“We are getting so comfortably settled that Ankara seems a different place from what we ever [sic] known before. As I glance of [sic] from writing, there is, on the hills toward Hussein Gazi [Hüseyin Gazi] one of the strangest and most beautiful light effects I ever saw, with the [level?] sunset light casting the shadows of our hill onto the one beyond.”
From Ambassador John Van Antwerp MacMurray’s letter to his wife, Lois.
PART 2
By Mehmet Ali Munir
Robert Peet Skinner
October 16, 1933 – January 16, 1936
John Van Antwerp MacMurray
March 16, 1936 – November 28, 1941
Relations Suspended and Restored
The United States declared war against Germany on April 4, 1917. Less than three weeks later, the Ottoman Empire ceased diplomatic contact with the United States during the tenure (October 2, 1916–April 20, 1917) of US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Abram Isaac Elkus. A decade would pass before diplomatic relations formally resumed through an exchange of notes on February 17, 1927, with the successor to the Empire, the modern Turkish Republic, made easier by the fact that during a turbulent period, there was an organized effort made to keep channels open.
An Embassy in Istanbul
The US appointed high commissioners to keep diplomatic and commercial relations with the Ottoman Empire beginning with Lewis Heck, as commissioner, arriving in Istanbul on December 4, 1918. When he fell ill in May 1919, Gabriel B Ravndal assumed the duty of serving in Istanbul. He was succeeded by Admiral Mark L Bristol, with the title of high commissioner on August 12, 1919.
Admiral L. Bristol as US representative only made visits as necessary, temporarily using a passenger train wagon in Ankara as his office.
The American delegation of Rear Admiral Bristol, Richard Child, and Joseph C Grew attended the Lausanne Conference solely as observers since technically they were not at war with Türkiye. However, the US-based missionaries allowed to operate during the war made requests to the American government to intervene and to hinder Turkish independence.
Two treaties were signed on August 6, 1923, with the US on the side. The first was a Friendship and Commerce Treaty, including an article dealing with the conditions of corporations as well as settlement, residence, and work permits of Turkish and American nationals reciprocally, and the second was a treaty on extradition.
The US Senate rejected the Lausanne Treaty on January 18, 1928.
“With the aim of preventing a reaction by Türkiye due to the Senate’s decision, Admiral Bristol was told to depart from Istanbul and head to Ankara immediately. He told the Turkish authorities that the decision had been the result of internal quarrels within American politics, not reflecting the public and the US government’s opinion.“1
Grew was then appointed Ambassador based on his Lausanne familiarity and chose to stay at the US Embassy housed in the 19th-century Palazzo Corpi2 in Istanbul making visits to Ankara, as necessary.
England, located in a massive palace-like Embassy building nearby, delayed a move from Istanbul, influencing other countries. Toward the end, the Italians and the Americans were the last holdouts in leaving Istanbul for Ankara.
The Soviet (1926) and German (1927) governments were quick to open diplomatic posts after Ankara was declared the capital of the new republic.
Robert Peet Skinner (1866–1960) was the United States Ambassador to Greece from 1926 to 1932 and after short postings in Latvia and Lithuania found himself in Türkiye in 1933 but still not in Ankara.
“The US Department of State asked Ankara Ambassador Skinner on October 27, 1934, to find about Foreign Minister Tevfik Rüştü Aras’ approach to the signing of the Straits Convention between two states. Aras told Skinner that Türkiye would sign the Straits Convention if the US accepted the defense of the Straits by both countries, but the US did not accept this responsibility … when the world was beginning to be dragged into a new war, and (Türkiye) invited the countries that were parties to the Lausanne Straits Convention to a meeting on April 10, 1936. The states that signed the Lausanne Peace Treaty gathered in Montreux, Switzerland on June 22, 1936, to discuss the Straits. The US this time did not attend this meeting even as an observer.” 3
Finally, An Embassy in Ankara
The decision to move came when a protégé of President Woodrow Wilson, John Van Antwerp MacMurray (1881–1960), first genuine and the only Western expert on Asian international relations at Foreign Service, was appointed Ambassador to Türkiye.
Between 1924 and 1936, the US Embassy carried out its activities in two of the General Directorate of Evkaf (Foundations) Houses constructed during the early years of the Republic in 1925 to alleviate the housing shortage with two or three different plans with all the comforts of the day, based on designs by architect Kemalettin Bey.
