A monograph on the decisive turn in American policy to support Turkish independence against Soviet pressures after World War II. Having consulted the archives and also some of the key participants, the author tells a straight story and attempts to divine how individual officials with varying motives actually contributed to the decisions. This work might well be read in conjunction with that of Barry Rubin on the background of the Truman Doctrine, The Great Powers in the Middle East, 1941-1947 (noted in Foreign Affairs, Spring 1981).