. On March 8, 1942, Chaim Weizmann,

president of the World Zionist Organization, sharply criticized Turkey, as well as Britain,

for causing the disaster. 176

The war also exposed existing cleavages within Turkey. The Turkish

government’s defense expenditures increased sharply, particularly after the Italian and

175

Landau, Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation, 116-7; Jamil Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish

Crisis of the Cold War, 1945-1953 (New York: Lexington Books, 2011), xiii, 18. 176

Larry Rue, “Blames Turkey, Palestine Heads for Sea Tragedy: Zionist Leader Lays Deaths of 766 to

Officials,” Chicago Tribune (March 9, 1942): 7. Several scholars have pointed out that Turkey also served

as a site for refuge for Jews. In 1933, Turkey welcomed 34 Jewish professors who had been expelled by

Germany and offered them positions in Turkey. Avner Levi, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nde Yahudiler (Istanbul:

İletişim, 1992), 98-99; Stanford Shaw, Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey's Role in Rescuing Turkish and

European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945 (New York: New York University Press, 1993).

Several Turkish diplomats also worked to rescue Jews in Greece and France from the Holocaust. One—

Selahattin Ülkümen—was subsequently recognized as among the “Righteous Among Nations” by Israel.

The Righteous Among the Nations. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/statistics/turkey.pdf

Nonetheless, Turkey’s policy toward Jews was hardly consistent. Arnold Reisman has acknowledged the

heroism of the diplomats, but argued that they were not acting according to official government policy.

Arnold Reisman, An Ambassador and a Mensch: The Story of a Turkish Diplomat in Vichy France

(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010).

66

German invasions of Greece in 1940-1. Following the German defeat at Stalingrad,

Turkey’s government introduced a new capital tax—the Varlık Vergisi— in an attempt to

raise new revenue quickly. Assessments were determined by local tax councils, which

included only Turkish Muslim members. On average, non-Muslims paid more than ten

times what Muslims paid. Indeed, official records suggest that minorities paid more than

280 million Turkish Lira out of 315 million collected.177

Taxpayers were not allowed to

appeal the assessment and were required to pay within fifteen days or face confiscation of

their property. If the funds were still insufficient, the individual was sent to a hard labor

camp to pay off the debt. The effect was disastrous for minorities: the tax helped to turn

non-Muslim firms over to Muslim ownership reinforcing existing efforts to “Turkify” the

country’s economy and encouraging many non-Muslims to emigrate.178

State Department

documents recounted a Turkish official’s purported statement that the Second World War

was a final opportunity to “eliminate Jewish domination of Turkish commerce” before

war’s end when “Jews would act everywhere as spoiled children of the victors.”179

Publicly, Turkish leaders, including the Prime Minister, denied that the tax in any way

aimed to crush minorities, but also pointed to the large amount of wealth in their

hands.180

The tax immediately attracted the interest of American diplomats, who recognized

how it disproportionately targeted minorities. Shortly after the tax was adopted, in

November 1942, Ambassador Steinhardt described Turkey’s dire economic state and the

177

Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 233. 178

Aktar, Varlık Vergisi ve 'Türkleştirme Politikaları 136. 179

Murray to Welles, Berle and Shaw, March 13, 1943. 867.512/232. Reel 31, IAT. 180

Bali, The "Varlık Vergisi" Affair, 330.

67

burden of maintaining an almost fully mobilized army.181

He immediately noted the tax

was “grossly excessive, and beyond their [Greeks’ and other minorities’] capacity to pay

thus indicating a deliberate intention to liquate their wealth.”182

In April, State

Department officials, likewise, described the tax as “highly discriminatory against

Christians and Jews,” and “enforced in a ruthless and at times even brutal fashion.”

However, U.S. policymakers focused their attention on American interests, rather than

any problems experienced by minorities. Steinhardt delivered three diplomatic briefs on

behalf of American citizens, who had also received high assessments. All three cases

were resolved favorably.183

As American public pressure started to mount against Turkey, the United States

continued to put its strategic interests first. At a time when Roosevelt and Churchill were

pressing for Turkish involvement in the war effort—an issue that was raised by Churchill

during a January 30, 1943 meeting with İnönü in southern Turkey –U.S. policy seemed to

be concerned about avoiding any action that might upset Turkish leaders. The tax issue

was, according to Wallace Murray, State Department Adviser on Political Relations,

“admittedly a matter in which the United States has little direct interest, except for the

unfortunate effect on public opinion.”184

Paul Alling in the State Department’s Office of

Near Eastern Affairs feared that the tax could again revive the debate over minorities

under Turkish rule. Although he found news of the tax “somewhat disturbing,” he was

reluctant to conclude that renewed persecution of non-Muslims was underway—a

181

Ibid., 63. 182

Steinhardt to the Secretary of State, January 23, 1943. [No file number given] Reel 31, IAT. 183

Steinhardt to the Secretary of State, September 6, 1943. 867.512/243. Reel 31, IAT; Steinhardt to the

Secretary of State, March 23, 1944. 867.512/252. Reel 31, IAT. 184

Murray to Welles, January 11, 1943. FW867.5017/23. Reel 30, IAT.

68

scenario that he feared could jeopardize U.S. strategic interests in the region: “any

recurrence in the United States of religious antipathies against the Turk might have a

disastrous effect upon American-Turkish relations. Should Christians and Jews again

raise the cry of the ‘despicable Turk’ so current during the days of the Armenian

massacres, much mischief would be done to the United Nations’ cause in the Near East at

this time.”185

Likewise, Undersecretary Welles cautioned against any intervention on

behalf of minorities, noting the probable anger that it might spark from Turkish officials:

“it does not seem that representations would serve any useful purpose at this moment.”186

The American ambassador’s ability to help the administration to steer clear of American

popular pressure for intervention into the problems of minorities while advocating for

American interests won him accolades from senior officials at the State Department.

Wallace Murray, State Department Adviser on Political Relations, hailed Steinhardt’s

actions “as a first-rate job … to protect the American Interests concerned.” 187

The U.S. and Turkish governments also conducted a public relations offensive

aimed at limiting any public criticism concerning the tax. U.S. Secretary of State Cordell

Hull met with Athenagoras, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of New York. Hull urged

Greek Church officials, who were accusing Turkey of discrimination, not to give any

publicity to the tax. 188

Hull also expressed concern that the “impression” that Turkey’s

government was again persecuting minorities might do “considerable damage” to U.S.-

Turkish relations. He noted that Athenagoras and his church were “seriously disturbed”

185

Alling to Welles, January 11, 1943. FW867.5017/23. Reel 30, IAT. 186

Bali, The "Varlık Vergisi" Affair, 88. 187

Murray to Welles, February 19, 1943. FW 867.512/223. Reel 31, IAT. 188

Hull to the Ambassador in Turkey, January 30, 1943. 867.512/218A, IAT.

69

about problems experienced by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul due to the tax.

Jewish leaders, moreover, sought “a more accommodating attitude” toward refugees.

Missionary organizations might also be angered about news of discrimination against

Armenians.189

Behind the scenes, the Office of War Information sought to limit news

about the tax, which one official noted would create “a first class scandal” in the United

States. Privately, the official, Robert B. Parker, Jr., from the Office of War Information,

appeared aware of the ways in which the tax was severely hurting minorities when he

relayed the “full dope” about the tax to the Assistant Secretary of State. The tax,

according to a report that he forwarded, would spell “the economic death for all non-

Moslems … now when the Allies are too busy and involved and too mutually hostile to

intervene.”190

Concerns that the tax could cause a backlash from the American public came to

the fore when articles critical of Turkey seeped into the New York Times in the fall of

1943. In his memoirs, correspondent Cyrus L. Sulzberger called the tax’s targeting of

minorities “an obvious reflection of the Nazi influence that gained strength after Hitler’s

invasion of Russia.” He also sharply criticized the Allies for censoring news of the

Varlık Vergisi for fear of “jeopardizing their position in neutral Turkey.” He was

particularly critical of Ambassador Steinhardt, whom he accused of pretending “to

disapprove of this monstrous law,” while endorsing Allied censorship.191

Although

Sulzberger cleared his articles with authorities in Turkey, Turkish officials became “very

189

Hull to the American Embassy in Ankara, January 11, 1943. 867.512/210. Reel 31, IAT. 190

Parker to Berle, March 25, 1943. 867.512/230. Reel 31, IAT. 191

C.L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles: Memoirs and Diaries, 1934-1954 (New York: Macmillan,

1969), 216-7.

70

annoyed” after the chief foreign correspondent’s reports were published. 192

U.S. and

Turkish officials consulted on damage control. The Turkish Ambassador, Münir Ertegün,

spoke to Arthur Sulzberger, the correspondent’s uncle and publisher of the newspaper,

who assured him that no more articles would be published on the topic. Besides, Hull

wrote, “interest in this matter is now dying out and … harm would be done, if the Turks

were to engage at this time in polemics with the American press.”193

Fortunately for

American and Turkish propagandists, the work camps were ordered closed by the

following month before the news received broader attention in the American press.194

According to an American intelligence report, the camps were likely closed in part

because of Turkish leaders’ “desire to remove that cause of criticism in Anglo-American

eyes” ahead of Roosevelt’s meeting with Churchill and İnönü in Cairo.195

Some American officials displayed a broader naiveté about the severity of

conditions in Turkey or were unwilling to assist minorities. In the summer of 1943, a

lawyer representing an American family with relatives in Turkey appealed for the State

Department to help transfer money so that family members in Turkey, whose possessions

were being confiscated as a result of the tax, might emigrate. A State Department

official’s perfunctory reply encouraged the attorney to use American Express to wire the

money. When the attorney replied that the funds would be confiscated to pay the

excessive tax, the State Department official said there was nothing he could do: although

United States disapproved of discrimination, “An equally basic principle of this

192

Kelley to Murray, October 18, 1943. 867.512/246, Reel 31, IAT. 193

Murray to Kelley, October 8, 1943. 867.512/245. Reel 31, IAT. 194

Steinhardt to the Secretary of State, December 3, 1943. 867.512/247. Reel 31, IAT. 195

Bali, The "Varlık Vergisi" Affair, 332.

71

Government’s foreign policy is the avoidance of interference in the internal affairs of

other nations.”196

The State Department offered the same reply when a Greek

organization asked about the tax, but, in line with Turkish sensibilities, noted the

discrepancy of wealth between Muslims and non-Muslims.197

Other officials also showed increasing sympathy toward Turkish attitudes. U.S.

officials were aware of the damage that news of the tax could present for Turkey’s

reformed image. A detailed American OSS report on the subject noted diplomatic

ramifications, including potential widespread “disillusionment as to the sincerity of

Turkey’s professions of democracy.” At times, the report appeared almost sympathetic

toward Turkey’s leaders: “It was widely, and very possibly correctly, believed by

leading men in the government that the minorities formed a potentially subversive

element within the country. For reasons of security, therefore, the government would

profit from the weakening or frightening of the minority groups.”198

At the same time,

attention from at least one prominent Turkish columnist, Ahmet Emin Yalman, to the fact

that similar “war time necessities” were also used to justify the detention of Japanese

Americans may have also made U.S. diplomats even less willing to speak up on behalf of

Turkey’s minorities.199

This perception of minorities as a problem for the Turkish nation-state was a

sentiment that would echo in Cold War understandings of the security threats that

minorities posed to a country seeking alliance with the United States. State Department

196

Allen to Stansky, August 4, 194[3?]. Reel 31, IAT. 197

Steinhard to the Secretary of State, January 20, 1943. Reel 31, IAT. 198

Bali, The "Varlık Vergisi" Affair, 336-7. 199

Steinhardt to the Secretary of State, December 11, 1943. Reel 31, IAT.

72

officials, including Hull, continued to assess the tax less on humanitarian grounds, than

strategic concerns, such as the effects of the tax for the Axis.200

Reports that Armenians

or Kurds across the border bore arms stoked continuing fears in Turkey. U.S. officials,

meanwhile, reported that Dashnaks— the Armenian party that had governed during

Armenia’s brief independence —as warming up to the Soviet Union in its quest to

acquire territory in eastern Anatolia from Turkey. According to the American report,

Armenians “would rather kill Turks than live.” 201

As Greeks, Armenians and others

advocated for minority questions to be included in the postwar settlement, U.S. and

Turkish officials recognized their mutual desire to move forward. In February 1945,

Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan—a statement that allowed it to participate in

the postwar settlement, but did not satisfy the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

During the first two decades of the Turkish Republic, Turkish leaders sought to

consolidate their power by limiting restraints that they perceived to their new nation-

state. Perceived threats included not only “external” threats to sovereignty, such as

territorial claims, economic concessions to foreigners, or restrictions on transit through

the Bosporus, but also perceived “internal” threats in the form of minorities. Although

international agreements extended minority rights to non-Muslims, Turkey’s leaders

continued to see officially recognized minority Greeks, Armenians, and Jews as potential

200

Hull to the American Embassy in Ankara, January 11, 1943. Reel 31, IAT. 201

Memorandum to the Director of Strategic Services from the Foreign Nationalities Branch: The Tashnags

Turn to Soviet Russia, July 31, 1944.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0001485030.pdf

73

foreign agents and pursued “Turkification” policies aimed at moving away from any

perceived restraints on the new nation’s sovereignty. Demands from Kurds, who were not

legally recognized as a minority, were seen not only as a threat to internal stability, but as

a transnational threat to Turkey’s borders.

Turkish leaders’ understandings of minorities reflected late Ottoman perceptions

of security and foreign policy interests. As the Ottoman Empire was confronted with

increasing territorial claims and demands for reforms, late Ottoman Turkish leaders

looked with increasing suspicion at minorities, missionaries, and outside interests that

were seen as limiting Ottomans’ freedom of movement. The outbreak of the Balkan Wars

represented a fundamental shift of the Young Turk leadership toward a policy of

“Turkification” of a national core rooted in Anatolia that was increasingly Muslim and

Turkish in character. This chapter broadly supports a recent wave of scholarship that

stresses continuity between the Young Turk regime and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s

republic.202

The same generation of Turkish nationalists who saw the disintegration of

the Ottoman Empire also led Turkey during the Second World War. Not only did they

pursue a policy of neutrality that sought to distance Turkey from the disastrous intrigues

of the Great Powers, but they accelerated policies—most notably, the Varlık Vergisi—

that forged an ethnically homogenous nation-state.

Turkish leaders’ attitudes were also reinforced by an international system that

gave increasing emphasis to the homogeneity of the nation-state. For Turkish diplomats

202

Erik Zürcher, "“The Ottoman Empire and the Turkish republic: An Attempt at a New Periodisation,”"

Welt des Islams 32, no. 2 (1992); Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern

Anatolia, 1913-1950.

74

at Lausanne, minorities represented “an instrument of foreign intrigue” and “an unhealed

wound both painful and exposed to infection.” The replacement of the Treaty of Sèvres

by the Treaty of Lausanne demonstrated both the limitations of minority protection by the

League of Nations and growing multinational acceptance of nation-states with

homogenous populations. In subsequent decades, politicians and diplomats regarded

Lausanne and the population transfers that it sanctioned as “a great accomplishment, a

model way of handling ethnic and national conflicts” that served as a model for post-

World War II deportations of Germans and ethnic minorities.203

Lausanne also sat well

with a postwar system of human rights under which international protections for

minorities became subject to the whims of sovereign states.204

For Turkey, the treaty

remains a sine qua non of its diplomacy even today.

U.S. relations with Turkey embodied the complexity of these shifts in the

international protection of minorities and broader changes in its U.S. foreign policy

orientation. Whereas U.S. relations with the Ottoman Empire were strongly shaped by

missionaries and their accounts of Armenian atrocities, U.S. government attitudes toward

Turkey and its minorities underwent a gradual, but discernible shift in the last year of the

Ottoman Empire and early decades of the Turkish Republic. Although American popular

agitation for intervention on behalf of minorities remained strong, the U.S. government

gave greater attention to “tangible American interests in Turkey,” especially the

expansion of potential opportunities for American business. Despite Wilson’s pro-

203

Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System" 1342. 204

Mark Mazower, “The Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933-1950.” The Historical Journal, Vol. 47,

No. 2 (June 2004): 379-398.

75

Christian sentiment, U.S. officials increasingly sought to avoid becoming bogged down

in complex ethnic and minority problems in the region. As U.S. officials embraced

Turkey’s reforms and the parameters of an ethnically “Turkish” nation-state, they

signaled sympathy with Turkish official attitudes of minorities as a potential security

problem and sought to minimize problems involving minorities, such as the Varlık

Vergisi, from becoming a “first class scandal.” U.S. efforts to avoid entanglement in

complex minority questions and eagerness to forge an alliance with Turkey occasionally

left Americans unable to grapple with the ethnic foundations that formed part of the

backdrop to Turkey’s own experience of the Cold War and its growing tensions with the

Soviet Union.

76

Chapter 2

“Triangle of Intrigue”: Turkey, the United States, and Soviet, Armenian and

Kurdish Territorial Claims, 1945-1946

The absence of any significant leftist opposition in Turkey means that the Soviet

Union must rely principally on other discontented elements—real and artificially

created. They are the Kurds and the Armenians .— William Averell Harriman,

U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union , October 23, 1945

205

The issue at hand is the lack of a high level of protest, which we had expected

from Turkish Armenians against this triangle of intrigue, with one corner in the

United States, the other in the Soviet Union—and perhaps—with a final one

inside our [Turkey’s] own borders.— Turkish Journalist Peyami Safa, December

29, 1945206

On July 7, 1945, an elderly Armenian refugee in Greece sent to the American

leadership the latest in a series of impassioned pleas for action on behalf of Armenians

like himself who had been uprooted from their native Anatolia decades before. Ohannes

Essayan had received no reply to his earlier letters and in his latest, even more desperate

petition, Essayan sought a new, just settlement to the Armenian question that had endured

205

Harriman to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945, FRUS, 1945 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1967) Vol.

II, Europe: 902. 206

Peyami Safa, “Bir mektubun kifayetsizliği,” Tasvir (December 29, 1945): 1; Wilson to the Secretary of

State, January 8, 1946. 760J.67/1-846, Record Group 59 (RG 59), Department of State Records (DSR).

77

since the Great War and that would allow Armenians to return to the territories in eastern

Anatolia that they had been forced to abandon. What is striking about U.S. official

reaction to Essayan’s latest letter is not the usual, heartless instructions scribbled by an

anonymous American bureaucrat to file away his latest letter—“No response needed,” a

common response to the many petitions that the government received—but the surprising

behind-the scenes flurry that Essayan’s letter ultimately provoked.

Although Essayan’s letter was written at a time when the Department of State was

preoccupied with the surrender of Germany and later Japan, the establishment of a new

international organization in the form of the United Nations, and emerging troubles with

the Soviet Union, the Department instructed the U.S. Embassy in Greece to follow up on

the letter.207

An intelligence officer was ordered to prepare a report on the respected,

multilingual Essayan, who described himself as the “representative to the League of

Nations of the Armenian refugees for the vindication of their treaty rights.” Skirting the

issue of the atrocities that likely drove the Armenian from Anatolia after the First World

War, the intelligence report described Essayan’s transition from a prominent manager of

the sole British railway in Western Anatolia to a struggling advocate for Armenian rights

who in his later years survived off remittances sent from a son in South America. 208

What concerned Washington and the influential ambassador to Greece, Lincoln

MacVeagh, who drafted a personal reply to Washington, was the prospect that diaspora

Armenians like Essayan—an “intelligent, reasonable and moderate” gentleman who was

207

Jones to the Embassy in Greece, August 24, 1945. 760J.67/7-745, DSR. 208

D. McClean, “British Finance and Foreign Policy in Turkey: The Smyrna-Aidin Railway Settlement

1913-14,” The Historical Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2 (June 1976): 521-530; MacVeagh to the Secretary of

State, October 8, 1945. 760J.6715/10-845, DSR.

78

“naïve” but otherwise “harmless”— might “accept Communist propaganda at face value

and become the tools of Russian policy with regard to Turkey.”209

Of particular concern

was Soviet backing for plans for the mass migration of Armenians from abroad—Europe,

the Middle East, and the Americas—to Soviet Armenia. American officials saw

proposals to encourage the migration of hundreds of thousands of Armenians as a Soviet

ploy to increase the Armenian population and bolster its claims on Turkish territory. In

addition to the Straits that bisected Istanbul, the Soviet Union also sought territorial

claims on Kars and Ardahan in eastern Turkey. 210

The territory had fallen under Russian

control from 1878-1917 and formerly possessed a strong Armenian and Christian

presence.211

This chapter explores the resurgence of minority and ethnic issues, in general, and

the Armenian and Kurdish questions, in particular, in debates over territorial claims on

Turkey and the U.S. –Turkish relationship that emerged after the conclusion of the

Second World War.212

For both the United States and Turkey, the war marked a

209

MacVeagh to the Secretary of State, October 8, 1945, 760J.6715/10-845, DSR. 210

Acheson to Certain Diplomatic Missions. December 21, 1945. 761.67/12-2145, DSR. 211

The population figures remain an issue of great dispute and are central to pro-Turkish narratives that

dispute the applicability of the term genocide to the killings during the First World War. The late Stanford

Shaw, for instance, notes that Armenian figures of as many as 2 million Armenians killed “are based on the

supposition that the prewar Armenian population of the Empire was 2.5 million. According to the Ottoman

census in 1914, however, it was at the most 1.3 million.” Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History

of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume II: Reform, Revolution, and Republic (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1976-7): 315-16; Shaw’s student, Justin McCarthy, who similarly denies

genocide, estimates the prewar Armenian population at almost 1.7 million. Justin McCarthy, Muslims and

Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire (New York: New York

University Press, 1983). 212

Turkey did not and does not consider Kurds an officially recognized minority like Greeks, Jews or

Armenians. However, European and American press and diplomatic sources often see these as related.

American diplomatic reports repeatedly refer to the Kurdish issue as a “minority” problem. For instance,

the December 8, 1952 State Department “Report on Kurds in Southeastern Turkey” notes that, despite state

discourse to the contrary, the “Kurds in Turkey are a Moslem minority whose existence presents the

79

fundamental transition from cautious, guarded involvement in foreign affairs—

sometimes labeled neutrality or “isolationism”—to activity in a new system of

international politics in the postwar period. By all accounts, this period was also a

seminal chapter in the forging of the U.S.-Turkish partnership.

For most Americans, Turkey remained a backwater that resonated little in popular

consciousness. The views of those with knowledge of Turkey were often shaped by

Protestant missionary accounts and frequently associated Turkey with atrocities

committed against Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.213

As

Turkey’s geopolitical position, coupled with Soviet demands on its territory, drew Turkey

into the nascent Cold War, the Armenian question resurfaced and pulled the United States

in two competing directions: while diaspora Armenians and their supporters—especially

in the United States—emphasized memory of the killing of Armenians and the need for

Turkey to right historical wrongs, Soviet support for the “repatriation” of Armenians

solidified the American government’s perception of the “susceptibility” of minority

Armenians, Kurds, and other minorities to communism and as potential pawns in

Moscow’s diplomacy against Turkey.214

Turkish Government with a variety of problems which resemble closely minority problems elsewhere.”

Report on Kurds in Southeastern Turkey, December 8, 1952. 882.41/12-852, DSR. 213

Bruce Kuniholm notes that despite Loy Henderson’s “modest attempts at publicizing American policy

in the region” after the War, “the press was not much interested …. The public saw the Turks in

stereotyped categories and still associated them with the massacre of Armenians earlier in the century.”

Bruce Robellet Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and

Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980): 399. See also Justin

McCarthy, The Turk in America: the Creation of an Enduring Prejudice (Salt Lake City: University of

Utah Press, 2010).

214

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State. October 23, 1945, FRUS,

1945, Vol. II, Europe: 901; Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 11, 1946, FRUS, 1946 (Washington,

D.C.: GPO, 1969), Vol. VII, the Near East and Africa: 819; National Intelligence Estimate: Turkey’s

80

For the Soviet Union, ethnic questions offered both opportunities and challenges

in its postwar relations with Turkey. Not only did the Soviet leadership fear that Turkish

nationalism might stir unrest among its own Turkic and Muslim communities, it used

ethnic-based claims to maintain pressure on Turkey as it demanded revisions to the

Straits and pursued claims to territory in eastern Turkey. Concerns about ethnic identity,

including the fear that pan-Turkism might instigate Soviets’ own Turkic minorities,

preoccupied Soviet officials during and after the Second World War. 215

In May 1944,

Soviet leaders’ decision to deport hundreds of thousands of Turkic and other Muslim

groups from the Black Sea and South Caucasus to parts of Siberia were part of “Kremlin-

instigated pressured on Turkey” and the growing conviction that ethnic Turkic groups

were “a possible fifth column” who could team with Turkey against the Soviet Union. 216

At the same time, the Soviet Union supported the immigration of Armenians from

abroad, supported Kurdish irredentism, and used historical ethnic claims to lay claim to

parts of eastern Turkey.

Similar to the experience of the United States, Turks struggled with their

transition from wartime neutrality to active support for a collective security schema

rooted in the United Nations. Whereas U.S. officials have emphasized the importance of

the Straits in describing Turkey’s role in the emergence of the Cold War, Turkey’s

leadership appears to have given equal, if not more, weight to the territorial question.

Position in the East-West Struggle, February 26, 1951, FRUS, 1951 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1982), Vol.

V, the Near East and Africa: 1123. 215

Artiom A. Ulunian, “Soviet Cold War Perceptions of Turkey and Greece, 1945-58,” Cold War History,

Vol. 3, No. 2 (January 2003), pp. 37-39 216

Jamil Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 1945-1953 (New York: Lexington Books,

2011), xiii, 18-20.

81

Thus Turkish officials appear to have perceived Soviet-backed ethnic claims as an

existential threat to the Turkish nation and the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity,

and national unity. Though exaggerated, they perceived a communist threat not only in

external terms, but saw the Soviet Union as stirring up ethnic unrest within Turkey and

challenging the Kemalist-defined nationalist glue that bound the country together.

At a time when Turkey’s press and politics inched toward greater liberalization,

Turkey’s leadership struggled to control a public and growing nationalist clamor.

Therefore, Soviet demands and claims by Armenians and other ethnic groups on

Turkey’s territory raised questions about the viability of the new institutions and drew the

debate into the public domain. Public rallies against Soviet and Armenian claims not only

raised tensions with the Soviet Union and intensified anti-minority sentiment, but also

raised questions about relations with Washington. As American Armenians advanced

claims on Turkish territory, many Turks questioned the genuineness of Washington’s

commitment to Turkish security. One Turkish newspaper that caught the attention of the

American Embassy posited a “triangle of intrigues” among Armenians in the Soviet

Union, in diaspora (especially in the United States), and in Turkey. 217

For the Turkish

and American leaderships, rigorous defense of Turkey’s territorial integrity and Cold

War strategic calculations ultimately came to trump any consideration of questions about

Turkey’s treatment of minorities, nascent concepts of human rights, or justice (as

advocates for the Armenian and Kurdish causes often framed it).

217

Peyami Safa, “Bir mektubun kifayetsizliği,” Tasvir, December 29, 1945: 1; Wilson to the Secretary of

State, January 8, 1946. 760J.67/1-846, DSR.

82

The experience of Turkey points to broader questions not only in the postwar

international order that followed, but the emergence of the Cold War, with which that

order overlapped. While problems involving Jewish refugees and the question of a Jewish

state in the wake of Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution represented the most famous, extreme,

and pressing example, broader questions about minorities, minority rights, and minority

territorial claims were foundational questions facing the new postwar international

order.218

Millions of ethnic Germans were expelled from East-Central Europe and

forcibly “repatriated” to newly defined and smaller German territory. Along similar lines,

more than two million Poles were forcibly removed from the Soviet Union and the sector

of Germany that it occupied. The forced transfers of almost seven hundred thousand

ethnic Ukrainians from parts of Poland “were given the tacit imprimatur of the

international community under the Yalta accords and other agreements,” thereby shifting

Poland’s borders more than two hundred kilometers westward.”219

Czechoslovakia and

Hungary agreed to exchange 120,000 Slovaks in Hungary for an equivalent number of

Hungarians. Poland, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia all

conducted population transfers or exchanges during this period.220

For Turkey, the Soviet

Union’s forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Turks from the Black Sea

and Caucasus provided an important vantage through which Turkey’s government and

218

Naimark and other scholars make a case for broader continuity regarding the ethnic cleansing of Europe.

Norman M. Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 2001). 219

Philipp Ther, “A Century of Forced Migration: The Origins and Consequences of ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’”

in Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948, ed. Philipp Ther and Ana

Siljak (New York: Rowman and Little field, 2001): 5. 220

Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945(New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 25; Judt also

(misleadingly) refers to Bulgaria’s transfer of 160,000 ethnic Turks to Turkey, an agreement that would not

take place until 1950-51 and which will be taken up in a subsequent chapter.

83

public viewed postwar ethnic questions. Questions of minorities would also be among the

first to be taken up by the United Nations and its Commission on Human Rights. The

related question of what to do with nationalism—the excesses of which were seen in the

newly-defeated German National Socialist regime—also remained an unresolved

question for the new order. These questions became issues of international contestation

and helped to frame the emergence of the Cold War.

Only recently have international historians begun giving significant attention to

questions of minorities, ethnic identity, and nationalism, including the Kurdish and

Armenian questions, in defining the Cold War. Scholarship in Armenian studies, rather

than international history, has dedicated the most focus to the Armenian repatriations.

Ronald Grigor Suny gives attention to the Armenian repatriations, but his main focus is

to present a general Armenian history, not analysis of diplomacy surrounding the

repatriations.221

Michael Bobelian correctly shows how the Cold War and, in particular,

“the Truman Doctrine precluded any reconsideration of Armenian claims arising from the

Genocide,” but is also too eager to dismiss Armenian diaspora advocacy “as

uncoordinated” and “largely disconnected from the Soviet Union’s campaign against

Turkey.” 222

Benjamin Alexander is more balanced in his portrayal by showing how the

diaspora was torn between competing factions in its relationship to the Soviet Union, but

the focus of his study is on the American Armenian community rather than international

221

Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East; Ronald Grigor Suny, Looking Toward Ararat:

Armenia in Modern History (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993). 222

Michael Bobelian, Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-Long Struggle for

Justice (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009):102, 92.

84

politics per se.223

Rifat Bali, who has written extensively about minorities in Turkey,

largely limits himself to press accounts of Armenian repatriations without dedicating

significant attention to the broader international questions of minority protection and the

emergence of the Cold War. 224

International historians who have mentioned the

Armenian issue, such as Bruce Kuniholm, have largely approached the issue as a

sideshow to other matters—such as the Straits—rather than a main story in itself. Jamil

Hasanli, who offers by far the most comprehensive account of both the Armenian and

Kurdish issues, argues “the problem of the Armenian repatriation was initiated by the

Soviet government as a justification to its territorial claims to Turkey.”225

Specialists in Kurdish and Middle Eastern studies have given the most attention to

the Kurdish question in this period. The establishment of a short-lived, self-proclaimed

state in northern Iran—the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, which persisted from January

to December 1946—has largely been treated as part of broader Kurdish national history

narratives.226

Monographs on the Mahabad Republic have largely focused on the Iranian

component of the story, rather than treating it as connected to the emergence of a broader

Cold War that also included Turkey. 227

A notable exception to this trend is the work of

223

Benjamin F. Alexander, “The American Armenians’ Cold War: The Divided Response to Soviet

Armenia,” in Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, ed. Ieva Zake

(New York: Palgrave Macmillan). 224

Rıfat N. Bali, “Diaspora Ermenilerine ve Türkiye’ye Etkisi,” Tarih ve Toplum No. 210 (June 2001). 225

Jamil Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 1945-1953 (New York: Lexington Books,

2011): 189. 226

David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, Third Edition (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004); John

Bulloch and Harvey Morris, No Friends but the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1992). 227

William Eagleton, The Kurdish Republic of 1946 (London: Oxford University Press, 1963); Golmorad

Moradi, Ein Jahr autonome Regierung in Kurdistan: Die Mahabad-Republik 1946-1947: Geschichte der

kurdischen Aufstandsbewegungen von der arabisch-islamischen Invasion bis zur Mahabad-Republik

(Bremen: Hochschule Bremen, 1991).

85

Hasanli, whose work focuses largely on Soviet foreign policy. Douglas Little has

dedicated recent attention to the Kurdish issue in U.S. foreign policy, but only dedicates a

few paragraphs to this period.228

Whereas western scholars have tended to emphasize the importance of the Straits

in the Soviet confrontation with Turkey, Turkey’s leaders and public tended to see the

issue as an existential threat. At the same time, influential American policymakers like

George Kennan saw questions surrounding Turkey’s treatment of minorities as little more

than tactical devices in the Soviet war of nerves against Turkey—a view with profound

consequences for the plight of minorities themselves. By contrast, the question of

minorities was for Turkey’s leaders and public more than just a sideshow, but represented

potential threats to territorial integrity and nationhood. Claims by minorities and

nationalism thus represented foundational aspects of many Turks’ perception of the

emergence of the Cold War.

From War to the United Nations

Turkey’s reluctant declaration of war on Japan and Germany on February 23,

1945 was met with suspicion by the Soviet Union. In March, the Soviet Union declined

to renew a three-decade friendship pact, citing the need for postwar revisions and

marking the beginning of Soviet-Turkish Cold War tensions. Scholars have rightfully

emphasized the Soviet Union’s subsequent demands on Turkey—control over the Straits

228

Douglas Little, “The United States and the Kurds: A Cold War Story,” Journal of Cold War Studies,

Vo. 12, No.4 (Fall 2010): 63-98.

86

and the two Eastern Turkish provinces that it lost after 1917. 229

Less attention, however,

has been paid to how issues of minorities and minority rights framed those demands and

Turkish perceptions thereof.

In June 1945, representatives of forty six countries, including (to the

consternation of the Soviet Union) Turkey, gathered in San Francisco for the founding of

the United Nations Organization. While many marginalized peoples across the world saw

in the organization new hope for a better future, world powers such as the Soviet Union,

the United States, and Britain saw a way of protecting their own interests. World powers

also limited access to the discussions. As Mark Mazower has argued, the birth of the

United Nations should not be seen as rising “like Aphrodite—from the Second World

War, pure and uncontaminated by any significant association with that prewar failure, the

League of Nations,” but rather as representing a continuation of “the visions of global

order that emerged out of the British Empire in particular in its final decades.”230

Individuals and groups representing Jews, Poles, Indians, Africans, African Americans,

Koreans, Armenians, Kurds, Assyrian Christians, and many colonial peoples and

minorities struggled for their postwar visions to reach world leaders.231

Appeals—many

inspired by ideas of Wilsonian self-determination or democratic principles—were

229

Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East; Melvyn P. Leffler, “Strategy, Diplomacy, and

the Cold War: The United States, Turkey, and NATO, 1945-1952,” The Journal of American History, Vol.

71, No. 4 (March 1985). 230

Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United

Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008): 14. 231

Arthur Krock, “Groups Besiege Parley: State Department is Losing its Fight to Bar Special Issues at San

Francisco,” New York Times, April 11, 1945; “Lobbies Work on Vast Scale at Golden Gate,” Christian

Science Monitor, May 22, 1945; George Padmore, “African Leaders Demand Voice At San Francisco

Conference,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 28, 1945; Anderson, Eyes off the Prize:58-113.

87

plentiful, but were received most cautiously. Minorities were left vulnerable to the whims

of state sovereignty.232

Kurdish and Armenian aspirations were drawn into the confusion surrounding the

competing goals and aims of the international body. In August 1944, Kurds across

Turkey, Iraq and Iran signed a pact—the Peman i Se Senur (Pact of Three Borders)—

pledging mutual support in the quest for a greater Kurdistan. 233

Kurdish organizations

also petitioned the United States for support for an independent Kurdistan.234

A map,

which accompanied a Kurdish petition to the newly-formed United Nations, showed a

greater Kurdistan extending from the Mediterranean to Persian Gulf.235

Repeating

demands made at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Kurds in April 1945 submitted a

letter seeking an independent Kurdistan, but were unable to gain support from world

powers.236

The Armenian issue aroused more immediate attention from policymakers. The

Soviet Union’s announcement that it would allow the election of a new Armenian

spiritual leader, the first in eight years, not only reflected Soviet attempts to win

international sympathy, but continuing Soviet efforts to mobilize nationalism and religion

in defense of the “homeland.”237

The election of a new patriarch coincided with appeals

232

Mazower, Mark “The Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933-1950.” The Historical Journal, Vol. 47,

No. 2 (June 2004): 379-398; Rayford Logan, “United Nations' Parley Offers Small Chance for Minorities:

Machinery Bars Opportunity for Submitting Case,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 5, 1945. See discussion in

following chapter. 233

Eagleton, The Kurdish Republic: 37-8. 234

O’Balance, Kurdish Revolt: 47. 235

Eagleton, The Kurdish Republic: 37-8. 236

William Linn Westermann, “Kurdish Independence and Russian Expansion,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 24,

No. 4 (July 1946): 675-686. 237

Edward Alexander, “The Armenian Church in Soviet Policy.” Russian Review, Vol. 14, No. 4 (October

1955): 357-8. According to Hewlett Johnson, Stalin described the relationship between religion and the

88

for the repatriation of Armenians in diaspora and the transfer of Turkish territory to

Soviet Armenia. J. Missakian, the representative of an Armenian group in London who

throughout the war took pains to emphasize Armenian loyalty to the Allies, wrote that

“the decision of the Soviet Government to authorize the Armenian people to elect the

Primate of the Apostolic Mother Church of Ararat has caused immense satisfaction to the

Armenians abroad. Needless to say, it will further strengthen the bonds of fraternity

which unite the peoples of the Soviet Union and the Armenian nation.”238

Armenians in

the United States began promoting the importance of the election and conducted an

urgent campaign to gather funds for the election.239

The new patriarch would be at the

heart of Soviet territorial claims. While nationalism rather than support for communism

likely motivated the diaspora, it is clear that Soviet and diaspora goals converged on the

issue of claims against Turkey. 240

What is striking about Armenian claims is not that the Soviet Union suddenly

incited the issue or that it became a new issue of international contention, but the way

that a festering question involving minority rights and national borders was drawn into

the troubles over the postwar settlement and the nascent Cold War. In the final months of

the war, Armenians petitioned the American leadership for a favorable settlement

transferring territory from Turkey to Armenia. For instance, an Armenian-American

Soviet state as follows: “There may … have been excesses on both sides. It is, however, different now.

Church has seen patriotism in the State. State has seen patriotism in the Church. Former tensions have

disappeared.” Hewlett Johnson, Soviet Russia Since the War (New York: Boni and Gaer, 1947), 118. 238

J. Missakian, “Armenians in Turkey,” The Times (London) (June 1, 1940); J. Missakian, “Armenians and

the War,” The Times (London) July 19, 1941: 5; J. Missakian “The Armenian Church,” The

Times (London) (February 16, 1945). 239

“A Communication from the Armenian Prelacy,” The Armenian Mirror-Spectator (March 17, 1945). 240

Suny, Looking Toward Ararat, 174.

89

lawyer wrote U.S. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius stressing his desire for

“boundaries between Turkey and Armenia as drawn by our great late President Woodrow

Wilson” and forwarding an article he wrote in an Armenian-American newspaper. Bedros

G. Terzian’s Armenian Mirror-Spectator piece described the “wholesale butchery and

massacre of an entire nation” by Turkey during the First World War and the reversal of

the “just and fair” settlement that had followed that war. During the Second World War,

Turkey only declared “war against Germany at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute,”

while Armenians demonstrated “daring, bravery and heroism on the various fronts in the

ranks of the Red Army. With all these sacrifices for the Common Cause, the Armenians

are crowded in the small corner of the Soviet Union, while yonder lies their fatherland,

desolate and deserted under the Turkish tyranny.”241

These claims, now with Soviet

backing, acquired new urgency after the war.

The Armenian National Council of America, an umbrella group of around forty

Armenian organizations, publicly backed a plan presented to delegates at San Francisco

for the transfer of approximately twenty five thousand square miles of Turkish territory to

the Soviet Union and repatriation of 1.5 million Armenians to the Soviet Union. Praising

the Soviet Union, the director of the Armenian group, Charles Azankain Vertanes,

accused Turkey of being “secretly on the side of Germany” in the Second War World.

“Approval of the plan must wait until the peace conference, but the delegations at the San

Francisco conference have been asked to give it their favorable consideration,” he said.

241

Terzian to Stettinius, April 12, 1945. 760J.6715/4-1245, DSR; Bedros G. Terzian. “Curzon Line and

Wilson Line,” The Armenian Mirror-Spectator (March 17, 1945).

90

242 The petition likewise called Turks “the first nation to have invented an idea of

banishment and extermination of the whole peaceful nations as means of resolution of

political problems.”243

A separate petition at San Francisco came from the Armenian

faction associated with the Dashnaks, an Armenian political faction that had briefly

governed an independent Armenia and was less accommodating toward Soviet rule.

Interestingly, this second petition differed little in substance and likewise called for

Armenian refugees to be allowed to return to their ancestral home. Both petitions

discussed Armenians’ continuing suffering from broken promises made to them and

evoked borders suggested by Woodrow Wilson. 244

Ambiguity in the petitions over whether Turkey’s maltreatment of minorities was

current or historical immediately sparked conversations among American diplomats

about Turkey’s treatment of minorities. A May 1945 cable stated that the U.S. Embassy

in Ankara “has no reason to believe that the Armenian minority in Turkey is currently

being persecuted or that it is more discriminated against than other minority groups,

notably the Jews and the Greeks.”245

Two days later, the Embassy expressed concern that

the Armenian National Committee’s petition would result in retaliation against the

Armenian community in Turkey and linked it to Turkey’s deteriorating ties with the

Soviet Union: "Viewed from Ankara this move-whatever may be its inspiration-would be

242

Griffin, Eugene, “Urge Russia Get Part of Turkey,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 9, 1945. 243

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 73. 244

Benjamin F. Alexander, “The American Armenians’ Cold War: The Divided Response to Soviet

Armenia,” in Ieva Zake, ed., "Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.” Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees

(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009). 245

Packer to the Secretary of State, May 10, 1945. 867.4016/5-1045, reel 12, Records of the Department of

State Relating to Internal Affairs of Turkey, 1945-1949, National Archives and Records Administration

(hereafter IAT).

91

viewed as fitting into [the] pattern of [a] Soviet ‘war of nerves on Turkey’ pending

negotiation of new treaty of friendship and alliance."246

State Department officials in Washington initially doubted it was official Soviet

policy to meddle in the Armenian issue. A telegram from the U.S. chargé d'affaires in

Ankara said that the Department and White House had been “bombarded” by similar

letters and telegrams by Armenian organizations “for years and especially since” the

discriminatory Varlık Vergisi of the Second World War. The telegram called persecution

of Armenians in Turkey “more historical than current and incidental.” Diaspora

Armenians’ real goal, the report stated, was to incorporate Turkey’s eastern provinces

into Armenia. In an apparent reflection of the uneasy and ambiguous marriage between

Armenian nationalism and Soviet communism, a State Department officer crossed out a

line expressing Departmental “doubts” regarding “direct Soviet inspiration” or Soviet

exploitation of the issue in “Moscow[‘s] war of nerves” against Turkey. The

memorandum made clear, however, that the United Nations would not take up the issue,

calling the Armenian National Committee’s petition “typical” of those received by the

United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) “from US groups

wedded to foreign minority causes.” Petitions such as this one have “no standing and

will not be considered by UNCIO," it said.247

Although Turkey’s membership in the United Nations represented a shift in its

foreign policy from neutrality to a collective security arrangement, nationalism continued

to frame its approach to the San Francisco conference. The Turkish delegation sought to

246

Packer to the Secretary of State, May 12, 1945. 867.4016/5-1245. reel 12, IAT. 247

Grew to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, May 12, 1945. 867.4016/5-1245, reel 12, IAT.

92

ensure greater influence by smaller powers like itself in decisions made by the United

Nations. The delegation also emphasized continuity in its domestic and foreign policies,

saying that their parameters had been established in the 1920 National Pact (Misak-ı

Milli), which defined Turkey’s goals in its War of Independence and its relations with the

Great Powers. The National Pact emphasized Turkey’s independence, declaring that non-

Arab areas with Turkish Muslim majorities belonged to Turkey, that the status of Kars,

Ardahan, and Batum in eastern Anatolia should be determined by referendum and that

rights for minorities should only be given in exchange for rights for Turkish Muslims

abroad.248

As delegates wrapped up their discussions on the formation of a new world body

to maintain peace, support for the transfer of the territory in eastern Anatolia to the

Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic gained strong support from the Armenian diaspora.

That sentiment solidified after representatives from around the world gathered to elect

Catholicos Georg VI, Supreme Patriarch of All Armenians, who appealed for Armenians

from around the world to immigrate to Armenia.

Past or Present? The Plight of Turkey’s Minorities

Word of the Armenian appeals, coupled with support from churchmen abroad,

drew increased attention to minority Armenians in Istanbul. While diaspora Armenians,

policymakers, and others in the West asked questions about Turkey’s treatment of

minorities, Turkish newspapers probed the loyalty of the country’s remaining Armenians.

248

“Hasan Saka konferansta Türkiyenin tezini anlattı, ‘Türk siyaseti milli misaktan doğdu,’” Tasvir ( May

3, 1945): 1; Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 347-8.

93

Ulus, the official publication of Turkey’s governing Republican People’s Party, described

“unwarranted efforts to bring forth an Armenian issue,” in San Francisco.249

The

nationalist Tasvir newspaper criticized Armenians of Turkey for not denouncing the

claims: “Armenians in Turkey, where are you?” 250

Amid the nationalist uproar, Armenians in Istanbul took pains to emphasize their

loyalty to the Republic of Turkey and publicly distanced themselves from the irredentist

aspirations of diaspora Armenians.251

Istanbul’s Armenians publicly professed surprise at

the territorial claims. “We know nothing whatever about such a thing,” declared Turkey’s

acting Armenian patriarch. “I think that it is the Armenians in America who are

responsible for this.” The Istanbul Armenian newspaper Marmara called the territorial

claims raised in San Francisco “a new and ridiculous attempt by certain enemies of

Armenians to disturb the peace of the Armenians in this country.” A prominent Istanbul

Armenian said many of Turkey’s Armenians had never even heard of the Armenian

National Committee: “from whom have they received the authority to make applications

or take action on our behalf?”252

While Armenian territorial claims derived in part from questions of Turkey’s

treatment of its Armenians, Istanbul Armenians’ cautious approach to the territorial

claims not only reflected their precarious situation in Turkey, but also accounted in part

for the chilly reception that they received at the election in Armenia. Although the

249

“San Francisco’da ortaya bir Ermeni davası çıkarmak için yersiz gayretler.” Ulus, June 22, 1945 250

“Türkiye Ermenileri neredesiniz?” Tasvir, September 22, 1945: 1. 251

“Ermeni Komitesinin gülünç müracaatı karşısında İstanbuldaki Ermeni vatandaşların hayreti,” Tasvir,

May 10, 1945: 1; “Ermeni vatandaşlarımız Hariçten gelen karışık seslere cevap veriyorlar,” Tasvir,

September 23, 1945: 1. 252

Wilson to the Secretary of State, May 14, 1945, reel 12, IAT.

94

community in Istanbul sent a delegation, mistrust by other Armenians forced the

delegation to return without even participating in the elections.253

American officials,

meanwhile, appeared placated by the perception that treatment of Armenians was no

worse than that of other groups; the issue was perhaps a lingering historical matter or part

of the Soviet war of nerves against Turkey.254

Yet, some American officials also tacitly

recognized that Armenians continued to experience discrimination in Turkey.255

Britain was also forced to balance conflicting interests. As in the United States,

Armenian groups pressured the government in Britain for the transfer of the eastern

Anatolian provinces to the Soviet Union. Among their most prominent supporters was

Hewlett Johnson, a senior Anglican churchman, who attended the patriarchal election and

professed his unwavering support for the Armenian claims. “The Red Dean of

Canterbury”—who met with Stalin and also backed the Lublin Poles, the Soviet-backed

Polish government—expressed support for the claims of Armenian Americans and was

quoted as saying that Turkey had scattered “the real inhabitants” of Kars and Ardahan

“all over the world.”256

Turkish officials saw the Armenian claims as a means by which the Soviet Union

was applying pressure on Turkey. The Soviet ambassador reportedly told Turkish Foreign

Ministry officials in Ankara that “the Soviet Union [itself] did not need additional

territory but the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was very small and needed

253

MacVeagh to the Secretary of State, October 8, 1945. 760J.6715/10-845, DSR. 254

Packer to the Secretary of State. May 10, 1945, 867.4016/5-1045, reel 12, IAT; Grew to Ankara, May

12, 1945, 867.401/5-1245, reel 12, IAT. 255

Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 28, 1945, 760j.67/12-2845, DSR. 256

Wilson to the Secretary of State, July 2, 1945, 761.67/7-245, DSR.

95

additional territory.”257

Publicly, Turkish officials stressed that the territorial issues had

been solved following the First World War and the Soviet Union was now acting against

the spirit of the United Nations. Moreover, the Montreux Convention , which had

reestablished Turkish control over the Straits in 1936, was multilateral in nature and

could not be altered by Turkey and the Soviet Union alone. The Turkish press defended

Turkey’s treatment of minorities and largely reiterated Turkey’s official positions. 258

Hewlett Johnson’s support for the Armenian cause also featured prominently in the

Turkish press and, similar to the Armenian American claims, was portrayed as indivisible

from official Soviet claims on Turkish territory.259

By the summer of 1945, the Turkish

military was making military preparations for a possible fight with the Soviet Union in

response to reports of Soviet troop movements in Bulgaria and along its eastern border.260

American and British officials became increasingly concerned about Soviet designs on

Turkey, with officials discussing the possibility of Soviet plans to bring Turkey into the

Soviet orbit or destabilize it.261

Minorities—Kurds and Armenians—were integral to this

sentiment with U.S. officials such as Wilson and Kennan arguing that Soviet support for

these groups aimed to undermine Turkish security.

257

Wilson to the Acting Secretary of State, June 22, 1945, FRUS, 1945 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1960),

Vol. II, Conference of Berlin: 1025. 258

Wilson to the Secretary of State, July 1, 1945, 761.67/7-145, DSR. 259

Wilson to the Secretary of State, July 1, 1945. 761.67/7-145, DSR. 260

Magruder to Holmes, July 10, 1945. 761.67/7-1045, DSR; Winant to the Secretary of State, July 5,

1945. 761.67/7-545, DSR; Wilson to the Acting Secretary of State, June 20, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. II,

Conference of Berlin: 1023. 261

Winant to the Secretary of State, July 5, 1945, 761.67/7-545, DSR; The U.S. Naval Attaché in Belgrade

to the Chief of Naval Operations, July 11, 1945, 761.67/7-1145, DSR; Winant to the Secretary of State,

July 12, 1945, 761.67/7-1245, DSR; Wilson to the Secretary of State, September 25, 1945, 761.67/9-2545,

DSR.

96

Armenian groups and their supporters, meanwhile, continued to apply pressure on

American policymakers. On July 10, California Democratic Senator Sheridan Downey,

who sat on the Committee on Military Affairs, forwarded a letter to the president from

the Armenian National Committee. The group saw the Potsdam Conference, where

Truman, Stalin, and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee would convene in July 1945

to consider postwar borders, as the greatest opportunity to achieve Armenian goals. “As

the Three Major Powers are about to meet,” the letter opened, it was time “for a just

solution of the long unsettled Armenian Question.” The letter called for “a just and

practical solution” by having “Kars, Ardahan and all other Armenian provinces as

determined by the Allied Powers and delineated by President Wilson” annexed “to the

now flourishing Armenian Soviet Republic.” The petition proclaimed that “during World

War I, Turkey adopted, and has since successfully executed a plan of deportation and

wholesale killing of entire peaceful native peoples as a means of settling minority

problems.”262

Ambiguity in tense, thus, again reinforced questions over whether the

killings were historical or ongoing and about Turkey’s treatment of minorities more

broadly.

