Demirkırat Belgeseli | Tek Bölüm | Demokrat Parti, 27 Mayıs ve Yassıada | 1930-1961 | 32.Gün Arşivi — Transcript

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1. 0:13Democracy is the most delicate flower in the world. What keeps it alive is tolerance, compromise, and dialogue.
2. 0:19Tonight we will tell you the story of the birth and first steps of the democracy that took root in our country.
3. 0:23We will lift the veil on an exhilarating but difficult era.
4. 0:26None of the leading figures are alive today. Yet the democracy they built and left to us still lives on.
5. 1:21Hello. For ten full weeks we will be together, turning the pages of our recent history.
6. 1:28At times we will be thrilled, at times saddened.
7. 1:32Sometimes we will wish it had been otherwise. Rest assured, together we will draw great lessons from the past.
8. 1:38However many painful, shameful periods societies may have lived through, rather than ignoring certain events, by confronting them
9. 1:48and accepting the mistakes made and feeling responsible, they grow and mature.
10. 1:54We have now entered an entirely new world, an entirely new era.
11. 1:58A world in which old concepts, ideologies, and taboos have collapsed.
12. 2:02Instead of hiding old wounds and fearing what others might say, we are entering a world of openness, free thought, where everyone can freely
13. 2:11voice their views. Our country's transition to democracy was not easy to accomplish.
14. 2:18It was interrupted from time to time. But we persisted.
15. 2:22Because we were determined. With this documentary we will take the story from its beginning, and with the documentaries we plan to make later, we will try to bring it up to today.
16. 2:34Our aim is neither to judge nor to exonerate anyone.
17. 2:38We tried to look at events as impartially as possible.
18. 2:40You will see the result of two full years of work and research.
19. 2:47The multi-party democratic system we take for granted in Turkey today is in fact the product of a 23-year struggle and search.
20. 2:55From the founding of the Republic until 1946, three attempts were made to move from a single-party to a multi-party system.
21. 3:01The first was in 1924. The Progressive Republican Party emerged to face the ruling Republican People's Party.
22. 3:09But in this period, when a new republic was being built amid hardship, there was no room for a dissenting voice.
23. 3:18The Progressive Party was shut down six months later. Some of its leaders were imprisoned.
24. 3:23Some were punished on the gallows in the trial over the assassination plot against Atatürk.
25. 3:29The second attempt came six years later, in 1930, with the Free Party.
26. 3:34But the Free Party survived only 97 days.
27. 3:38Finally, after another sixteen years, the Democrat Party arrived in 1946.
28. 3:45And for Turkey, single-party rule became history, never to return.
29. 3:50We will begin our documentary in 1930, with the Republic's second attempt at multi-party rule.
30. 3:58We will look for the traces of the Democrat Party, which came to power in 1950, in the turmoil of the 1930s.
31. 4:14In the 1930s there were two kinds of Ankara. One was changing its face, learning to wear hats, to read and write Turkish, to dance to Western music.
32. 4:24You could find this Ankara in the ballrooms of Ankara Palas in Ulus.
33. 4:31"I am suffocating, my boy. I am suffocating in great anguish.
34. 4:35You see, wherever we go we hear nothing but troubles and complaints.
35. 4:38Everywhere is steeped in deep deprivation, in material and spiritual misery."
36. 4:45The Gazi was seeking a remedy for this situation. A new and serious initiative was needed.
37. 4:49An initiative that could integrate Turkey with the West in every respect.
38. 4:53One that would bring both economic and political support. That would bring Turkey into the contemporary world.
39. 4:59That was the Gazi's ideal. He made his decision without delay.
40. 5:03The way out for the country lay in multi-party democracy. On a warm August evening at a ball in Yalova, Atatürk
41. 5:16summoned his close friend Fethi Bey, the ambassador to France, and Prime Minister İsmet Bey.
42. 5:22The multi-party formula could not be delayed. It had to be put into practice as soon as possible.
43. 5:26He asked Fethi Bey to found a party. He had even chosen its name.
44. 5:30The Free Republican Party. Turning to the Prime Minister and to Fethi Bey, the future opposition leader, he even explained the formula for the regime.
45. 5:38"I am a father now. You two are both my children.
