Rockefeller, Ford and the making of modern Turkish-American relations

The recent political crisis between Turkey and the United States has tested the limits of their relationship. 

Despite strong political statements, both countries seemed unwilling to risk an irreversible rupture. This attitude is mainly the result of longstanding connections that go beyond diplomatic parameters.

Two major American institutions that operated in the early decades of Republican Turkey were the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations. 

Since the early 20th Century, the Rockefeller Foundation has prioritised medicine and basic sciences as the primary fields of operations. The Foundation was spending most of its sources on programmes in the United States, but overseas activities started to expand in the 1920s and 1930s under the framework of the “advancement of knowledge”. 

One of the most serious initiatives outside the United States was the transformation of the Peking Medical School in China. 

The Rockefeller Foundation also had some contacts with the American missionaries in the Ottoman State as well, and soon after the foundation of Republican Turkey the Foundation experts paid visits to the country. 

They aimed to investigate and initiate possible fields of activities. The Foundation’s officers were warmly greeted among politicians and bureaucrats, holding several meetings with the Minister of Health, Refik Saydam, a close advisor of then President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Selskar Gunn and Ralph Collins were two of these Foundation experts who regularly came to Turkey. As a result, the Foundation initiated the opening of the first public health centres in modern Turkey, in Etimesgut and Edirnekapı, where people were offered basic service in hygiene and health. 

In addition to these institutional developments, young graduates of medical school and nurses were awarded visiting scholarships at hospitals and universities in the United States. From the 1930s to the end of 1960s, more than 30 people in this field went to the United States from Turkey. 

As an overall goal, the Foundation reports emphasised that in Turkey, there was a fatalistic mindset which had to be changed through the tools of modern medicine.

In parallel with the changing role of the United States in world politics after World War II, the Foundation directors decided to make new investments in the fields of social sciences and humanities. 

The teaching of the English language, area studies, arts and literature received further attention not only in the United States but also in the Foundation’s overseas activities. Turkey again became a significant benefactor from these funds. 

Many of the respectable members of academia, arts and literature in Turkey applied for Rockefeller grants in the 1950s and 1960s. 

The Rockefeller officials visited Turkey quite often to meet and interview the applicants, discuss possible projects and future plans. One of these officials was John Marshall, who regularly met intellectuals, academicians, bureaucrats and politicians in Turkey and the United States. He was not only in touch with the moderate centre-right Democrat Party members but also with the Republican People’s Party (CHP) elites during the 1950s.  

In the long term, Marshall had an aim to shape “the creative minority” in Turkey and westernise Turkish society.

The Foundation grants helped Turkish scholars to open new research institutes at Istanbul and Ankara Universities, undertake special research projects in history, political science and literature, advance their language skills and translate primary materials from English to Turkish.

Right after World War II, the Ford Foundation also started its operations in Turkey. The Ford family had restructured the family foundation into a global organisation and expanded its overseas activities.

One of the first projects of Ford in Turkey took place in the field of education. Foundation officials prepared a comprehensive report on the Turkish education system, followed by a significant amount of financial aid to the Middle East Technical University. 

Eugene Northrop, the Foundation representative in Ankara in the early 1960s, initiated the establishment of an institution to support research in basic sciences and The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) was founded thanks to a financial grant from the Ford Foundation.

Like the Democrat Party leaders, the CHP rulers were happy to work with the Ford Foundation. The President Ismet Inonu, like former presidents Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes, encouraged several other projects.

In addition to these, Ismet Inonu held a special gathering for nearly 30 young Peace Corps volunteers who came from the United States to carry out their service in Turkey. 

The Peace Corps programme was another important initiative led by the US government and Turkey hosted nearly 1,000 Peace Corps volunteers between 1960 and 1970.

The Foundations’ interest in business, population control and food production was also prominent. In association with the leading business elites, Rockefeller and Ford helped set up a management education scheme in the Western style in Turkey. 

The Rockefeller Foundation, opened stations in Anatolia to observe the wheat production in Turkey, and the Ford Foundation prepared detailed reports for population control policies.

Both supported the foundation of the Hacettepe Population Institute in the 1960s. In fact, Hacettepe University was transformed into a university that, thanks to the efforts by Paediatrician Ihsan Dogramaci and his longtime supporter, the Rockefeller Foundation.

Dogramaci had built a strong faculty and research centre at the Hacettepe Institute of Child Health under Ankara University. He then convinced the Rockefeller officers to support the idea of a new university.

The oldest and foremost American institution in Turkey was Robert College, founded in Istanbul in 1863. Robert College had managed to transform itself from a missionary school into an institution of education compatible with the expectations of the new Republic.

This transformation was yet to be complete before the American Foundations came to Turkey.

Thanks to the Rockefeller and Ford grants, the Robert College administration made a significant investment in the education of engineering, foreseeing that the industrial development of modern Turkey would require eligible skills in construction and mechanics. 

Robert College’s role in the industrial development of Turkey was so crucial that many of the leading bureaucrats and businessmen in the 1940s, 50s and 60s were the graduates of Robert College.

At that time, the only other major institution in engineering was the Istanbul Technical University. In 1956, the Middle East Technical University (METU) was founded by a special law. 

It was another significant American-Turkish project to develop urban planning, architecture and construction in Turkey, having received considerable donations from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in the 1960s.

All these investments testify to the nature of the partnership between the United States and Turkey. It is not an alliance based only on military-diplomatic goals. 

For the Americans, there is no other country or nation that they have invested in so much in the Middle East, Balkans or Central Asia. In Europe, only Germany, the UK and France could surpass this amount of investment. Many of the leading institutions of modern Turkey were initiated by American know how.

After the ‘Johnson Letter’ crisis, there were several diplomatic incidents between both countries: the ‘opium’ crisis and Cyprus crisis in the 1970s, the American invasion of Iraq in the 2000s, the American involvement in military coups and recent engagements with the PYD in Syria seriously angered the political leadership in Turkey. In each case, relations improved over the long term.

Of course, the connections were not as smooth as they were in the 1950s and 1960s, but in medicine, management, military and industrial technology, American know-how is still dominant.

In the fields of culture and education, despite all efforts, the strength of the English language has increased.

In Turkey, it is not easy to detach institutions and individuals from all these engagements with the United States. For the Americans, likewise, turning its back on Turkey has a cost as it needs at least 50 years to build a similar relationship elsewhere. It, therefore, seems realistic to expect a necessary continuity in mutual relations unless one of the sides decides to take a dramatic shift towards a new orientation in the long term. 

From the book: America and the Making of Modern Turkey: Science, Culture and Political Alliances