Minorities and Geopolitics

Failure to resolve the question of Turkey at the Potsdam Conference meant that

issues surrounding the Straits, Soviet bases, and territorial revisions remained lingering

international dilemmas. At the conference, Stalin pressed for changes to the Montreux

262

Downey to Truman, July 10, 1945. reel 12, IAT. Emphasis added.

97

Convention and also called for “possible restoration” of Kars and Ardahan to the Soviet

Union. 263

Churchill emphasized Turkey’s alarm over threats to its sovereignty and

insisted that all parties to the treaty would need to agree before moving forward. 264

While

the United States expressed openness to revisions to Montreux, it argued that these

should be kept to a minimum.265

Truman sought to avoid the issue from becoming a

major international dispute: While recognizing the need for the revision of the Montreux

Convention, Truman insisted that the Straits should remain open to all nations. 266

The

final protocol of the Potsdam Conference noted that all three governments agreed that

“Montreux should be revised as failing to meet present-day conditions,” but that “the next

step” would involve “direct conversations between each of the three Governments and

the Turkish Government.”267

According to Hasanli, the failure to make a clear statement

on Soviet territorial claims or the question of Soviet bases along the Straits effectively

gave a “carte blanche to Stalin” to pursue these in public rhetoric (as would happen by

the end of the year). 268

Potsdam also offered an alternative postwar vision of ethnicity and territorial

revision. Among the most controversial decisions taken at Potsdam was the revision of

263

Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Volume One: Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and

Company, 1955): 376. 264

Seventh Plenary Meeting, Monday, July 23, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. II, Conference of Berlin: 302;

Herbert Feis, Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1960): 291-301; 265

Briefing Book Paper: Memorandum Regarding the Montreux Convention, FRUS, 1945, Vol. II,

Conference of Berlin: 1012. 266

James L. Gormly, From Potsdam to the Cold War: Big Three Diplomacy (Wilmington: Scholarly

Resources, 1990): 182; Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Volume One: Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY:

Doubleday and Company, 1955): 377. 267

The Berlin (Potsdam) Conference, July 17-August 2, 1945, Protocol of the Proceedings, August l, 1945

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decade17.asp. Last accessed September 28, 2012. 268

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War: 101.

98

Poland’s borders and forced repatriation of millions of ethnic Germans from east and

central Europe. Soviet officials, including Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov,

compared the question of Turkey’s territorial revision with that of Poland, which he said

had corrected the “mistake” of its territorial acquisition following World War I.

Discussing Soviet and Armenian territorial claims to eastern Turkey, Molotov told British

Foreign Minister Anthony Eden there were now between four and five hundred thousand

Armenians in Turkey. “After the Armenian territory is enlarged, scores of Armenians

from abroad will be eager to come home,” Molotov said. 269

Comparison with Poland did

little to allay Turkish fears about its territorial integrity. 270

Turkish diplomats told

American diplomats that territorial concessions would result in “demands regarding

Turkish internal matters designed to bring Turkey ‘like Poland’ under direct Soviet

influence.”271

The Turkish government, moreover, signaled that it was “annoyed” by

Soviet foreign minister’s comparison of Turkey and Poland.272

The Potsdam Conference,

thus, raised the prospect of a “Polish solution” for Turkey.

In this context, Ohannes Essayan’s letter reached the attention of State

Department officials in Washington. Although Essayan was “a prolific correspondent

with regard to the Armenian question,” most of his earlier letters—unsurprisingly—

appeared to receive no reply. 273

Essayan, who wrote in articulate, idiomatic English,

seemed to assume that the Armenian question was as pressing for American

269

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War: 92-3. 270

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War: 76. 271

Harriman to the Acting Secretary of State, June 25, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. II, Conference of Berlin:

1030. 272

Wilson to the Acting Secretary of State, June 22, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. II, Conference of Berlin:

1025. 273

Jones to the American Mission in Athens, July 7, 1945. 760J.6715/7-745, DSR.

99

policymakers engaged in global geopolitics as it was for himself. He sometimes

forwarded earlier letters that he wrote, many from years before, to back up his appeals.

For instance, a letter that he drafted in June 1945 forwarded several pieces of

correspondence with U.S. officials and the League demanding that Turkey improve its

treatment of minorities, even as the League struggled to deal with Italy’s invasion of

Ethiopia a decade before. 274

In an attachment dated 1934, Essayan made clear that

Armenians “do not make any territorial claim but simply ask the right to return to our

homes in Turkey.”275

Essayan’s June 1945 letter—as usual—received no response.

A month later, the perceived urgency of the impending postwar settlement and

opportunity to undo the injustices of the previous settlements prompted Essayan to write

again to “beg” for a reply to his query. Although his July letter differed little from those

that he had written over the past decade, it elicited a much different response—drawing

the attention not only of officials in Washington, but American diplomats and

intelligence officers abroad. The reason had nothing to do with new concern over the

historical or contemporary plight of Armenians abroad or in Turkey, but geopolitics and

timing. Essayan’s letter reached the State Department on August 20, 1945, days after

Potsdam had ended and as Soviet and Armenian pressure on Turkey grew more

pronounced. In September, the Armenian community of Greece—which, according to

Essayan, had a population of around 30,000 people, including many Anatolian

refugees—made clear that it supported Soviet plans to settle Armenians in Soviet

274

Essayan to the Secretary of State, June 8, 1945. 760J.6715, DSR. 275

Essayan to the Secretary of State, June 8, 1945. 760J.6715/6-845, DSR.

100

Armenia in a letter to the American president. 276

By October, when MacVeagh drafted

his reply, there was concern that the question of minorities might work to the Soviets’

advantage. The OSS believed that Greek Armenians could be among the first to be

resettled in Soviet Armenia— a fact corroborated by contemporary Soviet documents. 277

The concern over Essayan’s letter arguably reflected a broader shift in

international thinking regarding questions of minorities and nationalism in the immediate

postwar period. Despite the August 1945 decision to prosecute war criminals at

Nuremberg, questions of ethnicity and minorities shifted to ones bearing global,

geostrategic significance. 278

The Armenian question moved from an issue that was

perhaps tragic, but innocuous and localized, to an issue affecting regional security. The

Kurdish question, likewise, was no longer a question of national or regional significance,

but part of a nascent, global Cold War. Many Turks and U.S. officials increasingly

painted minority Kurds and Armenians as potential Soviet agents. Although Americans

and Turks often confounded the plight of these minorities with Soviet plots for the

region, Soviet efforts to mobilize minority Kurds and Armenians were not simply

unfounded conspiracy theory: as the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union were

increasingly at loggerheads over the Montreux Convention and Soviet withdrawal from

Iran, the Soviet Union lent support to Armenian groups against Turkey, as well as to

276

MacVeagh to the Secretary of State, October 8, 1945, 760J.6715/10-845, DSR. 277

MacVeagh to the Secretary of State, October 8, 1945, 760J.6715/10-845, DSR.; Hasanli, Stalin and the

Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 97. 278

Charter of the International Military Tribunal - Annex to the Agreement for the prosecution and

punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-

bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?docid=3ae6b39614

101

Azeri groups and Kurdish groups in northern Iran.279

Documents from the Central

Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union show that concerns about ethnic

identity, including the fear that Turkish nationalism might instigate Soviets’ own Turkic

minorities, preoccupied Soviet officials and their policy toward Turkey. Reports for the

Party’s foreign policy wing paid special attention to tense relations between different

ethnic and social groups in Turkey. One report from October 1945 expressed optimism

that strain among ethnic groups in Turkey could benefit the Soviet Union: “there is much

evidence that, as happened in Iran, the strengthening and democratisation of the National

Kurdish movement both in Iran and the South-eastern regions of Turkey proceeds apace.”

The party also gave similar attention to the Armenian question.280

By the summer, Kurds

in Iraq were in revolt and, by autumn, Turkey was reinforcing troops in nearby areas in

apparent response.281

At the same time, Soviet plans to resettle Armenians in eastern Turkey were

hardly a unique case. Population exchanges of Germans and other ethnic groups were

commonplace in the postwar period. Mark Mazower has described a broader shift in

thinking about how to stabilize European nationalism “that took policymakers away from

international legal protection regimes and toward a territorialization of postwar

279

Jamil Hasanli, At the Dawn of the Cold War: The Soviet-American Crisis over Iranian Azerbaijan,

1941-46 (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); Decree of the CC CPSU Politburo to Mir Bagirov CC Secretary

of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan on “Measures to Organize a Separatist Movement in Southern

Azerbaijan and Other Provinces of Northern Iran,” July 6, 1945. The Cold War International History

Project Digital Archive. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112021;

Secret Soviet Instructions on “Measures to Carry out Special Assignments throughout Southern Azerbaijan

and the Northern Provinces of Iran,” July 14, 1945. Cold War. International History Project Digital

Archive. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112018 280

Artiom A. Ulunian, “Soviet Cold War Perceptions of Turkey and Greece, 1945-58,” Cold War History,

Vol. 3, No. 2 (January 2003): 37-39 281

“Kurdish Revolt Raises Fresh Threat to Turks,” Chicago Daily Tribune. November 8, 1945.

102

planning”—a shift that, for instance, culminated in the establishment of a Jewish national

state in the Middle East. 282

At the same time that world leaders and the public grappled

with the international refugee crisis from the war, Armenian groups portrayed their

efforts as part of the same plight. One local Armenian organization in the United States

wrote that “the Armenian refugees of war torn Europe and the [M]iddle [E]ast will find a

permanent home” in Turkish territory “which rightfully should be annexed to Soviet

Socialist Armenia.”283

Inconsistency often characterized American policymakers’ initial approach to

ethnic questions in the postwar period. Although he would ultimately endorse the

establishment of a Jewish state over the advice of the State Department, Truman

maintained distance from the many ethnic groups that lobbied him. U.S. Representative

Emanuel Celler recalled, shortly after Truman’s inauguration, that the president lashed

out at a delegation that was visiting him on behalf of Jewish immigration to Israel: “His

voice and face were cold as he said, in effect, that he was tired of delegations visiting him

for the benefit of the Poles, of the Italians, of the Greeks. I remember his saying, ‘Doesn’t

anyone want something for the Americans?’”284

MacVeagh, the ambassador in Greece,

struggled to explain why Armenians, “traders and peasants by instinct,” were

increasingly supportive of Soviet plans for Armenia and “have gravitated politically

towards the extreme left.” In the end, he doubted that the Armenian community in

Greece would pose “a serious threat to the Greek State or an important factor in

282

Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace, 113. 283

Armenian Progressive League of Akron to the Secretary of State, November 27, 1945. reel 12, IAT. 284

Emanuel Celler, You Never Leave Brooklyn: The Autobiography of Emanuel Celler (New York: The

John Day Company, 1953), p. 118; First quoted in Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh, A Safe Haven: Harry

S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (New York: Harper, 2009), 160-1.

103

international relations.” But he also expressed concern that the moderate, Anglophone

Essayan’s “fixation with regard to Armenian rights and an Armenian homeland has

completely blinded him to the true position of Soviet Armenia in the USSR and to the

realities of contemporary Weltpolitik.”285

U.S. efforts to grapple with how minorities fit into global politics were sometimes

less than articulate. In one convoluted cable, the American ambassador to Turkey

reported on a meeting with an unnamed Armenian in Istanbul, who expressed concern

that Soviet Armenians could make incursions in eastern Turkey in order to seek reprisals

against Armenians in Istanbul as a “pretext for Soviet occupation” and protection of

Turkey’s “Christian minority.” The statement was a reference to the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, when Czarist Russia and European powers had often justified

intervention in Ottoman affairs by referring to the plight of Ottoman Christians.286

The

cable claimed that diaspora Armenians were “working for Soviets in full realization” that

Soviet intervention “would mean extermination” of Turkey’s Armenians.287

With the

benefit of hindsight, this scenario seems highly unlikely, since it went against everything

that Armenian groups abroad claimed. Nonetheless, U.S. Ambassador Edwin Wilson still

thought it worthy of a classified—and uncritical—cable to Washington—an early

example of the intrigue, conspiracy, and imagination that would increasingly characterize

Cold War politics.

285

MacVeagh to the Secretary of State, October 8, 1945, 760J.6715/10-845, DSR. 286

Vahakn N. Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to

Anatolia to the Caucasus (Providence and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995), Chapters 6-7; Arshag Ohannes

Sarkissian,“Concert Diplomacy and the Armenians, 1890-1897,” in A.O. Sarkissian (ed). Studies in

Diplomatic History and Historiography in Honour of G.P. Gooch, C.H. (London: Longmans, 1961). 287

Wilson to the Secretary of State, October 1945, 760j.67/10-3145, DSR.

104

Nonetheless, American officials increasingly came to see nationalist aspirations

by Armenians, as well as Kurds, as threats to regional security. The U.S. Embassy in

Moscow offered a more sophisticated argument on minorities’ role in regional

geopolitics. A cable indicated that Soviet goals in the Middle East were “security and

aggrandizement,” but these should not be perceived in “hard and fast terms.” Writing

four months before George Kennan’s “Long Telegram,” William Averell Harriman—in a

cable drafted by Kennan and John P. Davies—wrote that policymakers must consider

Soviet use of “extra-national forces,” including the Orthodox Church, the Armenian and

Jewish communities, Kurds, and the Arab League to carry out Soviet ambitions. For

Turkey, “discontented” Kurds and Armenians were regarded as the main Soviet tools of

Russia’s centuries-long quest for security and regional domination. According to the

telegram, the Soviet Union was unlikely to invade Turkey directly, but was likely to use

Armenians and Kurds to pursue revision: “The absence of any significant leftist

opposition in Turkey means that the Soviet Union must rely principally on other

discontented elements—real and artificially created. They are the Kurds and the

Armenians,” the telegram stated. Although there were hardly any Armenians in eastern

Turkey, Armenian irredentist movements were bringing pressure on Turkey, possibility

to the point of “fatal Turkish exasperation.” Although Armenian separatism originated

outside Turkey, the Kurds were strong enough to form “a considerable disruptive force”

within it. The telegram cautioned that there was no current evidence to suggest that Kurds

105

were being organized, but “when the time comes, their natural potential utility is not

likely to be overlooked by the U.S.S.R.”288

Thus, the cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow argued that the Soviet Union

employed a variety of techniques –involving both states and non-state actors across the

region—in order to pursue its goals. The Soviets were likely to incite irredentist

sentiment among Armenians, tribal revolt and autonomy among Kurds, “an export brand

of Stalinist ideology” to Jews, and “Church unity under the patronage of the Soviet State”

in Orthodox communities. By contrast, “against Turkey the U.S.S.R. has employed

diplomatic negotiation, a war of nerves (including a whispering campaign regarding

impending military action) and propaganda by foreign agencies (such as the demand of

Armenians in the United States for the “return” of eastern Turkish provinces to the

Armenian SSR).” The Soviet Union was also resorting to “active and passive military

intervention and internal political intrigue” in neighboring Iran.

289

Developments in neighboring Iran were particularly concerning for Turkish

leaders. As Hasanli has pointed out, Stalin’s claims on Turkey’s “eastern provinces were

a logical continuation of identical territorial claims to Iranian Azerbaijan” and the two

issues should be “considered in concert.” Kurds, likewise, represented “natural allies” to

the claims on Turkey. 290

Accordingly, Turkish diplomats saw Soviet efforts to stir up

revolt in northern Iran as a “preparatory step to be followed by early action by USSR in

288

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945, FRUS,

1945 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1967), Vol. V, Europe: 902. 289

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945, FRUS,

1945, Vol. V, Europe: 901. 290

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 124-5.

106

Turkey’s eastern provinces to bring about their annexation to Soviet Armenia.”291

Although border security in Turkey’s northeast was tight, the frontier remained porous,

with reports of peasants illegally crossing to visit relatives and border agents occasionally

detaining Turkish-speaking Armenian spies.292

Iranian Kurds in the east sometimes

slipped across the border to steal sheep and cattle and clashed on occasion with local

Kurds. 293

Local officials in eastern Turkey were hesitant to discuss the Kurdish issue and

those who did tended to reiterate Turkey’s official position that there was no Kurdish

question in Turkey. 294

Turkish officials remained vigilant. 295

Wilson wrote that the

Turkish Government saw that Kurds both inside and outside Turkey represented “a real

problem for Turkey” and it continued to keep a careful eye on Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, and

Iran. Iranian Kurds were “not particularly nationalistic or politically conscious,” but

were “being used as a tool by the Soviet Government, as a possible threat against

Turkey’s security.” 296

By November, Turkey had also significantly heightened security in border

regions. Turkey reportedly established a “security” band 150 miles broad along their

eastern and northeastern frontiers that perhaps included up to one million troops.297

While

Turkey insisted that it was reacting to possible Soviet aggression and believed the Soviets

had increased troops along its eastern frontier, the Turkish troop concentrations angered

291

Wilson to the Secretary of State, November 22, 1945, 761.67/11-2245, DSR. 292

Wilson to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945, 761.67/10-2345, DSR. 293

Wilson to the Secretary of State, 867.4016/ 10-2345. reel 12, IAT. 294

Wilson to the Secretary of State, 867.4016/ 10-2345, reel 12, IAT. 295

Wilson to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945, 761.67/10-2345, DSR. 296

Wilson to the Secretary of State, 867.4016/ 10-2345, reel 12, IAT. The same Turkish official also

suggested that Britain was supporting Kurdish efforts to undermine the central government in Baghdad—a

claim that British and U.S. officials, including the author of the cable, dismissed. 297

Murray to the Secretary of State, November 26, 1945, 761.67/11-2645. DSR; “Kurdish Revolt Raises

Fresh Threat to Turks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 8, 1945.

107

Soviet officials, who saw the Turkish military as preparing itself for “impending war

against Russia.”298

Indeed, a few days later, Turkey’s foreign minister relayed his belief

to the American ambassador that any increase in Soviet troops in the region was likely

the result of a Soviet troop rotation, rather than any recent buildup of Soviet troops. 299

While concerns about direct Soviet action were likely part of Turkish calculations

in escalating the presence of troops, the more immediate question from the Turkish

perspective appeared to be less one of a “Russian” invasion from afar—the issue that

many academic accounts, in focusing on Soviet troop buildups, often seem to ponder—

than local unrest. U.S. diplomatic records show that the main Soviet cross border agents

were Turkish-speaking Armenians and Georgians. 300

Strong support among Soviet

Armenians for Armenian-American efforts to have territory in eastern Turkey “returned”

to Armenians likely further irked Turkish officials.301

Although Turkish officials

downplayed any cross border Kurdish unrest (other than a “slight increase of sheep

stealing” without “political significance” in early 1946), the Kurdish question remained

an issue of concern for American and Turkish officials.302

Despite the greater attention

that the Armenian issue initially attracted, American officials saw Turkey’s large Kurdish

population as potentially representing a more significant threat.303

Reuters reported that

British officials were concerned that the Kurdish issue was showing “dangerous signs of

298

Ulunian, “Soviet Cold War Perceptions of Turkey and Greece,”: 37; “Kurdish Revolt Raises Fresh

Threat to Turks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 8, 1945. 299

Wilson to the Secretary of State, November 2, 1945. 761.67/11-245, DSR. 300

Wilson to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945. 761.67/10-2345, DSR. 301

Harriman to the Secretary of State, October 20, 1945. 761.67/10-2045, DSR. 302

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 8, 1946. 761.67/1-846, DSR. 303

Wilson to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945. 761.67/10-2345, DSR; Harriman to the Secretary of

State, October 23, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. V, Europe: 901.

108

extension” and that Turkish authorities had increased troops in the area in response to

indications that Kurdish “trouble has spread over the frontier from Iraq into Turkey and

appears to be reaching into Iran.” 304

Other news reports carried similar reports and linked

Armenian and Kurdish aspirations to Soviet policy.305

Those concerns became

particularly acute during the crisis over Iranian Azerbaijan, noted below.

The Debate Goes Public

In December 1945, tensions between the Soviet Union and Turkey assumed a

new, public dimension. In the debate, which unfolded simultaneously in the press and in

classified diplomatic cables, questions about minorities’ historical rather than actual

presence was used to support claims to territory in eastern Turkey. Questions about

treatment of minorities and territorial claims became central to these debates.

Precipitating the new public tensions were anti-Soviet protests by university

students in Istanbul that heightened tensions with the Soviets. In the melee, several

Istanbul newspaper offices and pro-Soviet booksellers were vandalized or destroyed. On

December 8, the Soviet ambassador delivered a formal note, protesting what he said was

Turkish authorities’ complacence amid the violence. Three days later, Turkish Foreign

304

“Kurdish Revolt Raises Fresh Threat to Turks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 8, 1945. 305

For instance, an article in The Times (London) noted: “There are already signs of a possibility of

Armenian and Kurdish agitation being encouraged and exploited. The invitation by Russia to Armenians

throughout the world to settle in Soviet Armenia has not escaped Turkish attention. Already several

hundred Armenians living in Turkey have applied to the Soviet Consulate-General in Istanbul for

repatriation, and it is feared that the foregathering in Armenia of large numbers of Armenians from other

countries may lead to demands for territorial aggrandizement, of which the Soviet claim for the cession of

the Turkish districts of Kars and Ardahan has been an alarming prelude. There is good reason to believe

that the Armenian and Kurdish revolutionary committees have been cooperating for some time in Syria and

elsewhere and, therefore, that Armenian and Kurdish claims against Turkey, Persia, and Iraq maybe raised

simultaneously.” “Firm Stand in Turkey, Georgian Claimed Repudiated, No Yielding of Land," The

Times, December 24, 1945.

109

Minister Hasan Saka stressed the importance of Turkey’s relations with the Soviet Union,

but said the protests were an internal affair and did not target the Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, he also noted the offices targeted in the attacks were distributing

publications with views that contradicted those of most Turks.306

The protests coincided with broader movement toward liberalization in the

Turkish press and politics. 307

Not only did the postwar period witness a steady increase

in the number of publications, these gave voice to opponents of Turkey’s single-party

government. 308

An opposition party was officially registered on September 1945. Even

more importantly, leading members of the Republic People’s Party published articles

critical of the party in private newspapers in September and resigned in early December

to form the opposition Democrat Party, which was officially registered in January.309

Early diplomatic dispatches linked the protests to the development of the political

opposition in Turkey.310

The question of minorities soon filled the pages of Turkish newspapers and

intensified the souring of Turkish-Soviet tensions. Whereas the official media had

maintained a more low-key approach to the issue of Armenian territorial claims, private

media were often more sensationalist. The debate occurred as Turks were increasingly on

edge over the crisis in Iranian Azerbaijan, which had declared independence in late 1945

with Soviet backing. (The movement would be squashed the following year.) Press

306

İsmail Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye, 15 307

Alpay Kabacalı, “40.Yıldönümünde Tan Olayı.,”Tarih ve Toplum, No. 24 (December 1985): 22-26;

“Tek-Parti Dönümünde Basın, 1925 Takrir-i Sükun’undan 1945 Tan Olayı’na,” Tarih ve Toplum, No. 37

(January 1987): 48-52. 308

Nilgün Gürkan, Turkiye’de Demokrasiye Geciste Basin, 1945-50 (Istanbul: Iletisim, 1998). 309

Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History. Third Edition. (London: I.B. Tauris): 220-1. 310

Winant to the Secretary of State, December 15, 1945. 761.677/12-1540, DSR.

110

criticism quickly transformed into a public discussion about Turkey’s rightful claim to

the disputed territories in eastern Turkey, as well as a probe into the loyalty of its

Armenian minority. Despite the Turkish leadership’s efforts to downplay the issue, media

focus continued to incite the issue.

The registration of Armenians in Istanbul for “repatriation” to Soviet Armenia

brought further attention to the Armenian question. In late November, the Soviet Union

agreed officially to permit the immigration of Armenians from abroad. 311

The Catholicos

of All Armenians, Georgius IV, reportedly called for “lands forcibly seized by Turkey

[to] be taken from her and returned to their rightful owners, and that these lands be joined

to Soviet Armenia.” He stated that he had approached “the leaders of the three great

Powers—Stalin, Truman, and Attlee with a request to put an end to the great historical

injustice permitted with regard to the long-suffering Armenian people.”312

By mid-

December, hundreds of Armenians—many suffering economic difficulties—applied to

the Soviet Consulate in Istanbul. Although initial reports estimated the number at around

200, Turkish officials privately put the number much higher—at around 1,500.313

Indeed,

long lines formed in the streets as applicants waited to enter the Consulate one by one.

Their presence in the street raised questions about safety, as the press increasingly

painted members of Turkey’s Armenian minority as potential Soviet agents. 314

311

Mattison to the Secretary of State, January 22, 1946. 761.67/1-2246, DSR; Hasanli, Stalin and the

Turkish Crisis of the Cold War: 135. 312

“An Armenian Request,” The Times (London), December 4, 1945. 313

Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 19, 1945. 760j.677/12-1945, DSR; Wilson to the Secretary

of State, December 22, 1945. 760j.677/12-2245, DSR. 314

Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 22, 1945. 760j.677/12-2245, DSR.

111

The registrations drew lengthy, angry rebukes from Turkish newspapers. The

rightwing Tasvir emphasized the danger of a disloyal minority that could turn against it in

a time of crisis. “Should these people not be able to leave our country tomorrow, we must

be cautious and must expel them from the land if we wish to prevent formation of a Fifth

Column among us.”315

Writing in Tanin, Hüseyin Cahid Yalçın proclaimed that “no real

Turk would ever think of repudiating his country in order to become the citizen of a

foreign state” and disavowed the defense of a pro-Soviet Armenian newspaper that

Armenians were leaving in response to difficulties that they faced in the country.

“Regardless of what I may suffer on this soil, regardless of the human rights of which I

may be deprived, it would never occur to me to give up my fatherland,” Yalçın wrote.

With the exception of a new, small Armenian newspaper Nor Lur (which Turkish

authorities later closed for pro-Soviet proclivities), the mainstream Istanbul Armenian

press emphasized Armenians’ loyalty to Turkey. Jamanak stated that “Armenian Turks

are ready to fulfill every patriotic duty under every condition like their nineteen million

Turkish fellow-citizens.”316

The Armenian issue also became a Cold War concern for American officials. As

soon as news of the repatriation appeared in the Turkish press, the U.S. ambassador

immediately discussed the matter with senior officials at Turkey’s foreign ministry—the

Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry on December 19, 1945 and the Foreign

315

Wilson to the Secretary of State. December 28, 1945. 760j.67/12-2845, DSR. 316

Wilson to the Secretary of State. December 28, 1945.760j.67/12-2845, DSR; Kemal Karpat, Turkey’s

Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959): 358;

Wilson to the Secretary of State. December 28, 1945.760j.67/12-2845, DSR.

112

Minister two days later. 317

According to Wilson, the “Soviet plan presumably is to bring

large number to Armenian SSR who would find insufficient living space and reinforce

demands for annexation of Turk[ey’s] eastern provinces.”318

Wilson further requested

that the State Department seek further information from other diplomatic missions in

Europe and the Middle East. Repeating almost verbatim Wilson’s argument, a cable from

Washington noted that Soviet consulates in Turkey, Iran, and “probably elsewhere” were

registering Armenians for repatriation “to Soviet Armenia which according to reports is

unable to support a greatly increased population. The artificial population problem thus

created may reinforce demands for Turkey’s eastern provinces.”319

Over the coming days and weeks, replies from American diplomatic missions

began to trickle in. Beirut reported that the Soviet Consulate was taking the names of

skilled Armenians, but was not yet officially registering them.320

In Damascus,

Armenians were not yet being registered, but disillusioned Armenians hoped for a

brighter future in Armenia. 321

Other reports from across Europe and the Middle East

followed. Only well into the New Year did diplomatic reports point to larger scale

migration to Armenia. The Armenian dispute challenged American officials as they

sought to calm the tense diplomatic standoff between Turkey and the Soviet Union.

At the heart of the Armenian claims was the historical question not only of

minorities’ traditional presence in the region, but Turkey’s treatment of minorities—

317

Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 19, 1945. 760j.677/12-1945, DSR; Wilson to the Secretary

of State, December 22, 1945. 760j.677/12-2245, DSR. 318

Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 19, 1945. 760j.677/12-1945, DSR. 319

Acheson to Certain American Missions, December 21, 1945. 761.67/12-2145, DSR. 320

Mattison to the Secretary of State, December 28, 1945, 761.67/12-2845. DSR. 321

Porter to the Secretary of State, December 29, 1945, 761.67/12-2945. DSR

113

historical and current. History figured prominently in the public debate. Kazım

Karabekir, a senior lawmaker and national hero who led the Turkish forces that captured

Kars during Turkey’s War of Independence, disputed Armenian territorial claims in a

much publicized address to Turkey’s parliament. “To whom does Kars belong? Kars is a

Turkish land inhabited by Turks for centuries,” he told parliament, arguing that most

localities bore Turkish rather than Armenian names.322

He vowed that Turkey would fight

any Soviet aggression: “If the Russians persist in laying claim to us, we shall no doubt

fight …. until a single Turk is left.”323

Karabekir’s speech was interrupted repeatedly by

the loud applause of lawmakers. Immediately afterward, Turkey’s Foreign Minister

Hasan Saka delivered a more cautious speech of his own, in which he thanked Karabekir,

but also urged restraint and the restoration of an “atmosphere of sincere friendship” with

the Soviet Union.324

Public, historical debates were given fuel by Soviet leaders (both in the Georgian

and Armenian Republics as well in Moscow), who invoked historical arguments to lay

claim to territory in eastern Turkey.325

In December, a newspaper article by two Georgian

professors called for Soviet Georgia to “get back its lands, which it never gave up and

cannot give up,” namely: Turkish territory stretching all the way from Ardahan and

Artvin on Turkey’s northeastern border to Trabzon and Giresun on the Black Sea coast—

322

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 10, 1946. 761.67/1-1046, DSR. 323

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 10, 1946. 761.67/1-1046, DSR. 324

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 10, 1946. 761.67/1-1046, DSR. 325

“The bases for the claims are remote, resting on romantic tradition and passages of distant history,”

wrote the Times (London). “Soviet Claims On Turkey Surprise Expressed In Ankara, 1921 Treaty

Recalled,” The Times (London). December 22, 1945; Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold

War:128-31; 156-7.

114

more than 200 kilometers to the west.326

The article appears to have coincided with

broader instructions, issued in September, for Georgian scholarly institutions to offer

historical, ethnographic, and geographic proof that territory in eastern Turkey should

belong to Georgia.327

The newness of the Georgian claims ensured that the issue

remained in the public eye.

Increasingly vocal, public debates about territorial claims in eastern Turkey

heightened tensions with the Soviet Union. Reports of the registration of Armenians and

the new Georgian claims coincided with talks in Moscow that included Soviet demands

for revision to the Straits regime. News reports did not see the timing as coincidental, but

“as a warning to the Turks to come to terms on the first Soviet requests … for a revision

of the Montreux Convention …. and for the cession of Kars and Ardahan.” 328

As one

American official noted, “when the Georgian claims were advanced, the Turks

considered this answer to the Istanbul demonstrations as a Russian frontal political

attack.”329

Following the failure of the Moscow talks to find a solution to the growing crisis

over Iran and Turkey, Turkey’s leadership voiced a louder, public line. On January 7,

1946, Prime Minister Şükrü Saraçoğlu reacted to the Georgian and Armenian claims.

While he expressed his belief in the loyalty of Turkey’s Armenian minority—denying

“that even the smallest cloud will mar our relations with our Armenian fellow-citizens”—

326

“Russia and the Talks Indications of Official Views, ‘Diversionary’ Questions,” The Times

(London), December 21, 1945. 327

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War: 128. 328

“Soviet Claims On Turkey Surprise Expressed In Ankara, 1921 Treaty Recalled,” The Times

(London). December 22, 1945. 329

Houck to Lyon, January 17, 1946. 761.67/1-1746, DSR.

115

he lashed out against the claims of Armenians abroad that “the provinces of Kars and

Ardahan should be ceded to form a home for Armenians now dispersed in foreign

countries. The whole world knows that there is not a single Armenian living in these

territories.” Saraçoğlu engaged in a direct debate with the Georgian professors, invoking

a lengthy, chronological discussion of historical questions that shaped the history of

eastern provinces. While he acknowledged that there were now some 57,000 Georgian

speakers spread throughout Turkey, he claimed that Georgians were far-outnumbered—

fewer than 16,000 Georgians compared to more than 1.7 million Turks—in Turkey’s

eastern provinces. Moreover, Georgian speakers “consider themselves of Turkish

religion, of Turkish culture, and of Turkish mother-tongue. They are, in fact, Turks,”

Saraçoğlu declared. 330

At the heart of this public debate was the question of the current ethnic

composition of the provinces in eastern Turkey versus the legitimacy of contemporary

claims to the provinces based on historical justifications. On the Soviet side, the

atrocities against Armenians were used to reinforce the legitimacy of their claims. The

question of the killing of Armenians—the term genocide would soon gain intermittent

traction—was at the heart of both sides’ arguments. In a semiofficial reaction to

Saraçoğlu’s speech, another Soviet academic argued that there were nearly 100,000

Armenians in Kars region alone in 1916. “According to M. Saracoglu’s conception of

ethnics and law, one has only to wipe out a nation to acquire title to its land,” the

330

The Ambassador in Turkey (Wilson) to the Secretary of State, January 7, 1946. 761.67/1-846, DSR.

116

professor wrote.331

Diplomats on the ground also repeated historical justifications for

contemporary territorial claims. One Soviet diplomat told American officials that “Turks

should be made to pay for their massacres of Armenians.”332

Turkish arguments tended simultaneously to dismiss the killing of Armenians and

argue that the Turks were the real victims. In his speech, Karabekir denied any slaughter

of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I or during the War of Independence:

“In both cases we took these back from the Armenians and found almost half of the

Turkish population slaughtered, and their houses and villages burned.”333

Saraçoğlu

similarly reversed genocide argumentation in his reaction to the Georgian professors: “It

is clear that these professors of history do not know history, past or present. At most they

are trying to interpret Hitler’s ‘Lebensraum’ or are suffering from a disease which

requires spilling of blood of innocents once again so they can record it to use in

classroom lecture which they give.”334

Not only did the new claims further stoke tensions with the Soviets, the minorities

question riled the Turkish public and even infused a degree of uncertainty into the U.S.-

Turkish relationship. Turkish newspapers, especially Tasvir, reacted against Armenians

from abroad—“even America”—who should “have to account for the treason they

committed against Turkey.”335

Criticism of Armenians and concern about the reliability

of the partnership with the United States heightened in the wake of the Moscow

331

The Embassy in the Soviet Union (Unsigned) to the Secretary of State, February 13, 1946. 760j.67/2-

1346, DSR. 332

Porter to the Secretary of State, December 29, 1945. 761.67/12-2945, DSR. 333

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 10, 1946. 761.67/1-1046, DSR. 334

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 7, 1946. 761.67/1-846, DSR. 335

Tasvir (December 22) December 28, 1945; Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 28, 1945.

760j.67/12-2845, DSR.

117

conference. Turkish newspapers lashed out at the Istanbul, pro-Soviet Armenian

newspaper Nor Lur, which expressed support for the repatriations. An Armenian

lawmaker in Turkey, Berç Türker, sought to assure the public of Turkish Armenians’

continuing loyalty by criticizing Armenians who had registered for emigration to Soviet

Armenia, but his letter ended up provoking further anger in the press. Those who had

applied for emigration, Türker wrote, were not representative of the Armenian

community in Turkey. A prominent Turkish journalist, Peyami Safa, wrote that Türker’s

letter “was not adequate to satisfy Turkish public opinion.”336

The article described many

Turks’ “national doubts” about the loyalty of Armenians in the wake of Armenian claims

at the San Francisco and Potsdam Conferences: “For months, in vain, what we expected

of Armenians in Turkey in the face of this triangle of intrigue was a shower of protest.

Instead, we were exposed to articles in Armenian newspapers that made excuses for

wishes to migrate to Soviet Armenia or ignored their significance, and even swore fascist

labels at us, which resembled the rubbish of red views.” The article especially criticized

Istanbul Armenians for failing to speak out “against this triangle of intrigue, with one

corner in the United States, the other in the Soviet Union—and perhaps—with a final one

within our own borders.” 337

The jarring comments thus raised scrutiny of the United States at a difficult time

for Turkey. Although Wilson was a staunch critic of Armenian territorial demands, he

lashed out at criticism of Türker in the Turkish press. “It may be parenthetically noted

336

Peyami Safa, “Bir mektubun kifayetsizliği,”; Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 8, 1946.

760J.67/1-846, DSR. 337

Peyami Safa, “Bir mektubun kifayetsizliği” ; Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 8, 1946.

760J.67/1-846, DSR.

118

that Mr. Türker is seventy-five years old, in very poor health, and professes to be very

proud of his Anatolian homeland. The family name which he chose at the time that all

Turkish citizens took such names, Türker, means ‘Turkish man.”338

Moreover, despite

previous embassy statements downplaying mistreatment of the Armenian minority,

Wilson’s response alluded to Armenians’ continuing difficult situation in the country:

“Clearly the memory of the Armenian massacres of the late nineteenth and early

twentieth century in Turkey and of the mass deportations of Armenians during the first

World War still is a powerful specter to haunt the minds of well-established members of

the Turkish-Armenian community.”339

Turkey and the Iran Crisis

The Iranian crisis further deepened Turkish official and public concern about

prospects for international solutions facing Turkey and the region. According to Hasanli,

the crises over Soviet refusal to withdraw from northern Iran and Turkey represented the

first definitive showdowns between the two camps that largely characterized Cold War

bloc politics. 340

Within Turkey, the Iran crisis further heightened doubts about a peaceful

postwar order. Although Turkish politicians and American officials spoke of increased

Turkish national unity in the face of Soviet demands, Turkish officials and the public

continued to express concerns about Turkey’s movement toward a collective security

arrangement rooted in the United Nations and closer cooperation with the United

338

Wilson is referring to the Turkish Surname Law of 1934. Prior to this, most Turks did not have Western-

style family names. Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 28, 1945. 760J.67/12-2845, DSR. 339

Packer to the Secretary of State, May 10, 1945. 867.4016/5-1045. reel 12, IAT; Wilson to the Secretary

of State. December 28, 1945.760j.67/12-2845, DSR. 340

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War: viii.

119

States.341

Saraçoğlu told the American ambassador that recent events in Iran and failure

to find a solution at Moscow “had caused deep concern and pessimism in Turkey as to

[the] outlook for international cooperation on behalf of principles of [the] United

Nations.”342

The official newspaper Ulus similarly expressed doubts about finding a

solution at the United Nations Assembly meeting in January: “The question arises as to

what any nations can do at the meeting except to voice bitter complaints, or make

suggestions, which they feel are hopeless anyway.”343

Turkey saw the issue as an international issue, but also one that had profound

implications for its territorial integrity. Undergirding Turkey’s experience of the Iranian

crisis were the repatriation of Armenians amid Soviet territorial claims and fears about

the establishment of a Kurdish polity that could incite Turkey’s own Kurdish population.

Turkish diplomats saw Soviet efforts to stir up revolt in northern Iran as a “preparatory

step to be followed by early action by USSR in Turkey’s eastern provinces to bring about

their annexation to Soviet Armenia.”344

Such maneuvering and the prospect of Soviet

aggression, Turkish officials feared, could even mean “extinction.”345

Wilson argued

against the possibility of Soviet engagement in “open war.” Instead, he believed the

Soviet Union would use “indirect methods of aggression against Turkey,” including

“Armenian and Kurdish ‘fronts’ in Eastern Provinces.” By the height of tensions over

Iran in March, however, he was less dismissive of Soviet aggression, noting that the

341

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 9, 1946. 761.67/1-946, DSR.

342

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 9, 1946. 761.67/1-946, DSR. 343

"United Nations' aid doubted," The New York Times, January 2, 1946: 8. 344

Wilson to Secretary of State. November 22, 1945. 761.67/11-2245, DSR. 345

Moose to the Secretary of State, February 7, 1946. 761.67/2-746, DSR.

120

Soviets were “consolidating [their] position in Iran, which means [the] Eastern prong of

[Soviet] pincers has closed on Turkey.”346

The media described international efforts on behalf of the Armenian cause.

Armenian groups petitioned the United Nations General Assembly in London demanding

territory, which they said had been robbed from them and was now necessary for

immigrants.347

On January 17, 1946, the pro-Soviet Armenian National Council of

Alexandria, Egypt, sent a petition to the United Nations General Assembly in London

demanding the annexation of the provinces in eastern Turkey to the Soviet Union, but

denying that the Armenian question represented “agitation’” in the Soviet war of nerves

against Turkey. The group acknowledged that few Armenians remained, but said that was

because they had been massacred or exiled by the Turkish government.348

U.S. diplomats carefully followed the Armenian migrations, which they

emphasized were part of Soviet territorial claims and the war of nerves against Turkey. In

January, the Embassy in Paris reported that communist organizations were encouraging

Armenians to go to Armenia and a few individuals had possibly departed from France. 349

The Soviet mission in Iraq said it was not yet registering Armenians, probably because of

British opposition. Several thousand poorer Armenians might leave, while better off ones

were expected to stay.350

In Beirut, an Armenian communist newspaper reported on the

Soviet decision to allow the migration of all Armenians to Soviet Armenia and to give

346

Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 18, 1946. 761.67/3-1846, DSR. 347

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War: 190. 348

“Armenians Seek Land: Will Ask UNO to Consider Claims To Turkish Areas,” New York Times, Jan.

18, 1946. 349

Caffery to the Secretary of State, January 15, 1946. 761.67/1-1546, DSR. 350

Schoenrich to the Secretary of State, January 25, 1946,. 761.67/1-2546, DSR.

121

them credit toward the purchase of new homes. U.S. officials noted, however, that more

conservative Armenians saw the plan as impractical and part of the Russian war of nerves

against Turkey. 351

By February, news from Lebanon assumed a more urgent tone.

According to U.S. officials, the registration of Armenians was well underway. Around

25,000 individuals had registered, and that number could reach three times that. Some

had even sold their property. Poorer Armenians, motivated by patriotism, constituted the

largest group of applicants and all “believe some territory will be taken from Turkey.”

However, the legation dispatch suggested a disparity between Armenian aspirations and

Soviet planning: whereas local Armenians were quoted as saying that the repatriation

could begin in May, Soviet diplomats said no concrete plans were yet in place. “The

possibility exists that the Soviet Union had no real intention of proceeding … and that the

whole program is a maneuver in the ‘war of nerves’ against Turkey.” Soviets could use

the large number of applicants to press for “territorial additions” and, if the repatriation

initiative fell through, they might declare “the fault lies with Turkey.”352

By February, a senior Armenian party leader announced that 8,000 Armenians in

Greece, 17,000 in Tehran, 32,000 in South America, 50,000 in Syria and Lebanon and

others in France, Romania, Bulgaria, and even Turkey had registered for repatriation to

Soviet Armenia. The official further declared that existing Armenian territory could only

accommodate up to 400,000 repatriates, whereas territory would be needed to be ceded

from Turkey in order to accommodate hundreds of thousands of others, up to 1.5 million.

The Political Bureau of the Soviet Central Committee also ordered the Foreign Ministry

351

Mattison to the Secretary of State, January 22, 1946. 761.67/1-2246, DSR. 352

Mattison to the Secretary of State, February 6, 1946, 761.67/2-646, DSR.

122

to assist in preparations for Armenians to move from Bulgaria, Greece, Iran, Lebanon,

Romania, and Syria.353

Amid these international developments, Turkish officials displayed growing

suspicions toward Armenians within the country. Turkish officials closely monitored the

local Armenian press. Although most Armenian press outlets were critical of the

repatriation efforts, the Nor Lur newspaper was supportive. One report by a local Turkish

official pointed to an article that compared the sufferings of Armenians to that of Jews

during World War II. Although the article’s translation does not appear to criticize

Turkey directly, but rather to highlight the enduring worldwide plight of Armenians, the

translator’s report noted the author was “no friend of the Turks.”354

Another report said

that the publication was engaged “directly in propaganda for a foreign state, the Soviet

Union” and amounted to “Soviet propaganda.”355

Soviet support for Kurds in northern Iran also brought the Kurdish issue into the

Cold War. The fact that leading policy journals in both Britain and the United States

featured prominent articles on the issue in the first half of the year attests to the Kurdish

question’s importance in diplomacy that year.356

Soviet support for autonomy-seeking

Kurds in northern Iran culminated in the establishment of the Kurdish Republic of

Mahabad in January 1946. That move heightened Turkish official fears that the Soviet

353

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 189- 191. Despite the public rhetoric, Hasanli

says secret Soviet documentation says around 51,000 migrants had actually arrived by May of the

following year—less than half of those said to register. 354

Translator’s report on Norlur [sic] newspaper, February 1, 1946. Başbakanlık: 7 30 1 0 0/101.623.4. 355

Translator’s report on Nor Lur newspaper, April 2, 1946. Başbakanlık: 30 1 0 0 / 101.623.6. 356

W.G. Elphinston, “The Kurdish Question,” International Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 1 (January 1946): 91-103;

William Linn Westermann, “Kurdish Independence and Russian Expansion,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 24, No.

4 (July 1946): 675-686.

123

Union might “use the Kurdish minority to create a separatist movement in Eastern

Turkey.” 357

The American ambassador believed the Iran crisis likely reinforced Turkish

leaders’ decision to extend emergency military rule over Kurdish areas in eastern Turkey,

which had been in place since unrest in the 1930s. 358

Fearing the prospect of a domestic

Kurdish uprising and signs of contact between Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, Turkey further

heightened security in border regions.359

Turkey also appealed to Britain for support

against a possible insurgency within its own borders akin to the one in Iran. 360

Turkey

also took steps to prevent unrest among Kurds and to keep its leaders from entering

Turkey. 361

Despite Turkey’s fears, the Republic of Mahabad proved short-lived. Iranian

forces retook the region in December 1946 after Soviet forces withdrew from northern

Iran earlier that year.

Although developments in predominantly Kurdish parts of Turkey remain

shrouded in mystery, the Kurdish question came under increasing public scrutiny and was

often portrayed as part of Armenian and Soviet efforts to destabilize the region. Turkish

press reports focused on Soviet efforts to incite the Kurdish issue and reports of foreign

Armenian support for rebellion by Kurds.362

The Turkish press likewise picked up reports

of joint Turkish-Iraqi efforts to combat the issue, portrayed the issue as a “new element to

357

Wilson to Secretary of State. January 7, 1946. 867.014, DSR. 358

Wilson to Secretary of State. January 7, 1946. 867.014, DSR. 359

Wilson to the Secretary of State, January 8, 1946 . 761.67/1-1046, DSR; Ekavi Athanassopoulou

,Turkey-Anglo-American Security Interests, 1945-1952: The First Enlargement of NATO (Routledge, 1999)

: 46; Murray to the Secretary of State. November 26, 1945.761.67, DSR; “Kurdish Revolt Raises Fresh

Threat to Turks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 8, 1945. 360

Athanassopoulou, Turkey-Anglo-American Security Interests, 46. 361

T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlügü (Ankara). Foreign Minister (Saka) to the Prime

Minister. August 16, 1946. 30.10.0.0/259.747.45 362

Cihad Baban “Sovyet Rusyanın bütün cephelerdeki siyasi taarruzu,”Tasvir, November 21, 1945

124

destabilize the Middle East” and expressed concern over the establishment of “greater

Kurdistan.” 363

Although the details remain murky, it is also probable that the Kurdish issue

spurred regional cooperation in the Cold War period. Cooperation to contain Kurdish

nationalism was arguably an important tenet of the 1937 Saadabad Pact grouping Turkey,

Iran, and Iraq, which, at least in theory, remained in effect during the Iran Crisis.364

The

Kurdish issue also motivated regional cooperation in the 1950s. 365

At the height of

tensions over Iran in March 1946, Nuri as-Said, Iraq’s former prime minister, headed a

high level delegation to the Turkish capital for bilateral talks. News reports suggested that

the Iran problem and the Kurdish issue featured prominently in the talks, a claim that the

envoy publicly denied. 366

In addition to news reports, diplomatic correspondence

contradicts his public denial. In meetings with American officials, Turks spoke of Nuri

Pasha’s apprehensiveness over the Kurdish issue. 367

A rare Turkish Foreign Ministry

document also shows that, amid increased turmoil in the Kurdish border region, Iraqi

officials petitioned for Turkey to conduct mutual operations against Kurdish guerillas

(çete) around the same time. 368

While the United States offered assurances of territorial

integrity, Iraq, like Turkey, began concentrating its troops along the Iranian and Turkish

363

Tasvir, April 10-12, 1946 364

Muhittin Ataman, “The Kurdish Question and Its Impact on Turkey’s Foreign Policy, From 1923 to

2000,” 39; Clifton Daniels, “Iraq Denies Aiming for Mideast Bloc: Premier Calls Ankara Parley Economic-

Vague,” The New York Times, March 25, 1946. 365

Warren to the Secretary of State, August 20, 1958. 782.00/8-2058, DSR. 366

Clifton Daniels, “Iraq Denies Aiming for Mideast Bloc: Premier Calls Ankara Parley Economic-

Vague,” The New York Times, March 25, 1946. 367

Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 19, 1946. 761.67/3-1946, DSR. 368

The Turkish Foreign Minister (Saka) to the Turkish Prime Minister, April 1946. Başbakanlık 30 10 0

0/259.747.48

125

borders in response to Kurdish unrest.369

Given Turkey’s long foreign policy disposition

and the fact that U.S. diplomats also were exploring Soviet “indirect methods of

aggression against Turkey,” it is clear that the Kurdish issue was more than simply a

domestic issue, but a pressing matter in Turkey’s regional foreign policy.370

The Kurdish

issue, the Armenian dispute, and the minorities question were increasingly drawn into

global Cold War politics.

Conclusion

Ambassador Edwin Wilson’s March 1946 telegram, which raised the prospect of

the “use of force by Russia against Turkey” has drawn a great deal of attention from

scholars. At a time when a direct Soviet military operation probably appeared unlikely—

with Turkish leaders and senior officials even dismissing the likelihood of a direct

attack—the correspondence was by all means “alarming.”371

In his assessment of the

telegram, Leffler criticizes scholarship that accepts narratives of an imminent Soviet

attack, noting, for instance, that “Bruce Robellet Kuniholm fully accepts Wilson’s

appraisal of Soviet actions and intentions.” Instead, Leffler argues that the United States

“did not expect the Soviets to apply military force” in the spring of 1946, but had longer-

369

“Ankara Quarters Fear Kremlin Is Planning Revolt Among the Kurds” The Washington Post, March 15,

1946; John M. Hightower ,“ Iran, Turkey Assured Of Support by U.S. Policy,” The Washington Post,

March 16, 1946; “Iraqi Troops Mass Near Iran, Turkey: Kurds Say Reinforcements Are Sent to Areas,”

New York Times; April 10, 1946. 370

Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 18, 1946, FRUS, 1946 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1969), Vol.

VII, the Near East and Africa: 818-9; John M. Hightower ,“Iran, Turkey Assured Of Support by U.S.

Policy,” The Washington Post (March 16, 1946); Athanassopoulou notes the lack of sources on the Kurdish

issue for the period, but observes: “It is reasonable to assume that Ankara was alarmed.” Athanassopoulou,

Turkey-Anglo-American Security Interests, 46 371

Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 11, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII, the Near East and Africa: 819;

Leffler, “Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War”: 811.

126

term worries that “the Soviet demand for bases in the Dardanelles might be a ruse for the

eventual projection of Soviet power into the eastern Mediterranean.”372

Overall, Leffler’s

argument is persuasive and rightfully criticizes the expectation of imminent Soviet

military action. But the American strategic focus of Leffler’s study neglects to consider a

subtle tactical discussion raised by Wilson: the means by which the Soviet Union was

exerting pressure on Turkey and the region.