46. 5:44In my eyes there is no difference between the two of you."
47. 5:48One of Atatürk's children was the Republican People's Party, which he had founded and of which he was chairman.
48. 5:53That is, the government. The other child he brought into the world he assigned to the opposition.
49. 5:59He was taking on the regime's role as guardian, and appointing the opposition that would oversee the government.
50. 6:06The Free Party had two goals: pluralist democracy and a liberal economy.
51. 6:12In other words, the Western model. At first Atatürk gave this party great support.
52. 6:17He had his closest associates, even his own sister, join as members.
53. 6:20But before long, the calculations made at Çankaya went awry.
54. 6:24This time, every opponent of the regime began to flow into the Free Party.
55. 6:28The party became the focal point of social opposition. A rally held in İzmir in the party's very first days in fact foretold its end.
56. 6:37Fifty thousand people greeted Fethi Bey on the İzmir quay with the chant "Save us!"
57. 6:43Disturbances broke out, with deaths and injuries. Among those who greeted Fethi Bey that day was the Free Party's Aydın provincial chairman.
58. 6:53The young man in a white suit and felt hat, standing right beside his leader Fethi Bey, was named Adnan Menderes.
59. 7:04Menderes was only 31. In Aydın, he was the master of the 3,000-decare Çakırbeyli farm inherited from his father.
60. 7:10He was newly married. In fact, when he married, he had promised his wife Berrin Hanım that he would remain a farmer and never enter politics.
61. 7:18But when Fethi Okyar came to Aydın looking for someone to run the provincial organisation, everyone recommended him.
62. 7:24He was well liked in the area. He understood the land.
63. 7:27He was educated and spoke languages. In the end he could not resist the pressure, and stepped into the politics his wife had always instinctively feared.
64. 7:36By taking on the Aydın chairmanship, he was unknowingly climbing the first step of a political struggle that would last 30 years.
65. 7:44But this first political venture also brought with it his first political defeat.
66. 7:48When the Free Party spiralled out of control, it was dissolved three and a half months later, again with the Gazi's approval.
67. 7:56Another attempt at democracy ended in disappointment.
68. 8:07As soon as the Free Party closed, the opposition's voice was silenced.
69. 8:10The dissidents returned to the CHP, their old home.
70. 8:14Adnan Menderes too took over the Republican People's Party's Aydın provincial chairmanship.
71. 8:19His hopes were dashed by the Free Party's failure; his enthusiasm was gone.
72. 8:23Until 3 February 1931. That day Atatürk came to Aydın.
73. 8:29The whole city was on its feet. The Gazi toured everywhere. But he did not want to stop by the CHP building.
74. 8:35Perhaps he was reluctant because he knew the former Free Party members were there.
75. 8:41Yet Menderes waited for him impatiently. Eventually he agreed to drop in for five minutes.
76. 8:48Adnan Menderes told me himself: "I offered coffee, he declined.
77. 8:55I offered a cigarette, he declined. But then a conversation started.
78. 9:03He asked for information about the situation of farmers in Turkey, the farmers here.
79. 9:12I began to explain. The economic situation in Turkey, the condition of the farmers, the measures that should be taken
80. 9:22I began to lay out my ideas on all of it.
81. 9:28Atatürk asked questions and I explained. Atatürk added more and got me talking.
82. 9:35In the end the five-minute visit lasted four full hours. In those four hours Atatürk smoked a pack of Gazi cigarettes and drank four cups of coffee.
83. 9:42Those four hours changed the course of Adnan Menderes's life.
84. 9:47On leaving Aydın, Atatürk asked Menderes for a report on what they had discussed.
85. 9:52He praised Adnan Bey to those around him: "The young man I spoke with today is a remarkable person."
86. 9:57A few months later, during the election period, Adnan Bey's name was read out on the radio among the parliamentary candidates.
87. 10:03Yet he himself did not even know. They congratulated him: "Good luck, Adnan Bey."
88. 10:10I asked what it was about. He said, "Didn't you hear the news on the radio at noon?
89. 10:19Your name was on it." Of course it was as a candidate, but anyone on that list was automatically elected.
