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Abstract
This article analyses Jimmy Carter’s policy towards Turkey between 1977 and 1980. It argues that the US-Turkish relationship represents another example of Carter’s pragmatism in foreign policy. Turkey remained a close US ally and NATO member throughout the Cold War. In the 1970s, the bilateral relationship confronted challenges, particularly following the 1974 Cyprus Crisis. Carter’s 1976 election accentuated bilateral tensions due to his perceived pro-Greek and pro-Cypriot – and, by implication, anti-Turkish – stance on Greece-Cyprus-Turkey issues during the election campaign. Once in office, however, Carter prioritized a traditional interpretation of US national interest towards a close Cold War ally, emphasizing the security dimension of the relationship. The administration’s policy required adjustments in terms of strategy to fit the ever-changing domestic Turkish politics and regional developments. President Carter and his top foreign policy advisors remained determined to repair and secure a crucial alliance with a strategic ally.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Professor Scott Kaufman and Dr Fabian Hilfrich for their advice and helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. I am also thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their feedback. Finally, I would like to thank the professional copyeditors, who helped me present this article in its best possible form.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Sotiris Rizas, Realism and Human Rights in U.S. Policy toward Greece, Turkey, Cyprus (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 165–72; Chris Ioannides, Realpolitik in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Kissinger and the Cyprus Crisis to Carter and the Lifting of the Turkish Arms Embargo (New York: Pella, 2001).
2 Scott Kaufman, Plans Unraveled: The Foreign Policy of the Carter Administration (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008), 177–78.
3 Ibid, 4.
4 George Sellers Harris ‘Turkish-American Relations Since the Truman Doctrine’, in Mustafa Aydin and Çağrı Erhan (eds), Turkish-American Relations: Past, Present and Future (London: Routledge, 2004), 66–88.
5 Füsun Türkmen ‘Turkish-American Relations: A Challenging Transition’, Turkish Studies, 10 (2009), 113.
6 Nancy Mitchell, Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016), 662.
7 Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy, Expanded ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 222, ProQuest Ebook Central accessed February 2021.
8 Debbie Sharnak, ‘Sovereignty and Human Rights: Re-examining Carter’s Foreign Policy Towards the Third World’, Diplomacy & Statecraft 25 (2014), 323–4.
9 Jussi M. Hanhimäki, The Rise and Fall of Détente: American Foreign Policy and the Transformation of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2013), 62.
10 Barbara J. Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue: The Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 251.
11 Simon Stevens, ‘“From the Viewpoint of a Southern Governor”: The Carter Administration and Apartheid, 1977–81’, Diplomatic History 36 (2012), 845; William Michael Schmidli, ‘Institutionalizing Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy: U.S.-Argentine Relations, 1976–1980’, Diplomatic History 35 (2011), 376–7.
12 David F. Schmitz and Vanessa Walker, ‘Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights: The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy’, Diplomatic History 28 (2004), 142.
13 Lyong Choi, ‘Human Rights, Popular Protest, and Jimmy Carter’s Plan to Withdraw U.S. Troops from South Korea’, Diplomatic History 41 (2017), 952–7.
14 Macomber, tel.7786 Ankara to State, 13 Oct. 1976, [United States] N[ational] A[rchives and] R[ecords] A[dministration], R[ecord] G[roup] 59, E[lectronic] T[elegrams] 1976; “Turkey: Frost,” Economist, 13 Nov. 1976, 64; C. L. Sulzberger, “A Time for the Fire Brigade,” New York Times, 14 Nov. 1976, 18.
15 Ioannides, Realpolitik, 149–51.
16 Macomber, tel.8401 Ankara to State, 4 Nov. 1976, NARA, RG 59, ET 1976; Macomber, tel.8448 Ankara to State, 5 Nov. 1976, NARA, RG 59, ET 1976; Macomber, tel.8916 Ankara to State, 23 Nov. 1976, NARA, RG 59, ET 1976.
17 Mustafa Aydin, ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy: Changing Patterns and Conjunctures during the Cold War’, Middle Eastern Studies 36 (2000), 10–15.
18 Athanasios Antonopoulos, ‘Justified at Last? Kissinger’s Cyprus Legacy, 1974–1976’, International History Review 41 (2019), 473–4.
19 Richard C. Campany, Jr, Turkey and the United States: The Arms Embargo Period (New York, NY: Praeger, 1986), 55–6.
20 James F. Goode, The Turkish Arms Embargo: Drugs, Ethnic Lobbies, and US Domestic Politics (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2020), 34–47.
21 H. Tolga Bölükbaşı ‘Political Economy’ in Metin Heper and Sabri Sayarı (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey (Routledge: London, 2012), 346–50.