Wilson’s telegram came only two days after a telegram from Kennan (who was

then temporarily the top diplomat in Moscow) that probed the implications for Iran and

Turkey of Kurdish activism in northern Iran. Kennan, who suggested that there was

evidence that Kurds planned to seize the Mosul District in Northern Iraq, argued that the

Soviet Union aimed to use Kurds and other groups “to bring into power in Iran a regime

prepared to accede to major immediate Sov[iet] demands.” The Soviets would do this

“through subservient Iranian elements without direct responsibility” on the Soviet side.

For Kennan, the “smashing of Turkish power, achievement of Sov[iet] bases on Straits

and establishment of ‘friendly’ regime in Ankara” remained possible objectives of Soviet

“policy to be pursued in due course and time.” But there was little evidence of any

immediate "overt Sov[iet] aggression against Turkey.” Nonetheless, Kennan left open the

possibility that Soviet-armed Kurds might also create trouble along the Turkish border,

creating a justification for future Soviet interference in Turkey.373

372

Leffler, “Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War,” 810-11. 373

Kennan to the Secretary of State, March 17, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII, the Near East and Africa:

362.

127

Wilson’s “alarming” telegram two days later was part of a broader triangular

discussion among State Department officials in Ankara, Washington, and Moscow about

how the Soviet Union would project its power on Turkey and the region. Similar to

Kennan, Wilson wrote he that had believed that the Soviet Union would use “indirect

methods of aggression against Turkey, such as [the] employment [of] Armenian and

Kurdish ‘fronts’ in Eastern Provinces, rather than take risks involved in open war.”

However, he was now less dismissive of direct Soviet aggression, noting Soviets were

“consolidating position in Iran, which means [the] Eastern prong of [Soviet] pincers has

closed on Turkey.”374

The “Western prong of pincers” would be closed by the election of

a pro-communist government in Greece. Although Wilson was not convinced that the

Soviet Union was now committed to a military operation, he said it was now “necessary

to reconsider earlier views as to Soviet tactics against Turkey and not rule out [the]

possibility, however illogical it may seem of use of force by Russia against Turkey” later

that spring. 375

The Soviet Union ultimately did not resort to force to carry out its strategic

goal of “domination of Turkey” in order to create a security belt extending from the

Black Sea to the Baltic. But Wilson’s telegram should be examined not just as a

statement about potential Soviet military action, but as part of a broader discussion about

shifting tactics involving ethnicity and minorities in Cold War power politics. American

officials, however, largely reduced the plight of minorities to Soviet tactics against

Turkey. As the new U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, William Bedell Smith, soon

374

Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 18, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII, the Near East and Africa: 819. 375

Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 18, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII, the Near East and Africa: 819.

Emphasis added.

128

put it: “Political offenses by USSR against Turkey having made little or no progress on

Armenian and Georgian issues, a new offensive appears to be opening on another front—

Turkish Kurds.”376

From the American perspective, a main issue involving Turkey’s minorities—that

of frontier readjustment—largely “faded from the diplomatic scene” after the spring of

1946. 377

Although the Soviet Union would give the territorial question increasingly less

emphasis, it would not disappear officially until after Stalin’s death in 1953.378

Questions

of ethnicity and issues of minorities, moreover, remained an important component of

Turkey’s experience of the Cold War. Less than questions of the Straits or Western

strategic visions, Turks—guided by a nationalistic gaze—continued to emphasize

questions of territorial integrity and saw advocates for Armenians and Kurds as

proponents of Soviet territorial revision. As one Turkish newspaper noted on its front

page: “When it comes to the Kurds and Armenians, whenever foreign domination is

under discussion in Iran, Iraq or Turkey, there is a desire to use them and benefit from

these ignorant masses.”379

Questions of minorities and their treatment were central to another dispute that

would be embroiled in Cold War politics—human rights—that would soon unfold at the

United Nations. According to Mazower, this nascent order rooted in lofty notions of

human rights entailed a weakening of international protections for minorities who

became subject to the whims of sovereign states. Not only did the Great Powers escape

376

Smith to the Secretary of State, June 17, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII, the Near East and Africa: 824-5. 377

Leffler, “Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War,” 809 378

İsmail Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975 (Istanbul: İsis, 1997),

173-4. 379

“Kürtler ve Ermeniler,” Tanin, December 27, 1945.

129

specific commitments imposed by the League, but the new rights regime effectively had

no binding legal force.380

Essayan, the struggling, aging Armenian advocate who wrote

in desperation and confusion amid the transition from the League of Nations to the

United Nations, attempted to bring his campaign to the United Nations in March 1946.

But there is little evidence of any success. 381

Moreover, his need to “beg” for action on

behalf of the Armenian minority “still evaded by [the] Turkish government” speaks to the

desperation that would characterize Cold War questions of minorities and human

rights.382

Turkish and U.S. officials saw both of these issues as intimately connected and

little more than smokescreens for Soviet territorial claims.

380

Mark Mazower, “The Strange Triumph of Human Rights, 1933-1950.” 381

Essayan to Roosevelt, April 6, 1946, Reel 1, The Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1945-1962, Part 2:

United Nations Human Rights Commission Correspondence and Publications, the Franklin D. Roosevelt

Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York (hereafter The Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt). 382

Essayan to the Secretary of State. July 7, 1945. 760J.6715/7-745.

130

Chapter 3

“Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”

The Truman Doctrine, Turkish Nationalism, Human Rights and Genocide,

1946-1950

Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?—Adolf Hitler

on August 22, 1939 as quoted by The Times (London) on November 24, 1945.

Ohannes Essayan, the elderly advocate for Armenian rights and self-identified

“representative to the League of Nations of the Armenian refugees for the vindication of

their treaty rights” found himself appealing to an international organization and system of

minority protection that had not only failed, but no longer existed. In late 1945, Essayan

appealed to the Council of Foreign Ministers, which had been set up in Potsdam and

which he erroneously believed was responsible for considering his petition for a return of

lost Armenian property and territory in eastern Anatolia. An official sternly responded

that the Council of Foreign Ministers had nothing to do with the United Nations or his

request. In March 1946, world leaders wrestled with the crisis over the future of Iran,

where Soviet forces remained and Kurdish and Azerbaijani groups maintained self-

131

proclaimed independent states, and the press grappled with Winston Churchill’s “Iron

Curtain speech.” At the same time, an exasperated Essayan appealed directly to the

United Nations about the “‘scandalous’ matter” of a settlement for Armenians “which

does not appear to be capable of further postponement.” There is no evidence of any

serious response. The only discernible exception to the pattern of inaction came from

Eleanor Roosevelt, who apparently sent Essayan a few “kind lines from London”—

probably perfunctory in nature—in January 1946. 383

It is fitting that the only notable

response to Essayan’s appeals would come from the former first lady, who would help

draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and whose vision for a postwar order

rooted in the United Nations would yield to the political expediency of the Truman

Doctrine.

For Armenians, perhaps no phrase has captured their simultaneous frustration

over their quest for justice and the ineptitude of the international community to deal with

genocide than comments attributed to Hitler: “Who still talks nowadays of the

extermination of the Armenians?” The phrase, reportedly made by Hitler on August 22,

1939, just days before Germany’s invasion of Poland, implies that the Armenian killings

provided Hitler a model for the Holocaust. Armenian groups, accordingly, have long used

the quote to show “one genocidal process” encompassing the First and Second World

Wars.384

However, the date that the remarks became public is also significant. The Hitler

383

Essayan to Roosevelt, April 6, 1946, Reel 1, The Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1945-1962, Part 2:

United Nations Human Rights Commission Correspondence and Publications, the Franklin D. Roosevelt

Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York (hereafter The Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt). 384

Yves Ternon, The Armenian Cause, trans. Anahid Epelian Mangouni (Delmar, New York: Caravan

Books, 1985), 146; Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the

Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 217-8.

132

quotation—one short sentence in an article that occupied about one third of a full

newspaper page—first appeared in November 1945 as part of the London Times

coverage of the Nuremberg Trials, where the statement was reportedly read by

prosecutors. Armenians, who sought justice and pressed forward with territorial claims

with Soviet blessing, mobilized behind the comments in an effort to draw renewed world

attention to the Armenian cause. At the same time, however, presentation of Turkey as a

perpetrator of genocide—like Germany—at a time when members of Congress advocated

for minority rights and church groups continued to express questions about Turkey’s

treatment of minorities also challenged an official narrative of Turkey as a loyal,

democratic ally of the United States at the time of the Truman Doctrine.

This chapter examines how the plight of Turkey’s minorities—Armenians and to

a lesser extent Kurds—were drawn into the related postwar debates over human rights

and genocide. It suggests the years immediately after World War II as a pivotal moment

in understanding Turkish attitudes toward human rights and genocide and U.S. attitudes

toward Turkey. The period also witnessed the emergence of new institutions and

discourse surrounding human rights, which slowly enveloped discussions of Turkey’s

minorities. The period also saw the birth of the term “genocide,” which Armenians would

employ for the first time to describe the killing of Armenians during the First World War,

but also served as a critique of U.S. aid to Turkey.

Two international agreements—both, at least publicly, backed by the United

States and Turkey—symbolized efforts to reckon with the problem of minority protection

at the international level in the immediate postwar period: the Universal Declaration of

133

Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

Genocide (both adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in December 1948). For Mark

Mazower, the two accords represented two distinct and contradictory solutions to the

question of how to protect minorities after the Second World War. Whereas the Genocide

Convention, passed in the wake of the Nuremberg Trials, harked back—at least on

paper—to a League-like system of international protection of group minority rights, the

Declaration of Human Rights, a non-binding statement rather than a treaty per se, spoke

to the new and “much weaker” postwar regime of individual human rights rooted in

individual nation-states.385

Questions surrounding minorities and ethnic questions also posed broader

challenges to the new U.S.-directed postwar order. At home, U.S. policymakers feared

that recognition of African-Americans as a distinct, internationally-recognized minority

could draw the United Nations into U.S. race relations to the benefit of the Soviet

Union.386

At the international level, Cold War tensions only heightened U.S concerns

about foreign minorities and advocacy on their behalf. Although Truman would

eventually put his weight behind the Zionist cause, State Department officials were leery

of potentially disruptive claims made on behalf of foreign minorities, including Jews,

Kurds, and Armenians.387

Authorities also downplayed ethnic grievances that framed

other conflicts, including the civil war in Greece, as they emphasized the impending

385

Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United

Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 130. 386

Carol Anderson, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human

Rights, 1944-1955 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 48, 75. 387

Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh, A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel, 1st ed.

(New York: Harper, 2009); The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State,

October 23, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. V, 901.

134

communist threat.388

At the same time, the United States presented itself as a global

champion of human rights, using issues such as freedom of speech to deflect questions

about its own treatment of minorities. Those tensions boiled over at the United Nations:

whereas the Soviet Union pressed for the establishment of a Sub-Commission on the

Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, Britain, France and the

United States put their weight behind the formation of a Sub-Commission on Freedom of

Information and the Press. The formation of the two committees marked “the beginning

of continual finger-pointing by American and Soviet UN representatives at the respective

weaknesses of their countries” over human rights. 389

Criticism of Turkey’s human rights record or attention to the massacres of the

First World War challenged the new alliance between Turkey and the United States

forged through the Truman Doctrine. American and international Jewish, Armenian, and

Greek groups, as well as members of Congress and the press, sharply criticized Turkey’s

continuing discrimination against minorities and U.S. aid to Turkey. Armenians

mobilized behind the cause of the Armenian Genocide—as both a new descriptor for the

unresolved atrocities of the First World War and as a critique of the Truman Doctrine.

The term made its first published appearance in 1944 in a book by the legal scholar

Raphael Lemkin, who quickly made it clear that he had the mass killings of Armenians

and more recent massacre of Jews in mind when he devised the term.390

Nonetheless, the

388

Robert Knight, "Western Perspectives on Ethnic Politics," in Ethnicity, Nationalism and the European

Cold War, ed. Robert Knight (London and New York: Continuum, 2012), 16. 389

Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2002), 36. 390

Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government,

Proposals for Redress (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), 79-95; Steven L.

135

sentiment of American Cold War hardliners like George Kennan, who viewed the plight

of minorities as little more than tactical devices in Soviet demands on Turkey, continued

to strengthen.391

For Dean Acheson, the Soviet Union’s diplomatic note to Turkey of

August 7, 1946 demanding revision to the Straits regime removed any hope for

conciliation with the Soviet Union.392

As Armenians rallied against the Truman

Doctrine, demanded territorial revision and spoke about genocide, Acheson lashed out at

Armenians whose ambitions, he said, ran contrary to the Truman Doctrine.393

U.S.

diplomats downplayed human rights abuses in Turkey, emphasized Turkey’s national

unity as essential to Turkey’s stability, and sought to shield Turkey from international

criticism that it was a perpetrator of genocide.

Turkey’s position toward minorities also reflected the contradictions inherent to

this new, postwar order. On the one hand, Turkey embraced new human rights discourse

as the country transitioned to multiparty politics. It also adopted the Genocide

Convention. On the other, the launch of Turkey’s first human rights organizations

coincided with staunch anticommunist measures. Discussion of minorities’ troubles was

moot. The Turkish leadership’s solution to the problem of how to bridge a postwar global

discourse of human rights with its Cold War national security emphasis was to promote

publicly a new version of nationalism that coincided with and supported the Truman

Jacobs, "Raphael Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide," in Looking Backward, Moving Forward:

Confronting the Armenian Genocide, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction

Publishers, 2003), 125-35. 391

The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945. FRUS,

1945, Vol. V, 901 392

Robert J. McMahon, Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order, 1st ed., Shapers of

International History Series (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2009), 46. 393

Memorandum of Conversation: Undersecretary of State (Acheson) and Committee of Eleven Armenians,

May 12, 1947. 867.014/5-1247, Reel 9, Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of

Turkey, 1945-1949, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter IAT).

136

Doctrine. Yet, this reformulation was tenuous at best. Although the Turkish government

declared improvement in its treatment of minorities, these declarations amounted to little

more than window dressing over lingering questions about its treatment of minorities.

Rather than fostering a serious discussion about minority or human rights, Turkish

officials reduced enduring problems in Turkey’s treatment of minorities to a component

of Soviet territorial claims.

This chapter contributes to three broader historiographical debates. First, it builds

on a range of scholarship that shows how human rights became a plastic discourse that

served the needs of individual nation-states in the immediate postwar period. As A.W.B.

Simpson has noted, both the Soviet Union and the United States refused to surrender

sovereignty for the cause of human rights after the Second World War: “human rights

were for export only.”394

In addition to highlighting the role of Armenian and other

activists in the United States who were critical of Turkey, this chapter also provides an

unprecedented look into the development of a national human rights movement in Turkey

rooted in the international one—an issue that has only generated passing attention by

most scholars.395

Human rights issues raised important questions in U.S.-Turkish

relations after the Second World War, which both sides were eager to minimize without

fundamentally addressing.

394

A. W. B. Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire : Britain and the Genesis of the European

Convention (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). For a discussion, see Eric D. Weitz,

"The Human Rights Surges of the 1940s and 1990s: A Commentary on Margaret E. McGuinness and

William A. Schabas," Diplomatic History 35, no. 5 (2011): 795. See also Anderson, Eyes off the Prize, 48,

75; Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of

Harvard University Press, 2010). 395

Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System (Princeton, N.J.,: Princeton

University Press, 1959).

137

Second, this chapter sheds light on the relationship between Soviet claims on

Turkish territory and human rights issues—issues that have largely been treated in

isolation. In March 1947, the Soviet Union announced the withdrawal of its forces from

Iran and, according to Melvyn Leffler, frontier readjustment largely “faded from the

diplomatic scene” around the same time.396

Indeed, demands for territorial revision would

not even be raised in the Soviet Union’s August 7, 1947 diplomatic note on the Straits

that ultimately provoked the Turkish Crisis that culminated in the Truman Doctrine.

Nonetheless, the fact that the Soviet Union ceased to raise the territorial question directly

did not mean that it dropped entirely from the diplomatic radar screen. Rather, this

chapter shows how the question of the Armenian Genocide and questions of human rights

reinforced Soviet territorial claims on Turkey. Regardless if Armenian American

petitions were coordinated with the Soviet Union (as Jamil Hasanli contends) or if they

were uncoordinated (as Michael Bobelian argues), Armenian and Kurdish petitions

reinforced international pressure against Turkey and, in the eye of U.S. policymakers,

amounted to de facto Soviet bidding at the United Nations. 397

By exploring this early Cold War international context and suggesting linkages

among the Soviet territorial claims, the Truman Doctrine, and advocacy on behalf of the

Armenian Genocide, this chapter offers a third, novel historical contribution on the

debate surrounding the Armenian Genocide. Scholars of the Armenian Genocide and the

smaller, often pro-Turkish group that denies it understandably focus their attention on the

396

Melvyn P. Leffler, "Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War: The United States, Turkey, and NATO,

1945-1952," The Journal of American History 71, no. 4 (1985): 809. 397

Jamil Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 1945-1953 (New York: Lexington Books,

2011), 125, 207; Michael Bobelian, Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-long

Struggle for Justice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 102, 92.

138

events surrounding the First World War. The fact that the term “genocide” did not make

its first published appearance until nearly three decades later and the fact that the

“Armenian Genocide” did not enjoy broad currency until the 1960s form an issue that

scholars have recognized, but have not adequately explored.398

This chapter does not indulge Turkish genocide denial, but does offer a new layer

of complexity to the polarized debate over the Armenian Genocide. In broadest terms,

much of pro-Turkish and pro-Armenian historiographies have circled around a single,

important question: was it genocide?—a question that inherently lends itself to

politicization. By assuming an international rather than national approach to the issue,

this chapter asks a fundamentally different question: when did the term “Armenian

Genocide” come into being? It suggests the immediate postwar period—which included

Soviet and Armenian territorial claims, the repatriation of Armenians, and the first use of

the term “genocide” by Armenians—as a key moment to understand Turkish attitudes

toward the Armenian Genocide and U.S. responses thereto. 399

398

Nearly all scholars of the Armenian Genocide have also pointed to the “revival” of the Armenian issue

in the 1960s, which broadly coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the Armenian atrocities in 1915. In

the view of most scholars, it was the 1960s when the Armenian question made a significant resurgence and

the term “Armenian Genocide” featured prominently in public debates. Ternon, The Armenian Cause, 163-

5; Donald Quataert, "The Massacres of Ottoman Armenians and the Writing of Ottoman History," Journal

of Interdisciplinary History XXXVII, no. 2 (2006): 252. 399

Michael Bobelian has shown how the Cold War and, in particular, “the Truman Doctrine precluded any

reconsideration of Armenian claims arising from the Genocide,” but does not consider the birth of the term

genocide itself, its first use by Armenian groups and its overlap with Armenian territorial claims and

repatriation efforts. Accordingly, he sees Armenian diaspora advocacy as “largely disconnected from the

Soviet Union’s campaign against Turkey.” Bobelian, Children of Armenia, 102, 92. Donald Bloxham has

assessed the international political environment that framed both the development of the Armenian

Genocide and subsequent efforts for redress. He notes that Armenian groups “seized on” the new term

“genocide” almost immediately in the postwar period and the term “was used frequently enough, if not

dogmatically or systematically, before 1965.” Yet, he concludes that the term did not evoke the passionate

response from Turkey that it would in subsequent decades, noting that “the Turkish apparatus of denial had

not yet started loudly to contest the use of the nomenclature” of genocide. Bloxham, The Great Game of

Genocide, 216.

139

The question of whether international conventions should be retroactive ignited an

important debate among policymakers and advocates for human rights in the immediate

postwar period. 400

The Turkish government worked immediately to remove any links

between the events of the First World War and the new international legal mechanisms

surrounding human rights and genocide. For Turkey, the issue was not only an issue if it

might be held accountable for the events of three decades before, but of fuel for the

postwar territorial claims. Turkish conceptions of human rights and genocide came into

being at the same time as territorial claims against Turkey. In broadest terms, this chapter

proposes that the term “Armenian Genocide”—which continues to stoke such passion

between Turkey and Armenians today—carries Cold War baggage.

From Territorial Claims to Human Rights Claims

Although the Soviet Union emphasized the question of the Straits over territorial

revision after the spring of 1946, the territorial issue did not disappear entirely. Rather,

the Soviet Union continued to offer indirect backing to territorial questions by supporting

Armenian and Kurdish appeals for territorial revision. The Soviet Union backed the

repatriation of Armenians through September 1948. 401

According to Hasanli, Soviet and

Armenian archival sources highlight Soviet efforts to use the Armenian Diaspora to

further Soviet designs on Turkey: The Soviet Union not only sent propagandists to incite

the Armenian Diaspora, there is evidence that statements and petitions by Armenian

400

Margaret E. McGuinness, "Peace v. Justice: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the

Modern Origins of the Debate," Diplomatic History 35, no. 5 (2011): 763. 401

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 276.

140

groups at international forums were closely coordinated with Soviet authorities.402

Bobelian, who largely examines U.S. and Diaspora records, disputes such

coordination.403

Nonetheless, it is clear from the evidence that Hasanli presents that the

Soviet Union embraced Armenian activism, which offered continuing pressure for

territorial claims on Turkey.

The Soviet Union also supported Kurdish groups who continued to hold onto

autonomy through at least the end of 1946, when the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in

northern Iran folded. Moreover, the Soviet Union would continue to host prominent

Kurds such as Mullah Mustafa Barzani in exile well into the 1950s.404

U.S. and Turkish

government officials and the public saw Soviet backing for Kurdish autonomy as an

attempt to destabilize the borders of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. 405

This support also

reinforced—from the view of policymakers in Washington and Ankara—territorial

demands against Turkey.

The Kurdish and Armenian questions entered a new realm of public debate at the

United Nations. In April 1946, the Armenian National Council organized a rally at

Carnegie Hall of some 3,000 supporters, including U.S. Senator Charles Tobey of New

Hampshire, in support of the Armenian cause. The group’s petition to American leaders

and the United Nations declared that Turkey “has for generations brutally massacred,

ground down and discriminated against the Armenian people.” It called for the

repatriation of Armenians from abroad and for the United Nations to solve the “Armenian

402

Hasanli even argues that the Armenian Diaspora claims were “undertaken according to the Kremlin’s

instructions.” Ibid., 96, 125, 297 403

Bobelian, Children of Armenia, 92. 404

David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, 3rd ed. (New York and London: I. B. Tauris), 246. 405

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 209-10.

141

Question” by annexing the Kars, Ardahan, Erzurum, Trabzon, Van, and Bitlis to the

Armenian Soviet Republic. 406

In addition to drawing the attention of U.S. officials,

petitions on behalf of the Armenian cause generated intense criticism in Turkey, where

press reports saw them as part of Soviet efforts to create a “Greater Armenia” out of

territory belonging to Turkey.407

Although Edwin S. Smith, a pro-Armenian activist and

the chair of the Carnegie Hall meeting, argued that it was Turkey’s own history rather

than Soviet provocation that brought the issue to the fore, the image offered to the

Turkish public through the press suggested the two causes were one in the same. Smith,

moreover, declared that Americans must not allow the plight of Armenians “to be shelved

because of political balancing” at the United Nations.408

At another rally in Boston in

July, Connecticut’s Democratic Senator Brien McMahon similarly called for the

Armenian question to be put on the agenda of the United Nations and two other senators,

Leverett Saltonstall (a Republican from Massachusetts) and David I. Walsh (a

Massachusetts Democrat), called for justice for Armenians.409

Such rallies were hardly

unique to Armenians. Jewish groups, African-Americans, Poles, and many others held

similar rallies throughout this period advocating for sovereignty or territory for foreign

groups.410

406

Smith to Roosevelt, June 13, 1946, reel 1, Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, part 2; “U.N. is urged to act on

Armenian issue,” New York Times, April 29, 1946: 5. 407

“Büyük Ermenistan hayali,” Tasvir (August 28, 1946): 1-2. 408

“Armenian Question Discussed: The Return of Lost Territory Held Necessary to Exiled People,” The

New York Times (May 4, 1946): 14 409

“Pleas for Liberation of Armenians Made at Symphony Hall Mass Meeting,” The Christian Science

Monitor (July 8, 1946): 4. 410

Radosh and Radosh, A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel, 102.

142

The Soviet, Kurdish, and Armenian claims also coincided with diplomacy at the

United Nations surrounding human rights. Among the first tasks of the Human Rights

Division, tasked with preparing what would eventually become the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights, was the international question of minorities, a lingering question that

the League of Nations had failed to resolve.411

Among the first petitions the human rights

units received were petitions on behalf of Armenians.412

The question of minorities was

a particularly sensitive one for the United States, which sought to ensure that the

treatment of African-Americans did not become a matter of diplomatic wrangling. In a

nod to Southern Democrats, the United States government in May 1945 inserted an

amendment to the U.N. Charter asserting “domestic jurisdiction” over issues of rights.413

By the summer of 1946, many African-Americans became increasingly angry over

perceived U.S. “lipocrisy” on the issue of human rights: while showing resolve at

Nuremberg, the United States proved unwilling to tackle racism at home, exemplified in

a brutal lynching and wave of violence in Monroe, Georgia, in 1946.414

Unsurprisingly, questions about human rights in Turkey drew far less attention

than perceived threats to Turkey’s territorial integrity. Throughout the summer and fall of

1946, U.S. officials and the Turkish press continued to give attention to the repatriation

of Armenians, which American and Turkish officials connected to demands for Turkish

411

Mazower, No Enchanted Palace; “Human Rights Unit Gets World Woes,” New York Times (August 2,

1946): 4. 412

“Human Rights Unit Gets World Woes,” New York Times (August 2, 1946): 4. 413

Anderson, Eyes off the Prize, 48. 414

Ibid., 63.

143

territory.415

In August, for instance, the U.S. Embassy in Turkey reported that 1,850

Armenians from Greece and 1,500 Armenians from Syria and Lebanon traveled through

Istanbul on their way to Armenia, provoking interest by Istanbul’s Armenian community

as well as anxiety. Some Armenians petitioned to join.416

The Soviet press, meanwhile,

lashed out against the “malicious hissing” of Turkish newspapers toward the

repatriation.”417

After the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from northern Iran in the spring of

1946 under international pressure, the Soviet Union began making public appeals on

behalf of Kurds that drew on a growing international discourse of human rights. Soviets

drew direct comparisons between Turkey’s contemporary treatment of Kurds and the

killing of Armenians during the First World War. The Soviet trade union newspaper Trud

accused Turkey of suppressing national aspirations among Kurds and conspiring with

Iran to crush the Mahabad Republic (an accusation that was not unfounded). 418

In August

1946, the same month as the official Soviet note demanding revision to the Straits

Regime, the Soviet Union reiterated its criticism of Turkish human rights abuses: “The

Turks ‘solved’ the Armenian question … by expelling part of the population and

slaughtering the rest. They are applying the same method to the Kurds.”419

Although

direct territorial claims “faded” as an issue of direct diplomatic discussions after the

415

The Chargé in Iraq (Moose) to the Secretary of State, May 20, 1946. 761.67/5-2046, DSR; The

Ambassador in Turkey (Wilson) to the Secretary of State, June 25, 1946. 760J.67/6-2545, DSR. 416

The Ambassador in Turkey (Wilson) to the Secretary of State, August 23, 1946. 761.68/8-2346, DSR. 417

The Chargé in Moscow (Durbrow) to the Secretary of State, August 20, 1946. 760j.61/8-2046, DSR. 418

“Soviet Press Attacks Turks Over Kurds,” The Washington Post (June 16, 1946). 419

“Soviet Accuses Turks: Embassy Publication Charges Oppression of Kurds,” New York Times (August

28, 1946): 5.

144

spring of 1946, the plight of Armenians and Kurds kept the territorial issues alive at the

international level.420

Americans dismissed Soviet attention to the Kurdish issue as a new guise for

Soviet pressure on Turkey. The American ambassador to the Soviet Union wrote that that

increased Soviet attention to the Kurdish issue was a “new front” in the “war of nerves

against Turkey” and part of its broader efforts to promote Soviet foreign policy goals

through “confusion, irrelevancy and obscurantism.” Ignoring any human rights

implications, the same American report gave tacit approval to Turkey’s forced removal of

Kurds from the frontier to the interior because it would stymie Soviet efforts to mobilize

Kurdish nationalism.421

The American ambassador wrote that Soviet incitement of the

Kurdish issue represented “a new offensive” against Turkey following the failure of

Soviet attempts to mobilize around the Armenian and Georgian issues.422

The Turkish

press would continue to emphasize Soviet exploitation of the Kurdish issue in the coming

years.423

For the United States and Turkey, security remained paramount. In August 1946,

Turkey apparently closed its border with Iraq and took security measures to ensure that

fighting between Iraqi Government forces and Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq did not

result in refugees flocking to southeastern Turkey. Turkey’s measures came in response

to a request from Iraq, which emphasized its good relations with Turkey and its treaty

obligations according to the Saadabad Pact, a 1937-8 non-aggression treaty that included

420

Leffler, "Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War," 809. 421

The Ambassador to the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Secretary of State. June 17, 1946. 761.67/6-1746,

DSR. 422

The Ambassador to the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Secretary of State, 761.67/6-1746, DSR. 423

“Ruslar Kürdleri isyan ve ihtilale teşvik ediyorlar,” Cumhuriyet (September 27, 1950).

145

Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Despite public statements and press reports

indicating that the Soviet Union was arming Kurds, the Iraqi government emphasized that

the insurrection was an internal matter—a statement probably aimed at assuaging Turkish

concerns over Soviet involvement and fears of a larger conflict. In a memorandum to the

Turkish government, the Iraqi government wrote that the current rebellion was similar to

an earlier uprising and lacked any international dimension (a claim that U.S. and Soviet

documentation show to be blatantly false). “There is no foreign finger in this,” the memo

stated. It also stressed that Iraqi forces would conduct the operation alone, an apparent

effort to secure Turkish support by downplaying Soviet involvement.424

At the same time, U.S. officials were increasingly eager to show their disapproval

for the establishment of a Kurdish polity, which might threaten the territorial integrity of

Turkey, Iraq, or Iran and American interests in the region. In April, Dean Acheson

warned an American diplomat on the ground against visiting Mahabad, the capital of the

self-proclaimed republic, since such a visit might be interpreted throughout the region as

a sign of American sympathy for Kurdish ambitions to create an independent Kurdish

state.425

By the fall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that the formation of a Kurdish state

would adversely affect U.S. strategic interests in the region by establishing a Soviet tool

“for the creation of discord, dissent, and revolt in the Near and Middle East.” Lost British

oil revenues would also likely lead to the dissolution of the Iraqi government in Baghdad

and the establishment of a pro-Soviet government to the detriment of U.S. strategic

424

The Foreign Minister (Saka) to the Prime Minister, August 16, 1946. 30 10 0 0 / 259.747.45, DAGM. 425

The Acting Secretary of State (Acheson) to the Vice Counsul at Tabriz (Dooher), April 29, 1946, FRUS,

1946, Vol. VII, 442-3.

146

interests. 426

Security interests, thus, trumped broader questions of self-determination or

the promotion of human rights in the region.

Turkey, Human Rights and the Cold War

Turkey’s experience suggests that a nascent human rights movement emerged

after the Second World War and posed a fleeting challenge to the Turkish state.427

However, two simultaneous developments prevented an independent movement from

freeing itself from the clutches of the Turkish government. The first involved successful

efforts by Turkey’s government to link a Turkish human rights group’s advocacy for

democracy and the rights of minorities to communism and irredentism. The second

development was the cooptation of human rights by the Turkish government itself. Since

human rights claims coincided with the Soviet demands of the Cold War, the Turkish

leadership simultaneously embraced human rights discourse, while it discounted any

claims of Turkish human rights abuses as Cold War political rhetoric.

The establishment of the Human Rights Division and the international optimism

that surrounded it did not escape Turkish public attention. Turkish newspapers often

translated foreign news reports from international news wires in their coverage of human

rights and genocide. Turkish politicians of all ideological stripes also embraced human

426

Assistant Secretary of State for Occupied Areas (Hilldring) to the Secretary of State-War-Navy

Coordinating Committee (Reid), September 26. 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII, 515.; The State-War-Navy

Coordinating Committee to Major General John H. Hilldring, October 12, 1946, FRUS, 1946, Vol. VII,

529-31. 427

This contrasts with the argument of Samuel Moyn, who contends that the idea of human rights as

something existing above the sovereign state only really gained international traction in the 1970s. Indeed,

it is also important to consider how and why sovereign states were able to dominate human rights

movements in the immediate postwar period. Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History.

147

rights rhetoric. Highlighting the flexibility and manipulability of human rights discourse,

leaders of the governing Republican People’s Party used the country’s late embrace of

more democratic politics to bolster its claim to U.N. membership, while opposition

parties used similar language to criticize the single-party grip on power. The main

opposition party to emerge, the Democrat Party, was formed by discontented members of

the Republican People’s Party, whose disagreements often focused on economic policy

rather than foreign policy or the political or ideological nature of the Kemalist republic.428

Some Turkish critics and American diplomats were initially taken aback by the

democratic movement and expressed concern that the emergence of multiparty politics in

Turkey might fracture Turkey’s resolve in resisting the Soviet Union. 429

The establishment of the Human Rights Division also sparked the simultaneous

establishment of Turkey’s first human rights groups: an official one and an independent

one. The official Human Rights Society—approved by Turkey’s government—grouped

together prominent politicians, officials, and academics. Although the group officially

professed a mission of advancing the cause of human rights, it was clear from the

beginning that it also served the purpose of deflecting criticism aimed at Turkey. Its head,

Nihat Erim, declared that the Republic of Turkey had already “recognized and provided

human rights and basic freedoms. Our conscience can always be clear.”430

An official

declaration that coincided with the group’s founding likewise proclaimed that the

Republic of Turkey had continuously promoted the cause of human rights since the day it

428

Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 3rd edition ed. (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 213. 429

Ambassador in Ankara (Wilson) to the Secretary of State. December 7, 1946. 867.00B/12-0746, DSR. 430

“İnsan haklarını ve hürriyetini koruma,” Tasvir (October 16, 1946): 1, 5.

148

was founded: “Laws make no distinction based on race, religion, sex and every citizen

possesses the same rights and is given the same obligations.”431

Other prominent politicians, including members of the opposition Democrat

Party, and intellectuals formed a separate, independent human rights organization,

Turkey’s first, which was headed by Fevzi Çakmak, a conservative lawmaker and hero

from the Turkish War of Independence. 432

The retired general denied that his group was

political in nature and said it aimed to uphold democracy and protect the rights of all.

Whereas the official human rights group simply extolled Turkey’s democracy, the

independent group assumed a more critical stance. Drawing on principles of the French

Revolution, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, Turkey’s constitution, and the U.N. Charter, the

society professed a more activist tone by announcing its intention to appeal to parliament

and courts regarding human rights concerns. The Human Rights Society’s charter

suggested that it would also work on behalf of religious minorities: The Society “opposes

animosity of confession and religion and it considers struggling against such

discrimination part of its mission.” It also drew attention to a range of articles in Turkey’s

constitution that would seem to embrace human rights, including one banning “torture,

persecution, the confiscation of goods or forced labor”—an article that was by all

accounts dubious in the aftermath of Turkey’s Second World War Varlık Vergisi (Capital

Tax) debacle.433

431

“Türk Grubu Kurucularının Beyannamesi,” İnsan Hakları (January 1947) 432

“İnsan haklarını koruma,” Tasvir (October 16, 1946): 1, 5. 433

İnsan Hakları Cemiyeti Program ve Nizamnamesi, (İstanbul: İnsan Hakları Cemiyeti, 1946), 9-10.

149

The independent group soon attracted negative attention in the Turkish press.

Because it included individuals that Turkish officials somewhat dubiously labeled as

communist agitators, such as the intellectuals Cami Baykurt, Zekeriye Sertel, and Sabiha

Sertel, as well as the politician Tevfik Rüştü Aras, the Turkish press quickly saw the

society as working against Turkey’s national interests. Turkish and U.S. officials likewise

considered it a “leftist front organization.”434

Accusations that the group was aiding

communism led to the group’s quick disbanding, leaving only the official human rights

group as the country’s main voice on human rights.435

The fact that the human rights movement, the plight of minorities, and political

opposition would all be caught up in anti-communist rhetoric and purges was not

coincidental. American diplomatic and intelligence reports repeatedly showed that the

Turkish security apparatus saw the main elements of the communist movement within

Turkey as consisting of advocates of a pro-Soviet policy for Turkey, critics of the

Republican People’s Party, leftist intellectuals, and “leftist minority groups,” especially

Armenian organizations. Although they would be included in lists of alleged communists

and communist sympathizers, individuals like Baykurt, the Sertels, and Aras were

certainly not dogmatic communists, but left-leaning critics of the government and

advocates for democratic political reform according to their own writings and even a U.S.

434

Ambassador in Ankara (Wilson) to Secretary of State. December 7, 1946. 867.00B/12-0745, DSR. 435

Zekeriya Sertel, Hatırladıklarım, 5.Basım ed. (Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 2001), 241-2. Karpat argues

that efforts to link Çakmak with communism served a three-fold political purpose: to discredit him and

deprive the Democrats of his endorsement, to alienate him from the Democrats, and to jeopardize an

upcoming Democratic Party Convention by characterizing it as communist-inspired. Karpat, Turkey's

Politics, 178-9.

150

government report. 436

The Republicans were also quick to accuse opposition Democrats,

a conservative off-shoot of the governing party, of being infiltrated by communists—an

accusation that U.S. officials initially accepted.437

The fact that political parties like

Çakmak’s party actively continued to circulate the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights as part of campaign efforts while criticizing the government likely contributed to

the politicization of human rights discussion in Turkey.438

Turkish and U.S. officials had long raised questions about the loyalty of

minorities, especially Armenians and Kurds, and saw them as potential agents for

communism. That perception was reinforced by the fact that the Turkish Communist

Party, which was disbanded in 1945, recognized the right of minorities—including Kurds

and the Laz people (who speak a language related to Georgian) —to develop their own

language and culture and pursue self-determination, including possible secession. 439

As

an American diplomat noted in December 1946, the main goal of communists was the

“undermining of the unity and solidarity of the Turkish state.” Minorities supported this

goal by pressing their grievances against Turkey. 440

The period did witness several important, positive developments in the field of

human rights, including rights for minorities. The most visible indicator of political

reform was the launch of multiparty politics, which challenged the political monopoly of

436

Ambassador in Ankara (Wilson) to Secretary of State. December 7, 1946. 867.00B/12-0745, DSR; U.S.

Department of State, Division of Biographic Information, Office of Libraries and Intelligence Acquisition,

Office of Intelligence Research, “Turkish Communists and Communist Sympathizers,” March 1, 1949. 437

Ambassador in Ankara (Wilson) to Secretary of State. December 7, 1946. 867.00B/12-0745, DSR. 438

Millet Partisi İzmir İl Müteşebbis Kurulu, İnsan Hakları Beyannamesi (İzmir: Millet Partisi İzmir İl

Müteşebbis Kurulu, 1949). 439

Karpat, Turkey's Politics, 361. 440

Ambassador in Ankara (Wilson) to Secretary of State. December 7, 1946. 867.00B/12-0745

151

the Republican People’s Party. Recep Peker, who became premier in August 1946, also

announced his intention to allow displaced Kurds to return to eastern Turkey and to adopt

other notable political and social reforms. 441

At the same time, many apparent human

rights developments also supported Turkey’s Cold War strategic goals by helping to

justify Turkey’s new pro-Western alignment and newfound democratic tradition to

skeptics, including Americans.

Yet, some reforms were limited in their immediate impact. For instance, the

establishment of the Democrat Party largely represented a movement of disgruntled

Republican lawmakers rather than a fundamental ideological break from the Kemalist

tradition.442

Yet, even as the Turkish government touted Turkey’s democracy in joining

the United Nations and aligning itself with the United States and West, the 1946 election

was clearly rigged in the government’s favor.443

In line with American political

sensitivities, communist parties were excluded from participation in Turkish politics.

Turkey’s embrace of press freedom also insulated it from international criticism, since it

corresponded with a similar U.S. focus on press freedom in human rights diplomacy as a

counterweight to Soviet emphasis on minorities.

One of the most significant developments in Turkey was the decision in

December 1946 to end restrictions forbidding the return of Kurds displaced from Tunceli

province in eastern Turkey. A violent government Turkification and resettlement plan in

the 1930s had sparked revolt in the province and the region was subsequently placed

441

Karpat, Turkey's Politics, 171. 442

Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 213. 443

Ibid., 212.

152

under martial law. Many accounts see the decision to allow Kurds to return to the

province as an important step toward normalization for the region, not least because a

decision to lift martial law in Istanbul would not be taken for another year. 444

Yet, it is

also important to understand the context in which this decision was taken. The move by

Turkey came amid international criticism of Turkey’s treatment of Kurds by the Soviet

Union and as the Soviet-backed Kurdish Republic of Mahabad folded in December 1946.

U.S. intelligence officials praised the easing of Turkey’s “drastic” measures in Tunceli

not on human rights grounds, but instead pointed to how Turkey’s efforts to forcibly

assimilate Kurds “have proven so successful.”445

This sentiment reflected U.S. broader

support for the ethnic homogeneity of the Turkish nation-state.

The loosening of restrictions in the eastern provinces did not mean an end to

Turkey’s fears about minorities or communism. Turkey’s government continued to insist

on a narrow, legalistic understanding of who constituted minorities—Greeks, Armenians

and Jews, but not Kurds—and the rights afforded to them according to the 1923 Treaty of

Lausanne. The same international agreement provided the framework for Turkey’s very

independence and simultaneous Soviet pressure for treaty revision, which likely

reinforced Turkish intransigence on the minorities question.

At the same time, Turkey announced a major crackdown on communist groups in

the country. On December 16, 1946, a decree under martial law, which remained in effect

in Istanbul from the war, banned two important leftist parties, several trade unions, and

444

McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, 209.; “The Kurdish Minority Problem,” December 8, 1948.

Central Intelligence Agency, Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000258376/DOC_0000258376.pdf 445

Ibid.

153

left-leaning and critical newspapers, in a major anti-communist purge.446

Nor Or, an

Istanbul Armenian newspaper, was among the newspapers that were closed. The

newspaper accused the Turkish government of treating Armenians as second-class

citizens. Such criticism soon led to accusations that the newspaper was pro-Soviet,

although a Turkish government report offered little in the way of direct evidence to back

up that claim.447

One article discussed in that report described Turkey’s harsh handling of

Armenians during the implementation of the Varlık Vergisi (Capital Tax) in World War

II and appealed for equality in the face of discrimination: “This equality that will be

given to us should not be given as favor or as charity, but as a right.”448

The newspaper’s

closure showed the extent to which the Turkish government continued to associate

Armenian grievances with Soviet territorial ambitions. At the same time, Turkey’s

government and the United States failed to perceive any inconsistency between anti-

communism and the promotion of human rights.

The Truman Doctrine: Rethinking “Armed Minorities”

Diplomatic historians and other Cold War scholars often have portrayed Harry

Truman’s March 1947 speech as a symbolic beginning of the Cold War. In his March

1947 address to Congress, he declared “that it must be the policy of the United States to

support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by

446

Sıkı Yönetim Komutanlığının kararı,” Tasvir (December 17, 1946): 1; Karpat, Turkey's Politics, 357-8. 447

The government report noted that even its headline was red and that it published news about Soviet

Armenian as well as poems by Soviet Armenians. It also suggested that several writers and editorial board

members were “known communists,” although the report gave little information to support that claim.

Report on Nor Lur, April 2, 1946. 30 1 0 0 / 101.623.6, DAGM. 448

Ibid.

154

outside pressures.”449

As Arnold Offner has pointed out, Truman himself saw his military

aid package to Turkey and Greece as a turning point in U.S. foreign policy because it

viewed aggression across the globe as a threat to the security of the United States.

Truman’s rhetoric, moreover, divided the world into “free” and “totalitarian” states

marking a departure from diplomacy with the Soviet Union.450

Scholars have pointed out

that Truman’s declaration simplified a complex range of international developments in

both Greece and Turkey, including the imminence of the communist threat, atrocities

carried out by Greek loyalists, and ethnic dimensions of the conflict.451

Although there is little evidence to suggest that Truman’s allusion to “armed

minorities,” was in any way a direct reference to ethnic or religious minorities more

broadly, it is nonetheless noteworthy that the Truman Doctrine coincided with a flurry of

diplomacy surrounding ethnic and minorities questions in early 1947.452

Ethnic issues

formed a (sometimes ignored) backdrop to the troubles leading to the Truman Doctrine.

Armenian petitions and fears about Kurdish separatism concerned Turkey’s leaders,

while Slavo-Macedonian complaints about Greek discrimination complicated the civil

war in Greece. 453

Moreover, grievances by minorities both inside and outside the United

449

President Harry S. Truman’s Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, March 12, 1947.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/trudoc.asp 450

Arnold A. Offner, Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-53 (Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 2002), 185, 211. 451

Leffler, "Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Cold War"; Offner, Another Such Victory, 209; Robert Knight,

"Western Perspectives on Ethnic Politics," in Ethnicity, Nationalism and the European Cold War, ed.

Robert Knight (London ; New York: Continuum, 2012):13-36. 452

Report by the Subcommittee on Foreign Policy Information of the State-War-Navy Coordinating

Committee, Undated, FRUS, 1947 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1971), Vol. V, 76.; Offner, Another Such

Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-53, 199. 453

Knight, "Western Perspectives on Ethnic Politics," 16.

155

States challenged an ascendant U.S. power in the Eastern Mediterranean by raising

questions about the U.S. and Turkish commitment to human rights and minority rights.

The question of minorities was a particularly sore issue for the United States. U.S.

policymakers feared that advocates for minorities—both within the United States and

abroad—might raise their cases with the United Nations. Not only did the idea of legally-

recognized minorities with distinct identities and linguistic and cultural rights contrast

with American ideas of a “melting pot, ” the United States also feared that American race

relations were an issue that the Soviets could exploit. 454

That sentiment would only

intensify as Cold War tensions heightened in early 1947. The plight of African-

Americans not only raised questions about the U.S. commitment to human rights, it also

became a battle in Cold War international politics. 455

The Soviet Union put its weight

behind the formation of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Protection of Minorities, which

it used to criticize the United States. In March 1947, the same month as the Truman

Doctrine, the United States relented to its formation only when it “filleted the definition

of ‘minority’ so finely that it automatically excluded African Americans.” One State

Department report even concluded “there probably are no national minorities in the

United States.”456

As the United States sought to distance itself from claims that it had

“minority” problems of its own, the State Department worked to devise a human rights

strategy that would position the United States as a leader and pioneer in the field of

human rights. The American solution to this dilemma was the cause of freedom of

454

Glendon, A World Made New, 120. 455

Anderson, Eyes off the Prize. 456

Ibid., 72-5.

156

speech, which it championed over other human rights issues and repeatedly used to

criticize the Soviet Union.457

Official U.S. policy gave less emphasis to the plight of minorities themselves than

to the possibility that their grievances could be taken up by the United Nations. By the

beginning of 1947, a U.S. State Department report listed more than 30 countries in

Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia as presenting potential issues involving

minorities that were “critical, that is, which might involve consideration by the United

Nations."458

The State Department report assumed a strategic rather than humanitarian

approach to the question of minorities in Turkey, where U.S. officials emphasized the

importance of Turkish national unity. The report suggested that Turkey’s minorities

represented “a less serious problem” than during the Ottoman period, since the country

was now much more ethnically “homogeneous.” Kurds represented an “outstanding

minority problem,” but Armenians and Georgians with Soviet ties also represented

potential “trouble.” The report glowingly noted that the Turkish “government has the

situation well in hand” and that Turkish government restrictions meant it would be

unlikely that Kurds could submit their grievances to the United Nations. Nonetheless, the

report expressed concern that “Soviet agitation” of the broader Kurdish issue could

transform the issue into an international matter. 459

Similarly, although the Soviet Union

457

Ibid. 458

A Survey of National Minorities in Foreign Countries, Department of State Intelligence Research

Report, January 2, 1947, reel 8, Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt, part 2, iii. 459

Ibid.

157

continued to espouse the Armenian cause, the report noted that fearful Armenians within

Turkey were unlikely to raise the issue of territorial revision with the international body.

At the same time, the U.S. government sought to contain diplomatic fallout over

questions about Turkish human rights issues at the international level. 460

In response to a

State Department request for feedback from governments across the world on possible

appointments to U.N. committees on freedom of information and discrimination of

minorities, the U.S. Ambassador responded that it was “preferable” not to raise those

issues with the Turkish government.461

Questions of how to deal with minorities and other ethnic questions featured

prominently on the international agenda in 1947. The most famous example was

undoubtedly the question of how to address the plight of the Jews in the aftermath of the

Holocaust. As Mazower points out, policymakers moved away from international legal

protections toward “a territorialization of postwar planning," culminating ultimately in

the establishment of an independent Israel the following year.462

Although the case of

Palestine is the most famous example, it was not unique. Decisions by an overstretched

Britain to discontinue aid to Turkey and Greece and end its mandate for Palestine

prompted not only strategic questions of how to limit Soviet influence in the region and

heightened U.S. engagement, but also accelerated discussions about territorial issues and

460

Not all U.S. officials were pleased with the United Nations’ inability to tackle difficult human rights

questions. Eleanor Roosevelt, for one, expressed frustration. She noted that many people across the world

mistakenly thought that the Human Rights Commission was a tribunal that could hear human rights

complaints. The Commission was powerless and risked “raising false hopes among people throughout the

world. These people will be disappointed, because they are looking anxiously for some answer to their

dilemmas, and the name of our commission misleads them.” Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” (February 8,

1947). http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1947&_f=md000569 461

To Certain American Diplomatic Officers, February 14, 1947. 501.BD-HUMAN RIGHTS/2-1447,

DSR. 462

Mazower, No Enchanted Palace, 113.

158

ethnic factors in the region. As the United Nations took up the question of the future of

Palestine, the question also made front page news in Turkey, sparking nationalist

concerns that a Jewish state might even make claims on Turkish territory. 463

These

fears—absurd as they may seem to contemporary ears—reflect an uncertain international

political context in which boundaries from Europe to the Middle East to Asia were being

remade and ethnic questions, including those pertaining to Germans, Jews, and

Armenians, were being solved through resettlement. At the same time, the American

leadership and diplomats often downplayed ethnic dimensions of troubles in the

region.464

Truman’s proposed aid to Turkey quickly sparked criticism in the United States.

The syndicated columnist Drew Pearson wrote that the United States government was a

“sucker” unless it demanded that Turkey improve its treatment of minorities in exchange

for military assistance. He was particularly critical of the wartime Varlık Vergisi, which

had targeted non-Muslims in Turkey during World War II. He hyperbolically declared

that the tax (which he erroneously implied was ongoing) had “caused more recent

legalized human misery than anything in Europe save the Hitler slave camps.”465

International Armenian, Jewish, and other organizations similarly called for

Turkey to make amends over past injustices. The American Jewish Committee sent a

series of letters to the State Department calling for the American government to seek

463

“Ne Günlere Kaldık! Meğer Yahudilerin de Türkiyeden toprak talepleri varmış!,”Tasvir (February 1,

1947): 1, 3. 464

Knight, "Western Perspectives on Ethnic Politics," 16; The Secretary of State to Mr. Mark F. Ethridge,

at Athens, February 28, 1947, FRUS, 1947, Vol. V, 823. 465

Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round,” March 23, 1947.

http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/21654/b07f15-0323zdisplay.pdf#

159

reparations on behalf of Christians and Jews who had suffered under the “devilish” tax

imposed on minorities during the Second World War: "If it is within the bounds of

international proprieties for this Government to interest itself in the internal affairs of

Turkey to the extent indicated by the President's program, it may also surely interest itself

in using its good offices to see to it that the nation it is proposing to help make restitution

to these people that it has despoiled."466

The new term “genocide” would make its first

appearances and feature prominently in Armenian criticism of the Truman Doctrine.