90. 10:29So the Republican People's Party, after the Free Party episode, in coming to Ankara, to the Grand National Assembly,
91. 10:40the young man whom Atatürk had met was kept alive in his memory,
92. 10:48and perhaps he noted it down somewhere that day. I believe that played a very important role.
93. 10:56In the spring of 1931, as Adnan Menderes left for the Assembly in Ankara as the deputy for Aydın, he would tell those close to him, "Atatürk discovered me."
94. 11:04In Ankara, an unparalleled life adventure lasting a full 30 years awaited him.
95. 11:18In 1933 the youth of the Republic were enjoying themselves.
96. 11:22The 15 million young people created in ten years flocked to Ankara.
97. 11:27Among those experiencing this excitement in the capital was Adnan Menderes.
98. 11:30War had caught him at 18 as a student at the American College; like a whole generation, his youth was spent in training grounds, on trains to the front, in bouts of malaria.
99. 11:42Now he sat on the benches of the Grand National Assembly, the fruit of that struggle.
100. 11:47He was somewhat shy, even faint. In parliament he worked on the petitions committee.
101. 11:53In the general assembly he sat somewhere in the back.
102. 11:56His nature was not suited to pushing forward or showing off.
103. 12:00He might be described as modest and bashful by nature.
104. 12:09That is, he was not the kind to shoulder people aside to reach the front rows.
105. 12:15He also had no temperament for trying particular routes to do so.
106. 12:25That may be one reason. A second reason is perhaps a feeling left over from the Free Party
107. 12:39episode.
108. 12:43That is, one should not rush in before the time is right.
109. 12:48Because farming suits this very well.
110. 12:55Your tractor is ready, all your tools are ready, your fertiliser and seed are ready.
111. 13:01But if the soil and weather are not both right, your hands are tied.
112. 13:08You must wait for the air to reach a certain temperature and the soil to become workable.
113. 13:16The soil was not yet ripe in politics. For Menderes the best thing to do in this period was to prepare himself better.
114. 13:24One night he suddenly decided to enrol at university.
115. 13:27He applied to the Ankara Law School with a petition.
116. 13:30Yet he did not even have a high-school diploma. He was admitted because he was a deputy.
117. 13:35So at 33, this time as a deputy, he sat once more at a student's desk.
118. 13:41Two major events occurred during Menderes's student years.
119. 13:49One was the full-speed spread of fascism. Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, and Hitler in Germany had declared dictatorships as products of the economic crisis.
120. 14:00The world was being dragged step by step toward war. The other shocking news came on 10 November 1938.
121. 14:08The Republic was now without Atatürk. When Atatürk died, his comrade-in-arms İsmet İnönü was no longer his prime minister.
122. 14:16They had argued and agreed to put a pause on their relationship.
123. 14:23Whereupon Celal Bayar had been appointed prime minister.
124. 14:26Bayar had been at Atatürk's side since the days of İttihat and Terakki.
125. 14:30He was a veteran of the War of Independence. His life had passed in struggle; he had founded İş Bank, served as Atatürk's economy minister, and now had become his prime minister.
126. 14:40İnönü and Bayar were two different poles. Throughout their lives, whenever one stepped forward, the other fell back and waited his turn.
127. 14:49After Atatürk, would this rule of succession work the same way?
128. 14:54On the day Atatürk died, Bayar gave this reply to those asking who the new president would be.
129. 15:00"The Assembly will elect the president.
130. 15:05Our duty, our duty is to take the matter to its owner
131. 15:15and deliver it safely, so that it can express its will.
132. 15:23And after that, to ensure obedience to whoever is elected by a majority.
133. 15:34If my own father rose from the grave and acted against this principle, I would hang him," I said.
134. 15:42Parliament convened in extraordinary session on Friday, 11 November 1938, and elected İsmet İnönü President.
135. 15:48İsmet İnönü wrote this note in his diary that day.
136. 15:52"Parliament waited in a frenzy, barely holding out for 24 hours. The whole country waited by their radios.
137. 15:58They elected me president unanimously. The election to the presidency of a man who is out of power, even known to be disliked and feared by those in power,
138. 16:05will go down in history as a genuine election carried out freely and willingly. That day began for me like any other day.
139. 16:19My teacher was coming that day. When I was at the Çankaya school I had a teacher named Rasim Akın.
