347. Letter From the President’s Special Assistant (Randall) to the Secretary of the Treasury (Humphrey), the Under Secretary of State (Hoover), and the Director of the International Cooperation Administration (Hollister)1
Gentlemen: Yesterday I had another meeting of the ad hoc committee2 dealing with Turkey.
[Page 692]Several Turkish officials3 are in town, and all of their people are pressing hard to know what their total assistance will be in the current fiscal year. Of course, it is not unreasonable to say that they need to know this for their planning.
We face again the old dilemma. On the one hand, Turkey is important to us, both from the military and the political point of view, having recently given such staunch assistance in the Suez crisis; on the other, she still refuses to face her exchange problem. Internally, she is sticking pretty well to the fiscal reforms promised to me when I was there last February. Externally, she continues to duck the recommendations of the IMF.
We concluded that we had no alternative than to give Turkey assurances at this time that her economic aid would equal that of last year. She has already had $25 million, which was the advance on devaluation that did not come off. This, therefore, means a present assurance of $55 million more.
We will have another meeting shortly to discuss the P.L. 480 program.
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 782.5–MSP/9–2656. Confidential.↩
- In August an interagency group composed of representatives of the Departments of State and the Treasury and the ICA, chaired by Randall, met to maintain contact with the IMF regarding the economic situation in Turkey.↩
- Esenbel, accompanied by other Turkish officials from the Central Bank, the Treasury Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ankara University, was visiting the United States for discussions with IMF officials.↩