The Armenian World Congress and Genocide

Although the issue of the Armenian atrocities had raged since the First World

War, Armenian groups began publicly referring to “genocide” in their criticism of aid for

Turkey. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew and legal scholar who fled to the United States in

1941, had coined the term during the Second World War with the earlier slaughter of

Armenians and more recent mass murder of Jews in mind. 467

The word made its first

published appearance in 1944 in Lemkin’s book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in which

he outlined German wartime offenses and argued that international laws remained

“silent” on the destruction of peoples. 468

A book review in January 1945 marked the first

appearance of the term in The New York Times.469

The term also made also several other

sporadic appearances throughout 1945, most notably in the newspaper’s coverage of the

466

American Jewish Committee to Division of Near Eastern Affairs, April 15,1947 and April 18, 1947,

867.4016, reel 12, IAT. 467

Peter Balakian, “Raphael Lemkin, Cultural Destruction, and the Armenian Genocide,” Holocaust and

Genocide Studies, Vol. 27, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 57-89. 468

Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, 90. 469

Otto D. Tolischus, “Twentieth-Century Moloch: The Nazi-Inspired Totalitarian State, Devourer of

Progress—and of Itself Devourer,” The New York Times (January 21, 1945): 102.

160

indictments for the Nuremberg trials in October.470

However, the Times’ first real

expository piece dedicated to the meaning of genocide appeared in August 1946, the

same month as the Soviet note to Turkey. Its overlap with the Soviet note tarnished

Turkey’s public image at a time when the United States was touting its nascent alliance

with the Eastern Mediterranean nation. “A new word cropped up in the Nuremberg trials.

It is ‘genocide,’” the newspaper wrote. “The massacres of Greeks and Armenians by the

Turks prompted diplomatic action without punishment. If Professor Lemkin has his way

genocide will be established as an international crime.” 471

The appearance of the article

came as the Nuremberg trials were wrapping up and the U.N. Economic and Social

Council begins tackling issues of Human Rights and Genocide.

Armenian advocates quickly mobilized behind the cause of genocide. Hitler’s

reported statement—“Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the

Armenians?”—had become public less than a year before. By suggesting a direct link

between the killings of the Armenians and the Jews, the statement offered a rallying cry

for Armenian activism. 472

Lemkin and other contemporary accounts also made clear that

the killing of Armenians constituted genocide. As the Times clearly articulated, “The

Turks in their time did their best to destroy the Armenians. It was to identify such crimes

that Professor Lemkin coined the world genocide.”473

470

“Text of Indictment of Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal,” The New York

Times (October 19, 1945); “New Word ‘Genocide’ Used in War Crime Indictment,” The New York Times

(October 22, 1945). 471

“Genocide,” New York Times (August 26, 1946): 17. 472

Ternon, The Armenian Cause, 146. 473

“Genocide is the New Name for the Crime Fastened on the Nazi Leaders,” New York Times (October 20,

1946): E13.

161

In December 1946, the United Nations passed a resolution affirming genocide as

an international crime and encouraging member states to enact legislation to prevent and

punish it. The resolution also called for the Economic and Social Council to prepare a

draft convention, thereby opening the way for the adoption of the Convention on the

Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide two years later. 474

The term slowly

entered public discourse.

The Armenian National Council of America soon began adopting “genocide” into

its campaign for resettlement of Diaspora Armenians and territorial revision. In line with

other petitions, a 1946 statement, for instance, referred to “a deliberate plan of

annihilation” and the death of “over one million” Armenians who were “deliberately,

systemically and diabolically exterminated." It then reiterated its demands for “lands

which the Turks seized from the Armenians” to “be returned to them so they can settle

upon them their million fugitives.” 475

The concept of “genocide” was alluded to, but not

explicitly mentioned.

In March 1947, the Armenian National Council petitioned the Council of Foreign

Ministers, which was meeting in Moscow, to take up the Armenian case. This time, the

organization specifically used the term “genocide” in voicing its grievances: “A

monstrous plan of genocide, that is, the plan to exterminate an entire nation, was thus first

conceived and executed by the Turks, with the connivance of Germans who drew the

474

“Genocide under the Law of Nations,” New York Times, January 5, 1947: E11. 475

James G. Mandalian, What do the Armenians Want? (New York: Armenian National Committee,

1946), 7, 15.

http://www.armenews.com/IMG/What_do_the_Armenians_want_James_G._MANDALIAN_ANC_1946.p

df

162

blueprints of the plan ... described as ‘the most colossal crime of all ages.’”476

At the end

of the month, the Council offered a similar statement in condemning Truman’s proposed

military aid to Turkey. It said Turkey had “robbed and economically crushed Christians

and Jews,” denied them “equal civil rights enjoyed by the Turks,” and was the originator

of the “monstrous concept of genocide.”477

Thus, some of the earliest uses of the term

“genocide” by Armenian groups coincided with the Truman Doctrine, Armenian

territorial claims, and the continuing repatriations of Armenians to Soviet Armenia.

Armenian advocates were also quick to draw comparisons between Germany and Turkey.

There were at least three reasons why a more direct discussion of the Armenian

issue was so unsettling for Turkey. Foremost, any discussion went in the face of Turkish

nationalist discourse that emphasized the legitimacy of Turkish claims to eastern Anatolia

and that Turks, and not Armenians, were the true victims. Second, any acceptance of

genocide appeared to reinforce Soviet and Armenian claims on Turkey. Use of the term

genocide to discuss the Armenian situation was inherently difficult because it not only

appeared to give some support to the Soviet and Armenian case against Turkey, but also

raised questions about whether the Genocide Convention might be applied

retroactively—a prospect that was particularly unsettling for Turkey. Finally, any

connection of Turkey to genocide—a crime so deplorable that it required a new word—

also challenged a “good guy” narrative of Turkey by associating the country with

America’s wartime enemies, especially Germany (a connection that Armenians were

476

Armenian National Council of America, “A Memorandum on the Armenian Question,” (March 7,

1947), 3. http://www.armenews.com/IMG/A_memorandum_on_the_armenian_question_1947_ANCA.pdf 477

“Armenians oppose U.S. Aid to Turkey,” New York Times (March 31, 1947): 2.

163

eager to make). As the New York Times noted, “By charging the defendants in the

Nuremberg trial with genocide the United Nations place them in the position of world

enemies.”478

Criticism of Turkey only increased when the World Armenian Congress met in

the spring of 1947, as the U.S. Congress was taking up Truman’s request for aid. The

Armenian territorial claims featured prominently on the agenda of the five-day meeting,

which included delegates from some two dozen countries across the world.479

The cover

for its program showed the late Woodrow Wilson pointing at a map of eastern Turkey

with the caption: “That belongs to Armenia!”480

Some 2,600 people attended the event at

Carnegie Hall, which unanimously endorsed the Armenian territorial claims and appealed

for the United Nations to find a “final and just determination for Armenian territorial

claims.”481

The question of genocide was part of the discussions and reinforced criticism of

Turkey and, by extension, the territorial claims. One Armenian American, John Roy

Carlson, described Turkey’s consistent persecution of Christian and Jewish minorities

and labeled Turkey “the Nazis of the Near East.” In a letter to the New York Times

clarifying his remarks at the Congress, Carlson evoked the Armenian Genocide and drew

a direct connection between the policies carried out by Germany and Turkey: “The policy

of genocide—mass massacre of innocent civilians, mass deportation, cruelty and

478

“Genocide,” New York Times (August 26, 1946): 17. 479

H.M. Dadourian, “The Armenian Question: Statement Denied That All Have Equal Rights in Turkey,”

The New York Times (May 25, 1947): E8. 480

Program:World Armenian Congress, April 30- May 4, 1947.

http://archive.org/stream/worldarmenian00arme#page/n11/mode/2up 481

“Armenian Claims on Turkey Pushed,” New York Times (May 5, 1947): 11.

164

starvation—was inaugurated by the Turkish regime. Two decades later the Nazis

followed the Turkish example of race extermination.” He denied Armenian opposition to

the Truman Doctrine per se, but said Greece alone should receive aid.482

Within Turkey, public discussions about genocide soon shifted to denial rather

than introspection. Turkish newspaper reports about the World Armenian Congress

focused on the fact that Soghomon Tehlirian, an Armenian who killed Talat Pasha (an

Ottoman leader who played a central role in the massacre of Armenians) was scheduled

to attend the event. Rather than question Talat’s actions during the First World War, the

article portrayed Talat as a murdered national hero.483

Cold War politics subsumed

questions about genocide. Turkish newspapers emphasized “the delusions of foreign

Armenians” and Soviet exploitation of the issue.484

Although the Turkish press expressed

concern about potential repercussions of the Armenian campaign at the United Nations, it

was also dismissive. Turkey, one newspaper report noted, was in good company; the

Armenian claims were similar to those regarding the lynching of African-Americans in

the United States or Britain’s conduct in Palestine.485

Reaction to Truman’s speech was

overwhelmingly positive in Turkey, whose leaders had vowed to protect its territorial

integrity and sovereignty “with or without the United Nations.”486

The Armenian claims,

however, raised public doubts about the reliability of American support for Turkey.487

482

John Roy Carlson, “News Story Protested,” The New York Times (May 17, 1947): 14. Carlson’s birth

name was Avedis Derounian. 483

“Dünya Ermenileri kongresi,” Tasvir (April 21, 1947): 1, 5. 484

“Hariçteki Ermenilerin Aleyhimizdeki Hezeyanları,” Tasvir (February 2, 1947): 1,5; “Ermeni dili,”

Tasvir (March 30, 1947). 485

“Hariçteki Ermenilerin Aleyhimizdeki Hezeyanları,” Tasvir (February 2, 1947): 1, 5. 486

“Soviet Demands on Turks Bared in Capitol Hearing,” The Christian Science Monitor (April 1, 1947): 9. 487

“Amerikada aleyhimize propaganda artarak devam ediyor,” Tasvir (April 14, 1947): 1, 5.

165

Concerns about the Armenian issue, treatment of minorities, and other human

rights issue also entered American congressional debates about the Truman Doctrine.

Several U.S. senators—Irving M. Ives of New York, Claude Pepper of Florida, Edwin

Johnson of Colorado, H. Alexander Smith of New Jersey, and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. of

Massachusetts—as well as Representative A.J. Sabath of Illinois, sent messages of

support to the Armenian National Congress.488

On Capitol Hill, Republican

Representative Bertrand Gearhart submitted a letter from the Armenian National Council

of America to be included in the Congressional Record that expressed support for aid for

Greece, but not to “a barbaric government like Turkey,” which was neither a reliable ally,

nor a democracy. Armenians and other minorities continued to suffer “under the despotic

misrule of the old and new Turkish regimes,” the letter proclaimed.489

In a similar vein,

an Armenian American and historian, John G. Moskoffian wrote to Lawrence H. Smith, a

Republican from Wisconsin, that arming Turkey would only cause conflict with the

Soviet Union. He wrote that Turks had “robbed and massacred since 1915, Armenians,

Greeks, Kurds numbering not less than 4,000,000 victims.”490

Representative George

Bender of Ohio also lashed out against abuses of freedom of the press in Turkey, calling

it a “criminal waste of the American taxpayers’ money” and “hypocrisy” to support an

“arrogant Turkish military dictatorship.”491

American members of Congress also continued to receive a barrage of property

claims from constituents who had fled the Ottoman Empire during or after the First

488

“Armenian Claims on Turkey Pushed,” New York Times (May 5, 1947): 11. 489

U.S. Congress. Congressional Record, 1947. 80th

Cong., Vol. 93, Part 11 (Washington: GPO, 1947),

A2155. 490

Ibid., A2171-2. 491

Ibid., A.1884.

166

World War. A 1934 agreement between the United States and Turkey had provided a

final settlement for claims for losses suffered by American citizens. But many former

Ottoman citizens—Armenians, Greeks, and Jews—were not included and subsequently

sought redress through U.S. members of Congress. For instance, a representative 1947

letter from the State Department notified Arizona Senator Ernest W. McFarland (who

enjoyed prominence during the period for his sponsorship of the G.I. Bill) that his

constituent, Sarkis Durgarian (a former Ottoman citizen of Armenian background) was

not entitled to share in the settlement, which already had been “allocated in full among

the meritorious claims.”492

Although legality precluded any new settlement, the

continuing flow of letters kept the question of Turkey’s Armenians and other minorities

alive in the postwar period.

Nationalism

As American officials emphasized the importance of Turkey’s national unity,

Turkish leaders sought to integrate nationalism into Cold War politics. A surge in the

number and variety of publications in the postwar period also sparked larger, societal

debates on the meaning of national identity and Turkey’s Cold War role, perhaps even

helping to usher in the “emergence of a truly national identity defined by the populace as

a whole and not just by the elite.”493

Yet, debates about Turkish nationalism, which had

raged since the late Ottoman period, also proved controversial. A revival from the late

492

English to McFarland, October 10, 1947. 467.11 Durgarian, Sarkis H. /9-2947, DSR. 493

Nilgün Gürkan, Turkiye’de Demokrasiye Geçişte Basın, 1945-50 (Istanbul: İlestişim, 1998); Gavin

Brockett, "Betwixt and Between: Turkish Print Culture and the Emergence of a National Identity 1945-

1954" (PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2003), 568.

167

Ottoman period, racially-based, pan-Turkism had reasserted itself as a powerful force

during the Second World War and contributed to Turkey’s Cold War tensions with the

Soviet Union. 494

Therefore, efforts to mobilize Turkish nationalism represented a

sensitive issue and raised new questions about treatment of minorities in light of wartime

anti-minority measures such as the Varlık Vergisi.

Despite controversy surrounding Turkish nationalism and criticism of Turkey’s

treatment of minorities, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Peker sought to recast nationalism

in terms of larger international debates surrounding communism and human rights. Just

days after Truman’s speech, Peker, who came to power at the height of Soviet-Turkish

tensions in August 1946, delivered a major speech of his own. He proclaimed that

“nationalism” represented “the best means of fighting communism” because it

represented the most effective means of maintaining states’ borders. Unlike the past,

however, Turkey must now promote an inclusive definition of nationalism that would

embrace all religious and ethnic groups in the country. The idea of Christians as an

Ottoman subject class must be "buried among ancient memories.” Anti-Semitism

represented “the great shame of the twentieth century." The children of Kurds should

even be allowed to study their mother tongue.495

Peker’s 1947 speech appealing for nationalism to fight communism represented a

synthesis of human rights discourse, nationalism, questions of minorities and

anticommunism. On the one hand, Peker’s speech, delivered to students at Istanbul

494

Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System, 262.; Artiom A. Ulunian, "Soviet

Cold War Perceptions of Turkey and Greece, 1946-58," Cold War History 3, no. 2 (January 2003). 495

“Recep Peker milliyetçilik anlayışımızın veciz bir tarifini yaptı,” Ulus (March 29, 1947): 1.

168

University, represented a rupture from the Turkish government’s official Kemalism by

seeming to allude to maltreatment of religious minorities and Kurds (who had long been

reduced to “mountain Turks” under the country’s official Kemalist ideology). On the

other, Peker’s speech simply declared “excesses” of the past to have ended without ever

accepting responsibility for them. Although he criticized anti-Semitism, he did not

acknowledge Turkish maltreatment of minorities, including Jews, during the Second

World War, but instead cast blame on exclusive, “wrong and harmful” European

understandings of Jews.496

He declared that nationalism helped to unite all individuals as

equals, but also seemed to chastise minorities for failing to integrate: “Regardless of

one’s beliefs it is not enough for one just to be countered as a Turk in the language of the

law and officially, but we need to be unified in our private lives as well.”

Thus, Peker’s speech served not only as a warning to Pan-Turkists, who dreamed

of unifying the Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union, but also to Soviet-backed foreign

Armenian and Kurdish groups who challenged Turkey’s territorial integrity. The premier

argued that nationalism must not “trespass national boundaries” by inciting “people to the

service of foreign states.” “Racial nationalism,” Peker proclaimed, was “irredentist and

entirely anti-democratic and imperialist.” Peker’s speech, moreover, sought to situate

Turkey firmly in the liberal, pro-Western camp by distancing Turkey from communism

and fascism. “Through denial and excessiveness, communism and racism are the

degeneracy of nationalism,” Peker proclaimed.

496

“Recep Peker milliyetçilik anlayışımızın veciz bir tarifini yaptı,” Ulus (March 29, 1947):1.

169

Peker’s speech not only fit well into U.S. officials’ emphasis on the importance of

Turkey’s national unity, it also had limited influence in deflecting criticism away from

Turkey and driving a wedge among advocates for minority rights about Turkey’s human

rights record. Shortly after the speech, in May 1947, the Europe-based International

Council of Christians and Jews sent Peker an invitation to a conference “International

Emergency Conference to Combat Anti-Semitism,” calling his statement against anti-

Semitism “courageous and decisive.” 497

Within Turkey, some minorities reportedly saw

encouragement in U.S. aid, which they hoped would add pressure to Turkey and perhaps

bring about restitution for the Varlık Vergisi (an issue that the Democrats even exploited

in their successful 1950 election campaign). 498

Yet, many advocates for minority rights continued to criticize Turkey. One

Roman Catholic human rights advocate described pan-Turkism as “a sort of Turkish

Nazism” among Turkish leaders “intoxicated as they are by a fanatical dream of

conquest” of the entire Turkic world.499

The American Jewish Committee wrote that "It

may be a matter of great interest that there is now a liberal trend in Turkey which will

respect minority groups, but that is not going to restore one penny to these Christians and

Jews who have been robbed." 500

497

Ankara: Foreign Minister (Saka) to Prime Minister. July 25, 1947. 30.1.0.0 /60.368.11, DAGM. 498

“Minorities in Turkey See New Hope in U.S. Aid, Expect to Escape from Discrimination,” Chicago

Daily Tribune (June 23, 1947): 6. 499

Boris Gourevitch, “The Current Pan-Turk Danger,” The Commonweal (July 18, 1947): 327. 500

American Jewish Committee to Division of Near Eastern Affairs, April 15,1947 and April 18, 1947,

867.4016, Reel 12, IAT.

170

Truman Administration officials were quick to label critics of the aid package

“communist sympathizers,” although reality was more complicated.501

Republican

Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio expressed concerns about cost and about becoming

burdened by entanglement in foreign affairs.502

Other critics, including Eleanor

Roosevelt, feared that the Truman Doctrine would undermine the United Nations.503

The

Armenian National Council in Egypt criticized the U.S. Senate for approving aid to

Turkey and unsuccessfully lobbied the House to reject it, calling Armenians “the main

victims of the planned Turkish policy of extermination of minorities.”504

The Truman

Doctrine ultimately triumphed with broad support by the American public and both

political parties. After the U.S. Congress approved the aid, American Protestant critics

called for Turkey to reckon with “festering” issues of discrimination, including the

Armenian Genocide and the Varlık Vergisi (capital tax).505

Genocide and Human Rights Diplomacy

That questions of genocide coincided with territorial claims and the fight against

communism only strengthened American policymakers’ conviction that the Armenian

issue represented little more than a Soviet ploy and effort to destroy Turkish national

unity. Shortly after the World Armenian Congress, an Armenian delegation visited Dean

501

Offner, Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-53, 203-4. 502

James Reston, “Bewildered Congress Faces World Leadership Decision,” The New York Times (March

14, 1947): 2. 503

Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” (March 15, 1947).

http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1947&_f=md000600 504

“Armenian Group Fights Aid,” The New York Times (May 13, 1947): 9. 505

Robert W. Searle, “Minorities in Turkey: Nation is Urged to Abandon Unjust Practices, Restore Basic

Rights,” New York Times (May 13, 1947): 24.

171

Acheson to present the group’s resolutions to the State Department. Acheson lashed out,

noting that many foreign-born groups in the United States, “stirred by memories of old-

world antagonisms,” sought territorial revision and other changes. Focusing exclusively

on the territorial claims, Acheson said the Armenian petitions ran contrary to the goals of

the Truman Doctrine by dismembering Turkey and aggrandizing the Soviet Union. He

said the Armenian proposals would represent a “complete reversal” in the U.S. policy of

stabilizing regional governments and helping them to resist communist infiltration. “We

should minimize our emotional impulses and try to guide our thoughts by stressing the

part the United States must play in stabilizing the world situation,” Acheson proclaimed.

“A sudden shift such as the one they were advocating might accelerate the disaster which

our present policy was hoping to avoid.” 506

Any message about genocide, human rights,

or justice, therefore, became conflated with territorial claims and geopolitics.

Turkey’s government was also dismissive of minority problems. As Turkey’s

President, İsmet İnönü, told The New York Times in a May 1947 interview: “There is no

Armenian question in Turkey because in this country every citizen enjoys equal rights

without any distinction as to religion or race.”507

Whereas Turkish officials dismissed

any problems faced by Armenians in the country, authorities sometimes denied the very

existence of Kurds. In March, a lawmaker representing Tunceli (the site of a violent

Turkification campaign), asked for a copy of a report on the Kurdish issue and Soviet

demands on Turkey that had been written the previous year by a Turkish journalist. The

report argued that Kurds and Armenians, as well as ethnic Georgians, were teaming up

506

Dean Acheson, Memorandum of Conversation, May 12, 1947. 867.014/5-1247 507

“Turks to Ask Loan from World Bank,” The New York Times (May 13, 1947): 9.

172

with the Soviet Union against Turkey. Moreover, the number of ethnic Kurds inside and

outside of Turkey was greatly exaggerated; many of Turkey’s “Kurds” were really of

Turkish origin and had been duped into believing that they were Kurdish. Kurds had no

legal right to submit international petitions or send representatives to international

conferences.508

When a Kurdish group filed a petition with the United Nations in October

1947 regarding the “deplorable situation” of Turkey’s Kurds, Turkish commentators

continued to toe the official line that “there is no Kurdish issue in Turkey” and that any

questions simply represented Soviet provocation. 509

U.S. policymakers brought a similar sentiment to diplomacy surrounding Turkey.

Systematic human rights reporting would not come into being until well into the 1970s.510

Nonetheless, the prominence of questions surrounding minorities forced U.S. diplomats

to engage in what can regarded as a primitive human rights reporting in the late 1940s. In

August 1947, the State Department solicited information from diplomatic posts regarding

discrimination on grounds of race, sex, language or religion ahead of the first meeting of

the Sub-commission on Minorities and Discrimination of the U.N. Commission on

Human Rights. 511

The responses assumed a political form: The report on the Soviet

Union was blistering and described racial discrimination against Jews, political

discrimination of non-Russians and non-Slavic groups, religious oppression, and “most

508

Kadri Kemal Kop, "Türkiye ve Kürtler Yahut Doğu Anadolu'ya 'Politik' Bir Bakış (1947)," in Kürt

Sorunu ve Devlet: Tedip ve Tenkil Politikaları, ed. Tuğba Yıldırım, Tarih Vakfı-Necmeddin Sahir Sılan

Arşivi (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, 2011), 141-216. 509

“Türkiye’deki Kürtler acıklı durumda imiş,” Tasvir (October 23, 1947): 1, 5. 510

Barbara Keys, "Congress, Kissinger, and the Origins of Human Rights Diplomacy," Diplomatic History

35, no. 2 (2011): 824. Ironically enough, it was Henry Kissinger’s State Department that institutionalized

the standard operating procedures for human rights that would gain prominence under the Carter

administration. 511

The Acting Secretary of State (Lovett) to Certain Diplomatic Officers, August 19, 1947. 501.BD Human

Rights/8-1947, DSR.

173

terrible” deprivation of other basic freedoms. 512

In sharp contrast, the report on Turkey

was glowing. It noted in passing two accounts of discrimination against Jews in Turkey—

the brutal murder and disfigurement of seven Jews in the southern town of Urfa in March

1947 and a Jewish Agency report alleging hardships of Jews throughout the Middle East,

including Turkey—but noted that those “charges were not substantiated.” Instead, it

reported “no outstanding incidents of discrimination on the grounds of race, sex,

language or religion in Turkey.”513

No mention is made of the many allegations of

mistreatment that Jews, Armenians, Greeks and Kurds and even some U.S. diplomats or

intelligence officials had raised over the years.514

Instead, American diplomats apparently

continued to see any reports of discrimination as little more than Soviet propaganda

against Turkey. 515

U.S. military aid enabled by the Truman Doctrine also hardened official U.S.

attitudes toward the Armenian question. As Michael Bobelian notes, “with no political

counterweight, the Truman Doctrine precluded any reconsideration of Armenian claims

512

The Embassy in Moscow to the Secretary of State, August 26, 1947. 501.BD Human Rights/8-2647,

DSR. 513

Counselor of Embassy (Bursley) to the Secretary of State. August 27, 1947. 501.BD Human Rights/8-

2747, DSR. There are conflicting reports about the circumstances of the murders in Urfa, which occurred

after a Jewish man converted to Islam and then converted back to Judaism. “Turkish Consul in Palestine

Promises to Prose Reports of Pogrom in Urfa,”Jewish Telegraphic Agency, April 7, 1947.

http://www.jta.org/1947/04/07/archive/turkish-consul-in-palestine-promises-to-prose-reports-of-pogrom-in-

urfa; “Turkish Government Terms ‘Fabricated’ Report of Massacre of Jews in Urfa,” April 8, 1947

http://www.jta.org/1947/04/08/archive/turkish-government-terms-fabricated-report-of-massacre-of-jews-in-

urfa. 514

For instance, one noteworthy O.S.S. report on Armenians in Turkey clearly describes “discrimination in

Turkey despite theoretical rights of full citizenship.” Notes on Armenian National Aspirations and the

Soviet Claims to the Eastern Provinces of Turkey, March 12, 1946, reel III, O.S.S./State Department

Intelligence and Research Reports: The Middle East, Microfilm, University Publications of

America,Washington, D.C. 515

The Chargé d’Affaires in Turkey (Packer) to the Secretary of State. May 10, 1945, 867.4016/5-1045,

reel 12, IAT; The Acting Secretary of State (Grew) to Ankara. May 12, 1945. 867.401/5-1245, reel 12,

IAT, 1945; The Ambassador to the Soviet Union (Smith) to the Secretary of State. June 17, 1946. 761.67/6-

1746, DSR.

174

arising from the Genocide.”516

Tensions with Armenians came to the fore in August

1947, when Major General Lunsford Oliver, who headed the U.S. military mission to

Turkey, stressed the importance of U.S. military aid to Turkey and publicly remarked that

the massacre of Armenians “was really started by the Armenians” themselves. 517

His

remarks soon provoked an outcry from Armenian groups in the United States. The

chairman of the Armenian National Committee wrote that no American could accept

Oliver’s remarks, which parroted the denials of the Turkish government. Armenians, the

writer proclaimed, “were the victims of a bold and calculated attempt at genocide.

Neither time nor specious excuses can lessen the immensity of that crime.”518

Critical

letters also reached Congress. “If military strategy and politics compel us to extend help

to the Turks, do we have to distort History?” one Armenian physician in Massachusetts

wrote. 519

News reports in Turkey and the United States, including Drew Pearson’s

nationally-syndicated “Merry-Go-Round Column,” suggested that the Armenian backlash

was responsible for Oliver’s removal from his post in Turkey.520

In response to letters

forwarded by Senator Leverett Saltonstall, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall’s

office noted that the general’s remarks did not represent the views of the State

Department. Since the regime responsible for the massacres was no longer in power,

516

Bobelian, Children of Armenia, 102. 517

“Floral Tribute from Luxembourg,” Chicago Daily Tribune (August 29, 1947): 3. 518

A. Alichanian, “The Armenian Massacres: Statement Fixing Blame for Slaughter Held at Variance with

History,” The New York Times, September 27, 1947: C14. Emphasis added. 519

Office of the Secretary of State to Senator Saltonstall, October 3, 1947 [?], 867.4016/9-2347, reel 12,

IAT. 520

Drew Pearson, “Merry-Go-Round” (October 16, 1947).

http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/21905/b08f05-1016zdisplay.pdf

175

Marshall’s office believed it was now unnecessary to engage in “a discussion of the

causes and responsibilities of those deplorable occurrences.”521

For the Turkish

newspaper, Sabah, the incident highlighted not only the strength of Armenians in the

United States, but the need to educate Americans about the “true story” behind the

Armenian claims, namely: the Turkish version of events.522

This lack of introspection is

particularly ironic because the inventor of the term genocide, Raphael Lemkin, clearly

had the Armenian massacres in mind when he coined it.523

Lemkin also hoped Turkey

would become one of the first countries to accede to the Genocide convention: “This

would be atonement for genocide of the Armenians,” he wrote.524

Through the 1940s, Armenian organizations continued to make sporadic

references to “genocide,” offering at least limited pressure on Turkey. In 1948, the

Armenian National Council of America published the pamphlet, “The Beginnings of

Genocide: An Account of the Armenian Massacres in World War I,” which it had

translated from Hebrew and likened the killings of Jews to the Armenian atrocities three

decades earlier. 525

The year also marked the beginning of publication of the U.S.-based

journal Armenian Review, which included translations from Armenian publications in

521

Office of the Secretary of State to Senator Saltonstall, October 3, 1947 (?), 867.4016/9-2347, reel 12,

IAT. 522

The Ambassador in Turkey (Wilson) to the Secretary of State, November 26, 1947, 867.4016/11-2647,

reel 12, IAT. 523

Raphael Lemkin, “For Punishment of Genocide.” New York Times (June 12, 1947): 14. Raphael Lemkin

also makes this point in an undated postwar interview with CBS television.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFPch5OILfU 524

Lemkin, Raphael and Donna-Lee Frieze, Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin

(New Haven, Yale University Press, 2013), 200-201. 525

Joseph Guttmann, The Beginnings of Genocide: A Brief Account of the Armenian Massacres in World

War I (New York: Armenian National Council of America, 1948).

176

Armenia and Lebanon that mentioned the Armenian Genocide.526

The article “Remnants

of the Turkish Genocide,” which first appeared in an Armenian newspaper in Beirut,

spoke to the international nature of the Armenian campaign and the relationship between

references to genocide, contemporary human rights grievances, and territorial demands:

The article referred to the “Turkish genocide of 1915” and argued that Armenian

communities remained in an “oppressive atmosphere” in Turkey. 527

Yet, the impact of

these occasional references was limited and often academic in nature. The quest for

international recognition for the Armenian Genocide, Armenian repatriation efforts, and

territorial claims ultimately represented an uphill struggle.

Turkey also defended itself on the international stage. In May 1948, the United

Nations Economic and Social Council published a broad report addressing the

relationship between war crimes trials (especially those in Nuremberg and Tokyo) and

human rights. The report, which had been ordered by a July 1946 resolution by the

Commission on Human Rights, was prepared by the United Nations War Crimes

Commission and received by the Commission on Human Rights in December 1947. The

report was meant to guide discussions on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As

part of its historical survey on human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against

humanity, the report dedicated a lengthy section to the killing of Armenians and, most

526

Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, 216; "Remnants of the Turkish Genocide," Armenian Review 2,

no. 4 (1949): 49-53; H. Saro, "Terrors from the Crime of 1915," Armenian Review 1, no. 2 (1948): 105-7. I

am indebted to Professor Bloxham for these sources. Suny points out that a rival, English-language journal

more sympathetic to Soviet Armenia, Armenian Affairs, also began publication the following year, but

ceased publication in 1950. Suny, Looking toward Ararat : Armenia in Modern History, 226, 72. 527

"Remnants of the Turkish Genocide," 46-53.

177

importantly, subsequent international legal efforts for redress through the Treaty of

Sevres and postwar criminal tribunals. 528

Mention of the Armenian atrocities and questions about redress in the U.N. report

incensed the Turkish government, which feared the Armenian issue could soon be drawn

into “open deliberation by the Council.” These concerns likely resonated in Washington,

where there were similar concerns about Soviet exploitation of the race issue at the

United Nations. Turkey appealed for the U.S. government to intervene on its behalf and

called for the sections in question, which it said were based on “erroneous premises,” to

be deleted from the report. Turkey argued that the historical survey “clearly exceeded”

the mandate of the report by considering issues preceding the Second World War. 529

Turkey was not alone in that position. The question of retroactivity was at the heart of

postwar debates over international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights. 530

The United States supported Turkey’s position. American delegates in Geneva

resolved to “do whatever may be feasible” to help Turkey. Marshall, whose office had

refused to engage in any historical discussion about the Armenian atrocities, thought it

could be simply practical to remove the entire historical survey rather than remove only

the Armenian section. Thus, the U.S. Government sought to disassociate the Armenian

Genocide from deliberations surrounding human rights or genocide.531

Although the final

528

United Nations War Crimes Commission, “Information Concerning Human Rights Arising from Trials

of War Criminals,” May 15, 1948. UN Document E/CN.4/W.19 529

Turkey to the United States, Undated. 501.BD-Human Rights/8-948, DSR. 530

McGuinness, "Peace v. Justice: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Modern Origins of

the Debate," 763. 531

Marshall to the American Consul in Geneva, August 3, 1948, 501.BD-Human Rights/8-948, DSR.

178

report included mention of the Armenian atrocities, Turkey’s campaign to have reference

to Armenian atrocities removed from the U.N. report represented a predecessor to 1974,

when Turkey, with U.S. backing, successfully had mention of the Armenian Genocide

struck from a U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of

Minorities report on genocide.532

Furthermore, Turkey’s position that any convention not be retroactive—a

sentiment that enjoyed broad international support—ultimately prevailed. The Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, for instance, clearly articulated the principle of nullen

crime sine lege—that there cannot be punishment for crimes that did not exist at the time

they were committed.533

Critics, both in 1948 and today, have also bemoaned the fact that

individual states are responsible for enforcing both the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights and the Genocide Convention, a reality that has also limited their impact. In an

April 1948 column, Drew Pearson criticized the United States for failing to “back a

convention with teeth.” The nationally-syndicated columnist, who had criticized Turkey’s

treatment of minorities in the past, implied that turning enforcement mechanisms for

genocide over to individual states would give violators impunity and render the “treaty

unenforceable, since any government can claim that rioters who massacred Jews,

Armenians or Moslems were irresponsible criminals uncontrolled by government.”534

Moreover, the fact that the United States, which shied away from any international court

532

Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, 218. 533

McGuinness, "Peace v. Justice: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Modern Origins of

the Debate," 763. 534

Drew Pearson, “The Washington Merry-Go-Round” (April 20, 1948).

http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/22119/b08f11-0420zdisplay.pdf#search='armenians

179

to try human rights abuses, failed to ratify the Genocide Convention until 1988 meant it

was hardly in a position to pressure Turkey on the question of genocide.

Conclusion

Turkey’s ultimate adoption of both the Genocide Convention and the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights meant political gains without any significant costs. Shortly

after the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal of Declaration of Human Rights

on December 10, 1948, Turkey’s government ordered that it be published in the country’s

Official Gazette.535

The government’s accompanying instructions that the document be

publicized and “taught and interpreted” in Turkish schools drew attention—and seeming

praise—from the U.S. Embassy. 536

A number of schools throughout Turkey distributed

copies of the Declaration to students. 537

At a time when the Republican People’s Party

was losing its political hegemony and some restrictions on religious life were gradually

loosened, critics and opposition parties also published the document and raised questions

about the relationship between Turkish secularism and human rights.538

Nonetheless, the impact was limited. There is no evidence, for instance, that

clauses on minority rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had any

noticeable impact on debates about minority rights within Turkey. Curricula on the

535

“Bakanlar Kurulu Kararı,” T.C. Resmi Gazette (May 27, 1949): 16199-16201. 536

The Ambassador in Turkey (Wadsworth) to the Secretary of State, 501. BD Human Rights/6-349, DSR. 537

Several of these can be found in Turkey’s National Library. See, for instance, Cemil Sena, Birleşmiş

Milletler İnsan Hakları Evrensel Beyannamesi Kılavuzu (Istanbul: Hatipoğlu Yayınevi, 1950); Hamdi

Hızal, İnsan Hakları Evrensel Beyannamesi ve Tarihçe (Istanbul: Furtuna Biraderler Basımevi, 1951);

İnsan Hakları Evrensel Beyannamesi, (Samsun: Samsun Matbaası, 1949). 538

Hüseyin Kazım Kadri, İnsan Hakları Beyannamesi'nin İsam Hukukuna Göre İzahı (Istanbul: Sinan

Matbaası, 1949); Millet Partisi, İnsan Hakları Beyannamesi (İzmir: Millet Partisi İzmir İl Müteşebbis

Kurulu, 1949).

180

document hardly engaged in critical discussions about Turkey’s human rights record or

treatment of minorities.539

One such booklet prepared by a Turkish school principal in

Beyoğlu, an Istanbul district traditionally home to many non-Muslims, emphasized that

Turkey had always treated its people well regardless of religion, race, or confession.540

This lack of introspection is perhaps unsurprising: Unlike subsequent conventions

(including the European Convention on Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural

Rights), the Universal Declaration technically was not a binding treaty, but a broad

statement of principles that did not require formal ratification. Despite its lofty appeal,

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not assume the League of Nations’

responsibilities to protect minorities. The General Assembly passed a “vacuous”

resolution that pledged that the world “cannot remain indifferent to the fate of

minorities,” but the international community also stressed there was no “uniform solution

to this complex and difficult question.”541

The Turkish government’s main interest appeared to be image rather than

substance. When a December 1948 Turkish government report about problems faced by

Turkey’s Greek minority appeared particularly critical, a top official from the governing

Republican People’s Party stressed the real reason behind the report: the government’s

need for “symbolic” steps in order “to avoid propaganda against us.” 542

The election of

539

For instance, Cemil Sena’s booklet covers all the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

but does not make a single mention of minority questions in Turkey. Sena, Birleşmiş Milletler İnsan

Hakları Evrensel Beyannamesi Kılavuzu. 540

Hızal, İnsan Hakları Evrensel Beyannamesi ve Tarihçe, 2. 541

Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire, 333. 542

Ministry of Justice to the Prime Minister, December 27, 1948. 30 10 0 0 / 09.733.2, DAGM.

181

Athenagoras, an ethnic Greek, U.S. citizen, and staunch opponent of communism, to the

position of Ecumenical Patriarch (the subject of the next chapter) in late 1948 also

offered Turkey a temporary respite from criticism over its treatment of minorities.

Around the same time, Turkey’s budding relationship with Israel likely helped to

shield it from criticism from Jewish groups. From 1948 to 1951, some 40 percent of

Turkey’s Jewish population—34,547 mostly lower class individuals—migrated from

Turkey to Israel. Although Turkey initially curtailed emigration to Israel in November

1948 because of Arab objections, Turkey’s decision to recognize Israel—the first

predominantly Muslim country to do so—prompted Turkey to allow the exodus to

resume the following year. 543

Jewish criticism of Turkey’s treatment of minorities soon

waned. For instance, the American Jewish Committee, which had sharply criticized aid to

Turkey as part of the Truman Doctrine over its “devilish” discriminatory tax targeting

minorities, had a change of heart.544

In 1954, the Jewish group awarded Turkey’s

president a silver medallion “in gratitude not only for the well-being of the 60,000 Jews

in Turkey, but also for a long history of Turkish friendship and goodwill.”545

As some

Arabs in 1948 criticized Israel’s “callous disregard of human rights,” Israeli officials

543

Şule Toktaş, "Turkey's Jews and Their Immigration to Israel," Middle Eastern Studies 42, no. 3 (2006):

508-9. 544

American Jewish Committee to Division of Near Eastern Affairs, April 15,1947 and April 18, 1947,

867.4016, reel 12, IAT. 545

Peter Kihss, “Bayar Affirms Minority Rights: Turkish Chief Cites Freedom in His Land as He Receives

Tribute from Jewish Body,” The New York Times (February 1, 1954): 3.

182

considered an Arab-Jewish population transfer based on the Turkish-Greek population

exchange in 1923.546

The implications of the Genocide Convention also proved nebulous. Despite a

spattering of press reports about genocide and related developments at the United

Nations, the issue attracted relatively little attention within Turkey. A notable exception

was a series of articles published in 1948 in the semi-academic journal İnsan Hakları

(“Human Rights”), published by Turkey’s official Human Rights Society. The articles

discussed the legacy of the Second World War, Lemkin’s efforts to have genocide

adopted as an international crime, the relevance of the Nuremberg Trials, and diplomacy

surrounding the Genocide Convention. Yet, the articles made no mention of the

Armenian massacres or Turkey’s own treatment of minorities.547

Faruk Erem’s 1948

book in Turkish about genocide offered a similar discussion and likewise omitted any

mention of Armenians or the events of the First World War.548

Perhaps ironically, Turkey backed the Genocide Convention. Approved by the

United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948, the Convention entered into

force on January 12, 1951. Turkey’s parliament acted quickly, approving it unanimously

on March 23, 1950.549

Its provisions became official the following week.550

There was no

546

James Batal, “A Plea for Displaced Arabs: Zionist Plan for Population Transfer Seen Violating Human

Rights,” New York Times (August 3, 1948): 24; Thomas J. Hamilton, “ Israel Weights Step for a Big

Exchange of Minority Groups,” New York Times (July 23, 1948): 1. 547

Zübeyir Aker, "'Génocide': Bir İnsan Topluluğunun Kasten İmhası," İnsan Hakları 2, no. 13, 16 and 21

(January, April and September 1948). 548

Faruk Erem, İnsanlığa Karşı Cürümler (Génocide) (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi

Yayımları/ Güney Matbaacılık ve Gazetecilik, 1948). 549

T.B.M.M. Tutanak Dergisi, Dönem VII, Cilt 25, Toplantı 4 (March 23, 1950): 825. 550

“Milli, ırki, dini kütleleri kısmen veya tamamen imha suçunun ‘Génocide’ önlenmesi ve

cezalandırılması de katılmasının onanmasına dair Kanun,” TC Resmi Gazette, 7469 (March 29, 1950):

18199-18200.

183

fanfare, criticism, or public discussion of the international agreement. In fact, there was

not even a parliamentary debate. Not one lawmaker spoke against the legislation or even

asked a single question about its provisions.551

Supporting the Convention was a report

filed by the parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, which emphasized the

Convention’s importance in supporting the United Nations, world peace, and efforts to

prevent future genocide. At the same time, the report stressed in Turkish legalese the

Convention’s compatibility with Turkish national interests and law: The Convention

conformed to the goals of Turkey’s “domestic and foreign policy” and “contains no facet

contrary to our constitution.”552

Unlike the Universal Declaration, the government did not

order publicity or educational activities for the Genocide Convention and its fate—two

pages buried in the Official Gazette, a publication of official record, rather than public

consumption—largely doomed the question of genocide to obscurity.

Within Turkey, any discussion about genocide remained moot. Although new

historical accounts were sometimes emboldened by momentary press freedom in the

country and offered a variety of material on the Armenian question, they remained

nationalist in tone.553

A 1950 account by Esat Uras, for instance, suggests that, by

teaming with Russia against Turkey, Armenians bore some responsibility for the events

of 1915. 554

The text has been called “the canonical text of Turkish nationalist

551

T.B.M.M. Tutanak Dergisi, Dönem VII, Cilt 25, Toplantı 4 (March 23, 1950): 825, 899-902. 552

“‘Génocide’ Önlenmesi ve Cezalandırılması hakkındaki Sözleşmenin onanmasına dair Kanun tasarısı ve

Dışişleri Komisyonu raporu (1/738),” T.B.M.M. Tutanak Dergisi, Dönem VII, Cilt 25, Toplantı 4 (March

23, 1950). 553

Göçek, "Reading Genocide: Turkish Historiography on 1915," 47; Bloxham, The Great Game of

Genocide, 213. 554

Esat Uras, Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi (Ankara1950).

184

historiography on the Armenians.”555

Yet, discussion of neither the Armenian issue nor

genocide occupied a prominent role in the public agenda in Turkey or world powers

during the 1950s. Even the term used at the time –“génocide”—was foreign unlike the

contemporary Turkish word “soykırım,” which presumably emerged during intense

Armenian and Turkish activism over the genocide issue in the 1970s. 556

Without means for enforcement or retroactive recognition, the Genocide

Convention proved of little utility for Armenian activists in the years immediately after

World War II. Armenian territorial demands were particularly farfetched without support

from a world power. Although a united cause helped to gloss over differences among

differing Armenian factions in the years immediately after World War II, older fault lines

between groups sympathetic and those more critical of the Soviet Union resurfaced by

the late 1940s. As the Soviet Union gave increasingly less emphasis to territorial claims

on Turkey, Dashnaks, who were skeptical of the Soviet Union, began opposing

emigration to the Soviet Union and demanded that Armenia should succeed in gaining

additional territory before repatriations take place. At a time of intense anticommunism

in the United States, Armenian proponents of territorial revision and those on the left

were portrayed increasingly as “fellow travelers.” 557

Soviet officials became increasingly

suspicious of Dashnaks, whom they increasingly regarded as American agents. 558

555

Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, 213. 556

Sevan Nişanyan lists the first appearance of “soykırım” as occurring in the Turkish newspaper Milliyet

in 1975. Sevan Nisanyan, Soykırım,” Sözlerin Soyağacı: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etmilojik Sözlüğü.

http://www.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=soyk%C4%B1r%C4%B1m 557

Suny, Looking toward Ararat : Armenia in Modern History, 226. 558

Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 275-77.

185

Thus, in September 1948, the Soviet Council of Ministers secretly decided to

discontinue the Armenian repatriations, a cause that the Soviet Union had used to justify

the need for territory in eastern Anatolia. The last of the immigrants arrived the following

year. 559

For Armenians, the repatriation campaign proved a disappointment. Only around

100,000 Armenians of up to 400,000 people planned were resettled in Armenia.

Armenians who made the journey, mostly from the Middle East and Eastern Europe,

found that deplorable conditions awaited them in Soviet Armenia. 560

Moreover, the

Soviet Union gave increasingly little attention to its territorial claims on Turkey, which it

would officially rescind with Stalin’s death in 1953.561

There was an attempt to bring the

Armenian issue back to the United Nations in the 1950s, but the campaign apparently did

not gain traction.562

The campaign for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide would

not pick up steam again until the fiftieth anniversary of the Armenian atrocities in the

following decade.

For American policymakers and some intellectuals, claims by minorities,

including Armenians and Kurds, represented potential challenges to the national unity of

a Cold War ally. Major General Lunsford Oliver was not alone in assigning Armenian

blame for the atrocities that befell them. The argument that Ottoman Turks had merely

“moved to save themselves” from an Armenian insurgency also featured in the work of

the prominent American historian Lewis V. Thomas, a professor in the Department of

559

Ibid., 276- 79. 560

Bobelian, Children of Armenia, 90; Ternon, The Armenian Cause, 128; Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish

Crisis of the Cold War, 1945-1953, 276. 561

İsmail Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975 (Istanbul: İsis 1997),

173-4. 562

Merrill D. Peterson, "Starving Armenians": America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1930 and After

(Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2004), 162.

186

Oriental Studies at Princeton. Thomas’s 1951 The United States and Turkey and Iran,

which included praise for Turkey’s democratization and role in the fight against

communism, even boldly declared that “had Turkification and Moslemization not been

accelerated … there certainly would not today exist a Turkish Republic, a Republic

owing its strength and stability in no small measure to the homogeneity of its population,

a state which is now a valued associate of the United States.” 563

That sentiment was

hardly limited to academic circles. CIA officials praised Turkey’s efforts to assimilate

Kurds, who they said remained a potential source of disruption in the region.564

A 1951

National Security Estimate similarly declared that “Turkey’s strength” as an anti-

Communist bulwark “derives to a considerable extent from the national unity and

homogeneity of its population.” Although it dismissed the likelihood of a Soviet invasion,

it listed minority Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians among the groups most “susceptible to

Communist subversion if internal security broke down.” 565

By the early 1960s, it was not longer for Turkey simply to ignore the Armenian

Genocide, but it instead commenced a campaign to quash it. In 1965, Armenians rallied

in the streets demanding justice on the fiftieth anniversary of the Genocide in what was

also a challenge to the Soviet government.566

Turkish officials immediately became

agitated over the issue. An April 1965 memorandum shows Turkish concern over a

563

Quoted in Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, 213. In the second half of the 1950s, Thomas also

directed Stanford Shaw, the eminent Ottoman historian and outspoken denier of the Armenian Genocide,

whose students include the most prominent deniers of the Armenian Genocide today. Thomas also served

as advisor to the Ottoman historian, Norman Itzkowitz. 564

“The Kurdish Minority Problem,” December 8, 1948. Central Intelligence Agency, Freedom of

Information Act Electronic Reading Room.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000258376/DOC_0000258376.pdf 565

National Security Estimate: Turkey’s Place in the East-West Struggle, February 26, 1951, FRUS, 1951,

Vol. V, 1123. 566

Bobelian, Children of Armenia, 121.

187

campaign by “extremist Armenians” abroad on the fiftieth anniversary of the Armenian

Genocide.567

By the 1960s, the Turkish Embassy in the United States unsuccessfully

sought U.S. State Department support to suppress local efforts to build monuments and

declarations by American politicians affirming the Armenian Genocide.568

A reflection of

how politicized the notion of genocide had become, Turkish writers were also deflecting

genocide claims by suggesting that the Soviet Union had committed genocide against

ethnic Turks.569

Throughout the following decades, the Turkish government actively

worked to dismiss international efforts to have the Armenian Genocide recognized at the

United Nations, succeeding through State Department intervention in having the

Armenian example removed from a U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of

Discrimination and Protection of Minorities report and scrapping a congressional

proposal for a National Day of Remembrance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man that would

commemorate the Armenian Genocide.570

The discussion soon slipped into the bitter,

polarized cycle of genocide advocacy and Turkish denial that has characterized the

Armenian question in recent decades, sometimes with violent consequences.

Much ink is now (rightfully) being spilled over the tragic events of the First

World War and some Turkish and Armenian scholars have begun engaging in a more

fruitful dialogue. Yet, another question remains: Why does the issue invoke such passion

among Turkey’s public—including street protests and loud denunciations by Turkish

567

Bazı yabancı memleketlerde müfrit ermeni teşekkülleri tarafından tertiplenen kampanya, April 28, 1964.

30.1.0/ 64.395.9, DAGM. 568

Bobelian, Children of Armenia, 127. 569

Mustafa Hızal, Kuzey Kafkasya’da 1944 Yılı Toptan Sürgün ve Katliam (Genocide) Faciası (Ankara:

Kardeş Matbaası, 1964). 570

Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, 218.

188

politicians—when the word “genocide” is raised by foreign governments? The analysis in

this chapter suggests the need not only to examine the applicability of the term to the

Armenian issue, but to understand when the term entered the public lexicon. At the level

of the Turkish public, the emergence of the Cold War added a new layer of complexity to

the Armenian issue by conflating two issues: a new term (genocide) rooted in U.N.

language of human rights and postwar Soviet territorial claims on Turkey, both of which

the United States and Turkey regarded as challenging Turkish national unity. Although

much of the contemporary discussion—and denial—focuses on what happened in 1915

and its aftermath, much of the emotion likely derives from postwar Soviet claims on

Turkey.

189

Chapter 4

“Byzantine Intrigues," "Legitimate U.S. Interests," and the "Nylon Patriarch":

Cold War Politics and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, 1945-1955

Turkish assistance in the rehabilitation of the Patriarchate ….with the consequent

elevation of its prestige would be proof to the West that modern Turks had

renounced religious intolerance and minority persecution as well as showing that

they were cognizant of the part the Orthodox Church can play in the struggle

against communism.—Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras as recounted by

Frederick T. Merrill, the U.S. Consul-General in Istanbul, December 12, 1951571

In January 1949, Athenagoras—the newly installed Ecumenical Patriarch,

spiritual leader of all Orthodox Christians—arrived in Istanbul aboard an American

government plane that had been dispatched to Turkey by President Truman. A

naturalized American citizen, he replaced the unpopular and ailing Maximos, whose

reign since 1946 had been marred by accusations of weakness and even sympathy toward

communism. At a time when U.S., Turkish, and Greek officials worried about the

Moscow Patriarchate’s growing influence in the Middle East, the Soviet Union pressed

its “war of nerves” against Turkey, and the Government of Greece battled communist

571

Merrill to the Secretary of State, December 12, 1951. 882.413/12-1251, Record Group 59, Department of

State Records (DSR).