22 Şaban Halis Çalış, Turkey’s Cold War: Foreign Policy and Western Alignment in the Modern Republic (I.B. Tauris, London, 2016), 148–56.
23 Baskın Oran (ed.), Turkish Foreign Policy, 1919–2006: Facts and Analyses with Documents (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010, translated by Mustafa Akşın), 426.
24 Meeting with President-Elect Carter, Briefing before the Committee on Foreign Relations-United States Senate Ninety-Fourth Congress Transition Period on President-Elect Jimmy Carter’s Views on Foreign Policy, 23 Nov. 1976 (Washington, DC, 1976), 14.
25 Macomber, tel.9223 Ankara to State, 6 Dec. 1976, NARA, RG 59, ET 1976; Macomber, tel. 9502 Ankara to State, 14 Dec. 1976, NARA, RG 59, ET 1976.
26 Editorial Note on Vance’s confirmation hearings, Kristin L. Ahlberg and Adam M. Howard (eds.), F[oreign] R[elations of the] U[nited] S[tates], 1977–1980, vol.i, Foundations of Foreign Policy, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014), doc.14.
27 Minutes of a Policy Review Committee Meeting, 10 Feb. 1977, David Zierler and Adam M. Howard (eds.), FRUS, vol. xxi Cyprus, Greece, Turkey (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014), doc.5.
28 Summary of Conclusions of a Policy Review Committee Meeting, “Cyprus and the Aegean,” 10 Feb. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.6.
29 Memo of Conversation, The President, Clifford, Brzezinski, Nimitz and Treverton, 15 Feb. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.7.
30 Monteagle Stearns, Entangled Allies: U.S. Policy Towards Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus (New York, NY: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1992), 12–13.
31 Memo of Conversation, Vance, Sarbanes, Brademas et.al, 13 Dec. 1976, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.3.
32 Oran, Turkish Foreign Policy, 426.
33 Minutes of a Policy Review Committee Meeting, 10 Feb. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.5.
34 Memo Of Conversation, 10 May 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.94.
35 Summary of Conclusions of a Policy Review Committee Meeting, 10 Feb. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.6.
36 Report by the President’s Personal Emissary to Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus (Clifford) To President Carter, “Ankara Report February 24, 1977,” 1 March 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.8.
37 Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter, 18 Apr. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi doc. 12.
38 Macomber, tel.02481 Ankara to State, 4 Apr. 1977, NARA, RG 59, ET 1977.
39 Macomber, tel.02482 Ankara to State, 4 Apr. 1977, NARA, RG 59, ET 1977.
40 C.H. Dodd, The Crisis of Turkish Democracy, 2nd ed. (Beverley: Eothen Press, 1983, second edition), 17–26.
41 Macomber, tel.3802 Ankara to State, 17 May 1977, NARA, RG 59, ET 1977.
42 Ibid.
43 Dodd, Turkish Democracy, 20.
44 Memo, Vance to Carter, 23 July 1977, J[immy] C[arter] P[residential] L[ibrary], Plains File, S[ubject] F[ile], S[tate] D[epartment] E[vening] R[eports], Box 37, ‘7/77’.
45 Memorandum of Conversation, Summary of the President’s Meeting with Clark Clifford on Greece-Turkey-Cyprus Problem, 4 Nov. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 16.
46 Memorandum From Paul B. Henze of the National Security Council to President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski), 15 Oct. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.15.
47 Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (London: Routledge, 1993), 170–1.
48 Spiers, tel.1231 Ankara to State, 15 Feb. 1978, NARA, RG 59, ET 1978.
49 Ibid.
50 William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy since 1774 (Hoboken: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012 3rd edition), 111.
51 See Briefing Paper by Paul B. Henze re Bülent Ecevit, Undated, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 96.
52 John Lawton, ‘Leave Greece, Turkey Alone, Ankara’s Leader Urged US’, Washington Post, 5 Jan. 1978, A23; Nicolas Gage, ‘Greeks React Cautiously to Hopeful Signs on Cyprus’, New York Times, 21 Jan. 1978, 6.
53 Athanasios Antonopoulos, Redefining Greek-US Relations, 1974–1980: National Security and Domestic Politics (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 181.
54 Vance quoting Spiers, tel.007253 State to White House, 11 Jan. 1978, NARA, RG 59, ET 1978; Telegram from the Embassy in Turkey to the Department of State, Ankara 23 Jan. 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 107.
55 Harry Tzimitras, “Alternative Forms of Nationalism: Superiority through Law in Greek Foreign Policy,” in Nationalism in the Troubled Triangle, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, ed. Ayahan Aktar, Niyazi Kızılyürek, and Umut Özkırıml (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 130–45.
