Message to America from Turkey's Premier S

As part of our Bicentennial observance, TIME asked leaders of nations round the world to address the American people through the pages of TIME on how they view the U.S. and what they hope--and expect--from the nation in the years ahead. This message from Premier Sueleyman Demirel of Turkey is the eighth in the series.

The Bicentennial of the foundation of the United States of America is observed at a time when Americans have chosen to put to trial the strength and validity of some of their institutions and to question some aspects of the action of their country in international affairs, and it takes place in a period of rapid and deep transformations in the world. Looking back over the two centuries that have elapsed since the founding fathers created the first democracy of the modern world, Americans will no doubt feel elated by the tremendous achievements of their country. They can well be proud of a spectacular expansion that has made them the mightiest economic power of the world. They should also be proud of having given the world the example of a society that has reached the highest goals of scientific and technological progress through the endeavors and initiatives of its citizens within free institutions. As for the soul-searching interrogations of the present day before the new and difficult problems of our times, it is no doubt fitting that the American democracy should find in itself the audacity to ask hard questions and search for answers.

My country has not let pass the occasion of the Bicentennial without a reassessment of what was achieved through her association and friendship with the U.S. in several periods of her more recent history. As we Turks turn in retrospect to the long history of our relations with the U.S., we remember that in the years following World War I, when Turkey struggled to create a national and democratic state on the ruins of a defeated empire, Turks looked at America as the only Western country true to its ideals and respectful of human rights. A later political association between Turkey and America began with the Truman Doctrine in 1947, an imaginative and bold decision to lend support to Turkey and Greece during the bleak and uncertain period of the early postwar period. Turkey's membership in the NATO alliance in the ensuing years created a stronger link between the two countries.

I went to America in 1949 as a young engineer and later in 1954, when I was a director at the Turkish State Water Works Department, through an Eisenhower exchange fellowship. I was deeply impressed by the creative and revolutionary methods evolved in America in the fields of management and technology. My own personal experience in life led me to understand the importance of social mobility, providing full opportunities to all citizens regardless of birth, origin and creed, and thus ensuring a full development of individual talents and initiatives. I met Americans from every walk of life. I was impressed by the simplicity and straightforwardness of their manners and their friendliness to foreigners. I noticed, however, their lack of knowledge of actual conditions in other parts of the world, which I found understandable in view of the much more advanced state of their technical civilization and the vastness of the country, which in many ways formed a world apart. These latter characteristics were to develop later into a handicap in the conduct of their policies as a leading power in the world.

If I have dwelt at some length on the image of America in my own country in the recent past, it is because I believe it reflects much that came into the picture of America in the world and those aspects of American civilization and behavior that have left a deep impact on world civilization. And at this moment in her history, when America feels the need to reassess her motives and aims and the urge to renew her institutions and policies, a knowledge of what she has meant for the world in the past will help her in determining what her attitudes and broader aims on the world scene should be in the future. Not all of what she has accomplished in the later period has won an unreserved approbation from her friends. In changing circumstances, she felt either inclined to persist in policies no longer warranted by the new realities of the world, as in Viet Nam, or, on the contrary, she gave in various instances an impression of hesitancy in the leading role that in view of her power, she must assume.

Although there exists no problem or dispute in the bilateral field that should affect the traditionally friendly relations between Turkey and the U.S., these have been seriously disturbed in recent years by a decision to clamp an arms embargo on Turkey for reasons totally irrelevant to them. This has created, not only in Turkey but in all countries that are friends and allies of the U.S., doubts as to the reliability of American commitments. It would seem to us that the restoration of mutual confidence, which has prevailed for so long in the relations of the two countries to the benefit of both, will also contribute to dispelling in the minds of their friends doubts about America's credibility as the leader of an alliance, on the cohesion and strength of which rest the hopes for peace and continuing detente in the world.

The introspective mood of America today reflects, in a sense, the inadequacy of some of her attitudes in the changed world. Whatever may be argued to the contrary, it is impossible for the mightiest economic power to escape from her responsibilities in world affairs. To play her role on the world scene efficiently, she must have one mind about it and maintain her sense of purpose in her own best interests and those of her friends. She must strike a balance between what she may consider as her particular interests and the necessities of her action in the world. In readapting her policies to new realities, America needs no other counsel than the inspiration that she will draw from the ideals upheld by the founders of her nation and the unique achievements of her glorious past. It is important for all the world that she succeeds. I want, on the occasion of the Bicentennial, to convey to the American people the warmest wishes of the Turkish nation for the further pursuit of the ideals of their great democracy.

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