190

insurgents. The election of Athenagoras was hardly a surprise. Unlike the mythical

secrecy that has long characterized Papal conclaves, the replacement of the unpopular

patriarch with the American had been forecast for nearly as long as Maximos had

occupied the patriarchal throne. Although the incident is not widely known today, stories

surrounding Athengoras’ election were headlines at the time. Those who do recount the

story today—often Turkish nationalist or Islamist critics of the Patriarchate—now tend to

emphasize the arrival of Athenagoras as an example of American, imperialistic

interference in a Turkish domestic institution. 572

Reality was more complicated. The U.S. diplomatic record shows that Greek and

Greek-American advocates for the new patriarch worked to topple Maximos and install

Athenagoras, who they hoped would raise the international profile of the Greek Orthodox

Church and challenge the authority of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow.

Turkish and U.S. officials were reluctant to become involved in ecclesiastical questions

and feared a plot to bring an American to the patriarchal throne could work against U.S.

and Turkish interests. After the Greek American was elected, U.S. and Turkish officials

found themselves gradually wooed by the staunchly pro-American patriarch. Under

Greek pressure, Truman agreed to send Athenagoras to Istanbul aboard an American

aircraft and Athenagoras vociferously stressed his relationship with the United States.

However, Athenagoras was hardly an American stooge. Although U.S. officials consulted

with him and quietly cheered from the sidelines as he asserted his superiority to the

Moscow patriarch throughout the Middle East and Eastern Europe, U.S. officials worried

572

Erhan Basyurt, "Patrik çizmeyi astı," Aksiyon (July 1, 1995), 25 -30.

191

that the patriarch’s overt pro-Americanism went over the top and that the patriarch might

frustrate American engagement in the region. Turkey also gradually embraced

Athenagoras’ growing clout. For Turkey, Athenagoras’ Turkish nationalism offered an

alternative vision of minorities in Turkey to the world, counterbalancing accusations of

maltreatment and proclaiming Turkey’s commitment to a new international human rights

regime. However, Athenagoras’ Turkish nationalist credentials came under increasing

scrutiny as a result of the growing disagreement between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus

by the mid-1950s.

Building on the arguments made in the previous two chapters, this chapter shows

how questions involving the Greek minority and the Ecumenical Patriarchate were

central to Greek-Turkish rapprochement and the two countries’ closer alignment with the

United States in the immediate postwar period.573

Although the story of Athenagoras was

covered prominently in the Turkish and American press—in essence casting Athenagoras

as the public face of the new Turkish-Greek-American relationship brought about by the

Truman Doctrine—his role in that triangular relationship has been given surprising little

attention by most diplomatic historians. Those who have recounted Athenagoras’ tenure

as patriarch have largely made the same assumptions that Athenagoras was brought to

power through active U.S. interference in the patriarchal election. 574

Surprisingly, this

573

Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 237, 241-2. 574

The standard account of Athenagoras is offered by Alexis Alexandris, who draws on Greek, British and

Turkish sources. Alexandris’ account corroborates my own in its stress on the role of the Greek

government, as well as Greek religious leaders, in efforts to topple Patriarch Maximos. But Alexandris’

account gives greater emphasis than my own on Turkey’s active involvement on the election of

Athenagoras. Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 1918-1974

(Athens: Center for Asia Minor Studies, 1983), 244-247.

Nesim Şeker’s recent account rightfully points to the ironic politicization of the patriarchate

192

chapter is among the first accounts to draw heavily on readily available U.S. diplomatic

records on Athenagoras, which clearly show that the U.S. Government officials initially

opposed intervention in his election. Although American officials came to embrace his

mission, they also feared too close of an association between Athenagoras and the

American government.575

This chapter suggests that Athenagoras’ demeanor has much to

do with the inaccurate reputation that has survived him as an “agent” of the United States

government.

Thus, the story of Athenagoras’ accession to the patriarchal throne and his early

years as patriarch also shed light on the issue of agency in the early Cold War.

Athenagoras took advantage of U.S. and Turkish policymakers’ fears about the

susceptibility of minorities in Turkey and across the Middle East to communist

subversion. The fact that the patriarch could win informal support for his mission

demonstrates one churchman’s ability to insert himself in U.S. policy in the region, as

well as the semiofficial channels through which the United States and the Soviet Union

struggled over influence throughout the region as part of Cold War power politics.

American officials fretted, moreover, when Athenagoras went too far in his advocating

during Athenagoras’ reign, but he overplays the hand of both the U.S. and Turkish governments and

ignores the role of the Greek government in bringing Athenagoras to power and the patriarch’s own ability

to insert himself into U.S. foreign policy. Nesim Şeker, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of

Constantinople in the Midst of Politics,” Journal of Church and State, Volume 55, No. 2 (Spring 2013):

264-285. See also Elçin Macar, Cumhuriyet Döneminde İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi (Istanbul: İletişim,

2004); Peter Kent The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII: The Roman Catholic Church and the Division of

Europe, 1943-1950 (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 2002), 240-1. 575

After preparing a draft of this dissertation, I became aware of the work of Nesim Şeker, who also

consulted similar State Department Records to the ones I did. Although he and I cite some of the same

sources, our interpretations of those sources diverge significantly as detailed in this chapter. Nesim Şeker,

“The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Midst of Politics”: 264-285. This chapter also

includes references to available Turkish archival sources as well as other Turkish- and English- language

sources.

193

pro-American stances.

Finally, this chapter also offers additional insight into the relationship between

religion and the Cold War, a topic of increasing interest to scholars in recent years that

has broadly coincided with the cultural turn in international history. 576

Scholars have

largely given only passing consideration to the question of religion in Turkey’s

experience of the Cold War and, perhaps understandably, have largely focused on Islam,

rather than the example of Athenagoras.577

This chapter does not suggest in any way that

religion, and certainly not Orthodoxy, represented the main confrontation in Turkey’s

Cold War, but argues that Turkey, similar to the United States, faced a religious

dimension in its Cold War experience. Moreover, the example of Athenagoras is

significant because it not only points to questions of an Orthodox minority in a largely

Muslim country and region, but also acts as a bridge between questions of domestic

religion within the United States and religion’s role in the Middle Eastern and European

576

Dianne Kirby, "Religion and the Cold War-An Introduction," in Religion and the Cold War, ed. Dianne

Kirby (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003); Andrew Preston, Shield of Faith: Religion in American

War and Diplomacy (New York: Knopf, 2012); Andrew Rotter, "Christians, Muslims, and Hindus:

Religion and U.S.-South Asian Relations, 1947-1954," Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (2000); Patricia R.

Hill, "Religion as a Category of Diplomatic Analysis," Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (Fall 2000); For

criticism, see Robert Buzzanco, "Where's the Beef? Culture without Power in the Study of U.S. Foreign

Relations," Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (Fall, 2000). See also William Inboden, Religion and American

Foreign Policy, 1945-1960: The Soul of Containment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008);

Jonathan P. Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle against Communism in

the Early Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Philip E. Muehlenbeck, ed. Religion and the

Cold War: A Global Perspective (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2012). This chapter also builds

on literature about the role of Orthodoxy in the early Cold War. Anna Dickinson, "Domestic and Foreign

Policy Considerations and the Origins of Post-War Soviet Church-State Relations, 1941-6," in Religion and

the Cold War, ed. Dianne Kirby (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003). Harry J. Psomiades’1957 account

probably remains the most frequently cited. Harry J. Psomiades, “Soviet Russia and the Orthodox Church

in the Middle East,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Autumn 1957): 374. 577

Gavin Brockett, "Turks and International Islam: The World Muslim Congress, 1949-1952," Middle East

Studies Association Annual Meeting (Denver, Colorado 2012); Ceren and Doğan Gürpınar Kenar, "Cold

War in the Pulpit: The Presidency of Religious Affairs and Sermons during the Time of Anarchy and

Communist Threat," in Turkey in the Cold War: Ideology and Culture, ed. Cangül and Çağdaş Üngör

Örnek (London: Palgrave MacMillan).

194

fronts of a global Cold War.

Turkey, Greece, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate

The outbreak of the Second World War strained relations between Greece and

Turkey. Not only did the German occupation of Greece introduce new uncertainty into its

relations with Turkey, ethnic issues would also reassert themselves as an area of

contention for the two neighbors. The war not only witnessed the near annihilation of

Greek Jews, Turkey’s government also targeted Greeks in its capital tax (Varlık Vergisi),

straining ties between the two countries.578

The new U.S. partnership with both countries

would help to dampen, at least temporarily, questions over the fate of the ethnically-

mixed Dodecanese Islands (especially Rhodes), which had fallen under Italian control.

Many objected in Turkey when the islands were turned over to Greece in 1947. 579

The fate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, a traditional spiritual center of world

Orthodoxy, embodied the precarious situation of minorities in Turkey and the uncertainty

of U.S. involvement in the region. Although U.S. diplomats opposed involvement in

religious questions, they carefully monitored the precarious situation of the patriarchate,

an institution that Turkey insisted was purely domestic in nature and devoid of any

international (or “ecumenical”) role. Officials in Washington were aware of the

difficulties that the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul faced in securing “new blood”

578

Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System (Princeton, N.J.,: Princeton

University Press, 1959), 262; Rifat N. Bali, The "Varlık Vergisi" Affair: A study of Its Legacy, Selected

Documents (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2005); Jacob Landau, Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to

Cooperation (London: Hurst, 1995). 579

İsmail Suphi Soysallıoğlu, “Türk Rodos! Bir de Kıbrıs!” Tasvir (April 6, 1947): 4; Alexis Alexandris,

The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 234.

195

because of restrictions that made it difficult for non-Turkish citizens to assume positions

at the patriarchate and the requirement that the patriarch must be a Turkish citizen.

However, there was little interest in pressing Turkey for reform, since “it was difficult to

see the direct American interest.”580

Beginning in early 1945, State Department officials

even probed the possibility of a special role for the United States in the affairs of the

Patriarchate. American diplomats, however, remained dismissive. According to

diplomats’ accounts, patriarchal officials believed that Turkey had not been “adequately

punished” for maltreatment of minorities, but they also feared that foreign support to the

Patriarchate was likely to spark retribution from Turkey and make the situation even

worse.581

Turkish leaders and diplomats, moreover, had long made clear that U.S.

diplomatic engagement on religious questions would violate Turkey’s strict laws on

secularism. 582

The War of Nerves and Patriarch Maximos

Religious questions quickly entered into the fray of emerging Cold War tensions

in the region. The outbreak of the Second World War had opened the way for Stalin to

use religion as part of his arsenal in the defense of the “homeland.” 583

Not only did the

Soviet Union allow the election of a new Armenian patriarch in the postwar period

(Chapter 2), the Soviet leadership used the election of a new Patriarch of Moscow,

580

Memorandum of Conversation, Alivisatos and Jones, June 5, 1945, 867.404/6-1545, Reel 12, IAT. 581

Steinhardt to the Secretary of State, 867.404/3-845, March 8, 1945. Reel 12, IAT. 582

Andrew Preston, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (New York: Knopf, 2012),

345. 583

Edward Alexander, “The Armenian Church in Soviet Policy.” Russian Review, Vol. 14, No. 4 (October

1955): 357-8.

196

Alexei, and the synod that elected him in early 1945 as an opportunity to increase the

influence of the Orthodox Church in the Middle East.584

From 1945 to 1947, the

Patriarchate of Moscow denigrated the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Middle East and

Eastern Europe and sought to attain primacy among the Orthodox faithful. 585

George

Kennan saw the revival of the Moscow Patriarchate as evidence of Soviet determination

“to make available for its own use every possible channel of influence in foreign

affairs.”586

Emerging tensions between the Soviet Union and Turkey also quickly

encompassed much older ecclesiastical and nationalist disputes, including questions

about the relationship between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Bulgarian church that

extended to the Ottoman period.587

U.S. diplomats interpreted plans by the patriarch of

the Bulgarian church to visit Istanbul less in terms of spiritual rapprochement between

the two churches, than in terms of a “political motive” likely instigated by the Soviet-

backed Bulgarian government aimed at “the strengthening of the position of the

Bulgarian Patriarch throughout the Balkans.” The trip was put off, perhaps due to

pressure from the Turkish government. 588

At the same time that U.S. officials became increasingly concerned about

emerging tensions over the Iran Crisis and Armenian territorial demands, they also

expressed concern over the possibility of Moscow’s involvement in political intrigues

584

Harry J. Psomiades, “Soviet Russia and the Orthodox Church in the Middle East,” Middle East Journal,

Vol. 11, No. 4 (Autumn 1957): 374. 585

Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 238. 586

Kennan to the Secretary of State, February 3, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. V: 907. 587

Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. 2:

Reform, Revolution, and Republic: the Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975. (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1977), 160-62. 588

Wilson to the Secretary of State, July 2, 1945. 867.404/7-245, Reel 12, IAT.

197

involving the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In late October, Kennan and John P. Davies wrote

that the Soviet Union was using “Church unity under the patronage of the Soviet State” in

order to promote its ultimate goal of regional domination.589

By early November 1945, word that incumbent Benjamin, the Ecumenical

Patriarch, was dying sparked fears in the American Greek community that the institution

could succumb to Soviet influence. The Archbishop of New York, Athenagoras,

expressed his fears that Moscow would attempt to secure the election of a patriarch

subservient to the Russian Church. He also asked for the U.S. government to relay those

concerns to the government of Turkey.590

U.S. Secretary of State James Byrnes asked

diplomats whether the United States Government should become involved.591

The U.S.

ambassador reiterated his opposition to any U.S. intervention. He noted that both Greece

and Turkey were able to influence the outcome of the election, whereas “actual effective

intervention” by the Soviet Union did not appear possible. Moreover, the outcome

appeared inevitable: Maximos, an adamant Hellenophile who had exercised control

during Benjamin’s decline, was widely expected to win.592

The former Metropolitan of

Chalcedon (the Kadıköy district of Istanbul) was unanimously elected Ecumenical

Patriarch in February 1946 following the death of his predecessor. Although the Turkish

government had previously expressed its disregard for Maximos, it allowed his election

in early 1946, in what U.S. officials saw as an effort to undermine any Soviet meddling in

589

Harriman to the Secretary of State, October 23, 1945, FRUS, 1945, Vol. V: 1114. 590

Memorandum of Conversation: Greek Archbishop and Mr. Allen, November 6, 1945. 867.404/11-645,

Reel 12, IAT. 591

Byrnes to Ankara, November 10, 1945. 867.404/11-1045, Reel 12. IAT. 592

Wilson to the Secretary of State, November 13, 1945. 867.404/11-1345. Reel 12, IAT.

198

the election.593

Nonetheless, the Turkish press was not convinced. One newspaper, for

instance, insinuated that the new patriarch may have had ties with the Soviet government,

reporting that he had even taken a ride with the Soviet consul general from his

predecessor’s funeral. The same report also accused him of making statements against

Turkey’s official Kemalist ideology during a previous stay in the United States.594

Cold War political intrigues quickly overburdened Maximos’ reign as patriarch.

Even before ascending to the throne, Maximos was pressured into transferring authority

over the Orthodox Church of Finland to Moscow and received a note from the Church of

Czechoslovakia professing its allegiance to the See of Moscow. As patriarch, Maximos

received threatening letters from Moscow claiming authority over the influential exiled

Russia Church in Paris and a statement from a gathering of leaders of the Ruthenian

Church, a uniate church in eastern Europe allied with Rome, that it had decided to rejoin

the Orthodox Church, a decision that was made without proper consultation with the

Ecumenical Patriarchate. The U.S. ambassador immediately saw the pressure on

Maximos as part of the Moscow Patriarchate’s campaign of its “own aggrandizement at

the expense of the Oecumenical Patriarchate” under apparent orders from Soviet

authorities. Thus, the patriarch found himself in “the difficult position of either having to

give his assent to the piecemeal dismemberment of his spiritual domain or alternatively

risking the possibility of a rupture of the ostensibly good relations” with the Russian

Church. 595

593

Wilson to the Secretary of State, Feburary 26, 1946. 867.404/2-2646. Reel 12, IAT. 594

“Kadıköy metrepoliti Maksimos Rum Ortodoks patriği oldu,” Tasvir (February 21, 1946): 1, 3. 595

Wilson to the Secretary of State, March 29, 1946. 867.404/3-2046. Reel 12, IAT.

199

Political constraints gave the patriarch little room to maneuver: In all likelihood,

Maximos felt pressure from the anti-Soviet attitudes of the Greek and Turkish

governments and saw the April 1946 visit of the U.S.S. Missouri to Istanbul as a sign of

new U.S. assertiveness in the Balkans and Middle East. Frustrated, the new patriarch

resisted any diminution of his influence and did not respond to increasingly testy

correspondence coming from his Russian counterpart.596

Yet, Maximos also lamented the

fact that the problem with Moscow “had ceased to be a purely religious one and had

become largely political.”597

As the Soviet Union and Turkey exchanged diplomatic notes in the summer and

fall of 1946, pressure also mounted on the Ecumenical Patriarch. A statement from the

Moscow patriarch in September announcing his plans to pay a courtesy visit to Istanbul

to congratulate the new Ecumenical Patriarch put Maximos on the defensive. Feeling

“very disturbed” by the proposed visit, Maximos was forced to explain to the Turkish

government that he did not invite his counterpart, but could not turn him away since

Alexei was ostensibly coming on a courtesy visit.598

Turkish diplomats’ use of “delaying

tactics” in the issuance of visas ultimately derailed the visit and the Soviet church

delegation left for Jerusalem without stopping in Istanbul. Amid the controversy,

Maximos, who had been accused of pro-Soviet feelings in the past and whose

patriarchate also faced financial troubles, suffered a “nervous breakdown” and showed

596

Wilson to the Secretary of State, April 18, 1946. 867.404/4-1846..Reel 12, IAT. 597

Bursley to the Secretary of State, September 17, 1946. 867.404/9-1746. Reel 12, IAT. 598

Wilson to the Secretary of State, September 13, 1946. 867.404/9-1346, Reel 12, IAT.

200

“symptoms of losing his mind.”599

News reports suggested that the cloistered life at the

Ecumenical Patriarchate also weighed heavily on the patriarch, who was only in his early

fifties at the time. 600

Maximos, thus, found himself in the middle of a multi-directional tug-of-war over

the Ecumenical Patriarchate. While the Soviet Union apparently embraced Orthodoxy as

a means of expanding its influence, the Government of Greece hoped to raise the profile

of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and use it as a counterweight in the region. The Greek

Ambassador to Turkey expressed concern about Soviet use of “the Russian Orthodox

Church as an instrument for political influence in other countries” and deemed it

“essential to counter this” by raising the prestige of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which

he feared risked losing its regional influence and eventually falling under Moscow’s

sway.601

The Turkish press, meanwhile, reported that senior Orthodox churchmen in

Istanbul saw the current patriarch as sympathetic toward Greek communists.602

Questions about the future of the Ecumenical Patriarchate also coincided with

broader debates in Turkey on the role of religion in politics and its utility in the Cold

War. The Turkish press described Soviet manipulation of religion. One nationalist daily

described “Soviet Russia’s Religious Offensive,” which it saw as a pretext for Soviet

599

Bursley to the Secretary of State, September 17, 1946, Reel 12. IAT; Alexandris uses the term “morbid

melancholia” to describe Athenagoras’ condition. Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and

Greek-Turkish Relations, 244. 600

“Turkish Patriarch Ill: Maximos Said to be Victim of Nervous Disorder,” New York Times (January 3,

1948): 8. 601

Wilson to the Secretary of States, January 20, 1947, Reel 12, IAT. 602

“Rum patrikliğı meselesi: Sensinod azaları Maksimosu istifaya davet edecekler,” Tasvir (February 21,

1948): 1

201

imperialism.603

By the end of 1946, Turkish lawmakers considered ways to use Islamic

religious education in schools to stem communism, a first in the recent history of a

country that defined itself as strictly secular and in opposition to an Islamic past. Suphi

Tanrıöver, a parliamentarian and former minister of education, spearheaded the public

debate on the use of religion to fight communism, arguing that religion helped to fill a

“vacuum” in “ethics and ideas” stemming from the Second World War. 604

Tanrıöver

accused the Soviets of manipulating religion for political purposes. He called on a

“religious front” against communism that included the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Peker, an adamant secularist, remained

suspicious of using religion to battle communism, which he equated “to believing that a

deadly poison can be cured by another poison at least as deadly.”605

Nonetheless, attitudes about religion were slowly shifting in Turkish government

circles. Religious education was approved in 1947, a dramatic move that the American

ambassador considered "as revolutionary a change in modern laic Turkey as the

emergence in the past year of political parties has been in its political life." Although the

government in Ankara probably remained suspicious of the patriarchate, Peker was also

concerned about the growth of Soviet influence, and reportedly sympathized (though

probably reluctantly) with the need for the patriarchate to be “strengthened so as to be

able to combat effectively the efforts being made by the Moscow Church to gain

603

“Sovyet Rusyanın Din Taarruzu,” Tasvir (October 7, 1946): 1. 604

Wilson to the Secretary of State, December 31, 1946. 867.404/12-3146, Reel 12, IAT. 605

Hamdullah Suphi Tanrıöver, “Komünizm Karşısında Manevi Cepheler: Dinin siyasi parti veya kilise

halinde komünizme karşı cebhe vücuda getiren kutlu varlığı karşısındayız,” Tasvir (October 5, 1947): 1-3;

Bursley to the Secretary of State, October 14, 1947, Reel 12, IAT.

202

ascendance in neighboring lands.”606

The new Turkish attitudes about the Patriarchate

represented a sharp contrast to longstanding efforts by the Turkish government to weaken

the Ecumenical Patriarchate since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.607

The Search for a New Patriarch

Simultaneous efforts to raise the profile of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and

Maximos’ incapacity immediately raised questions about the possibility of Maximos’

resignation and his replacement with a more vibrant, assertive figure. In the same

telegram that he reported the patriarch’s breakdown to Washington, the American

ambassador also raised the prospect of his ouster should his condition not improve.608

By

January, the Greek ambassador told American diplomats about his meetings with

prominent Turks, including Tanrıöver, regarding the quest for a new patriarch. Tanrıöver

reportedly agreed that “what was needed was a new Patriarch at Istanbul, vigorous and

effective, who could take the lead in an effort to restore to the Oecumenical Patriarchate

some of its lost prestige” resulting from Maximos’ illness. Prominent journalists and

other Turkish government officials also discussed the possibility of a new patriarch.

According to the Greek ambassador, Athenagoras—the Ottoman-born, staunchly anti-

communist Archbishop of New York—topped the list of possible candidates by the

beginning of 1947. 609

Born in 1886 in the Greek historic region of Epirus (then part of

the Ottoman Empire), Athenagoras moved to Istanbul in 1903 for theological studies

606

Wilson to the Secretary of States, January 20, 1947. 867.404/1-2047. Reel 12, IAT. 607

Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 238. 608

Bursley to the Secretary of State, September 17, 1946. 867.404/9-1746, Reel 12, IAT. 609

Wilson to the Secretary of States, January 20, 1947. 867.404/1-2047, Reel 12, IAT.

203

before assuming posts in Ottoman Macedonia and, after 1918, in Greece. He was

appointed Archbishop of North and South America in 1930, a time of rapprochement

between Turkey and Greece.610

While in New York, Athenagoras “probably had his eye

on the Ecumenical Throne” and was known for his strong praise of Turkey and

attendance at Turkish national day celebrations. He also knew Turkish.611

The flattery

probably worked: although Athenagoras did not hold Turkish citizenship as required,

Turkey’s prime minister had even telegraphed the Turkish ambassador in Washington to

inform the archbishop that he would not face any difficulty in acquiring Turkish

citizenship should he be elected to fill the post. 612

The patriarch’s future was not only confined to secretive, official conversations.

The press in Turkey, the United States, and Soviet Union quickly picked up on the issue.

In May 1947, The New York Times reported that Maximos would soon resign and

Athenagoras was the leading candidate to replace him. The newspaper reported that U.S.

military intelligence officials were monitoring the election and now the “United States

State Department has the opportunity … to thrust a spoke into the wheels of Soviet

Russia’s propaganda machine, fed by political communism and pan-Slavism.” Turkey

also was pleased to see its “unofficial ambassador” to the United States become patriarch.

Greece embraced Athenagoras, but was also concerned about losing such a prominent

610

Vasil T. Stavridis, “Two Ecumenical Patriarchs from America: Meletios IV Metaxakis (1921-1923) and

Athenagoras I Spryrou (1948-1972),” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Vol. 44, Nos. 1-4 (1999):

62-4. 611

Ibid, 72-3; “Turkish Date Observed : Greeks Here Join in Celebration of Republic’s 23rd

Year,” New

York Times (October 29, 1946): 16. 612

Wilson to the Secretary of States, January 20, 1947. 867.404/1-2047, Reel 12, IAT.

204

figure among wealthy benefactors in the United States.613

Soviet news outlets Tass and

Pravda cited the New York Times story in reporting that the United was interested to see

Athenagoras succeed Maximos as patriarch.614

However, the press accounts did not

capture U.S.

Although U.S. officials followed the issue closely, they avoided advocating the

installation of a new patriarch. Behind the scenes, U.S. diplomatic dispatches covered a

range of alleged Soviet intrigues involving the Ecumenical Patriarchate, including efforts

to appoint a Bulgarian bishop in Istanbul and challenge the Ecumenical Patriarch.615

U.S.

diplomats also kept Washington abreast about the health of Maximos, who was

convalescing in Greece, and mentioned ongoing plots to replace him. Still, the dispatches

did not put forth a particular candidate to replace him. Instead, they stressed Greek

government opposition to the return of the ailing patriarch to Istanbul and initially

unsuccessful “efforts of the Greek Government to persuade him to give up his post.” 616

The struggle for leadership of world Orthodoxy came to the fore with Alexei’s

call in late spring 1947 for a Moscow gathering of world heads of Orthodox churches.617

The patriarch also sent a senior representative to patriarchs in the region. 618

The

announcement challenged the power of the ailing Istanbul patriarch because the ability to

convene a pan-Orthodox synod was an authority that the Ecumenical Patriarch had

613

“New York Prelate in Orthodox Race: Opportunity for U.S. Is Seen in Candidacy of Anti-Russian

Archbishop Athenagoras,” New York Times (May 9, 1947): 9. 614

Durbrow to the Secretary of State, May 14, 1947. 867.404/5-1447, Reel 12, IAT. 615

James Helicke, “Turkish Court Acquits Ecumenical Patriarch on Charges brought by Bulgarian Priest,”

The Associated Press (December 20, 2004). 616

Wilson to the Secretary of State, June 24, 1947. 867.404/6-2447, Reel 12, IAT; Wilson to the Secretary

of State, July 31, 1947, 867.404/7-3147, Reel 12, IAT. 617

“Bid to Orthodox Church Heads,” New York Times (June 2, 1947): 10 618

Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 244.

205

traditionally claimed as his alone.619

Maximos’ criticism of the meeting and refusal to

attend quickly won him praise in the Turkish press.620

Maximos also lobbied other

churches in the region not to attend. However, his recovery and new assertiveness were

also opposed by Greece, which expressed concerns about a relapse and sought to replace

him. 621

Maximos’ refusal to resign and decision to return to Istanbul in August 1947

therefore proved “particularly embarrassing to [the] Greek Embassy,” which had

successfully persuaded the Turkish government to agree to accept Athenagoras as

patriarch, the American ambassador reported. Greece continued to press for Maximos’

ouster.622

Despite Maximos’ denial of any immediate plans to resign, intrigues to topple

him accelerated in the fall of 1947. U.S. diplomats cited one unnamed source—likely a

Greek consular official or an Istanbul Greek—as saying in November 1947 that “the need

for a strong patriarch has never been so manifest.” The same report stated that Maximos

would probably resign if he were given assurances of a position so that he could support

members of his family who lacked financial security. There was also a possibility that

Maximos might be named adviser to the king of Greece.623

Two weeks later, the patriarch

reportedly suffered a relapse in his condition. The U.S. Embassy reported on Greece’s

efforts to rig the election by bringing clerics from Greece to Istanbul to participate in the

election, a move that would require permission from the Turkish government, and

619

Serge Keleher, "Orthodox Rivalry in the Twentieth Century: Moscow versus Constantinople," Religion,

State and Society 25, no. 2 (1997): 125-6. 620

Bursley to the Secretary of State, October 14, 1947. 867.404/10-1447. Reel 12, IAT. 621

Wilson to the Secretary of State, July 17, 1947. 867.404/7-1747, Reel 12, IAT. 622

Wilson to the Secretary of State, August 5, 1947. 867.404/8-547, Reel 12, IAT. 623

Bursely to the Secretary of State, November 1, 1947. 867.404/11-147, Reel 12, IAT.

206

“absolutely guarantee the election of the Greek Government-supported candidate,”

Athenagoras.624

The problem, according to Greek officials, was that Athenagoras enjoyed

nominal support from half of 18 archbishops eligible to vote, but three were “blind, deaf

or senile and could be easily tricked by opposition.”625

Therefore, permission for four

clerics from Greece to participate would guarantee an electoral win for the American.

U.S. officials worked to steer clear of patriarchal politics despite the popular

perception that initiatives to bring the American to the throne were a U.S. government

plot. Greek officials asked for the United States to lobby Turkey to allow non-Turkish

citizens to vote in order to guarantee the outcome of the election. However, Loy

Henderson, director of Near Eastern Affairs, told a Greek delegation that the U.S.

government did not wish to become “involved in ecclesiastic matters” as much as it

“would not like the idea of a Soviet-dominated Patriarch in Turkey.” 626

Nonetheless, questions remained about whether Athenagoras had the support to

be elected. Even in late 1947, Greece’s government appeared divided about Athenagoras.

Foreign Minister Konstantinos Tsaldaris apparently threw his weight behind his friend,

Chrysanthos Philippidis, a former Archbishop of Athens despite Turkish reservations

over Chrysanthos’ activities against Turkey during Turkey’s independence struggle.627

At

624

Wilson to the Secretary of State, November 14, 1947. 867.404/11-1447, Reel 12, IAT. 625

Wilson to the Secretary of State, June 8, 1948. 867.404/6-848, Reel 12, IAT. 626

Marshall to the U.S. Embassy in Turkey, January 13, 1948. 867.404/1-1348 ; Wilson to the Secretary of

State, January 15, 1948. 867.404/1-1548; Wilson to the Secretary of State, February 2, 1948. 867.404/1-

1948; Rankin to the Secretary of State, April 15, 1948. 867.404/4-1548; Memorandum of Conversation:

Gouras, Henderson and Baxter, April 15, 1948; Wilson to the Secretary of State, April 20, 1948, Reel 12,

IAT. 627

Alexandris argues that the Greek government was “strongly desiring the election of Chrysanthos” and

only relented to Athenagoras’ candidacy because the Turkish government staunchly supported him. By

contrast, the evidence presented in this chapter shows that although the Turkish government favored

207

the same time, the Greek government was also keen to avoid potential Greek communist

propaganda that Athenagoras’ appointment “was dictated by U.S. ‘imperialists.’” 628

In

the first half of 1948, opposition to Athenagoras was also growing in Greek Church

circles, which similarly feared that the Russian Church’s identification of Athenagoras

with the United States might rupture relations between the two Orthodox churches.629

There was good reason for this concern. Athenagoras was vocal in his support of the

United States and was eager to point to his friendly relations with the U.S. government:

“I preach Americanism,” the archbishop proclaimed. “From place to place, weekdays and

Sundays, any place, every opportunity, I talk of Americanism, turning strongly to the

White House, the Congress, American ideals and tradition.”630

The government of Greece also assumed an increasingly assertive tone. By May

1948, the Greek cabinet had firmed up its support for Athenagoras.631

Although the Holy

Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate remained “hopelessly divided”—with a majority

possibly even opposing the election of the American—the Greek Government began

“intervening directly” in the Ecumenical Patriarchate to secure Athenagoras’ election.632

Nonetheless, Greece only had limited success in its efforts to pressure Turkey and

the United States to help bring Athenagoras to power. In May 1948, the Greek Embassy

complained to the State Department in Washington that the Government of Turkey was

Athenagoras, it sought to avoid active involvement in the election of a new patriarch. Alexis Alexandris,

The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 244-5. 628

Wilson to the Secretary of State, November 24, 1947. 867.404/11-2447, Reel 12, IAT; Wilson to the

Secretary of States, January 20, 1947. 867.404/1-2047, Reel 12, IAT. 629

Rankin to the Secretary of State, May 20, 1948. 867.404/5-2048. Reel 12, IAT. 630

Cynthia Lowry, “American Mentioned As Eastern Patriarch,” The Washington Post (May 16, 1948): B2. 631

Rankin to the Secretary of State, May 20, 1948. 867.404/5-2048. Reel 12, IAT 632

Wilson to the Secretary of State, June 14, 1948. 867.404/6-1448, Reel 12, IAT.

208

“procrastinating” in granting Turkish citizenship to Athenagoras and to Greek

archbishops and again sought U.S. help.633

Senior Turkish officials welcomed the

possible election of Athenagoras, but were divided about the plot to fix the election: the

prime and interior ministers reportedly supported bestowal of Turkish citizenship to the

Greek metropolitans who could vote in the election, but the secretary-general of Turkey’s

Foreign Ministry feared that this step might prove a dangerous precedent by allowing a

Slav to occupy the seat in the future or by allowing the Soviet Union to raise questions

about the legitimacy of elections won through “trickery.” Moreover, Turkey, which had

experienced testy relations with the Patriarchate in the past, feared that the perception of

Turkish domination of the patriarchate could politicize the patriarchate in the future. 634

Turkish opposition to rigging the elections only strengthened in the coming months.

Although Turkey’s government sought to stay clear of manipulating the elections, a

senior Turkish official relented to Greek pressure and relayed Turkey’s position that it

had no objections to Athenagoras’ election, which some clerics viewed as indirectly

bringing Turkish pressure to the Patriarchate. 635

Similarly, although it refused to intervene directly, the U.S. government only

partially acquiesced to Greek lobbying on Athenagoras’ behalf. Under Greek pressure,

the U.S. ambassador mentioned the issue of replacing Maximos to Turkish officials, an

expression of American interest in the matter. Raising the issue, however, was “all any

representative of US Government in Turkey should appropriately do in this matter.” The

633

Marshal to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, May 29 and June 4, 1948. 867.404/5-2948, Reel 12, IAT. 634

Wilson to the Secretary of State, June 8, 1948. 867.404/6-848; Wilson to the Secretary of State, June 14,

1948. 867.404/6-1448, Reel 12, IAT. 635

Ibid., 72-3; Wilson to the Secretary of State, August 6, 1948. 867.404/8-648. Reel 12, IAT.

209

question whether “byzantine procedures should be utilized” in the election was a matter

that “concerns Greeks and Turks alone and US Government should keep out of it.”636

In

response to another Greek request, the State Department also instructed the U.S.

ambassador to inform Turkish officials that it would not object to Athenagoras’

renunciation of American citizenship. Marshall noted the United States did not “intervene

in ecclesiastical affairs.” It was “an inescapable fact, however, that successful attempt by

Soviets to infiltrate or dominate [the] Patriarchate would be to disadvantage Turkey as

well as [be] prejudicial to legitimate US interests.” Because of possible Turkish

“misapprehension” that the United States might object to Athenagoras’ renunciation of

his U.S. citizenship, Marshall told the American ambassador to explain to Turkish

officials in abstract terms that the U.S. government believes that a “national of any

country should have [the] right of voluntary expatriation” and that U.S. “law provides for

voluntary renunciation of US citizenship without prejudice or penalties.”637

Similar

statements were conveyed by State Department officials to the Greek Embassy in

Washington.638

Despite its official policy of non-involvement, U.S. diplomats carefully monitored

developments at the Patriarchate, which U.S. Ambassador Wilson condescendingly

labeled “Byzantine intrigues.”639

Even the seemingly most trivial details soon became

serious issues in diplomatic dealings over the patriarchate. Diplomats described rumors,

efforts to depose the patriarch, innuendo, and meetings between Turkish government

636

Wilson to the Secretary of State, June 14, 1948. 867.404/6-1448, Reel 12, IAT. 637

Marshall to Wilson, June 28, 1948. 867.404/6-2848, Reel 12, IAT. 638

Memorandum of Conversation: Dendramis, Satterthwaite, and Baxter, July 3, 1948. 867.404/7-348.

Reel 12, IAT. 639

Wilson to the Secretary of State, July 23, 1948. 867.404/7-2348, Reel 12, IAT.

210

officials over the future of the patriarchate.640

American officials, however, remained

silent on their preference for patriarch. For instance, they only dryly reported that

although Turkey’s position on allowing outsiders to participate in the patriarchal election

apparently had firmed and uncertainty about its outcome remained, several additional

clerics appeared to be mobilizing behind Athenagoras’ candidacy. 641

Maximos’ grip on power was increasingly tenuous. In June 1948, he acquiesced

to pressure from the Moscow patriarchate to send representatives to the Moscow

conference.642

The patriarch, meanwhile, found himself increasingly on the defensive in

the Turkish press over his contact with churchmen in Moscow and was forced to explain

that a religious man such as himself could never be a “radical leftist.”643

Nonetheless,

U.S. and Turkish officials appear never to have directly intervened in the ouster of

Maximos, who finally resigned in October, or the election of Athenagoras, who was

finally elected patriarch on November 1, 1948 with 11 votes and 6 blank ballots. 644

“As Little Publicity as Possible:” The Election of an American Patriarch

Even after Athenagoras’ victory, American officials continued to fret over details

about his accession to the patriarchal throne. The status of Athenagoras’ citizenship was

one issue of great consternation. Turkish law required the patriarch to be a Turkish

citizen. However, regulations also stipulated that Athenagoras could only secure the

640

Wilson the Secretary of State, June 16, 1948 867.404/6-1648; Wilson to the Secretary of State,

November 24, 1947. 867.404/11-2447, Reel 12, IAT. 641

Wilson the Secretary of State, June 16, 1948 867.404/6-1648, Reel 12, IAT. 642

Wilson to the Secretary of State, June 28, 1948. 867.404/7-2848. Reel 12, IAT. 643

“Maksimos, Moskova ile muhabereyi tevil yolu ile itiraf ediyor,” Tasvir (June 26, 1948): 1, 3. 644

“Patrik Maksimos dün nihayet istifa etti,” Tasvir (October 19, 1948): 1; Wadsworth to the Secretary of

State, November 1, 1949. 867.404/11-148, Reel 12, IAT.

211

Turkish citizenship once he had given up his American citizenship. A sticking point,

therefore, arose when State Department officials ruled it was impossible for U.S. citizens

to renounce their citizenship while in the United States, thereby requiring Athenagoras to

appear before a consular official abroad before his arrival in Istanbul. Greek officials, in

particular, appeared eager for Athenagoras to receive a Turkish passport promptly to

ensure that he could promptly assume his patriarchal duties. They also insinuated that

Turkey might backdate the patriarch’s passport to show he was a citizen before his

election on November 1, 1948. 645

In a lengthy series of dispatches, Turkish and

American officials fretted over legalistic details, which were presumably resolved by

arranging for the patriarch to stop at a foreign destination—perhaps Montreal, where he

visited in December 1948 or more likely Paris, which was part of the patriarch’s

scheduled journey to Turkey in January 1949—where he would “renounce his American

citizenship and receive a Turkish passport.”646

Whereas Greek officials were eager to raise the profile of the new patriarch, U.S.

officials and Turkish officials remained cautious about drawing attention to him. Turkish

officials were concerned that the appearance of Turkish interest in the election could

violate Turkey’s secular laws. A news report that President Truman had offered the new

patriarch an American warship for his journey to Istanbul also alarmed Turks and

645

Satterthwaite to Lovett, November 13, 1948, Reel 12, IAT; Baxter to Statterthwaite November 18, 1948,

Reel 12, IAT; Elçin Macar indicates that Turkish authorities provided documents to show his Turkish

citizenship prior to his election. Elçin Macar, Cumhuriyet Döneminde İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi, 189. 646

Satterthwaite to Lovett, December 13, 1948. 867.404/12-1348, Reel 12, IAT; Lovett to the Embassy in

Ankara, January 13, 1949. IAT; “Patrik Athenagoros [sic] Kanadaya [sic] gidiyor,” Tasvir (December 10,

1948); One Turkish newspaper printed an AP wire report mentioning a meeting between Athenagoras and

the American ambassador to France during a stopover in Paris. “Patrik Atenagoras bugün geliyor,” Tasvir

(January 26, 1949): 1. According to Elçin Macar, Athenagoras also met with Turkey’s ambassador to Paris,

where he used a laissez-passer (not a U.S. passport) to travel. Elçin Macar, Cumhuriyet Döneminde

İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi, 190.

212

American officials, who denied the report. State Department officials also advised against

proposals for the new patriarch to use the U.S. official presidential plane—the Sacred

Cow—for the journey, since the Soviet Union would use the fanfare to accuse the United

States “of actively intervening in an important politico-religious question in the Near

East.” For several years, “Moscow has been attempting to utilize the Oecumenical

Patriarchate for purposes of political penetration and we have tacitly supported both the

Phanar and the Turkish Government in their efforts to remain aloof from outside

pressure.”647

Prior to his departure, Greek officials attempted to arrange a meeting with

Truman and requested a presidential letter in order to secure an unprecedented meeting

between the new patriarch and Turkey’s president. 648

Although they did not rule out a

meeting, State Department officials warned against “special favors from the White

House” and concluded that “the entire affair [should be] handled as discreetly and with as

little publicity as possible.”649

Messages from Greek officials were probably misleading:

American officials expressed surprise, for instance, when the Greek Ambassador

informed them that Turkish leaders would welcome Athenagoras’ arrival aboard the

Sacred Cow as a “demonstration of United States interest” in the election.650

State Department officials were unable to cast the cautious image that they had

hoped. Amid lobbying by Greek Americans and despite State Department objections, the

White House agreed to dispatch an Air Force plane (albeit not the Sacred Cow) to take

647

Satterthwaite to Lovett, December 13, 1948, 867.404/12-1348. Reel 12, IAT. 648

Wadsworth to the Secretary of State, November 16, 1948. 867.404/11-1648.; Lovett to the Embassy in

Ankara, November 16, 1948. 867.404/11-1648.; LeBreton to Baxter, December 13, 1948. 867.404/12-

1348. Reel 12, IAT. 649

Satterthwaite to Lovett, December 13, 1948. 867.404/12-1348. Reel 12, IAT. 650

Memorandum of Conversation: the Greek Ambassador and Baxter, December 23, 1948. 867.404/12-

2348, Reel 12, IAT.

213

the new patriarch to Istanbul. Nonetheless, the trip was “to be treated as a routine special

flight with as little publicity as possible” and carrying “no political implications.”651

The

Voice of America and U.S. Government officials were ordered to “ignore the Sacred

Cow angle” and emphasize the dispatch of the Air Force plane as a “courtesy” to “a

distinguished international figure in the ecclesiastical world.”652

After much lobbying by

the government of Greece and Greek Americans, Truman also agreed to send a letter of

commendation on behalf of the patriarch. Truman’s carefully-worded letter, which had

been cleared with Turkey’s government prior to its dispatch, stated little more than

“Athenagoras exerted a wholly beneficial influence by his presence in my country [the

United States] throughout an unsettled and difficult period in world affairs.”653

Innocuous, the letter hardly bore any of intrigue that the Turkish press implied. State

Department officials were concerned, however, that the letter violated diplomatic

protocol and might give an American hue to Athenagoras’ mission, especially if the

patriarch personally delivered it. Acting according to State Department instructions, the

U.S. ambassador to Turkey, rather than the patriarch, delivered the letter to President

İnönü in early 1949. 654

Yet, news reports did not convey the nuance or low profile that the State

Department hoped and the Greek, not American or Turkish, message carried the day.

651

Baxter to Satterthwaite, January 6, 1949. 867.404/1-649. Reel 12, IAT; Lovett to the Embassy in

Ankara, January 10, 1949, Reel 12, IAT; The issue is noteworthy because several scholars use it to back up

the claim that Athenagoras was installed by the U.S. government. For instance, Şeker writes that

Athenagoras’ “arrival in Istanbul by way of President Harry S. Truman’s private airplane on Janaury 26,

1949 was obvious evidence of the support given to him as patriarch by the United States.” Şeker, “The

Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Midst of Politics”: 269. 652

Baxter to McDermott, January 10, 1949. 867.404/1-1049. Reel 12, IAT. 653

Satterthwaite to Wadsworth, January 12, 1949. 867.404/1-1249, Reel 12, IAT. 654

Lovett to Truman, January 11, 1949; Wadsworth to the Secretary of State, February 14, 1949, Reel 12,

IAT.

214

Both the Washington Post and New York Times reported Athenagoras’ arrival aboard the

Sacred Cow, reports that alarmed U.S. officials. 655

The American magazine Time

described his election in terms of the struggle against communism : “The church needed a

leader whose 18 years' breathing of U.S. democratic air might fortify him against the

efforts of Moscow's Patriarch Alexei to bring all the Eastern churches ‘home.’” 656

Turkish newspapers carried similar reports and noted that the patriarch personally bore a

letter from Truman to his Turkish counterpart. The Turkish press portrayed the new

patriarch as an adamant foe to communism, a Turkish patriot and friend of the United

States. Writing in Ulus, Yavuz Abadan called Athenagoras’ election “an answer that

would silence the intrigues” by the Soviet Union to control the world’s Orthodox

churches.657

Despite U.S. efforts to keep a low profile, pomp surrounding Athenagoras’ arrival

reinforced the association between the new patriarch and the U.S. Government. Not only

did his arrival coincide with the arrival of an American naval fleet in Istanbul,

Athenagoras told Turkish crowds that greeted him that he brought “brotherly greetings

from the President of the United States and the American people to the President of

Turkey and the Turkish people.” 658

At his enthronement, he urged others to follow

President Truman’s leadership. He even interrupted the ceremony to introduce the White

House liaison officer and the airplane crew that brought him to Turkey and lauded the

655

“Prelate will fly to Enthronement: ‘Sacred Cow’ will bear Party of Greek Patriarch-Elect to Istanbul

Ceremony,” The New York Times (January 9, 1949): 22. 656

“The Nylon Patriarch,” Time, November 15, 1948. 657

“Yeni Patriği Karşılarken,” Ulus, January 28, 1949. 658

“Dost Amerikan Filosu bugün İstanbul’da,” Tasvir (January 27, 1949):1; “Rum Ortodoks Patriği dün

İstanbul’a geldi,” Tasvir (January 27, 1949): 1; Wadsworth to the Secretary of State, February 14, 1949,

Reel 12, IAT.

215

“great United States of America.”659

Truman’s controversial confidant, the Greek

American John Maragon, accompanied Athenagoras “in an unofficial capacity” aboard

the plane carrying the new patriarch to Istanbul. Maragon, who was also a close friend of

Athenagoras and probably helped to bring together patriarch and president, reported that

the pilot dipped his wings three times over the palace upon departure to a cheering

Turkish crowd as the patriarch waved a white flag on the roof. State Department officials

welcomed the ostentatiousness with caution: “It appears that the project about which we

had so many fears went off with great éclat and may actually have made a contribution to

American prestige with the Turks. It certainly was not accomplished, however, ‘with the

minimum publicity.’”660

U.S. officials continued to fret over news reports that the U.S.

Government had initiated Athenagoras’ installation as patriarch.661

Athenagoras and Turkey: A “New Conception of Minorities”

Athenagoras, who would reign as patriarch until 1972, embodied a long and

complex legacy that coincided with the enduring Cyprus question and broader tensions in

Greek-Turkish relations beginning in the 1950s. In ecclesiastical terms, his greatest

legacy was probably the ecumenism fostered by his Jerusalem meeting with Pope Paul VI

in 1964, an important contribution to improved relations between the Orthodox and

Catholic churches. Athenagoras clearly saw his ecumenical outreach as part of the

659

Wadsworth to the Department of State, February 14, 1949. 867.404/2-1449. Reel 12, IAT. 660

Baxter to Satterthwaite, February 21, 1949. 867.404/2-2149. Reel 12, IAT; Drew Pearson, “Washington

Merry-Go-Round,” The Washington Post ( March 18, 1947): 4. 661

Baldwin to the Department of State, May 8, 1950, 882.413/5-850, DSR.

216

struggle against communism.662

The remainder of this chapter, however, focuses on two less-examined

dimensions of his legacy that directly concerned Turkey and the United States: The first

is his role in presenting a “new conception of minorities” to counter international

criticism of Turkey’s treatment of minorities. The second concerns his role as an

international agent of anticommunism and pro-American sentiment in the Middle East, a

mission that U.S. policymakers sometimes embraced and sometimes found a challenge to

American policy in the region.

As discussed in the previous chapter, Prime Minister Recep Peker’s 1947 speech

appealing for nationalism to fight communism represented a synthesis of human rights

discourse, nationalism, questions of minorities, and anticommunism. The speech gained

significant international attention and drew on international human rights discourse

rooted in the United Nations. Just weeks after Truman’s declaration of aid to Turkey, the

speech simultaneously promoted an inclusive definition of nationalism that would

embrace all religious and ethnic groups in the country without ever acknowledging

Turkish maltreatment of minorities and while chastising minorities for failing to

integrate.

Any lukewarm feelings that Turkey’s government may have harbored about

fixing a patriarchal election subsided as its favorite candidate assumed the throne.

Athenagoras was eager to turn the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek minority into

“promoters of Greco-Turkish coexistence” and insisted that ethnic Greeks integrate into

662

Merrill to the Department of State, May 7, 1952. 882.413/3-752, DSR.

217

Turkish society.663

Thus, Athenagoras came to symbolize the idea of a “loyal” minority

member—painted in the press in this period as both a Turkish nationalist and a Cold

Warrior. Soon after his arrival, Turkey’s president greeted the new patriarch, the first

ever meeting between patriarch and president. The influential journalist Ahmet Emin

Yalman praised Athenagoras for his Turkish patriotism and for his emphasis on “peace

… love and tolerance … We are not accustomed to hearing such a voice echoing from

Phanar,” a reference to Fener, the Istanbul district on the southern shore of the Golden

Horn that is home to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He called him “an old compatriot with

a broad mind a kind heart and who, for the last twenty-eight years, has learned in the

United States the concept of nationality and the idea of religious tolerance in a new

sense.” Yalman also praised him for consistently emphasizing that “he was born as a

Turk and that he was a Turk” and called him “a living bridge of friendship between the

United States, Greece and Turkey.”664

Moreover, popular accounts emphasized not a new Turkish understanding of

minorities or nationalism, but suggested that minorities bore the brunt of the blame for

minorities’ troubles in the country. Similar to Yalman, Şevket Rado of Akşam offered

glowing praise of the new patriarch’s “reconciliatory outlook” which he said presented a

“new conception of minorities” and helped to shield Turkey from international criticism

over minorities: The new patriarch was constantly “expounding the slogan, ‘First a Turk,

and then a Greek.’ He is thus endeavoring to do away with a misconception of minorities

663

Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations,247. 664

Ahmed Emin Yalman, Vatan, March 18, 1949; MacDonald to the Secretary of State, March 28, 1949.

867.404/3-2849, Reel 12, IAT; See also Hamdullah Suphi Tanrıöver, “Tarih huzurunda 1inci

Athenagoras,” Vanan (January 28, 1949): 5.

218

which has been prevailing for centuries and placing class [sic] barriers between different

groups, thus giving rise to unpleasant feelings and occasional resentment …What a need

the world has for such elements of peace!”665

The mainstream press generally praised the

new patriarch and defended his Turkish patriotism. A rumor published by the religious-

nationalist Büyük Doğu that Athenagoras had fought against Turkish Nationalist forces

during Turkey’s War of Independence proved incorrect and any fallout was short-

lived.666

Athenagoras’ election also coincided with efforts by Turkey’s government to

improve its international human rights image, especially its treatment of Greeks. Only

two weeks after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Turkey’s

government also received an official report outlining the situation of Greeks in the

country. Commissioned at a time of closer relations between Turkey and Greece

encouraged by the Truman Doctrine and talk of a revived Balkan Pact, the Turkish

Interior Ministry report in December 1948 offered an unusually frank discussion of

grievances held by Istanbul’s Greek minority. 667

The report outlined Greek desires that

church property in Istanbul be returned to them, that ethnic Greeks be allowed to become

civil servants, that their attorneys be allowed to join the Turkish bar association, that the

Greek community be given greater control over education, and that Greeks be afforded

equality with Turks in real estate transactions. The report probably had the primary aim

of advancing strategic relations between Greece and Turkey, since the Turkish Foreign

665

Şevket Rado, Akşam, March 20, 1949. 867.404/3-2049; MacDonald to the Secretary of State, March 28,

1949. 867.404/3-2849, IAT. 666

MacDonald to the Secretary of State, March 28, 1949. 867.404/3-2849, Reel 12, IAT. 667

W.H. Lawrence, “Balkan Pact Asked on Border Sealing.” The New York Times (April 29, 1947): 11.

