Secret Offer

Winston Churchill had a big piece of news for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers gathered in London: a secret Soviet offer to the Turks.

Molotov himself, reported Churchill, had sent a message to the Turks offering to withdraw 1) Russian claims on Turkish territory, 2) demands for a share in the military control of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Both proposals, in effect, add up only to a renunciation by the Russians of something which they have no prospect of gaining anyway (short of a war); nonetheless, Churchill regarded Molotov's message to an ancient enemy as perhaps the most important single gesture since Stalin's death.

Churchill told the assembled Prime Ministers: "I remarked to the Turkish Prime Minister that this Russian move showed how wise Turkey had been to join NATO. He observed to me, although Molotov had said nothing on this point, that it was plainly the Soviet hope that Turkey would stop building all those air bases which she is building under the NATO program. I said that, on the contrary, this was a time when we should hold together, and the Turkish Prime Minister [agreed]."

Churchill found the Turks just as aware as he that the Russians can reinstate their claims on Turkish territory by a mere telephone call, whereas air bases take months or years to build, and are useless until completed. "In her history," he concluded, "Turkey has had [many] reassuring messages of this kind from Russia, but she always found it wiser not to be reassured."

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