140. 16:25He came and we began our lesson together in my room upstairs.
141. 16:29During my lesson there was a knock at the door and they said I was being called downstairs.
142. 16:34My father wanted to see me. I went down and out into the garden; the weather was lovely.
143. 16:38My father had put on his tailcoat. Beside him was Abdülhalik Renda, the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly at the time.
144. 16:45And other friends were slowly walking there.
145. 16:47I ran to my father. He took me in his arms, kissed me and stroked my hair.
146. 16:53"My girl," he said, "look, my friends have come, they've come for me — we are going to the Grand National Assembly now.
147. 16:58I will take the oath there as president.
148. 17:01I wanted to tell you this myself. From now on, your father is president."
149. 17:05İnönü was now president. Although he reappointed Bayar as prime minister, Bayar was forced to resign a few months later.
150. 17:13The age-old rivalry prevented the two names from being together.
151. 17:17Bayar withdrew into his corner. It was now İnönü's turn to come to the fore.
152. 17:22The new leader had two paths ahead of him. Either he would become a one-man ruler or continue Atatürk's search for democracy.
153. 17:28The first sign, which would later spark great debate, came at the Republican People's Party's first extraordinary congress in 1938.
154. 17:36The party programme was amended, and at the congress chaired by Celal Bayar, İnönü was proclaimed permanent chairman.
155. 17:43From now on İsmet Pasha could, if he wished, remain party chairman until he died.
156. 17:49The congress's message of loyalty to the National Chief was read by its youngest member, Adnan Menderes.
157. 17:57"It has been resolved that the Grand Congress express its heartfelt love and loyalty to İsmet İnönü, elected permanent chairman of our party,
158. 18:05the great President of the Turkish Republic and supreme commander of the heroic Turkish army, the National Chief."
159. 18:15In an irony of history, the young man who proudly read this resolution from the podium would, a few years later, become one of its fiercest opponents.
160. 18:25Shortly after the declaration of his National Chieftaincy, İsmet İnönü gave a speech that surprised everyone.
161. 18:30At İstanbul University he said that real national oversight in the country was essential.
162. 18:35Was İsmet Pasha pointing the way to multi-party democracy?
163. 18:39Some said yes, some said no. These debates were cut off like a knife exactly six months later.
164. 18:47War had broken out in Europe. Now Turkey had only one goal.
165. 18:51To stay out of this catastrophe. A difficult period began for both the world and Turkey.
166. 18:58It was an era ruled by shortages, queues, black markets, blackouts, and bread ration cards.
167. 19:04The horror of war entrenched the National Chief's rule a little further, and İsmet İnönü gradually began to become a symbol of fear.
168. 19:11Yet a new generation had grown up.
169. 19:15The single-party order felt too narrow to them. "We're young, we go to university, we read, we study.
170. 19:22They say things, they explain, we see. The weight of the single chief has pulled Turkey down.
171. 19:29Can you imagine İnönü? It was impossible to see him on the road.
172. 19:34As he came down from Çankaya, the roads were closed. Motorcycles in front, motorcycles behind.
173. 19:40He came down with a thunderous roar and just like that, passed by.
174. 19:44Someone would say, "Who's that? İnönü passed, İsmet Pasha passed."
175. 19:47You grew up with all sorts of fears like "oh dear".
176. 19:51The one man was gradually turning into a man alone.
177. 19:54The people, with prices breaking loose from their chains, were helpless and weary.
178. 19:58Turkey had not entered the war, but the war had entered Turkish homes.
179. 20:02Scarcity ruled in Ankara's markets.
180. 20:06The ox carts that once carried goods from village to city now went to the city to find food.
181. 20:11Yet people in the city had by now taken to growing vegetables in apartment gardens.
182. 20:19In 1942, as the war turned into a full conflagration, its flames encircled Turkey from the Black Sea, the Aegean, and the Balkans.
183. 20:28It was precisely at this point that the notorious Wealth Tax was introduced, bringing grievances and opposition into the open.
184. 20:34The people grumbled in queues, while the newspapers were filled with stories elevating the National Chief to the rank of a god.
185. 20:41And this was forced upon the newspapers. In fact some papers volunteered, for instance after every İnönü victory his picture ran large in a frame on the front page.