During MacMurray’s term, in 1937 the embassy of the United States permanently moved to Ankara and The Mission started renting other buildings as residences after 1939.4
The US Embassy purchased the land on Atatürk Boulevard in 1940. The construction of the embassy building from 1948 to 1953 under the direction of Leland King, supervising architect of the Foreign Buildings Office was built based on a design by Eggers & Higgins, a New York architectural firm, which was reminiscent of Classical Revival buildings in Washington, DC, most specifically the exterior of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Since August 29, 2022, there has been a new US Embassy in Ankara, replacing the former building, which had been US territory for 67 years. The sovereign ownership goes back to Türkiye after being bought and transferred to Şemsettin Hancı a Trabzon businessperson. His Ashan Group is an enterprise providing catering services for Türkiye’s major projects over the past 30 years and employs over 5,000 staff.
Currently their real estate arm TY Gayrimenkul has no finalized projects for the land and building as they intend to go ahead in consultation with the urban dynamics of the area considering its historical and cultural significance and legacy in the city.
Ambassadors from Ankara
Ten days after the opening of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara on April 23, 1920, the Ankara Government was announced on May 3, 1920, and opened its first foreign mission in Baku, by appointing Memduh Şevket Bey (Esandal) as Representative Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
During the Ottoman period, the number of Turkish diplomatic missions were clustered on the European continent reaching a maximum of eighteen. Only Tehran in 1835 and Washington in 1867 were outside Europe. During Mustafa Kemal’s5 lifetime, new Turkish diplomatic missions doubled to thirty-seven.
Ahmet Muhtar Mollaoğlu (1870–1934) was posted as the first ambassador of Türkiye to the US. An interesting choice since during the war when he at times was not receiving his full salary, he was skeptical of the discussed suspension of the diplomatic relations to the US.
His posting was challenged by anti-Turkish sentiments. James W Gerard, the head of Armenian Committee saying no to the Lausanne Treaty, launched a campaign against the Turkish Ambassador prior to his arrival in the US. He argued that the Modus Vivendi challenged the Senate, and it was against the Constitution without success.
Ahmet Muhtar was followed by Mehmet Münir Ertegün, (1934-1944) with exceptional credentials and loyalty to the Turkish Sate.
Mehmet Münir was one the Ottoman ministers heading the delegation to discuss an understanding with the revolutionaries led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He chose to join the National Struggle and remained in Ankara, leaving behind his young wife and three-year-old son, Nesuhi. He became an aide to Mustafa Kemal during the Turkish War of Independence and the chief legal counsel of the Turkish delegation to the resulting Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, and was sent to Geneva to the League of Nations as an observer for the Turkish Republic frequently going to Paris for Ottoman public debt negotiations.
Mehmet Münir held his ambassador’s post in Washington, DC, until his death of a heart attack.6 In April 1946, a year after World War II had ended, his body was carried back to Istanbul aboard the battleship USS Missouri with great ceremony for maximum publicity to gain favors as the Cold War was beginning to take shape after World War II.
Thus ended an era when Mustafa Kemal’s Angora appointed two ambassadors to the US and received four without major diplomatic issues except the decision of opening a permanent embassy in 1937 while the new Turkish nation was focusing on the old continent and historic adversaries. ■
NOTES:
- Why did America not sign the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923? website
- The Palazzo Corpi became the US Consulate General in Istanbul until moving to a new building in 2003. The US government leased the building in 2014 to Soho House, which currently occupies the structure.
- Cumhuriyetin İlk Yıllarında Türkiye-Amerika İlişkileri (1919-1938) by Dilşen İNCE ERDOĞAN (in Turkish)
- The 1946 rental contract saying that the building had been used by the embassy since February 1939 reveals the family’s relationship with the US embassy, while Aciman had functioned as an intermediary in the procurement of suitable land for the embassy.
Born March 7, 1892, in Ottoman Monastir Jak Nesim Aciman (Jacques Nissim Aggiman) who was trained as an engineer in Canada was the architect of the British, Iranian, and Belgian embassies in Ankara. He died July 21/22, 1942 in Washington DC.
Source: Hidden Figure in the Construction of Embassies in Ankara: Jacques Aggiman
Mustafa Haluk ZELE
DOI: 10.5505/jas.2017.97769 - The name Mustafa Kemal was used for this period. When Surname Law No. 2525 was enacted on June 21, 1934, it was made mandatory for every citizen to have a surname in addition to their real name. Surnames would be in Turkish. Rank, civil service, foreign race and national names, and immoral and ridiculous words would not be used as surnames. Mustafa Kemal had chosen “Öz EN: Self, origin”, following the law.
The surname “Atatürk” was given by the Turkish Grand National Assembly on 24 November 1934. - His sons Ahmet and Nasuhi stayed in the US. Ahmet Ertegün founded Atlantic Records along with Herb Abramson in New York City in 1947, a label that went on to change US music history.