219

Ministry was also involved. 668

The report also followed rapprochement talks between

Turkey and Greece that focused heavily on questions involving the Greek minority and

the Ecumenical Patriarchate, among the most significant areas of contention between the

two neighbors in the immediate postwar period.669

Nonetheless, a top official from the

governing Republican People’s Party appeared less concerned about the fundamental

amelioration of the situation of Greeks, than with wishing “to avoid propaganda” that

might benefit the opposition Democrat Party. Citing Recep Peker’s speech, the official

wrote the government should take steps to improve the appearance of Greeks’ situation—

“even if just symbolic.”670

Despite his broad popularity among Turks, Athenagoras continued to face

important challenges. His church was imperiled by its inability to train future religious

leaders at its seminary on Heybeliada, an island in the Marmara sea, where generations of

churchmen had studied. The Turkish governor of Istanbul refused to approve

Athenagoras’ proposals for the Patriarchate to open a publishing house or for his priests

to wear western style Roman collars on the streets of Istanbul. Members of his own

community were suspicious of pro-Turkish statements, including his oft-repeated

exhortation for the Greek community of Istanbul to remember that it was foremost

Turkish. 671

Athenagoras had once even reportedly expressed approval for the Varlık

Vergisi—the crippling tax that targeted minorities during World War II. 672

Athenagoras

also had to be careful not to upset Orthodox faithful by too closely aligning himself with

668

Ministry of Justice to the Prime Minister, December 27, 1948. 30 10 0 0 / 09.733.2, DAGM. 669

Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 237, 241-2. 670

Ministry of Justice to the Prime Minister, December 27, 1948. 30 10 0 0 / 09.733.2, DAGM. 671

Baldwin to the Secretary of State, January 14, 1950, 882.413/1-1450, DSR. 672

Merrill to the Secretary of State, December 12, 1951. 882.413/12-1251, DSR.

220

the anticommunist positions of the Catholic Church, not to anger Slavs by assuming too

harsh of an anticommunist tone, or not to inflame Turkish nationalists by becoming too

assertive. 673

Several members of his own synod, the governing body of his church,

continued to challenge him, an issue that drew the attention of both the Turkish and

Greek governments.674

Questions also remained about international recognition: The

patriarch of Alexandria, for instance, initially refused to recognize his spiritual

authority.675

The decision by the Moscow patriarch to recognize him in time for Easter,

therefore, represented a welcome surprise.676

Athenagoras perhaps also experienced a

bumpy start to the new Democrat Party government that took power in 1950, since he

reportedly voted for the incumbent Republican People’s Party and then had to try to make

up with the new government.677

Nonetheless, Athenagoras’ troubles paled in comparison to the simultaneous

travails of Eftim Erenerol, a Turkish nationalist and the self-proclaimed patriarch of a

tiny breakaway “Turkish Orthodox Church” once backed by the Turkish government as

an alternative to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Long at odds with the Ecumenical

Patriarchate, Erenerol found himself increasingly marginalized and financially strapped.

He was even forced to turn over an Istanbul church that had been under his control.678

By

the late 1940s, Erenerol appeared to find his support among Turkish nationalists

673

Baldwin to the Secretary of State, January 14, 1950, 882.413/1-1450, DSR. 674

Fener Rum Ortodoks Patrikhanesindeki anlaşmazlık, July 1, 1954. 30 1 0 0 /133.869.4, DAGM. 675

MacDonald to the Secretary of State, April 22, 1949; Baldwin to the Secretary of State, December 5,

1949, Reel 12, IAT. 676

MacDonald to the Secretary of State, April 27, 1949. 867.404/4-2749. Reel 12, IAT. 677

Lewis to the Secretary of State, July 27, 1950, 882.413/7-2750, DSR. 678

Türk Ortodokslar dinsel başkanı Papa Eftim Erenerol imzasile İstanbul-Beyoğlu postahanesinden

çekilmiş 29/5/1947 tarihli tel örnegidir [sic], May 30, 1947, 30.1.0. 0/65.406.11, DAGM; İstanbul Müstakil

Türk Ortodoks Kilisesi Başpiskoposluğu'ndan Papa Eftim'in tahsisat talebi, March 12, 1952,

30.1.0.0/133.869.2, DAGM.

221

challenged as evidenced by Athenagoras’ participation in the activities of an influential

nationalist organization, with which the Turkish Orthodox patriarch had been

associated.679

By the end of 1951, the Ecumenical Patriarch reported “no outstanding

problems between the Patriarchate and the State with the possible exception of the one

church in Galata which had been ‘usurped’ by Papa Eftim,” a dispute that Athenagoras

expected would ultimately be resolved. 680

Erenerol pressed forward with a public

campaign against Athenagoras, demanding, for instance, that he open a gate at the

Ecumenical Patriarchate that had been closed since one of his predecessors was hanged

there for his part in the 1821 Greek Revolt and, which many Turks associated with Greek

insubordination. But the Turkish Orthodox Patriarch appeared to have little immediate

success.681

In contrast to Erenerol, Athenagoras found himself in a new position of favor

within Turkey and sought to raise the international profile of his church and renovate his

dilapidated palace. He remained conscious that many Turks were still suspicious of the

patriarchate: Upon ascending to the patriarchal throne, Turkish newspapers asked if

Athenagoras would reopen the controversial gate.682

Athenagoras’ initiative to revitalize

the building, therefore, involved a careful balancing act: While the patriarch sought to

“allay the suspicions of the Turks to any revival of political influence in Turkey of the

Orthodox Church,” he also emphasized the importance of strengthening Orthodox

679

MacDonald to the Secretary of State, June 17, 1949. 867.404/6-1749, Reel 12, IAT. 680

Merrill to the Secretary of State, December 12, 1951. 882.413/12-1251, DSR. 681

Carp to the Department of State, October 9, 1952, 882.413/10-952, DSR. 682

Wadsworth to the Secretary of State, February 14, 1949. 867.404/2-1449. Reel 12, IAT.

222

Churches in the fight against communism.683

Greek Americans sought to raise some $10

million for renovated and enlarged facilities and lobbied State Department officials for

support. 684

In addition to promoting the renovation of church properties, Athenagoras

favored moving the Patriarchate away from Fener to a new facility in a different part of

Istanbul, a proposal that U.S. officials saw as “perhaps a little overly optimistic.”685

As Athenagoras appealed to anticommunism, human rights discourse, and the

improvement of Greek-Turkish relations, the Government of Turkey also afforded

Athenagoras a degree of latitude that it did not afford previous or subsequent patriarchs.

Turkish Embassy officials reported that they were unaware of fundraising efforts in the

United States and Athenagoras acknowledged that he had not consulted with Turkish

authorities about plans to raise money there. However, the Turkish Foreign Ministry

allowed the Turkish ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations to

serve as the honorary chairs of a New York gala that aimed to raise $5 million for the

revitalization project because turning down this invitation would do more harm to Greek-

Turkish relations. 686

Prime Minister Adnan Menderes also appeared surprisingly open to

the possibility of extending a scaled-down, Vatican-like status to the Ecumenical

Patriarchate in the first half of the 1950s. He told conservative Greek politician

Evangelos Averoff-Tositsas, who served in several senior foreign ministry posts in

the1950s, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a symbol of Greek nationalism was history:

683

Merrill to the Secretary of State, December 12, 1951. 882.413/12-1251, DSR. 684

Memorandum of Conversation: Skouras, McGhee and Dixon, August 27, 1951. 882.413/8-2751, DSR. 685

Merrill to the Secretary of State, December 12, 1951. 882.413/12-1251, DSR. 686

Köprülü to the Prime Minister, May 25, 1953, 30 10 0 0 / 109.733.7, DAGM.

223

“I want to show the whole world the degree to which Turkey, which is a great Muslim

country, is civilized and tolerant.”687

Athenagoras also recognized that his references to human rights discourse and

anticommunism would appeal to Turkey. As he indicated to American officials: “Turkish

assistance in the rehabilitation of the Patriarchate ….with the consequent elevation of its

prestige would be proof to the West that modern Turks had renounced religious

intolerance and minority persecution as well as showing that they were cognizant of the

part the Orthodox Church can play in the struggle against communism.” 688

Other

symbolic gestures by the patriarch, such as visits to Turkish soldiers wounded in the

Korean War, demonstrated Athenagoras’ awareness of the importance of publicity and

reinforced his image as a Turkish nationalist and Cold Warrior.689

Athenagoras was also integral to the Turkish government’s new plans to project a

positive image of the country abroad and simultaneously attract foreign currency by

bringing foreign tourists to the country, especially sometimes testy diaspora Greeks and

Armenians who had once lived in Anatolia. Legislation passed in the first half of 1950

allowed former citizens of Turkey to travel to Turkey without fearing reprisal over

overdue taxes or military service. Turkish government officials were especially “eager”

for the provisions of the law to “be publicized in the United States” among “former

residents of Turkey whose return as tourists would represent a hitherto untapped source

of hard currency foreign exchange.” 690

The fact that Turkey’s tourism campaign, which

687

Elçin Macar, Cumhuriyet Döneminde İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi, 194. 688

Merrill to the Secretary of State, December 12, 1951. 882.413/12-1251, DSR. 689

“Athenagoras yaralıları ziyaret etti,”Cumhuriyet (January 13, 1951): 1. 690

Perkins to the Department of State, April 7, 1950. 882.181/4-750, DSR.

224

overlapped with similar efforts by Greece, might also help to neutralize some of the

staunchest critics of Turkey in the United States probably also added to its importance. In

May 1950, Turkey’s newly launched Tourist Association sent its luxury passenger

steamship Tarsus to the United States on an inaugural voyage carrying passengers and a

tourism display encouraging tourists, especially some 400,000 to 500,000 former Turkish

citizens, to visit. The Turkish Tourist Association’s campaign prominently featured a

message from Athenagoras to the American Greek community that emphasized Turkey’s

historic monuments, its “generous” government, and Turkey’s “high place within the

family of democratic nations throughout the world.” 691

The initial tourism campaign

probably brought few visitors, but the patriarch continued to receive praise for his

“broader vision” and role in the publicity campaign.692

Thus, Athenagoras represented, at least initially, the model, loyal member of an

ethnic and religious minority who was touted to the world: a Turkish nationalist, Cold

Warrior, and exemplar of Turkey’s embrace of human rights. When Turkey’s

government approved legislation granting minorities greater control over their own

religious foundations and opened the way for the appointment of a new Armenian

Patriarch and a new Grand Rabbi to fill long vacant seats, Turks and Americans quickly

drew comparisons to Athenagoras. Because of a perceived lack of qualified candidates

within Turkey, Turkish government and Jewish community officials considered two

possible candidates abroad (neither of whom was ultimately selected). U.S. officials

691

Lewis to the Department of States, May 23, 1950. 882.181/5-2350, DSR. 692

Reha Oğuz Türkkan, “Rum göçmenler ve turizm davamız,” Cumhuriyet (May 11, 1951): 4.

225

immediately noted “the precedent established in the case of the Greek Patriarch.”693

Turkey’s efforts seemed to pay off. By 1954, the American Jewish Committee, which had

once been a vocal critical of Turkey’s treatment of minorities, was now praising Turkey

and even awarded Turkey’s president an award for its treatment of Jews in Turkey.694

The example of Athenagoras and Cold War political intrigues also shaped

discussions surrounding the future of the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul. Turkish

officials continued to raise questions about the loyalty of the country’s Armenians and

their ties to Soviet Armenia, thereby complicating efforts to fill the seat of the Armenian

Patriarch of Constantinople, which had been vacant since the Second World War. The

appointment was also complicated by the need to fill the seat with a cleric at the level of a

bishop, who was unavailable inside Turkey.695

When discussions moved to the possibility

of a Turkish citizen who was serving as a bishop in neighboring Bulgaria, one Turkish

newspaperman expressed his outrage and called for a local candidate to be elected. But

he also wrote that if “the Armenian clergy are envying the Orthodox Church, and if they

can find a man like Athenagoras, they are free to bring him to the Patriarchate from

anywhere except Bulgaria.”696

693

MacDonald to the Secretary of State, May 6, 1949. 867.404/5-649, Reel 12, IAT; Although a Turkish

citizen was ultimately selected, a U.S. diplomat emphasized that the Turkish government had been open to

appointing a non-Turkish citizen, such as the Grand Rabbi of Alexandria, Moise Ventura, who was then in

the United States, by conferring Turkish citizenship according to the “procedure … followed in the case of

the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras.” Carp to the Department of State, February 4, 1953. 882.

413/2-453, DSR. 694

American Jewish Committee to Division of Near Eastern Affairs, April 15,1947 and April 18, 1947,

867.4016, reel 12, Internal Affairs of Turkey; Peter Kihss, “Bayar Affirms Minority Rights: Turkish Chief

Cites Freedom in His Land as He Receives Tribute from Jewish Body,” The New York Times (February 1,

1954): 3. 695

Perkins to the Department of State, April 4, 1950. 882.411/4-450, DSR. 696

MacDonald to the Secretary of State, April 13, 1949. 867.404/4-1349, Reel 12, IAT.

226

Armenians continued to search abroad for a candidate similar to Athenagoras. A

prominent Armenian community leader told U.S. officials in Turkey that the community

preferred “as in the case of Athenagoras, to have an Armenian bishop from the diocese of

New York or Boston,” but was open to a younger bishop from Beirut. However, Suren

Şamiyan, owner of the leading Istanbul Armenian newspaper Marmara, also said the

Turkish Government had reservations about the appointment of an Armenian from the

United States, in all likelihood because of the Armenian-American campaigns against

Turkey. 697

In the end, the long vacant post of Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople was

filled by an expatriate cleric in Buenos Aires, who had served previously in California.698

Similar to his Greek Orthodox counterpart, the new Armenian patriarch came to power

amid Cold War political intrigues and immediately upon arrival emphasized his loyalty to

his fatherland and devotion to his Turkish citizenship.699

“Almost embarrassing:” The “Nylon Patriarch” and the United States

Despite any misgivings that U.S. officials held about Athenagoras’ ascension to

the patriarchal throne, his anticommunist and pro-American sentiment quickly appealed

to American officials. They consulted with him regularly, collaborated on anticommunist

initiatives, considered his requests for U.S. aid, and offered limited political support.

Nonetheless, U.S. officials did not always approve of Athenagoras’ showiness and

ambitious plans to expand the reach of his patriarchate. Not only did American officials

697

Perkins to the Department of State, April 4, 1950. 882.411/4-450, DSR. 698

Murat Bebiroğlu, "Cumhuriyet Döneminde Patrikler ve Önemli Olaylar."

http://www.hyetert.com/yazi3.asp?Id=442&DilId=1 Last accessed December 12, 2013. 699

“Ermeni Patriği dün geldi,” Cumhuriyet (March 15, 1951):1.

227

wish to avoid the image that the U.S. government helped to install an American on the

patriarchal throne, they expressed concern that Athenagoras’ pro-Americanism

sometimes went too far by riling locals and complicating American engagement in the

region. The reputation that survived the patriarch—as a puppet of the American

government—probably had more to do with Athenagoras’ occasionally boisterous pro-

Americanism than with American diplomats pulling his strings.

Upon arrival in Istanbul, the new patriarch immediately gained a reputation for

his staunch pro-Americanism, to the occasional consternation of local Greeks and

American diplomats on the ground. Athenagoras quickly earned the nickname, Nylon

Patriarch—slang for all things American. The U.S. consul-general noted that

Athenagoras’ American leanings, though appreciated by many Turks, sometimes caused

frustration among more conservative members of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey:

“The Patriarch is frank and outspoken in his praise of the United States and makes no

attempt to conceal his great admiration for American institutions and the American way

of life.”700

The patriarch even prominently displayed a photograph of President Truman

in his office.701

U.S. diplomats were keenly interested in Athenagoras and saw in his reign an

opportunity to advance U.S. foreign policy in the Orthodox world, but this does not mean

that the U.S. government in any way spelled out foreign policy for the patriarch. The

U.S. ambassador, for instance, commissioned a report on the patriarch’s political policy

in 1950. Nonetheless, there is no evidence to advance the claim that the report

700

MacDonald to the Secretary of State, March 28, 1949. 867.404/3-2849. Reel 12, IAT. 701

Baldwin to the Secretary of State, December 5, 1949. 867.404/12-549. Reel 12, IAT.

228

represented “guidelines” that the patriarch was expected to follow in promoting U.S.

foreign policy.702

As much as U.S. officials hoped to benefit from the patriarch, the patriarch sought

to benefit from his association with the United States. Athenagoras repeatedly sought out

U.S. officials and attempted to appeal to them by linking his actions to U.S. foreign

policy. In a 1950 meeting with American diplomats, the patriarch emphasized his loyalty

to the United States, despite the fact that he was no longer technically a U.S. citizen: “He

stressed his Americanism, belief in the Good Neighbor policy, in democratic methods,

and in the courage and frankness of America, which he had endeavored to carry out in his

policies as Patriarch.” He also asked whether the U.S. Government thought “he was on

the right track.” Unsurprisingly, the departing American consul general in Istanbul

stressed the ability of the patriarch and his church “to fight communism on moral

grounds.”703

His successor, likewise, praised Athenagoras’ friendship with the United

States and his advocacy for U.S. foreign policy among patriarchs throughout the

region.704

Yet, there is no evidence to suggest that the patriarch was following any policy

guidelines other than his own.

Athenagoras sought with varying degrees of success to involve the U.S.

702

Şeker cites this report, written by Greek official Michael Melas at the request of the U.S. ambassador,

to show that the United States “suggested a general policy for the patriarch to follow toward communism

and in dealing with the Turkish government.” The problem with Şeker’s argument is that the report was

written by a Greek official as the U.S. memorandum accompanying the report makes clear: “The views

presented in this memorandum may therefore be considered to be those which Mr. Melas has been

following to date on instructions from the Greek Government to its ambassador and its consul general in

Turkey and on which Mr. Melas has advised Patriarch Athenagoras and the Phanar.” In other words, Şeker

overly emphasizes the role of the U.S. government and undervalues the role of the Greek government.

Nesim Şeker, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Midst of Politics”:269-271;

Baldwin to the Secretary of State, January 14, 1950, 882.413/1-1450, DSR. 703

Baldwin to the Secretary of State, May 26, 1950. 882.413/5-2650, DSR. 704

Lewis to the Secretary of State, June 20, 1950. 882.413/6-2050.

229

government in internal church politics. He met twice with Assistant Secretary of State

George McGhee on the sidelines of a November 1949 meeting of U.S. ambassadors to

the Middle East in Istanbul. McGhee said the United States was happy that Athenagoras

was patriarch, expressed confidence in his efforts to work against communism, and

pledged to help the patriarch whenever possible. He also said “America was strongly

dependent upon what the Patriarch could do” to help raise standards of living and offer

ideological alternatives to communism.705

At the same time, Athenagoras sought to link

internal church disputes to the U.S. struggle against communism. He raised concerns

about possible pro-communist leanings of the patriarchs of Antioch and, especially,

Alexandria. Athenagoras succeeded in gaining sympathy from McGhee, who noted that

Jefferson Caffery, the new U.S. ambassador to Cairo, had also expressed alarm about

Christopher, the Alexandria patriarch. Athenagoras also brought up a Greek government

initiative to install a new patriarch. McGhee seemed interested and promised to raise the

issue with the U.S. ambassador to Greece. 706

U.S. diplomats and policymakers often found themselves walking a careful line

toward Athenagoras. McGhee dismissed the patriarch’s request for U.S. government

funds to help the financially-strapped Antioch patriarch and wrote that the question of

Christopher in Alexandria could be left to the government of Greece. Nonetheless,

Athenagoras’ appeals seemed to work: Behind the scenes, McGhee later asked other

State Department officials whether U.S. government funding for the Orthodox Church or

the purchase of printing equipment that Athenagoras sought might be possible. He

705

Baldwin to the Secretary of State, December 5, 1949. 867.404/12-549. Reel 12, IAT. 706

Baldwin to the Secretary of State, December 5, 1949. 867.404/12-549, Reel 12, IAT.

230

emphasized that the U.S. government “should, in general, avoid involvement in the

matter of Orthodox appointments and personalities except where it may be necessary to

combat direct, obvious, and serious efforts at penetration of the Church.” However, he

also pointed out that U.S. support for Athenagoras might counteract the spread of Soviet

influence over the Orthodox Church and keep “open an important avenue for our own

penetration of the communist but still basically Orthodox countries of eastern Europe.”707

U.S. officials consistently expressed reservations about becoming involved in

church politics, but also probed whether they could support Athenagoras’ efforts to

topple Christopher. Over the summer of 1950, the U.S. consul-general in Istanbul advised

against becoming involved in church politics, since the patriarch was already such “a

staunch friend of the U.S. and its policies viz-a-viz [sic] Russia and communism and is

exercising all of the influence within his power to hold the other Patriarchates in this

general area to a similar course.” Nonetheless, he remained concerned about the

“presumed efforts of Moscow to gain control over the conscience of Greek Orthodox

church followers in the Near East.”708

Embassy officials, moreover, noted that the

Russian Orthodox Church had already proposed aid to the Antioch patriarchate. 709

Thus, Athenagoras sought to benefit from U.S. sensitivities about the spread of

communism as he pressed forward with his plans to topple Christopher. According to the

Ecumenical Patriarch, the “weakest spot” among Orthodox churches in the region was

707

McGhee to Baldwin, April 26, 1950, FRUS, 1950 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1978), Vol. V: 1251. 708

Lewis to the Secretary of State, June 20, 1950. 882.413/6-2050, DSR; Şeker uses this quote to prove a

“tacit contract made with the United States,” but he fails to recognize that the American diplomat is also

advising against U.S. involvement in a religious matter. Şeker, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of

Constantinople in the Midst of Politics”:272-3. 709

Memminger to the Department of State, August 9, 1950, 882.413/8-950, DSR.

231

the Alexandria patriarchate “and the only solution remaining was to have the Patriarch

thrown out.” The Alexandria patriarch was old, but “vigorous,” “extremely dangerous”

and “definitely influenced by Communist agents,” Athenagoras said. The Ecumenical

Patriarch also “intimated that the Greek and American Governments should intervene

directly with him, Athenagoras, in order to give him the necessary excuse to correct the

situation in Alexandria.”710

Athenagoras’ appeals to the struggle against communism offered him an eager

audience among U.S. diplomats, who continued to fret about the potential susceptibility

of Orthodox leaders to communism. The American Consul General in Alexandria stated

that Christopher was not a communist, but “his inability or unwillingness to recognize the

extent to which present Soviet policy is a force of evil makes him potentially dangerous.”

Moreover, the Alexandria patriarch was “susceptible to flattery from communists near

him,” as well as the Moscow Patriarch.711

Although they ultimately did not lend support to Athenagoras’ efforts to

overthrow the Alexandria patriarch, who remained on the throne, U.S. officials continued

to follow efforts by Athenagoras “to counteract the influence of the Russian Orthodox

Church in the Near East and the spread of Communism in general.” Athenagoras

cunningly used Cold War rhetoric to color internal church politics. For instance, he

ordained an Albanian bishop, Marko Lipa, to counterbalance a rival Albanian cleric

already in the United States, Fan Noli, whom he called “a Communist or at the very least

a fellow-traveling opportunist” engaged in “spreading Communist propaganda and

710

Merrill to the Department of State, September 22, 1950. 882.413/9-2250, DSR. 711

Tyler to the Department of State, November 28, 1950. 882.413/11-2850, DSR.

232

sympathy for the [Enver] Hoxha regime” in the United States. 712

Despite the charges of

communist leanings against Noli, who also briefly served as prime minister of Albania in

the 1920s, it is likely that Athenagoras’ appointment of a bishop had more to do with

older, internal Orthodox Church rivalries than the purported struggle against

communism.713

Athenagoras’ highest profile action in the Middle East during the early 1950s was

his dispatch in 1951 of a senior Orthodox Church delegation to the Patriarchates of

Damascus, Jerusalem and Alexandria. A separate delegation was to visit Greece.714

The

Middle East visit came on the heels of a visit by a Russian Orthodox Church delegation

to the region that U.S. officials saw as “a definite effort to woo” susceptible clerics in the

region.715

It also overlapped with discussions involving the United States and Greece

about enlarging the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which Greek officials saw as a vital “anti-

Communist influence,” as well as lobbying by Athenagoras to expand his seminary and

the influence of the Orthodox Church in the region. 716

Although Turkish media reports

stressed that the “delegation had no political character,” the same reports also ironically

noted the team would also investigate reports of “pro-Communist elements in the

monasteries and the churches in these countries and determine what measures are

712

Lewis to the Department of State, November 7, 1950. 882.413/11-750, DSR; Lewis to the Department

of State, December 7, 1950. 882.413/12-750, DSR. 713

Miranda Vickers, The Albanians: A Modern History (New York: I.B. Tauris, 1995), 61, 111-14. 714

Lewis to the Department of State, May 18, 1951. 882.413/5-1851, DSR. 715

Memminger to the Department of State, August 9, 1950, 882.413/8-950, DSR. 716

Memorandum of Conversation: Skouras, McGhee and Dixon, August 27, 1951. 882.413/8-2751, DSR;

Lewis to the Department of State, August 22, 1951. 882.413/8-2251, DSR; McGhee to the Department of

State, July 19, 1952. 882.413/7-1952, DSR.

233

necessary to combat this dangerous situation.” 717

Although Athenagoras sought to highlight his close relations with the United

States by meeting with American chiefs of mission in the region, the U.S. government

distanced itself from Athenagoras’ Middle East mission. State Department discouraged

the Orthodox delegation from meeting American diplomats during the trip in order to

avoid “giving U.S. coloration to the mission” and because American officials again

regarded it as unwise to “become involved in Orthodox Church politics.”718

Nonetheless,

Athenagoras briefed American diplomats before and after the trip. He also passed along a

lengthy, confidential report on the mission, which State Department officials had

translated at the Ecumenical Patriarch’s request. According to the report, which was

largely theological in tone, clerics on the mission asked the Antioch patriarch to scrap a

proposed trip to Moscow in order to avoid an image of “the Orthodox Church of Antioch

as a fellow traveler of Communism.”719

Despite his assurances that he would not visit

Moscow, the Antioch patriarch, Alexander, continued to flirt with the Moscow

patriarchate, reportedly traveling to the Soviet Union in 1951, angering Athenagoras.720

Thus, Athenagoras succeeded in turning what was otherwise an exchange of

Orthodox Church visitors into a minor episode in the Cold War. The Middle East

mission was “not a complete failure,” Greek and U.S. officials noted, because the

delegation won unexpected support for one of Athenagoras’ proposals: a meeting of

Orthodox Church leaders convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch. The biggest surprise

717

Lewis to the Department of State, May 18, 1951. 882.413/5-1851, DSR. 718

Acheson to U.S. missions in Ankara and Istanbul, April 4, 1951. 882.413/4-451, DSR; Lewis to the

Department of State, April [4], 1951. 882.413/4-1051, DSR. 719

Lewis to the Department of State, August 22, 1951. 882.413/8-2251, DSR. 720

Matthews to the Department of State, September 28, 1951. 882.413/9-2851, DSR.

234

came from Christopher, the Alexandria Patriarch, who believed that an Ecumenical

Conference should take place soon at Mount Sinai with or without Iron Curtain churches.

The U.S. Consul in Istanbul opined that the Alexandria patriarch falsely believed he was

the only Orthodox cleric able to influence Communist churches and was “gullible enough

to believe the Soviet promises.” 721

Although the Jerusalem patriarch and leaders of

several churches behind the Iron Curtain expressed concerns about such a gathering, the

main regional church leaders—including Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Cyprus, and

Greece—as well as the patriarch of Romania and other church leaders, started to line up

in support for the gathering.722

Athenagoras’ new campaign to unseat the Antioch patriarch because of

Alexander’s planned travel to the Soviet Union illustrates the complexity of the

Athenagoras’ relationship with the United States. On the one hand, the State Department

continued to emphasize its distance from Orthodox Church politics. On the other,

policymakers continued to follow Orthodox Church politics with unease. Moreover,

American officials and the Ecumenical Patriarch did not always see eye to eye. In April

1952, U.S. officials expressed concern that Athenagoras’ plans to topple the Antioch

patriarch might backfire with “adverse reactions both for him and us.” When

Athenagoras asked McGhee for advice about unseating Patriarch Alexander, the

ambassador petitioned the State Department for permission to relay intelligence that

might change the Ecumenical Patriarch’s mind about the wisdom of such a move.

721

Roberts to the Department of State, June 16, 1951. 882.413/6-1651, DSR. 722

Tyler to the Secretary of State, May 28, 1951. 882.413/5-2851, DSR; Lewis to the Department of State,

July 18, 1951. 882.413/7-1851, DSR.

235

McGhee claimed he did not wish to sway the Ecumenical Patriarch’s decision and would

“be doing nothing more than giving to an old and trusted friend background info gleaned

from our own source which might be otherwise unavailable to him.”723

Ultimately, Dean

Acheson agreed to allow McGhee to relay the intelligence to Athenagoras, since

unseating the Antioch patriarch “might defeat [the] avowed purpose” of removing him.724

It is impossible to know whether the intelligence convinced the Ecumenical Patriarch or

not, since its contents remain classified even today. Nonetheless, Alexander remained on

his throne after the clerics deciding his fate reversed course, opting for “rapprochement”

rather than his ouster. The patriarch of Antioch canceled a trip to the Soviet Union and

announced his intention to travel to Istanbul. The Turkish Government also apparently

approved of Athenagoras’ reception of the Antioch patriarch and perhaps Athenagoras’

intervention in Alexander’s affairs. 725

Athenagoras continued to work to increase his international profile. He

announced plans for a high-profile pilgrimage to Jerusalem and moved forward with his

plans for an Ecumenical Conference, putting himself in direct opposition to the Moscow

patriarch’s haphazard attempt to convene one previously. Athenagoras ramped up his

printing operations, lobbied for an expanded patriarchate, and also worked to expand the

reach of his island seminary. He issued an encyclical that offered guidelines on

723

McGhee to the Secretary of State, April 23, 1952. 882.413/4-2352, DSR. 724

Acheson to the Ambassador in Ankara, April 29, 1951. 570.3 Ankara Embassy, Top Secret General

Records, 1950-52. Record Group 84, Foreign Service Posts Records (FSPR). [Img_3974] 725

McGhee to the Department of State, July 19, 1952. 882.413/7-1952, DSR.

236

ecumenism and sent and received delegations to and from the Vatican.726

Athenagoras

emphasized his ecumenical outreach was part of efforts to form a “common front of all

Christian Churches against Communism.”727

U.S. officials generally embraced Athenagoras’ stance in the fight against

communism as they continued to express concern about the potential susceptibility of

minorities in the country to communism. U.S. officials reported with apparent glee about

Athenagoras’ attempts to rein in the patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria and

“bring them more solidly into a ‘common front of free Orthodox Churches against

Communism.”728

Nonetheless, U.S. officials sometimes feared that Athenagoras went too far in his

assertiveness and voiced unease with his overt, pro-American sentiment. The American

ambassador expressed concerns that Athenagoras’ grandiose plans for an expanded

patriarchate might spark resentment among Turks and called for a “more modest

program” of rehabilitation instead. 729

During the new American consul-general’s first

visit with him, the Ecumenical Patriarch “went so far as to state that the cornerstone of

the policy which he had set for himself as Patriarch was to advance American ideals.”

The patriarch’s admiration for the United States, Robert MacAtee noted, “was so

unrestrained as to become almost embarrassing.” The diplomat expressed concern that

the patriarch might be labeled as “a sort of professional pro-American” who merely

726

Robert G. Stephanopoulos, Robert G. “Guidelines for Orthodox Christians in Ecumenical Relations.”

New York: The Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America.

http://www.scoba.us/assets/files/guide_for_orthodox.pdf. Last accessed December 12, 2013. 727

Merrill to the Department of State, March 7, 1952. 882.413/3-752. 728

MacAtee to the Department of State, April 10, 1953. 882.413/4-1053, DSR. 729

Memorandum of Conversation: Skouras, McGhee, and Dixon, August 27, 1951. 882.413/8-2751, DSR.

237

repeated American propaganda, weakening the patriarch’s influence in Turkey and

among the Orthodox faithful. MacAtee hoped to encourage “a note of subtlety in the

Patriarch’s expressions of his very understandable pro-American sentiments,” so that he

might not be too closely identified with the U.S. Government.730

Conclusion

Ultimately, the governments of the United States, Turkey and Greece had

conflicting hopes for Athenagoras’ tenure as Ecumenical Patriarch. Although critics

accuse the United States government of meddling in his election, documentary evidence

suggests that Greek government officials, backed by Greek Americans, proved the most

active proponents of his installation. Greek officials envisioned the former Greek

Orthodox Archbishop of New York as a counterweight to growing Soviet influence over

the Orthodox Church in the region. Despite initial misgivings by Turkey and the United

States that efforts to bring him to power might backfire, both countries quickly embraced

him. For Turkey’s government and public, Athenagoras represented a Turkish nationalist

and supporter of Turkey’s struggle in the Cold War, who helped to deflect criticism over

human rights. For the United States, Athenagoras served to contain Soviet influence over

vulnerable minorities, presented a pro-American voice in the Middle East, and offered a

potential inroad to influence Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe.

The question of Athenagoras’ role highlights, foremost, the extent to which the

Ecumenical Patriarchate—long considered a body of international leadership in the

730

MacAtee to the Department of State, April 10, 1953. 882.413/4-1053, DSR.

238

Orthodox world, but limited to a domestic, religious role according to international

treaty—became embroiled in Cold War politics. Athenagoras’ appeals to Turkish

nationalism and human rights discourse initially sat well with Turkey’s government and

its public. His assertiveness appealed to Greece; his pro-Americanism and anti-

communist sentiment charmed Americans.

Athenagoras’ position in the Cold War resonated with American officials, who

continued to express concerns about the possible vulnerability of minorities in Turkey

and the region. A 1951 National Intelligence Estimate, for instance, declared Turkey’s

strength in the fight against communists derived significantly “from the national unity

and homogeneity of its population” and minority Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians were

among the groups most “susceptible to Communist subversion if internal security broke

down.” 731

The following year, U.S. diplomats on the ground described a “wave of anti-

Americanism” among “foreign and minority populations of Istanbul.”732

Diplomats were

likely delighted to hear that the patriarch secretly penned articles “to project the

American ideal” that were published with his new printing press and distributed directly

to local churches, bypassing local bishops whose sympathies may not have been as

keenly pro-American.733

Athenagoras generally embraced this politicization of his patriarchate. There is

little question about Athenagoras’ distaste for communism or his high regard for the

731

National Security Estimate: Turkey’s Place in the East-West Struggle, February 26, 1951, FRUS, 1951,

Vol. V, 1123. 732

Part of this sentiment reportedly represented a reaction to claims that the executed communist politician

Rudolf Slánský was an American agent. Jews were reportedly angered about the death sentence handed

down to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for Atomic espionage. Calder to Wendelin, December 22, 1952. 350

Turkey. Ankara Embassy General Records, 1950-52. RG 84, FSPR. 733

McGhee to the Department of State, July 19, 1952. 882.413/7-1952, DSR.

239

United States. Nonetheless, religious motivations or internal church politics, by all

accounts, represented Athenagoras’ main concerns. Nearly all of the disputes mentioned

in this chapter— tensions between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople,

debates over who had the right to convene ecumenical gatherings and primacy among

patriarchs, as well as smaller spats over Albanians and Finns (whom both patriarchates

also claimed fell under their respective jurisdictions)—represented longstanding

controversies with religious roots in the Orthodox Church. For instance, Athenagoras

criticized the elevation of a Bulgarian prelate to the status of patriarch without his

permission, an ecclesiastical question with roots predating the communist takeover, “as

another step in the campaign to convert the Orthodox churches into an instrument of

Soviet imperialism.”734

Athenagoras’ agency is attested by his ability to bring these older

internal church controversies to the level of international politics and successfully imbue

them with a Cold War character. Athenagoras once even boldly declared that he

represented the “religious component of the Truman Doctrine.”735

Athengoras’ high profile also caused trouble. His eagerness to cast an image of

American backing for his endeavors likely has much to do with the reputation that has

survived of him as an American agent. But American diplomats were keenly aware that

Athenagoras sometimes went too far in his assertiveness. Many ethnic Greeks in Turkey

remained suspicious of reconciliation with the Vatican and members of his own synod

734

“Patriarch Assails Sofia Church Vote,” New York Times (May 24, 1953): 21. 735

Macar took the quote from a 1965 Turkish newspaper report based on an interview with the New York

Herald Tribune. Elçin Macar, Cumhuriyet Döneminde İstanbul Rum Patrikhanesi, 190; Şeker quotes Macar

to back up his assertion that the installation of Athenagoras “was an operation of the United States.” Nesim

Şeker, “The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Midst of Politics”: 269

240

opposed his decisions, including his ecumenical outreach to the Catholic Church.736

The

Government of Greece feared that disagreements among church officials might tarnish

the international image of the patriarchate as well as its reputation in Turkey. Greece’s

involvement in patriarchal affairs only further stoked Turkish officials’ concerns. By

1954, criticism of Athenagoras within Turkish government circles was apparent. One

government report expressed concerns that the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul was

no longer limited to religious affairs as outlined in the Treaty of Lausanne. Instead,

Athenagoras’ patriarchate increasingly resembled “a state within a state." Athenagoras

was becoming increasingly assertive and the report accused him of “being spoiled” like a

child.737

Athenagoras’ insertion in Cold War politics exemplified the extent to which

Turkey’s minorities and other minorities in the region remained part of Cold War

political intrigues. But this exposure also left minorities vulnerable to internal political

dynamics and tensions over foreign policy. The owner of the Armenian newspaper

Marmara underlined minorities’ vulnerability within Turkey: “If the international

situation should worsen, we do not want to be lumped together and branded a minority of

uncertain loyalty, but as trustworthy Turkish citizens.”738

Increasingly militant Turkish

nationalism continued to grow, fed in part by nationalist publications, celebrations in

1953 of the five-hundredth anniversary of Ottoman Turks’ conquest of Constantinople,

736

Fener Rum Ortodoks Patrikhanesindeki anlaşmazlık, July 1, 1954. 30 1 0 0 /133.869.4, DAGM; Carp to

the Department of State, February 24, 1953. 882.413/2-2453, DSR. 737

The author of the report is unknown, but it made it to the Prime Minister’s office. It used the pejorative

term şımarıklık—being spoiled in the manner of a child— to describe Athenagoras; Fener Rum Ortodoks

Patrikhanesindeki anlaşmazlık, July 1, 1954. 30 1 0 0 /133.869.4, DAGM. 738

Perkins to the Department of State, April 4, 1950. 882.411/4-450, DSR.

241

the Cyprus affair, and the plight of Turks abroad, especially those under communism and

fleeing it. Tensions over the future of Istanbul’s Greeks, including Athenagoras, and the

plight of Turks in Cyprus would boil over in a devastating pogrom targeting Greeks in

September 1955 (discussed in the following chapter). Ultimately, Athenagoras would

find it increasingly impossible to hold together the multiplicity of hopes—as Cold

Warrior, embodiment of Greek-Turkish friendship, exemplar of Turkey’s human rights

regime and Turkish nationalist—that Greece, Turkey, and the United States each held for

his reign.

242

Chapter 5

“A Flagrant Violation of the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights”:

The Plight of Ethnic Turks Abroad, Communism, and

Minorities in Turkey, 1950-1955

There is a certain irony, and also a cause for reflection on the pervasiveness of the

refugee problem in the modern world, in the fact that Turkey’s own political

upheaval after World War I created the Armenian refugees who were the first

group for whom a collective international relief and resettlement effort was made.

Now Turkey is on the other end of the trail.—The New York Times, April 15,

1951.739

If the Greeks dare touch our brethren, then there are plenty of Greeks in Istanbul

to retaliate upon.—Hürriyet, August 28, 1955. 740

In an iconic photograph from September 1955, Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras

stood amid the rubble of a church destroyed in anti-minority rioting in Istanbul and

silently prayed. Dozens of churches and thousands of Greek-, Jewish-, and Armenian-

owned businesses were targeted in rioting on the night of 6-7 September 1955, which

coincided with Turkish nationalist fervor over the fate of Cyprus and the plight of its

739

“Turkey Absorbing Mass of Refugees: I.R.O. Mission Finds Country Accepting Moslems Forced Out

by Bulgar Regime,” New York Times (April 15, 1951): 27. 740

Hürriyet, August 28, 1955. Quoted in Alexis Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-

Turkish Relations (Athens: Centre for Asia Minor Studies, 1992), 256.

243

Turkish minority. This somber, tired picture of Athenagoras represented a sharp contrast

to his popular image only a few years earlier as the embodiment of Greek-Turkish

friendship and Turkey’s synthesis of human rights and Cold War-inspired nationalism.

The photograph also captured the reality that the fate of Turkey’s minorities was not

simply a domestic question, but remained intricately connected to international affairs.

The intensification of the Cyprus problem in the 1950s heightened Turkish

nationalist emphasis on the problems of ethnic Turks outside Turkey, while ignoring or

exacerbating troubles faced by Turkey’s minorities, such as those of ethnic Greeks.

Britain first occupied Cyprus in 1878 and officially annexed the territory during the First

World War. Formally declared a British colony in 1925, the island was ethnically mixed,

with a Greek majority and a Turkish minority. Greek calls for the island’s self-

determination and union (Enosis) with Greece accelerated in the 1950s, while Turkey’s

government and public voiced increasing concerns about the fate of Turkish Cypriots.

Questions about the island’s fate not only embittered ties with Greece, but challenged

relations with the United States and NATO. The issue has generated significant attention

from scholars. 741

Nonetheless, it would be overly simplistic to attribute the anti-minority violence

of September 6-7, 1955 to Cyprus alone. Instead, this chapter suggests that a volatile

741

Although some attention has been given to the period covered in this chapter, much more focus has been

given to U.S. involvement in the Cyprus problem in the 1960s and 1970s. Monteagle Stearns, Entangled

Allies: U.S. Policy toward Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus. (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1992);

Theodore A. Couloumbis, The United States, Greece, and Turkey: The Troubled Triangle. (New York:

Praeger, 1983); Laurence Stern, The Wrong Horse: The Politics of Intervention and the Failure of

American Diplomacy (New York: Times Books, 1977); Christopher Hitchens, Hostage to History: Cyprus

from the Ottomans to Kissinger (New York: Verso, 1997); H. W. Brands, "America Enters the Cyprus

Tangle, 1964," Middle Eastern Studies 23, no. 3 (1987).

244

element in diplomacy surrounding Turkey and minorities involved the broader plight of

ethnic Turks outside Turkey, an issue that increasingly framed Turkey’s experience of the

Cold War, its understandings of national identity and security, and its conceptualization

of human rights. The problem reflected the international politicization of ethnicity by

both Turkey and the communist bloc: As relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union

soured in the postwar period, the Soviet Union and its satellite states looked at Turkic

minorities with suspicion, invoking both criticism and genuine concern within Turkey

about the difficulties of Turks under communism. Although Turkey’s government

initially sought to limit the diplomatic fallout from problems surrounding Turkish

minorities abroad, it faced growing pressure from an outraged Turkish public and

growing nationalist sentiment. The question gained increasing momentum after 1950

when Turkey and, ultimately, the United States, were forced to deal with the mass influx

of ethnic Turks sent from Bulgaria simultaneous with Turkey’s decision to send troops to

Korea and its bid for NATO membership. The influx of thousands of migrants stoked

fears about security and brought home the reality of the “communist threat” and

violations of human rights. Similar rhetoric quickly enveloped the Cyprus dispute as well.

The mass exodus of ethnic Turks from Bulgaria that accelerated sharply in 1950

demonstrated not only how ethnic issues continued to undergird Turkey’s experience of

the Cold War, but also posed questions for Turkey’s implementation of new international

human rights regimes. At the same time Turkey inched toward closer integration with the

western bloc afforded by the Marshall Plan and ultimately membership in NATO in

1952, Turkey’s government also set conditions to its accession to the European

245

Convention of Human Rights (which was adopted in 1950 and went into effect in 1953)

based on lingering fears surrounding communist-sponsored irredentism. Turkey’s

government increasingly struggled to maintain its grip on its problematic narrative of a

“new conception of minorities” (chapter 3) that fused Turkish nationalism, Cold War

sensibilities and human rights rhetoric. As the Turkish government’s advocacy on behalf

of human rights became increasingly focused on Bulgaria’s expulsion of ethnic Turks,

popular Turkish understandings of human rights became synonymous with the

predicament of ethnic Turks abroad. Thus, this chapter argues that selective, ethnic-based

views dominated popular and ultimately official conceptualizations of human rights,

security, and the “communist threat" in Turkey—with disastrous consequences for

minorities within Turkey.

Such exclusivist understandings of nationalism —strengthened in part by Cold

War nationalism—carried over into Turkey’s growing dispute with Greece over Cyprus

after 1954, spelling disaster for Greeks and other minorities in Istanbul, as well as the

endurance of ethnic problems for the U.S.-Turkish partnership. As Turkey worked to

settle some 150,000 Turks from Bulgaria, Turkish nationalist clamor that a similar fate

could meet Turkish Cypriots spilled over into popular human rights rhetoric and

ultimately Turkish government policy, including official policy on the thorny

international question of self-determination for Cyprus. In September 1955, thousands of

Turks took to the streets, destroying and looting minority-owned businesses while

246

avoiding those with Turkish owners. 742

Many carried posters that “Cyprus is Turkish,” a

slogan that was also the name of a group at the heart of the riots that had used human

rights rhetoric as part of its campaign. The episode—which Turkey’s government quickly

blamed on communists but which probably enjoyed at least some initial Turkish

government backing—demonstrates how Turkey’s conceptualizations of human rights

became simultaneously infused with nationalism and Cold War politics.

Ethnic questions in Turkey remained an issue that American diplomats and

policymakers sought to avoid and sometimes failed to grasp fully. U.S. diplomats and

American popular publications largely presented the emigration of ethnic Bulgarians not

in terms of enduring ethnic tensions, but as Cold War political intrigues that threatened a

loyal ally. The United States responded to the refugee crisis with Marshall Plan aid. U.S.

policymakers gave increasing emphasis to Turkey’s strategic role in new alliances, such

as NATO (signed 1949; joined by Turkey in 1952), the Balkan Pact (1953), and the

Baghdad Pact (1955), but gave short shrift to problems involving ethnicity and vociferous

Turkish nationalism at a time when the Democrat Party also asserted a tighter grip on

power. Thus, the riots of September 6-7, 1955 caught American officials off guard.

Although leading officials initially bought into the Turkish government’s assertion that

the attack was the work of communists, they were quickly confronted with the more

742

The September 6-7, 1955 riots have generated significant attention from Greek and Turkish scholars.

Although the episode has been discussed in the broader context of Greek-Turkish relations vis-à-vis

Cyprus, its broader relationship to the Bulgarian refugee crisis and burgeoning literature on the

international history of human rights have not received adequate attention. Alexandris, The Greek Minority

of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations; Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish

Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul (New York:

greekworks.com, 2005); Dilek Güven, Cumhuriyet Dönemi Azınlık Politikaları ve Stratejileri Bağlamında

6-7 Eylül Olayları (İstanbul: İletişim, 2005).

247

complicated reality that Turkish nationalists and even members of the Turkish

government bore responsibility as well. At the same time, U.S. officials faced renewed

criticism coming from ethnic Greeks and others in the country over human rights.

This chapter contributes to a growing body of literature on Turkey’s experience of

the Cold War, Turkish nationalism, and human rights. Foremost, this chapter shows that

ethnic considerations—particularly the situation of ethnic Turks outside Anatolia—

colored Turkey’s sense of human rights, security and experience of key early Cold War

episodes, including its contribution to the mission in Korea and involvement in alliances,

such as NATO, the Balkan Pact, and the Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO).

These ethnic considerations have received only passing attention by most diplomatic

historians. Questions about the treatment of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria and other

communist countries brought home the reality of the communist threat, and perceived

threats to Turkish Cypriots ultimately challenged U.S.-backed regional defense

arrangements of which Turkey was part. Thus, the plight of ethnic Turks infused Turkish

nationalism with an exclusivist emphasis on ethnicity, heightening pressure on Turkey’s

government for a hardline stance on Cyprus, challenging Turkey’s official discourse of “a

new conception of minorities” and confounding American diplomats who watched with a

mixture of naiveté and disinterest as the riots of September 6-7, 1955 simultaneously

bruised minorities in Istanbul and U.S.-backed regional defense arrangements. Human

rights, by all accounts, remained at the periphery of U.S. foreign policy concerns during

this period. Nonetheless, U.S. policymakers’ disinterest and avoidance of criticism of

248

Turkey’s implementation of human rights bore tragic consequences for minorities within

this U.S. strategic partner.

The Plight of Ethnic Turks Outside Turkey

Questions about the treatment of Turks and other Muslims in the Balkans and

under other foreign rule extend to the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, when

millions of Muslim refugees from the Balkans and Caucasus flocked to Anatolia, which

they infused with an increasingly “Turkish” character. 743

Turkey’s government has long

pinned its official understanding of the rights of its minorities on the rights given to

ethnic Turks abroad—a sentiment that extends to the 1920 National Pact (Misak-ı Milli)

that defined the Turkish Nationalists’ goals in the War of Independence. Among its tenets

is the principle that minority rights would be guaranteed in international treaties “on

condition that Muslim minorities in neighbouring countries will benefit from the same

rights.” 744

That principle was ultimately enshrined in a series of internal arrangements,

including the Treaty of Sevres (1920), which was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne

(1923), the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations

(1923), and the Treaty of Friendship between Turkey and Bulgaria (1925). While the

future of ethnic Turks abroad and minorities in Turkey represented an important question

in negotiations after the First World War, the problem was one that Turkey also sought to

contain. In the case of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria, the Turkish press was critical, but

743

Justin McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia at the End of the

Empire (New York: New York University Press, 1983), chapter 7. 744

Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. V. 2.

Reform, Revolution, and Republic: the Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808-1975. (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1977), 348.

249

Turkey’s government was more eager “to promote stability and cooperation in the

Balkans” as manifested in Greek-Turkish rapprochement and the formation of the Balkan

Pact in 1934.745

The resurgence of pan-Turkist sentiment in Turkey during the Second World

contributed to postwar tensions between Turkey and the communist bloc. Concerns about

Turkish nationalism framed Soviet leaders’ attitudes toward Turkey. According to Jamil

Hasanli’s reading of Soviet sources, Soviet leaders’ decisions in May 1944 for the mass

deportation of ethnic Turks from Crimea reflected the growing conviction that ethnic

Turks were “a possible fifth column” who could team with Turkey against the Soviet

Union and contribute to “Kremlin-instigated pressure on Turkey.” The Soviet leadership

ultimately ordered the mass deportation of hundreds of thousands of members of Turkic

and other Muslim groups from the Black Sea coasts and the South Caucasus, a substantial

component of an estimated two million Soviet citizens who were ultimately exiled.746

Documents from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also

show that concerns about ethnic identity, including the fear that pan-Turkism might

provoke unrest among Soviets’ own Turkic minorities, continued to preoccupy Soviet

officials and their policy toward Turkey during and after the Second World War. 747

The fate of Turkish refugees quickly assumed a Cold War character. In the

postwar period, the plight of Turks abroad, especially those under communism, drew

745

Michael Bishku, "Turkish-Bulgarian Relations: From Conflict and Distrust to Cooperation over

Minority Issues and International Politics," Mediterranean Quarterly 14, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 82. 746

Jamil Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis of the Cold War, 1945-1953 (New York: Lexington Books,

2011), xiii, 18-20. 747

Artiom A. Ulunian, "Soviet Cold War Perceptions of Turkey and Greece, 1946-58," Cold War History

3, no. 2 (January 2003): 37-39.