56 Memo, Brzezinski to Carter, 7 January 1978, JCPL, N[ational] S[ecurity] A[ffairs], P[resident’s] D[aily] R[eport] F[ile], box 5, 1/1/78-1/15/87.
57 Alexis Heraclides, The Greek-Turkish Conflict in the Aegean: Imagined Enemies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 107–11.
58 Christopher quoting Vance, tel.017298 State to White House, 22 Jan. 1978, NARA, RG 59, ET 1978.
59 Report, ‘Turkey/Soviet Block Relations’, Daunt to Ferguson, 8 May 1978, [United Kingdom] T[he] N[ational] A[rchives], F[oreign and] C[ommonwealth] O[ffice] 46/1723.
60 Letter, Sutherland to Dodson, 6 Jan. 1978, TNA, FCO 9/2772; Report, ‘Turkey: Alleged Ultimatum to US’, Winchester to Sutherland, 30 Jan. 1978, TNA, FCO 9/2772.
61 Letter, Dodson to Sutherland, 31 Jan. 1978, TNA, FCO 9/2772.
62 Telegram from the Embassy in Turkey, 23 Jan. 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc 107.
63 Planning Paper on Turkey, ‘Relations with and Policy towards Turkey’, 26 Jan. 1978, FCO 9/2771, TNA.
64 Spiers, tel.0151 Ankara to State, 9 Jan. 1978, NARA, RG 59, ET 1978.
65 Spiers, tel.0458 Ankara to State, 18 Jan. 1978, NARA, RG 59, ET 1978.
66 George S. Harris, Turkey: Coping with Crisis (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), 143.
67 Spiers, tel.1406 Ankara to State, 23 Feb. 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
68 Daniel J. Sargent, A Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014), 273–85.
69 Memo, Vance to Carter, 15 Aug. 1978, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 39, 8/78.
70 Vance, tel.043463 State to Ankara, 18 Feb. 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
71 Vance quoting Spiers, tel.078566 State, to U.S. Mission UN, 27 March 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
72 Vance to Carter, ‘Greek-Turkish Military Assistance’, 21 March 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 20.
73 Report 020/441/1, ‘Congress, Cyprus and the DCA’, Davidson to Winchester, 9 Jan. 1978, TNA, FCO 9/2772.
74 Vance to Carter, ‘Greek-Turkish Military Assistance’, 21 March 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 20.
75 Memo, Vance to Carter, 6 April 1978, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 38, 04/78.
76 Goode, Turkish Arms Embargo, 112–5.
77 Memo from Secretary of State Vance to President Carter, 21 March 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.20.
78 Cooper quoting Stoessel, tel.083003 to U.S.Del SecState, 31 March 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
79 Spiers, tel.2214 Ankara to State for Nimetz and Vest only, 23 March 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
80 Cooper quoting Spiers, tel.079757 State to Ankara for Christopher, 28 March 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
81 Antonopoulos, Greek-US Relations, 192.
82 Telegram from the Embassy in Turkey to the Department of State, 29 March 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 113.
83 Intelligence Memo Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency, 30 August 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 24.
84 Spiers, tel.7107 Ankara to State, 5 Oct. 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
85 Memo, Christopher to Carter, 5 Oct. 1978, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 39, 10/78.
86 “The Crumbling Triangle,” Economist, 9 Dec. 1978, 11.
87 Memo, Henze to Brzezinski, 15 Dec. 1978, JCPL, NSA, Staff Material, Horn/Special, box 3, 12/78.
88 Report, ‘Turkish Economic Crisis’, Owen to Chancellor of the Exchequer, 18 Dec. 1978, TNA, FCO 46/1724; Summary of Conclusions of a Policy Review Committee Meeting, “Turkey,” 28 Dec. 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.127.
89 Dodson, ‘Turkey: Annual Review for 1979’, 2 Jan. 1980, TNA, FCO 9/3056.
90 Summary of Conclusions of a PRC Meeting, 7 March 1979, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc131.
91 Memo From Nimetz to Vance and Christopher, 31 July1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.22.
92 Memo From Manatos to Nimetz, 30 Oct. 1978, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc25.
93 Memo, Vance to Carter, 10 Nov. 1978, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 39, 11/78.
94 “U.S. Plans for Cyprus Encounter Objections of Greeks and Turks: Ethnic Balance Sought,” New York Times, 10 Dec. 1978; “Deadlock on Cyprus,” Guardian, 5 Feb. 1979, 5.
