Atatürk delivers a filmed message to the American people in 1930

On 11 November 1930, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding president of the Turkish Republic, delivered a message addressed directly to the American people. The address was filmed in the presence of Joseph Grew, the US ambassador to Türkiye at the time.

The recording came seven years after the republic was proclaimed in 1923, when Ankara was still building its international standing after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the war years that followed. Relations with Washington had been rebuilt only gradually, and Grew, who served as ambassador from 1927, was a central figure in that process.

A filmed message was an unusual way for a head of state to speak to a foreign public in 1930, when sound recording was still a new medium. It showed Atatürk's interest in presenting the young republic to audiences abroad and in strengthening ties with the United States. The footage and the circumstances around it have remained a subject of interest for historians and for those following Turkish-American relations.