250

intense public scrutiny within Turkey, intensifying nationalist sentiment with profound

implications for official and public understandings of human rights. Turkish newspapers

were filled with stories of ethnic Turks struggling after the war or under communism.748

Similar news reports described the sufferings of Turkic or Muslim communities in the

Balkans and Central Asia. The fate of the Turkish minority in neighboring Greece was an

issue that shaped official and public attitudes toward the Greek Civil War and which

Turkey’s foreign minister brought to the floor of parliament.749

The future of the Turkish

minority in the ethnically-mixed Dodecanese Islands, which were turned over to Greece

in 1947, as well as British-controlled Cyprus, evoked strong nationalist sentiment in

Turkey that sometimes spilled over into foreign relations. 750

Therefore, it is not surprising that Bulgaria’s large ethnic Turkish population

received growing attention from Turkey’s public and government officials. Bulgaria’s

ethnic Turkish population numbered around 750,000 in the postwar period, a number that

was inflated by more than 100,000 by Bulgaria’s acquisition of territory from Romania in

1940. 751

The Turkish government received regular diplomatic reports and letters from

Bulgaria’s Turkish community complaining about maltreatment. One lengthy report from

the Turkish consulate in Plovdiv, which apparently received attention of the prime and

foreign ministers, described the deteriorating situation of Turks as Bulgarian communists

continued to consolidate power in 1946 and appealed for help from the “motherland.”

748

“İtalyada feci durumda kalan Türkler,” Tasvir (April 18, 1947). 749

“Zulüm gören Garbi Trakyadaki Türkler,” Tasvir (September 5, 1947). 750

İsmail Suphi Soysallıoğlu, “Türk Rodos! Bir de Kıbrıs!” Tasvir (April 6, 1947): 4. Alexandris, The

Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 234. 751

Bishku, "Turkish-Bulgarian Relations: From Conflict and Distrust to Cooperation over Minority Issues

and International Politics," 84-5.

251

The report further detailed how ethnic Turks in Bulgaria faced heavy taxation, the

confiscation of their land, the destruction of their educational system, the threat of

assimilation, and loss of control over Turkish community organizations to “gypsies”

under what a Turkish diplomat envisioned as a “concentration camp-type regime.” The

report also reveals how the coming of the Cold War in Turkey, even in the eyes of

Turkish officials, had as much to do with the situation of ethnic Turks as it did with

suspicions about Soviet ideology. According to the report, Bulgarian communists had

two goals. The first was to establish a communist regime by seeking to “control the

population and naturally the minorities in a tight manner.” The second involved efforts to

“establish socialism step by step as defined by Moscow.”752

Turkish diplomatic

dispatches also described the torture and forced assimilation of ethnic Turks and Pomaks,

a Slavic speaking Muslim people in Bulgaria, because of their disagreements with the

new communist regime and support for the opposition. 753

Other Turkish diplomatic

correspondence included a dramatic letter from a member of the Turkish community in

Bulgaria that ultimately made its way from the president’s office to the prime minister in

May 1947. It referred to the “cruelty” suffered by ethnic Turks and appealed for the

intervention of the Turkish government: “My dear pasha, we request that you fulfill our

wishes with the full power of the Republic, either by launching a Third World War or by

752

Bulgaristan'daki Komünist hükümeti'nin, Türklere karşı tutumu hakkındaki Filibe Konsolosluğumuzun

raporu, August 1946. 30 10 0 0/243.646 .6, DAGM. 753

Bulgar Hükümetinin, Pomakları Bulgarlaştırmaya çalışarak onları göçe zorladığı, August 1949. August

1946. 30. 10 0 0/243.646.7, DAGM; 27.10.1946 tarihinde yapılan Millet Meclisi seçimlerinde muhaliflere

oy verdikleri gerekçesiyle Türk ve Pomaklara işkence edildiği, January 1947. 30 10 0 0/243 .646 13,

DAGM.

252

embracing the Turkish minority of Bulgaria inside the Republic of Turkey.”754

Although

the Turkish and Bulgarian governments pledged to calm tensions, Bulgaria’s government

continued to complain about sharp criticism coming from an increasingly liberalized

Turkish press. 755

Continuing Turkish propaganda aimed at the Turkish minority in

Bulgaria also stoked tensions between the two neighbors.756

At the same time, the American leadership and diplomats often downplayed

ethnic dimensions of troubles in the region. As Robert Knight has pointed out, Truman’s

March 1947 speech to the U.S. Congress presented Greece as an ethnically homogenous

nation and simplified ethnic dimensions of the crisis by stressing communist dimensions

of the crisis instead. Mark Ethridge, who represented the United States on a commission

studying troubles in the Balkans, suggested Greek discrimination against Slavo-

Macedonians as a fundamental component of frontier violations along the Greek-

Yugoslav border. Secretary of State George Marshall and other officials in Washington,

however, chided the American envoy for losing sight of the “systematic, aggressive

policies” committed by Greece’s communist neighbors. 757

Because of the presence of

fewer ethnic Greeks in Bulgaria than Slavophones in Greece and heightened attention to

the question of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria, Turkish, Greek and American officials also

754

Bulgaristan'daki Türk azınlıktan gelen bir mektup, June 1946. 30 1 0 0 / 17.97.3, DAGM. 755

27.10.1946 tarihinde yapılan Millet Meclisi seçimlerinde muhaliflere oy verdikleri gerekçesiyle Türk ve

Pomaklara işkence edildiği, January 1947. 30 10 0 0/243 .646 13, DAGM; Saka to the Prime Minister,

March 1947.

30 10 0 0/243.646.14, DAGM. Komünizm ile ilgili 1948 yılına ait Bulgarca gazete ve dergiler, 1948. 490 1

0 0/ 581.2.1; Nilgün Gürkan, Turkiye’de Demokrasiye Geçişte Basın, 1945-50 (Istanbul: İlestişim, 1998). 756

Vasil Paraskevov, "Insecurity and Control: Bulgaria and Its Turkish Minority," in Ethnicity, Nationalism

and the European Cold War, ed. Robert Knight (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), 129. 757

Robert Knight, "Western Perspectives on Ethnic Politics," in Ethnicity, Nationalism and the European

Cold War, ed. Robert Knight (London ; New York: Continuum, 2012), 16.; Marshall to Ethridge, February

28, 1947, FRUS, 1947, Vol. V: 823.; Ethridge to Marshall, May 8, 1947, FRUS, 1947, Vol. V: 847.

253

considered the possibility of a broader exchange across the Balkans. According to one

proposal, Turkey would receive international aid in order to accept displaced ethnic

Turks from Bulgaria, while Yugoslavia and Bulgaria would receive displaced

Slavophones from Greece.758

The United States was open to a population exchange,

provided it was carried out by the United Nations and not the United States—a reflection

of U.S. efforts to avoid entanglement in regional ethnic problems. 759

Despite American wishes to the contrary, ethnic issues—and not just a simplistic

communist threat—continued to form an important backdrop to regional tensions

throughout the Balkans and Caucasus. Bulgarian scholars generally agree that Bulgaria’s

policy toward ethnic Turks reflected both domestic and international factors. In line with

Soviet suspicions toward Turkish nationalism, Traicho Kostov, a senior Bulgarian

Communist Party official, declared in 1945 that all ethnic minorities should enjoy equal

rights in the country, but expressed suspicions about ethnic Turks, whom he saw as

potential Turkish government “agents” within Bulgaria. Those suspicions only grew over

time. By 1948, Bulgarian communist leader Georgi Dimitrov was describing non-

Bulgarians in the south as “a permanent ulcer for our country.” 760

Whereas policymakers in Washington assessed troop movements, communism,

and the “preponderance of power,” policymakers of states of the region gave equal focus

to fears about minority troubles, irredentism ,and perceived threats to territorial integrity

and borders. For instance, in September 1950, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials studied

758

Wilson to Marshall, May 15, 1947, 867.4016/5-1547, reel 12, Internal Affairs of Turkey. 759

Marshall to Ethridge, January 24 1947, FRUS, 1947, Vol. V: 824. 760

Paraskevov, "Insecurity and Control: Bulgaria and Its Turkish Minority," 128-30.

254

several organizations that were active in Bulgaria. In addition to four pro-Soviet groups,

Turkey’s foreign minister expressed concern about two organizations that were

apparently engaged in a public information campaign with designs on Greece,

Yugoslavia, and Turkey: “It is apparent that the issue of Eastern Thrace is a current

cause. The Thrace Organization is pursuing this and irredentism is being conducted

against us,” Fuat Köprülü, the new Democrat foreign minister, wrote to Prime Minister

Adnan Menderes.761

Anti-communist sentiment also served as a guise for a much older

and widely held suspicion toward Russia and its neighbors. As the Turkish journalist

Ahmet Emin Yalman, who was close to the Democrat Party, wrote, “Russians chose

Marxism to cloak their ancient imperialism.” 762

The Migration of Turks from Bulgaria

As the Soviet-backed regime consolidated power and purged perceived enemies,

Bulgaria’s relations with both Turkey and the United States grew increasingly strained.

Even before the communist takeover, tensions between neighboring Turkey and Bulgaria

were bitter. In 1945, Turkish and Bulgarian border soldiers exchanged fire, killing a

Turk who had accidentally crossed over the border. 763

Tensions were stoked by the

downing of two Turkish military planes by Bulgaria, attacks on both countries’

consulates, and propaganda involving Nazim Hikmet, a communist and Turkey’s most

761

Bulgaristan'daki cemiyetler ile ilgili rapor, August 1950. 30.1.0.0/66.414.6, DAGM. 762

Ahmet Emin Yalman, Turkey in My Time (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956),

235. 763

Sınırda devriye gezen iki askerimize Bulgar askerleri tarafından ateş açılarak birinin öldürüldüğü, 1945.

30..10.0.0/243.646.2, DAGM.

255

famous poet, who fled Turkey for the Soviet Union in 1950 and visited Bulgaria’s

Turkish community the following year.764

In February 1950, diplomatic relations between the United States and Bulgaria

were officially severed after the U.S. ambassador was declared persona non grata amid

an escalating dispute over the trial of a former U.S. Embassy employee of Bulgarian

nationality.765

Bulgaria's relations with Turkey were also challenged after the Democrat

Party scored a surprise victory, capturing around 400 of 474 seats in the Turkish

parliament, in the first fully free multiparty elections on May 14, 1950. Köprülü

indicated no major shift in the foreign policy orientation of the previous government. 766

Nonetheless, the government made clear its intention to pursue a more assertive policy

than its predecessor.767

Despite U.S. efforts to avoid Balkan ethnic troubles, tensions surrounding the

Turkish minority in Bulgaria escalated as Cold War tensions heightened. As Turkish

schools were nationalized and farmlands appropriated by the new communist regime,

thousands of Turks from Bulgaria sought refuge in Turkey. In early 1950, the flow

increased sharply after Bulgaria eased some restrictions on emigration, although limits

764

Paraskevov, "Insecurity and Control: Bulgaria and Its Turkish Minority," 129. Gözde Somel and

Neslişah Başaran, "Engagement of a Communist Intellectual in the Cold War Ideological Struggle: Nazim

Hikmet's 1951 Bulgaria Visit," in Turkey in the Cold War: Ideology and Culture, ed. Cangül Örnek and

Çağdaş Üngör (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013). İsmail Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye:

Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975 (Istanbul: İsis 1997), 135. Radio Moscow Transcript, July 20, 1951.

030.01.00/133.864.1, DAGM. 765

The Secretary of State (Acheson) to the Bulgarian Chargé, February 21, 1950. FRUS, 1950

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1980), Vol. IV: Central and Eastern Europe; the Soviet Union: 518-21. 766

“No Change in Turkish Foreign Policy,” The Times (26 May 1950); ‘New Turkish Statecraft, Political

Life on a Broader Basis,” The Times (5 June 1950); McGhee, The US-Turkish-NATO Middle East

Connection, p.70. 767

Cumhuriyet (1 June 1950). Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy (London: Westview,

1977), 390.

256

remained.768

By August 1950, perhaps nearly 20,000 Bulgarian Turks had arrived.769

The

visibility of ethnic Turks, who were from rural backgrounds and were often resettled in

villages throughout Turkey, made the issue a matter of intense public scrutiny and

increased nationalist sentiment.770

U.S. diplomats kept tabs on the migration, but often reduced ethnic questions to

Cold War intrigues. Though sympathetic to the troubles of the Turkish refugees, one

dispatch noted that the influx of immigrants would make it difficult for the Bulgarians to

“prepare for any surprise military action against their neighbors, and particularly Turkey”

without first sealing the border: “As long as the Bulgarians permit the emigration of the

Turkish speaking minority from Bulgaria to Turkey, it will not be easy for them to cover

up troops dispositions and troop movements,” Consul-General Charles W. Lewis

wrote.771

The decision by Turkey’s new government to commit 4,500 troops to Korea

deeply strained ties with Bulgaria. Turkey was the second country after the United States

to pledge troops and the occasion marked the first time that Turkish troops were sent

768

Huey Louis Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Refugees from Bulgaria, 1950-1953," Middle East

Journal 9, no. 1 (Winter 1955): 43. 769

Estimates prior to 1950 differ significantly. U.S. officials, citing the Turkish National Security Services

and the director of immigration, noted whereas 2,379 Bulgarian Turks fled to Turkey in 1949, nearly three

times that number—7,283—came to Turkey between January 1 and May 10, 1950. Baldwin to Marshall,

April 27, 1950. 882.1869/5-1250, DSR. By the end of July, the number spiked to 16,736 and some 700-800

were arriving weekly. Lewis to the Department of State, August 3, 1950. 882.1869/8-350, DSR.

Kostanick’s numbers, taken from several Turkish authorities, put the number of immigrants from Bulgaria

at 1,763 for 1947; 1,514 in 1948; and 1,670 in 1949. His numbers puts the total number of immigrants at

21,707 through August 1950. Ibid., 44-5.

İsmail Soysal offers a much higher number—24,000—for the number of immigrants in 1949, but offers a

comparable estimate—nearly 20,000—for the number of arrivals by mid-August. Soysal, Soğuk Savaş

Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975, 103. 770

Baldwin to Department of State, May 12, 1950. 882.1869/5-1250, DSR. 771

Lewis to Department of State, August 3, 1950. 882.1869/8-350, DSR.

257

outside Anatolia since the establishment of the republic. The cause was popular:

volunteers signed up, rallies were held throughout the country, and telegraphs of support

flooded government offices.772

The deployment to Korea was never an end in itself;

rather, it was used it to justify its renewed campaign to join NATO. 773

By August 1950,

the Turkish government had signalled its desire to join NATO and began lobbying

toward this end.774

Shortly after Turkey’s announcement that it would be contributing troops to

Korea, Bulgaria announced its intention to repatriate 250,000 ethnic Turks resident in

Bulgaria within three months. Bulgaria never framed the rash decision as an expulsion,

but rather accused Turkey of inciting the Turkish minority. Moreover, Bulgaria claimed it

was merely granting passports to those who desired to emigrate.775

Fearful that Turkey

could promote “destabilization” through the Turkish minority, Bulgaria increasingly saw

migration as a means to assert stability within the country and address a perceived foreign

policy threat. There is also evidence that the decision was not Bulgaria’s alone: The

decision to “allow” migration followed an August 1949 meeting between Bulgarian

officials and Stalin, who declared Turks “unreliable” and proclaimed that Bulgaria should

772

“İstanbulda Kore için gönüllüler,” Milliyet (3 July 1950); “Koreye Türk yardımı,” Milliyet (1 August

1950). 773

Ali Naci Karacan, “Başbakan Adnan Menderes’in ‘Milliyet’e çok mühim beyanatı”, Milliyet (7 August

1950); Ali Naci Karacan, “Atlantik Paktina girmemiz meselesi,” Milliyet (6 August 1950). John Vander

Lippe, "Forgotten Brigade of the Forgotten War: Turkey's Participation in the Korean War," Middle

Eastern Studies 36, no. 1 (January 2000). 774

Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975, 101-2. 775

Bilal Şimşir, The Turks of Bulgaria (1878-1985) (London: K. Rustem and Brother, 1988), 173-4. Lewis

to the Department of State, August 15, 1950. 882.1869/8-1550, DSR.

258

be rid of them. In response, the Bulgarian Communist Party sought “to stimulate the

migration by all means.”776

The August diplomatic note took Turkish leaders by surprise. In a probable bid to

avoid further stoking nationalist sentiment in Turkey, Turkey's government, at least

initially, continued to downplay the ethnic question. Turkey’s government sought to

defuse tensions by indicating that the press was overemphasizing the announcement.777

Köprülü, however, soon made clear in his meetings with American officials that the

“brutal deportation of Turks from Bulgaria” was a “calculated act of reprisal” for

Turkey’s pledge of troops to Korea.778

At least one Turkish newspaper intimated that the

expulsion showed Bulgaria’s aggressive intent, since the minority was concentrated in the

region bordering Greece and Bulgaria. 779

The American geographer Kostanick, who

observed the resettlement of Turks from Bulgaria firsthand, described both Turkey’s

participation in the Korean War and its reception of Bulgarian Turks as similarly

reinforcing the “nationalistic spirit” of Turks in the struggle against a communist enemy

that “would use every ruse to weaken Turkish control of the Straits and to seize parts of

the eastern provinces.” For Kostanick, “aiding the refugees exemplified active Turkish

patriotism and its resistance to communism whether in Korea or in Bulgaria.”780

Although American diplomats carefully followed the issue of the Bulgarian

Turks, their reports continued to reduce complex ethnic questions to Cold War strategic

776

Paraskevov, "Insecurity and Control: Bulgaria and Its Turkish Minority," 123-4, 30-1. 777

Lewis to Department of State, August 15, 1950. 882.1869/8-1550, DSR. 778

Wadsworth to the Secretary of State, August 31, 1950. 882.1869/8-3150, DSR. 779

Lewis to Department of State, August 15, 1950. 882.1869/8-1550, DSR. 780

Huey Louis Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953," in University of

California Publications in Geography, ed. J.E. Spencer, H.J. Bruman, and H.L. Kostanick (Berkeley and

Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962), 67.

259

calculations. U.S. officials explored a variety of motives behind the mass emigration,

especially Bulgarian wishes to nationalize farm land, embarrass the Turkish government,

overwhelm Turkey’s economy, and plant spies in Turkey. Ambassador Wadsworth saw

forced migration as part of the “systematic sifting” of the Soviet periphery that coincided

with “the cycle of gigantic population treks of subject peoples eastwards in the Soviet

Union” that “would follow logically from those of the Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians,

Crimean Tatars and the various minorities in the Caucasus.”781

Consul-General Charles

W. Lewis noted that Bulgarian Turks’ opposition to the collectivization of land made

them into “a potential fifth column” that the communist regime wished to purge. Rather

than giving significant attention to the local dynamics of ethnic questions in the region,

Lewis instead emphasized “The expulsion of minorities from the Soviet controlled

satellite states, particularly when it affords faithful CP members an opportunity to

appropriate properties and possessions” and drew broad comparisons with 1945

expulsions of Germans from Hungary and Hungarians from Slovakia. At the same time,

the American consul-general was dismissive about the reality of ethnic questions in the

region, speculating that the threats contained in the August 1950 Bulgarian diplomatic

note were “merely a propaganda move in the cold war.”782

They were not empty threats.

More than 150,000 Turks from Bulgaria would ultimately be repatriated between 1950

and 1951.

781

Wadsworth to Department of State, August 17, 1950. 882.1869/8-1750, DSR. 782

Lewis to Department of State, August 15, 1950. 882.1869/8-1550, DSR.

260

Human Rights and the Turks of Bulgaria

The problem surrounding the Turks of Bulgaria was quickly subsumed in

international debates over human rights. Amid its own dispute with the communist

country, the U.S. government employed human rights rhetoric in its criticism of the

Bulgarian regime. Dean Acheson publicly chastised the Bulgarian regime in a press

release: “The people of the free world cannot but be deeply troubled by the disregard for

human rights and human values shown” by the Bulgarian regime, he wrote.783

U.S.

officials continued to weigh the possibility of an attack on Turkey through Bulgaria,

while American news reports painted an image of Bulgaria as inherently aggressive,

“possibly the most warlike of all Russian satellites.”784

Similar attitudes also spilled over

into diplomatic correspondence. U.S. officials in Istanbul, likewise, inserted a sarcastic

“(sic!)” following Bulgaria’s claim that it “granted equal rights to all Bulgarian citizens

regardless of their religious and political beliefs” when U.S. diplomats transmitted to the

State Department a copy of Bulgaria’s August 1950 diplomatic note to Turkey.785

At a time when declarations of human rights began circulating in Turkish schools,

Turkey’s public also began employing human rights discourse in its criticism of Bulgaria

and its treatment of the Turkish minority, adding additional pressure on the public. For

instance, in March 1950, the Istanbul daily Hürriyet published an open letter to Turkish

Foreign Minister Sadak that was purportedly from a school teacher in western Thrace and

appealed for more Turks of Bulgaria to be resettled in Turkey: “At a time when utmost

783

Dean Acheson, “Bulgarian Militia Indicts Michael Shipkov on False Charges for Second Time,”

Department of State Bulletin. Vol. XXII, No. 559 (March 29, 1950): 441. 784

National Security Estimate: Turkey’s Place in the East-West Struggle, February 26, 1951, FRUS, 1951,

Vol. V: 1120.; A.C. Sedgwick, “Turks’ Importance to West Stressed,” New York Times (May 3, 1952): 6. 785

Lewis to Department of State, August 15, 1950. 882.1869/8-1550, DSR.

261

sensitiveness is displayed in the matter of insuring the recognition of human rights …

The Turks of Bulgaria constitute today the most unfortunate minority living on this

globe.”786

As it sought to downplay ethnic troubles, Turkey’s government also seemed to be

concerned about the potency of human rights. Similar to U.S. efforts to limit enforcement

mechanisms for human rights issues at the international level, Turkey’s government

attempted to use diplomacy to shield itself from international human rights criticism.

Similar to the majority of Council of Europe members in 1949, Turkey appeared to be

“unenthusiastic at the prospect of international European human rights protection.” In

negotiations in 1949 and 1950 that culminated in the European Convention on Human

Rights, Turkey was among countries that vehemently fought efforts to establish a

European court to enforce human rights infringements. 787

Turkish negotiators opposed

provisions allowing for individual petition to a Court of Human Rights. Turkish

diplomats had more success in their bid to insert “national security and integrity”

limitations to rights language. Negotiators were also keenly aware of Turkish and Greek

sensitivity over anticommunism and limits on political rights. 788

The refugee problem played an important role in shaping Turkish understandings

of human rights. Scholars have given increasing attention to the significance of displaced

786

Perkins to the Department of State, March 24, 1950. 782.001/3-2450, DSR. 787

A. W. B. Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire : Britain and the Genesis of the European

Convention (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 667, 95, 712. Mikael Rask Madsen,

"‘Legal Diplomacy’ – Law, Politics and the Genesis of Postwar European Human Rights," in Human

Rights in the Twentieth Century, ed. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2010), 70, footnote 33. 788

Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire : Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention,

733, 694, 702, 66.

262

persons in defining postwar understandings of human rights and the influx of Bulgarian

Turks gives additional evidence to this position. 789

At the heart of the dispute between

the two Balkan states was whether departing Bulgarian Turks should be considered

emigrants, as Bulgaria maintained, or refugees, as Turkey insisted. According to

Bulgaria, the departing Turks were leaving voluntarily, and Turkey was obligated under

the 1925 treaty to accept them. Turkey, backed by the United States, argued that the

Turks left under duress and were permitted to take personal property with them. As one

Turkish government document put it: The events after August were “not an orderly

emigration as envisaged by the agreement but a forced exodus, a mass deportation. Those

who came were not emigrants but refugees.”790

Turkey also maintained its right to reject

migrants on security grounds. U.S. officials also studied the question. The State

Department’s legal adviser did not take a take a definitive stance, but noted that “Turkey

has a little the better of the argument” and questioned whether the emigration of Turks

represented a “voluntary emigration” as stipulated by the 1925 Convention.791

Public

statements by U.S. officials, moreover, continued to refer to the immigrants as “refugees”

or “expellees.” Interestingly, the debate over the status of the emigrating Bulgarian Turks

789

G. Daniel Cohen, "The 'Human Rights Revolution' at Work: Displaced Persons in Postwar Europe " in

Human Rights in the Twentieth Century, ed. Stefan-Ludwig Hoffman (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2010). 790

Turkish Information Office, Another Quarter Million Homeless People, News from Turkey (New

York1951), 4. 791

Doras to L[egal Advisor?], December 13, 1950. FW 882.1869/11-150, DSR. Yingling to Dores,

December 13, 1950. FW 882.1869/11-150, DSR.

263

continues to frame contemporary accounts about the dispute, depending on whether

Bulgarian or Turkish sources were consulted.792

The controversy over the Bulgarian emigrants soon became a human rights duel

between Turkey and Bulgaria. A diplomatic note in September 1950 from Bulgaria

emphasized the equality that its regime extended to all of its citizens, including its

Turkish minority. At the same time, it emphasized Turkey’s backwardness. Most

importantly, the note emphasized “The historical resume of Turkish culpability in

plundering and evicting Bulgars, the pitiless deportation of a million and half Greeks

from Asia Minor, and the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians.” It further

accused Turkey of conspiring with “certain Great Powers” to interfere in Bulgaria’s

domestic affairs and “of violating human rights.”793

Turkey responded that Bulgaria’s actions represented “a flagrant violation of the

United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights.” It accused Bulgaria of human rights

abuses and threatened to bring the issue to the floor of the United Nations. 794

In its

formal response, the Turkish government argued that the 1925 argument governed

willing immigration, not unilateral mass deportation. In an accompanying aide-memoire,

the Turkish government accused Bulgaria of systemically persecuting the Turkish

minority. It also defended the 1923 Turkish-Greek population exchange as a mutually-

agreed and “orderly process” unlike the “unilateral mass deportation demanded by

792

R.J. Crampton, Bulgaria, Oxford History of Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),

433. Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 3rd edition ed. (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 237;

Şimşir, The Turks of Bulgaria (1878-1985). 793

Kuniholm to Department of State, October 5, 1950. 782.001/10-550, DSR. 794

“ Turks Say ‘Eviction’ Edict by Sofia Violates UN Pact,” The Christian Science Monitor (October 13,

1950): 7; Turkish-Bulgarian Row Nearing Crisis, Los Angeles Times (October 30, 1950): 10; A. Suat Bilge,

“Türk-Bulgar Göçmen Anlaşmazlıgı,” İnsan Hakları (January-February 1951): 31-37.

264

Bulgaria to take place in three months.”795

Not surprisingly, no mention was ever made of

the Armenian issue. That sentiment reflects a broader assumption in Turkish and

frequently international attitudes about human rights: Human rights as a means of

criticism, rather than introspection. Similarly, Turkey’s semiofficial Human Rights

journal, published by the country’s Human Rights Society, noted that Bulgaria’s

treatment of Turks violated pledges of equal protection against discrimination contained

in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, although no mention was made of

Turkey’s own precarious record on the issue.796

Turkey’s position was also buoyed by international backing. In November 1950,

both the United Nations and the Council of Europe chastised the Bulgarian regime. As

part of a debate on human rights in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, Turkey’s delegate,

Muharrem Nuri Birgi, described Bulgaria’s “mass deportation” of ethnic Turks, as well

as Bulgaria’s “reprehensible” detention of a Turkish solider two years before.797

On

November 3, 1950, the United Nations General Assembly approved a statement

condemning Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania for being “callously indifferent to the

world community” regarding “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”798

The following day, Fuat Köprülü, along with delegates from a dozen European

governments, signed the European Convention on Human Rights. The Committee of

795

Baxter to Department of State, November 7, 1950. 882.1869/11-750, DSR. 796

A. Suat Bilge, “Türk-Bulgar Göçmen Anlaşmazlıgı,” İnsan Hakları (January-February 1951): 31-37. 797

“Observance of Human Rights in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, “ United Nations Bulletin Vol. IX,

No. 9 November 1, 1951:479-82. 798

Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania Condemned by General Assembly, United Nations Bulletin Vol. IX

No. 10 November 15, 1950 “Text of Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly on November 3, 1950”

573-4: 574.

265

Ministers also expressed “moral support” to Turkey amid the controversy with Bulgaria,

further emboldening Turkey’s human rights position.799

National identity and Cold War security sensibilities continued to frame Turkey’s

reception of immigrants from Bulgaria and its understandings of human rights and

security. By early October 1950, Turkey had admitted 30,778 immigrants during the

year. It refused, however, to accept several hundred “gypsies” (Roma) from Bulgaria,

whom it said were unable to prove their Turkish origins. By October 7 (the same day,

coincidentally, that it was also elected for the first time to the U.N. Security Council),

Turkey sealed the border. 800

“We closed the frontier and sent the gypsies back, as they

are not Turks,” Governor Emin Akinci of Edirne province said. Turkey also carried out

thorough security checks, fearing that the mass influx could allow communist agents to

flood into the country. 801

Ironically, some of those whom Turkey considered “gypsies”

also spoke Turkish and were also Muslim in faith. 802

The distinction was not always

clear and there was some debate among Turkish officials and leaders about who was

Turkish and who was not.803

The problem of Bulgarian Turks also reinforced ethnic-based Turkish nationalism

and its popular association with human rights. In October 1950, at the height of the crisis

with Bulgaria, the most important Pan-Turkist journal of the period, Orkun Haftalık

799

“European Council Maps Peace Plan: Ministers Sign Pact Guarding Human Rights in Nations of

Western Europe,” The New York Times (November 5, 1950): 18. 800

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Refugees from Bulgaria, 1950-1953," 44.;Soysal, Soğuk Savaş

Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975, 106.; “Brazil, Netherlands, Turkey Elected to Security

Council” United Nations Bulletin, Vol. IX, No. 9 (November 1, 1950): 471. 801

Robert T. Hartmann, “Turkey Welcomes Her People Back,” Los Angeles Times (August 20, 1951): A5. 802

Bulgaristan'daki Komünist hükümeti'nin, Türklere karşı tutumu hakkındaki Filibe Konsolosluğumuzun

raporu, August 1946. 30 10 0 0/243.646 .6, DAGM. 803

Nasuhioğlu to the Prime Minister, September 27, 1950. 030 01 00 /17.99.11, DAGM.

266

Türkçü Dergi, resumed publication and hoped to benefit from liberalization under the

Democrat Party. Staunchly anticommunist, it immediately criticized the Soviet Union

and its treatment of “captive Turks,” as well as Bulgaria for its treatment of its ethnic

Turkish minority. Writers such as A. Kazanoğlu and H.S. Ertürk employed human rights

discourse in their criticism of communism. Hüseyin Nihal Atsız, the journal’s fiercely

anticommunist editor, compared the cause of uniting all the world’s Turks to Jews’ return

to Israel. His brother, Nejdet Sançar, saw the main objective of the Pan-Turkist

movement as activism on behalf of suffering Turks. Just like Turks of Hatay had been

returned to Turkey so should the Turks of the Soviet Union be freed. At the same time,

Sançar and other Turkish nationalists often presented an understanding of human rights

that emphasized the misfortunes of Turks abroad to the exclusion of ethnic minorities in

the country: According to Sançar, Turkish nationalists should ensure the defeat of both

external enemies, such as Russia and Bulgaria, as well as internal ones, including

communists, freemasons, Zionists and minorities (legally defined as Greeks, Armenians,

and Jews). 804

The plight of Bulgarian Turks weighed heavily on leaders of the newly-elected

Democrat Party. Although the government cited the question involving the “gypsies” to

close the border, that pretext offered only a temporary reprieve from its ongoing struggle

to resettle refugees, some 15,000 more of whom entered Turkey in the eight weeks

between Bulgaria’s announcement in August of the forced expulsion and Turkey’s

closure of the border in October. A more important reason for the halt to the immigration,

804

Jacob Landau, Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation (London: Hurst, 1995), 129-31.

267

according to Kostanick, was the fact that the Turkish government found itself ill-

equipped to deal with the spike in immigrants, “which had become so great the

government was afraid national security was threatened by inability to effectively screen

the incoming mobs.”805

With the border closed in late 1950, critics within Turkey also assailed the

government for failing to accept migrants gathering near its borders during the cold

winter months. An open letter to Turkey’s parliament revealed how the delays presented

a political problem for the new government. The letter, found in the archives of the

opposition Republican party, accused the new government of adding to the hurdles that

Turks escaping the Bulgarian regime faced: “At a time when the administration of the

state has been passed to the Democrat Party should we be seeing 10,000 of our brothers

being destroyed from cold and poverty at our border gates?” several Turkish men wrote.

“Don’t allow 10,000 of our innocent brothers to perish in the days following [the] May

14” 1950 elections.806

Under pressure, Turkey reached an agreement to reopen the

border with Bulgaria in December 1950. 807

The reopening of the border shifted the

public’s mood to the government’s favor. “Long live our current government of Turkey,”

recent migrants in the town of Orhangazi in Bursa province wrote to Turkey’s prime

minister. “Damned be the tortuous Bulgarian government and its shameless leaders.” 808

805

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953," 107. 806

Bulgaristan’dan Türkiye’ye siğınan Türkler için sınır kapısının açılması, 1951. 490 1 0 0/607.105.18,

DAGM. 807

Greene to Acheson, October 23, 1950. 882.1869/10-2350, DSR. 808

Bulgaristan'dan Bursa'nın Orhangazi ilçesine göç eden göçmenler adına yazılmış teşekkür mektubu,

March 1951. 30.1.0.0/18.100.36, DAGM.

268

Nonetheless, intense criticism of Bulgaria within Turkey also proved a liability

for the Turkish government. Yalman, the influential Turkish columnist with links to the

Democrat Party, noted that sharp language in the Turkish press further complicated

relations with Bulgaria: The deportations have “now assumed the nature of an affair

arranged between the two Governments,” Yalman wrote. He also appealed for a more

conciliatory tone and called for international support to aid the immigrants.809

At the

same time, the government also appears to have been concerned about the potency of

ethnic-based nationalism. Two government ministers—Tevfik Ileri and Samet Ağoğlu—

as well as two members of parliament, were forced to resign for engaging in

“racialism”—around this time. They were ultimately reinstated as their attitudes enjoyed

increasing acceptance in Turkish society. 810

Resettlement and Cold War Sentiment

The treatment of the Turks of Bulgaria increasingly embodied the relationship

among human rights, the Cold War, and Turkish ethnic identity to the Turkish public and

politicians. The image of helpless, homeless Turks came to symbolize both the

ruthlessness of communism and the reality of human rights abuse. The resettlement also

made questions of human rights visible to a larger segment of the Turkish population.

Immediately following Bulgaria’s announcement of the emigration, Turkey’s government

ordered provinces across the country to participate in an “orderly” resettlement process

809

Lewis to Department of State, January 30, 1951. 882.1869/1-3051, DSR. 810

Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System (Princeton, N.J.,: Princeton

University Press, 1959), 269-70, footnote 55.

269

and to form local refugee committees, while at least theoretically seeking input on the

numbers each administrative province might support.811

The fact that the immigrants

ultimately would be spread across much of Anatolia, and not concentrated in a single

area, increased the visibility of the refugees and reinforced the association among

communism, Turkish national identity, and human rights.

Fears that the influx of immigrants might offer a means for communist agents to

penetrate Turkey or disrupt its national unity also guided the government’s daunting

resettlement effort. After the reopening of the border in December 1950, Turkey was

forced to cope with more than 20,000 new immigrants each month for the next three

months. More than 100,000 refugees ultimately arrived in Turkey in 1951. The country

struggled to house the new refugees, since earlier plans aimed at settling them with

relatives proved insufficient. 812

Mostly farmers, the refugees arrived with only what they

could carry and were resettled in increasingly crowded villages and towns. 813

The

refugees were settled across the country except the east, where Turkey’s government

feared that Communist spies or agents might “be infiltrated with bona fide immigrants

into this strategic frontier zone along the Soviet border.” Thus, no refugees were settled

in areas officially or unofficially claimed by the Soviet Union, such as Kars, Ardahan,

and the eastern Black Sea coast. No more than a few hundred, at most, were settled in

Kurdish-speaking areas, which, despite the government’s official rhetoric of “no Kurdish

811

Bulgaristan'dan gelecek olan göçmenlerin durumları ve barındırlmaları, November 1950.

30.18.1.2/124.83.7, DAGM. 812

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Refugees from Bulgaria, 1950-1953," 45-47. 813

“Turkey Absorbing Mass of Refugees: I.R.O. Mission Finds Country Accepting Moslems Forced Out

by Bulgar Regime,” New York Times (April 15, 1951): 27.

270

problem” in Turkey, remained isolated, poorer than the rest of Turkey, and subject to

continuous security scrutiny by Turkish authorities and U.S. officials. 814

The United States demonstrated a complex attitude toward the resettlement effort.

On the one hand, the State Department wished to avoid becoming bogged down with the

refugees. As the border remained closed around November 1950, Dean Acheson

informed the U.S. Embassy that the primary responsibility in addressing the refugee

problem rested with the Turkish government, which should be given no encouragement

about possible U.S. financial assistance. On the other hand, Acheson recognized that the

resettlement of refugees would burden the Turkish economy and could be a factor in

determining U.S. government assistance through the Marshall Plan’s Economic

Cooperation Administration (ECA). He expressed his belief that the International

Refugee Organization (IRO) would also be able to provide technical assistance.815

By

April 1951, the IRO was advising Turkey on how to absorb the Turkish refugees from

Bulgaria. 816

With U.S. prompting, Turkey also received support from the United

Nations, the World Health Organization, and the Red Cross, including its American

branch. Most notably, it received $11 million in Marshall Plan Aid to assist with the

refugees.817

Acheson, nonetheless, showed disproportionate interest in the quandary of

the small number of ethnic Bulgarian political refugees who had made their way to

Turkey and he expressed concern that “centuries of conflict” among Turks and

814

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Refugees from Bulgaria, 1950-1953," 49, 53. Kostanick, "Turkish

Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953," 122. Satterthwaite to the Department of State, December 8,

1952. 882.41/12-852, DSR. 815

Acheson to the Embassy in Ankara, November 14, 1950?. 882.1869/11-1450, DSR. 816

“Turkey Absorbing Mass of Refugees: I.R.O. Mission Finds Country Accepting Moslems Forced Out

by Bulgar Regime,” New York Times (April 15, 1951): 27. 817

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Refugees from Bulgaria, 1950-1953," 48.

271

Bulgarians might complicate efforts to settle the Bulgarians.818

The U.S. government

even funded a 10,000-acre model farm for them.819

The travails of the Bulgarian Turks also generated a complex response from the

American public: While some members of the American public and press drew a picture

in line with official Cold War sensibilities, others recalled Turkey’s tumultuous history of

minority troubles. For instance, J. Ashton Greene, an oil and gas consultant from Baton

Rouge, wrote to Acheson to describe a “Democracy versus Communism and Socialism

Week” that he organized for youth and urged the State Department to give greater

publicity to the Bulgarian expulsion of Turks, which he called a “new type of Communist

threat to the peace of the world.” The Department’s reply to Greene noted Turkey’s

description of the matter “as an example of Bulgarian disregard of human rights.”820

The

Christian Science Monitor published a Reuters report that echoed Turkish official

accounts that the expulsions aimed to damage Turkey’s economy and posed a security

threat by potentially allowing communist infiltrators to enter the country. “How many

are genuine Turkish Mohammedans—ask political observers—how many are at best

Communist propagandists, or at worst spies and saboteurs?”821

The New York Times

noted that Turkey was the latest country to deal with a refugee problem in the postwar

period, but recalled Turkey’s own history of ethnic troubles. At the same time, the

newspaper found it ironic “that Turkey’s own political upheaval after World War I

created the Armenian refugees who were the first group for whom a collective

818

Acheson to the American Consul General in Geneva, December 19, 1950?. 882.1869/12-1950, DSR. 819

Welles Hangen, “Refugees Enabled to Aid Themselves,” The New York Times (May 8, 1953): 11. 820

Greene to Acheson, October 23, 1950. 882.1869/10-2350, DSR. 821

“Turkey Pits Public Opinion Against Fifth Column Invasion,” The Christian Science Monitor (March

15, 1951): 6.

272

international relief and resettlement effort was made. Now Turkey is on the other end of

the trail.” The article also quoted Meyer Cohen, IRO assistant director general, as

suggesting that Turkey could benefit from this agricultural workforce, particularly in

sparsely populated eastern and southern Turkey.822

Ironically, the areas remained vacant

in large part because of the forced removal of Armenians and Kurds in previous decades

and few refugees would ultimately be settled there.823

Turkey’s government, meanwhile, continued to lobby the U.S. government for

support by drawing on Turkey’s role in the Cold War. The Embassy in Washington

hosted a benefit for the refugees that included American senators, State Department

officials, and businessmen.824

The American-Turkish Society in Washington, D.C. raised

enough money to build 14 houses, according to the Turkish ambassador’s wife, who

wanted a street in a refugee village to be called United States of America Street. 825

The

Turkish government also launched an English-language public information campaign that

cast the refugees as “victims of Communist persecution” and emphasized Turkey’s

struggles in the U.S.-led Cold War: The refugees were “being used as a means to disrupt

[the] Turkish economy, to weaken Turkish resistance against Communist aggression.

Turkey is the bastion of Western Europe in the Eastern Mediterranean. She is the key to

the defense of the oil resources of the Middle East. The refugee problem thrust upon

Turkey is a continuation, by the exploitation of human misery, of the war of nerves and

822

“Turkey Absorbing Mass of Refugees: I.R.O. Mission Finds Country Accepting Moslems Forced Out

by Bulgar Regime,” New York Times (April 15, 1951): 27. 823

Uğur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 824

“Hour in Turkey Tea February 15 to Benefit Refugee Group,” The Washington Post (February 4, 1951):

S4. 825

“Turkish Aid Group Reports on Progress,” The Washington Post (April 4, 1952): C4.

273

pressure against the Turkish Republic,” a pamphlet aimed at an American audience

explained. 826

The public information campaign coincided with Turkey’s ongoing

campaign for membership in NATO.827

Although not all U.S. officials unquestioningly accepted Turkey’s narrative about

the immigration of Turks from Bulgaria, more senior policymakers often embraced it

when it suited American interests in fighting communism. Similar to other American

officials, Frederick Merrill, the American Consul in Istanbul, did not view the forced

migration as an example of enduring ethnic troubles, but saw it as an example of

communist brutality. Yet, he also concluded that “the reasons most often advanced to

explain the emigration from Bulgaria—i.e., Communist plot to disrupt Turkish economy,

to infiltrate Turkey with Communists, to make room for Soviet citizens in Bulgaria, etc.,

are not altogether valid.” Instead, the most likely motivation underlying the forced

migration of Turks was largely internal and reflected Bulgaria’s ongoing attempts “to

facilitate land collectivization and benefit by the wholesale robbery of the emigrating

families.”828

Yet, George McGhee, who became ambassador a month before Turkey’s

accession to NATO on February 18, 1952, stood behind Turkey’s official narrative, when

he told an American audience that Bulgaria had forced the migration of ethnic Turks

“with the intent of disrupting Turkish economy and infiltrating spies.” He likewise

emphasized that Turkey had kept the Middle East from falling to the Soviet Union and

that its membership in NATO would bring peace to the region, especially between

826

Office, Another Quarter Million Homeless People, 3, 6. 827

James Helicke, "Turkey's Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1945-1952: A Qualified

Success?," in Pacts and Alliances in History: Diplomatic Strategy and the Politics of Coalitions, ed.

Melissa Yeager and Charles Carter (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 65-83. 828

Merrill to Department of State, August 14, 1951. 882.1869/8-1451, DSR.

274

Greece and Turkey.829

A public information article prepared by the Economic

Cooperation Administration, which administered the Marshall Plan, was published in the

Washington Post. It stated: “It is obvious that these refugees are part of Communist

campaign against the democracies. The Reds are hoping to force on the Turkish economy

hundreds of thousands of helpless people. But the plot has failed” in no small part “due to

the Marshall Plan.”830

Although U.S. and Turkish officials occasionally cited the episode as an example

of Turkish and Western resolve in the struggle against communism, the process of

integration for the migrants posed a variety of challenges to social cohesion in Turkey.

Not only did they compete with other Turks for scarce housing and jobs, the fact that

there were relatively few men of working age and a disproportionate number of the

migrants were children and elderly men and women presented a strain for Turkey’s

limited social welfare services. 831

In September 1955, one female head of household

appealed to the prime minister for help in paying for the marriage of her daughter to the

son of another struggling refugee family: “My children lack education, we are desperate

and we have no money,” she wrote from a village near Izmir.832

The resettlement also had implications for Turkish national identity and anti-

Communist sentiment. Most of the Bulgarian Turks were resettled in villages and

received land from the government. Many Anatolian Turks saw aiding the refugees as “a

829

A.C. Sedgwick, “Turks’ Importance to West Stressed,” New York Times (May 3, 1952): 6. 830

“Turks Share their Mite With Refugees,” The Washington Post (November 4, 1951): B2. 831

“Turkish Housing Plight Eased,” The Christian Science Monitor (February 9, 1954): 13. Kostanick,

"Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953," 108 -09. 832

İzmir Bergama Boz Köyü'nde oturan Bulgaristan göçmeni Fatma Hatipoğlu'nun yardım isteği, 1955.

030.0.001/19.108.4, DAGM.

275

patriotic gesture to welcome and aid fellow Turks, particularly if they were fleeing from a

Communist country.”833

About half of the land allocated for the newcomers had been

confiscated from Greeks who had fled Anatolia in the 1920s. 834

Awareness of the

previous ownership—even today Mediterranean and Aegean Turkey’s landscape remains

colored by abandoned Greek properties—and the fact that some of their neighbors had

themselves arrived in Turkey as refugees conceivably reinforced Turkish national

sentiment and a sense of Turkey for the Turks, rather than minorities. At the same time,

competition for scarce land also sometimes stoked animosity between the newcomers and

earlier residents who complained about unfair distribution. 835

Despite Turkey’s plans for

most refugees to remain in rural areas, many joined a growing wave of other

impoverished migrants from the countryside to urban areas, where unemployment

became an increasing concern.836

Şerif Erdoğan, who arrived in 1951, lived near a new

industrial area of Ankara and complained that he could not find a job because his middle

school education in Bulgaria was not recognized in his new country.837

As Turkey’s

economy continued to struggle, the sight of middle class minority communities in

Istanbul added to social tensions within the country, as well as anti-minority sentiment.838

833

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953," 120. 834

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Refugees from Bulgaria, 1950-1953," 50. 835

Kostanick, "Turkish Resettlement of Bulgarian Turks, 1950-1953," 120, 13. 836

Ibid., 122-5, 28-9. 837

Letter to the Prime Minister, September 14, 1956. 030 01 00/ 20.115.2, DAGM. 838

Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 258.

276

Cyprus: Self-determination, Nationalism, and Security

Whereas the troubles of ethnic Turks from Bulgaria shaped conceptualizations of

human rights, national identity, security, and Turkish popular understanding of the Cold

War in the early 1950s, growing focus on the problem of Cyprus soon shifted that

attention to the fate of the island’s Turkish minority. Not only did the Cyprus question

expose tensions between NATO members Turkey and Greece, but it emboldened ethnic-

infused Turkish nationalism, which emphasized the problems of ethnic Turks to the

exclusion of minorities inside Turkey. Moreover, the Cyprus dispute also proved the

undoing of the Turkish government’s attempted synthesis of nationalism, human rights

and Cold War politics (Chapter 3). Similar to the dispute with Bulgaria over its Turkish

minority, the plight of the Turkish Cypriot minority and claims of a communist threat

imbued the international debate over Cyprus with an ethnic dimension rooted in human

rights, communism, and nationalism. In particular, ethnic favoritism also played out in

Turkey’s interpretation of self-determination, one of the most important, international

debates surrounding human rights in the postwar period.

By 1954, Greece was referring to self-determination to advance its case for

Cypriot independence from Britain. For Greece, Greeks formed a large majority on the

island, so self-determination was closely linked to the island’s union (Enosis) with the

Greek mainland. By contrast, the governments of the United States and Turkey initially

sought to avoid entanglement. Turkey’s position on Cyprus was also complicated by

growing nationalist sentiment fueled not only by the influx of Turks from Bulgaria, but

by celebrations in 1953 of the 500th anniversary of Ottoman Turks’ conquest of

277

Constantinople. Provincial newspapers reinforced Turkish nationalist sentiment and

latent anti-Greek sentiment with front page headlines, such as “Istanbul is Turkish and

will remain Turkish.” The festivities on the May 29, 1953 anniversary put pressure on

Turkey’s leaders, who avoided participation in order to maintain good relations with

Greece, but were criticized by the Turkish public: Instead, President Celal Bayar attended

a sendoff for troops bound for Korea, while Prime Minister Menderes and Foreign

Minister Köprülü were abroad for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. 839

U.S. policy held that the United States was not a party to the problem and it

discouraged Greece from pressing the issue.840

Under pressure from Britain, Eisenhower

in June 1954 conceded that “maintenance of the status quo was probably the best solution

at this time.”841

For the United States, agitation of the Cyprus issue “could profit no one

but the Soviet bloc.” Not only was the communist party popular in Cyprus, but Greece’s

desire to bring the question to the United Nations imperiled ties between NATO allies

Turkey and Greece and the island’s independence challenged Britain’s strategic foothold

in the region.842

From the perspective of U.S. policymakers, Turkey represented “the

most stable and anti-Soviet country in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern area.”

Turkey’s involvement in NATO, the Balkan Pact, and similar arrangements for the

Middle East (the stillborn Middle East Defense Organization and later the Central Treaty

839

Gavin Brockett, "Betwixt and Between: Turkish Print Culture and the Emergence of a National Identity

1945-1954" (PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2003), 263-70. 840

The Secretary of State to the Embassy in Greece, July 18, 1952, FRUS, 1952 (Washington, D.C.: GPO,

1988), Vol. VIII: 674-5. 841

Memorandum of Conversation by the Counselor of the Department of State (MacArthur), June 23, 1954,

FRUS, 1954 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1986), Vol. VI, Western Europe and Canada: 1072. 842

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Greek, Turkish, and Iranian

Affairs (Baxter), July 28, 1954, FRUS, 1954, Vol. VIII: 700-701.

278

Organization) potentially put Turkey at the center of a “continuous Western defense

system” stretching from Western Europe through the Balkans and ultimately the greater

Middle East.843

Attention to ethnic problems and self-determination for Cyprus called

regional stability and security arrangements into question, not least because of fears that

the island might tilt toward communism. Ironically, Turkey and the United States were

not the only ones worried: Bulgaria simultaneously fretted over plans for a revived

Balkan Pact, which took root in 1953, and the prospect that emerging ethnic tensions in

Cyprus could bring unrest to its own Turkish community.844

The Turkish government’s official stance on Cyprus was in line with the views of

Washington. Shortly after the election of the Democrat Party in 1950, Foreign Minister

Köprülü had even declared that Turkey had no Cyprus problem and the issue was a

domestic affair of Britain. Turkey’s government saw no reason for any change to the

status quo, discouraged Greece from bringing the issue to the United Nations and, at least

initially, sought “to dissociate itself as much as possible from agitation on the Cyprus

question,” including criticism coming from an increasingly vocal Turkish press.845

The congruence of Turkey’s policy with that of Washington was hardly

coincidental: As Turkey’s economy struggled in the mid-1950s, it continued to lobby the

United States for more financial support and emphasized its strategic value to

Washington. Using language that policymakers in Washington understood, Turkish

843

National Security Council Report: Statement of Policy on Turkey, February 28, 1955, FRUS, 1955

(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1989), Vol. XXIV, Soviet Union; Eastern Mediterranean: 622. 844

Paraskevov, "Insecurity and Control: Bulgaria and Its Turkish Minority," 122. 845

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Greek, Turkish, and Iranian

Affairs (Baxter), February 8, 1954, FRUS, 1954, Vol. VIII: 680.; Memorandum of Conversation, by the

Deputy Director of the Office of Greek, Turkish, and Iranian Affairs (Baxter), March 10, 1954, FRUS, Vol.