95 Rizas, Realism and Human Rights, 157–61.
96 Chris Drake, ‘Cypriot Rivals will try again on Talks’, The Guardian, 21 May 1979, 1.
97 Oran, Turkish Foreign Policy, 462.
98 Henze to Brzezinski, “Greece-Turkey-Cyprus,” 4 Apr. 1979, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.26.
99 Kaufman, Plans Unraveled, 149.
100 Antonopoulos, Greek-US Relations, 215.
101 Victor Papacosma, “Greece and NATO,” in NATO and the Mediterranean, ed. Lawrence S. Kaplan, Robert W. Clawson, and Raimondo Luraghi (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1985), 205.
102 McCloskey, tel.9840 Athens to State, 9 Nov.1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
103 Vance, tel.288690 State to Ankara, 14 Nov. 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
104 Memo, Vance to Carter, 12 Jan. 1979, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 39, 1/79.
105 Monteagle Stearns, Entangled Allies: U.S. Policy Towards Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus (New York, NY: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1992), 68–72.
106 Spiers, tel.3481 Ankara to Sate, 8 May 1979, NARA, RG59, ET1979.
107 Telegram From Vance to Department of State, Discussion with Greek Foreign Minister, 1 June 1979, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc. 189.
108 Intelligence Memorandum Prepared in CIA, 17 March 1980, FRUS, vol.xxl, doc.198.
109 Vance, tel.015553, State to US Mission NATO, 20 Jan. 1979, NARA, RG59, ET1979.
110 Telegram From the Embassy in Turkey to Department of State, 13 April, 1979, 1115Z, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.133.
111 See Türkem, ‘Turkish-American Relations’, 117–18.
112 Kevin Klose, ‘Turks, Soviets Sign Friendship Pact’, Washington Post, 24 June 1978, A19.
113 Spiers, tel.4388 Ankara to State, 9 June 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978; Spiers, tel.4728 Ankara to State, 26 June 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
114 Aylin Güney, Anti-Americanism in Turkey: Past and Present, Middle Eastern Studies 44, no. 3, 475.
115 Çalıs, Turkey’s Cold War, 156.
116 Barbara Zanchetta, The Transformation of American International Power in the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 221–42.
117 Evening Report, Henze to Brzezinski, 26 March 1979, JCPL, NSA, Staff Material, Horn/Special, box 6, Evening Reports 1-6/79.
118 Memos, Vance to Carter, 2 and 7 May 1979, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 39, 05/79.
119 Memo, Henze for Brzezinski, 23 Apr. 1979, JCPL, NSA, Staff Material, Horn/Special, box3, 4/79.
120 Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Turkey, 12 May 1979, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.139.
121 Telegram from the Embassy in Turkey to the Department of State, 19 Sept. 1979, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.143.
122 George S. Harris, “The Role of the Military in Turkey in the 1980s,” in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds.), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1988), 193.
123 Birand, The Generals’ Coup in Turkey: An Inside Story of 12 September 1980, tr. M.A. Dikerdem (London: Brassey’s Defense Publishers, 1987), 78–92; Kemal H. Karpat, Studies on Turkish politics and society: selected articles and essays (Boston, MA: Brill, 2004), 327–7.
124 Kemal H. Karpat, “Military Interventions: Army-Civilian Relations in Turkey Before and after 1980,” in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds.), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1988), 149.
125 Minutes of Policy Review Committee Meeting, 10 Feb. 1977, FRUS, vol. xxi, doc.5.
126 Spiers, tel.1231 Ankara to State, 15 Feb. 1978, NARA, RG59, ET1978.
127 Memo, Henze to Brzezinski, “ZB Has Seen,” Sep. 12, 1980, JCPL, NSA, C[ountry File], box 75, Turkey 9/80-1/81.
128 Memo, Muskie to Carter, 12 September 1980, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 40, 9/80.
129 Memo, Muskie to Carter with Carter’s handwritten note “I agree,” 13 Sep. 1980, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 40, 9/80; Memo, Christopher to Carter, 26 September 1980, JCPL, Plains File, SF, SDER, box 40, 9/80.
130 Ömer Aslan, The United States and Military Coups in Turkey and Pakistan: Between Conspiracy and Reality (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 175–7.
131 Memo, Henze to Brzezinski, “ZB Has Seen,” 12 Sep. 1980, JCPL, NSA, CF, box 75, Turkey 9/80-1/81.
132 Ibid.
133 Hale, Foreign Policy, 165.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Athanasios Antonopoulos
Dr Athanasios Antonopoulos is an Adjunct Lecturer in History at Griffith University, Australia. He is the author of Redefining Greek-US Relations, 1974–1980: National Security and Domestic Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). His research covers US foreign policy during the Cold War, with a focus on relations with Greece, Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean.