Wonderful. Who's the numbskull that thought admitting Turkey to NATO was a good idea?
Greece and Turkey were added as members at the same time (of course) in October 1951 after the Greek civil war. Truman was President.
Please eliminate NATO. Thank you.
Well, having Turkey in NATO made sense at the time at the time because we wanted to station troops and nuclear missiles there against the Soviets, who were flexing their muscles over Turkey.
If we hadn’t guaranteed Turkey’s protection via accession to NATO, or some other defensive pact, then chances are that Ataturk would have felt that he had no choice but to go Soviet. After all, Ataturk and the Bolsheviks were really close until about few years before Turkey joined NATO. (see Turkish Straits Crisis)