Foreign aid and Turkey between the end of the Second World War and the Johnson's Letter

In this dissertation, the roots, contents and results of the foreign aid received by Turkey in the post–war period are analyzed. The events after the Second World War were not only formative to Turkish foreign policy but also instrumental in laying the foundation of its economic and military policies. In this period, Turkey began to receive a considerable amount of foreign aid. However, there are few studies which carefully study the political and economic history of the post–war period in Turkey. Most of the works about Turkey's foreign aid experience are based on secondary sources, thus inadequate in explaining the period. This dissertation aims to fill this gap and present a comprehensive and analytical perspective on Turkey's post–war foreign aid experience based on the primary sources. The main sources of the dissertation are unpublished archival documents, most of which are from the collections of the Department of State and Foreign Assistance Agencies in the National Archives and Records Administration in the United States. In addition to these documents, the Archives of the Turkish Prime Ministry; the digital archives of the World Bank and the IMF and more than three hundred books, academic articles and theses are utilized for this study. The dissertation is comprised of four chapters. In the first chapter, Turkey's agreements with the US about foreign aid and surplus properties provided under the Lend–Lease Act during the war and their repayment are analyzed. In the second chapter, the Truman Doctrine as the first comprehensive foreign aid program of the Republic of Turkey and in the third chapter the Marshall Plan and the Technical Assistance program are presented and discussed in detail. The fourth chapter deals with the foreign aid received by Turkey during the Mutual Security Program and delivered by international organizations. The scope of the foreign aid, the motivations and goals behind their planning, their mechanisms and final results are discussed in a multidimensional framework. As a result, the dissertation aims to give a general picture of the foreign aid political, economic and social repercussions in Turkey and to make a contribution to Turkey's political and economic history.