Office of the Historian

780.5/1–1254

No. 171
Memorandum to the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Merchant)1

top secret
[Washington,] January 12, 1954.

Subject:

  • Proposed Turkish–Pakistan Defense Arrangement

Our recent inquiries regarding the present status of the proposed Turkish–Pakistan defense arrangement have established the following apparent facts:

1.
We understand that the President has approved the principle of U.S. military assistance to Pakistan, but not as yet the medium through which such assistance would be proffered.
2.
The NSC Planning Board is scheduled to take up “South Asia” on January 14. It is probable that the question of military assistance to Pakistan and the means of extending it will come up during the course of the discussion.
3.

Further action on the proposal to extend assistance through a Turkish–Pakistan defense arrangement has been awaiting the further views of the Turkish Government, which have just been received in memorandum form (Ankara’s 699 of January 11).2

The Turkish Government’s reply to our informal initiative is one of tentative approval qualified by the following considerations:

A.
The arrangement should be even looser than the Greek-Turkish-Yugoslav Pact, because of the absence of geographical contiguity, strategic unity and NATO direction in the case of Turkish–Pakistan Pact.
B.
Further study should be given to extending the arrangement to Iraq, although the agreement of that State to participate is considered doubtful.
C.
Further study should be given to the reaction of third countries (India, Afghanistan, Iran) and to means by which adverse reactions may be mitigated.
D.
Implied is the thought that the views of other of the MEDO sponsors, particularly the British, should be sought regarding the arrangement as constituting a beginning for the organization of ME defense.

The foregoing considerations raised by the Turkish Government impinge on concerns which BNA and RA have felt about this project. We have seemed to detect a lack of precision as to what the proposed arrangement eventually contemplates and an uncertain degree of attention to such aspects of the problem as the following:

1.
Turkish Forces. Although the Department’s telegrams on this subject make clear that it is proposed at this juncture that any defense arrangement should be confined in the first instance to consultation and joint defense planning, we presume that it is intended to move in due course toward commitments involving the employment of Turkish and Pakistani forces in their mutual defense and that of the other intervening states in the Northern Tier (i.e., Iran and Iraq). The analogies which are drawn with the Greek-Turkish-Yugoslav Pact would seem to bear out this interpretation. Since the Turkish defense effort is now being maintained at its present level only because of U.S. budgetary support, it seems clear that any commitment to Middle East defense can be achieved only at the expense of present NATO commitments or through further U.S. financial assistance. You will recall, in this connection, that the Turks had previously proposed that the U.S. finance the raising of six additional Turk divisions which would be committed to Middle East defense. It is difficult to foresee the source of any such assistance.
2.
Extension of NATO Commitments. There appears to us danger that the smaller NATO partners will interpret any Turkish–Pakistan Pact as a further extension eastwards of NATO’s commitments and that the present feelings of unhappiness about the [Page 452] Greek-Turkish-Yugoslav developing defense arrangements will be raised in somewhat more exaggerated form. While it will perhaps be easy to convince the smaller NATO partners that legally there will be no extension of their commitments through NATO, it may be difficult to persuade them that the contemplated arrangements do not raise psychological and practical problems. While this may prove to be a manageable problem, we should be making some preparatory diplomatic plans against the day when any announcement may be made. Allied to this problem is the probability of concern within NATO regarding the implications to NATO strategy of possible Turkish involvement in a conflict far to the east of any presently defined NATO interests.
3.
The British Position. We wonder whether, in the implementation of this enterprise, sufficient consideration has been given to the desirabilty, in the U.S. interest, of close consultation and coordination with the British. We have in mind:
(a)
The U.K. position in the area and the responsibilities the U.K. has undertaken for its defense.
(b)
Our recognition that the British have a primary responsibility there.
(c)
British treaty rights in nearby Iraq and Jordan, and the British interest in Iran.
(d)
The fellow membership of Britain and Pakistan in the Commonwealth.
(e)
The possible effects of an extreme adverse Indian reaction on Pakistan–Indian relations and hence on the strength of the Commonwealth as a whole.

We have endeavored to confine the foregoing list to what we conceive to be EUR interests and have not commented on such other factors as (1) the military rationale for a pact which omits, at least in the first instance, the intervening territory between the two countries; or (2) the degree to which extension of aid to Pakistan within the context of a regional pact will mitigate Indian reaction. (In this connection NEA maintains that the pact will lessen the adverse Indian reaction; an NIE study says the pact will not affect the reaction much one way or the other; and the British say the pact will enhance the adverse reaction.)

Should you find a suitable opportunity, you may wish to endeavor to assure that the foregoing considerations either have been, or are being, taken into consideration in proceeding with this project.

  1. Drafted by the Deputy Director of the Office of European Regional Affairs, Joseph Palmer, and the Deputy Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs, Andrew B. Foster.↩
  2. Not printed, but see footnote 2, supra.↩