186. 20:52Even news about İsmet Pasha's family, for instance Mrs. Mevhibe İnönü opening a postal course at the Ministry of Transport,
187. 21:03was something they could even predict where and how it would be written.
188. 21:11Mevhibe İnönü, for one, was not at all the type to enjoy this.
189. 21:16But everything possible was done to polish İsmet İnönü's image.
190. 21:25For example, İnönü's son Erdal İnönü received a pilot's certificate from the Turkish Aeronautical Association; the Speaker, the Prime Minister, all ministers and the Chief of General Staff attended the meeting,
191. 21:36speeches were made explaining what a great feat the National Chief's son had accomplished.
192. 21:41And this was written up in the newspapers. All of it, contrary to what was intended, perhaps produced authority but also made him unpopular.
193. 21:53This antipathy soon turned into opposition.
194. 21:55The first dissenting voices were raised by Zekeriya and Sabiha Sertel at the newspaper Tan, and Ahmet Emin Yalman at Vatan.
195. 22:04And with pens like Behice Boran and Mehmet Ali Aybar, they stoked the debate over democracy and freedom of thought.
196. 22:10Against the People's Party, which claimed Turkey was moving to a multi-party regime and democracy was coming,
197. 22:18we wrote that the democracy coming to us was democracy on paper.
198. 22:25And so we ran a series of articles on the political structure of paper democracy, and paper democracy's view of the people.
199. 22:38These articles were not well received by the People's Party.
200. 22:46On the right wing, in the same year, debates over racism and Turanism grew and large-scale arrests were made.
201. 22:54Among those who drew the National Chief's lightning was a lieutenant named Alparslan Türkeş.
202. 23:01These voices were not very effective. The truly effective opposition to İsmet Pasha came from within the party, from his old comrade-in-arms Celal Bayar.
203. 23:09Since handing leadership to İnönü, Bayar had not been idle, and his home had become a centre of opposition.
204. 23:15These gatherings, which began with the general question of where the country was heading, had three main regulars.
205. 23:22The first was the Aydın deputy Adnan Menderes. Since the Free Party venture, he had kept his dim view of İsmet İnönü.
206. 23:30The second was Professor Fuat Köprülü. Menderes had introduced Köprülü, a literary historian, to the group.
207. 23:37And finally Refik Koraltan. Like Bayar, one of the deputies of the first Grand National Assembly, Koraltan had later strengthened his relations with Bayar while serving as governor of Bursa.
208. 23:45Thus the brain trust of the disaffected camp was complete.
209. 23:52This team would now be constantly together and act jointly in every event.
210. 24:00Bayar was the first to raise the flag of opposition. In the parliamentary session debating the 1944 budget he criticised government policies.
211. 24:06He debated certain ministers from the podium. For the first time, a deputy was opposing the National Chief's budget.
212. 24:14From that day, Bayar's and the Republican People's Party's paths effectively parted.
213. 24:20Tuesday, 8 May 1945. That morning the whole world woke to the same happy news.
214. 24:25The war was over. A new era was now beginning for both the world and Turkey.
215. 24:30That spring, representatives of 59 countries signed the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco.
216. 24:37It was decided that the principles of democracy would now prevail in the new world.
217. 24:42Chiefs, Führers, and Duces were buried in the depths of history.
218. 24:46But another development occurred that same year.
219. 24:50And Stalin annulled the Turkish-Soviet non-aggression pact.
220. 24:53Relations with the Soviets suddenly became tense.
221. 24:56As a result, Turkey's integration with the West suddenly accelerated.
222. 25:02In this climate, the time had come for the unchanging National Chief regime in Turkey to change.
223. 25:08The key to unlock the Western world we wanted to enter was multi-party democracy.
224. 25:14And in this atmosphere İnönü gave the long-awaited speech.
225. 25:17In his 19 May 1945 address, he promised for the first time, explicitly, a transition to democracy.
226. 25:23After İsmet Pasha decided on this, he consulted many of us.
227. 25:29We had many discussions. Some of us wanted it much earlier.
228. 25:35"If we enter into this we will hurt one another." Some said let us begin at once.
