Extracts from a letter from Denis Devlin to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
(710/52/134F) (Confidential)

The political situation in Turkey when I was there recently had not much changed since October 1951, the time of my previous visit. Turkish foreign policy, at any rate, is likely to be unchangeable as long as the Russian threat exists on the frontiers.

[matter omitted]

For the Turks, however, the American connection is an unmixed blessing; they are grateful; and America as in no other western country is trusted and admired by the Turks. The American Ambassador¹ in telling me he and his government have a high opinion of the Turks, criticised, by implication, the other countries of the Western alliance. He said that the Turks were dignified and did not bother America with their internal political problems. Americans did not always have to be dealing with party divisions and rightist and leftist squabbles, Communists, Socialists, Radicals and other enemies within the house. They put American assistance to better and more honest use than any other country. They were not particularly anxious to brag about themselves to Americans or to prove anything about themselves: you just take them or leave them.

In such an atmosphere, with the Turks feeling themselves the focus of attention between the two major world powers, one would not expect to find much interest in our problems; nor is there. The senior officials of the Foreign Office, however, were remarkably well informed on Partition and did not approach it from the British point of view. They put it into their own context and wondered, no matter what the reasons which they appreciated, how Ireland could possibly remain outside the anti-Soviet alliance. Their point of view began and ended there.