The Approach of Turkish-American Accord: The Portrayal of the United States in Ulus Gazetesi during World War II

Turkish-American relations have more than 200 years of history, but the agreements cemented after WWII brought unprecedented mutual political, economic, and cultural exchange to the two nations. Traditional scholarship has located the impetus for this development in the geopolitical strategies of the Soviet Union, to which the United States was forced to react. This study re-examines one aspect of this traditional interpretation, concluding that, according to the information published by Ulus newspaper (the contemporary Turkish government?s semi-official mouthpiece) before and during WWII, the Turkish government was already pro-American before WWII, stayed firmly pro-Allies during the war, and became even more staunchly pro-American as the war wound down into the new bipolar world. The author closes the text by calling for a reappraisal of the roots of postwar Turkish-American developments through new research on relations between the two countries in the 1930s and during WWII. This study will be of interest to those examining the sources of Turkish-U.S. post-WWII relations, or the avenues through which U.S. culture has made its way into the Turkish public space.