VIII: 682.

279

officials repeatedly emphasized concerns about the susceptibility of Cyprus to

communism, the proximity of the island to Turkey, and the dangers of Greek-Turkish

tensions for NATO, the Balkan Pact, and the stillborn Middle East Defense Organization.

Eisenhower was convinced. He saw Turkey as “the best possible way to buttress our

security interests in the Near Eastern area. Moreover, it was much better and cheaper to

assist the Turks to build up their own armed forces than to create additional US

divisions.”846

Although self-determination appeared in the U.N. Charter, Brad Simpson and

other scholars have shown that U.S. policymakers fought attempts to broaden its scope in

postwar years and failed to include self-determination among the rights mentioned in the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To the consternation of Washington, the

international question of decolonization featured prominently in difficult postwar

decolonization debates, including those of India, Indonesia, and Palestine. 847

Turkey’s

government, which was concerned about the fate of the Cypriot Turkish minority,

initially downplayed the Cyprus issue by stressing global security, defending the status

quo in Cyprus and questioning self-determination in international forums.

The emergence of the question of self-determination for Cyprus also coincided

with a broader international debate over self-determination and its relationship to human

rights. In 1952, the General Assembly and U.N. Commission on Human Rights both

affirmed the right of “all peoples and all nations” to self-determination. Following a U.N.

846

Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, NSC Records. Quoted in FRUS, 1952-1954, Vol. XXIV: 608. 847

Brad Simpson, "Bernath Lecture: The United States and the Curious History of Self-Determination,"

Diplomatic History 36, no. 4 (September 2012): 680.

280

Commission on Human Rights vote in April, Eleanor Roosevelt, the American delegate,

expressed questions about how the principle would be applied and proposed an

amendment that emphasized that it be implemented “with proper regard for the rights of

other states and peoples.”848

Despite U.S. reservations, the General Assembly affirmed

the right of self-determination in December. For the United States, Britain, and France,

U.N. endorsement of self-determination undermined security by strengthening nationalist

movements and impinging on decisions that were the mandate of the U.N. Trusteeship

Council. The United States, which did not wish to appear as against the principle, sought

flexibility to respond to anticolonial movements and often couched its objections “in

technical and procedural concerns.”849

U.S. allies differed sharply on the question of Cypriot self-determination and

posited opposing views rooted in security and human rights: Whereas Britain and Turkey

stressed the problem that Cyprus posed for international security, Greece emphasized

Cypriots’ right to self-determination. Britain made its case for the strategic value of

Cyprus to the United States. According to a British aide-memoire provided to the U.S.

government, the dispute was not a question of self-government for a colony, but an issue

of transferring two ethnic groups—Greek and Turkish Cypriots—from British

sovereignty to another state, Greece. Cypriot self-determination also raised a series of

security concerns: “To allow the United Nations to discuss Cyprus on the pretext of self-

determination would open the flood gates for the pursuit of territorial claims

848

“Right of All to Self-determination Defined in Two Covenants,” United Nations Review May 1, 1952:

371-3 849

Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi, Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 217-18. Simpson, "Bernath Lecture: The United States and

the Curious History of Self-Determination," 680.

281

everywhere.”850

Not only might the island turn communist, the issue could unsettle

existing boundaries throughout the region, such as the prospect of Turkey laying claim to

other parts of Turkish-speaking Thrace or the Soviets raising territorial questions about

Kurds in Iran and Iraq. 851

U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles left open the

possibility of “eventual self-government for the people of Cyprus,” but U.S. efforts to

avoid a formal U.N. debate on Cyprus led to anger within Greece.852

The Greek

ambassador chided the United States for going along with Britain and accused it of

coercing Turkey, a position he argued “was inconsistent” with “the American tradition of

freedom.” The United States was not “simply defending a colonial position,” U.S.

officials argued, but attempting to avoid “an open split between our friends and allies in

the UN.” 853

In line with the United States, Turkey emphasized security and stressed that

its position on Cyprus was not just based on the majority wishes of the population, but its

strategic significance stemming from the geographic proximity of the island to Turkey.

The “public airing” of the dispute would have “a seriously adverse effect upon

relationships in NATO” and a recently-signed agreement on the Balkan Pact: “Only the

Soviet Union stands to profit.” 854

850

The British Ambassador (Makings) to President Eisenhower, September 20, 1954, FRUS, 1952-1954,

Vol. VIII, 711. 851

The United States Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the Department of State, September

20, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. VIII: 713. 852

Memorandum by the Secretary of State to the President, November 16, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. VIII:

726-7.; The Secretary of State to Prime Minister Papagos, November 16, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. VIII:

728. 853

Memorandum of Conversation by the Deputy Director of the Office of Greek, Turkish, and Iranian

Affairs (Kitchen), December 23, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. VIII: 750-3. 854

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Greek, Turkish, and Iranian

Affairs (Baxter), March 10, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. VIII: 682.

282

Despite efforts by Turkey and the United States to avoid international discussions

over Cyprus, Greece brought the issue to the United Nations in August 1954. 855

By

September, tensions between the two NATO allies were visible: “Greek and Turkish

officers could scarcely be brought to talk to each other” during a joint military maneuver,

a situation that British officials emphasized could only benefit communists.856

For Turkish leaders, ethnic considerations continued to offer the backdrop to

conceptualizations of Cypriot self-determination, national security, and human rights.

Turkish officials expressed concern that the possible union of Cyprus with Greece would

put the island’s Turkish minority under Greek control, upsetting the balance brought by

the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece in the 1920s, which had not

involved Cyprus, and potentially contributing to “Soviet efforts [to] disrupt western

unity.”857

Turkish officials hinted that the Cyprus dispute could also allow it to raise

questions about the borders of Thrace inhabited by significant Turkish populations—both

in Greece and Bulgaria—a view that was reinforced by the recent influx of refugees from

Bulgaria. Turkish diplomats also raised the possibility that a new population exchange

might be needed. For Turkey, self-determination and Enosis were one and the same. Self-

government for Cyprus remained a possibility “provided that the status of Cypriot Turks

is adequately protected and that self-government will not lead to self-determination and

enosis.”858

As the United Nations in early 1955 took up draft Covenants on Human

855

United Nations Review “Cyprus New Issue, Old Land,” December 1954 Vol. 1 No. 6 , p. 51 856

The British Ambassador (Makings) to President Eisenhower, September 20, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol.

VIII: 711. 857

The Ambassador in Turkey (Warren) to the Department of State, March 30, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol.

VIII: 683. 858

Goodyear to Department of State, August 8, 1956. 782.00/8-856, DSR.

283

Rights that included provisions on self-determination, Turkey’s ambassador to the

international body, Selim Sarper, slammed the idea of Enosis, a term he said should not

be translated as “union,” but that was more similar to the German term “Anschluss, with

all its alarming and demagogic implications.” 859

Nazi Germany had used the term to

describe its annexation in 1938 of Austria, the first sovereign state it seized.

Gaining momentum from the question surrounding Bulgarian Turks, the Cyprus

affair soon became the focus of nationalist groups that emphasized human rights

discourse, as well as national security, in appealing for better treatment of Turkish

Cypriots. Many were critical that the government had taken a soft position and

demanded a more assertive stance.860

Some nationalists put Greek calls for Cypriot self-

determination on its head: In addition to criticizing the treatment of Turks under

communists, the nationalist journal Orkun also pressed for uniting Cyprus with Turkey,

rather than Greece. Pan-Turkish writers also alluded to the relationship between self-

determination, human rights, and nationalism. H.S. Ertürk argued that nationalism “stood

for human rights, while imperialism denied them.” The objective then was to help all

Turks secure independence. A. Kazanoğlu argued that Pan-Turkism was like other forms

of nationalism in its emphasis on securing human rights for compatriots and their quest to

determine their own fate.861

A variety of Turkish organizations, especially refugee

groups, such as the Society for Relief of Refugees from Western Thrace (a group that

ostensibly helped to settle Turks from Bulgaria), pro-government student groups, and the

859

“Draft International Covenants on Human Rights,” United Nations Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (February

1955): 15-18; “Cyprus”, United Nations Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (February 1955): 23. 860

Hikmet Bil, Kıbrıs Olayı ve İç Yüzü (Istanbul: Belge Yayınları, 1976), 35. 861

Landau, Pan-Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation, 129-31.

284

Committee for the Defense of Turkish Rights in Cyprus (which was later reorganized as

the Cyprus is Turkish Association) began advocating for a more assertive Turkish

government position on Cyprus. These groups were often nationalist in character.862

Without doubt, the most significant of the organizations to rally around the rights

of Turks abroad was the Cyprus is Turkish Association. With close ties to the Menderes

government, the group helped to arouse Turkish popular interest in Cyprus. The

organization’s activism also coincided with a more assertive position taken by the

government on Cyprus. Officially established in August 1954, the same month Greece

petitioned the United Nations for self-determination of Cyprus, the organization’s name

was a reaction to Greek calls for Enosis with Greece. 863

The group simultaneously

stressed human rights and security in advocating for a stronger Turkish government

position: “Concerning the Cyprus issue, Turkey’s interests are for not making changes in

the current administration and for Turkish kin in Cyprus, whose human rights are

honored, to live in security and for their nationality [milliyetlerini] to be protected,” the

group proclaimed in August 1954. The group declared Cyprus was “of vital importance”

to the security of Turkish territory and, while stressing friendship with Greece, stated

“Cyprus must never be given to Greece.” Just days after its founding and Greece’s

petition to the United Nations, Menderes met with the Cyprus is Turkish Association on

August 29, 1954. Prominent members of the Democrat Party quickly joined the

organization.864

Boosted by his victory in the 1954 elections and emboldened by support

862

Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the

Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 48-9. 863

Ibid., 42, 48-50. 864

Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975, 215-16.

285

from nationalist groups, Menderes moved in an authoritarian direction and asserted

increasing control over foreign affairs.865

He urged moderation from the Turkish public,

saying the government was doing everything it could, but also reportedly declared that

“Cyprus will never be Greece’s [Yunanlıların].” The press remained incensed.866

Employing global human rights discourse and referring to the recent troubles of

Bulgarian Turks, refugee groups continued to clamor on behalf of Turkish Cypriots.

Sponsored by the Turkish Hearths (a nationalist organization), the Federation of Turkish

Refugee Associations—an umbrella group for refugees—gathered in March 1955 to

demand better treatment of ethnic Turks abroad. A statement from the group appealed to

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and declared that “Turks in the Balkans, the

Crimea, the Caucasus and Central Asia are today writhing under the yoke of the new

regimes of their homelands and are being systematically subjected to expatriation or

condemned to extermination.” Referring to the mass expulsion of Bulgarian Turks and

communist oppression of other Turkic minorities, the group declared: “A similar fate will

menace the Turks of Cyprus, if in case of international indifference and British retreat,

Pan-Hellenic ideals were to be realized on that island which is indispensable to the

security of the Anatolian mainland.”867

It urged the United Nations to investigate human

rights abuses against Turks.

Nationalist pressure over Cyprus exerted increasing influence over Turkish

foreign policy. In April 1955, Köprülü resigned as foreign minister. His portfolio was

865

Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 230-1. Following a 1953 assassination attempt against Yalman, the

editor of the pro-government Vatan newspaper, the government engaged tightened restrictions on a

flourishing press over which the government lacked control 866

Bil, Kıbrıs Olayı ve İç Yüzü 88-9. 867

Bracken to Department of State. June 8, 1955. 782.00/6-855, DSR.

286

taken over by the Prime Minister until August and later by Deputy Prime Minister Fatin

Rüştü Zorlu, a hardliner on the Cyprus issue. 868

In contrast to Köprülü’s repeated

statements that the Cyprus issue was a domestic affair of Britain, Zorlu pursued a more

assertive policy on Cyprus. 869

Zorlu’s views were only hardened after April 1955 by the

outbreak of armed violence in Cyprus carried out by the Greek nationalist organization

EOKA in its campaign for the island’s self-determination.870

At the international level, Turkey’s government affirmed the principle of self-

determination in theory, but advanced an understanding of human rights and self-

determination as a derivative of global security. As delegates across the globe gathered

in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955 for the first meeting of the Non-Aligned

Movement, an attempt by countries to avoid taking sides in the Cold War, representatives

also spoke out in favor of self-determination for colonized peoples. Addressing the

conference, Zorlu criticized “colonialism and racialism,” but also used human rights

language to advocate for collective defense arrangements, such as NATO, which he

claimed as “natural and inalienable rights.”871

Zorlu’s speech was not well-received.872

Nonetheless, Turkey endorsed the final communique of the conference, which “declared

its full support of the principle of self-determination of peoples and nations as set forth in

the Charter of the United Nations and took note of the United Nations resolutions on the

868

Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975, 236. 869

Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the

Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 42. 870

Nancy Crawshaw, The Cyprus Revolt: An Account of the Struggle for Union with Greece (London:

George Allen and Unwin, 1978), 114-129. 871

Quoted in Roland Burke, Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights

(Phildelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 28-9. 872

“Upset at Bandung,” Time, Vol. LXV, No. 18 (May 2, 1955).

287

rights of peoples and nations to self-determination, which is a pre-requisite of the full

enjoyment of all fundamental Human Rights.”873

When it came to Cyprus, Turkey’s government voiced increasingly provocative

statements about the implications of Cypriot self-determination for the security of

Turkish Cypriots and the Turkish mainland. Before delegates from Greece, Turkey, and

Britain gathered in London in September 1955, Menderes noted the importance of

Turkey’s friendship with Greece, but stressed “rumors” of an imminent “massacre for our

brothers in Cyprus” on the Greek national day at the end of August. He accused Greece

of pursuing irredentism and imperialism, questioned the sincerity of Greece’s appeals to

self-determination on ethnic grounds, and emphasized the importance of Cyprus for

Turkish security.

Yet, ethnicity proved a complicated term in Turkey’s Cyprus equation. On the

hand, Turkey’s position had much to do with its concerns about ethnic Turks on the

island. On the other, Turkish Cypriots represented only a minority of inhabitants. Thus,

Menderes continued to stress the status quo and downplayed ethnicity as a basis for self-

determination by focusing on Turkey’s historical presence on the island, the rights of

Turkish Cypriots, and security. The premier cited Greece’s historical unwillingness to

consider a plebiscite for Western Thrace (part of Greece with a large Turkish minority),

Greece’s acquisition of Crete, and its invasion of Anatolia after the First World War:

“Cyprus is only an extension of the Turkish mainland, and it is one of the main pillars of

873

Final Communiqué of the Asian-African conference of Bandung, April 24, 1955. Centre Virtuel de la

Connaissance sur l'Europe.

http://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/final_communique_of_the_asian_african_conference_of_bandung_24_april_19

55-en-676237bd-72f7-471f-949a-88b6ae513585.html

288

Turkey's security. Consequently, should a change in its present status come into

consideration, that change must be based, not on ethnic grounds, but on other and far

more important and permanent principles and realities, and these can only render it to

Turkey.”874

Zorlu presented a similar position in London. Interestingly, Zorlu also

insisted that Turkey supported the principle of self-determination, noting that Turkey had

affixed its signature to the United Nations Charter, as well as the final communique of the

Bandung Conference. Yet, Zorlu argued that the application of the principle of self-

determination to Cyprus clashed with Britain’s sovereignty on the island and Turkey’s

right to security. It also imperiled the security of the Eastern Mediterranean region and

the rights of Turkish Cypriots.875

Retaliation: The Events of 6-7 September 1955

Despite public statements by the Turkish government downplaying ethnic-based

claims to self-determination for Cyprus, the plight of Turkish Cypriots became

inextricably connected to the fate of minorities, especially Greeks, within Turkey.

Reflecting broader Turkish nationalist sentiment that emphasized the predicament of

Turks abroad to the exclusion of ethnic minorities within the country, the Cyprus is

Turkish Association not only advocated for the rights of Turkish Cypriots, but led the

charge against Greeks in Istanbul, especially their spiritual head, Athenagoras. 876

874

Address by Adnan Menderes to the Turkish delegation to the London Conference, August 24, 1955.

John Tirman, ed., The Cyprus Conflict: An Educational Web Site. http://www.cyprus-

conflict.net/menderes-%20london_conf.html 875

Statement by Fatin Zorlu at the London Conference, August 31, 1955. John Tirman, ed., The Cyprus

Conflict: An Educational Web Site. http://www.cyprus-conflict.net/zorlu_in_london.html. 876

Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975, 216.

289

Once the symbol of Turkey’s Cold War nationalism, Athenagoras found himself

the subject of growing nationalist sentiment as he sought to avoid involvement in the

politically-sensitive dispute over Cyprus. Erenerol, the leader of the breakaway Turkish

Orthodox church, announced the excommunication of Cypriot Archbishop Makarios, the

leader of the Enosis campaign, a position that the Turk had little authority to proclaim.

Nonetheless, the declaration put Athenagoras in an “awkward position,” as one American

consular officer noted, whereby any stance on the issue “would have either offended the

Turks or definitely alienated the Greek people.”877

Athenagoras also found himself

“embarrassed” to be drawn into a sensitive exchange over the Byzantine Hagia Sophia,

which had served as a mosque during the Ottoman period, and demands by some Greeks

for it revert to its original status as a church. (Under the Republic of Turkey, it functioned

as a museum.)878

On the eve of celebrations of the five-hundredth anniversary of the

Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, the patriarch insisted that he maintained friendly

relations with the Turkish government, thanked it for new financial support to Greek

schools in the country, and praised it for “being sensible and tactful in playing down the

Five Hundredth Anniversary ceremony.” He also continued to emphasize that Greeks

give up past animosities for “the ‘good neighbor’ policy of the present.”879

But his efforts

did not placate Turkish nationalist critics.

877

Carp to the Department of State, June 6, 1952. 882.413/6-652, DSR. 878

Athenagoras expressed support for its current status as a museum. McGhee to the Department of State,

July 19, 1952. 882.413/7-1952, DSR. The question remains controversial. In November 2013, the foreign

ministries of Turkey and Greece each issued public statements condemning the other over suggestions by

senior Turkish government officials that the Hagia Sophia could once again become a mosque. “Turkey

and Greece Feud over Hagia Sophia,” Agence France-Presse, November 20, 2013.

http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-greece-feud-over-hagia-sophia-184603662.html?soc_src=copy 879

Macatee to the Department of State, April 10, 1953. 882.413/4-1053, DSR.

290

By 1954, criticism of Athenagoras within Turkish government circles was

apparent. One government report expressed concerns that the Ecumenical Patriarchate in

Istanbul was no longer limited to religious affairs. Instead, a Turkish government report

stated that Athenagoras’ patriarchate increasingly resembled “a state within a state" and

accused him of “being spoiled” like a child.880

Yet, as Alexandris points out, “Ironically,

the Turks, who had initially demanded the restriction of the patriarch’s functions to

purely ecclesiastical matters, were now inviting Athenagoras to involve himself in a

controversial political issue.” 881

As posters from the Cyprus is Turkish Association made

their way into storefronts across Turkey in August 1954, the group condemned Makarios

and the archbishop of Athens for supporting Greek Cypriots and called for Athenagoras

to criticize his fellow Orthodox Church leaders. Athenagoras’ efforts to distance himself

from the dispute by emphasizing the autonomous nature of Orthodox churches failed and

the Turkish press charged Athenagoras with favoring Greece on Cyprus. The Committee

for the Defense of Turkish Rights in Cyprus ultimately demanded that the Ecumenical

Patriarchate be removed from Turkey.882

Other Turkish refugee groups similarly demanded human rights for ethnic Turks,

but were critical of minorities within Turkey or dismissive of the problems that they

faced. The Federation of Turkish Refugee Associations insisted that Turkish rulers had

always treated minorities “with a tolerance without parallel” whereas Turks in foreign

880

The author of the report is unknown, but it made it to the Prime Minister’s office. It used the pejorative

term şımarıklık—“being spoiled”— to describe Athenagoras; Fener Rum Ortodoks Patrikhanesindeki

anlaşmazlık, July 1, 1954. 30 1 0 0 /133.869.4, DAGM. 881

Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 253. 882

Soysal, Soğuk Savaş Dönemi ve Türkiye: Olaylar Kronolojisi, 1945-1975, 216; Vryonis, The

Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek

Community of Istanbul, 79-80.

291

countries continued to suffer. According to the group, Turkey’s government had fulfilled

its human rights commitments “with utmost loyalty in regard to all non-Turkish minority

groups” who were able to achieve standards of living better than most Turks: “This

tolerance is extended even to the 35,000 Greeks” of Istanbul “while there are not 35

Turks in all Greece that are offered similar opportunities.” Turkish Cypriots would face a

similar fate, if Greece were to receive Cyprus.883

Underpinning Turkish government and

public attitudes that rights for minority Greeks be extended reciprocal to rights offered to

Turks in Greece and Cyprus, the Organization for the Welfare of the Refugees from

Western Thrace was already demanding by October 1954 that “the Turks of Western

Thrace be raised to the level of the Greeks of Istanbul, or that the Greeks of Istanbul

come down to the level of the Turks of Western Thrace.” 884

Sentiment linking Turkey’s

treatment of minorities to the treatment of Turkish minorities abroad only grew. At the

same time that Menderes spoke of “rumors” of a “massacre” of Turkish Cypriots, the

Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, which was closely linked to the Cyprus is Turkish

Committee, declared “if the Greeks dare touch our brethren, then there are plenty of

Greeks in Istanbul to retaliate upon.”885

As delegates met in London, tensions in Greece and Turkey continued to grow

and the fate of Cyprus was inextricably tied to minorities within Turkey. Growing

diplomatic tensions between Greece and Turkey over the fate of Cyprus soon came to a

boil following an erroneous Turkish newspaper report of a bomb attack on Atatürk’s

883

Consul in Istanbul (Bracken) to Department of State. June 8, 1955. 782.00 884

Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the

Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 79-80. 885

Hürriyet, August 28, 1955. Quoted in Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish

Relations, 256.

292

birthplace in Greece. On the night of September 6-7, 1955, a protest transformed into a

riot that attacked the Greek community of Istanbul, as well as other minorities. More than

seventy churches and thousands of businesses were vandalized. 886

The protests were

ostensibly organized by the Cyprus is Turkish Association, although a number of

diplomatic and scholarly accounts have also pointed out that the logistics of bringing

people from across Istanbul and Anatolia to participate in the anti-Greek demonstrations

would have required at least some support or approval from Turkish authorities.887

Köprülü, who would eventually join the opposition, later proclaimed that the

demonstration had been inspired by Zorlu and organized by Menderes. Köprülü later

even suggested that Central Intelligence Director Allen Dulles, who was in Istanbul

during the riots, encouraged Turkey’s government to blame the melee on communists,

although the former foreign minister provided scant evidence to back up his claim. The

question of responsibility would not be quickly answered: Alleged to have ordered the

pogrom, both Menderes and Zorlu were forced to defend themselves at trial after the

1960 military coup, which would ultimately order their execution the following year.

Perhaps the most damning evidence was a telegram from Zorlu in London just before the

attacks that stated: “The British seem to be inclining towards self-determination for

Cyprus … It is necessary that the premier takes appropriate steps to support my

position.”888

886

Ibid., 256-66. 887

Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the

Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul. Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-

Turkish Relations, 263. 888

Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations, 263-5.

293

In denial, Turkey’s government immediately expressed remorse for the violence

and promised to pay for damages, but cast blame for the violence on “Red

instigations.”889

The official newspaper of the Democrat Party, Zafer, labeled the

outbreak of violence an “unfortunate …calculated and planned Communist action” that

took advantage of “our noble sentiments, which overflowed” following the rumored

attack on Atatürk’s birthplace in the city of Salonika in northeastern Greece. The

newspaper called the initial gathering “an innocent protest” that veered in a “completely

different direction” after Turks’ “patience and composure… reached [the] boiling point”

over Cyprus. 890

Yalman, the prominent newspaper columnist, claimed the violence was

the work of Moscow, which was using Cyprus and the Orthodox Church as a pretext for

the “reconquest of Istanbul and re-establishment of the Byzantine Empire.”891

Turkish

police reports pointed to Cominform direction, as well as involvement by AKEL, a

Cypriot communist party, in the Enosis campaign.892

Similar claims were also presented

in the official indictment in February 1956, which argued that AKEL was wrongly

casting Enosis as a campaign of colonialism and taking advantage of “the pretense that

self-determination, a most natural right, was not being granted.”893

Whereas lower level American diplomats assumed a more critical stance toward

the Turkish government, more senior policymakers defended Turkey’s government. Even

before the events of September 6-7, the outgoing American consul in Izmir described

889

Warren to the Secretary of State, September 7, 1955. 782.00/9-755, DSR. 890

Zafer, September 8, 1955; U.S. Embassy in Ankara to Secretary of State, September 10, 1955. 782.00/9-

1055, DSR. 891

Yalman, Turkey in My Time, 275. 892

6-7 Eylül Olayları, Fotoğraflar-Belgeler: Fahri Çoker Arşivi, (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 2005), 382-405. 893

Bracken to the Department of State, Feburary 20, 1956. 782.00/2-2056, DSR.

294

Turkey’s strong nationalism as “merely the outward polite manifestation of a well-

developed chauvinism” toward non-Turks.894

The outbreak of violence on September 6-7,

1955, immediately sparked intense interest from American diplomats, who sent frantic

telegrams overnight. U.S. officials in Izmir understood immediately that the violence was

“understood to be retaliation for yesterday’s events in Salonika” and described the

destruction of the Greek Consulate General in Izmir. 895

In one of the first analytical

assessments of the riots, Arthur L. Richards, the U.S. Consul General in Istanbul,

attributed the events to “increasingly inflammatory” press coverage, fueled by

“irresponsible” government statements, of nationalist and anti-Greek character. He did

not assign strict blame for the riot but described the Turkish “government’s apparent

indifference or ineptitude” and noted that events slipped out of authorities’ control. 896

Less than a week after the attack, Richards was also aware of a Greek government report

that described the protests as being “organized well in advance” and as having complicity

or even support from local authorities. Richards cited “the belated intervention of the

armed forces” as proof “that higher level authorities were to a certain extent in agreement

with the purpose of this outbreak” and “actually gave it the green light. It is only when

the mob got loose and out of control that the Government realized their responsibilities

and became aware of the possible implications, both internationally and locally, of the

riots.” 897

894

Waggoner to the Department of State, July 25, 1955. 782.00/7-2555, DSR. 895

Warren to the Secretary of State, September 7, 1955. 782.00/9-755, DSR. Chase to Secretary of State,

September 7, 1955. 782.00/9-655, DSR. 896

Richards to Secretary of State, September 7, 1955. 782.00/9-755, DSR. 897

Richards to the Department of State, September 12, 1955. 782.00/9-1255, DSR.

295

However, more senior U.S. officials quickly opted to support Turkey’s case that

the riots were the work of communists. Although U.S. Ambassador Avra Warren

conceded that Turkish government statements helped to set the stage for the riots and

some local authorities may have been “tolerant to initial demonstrations,” he was

dismissive of Turkish government responsibility for the riots by September 15, noting the

“sincerity and profundity of [the] Turk[ish] Government’s chagrin,” which he said was

“beyond doubt.” Likewise, “no logical mind can believe [the] Turk[ish] Government

would be capable of plotting [the] destruction [of a] significant part [of] its wealth or its

nation’s international reputation and prestige.” 898

Moreover, Warren proclaimed there

was “no evidence which would disprove Turk Government thesis [that the] riots involved

[a] well-executed Communist plan” which Köprülü and others proclaimed before the

National Assembly. He noted there was “considerable circumstantial evidence [of]

Communist participation and direction” and the communist provocation thesis “cannot be

lightly dismissed.” His analysis contradicted that of other American diplomats as well as

representatives of western allies, who had suggested that Turkish authorities had

acquiesced to the riots. He further complained that diplomats from France and Belgium

were discounting any Communist instigation and opined that “‘the spirit of Geneva’ is

really getting out of hand.” 899

Similar sentiment was encapsulated in the U.S. Embassy’s “complete report” on

December 1955, which Warren signed. The report likewise downplayed any direct

Turkish government role in organizing the riot and attributed blame to “over-

898

Warren to the Secretary of State, September 15, 1955. 782.00/9-1555, DSR. 899

Warren to the Secretary of State, September 15, 1955. FW 782.00/9-1555, DSR.

296

emotionalism among irresponsible elements of the popular ‘Cyprus is Turkish

Association.’” It noted the lack of direct evidence to back up the communist provocation

thesis, but did not rule out the possibility “of a few strategically located Communists

successfully encouraging a purely nationalistic demonstration to going further than it

normally would.” It also cited an unofficial (and seemingly dubious) police report that

Hikmet Bil, one of the group’s leaders, was a communist agent.900

Vryonis has criticized

the report for exonerating the Menderes government of any direct responsibility and for

embodying the shortcomings of U.S. intelligence gathering surrounding the incident.901

That failure to understand the complex calculus behind the events of September 6-

7 presented challenges for U.S. foreign policy toward Turkey. At a minimum, the

administration and diplomats abroad were forced to confront a serious challenge to

Turkey as a friendly, tolerant democracy that treated its minorities well. Just a year

before, Turkey’s president had affirmed Turkey’s equal treatment of minorities with

Turks during a high-profile visit to the United States and even received commendation

from the American Jewish Committee. 902

Once again, criticism from Greeks, Armenians,

and others in the United States was challenging the Truman Doctrine narrative of Turkey

as a faithful ally of the West. In a letter to Secretary of State Dulles, Greek Americans in

Watertown, New York, complained of American apathy toward Turkish leaders: It “is

completely inconceivable to us, that they should be treated by the leaders of the free

world and especially the secretary of the U.S.A., in such a casual and apathetic manner.”

900

Warren to the Department of State, December 1, 1955. 782.00/12-1555, DSR. 901

Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the

Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 58-62. 902

Peter Kihss, “Bayar Affirms Minority Rights: Turkish Chief Cites Freedom in His Land as He Receives

Tribute from Jewish Body,” The New York Times (February 1, 1954): 3.

297

Moreover, their letter also expressed doubts about Turkey’s loyalty, noting its wavering

stance during the Second World War.903

Greek Orthodox leaders and faithful across the

United States demanded that Eisenhower seek justice from Turkey. A Massachusetts

Greek Orthodox Church protested the “apparent indifference on the part of our American

national leaders for the tragedy inflicted upon on Christian Brethren in Turkey by rioters

and vicious mobs.”904

The American Committee for the Independence of Armenia

demanded official condemnation from the U.S. Government for vandalism that it said had

“no parallel in the modern history of western democracies.”905

The violence and weak

American response unified Christian denominations. Greek, Russian, Syrian, Ukrainian,

Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian, Albanian, and Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Churches in

the United States marked a “Day of Mourning” in response to the attacks.906

The World

Council of Churches also complained and received the “personal attention” of the

secretary of state.907

Angry Americans wrote letters to Eisenhower and members of

Congress, who forwarded their letters to the administration.908

Newspapers published

letters from outraged readers. In her letter to the Washington Post, Mary Smith of

Washington, D.C. called for the American government to denounce “Turkey in front of

the whole world.” 909

903

Officers and Members of St. Vasilios Greek Orthodox Church to the Secretary of State, October 15,

1955. 782.00/10-155, DSR. 904

Sakellson to the President, September 30, 1955.(No record number given.) Box 3730, RG 59, DSR.

“City’s Greeks Ask Protest to Turkey by Ike: Assail Rioting over Cyprus Issue,” Chicago Daily Tribune

(October 12, 1955): B15. 905

Navassardian to the Secretary of State, October 8, 1955. 782.00/10-855, DSR. 906

“Eastern Orthodox Churches to Mark Day of Mourning,” Daily Boston Globe (October 22, 1955): 11. 907

Baxter to O’Connor, October 5, 1955. 782.00/10-555, DSR. 908

E.g., Carlyle to the Secretary of State, October 1, 1955. 782.00/10-155, DSR; Johnson to the Secretary

of State, October 3, 1955. 782.00/10-355, DSR. 909

Mary Smith, “Riots in Turkey.” The Washington Post and Times Herald (September 27, 1955): 14.

298

At the same time, U.S. policymakers’ eagerness to dismiss enduring ethnic

troubles in Turkey or the region bore strategic consequences for the United States. Some

U.S. diplomats’ occasional framing of the Cyprus dispute in terms of simplistic “age-old

hatreds” or another “flare-up” did little to address an issue that was rooted in postwar

developments, including the Cold War and debates about human rights and self-

determination, and in deep-seated and conflicting views of Greek and Turkish

nationalism.910

When Dulles wrote to Menderes and Greek Prime Minister Alexander

Papagos shortly after the attacks, he emphasized the need to restore “the unity of the

Atlantic community” immediately, “[r]egardless of the causes of this disagreement,

which are complex and numerous.”911

Greek politicians were enraged by American

unwillingness to assign any blame for the anti-minority attacks to Turkey’s government.

“I doubt whether the Dulles message has a precedent in the diplomatic history of the

world,” said Sophocles Venizelos, former prime minister and leader of the Liberal

Democratic Union.912

Greece’s reaction to the anti-minority melee, coupled with the lack of an

appropriate American response, left a lasting scar on western collective security

arrangements. Greece withdrew from NATO activity and put the Balkan Pact on hold

910

Telegram from the Embassy in the United Kingdom to the Department of State, September 9, 1955,

FRUS, 1955, Vol. XXIV: 282.; Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of

September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 29-30. 911

“Text of Dulles Letters” New York Times (September 19, 1955): 11. 912

“Greeks Assail Dulles’ Turk Unity Appeal: Ignores Recent Riots, Leader Says,” Chicago Daily Tribune

(September 21, 1955): C11.

299

until Turkey made restitution. 913

Greece only rejoined NATO maneuvers in March

1956.914

The Balkan Pact was given an even more even severe blow: a Balkan Pact

Ministerial Council meeting that had been postponed continuously since the melee in

September 1955 never convened. As Yugoslavia improved relations with the Soviet

Union, the pact was left in “a moribund condition,” from which it did not recover.915

The Menderes government’s politicization of ethnic issues also coincided with

and reinforced deepening political instability in Turkey. Opposition politicians

immediately mobilized behind human rights discourse. Shortly after the riots, the

opposition leader, İnönü, accused the government of mismanaging Turkey’s relations

with Greece and of failing to uphold human rights, which he saw as inherently rooted in

security: “The honest citizen must be certain that he possesses human rights and that he is

in perfect security and under the protection of the law.” 916

The criticism aimed to drive a

further wedge between the country’s minorities and the government.917

In the immediate

aftermath of the riot, Menderes was forced to shuffle his cabinet and reappointed Köprülü

as foreign minister. Partially as response to the exoneration of Zorlu and others for the

riots, Köprülü resigned by mid-1956, and eventually joined the Freedom Party and

campaigned under a human rights banner that boldly claimed: “Human rights against

913

Edmund Stevens , “Greek Resentment to West Increases: Irked by Omission,” The Christian Science

Monitor (December 23, 1955): 6; “Greek Warns Turkey: Says Balkan Pact Fate Rests on Ankara

Restitution,” New York Times (December 17, 1955): 9. 914

“Greeks Join Maneuvers By NATO After 'Boycott,'” The Washington Post and Times Herald (March

18, 1956):

A4. 915

Goodyear to the Department of State, August 8, 1956. 782.00/8-856, DSR. 916

Warren to the Department of State, 782.00/9-1555, DSR. 917

Goodyear to the Department of State, January 13, 1956. 782.00/1-1356, DSR.

300

September 6-7, The Freedom Party.”918

Diplomats noted that “Menderes’ control of the

Democrat Party and of the Government was “somewhat shaky” by the summer of

1956.919

Moreover, claims of Turkish government responsibility for the riots were among

the charges that Menderes and Zorlu faced at a military tribunal in 1961.920

In the meantime, U.S. officials continued to debate its position toward Turkey and

the treatment of minorities. Seven months after the riots, a critical American consular

officer in Izmir lamented a resurgence of nationalism in Turkey and noted that a “wave of

self-criticism which followed the September riots seems about spent.” He noted that

some Turks were now “lifting their heads in defiant pride and saying that the rampage

against the Greeks was a completely natural outburst provoked by the atrocious conduct

of the Greeks themselves, who got only what was coming to them.”921

An April 1957

telegram shows that diplomats in the Turkish capital and in Istanbul were debating the

possibility that the Ecumenical Patriarch could be expelled.922

Whereas diplomats on the ground contemplated the politicization of minorities

and the implications of growing nationalism for minorities, human rights concerns

continued to take a back seat to Cold War strategic concerns for more senior American

policymakers. 923

In 1958, Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of the World Council

of Churches voiced concerns to John Foster Dulles about the continuing deterioration of

918

Hürriyet Partisi, 6-7 Eylüle karşı insan hakları. 1958 AFİŞ 32. National Library, Ankara, Turkey. 919

Goodyear to the Department of State, August 8, 1956. 782.00/8-856, DSR. 920

Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the

Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 526-8. 921

Eddy to the Department of State. March 7, 1956. 782.00/3-756, DSR. 922

Lyon to Secretary of State, April 21, 1957. 782.00/4-2157, DSR. 923

As Vryonis has framed it, for American strategists, “political morality was only important only when it

coincided with ‘greater’ issues such as the Cold War.” Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The

Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, 203.

301

the position of patriarchate and raised the possibility that the patriarchate might be

removed from Istanbul due to anti-Greek sentiment over Cyprus. However, one of the

bishop’s remarks made a particular impression on the secretary: the fact that Soviets

“were making overtures to the Patriarch at Istanbul” and the possibility that they might

offer him refuge within the Soviet Union. Alarmed, Dulles asked department officials and

diplomats “whether we should not try to use our influence with the Turkish Government

to avoid any hostile action against the Greek Patriarch at Istanbul.” Despite some

conciliatory statements by the prime minister, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near

Eastern Affairs William M. Rountree noted that public animosity over Cyprus “could

easily burst into flame at any moment.” He noted that many Turks regarded the

Patriarchate as “at best an anomaly—an unwelcome reminder of both the historic enmity

with Greece and of the capitulations” and “at worst, a pro-Greek conspiracy supported in

its evil machinations by Moscow and Western Christendom.” In the end, the State

Department agreed to take the policy line advanced by Ambassador Fletcher Warren,

who recognized the expulsion of the patriarch as an enduring possibility in the event of

an unfavorable Cyprus resolution. “The present situation is perhaps deceptively calm; the

future is potentially explosive,” he wrote. He emphasized, however, that there was

currently “no occasion for any American representations to the Turks concerning the

Phanar.” 924

As diplomats on the ground continued to describe the deteriorating situation

of minorities—which included the mass migration of many Greeks, among others—U.S.

924

Chase to the Department of State, March 17, 1958. 782.00/3-1758, DSR.

302

policymakers continued to avoid upsetting Turkey’s government rather than intervene on

behalf of Turkey’s increasingly vulnerable Greek minority. 925

Conclusion

Ethnic worries—particularly the plight of Turkish minorities outside Anatolia—

colored two related Cold War episodes involving Turkey: the forced migration of ethnic

Turks from Bulgaria in 1950-1 and the anti-Greek riots of September 6-7, 1955. For

many Turks, both tragedies were framed by similar understandings of human rights,

security, and national identity. At the same time, ethnic considerations also colored

Turkey’s sense of security and experience of key early Cold War episodes, including its

contribution to the mission in Korea and involvement in alliances, such as NATO and the

Balkan Pact.

Within Turkey, growing ethnic-infused nationalism that emphasized the suffering

of ethnic Turks to the exclusion of minorities within the country increasingly shaped

popular and ultimately official attitudes toward human rights, national identity, and

security. Bulgaria’s expulsion of ethnic Turks in 1950, which was at least partially a

response to Turkey’s decision to commit troops to the conflict in Korea, reinforced the

association between the communist threat and human rights violations against ethnic

Turks abroad. Following the emergence of the Cyprus question, refugee groups within

Turkey, often linked to nationalist organizations, quickly proclaimed that “a similar fate

will menace the Turks of Cyprus.” Similar to the United States, Turkey’s government

925

Hülya Demir and Rıdvan Akar, İstanbul'un Son Sürgünleri (Istanbul: İletişim, 1994), 12.

303

initially tried to avoid agitating the Cyprus problem and inflaming ethnic grievances at a

time when it was moving toward closer alignment with neighboring Greece. Nonetheless,

Cold War sensibilities about communism and an ethnic-based understanding of self-

determination—an issue at the heart of international debates about human rights in the

postwar period—shaped Turkey’s approach to the Cyprus problem. Ultimately, the fate

of Turkey’s Greek minorities increasingly tangled with the fate of Turkish Cypriots with

disastrous consequences, culminating in the anti-Greek riots of September 6-7, 1955, in

Istanbul. The riot not only highlighted a prevalent understanding of human rights in

Turkey that linked Turkey’s treatment of minorities to the fate of Turkish minorities

abroad, but represented an end to Turkey’s short-lived attempt to forge a new

understanding of nationalism (once symbolized by Athenagoras) that fused human rights

rhetoric with Cold War politics. Internationally and domestically, relations between

Greeks and Turks would be slow to heal. Only a tiny Greek population would remain in

Istanbul after the 1960s—a reflection of the failure of the Cold War synthesis of human

rights and nationalism.

For U.S. officials, complicated ethnic problems were issues that they often

preferred to avoid and sometimes fully failed to grasp. When questions surrounding

Bulgaria’s treatment of ethnic Turks returned to the fore in 1950, it proved easier for U.S.

officials to reduce long festering ethnic problems to simplistic Cold War equations.

Although U.S. officials were hesitant to become involved, Turkey took advantage of U.S.

Cold War sensibilities by highlighting the forced migration as an example of a

communist attempt to destabilize a faithful Cold War ally in need of further U.S. aid.

304

Similarly, American policymakers also sought to avoid entanglement in the troublesome

question of self-determination for Cyprus, a situation that severely strained relations

between NATO allies, Turkey and Greece, and that American officials viewed as

profiting “no one but the Soviet bloc.” Despite evidence of Turkish government

complicity in the events of September 6-7, 1955, and sharp criticism from Greece and

critics in the United States, senior U.S. officials stood behind Turkey’s explanation that

the riots were probably instigated by communists. Ironically, this failure to appreciate

fully the relationship among ethnic nationalism, human rights, and security also meant a

failure to understand fully an ally on the brink of a military coup that would overthrow

the Menderes government.

305

Conclusion

Armed Minorities and the Logic of Lausanne

…it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are

resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. –

Harry S. Truman, March 12, 1947

The title of this study—“Armed Minorities”—alludes to differing experiences of

the Cold War. It refers to the March 1947 Truman Doctrine speech, in which U.S.

President Truman pledged aid for Turkey and Greece and offered the broad outlines for

the containment policy that the United States would follow throughout the Cold War.

Truman exaggerated an imminent communist threat and simplified regional dynamics,

including ethnic problems. Nonetheless, the speech remains an important example of how

U.S. leaders and officials often reduced the significance of Turkey to a broader, albeit

simplistic Cold War strategy.

Turks had their own experience of the first decade of the Cold War. This

experience sometimes overlapped with that of U.S. policymakers: both sides clearly saw

defense arrangements –NATO and other regional alliances— rooted in principles of

collective security as important means of containing the perceived Soviet menace. At

306

other times, Turks’ experience ran a parallel course to the Cold War as it was imagined in

Washington. Longstanding ethnic formulations and lingering minority problems,

problematically solved at Lausanne, formed a backdrop to this experience of the Cold

War. Moreover, the Cold War also added an additional lens through which minority

problems were seen. Along these lines, the term “armed minorities” also serves as a brief

explanation for how minority questions formed an integral dimension of Turkey’s Cold

War experience and a challenge to the ethnic and national formulas that were calculated

at Lausanne.

The idea of Turkey’s minorities as a diplomatic problem was not new. The

disintegration of the Ottoman Empire raised new questions about who was and was not

part of the Ottoman or Turkish nation, and the fate of minorities—Ottoman nationalities

and religious minorities—was often linked to foreign intrigues over the empire’s future.

U.S. officials joined the diplomatic fray over the future of the Ottoman Empire and its

minorities, and American leaders sharply condemned the mass killing of Armenians

during the First World War. However, as the new regime of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

consolidated power, U.S. attitudes toward the republic gradually shifted toward

acceptance of the settlement at Lausanne that endorsed an ethnically “Turkish” nation-

state. In line with Turkish sensibilities, U.S. officials increasingly viewed minority

troubles a possible impediment to other American interests in the country, especially

opportunities for American businesses to expand. That pragmatist attitude also played out

in U.S. efforts to gain Turkey’s support during the Second World War. U.S. officials

worked to silence American public criticism toward the Varlık Vergisi, which heavily

307

targeted Turkey’s Christian and Jewish minorities, and offered tacit approval for Turkish

efforts forcibly to assimilate Kurds. The United States gradually accepted the order that

Lausanne had established.

From a Turkish perspective, the origins of the Cold War in the Middle East are as

rooted in unresolved questions about ethnicity and nationhood as in rivalries between two

superpowers. For Turkey’s government and public, the Straits—which went through the

heart of Turkey—clearly mattered, but equally important were Soviet claims to eastern

Anatolia, which many Turks saw as integrally related to the unresolved Armenian

problem and the question of how to avoid nationalist aspirations among Kurds spread

across four states. Soviet backing for Armenian repatriations deepened a perception of

minorities as a potential fifth column that was now vulnerable to communist subversion.

Time and time again, minorities served as a filter in Turkey for international politics.

For U.S. officials, questions about minorities in Turkey often represented little

more than a smokescreen for communist expansion. George Kennan, the Cold War

ideologue, saw the absence of any significant communist opposition in Turkey as forcing

the Soviet Union to rely “on other discontented elements,” especially Kurds and

Armenians. U.S. officials looked with favor at Turkey’s efforts to assimilate Kurds and

saw Turkey’s strength in the fight against communism as a function of Turkey’s

“national unity and homogeneity.”

This narrow view also disadvantaged U.S. policy. American policymakers often

reduced regional problems to Cold War crises and ignored broader questions of ethnic

identity or nationalism. For instance, senior American officials assumed a simplistic view

308

of the expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria that ignored long festering ethnic problems and

focused narrowly on Cold War provocation. Turkey sometimes took advantage of

American Cold War naïveté as it lobbied for further aid. At the same time, U.S. officials’

eagerness to avoid regional ethnic troubles and distance themselves from complex

problems such as Cyprus also left American diplomats struggling to grasp the violent

riots on September 6-7, 1955 that challenged U.S.-backed collective security in the

region.

Cold War politics also infused postwar debates about human rights and Turkey’s

treatment of minorities. The idea of human rights discourse as a means of criticism rather

than introspection spilled over into debates on the Genocide Convention and Universal

Declaration of Human Rights. Although the legal scholar Raphael Lemkin coined the

term “genocide” with the Armenian atrocities and Holocaust in mind, Turkey’s

government was eager to remove any links between the Convention and World War I.

From a Turkish perspective, the fact that some of the earliest uses of the term “genocide”

by Armenian groups coincided with criticism of the Truman Doctrine, Armenian

territorial claims, and the continuing repatriations of Armenians to Soviet Armenia meant

that the idea of an Armenian Genocide was simply additional fuel for Soviet territorial

claims. In line with a broader policy that sought to use but not be subjected to human

rights criticism, the U.S. government supported the Turkish government and its efforts to

ensure that the Genocide Convention could not be applied retroactively against Turkey.

In this way, the contemporary Turkish perception of the term Armenian Genocide as a

ploy to divide Turkey is, in part, a vestige of Cold War politics.

309

Backed by the United States, Turkey’s government sought to stamp its own

design on human rights. Turkey’s government posited a new understanding of minorities

that attempted to reconcile human rights discourse with Cold War politics and Turkish

nationalism. Turkey’s theoretical embrace of principles of human rights and transition to

democratic politics sometimes offered minorities greater rights: Some displaced Kurds

were allowed to return to their homes, and religious institutions for Jews and Christians

were revived. Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I symbolized this short-lived synthesis.

Yet, as popular and official formulations of Turkish nationalism increasingly emphasized

the human rights of Turks outside Turkey to the exclusion of minorities within the

country, Turkey’s new nationalism became increasingly strained. The anti-minority riots

of September 6-7, 1955 brought these contradictions to the fore.

The emergence of the Cold War challenged existing formulations of minorities

and their relationship to the Turkish state and international significance. For minorities,

these new formulations meant challenges and, on some occasions, opportunities. Pressure

from Turkey’s Cold War ally Greece prompted Turkish leaders to extend an

unprecedented degree of latitude to the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Athenagoras also took advantage of American and Turkish sensibilities and sought to

raise his international profile by inserting himself into Cold War politics. His eagerness to

assert greater influence over Orthodox churches in the Middle East and Eastern Europe

had as much to do with internal church politics and his own ambitions as the Cold War

rivalry. His assertiveness ultimately not only enraged Turkish nationalists inflamed over

Cyprus, but concerned American officials who thought the patriarch’s pro-Americanism

310

went over the top. Athenagoras’ saga—his initial popularity and the disdain with which

Turkish popular opinion eventually came to regard him—illustrated the extent to which

the fate of minorities remained closely linked to international politics. The tale also

suggests that the contemporary question of whether the patriarchate in Istanbul is

“ecumenical” or not was not simply resolved once and for all at Lausanne.

This interplay between domestic and international politics over Turkey’s

minorities and ethnic questions continued to resonate in subsequent decades. Most

immediately, the events of September 6-7, 1955, featured prominently in the trial of

Democrat Party leaders toppled in a 1960 coup by a Turkish military bloated by NATO.

The 1960s and 1970s also witnessed the acceleration of trends described in this study: the

mass migration of Greeks from Istanbul, Cypriot independence followed by the forced

separation of the island’s two populations, turmoil involving Kurds, and renewed

advocacy on behalf of Armenians. All of these events are as much episodes in Turkish

national history as issues of international history and deserve new consideration.

The Cold War reinforced Kemalist attitudes about minorities as a threat to the

nation-state, but also took their predicaments to a global level. For American

policymakers, Kurdish and Armenian aspirations not only challenged Turkey, but were

linked to the projection of Soviet power. Genocide and questions of human rights for

minorities became part of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. The Ecumenical Patriarchate was

assessed in terms of efforts to contain Soviet influence over the Middle East and Eastern

Europe. Questions about the Turkish minority of Bulgaria were tied to the Korean War.

311

Self-determination for Cyprus and the riots of September 6-7, 1955, hinted at

communism.

For the Turkish nation-state birthed by the Treaty of Lausanne, the emergence of

the Cold War was often framed as an existential threat inextricably interwoven with

questions of ethnicity and minorities. Soviet support for Armenian repatriations

reinforced and strengthened the view among Turks that the order created by the 1923

treaty was under threat. Claims of genocide and human rights so contrary to Turks’ own

views of Turkey’s national struggle inevitably represented a similar threat to the Kemalist

nation-state. Likewise, Turkish leaders also expressed fears that Cypriot independence

might upset the ethnic balance endorsed at Lausanne. Yet, the Treaty of Lausanne, which

legitimated population transfers, also reinforced the uncertain postwar order and mass

population movements involving Jews, Germans, and others. Ironically, the Armenian

repatriations and expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria reflected the similar logic that

population movements represented legitimate means of establishing order and

consolidating nation-states. The Cold War superimposed new layers of complexity and

urgency to questions involving Turkey’s minorities.

312

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