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Cold War

Marshall Plan

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Potsdam Conference

Tehran Conference

Truman Doctrine

Yalta Conference

The 1940s in America

Turkey

by Baris Kesgin

At the onset of the Cold War, Turkey emerged as a strategic country in America’s policy of communist containment.

During the 1940’s, Turkey bordered the Soviet Union, and the only way Soviet vessels could reach the Mediterranean from the Black Sea was through the Turkish-controlled Dardanelles Strait. While the Soviet Union’s dissatisfaction with the international regime governing the straits led to its repeated demands for reevaluation, the United States supported Turkey’s desire to retain the regime, resisting Soviet pressure from the mid-1940’s into the Cold War.

For the United States, Turkey was not a particularly significant country until the end of World War II. The Soviet Union’s dissatisfaction with the Montreux Convention of 1936, the regime governing the Turkish straits, resurfaced at wartime meetings of Allied leaders at Tehran, Yalta, and Postdam. Finally, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin demanded not only a new regime to regulate passage through the straits but also a Soviet military presence nearby and a rearrangement of Turkey’s borders with the Soviet Union. The United States, however, wanted to contain the Soviets from threatening not only Turkey but also Greece.

The USS Missouri’s trip to Turkey in April, 1946, symbolized American support for Turkey. Concerned with Stalin’s desire to expand the Soviet sphere of influence, President Harry S. Truman announced that the United States was committed to containing the Soviets.

Impact

Both the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan included aid to Turkey and provided material evidence of American support for the Middle Eastern nation. Eventually, Turkey’s admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952 illustrated the significance of relations between Turkey and the United States at the beginning of the Cold War, as well as Turkey’s strategic importance to the United States at this time.

Further Reading

1 

Hale, William. Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000. London: Frank Cass, 2000.

2 

Howard, Harry N. Turkey, the Straits, and U.S. Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.

3 

Hurewitz, J. C. “Russia and the Turkish Straits: A Revaluation of the Origins of the Problem.” World Politics 14, no. 4 (1962): 605-632.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Kesgin, Baris. "Turkey." The 1940s in America, edited by Thomas Tandy Lewis, Salem Press, 2010. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1940_158140701581.
APA 7th
Kesgin, B. (2010). Turkey. In T. T. Lewis (Ed.), The 1940s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Kesgin, Baris. "Turkey." Edited by Thomas Tandy Lewis. The 1940s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2010. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.