Mavi Boncuk |The speech delivered by Conrad N. Hilton at the inauguration of Istanbul Hilton,
Turkey on June 10, 1955.
Standing here today in the shadow of a score of history’s most hallowed shrines is indeed a precious experience. To the average American –and I consider myself suchbmere mention of the metropolis of the beautiful Bosphorus invokes a maze of impressions gathered from a thousand sources. I am sure some of you must feel the same way about London or Chicago, although neither of these can ever hope to match the magic of this famed city of antiquity.
That İstanbul has played a large role in human history is certainly no accident. Pitched on the very crossroads of two great continents, it was destined from the beginning to be the witness of great historical happenings. Here the Persian hordes of Cyrus and Xerxes made their moves against the City-States of Athens and Sparta and Thebes.
Almost a hundred years later Constantine built his capital on this splendid site, and a few centuries later it was this same city which mothered the laws for most of the Western World in the great Justinian codes.
In the Middle Ages, when America was still unheard of, this city witnessed the invading crusaders and the galleys of the commercial princes of Genoa and Venice.
And I still recall the exciting pages of Gibbon, the English historian, where he describes the successful siege of the city by Mehmet II, The Conqueror.
Ladies and gentlemen, it strikes me that the number “3” has been significant in the chronology of İstanbul. Constantine built in 330, the Ottoman Empire was centralized here in 1453. And in 1923, under your late and great Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the present Republic of Turkey was founded.
For the Western World, the transforming events of 1923 have been of supreme importance. The old, Imperial Ottoman Regime had lost its earlier vitality, and was commonly referred to as “the sick man of Europe.” Then came 1923; then came Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and revitalization of that latent energy; and today, Turkey is an important member of the family of nations.
Turkey’s determined resistance to totalitarian tactics won the respect and assistance of America. Our response, beginning with the Truman Doctrine of 1947 and continuing with Eisenhower’s present administration, has been continuously enthusiastic. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization welcomed Turkey in 1952.
Thus, more and more, Turkey has assumed increasing importance in the cementing of relations between the West and the East. Her vital role in harmonizing understanding between Greece, Yugoslavia and the Turkish Republic itself with the successful Ankara Pact of 1953 won the applause of the entire Free World.
Turkish leadership grows in stature every day. What it has done, in the past thirty-two years, to strengthen powerful ties with Southeastern Europe and the Western powers is proof positive of Turkish leadership. At the same time, Turkey is the link… the bridge… between the West and the other vast areas of the old Ottoman Empire.
As a business man, I would be simple indeed, were I to attempt to portray this splendid hotel as merely an idealistic operation with no thought for financial return. At the same time, to deny any concern for its goodwill impact would be equally misleading. Frankly, as can be seen in our current expansion program, Hilton Hotels International views itself as a medium for bettering the understanding between peoples by extending the best we have to offer in the American Enterprise System to other lands. Here, as elsewhere, the national government itself, operating specifically through its pension fund, has magnificently worked side by side with us to achieve that goal.
The initiation of our International Hotel program took place in 1948 and was intended as a pledge of private American enterprise to complement the confidence already manifested on the governmental level in the Truman plan. Following our experience with the new hotel in Puerto Rico, we moved over to Europe in 1953 with our Castellana Hilton in Madrid. In the past two years we have negotiated for a series of others.
The list, aside from our hotel here in your city of İstanbul, will eventually include Rome, Berlin, Cairo, Havana, Mexico City, London, Paris, Stockholm and other metropolitan centers. The purpose of this expansion is not “bigness” for its own sake. We already operate the largest hotel group in the world with today’s opening making the twenty-ninth hotel in the Hilton family. Beyond mere size, we view our International Hotel ties as friendly centers where men of many nations and of goodwill may speak the language of peace.
We mean these hotels too as a challenge-not to the peoples who have so cordially welcomed us into their midst but to the way of life preached by the Communist world. Each hotel spells out friendship between nations, which is an alien word to those who try to reduce friends to slaves. To help fight that kind of thinking and that kind of living we are setting up our hotels of Hilton International Across the World.
But, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the time for serious discussion. Rather it is a week of festival-one which we shall long remember as marking an unofficial, and for that reason, a deeper bond between the people of Turkeyand those of my native America.
The speech delivered by Conrad N. Hilton at the inauguration of Istanbul Hilton,
Turkey on June 10, 1955.
Source: Hilton Book