229. 25:42But let us be a bit more cautious about beginning, they said.
230. 25:49İsmet Pasha was for starting at once.
231. 25:52When it was said "we'll hurt each other," he would respond like this.
232. 25:58He would say: when I was at the military academy, football first came to Turkey.
233. 26:05We would play matches. The side that realised it was losing would pull off its belts and charge at the other side.
234. 26:13Those times are gone. It will be the same with democracy.
235. 26:17At first we will pull belts on one another and charge.
236. 26:22But gradually we will get used to it. We will see how it is done around the world.
237. 26:29And we will move to a democratic life according to our own conditions.
238. 26:35Of course, as that first democracy was about to be established, many came to my father, perhaps with good intentions: "Pasha, it's still too early.
239. 26:46Let's not get into it. Our people have not matured yet.
240. 26:50Let's wait a little longer for them to mature. Then let's enter into it."
241. 26:56And they would always add: "Pasha, they will attack you first, they will wear you down."
242. 27:02To them too my father would reply with a laugh: "That is exactly why I want to do this in my lifetime.
243. 27:10Those who come after me may not be as patient as I am.
244. 27:13But I have confidence in myself." How much of İsmet Pasha's decision stemmed from self-confidence, and how much from the influence of the world situation, has always been debated.
245. 27:22It has always been debated. But one thing is certain: conditions inside the country had also become multi-party.
246. 27:28They had made a democratic regime inevitable.
247. 27:36The first rehearsal of such a regime took place in parliament in those very days.
248. 27:41Land reform was on the agenda that day. For a fairer distribution of land, part of the large landowners' estates was to be expropriated.
249. 27:49The landlords inside the Republican People's Party were deeply disturbed.
250. 27:53Adnan Menderes voiced this reaction. Until that day not much in the foreground, Menderes came to the podium with a thick file.
251. 28:01He gave a long and highly effective speech. He said the law was fascist, even reminiscent of the Nazis.
252. 28:08By the time he stepped down from the podium, his star was shining brighter than ever.
253. 28:12In the budget vote held at the end of that May, exactly seven red votes came out.
254. 28:17These seven dissenting votes in fact revealed the opposition's new cadre.
255. 28:22The dissenting group's name and address were now clear. Now was the moment to make a move.
256. 28:30The expected move came on 7 June 1945, in the form of a three-page motion submitted to the Republican People's Party group.
257. 28:36Known to history as the Memorandum of the Four, it referred back to İnönü's 19 May address and listed three demands in extremely respectful language.
258. 28:47Securing parliamentary oversight, expanding political freedoms, and reorganising party operations.
259. 28:54Under the motion were the same four signatures: Celal Bayar, Refik Koraltan, Fuat Köprülü, and Adnan Menderes.
260. 29:01The motion hit the Republican People's Party group like a bomb.
261. 29:05This was an open challenge. Was it heading toward a new party?
262. 29:11I asked Mr. Celal Bayar: "When you submitted the Memorandum of the Four, were you thinking of founding a party?"
263. 29:20He gave me exactly this answer.
264. 29:25I think it is worthwhile for this to go down in history.
265. 29:30He said: "When we submitted the Memorandum of the Four, we had in mind only reforms within the Republican People's Party.
266. 29:43I am relaying my own thinking. I am not speaking as an interpreter of my friends' views.
267. 29:51But I had no intention of founding a party of that kind, and I was not considering leaving the Republican People's Party."
268. 30:01But İnönü did not see it that way. At a party meeting where the Memorandum was discussed, he replied to those who wanted the opposition silenced:
269. 30:07"Let them not conduct their opposition inside the party.
270. 30:12Let them leave and stand across from us. Let them build their organisation and enter the contest as a separate party."
271. 30:19That was the day the idea of a separate party was voiced for the first time within the Republican People's Party.
272. 30:26The National Chief had said, let them go. Could it be that Bayar could not avoid becoming the opposition leader now?
273. 30:33But it is known that İsmet Pasha wanted any second party to be founded under Celal Bayar's chairmanship.
274. 30:42Why? For one, any resistance against secularism or against Atatürk's reforms,
275. 30:52or any large-scale exploitation, would not come from a party in which Celal Bayar was present, which he had founded.
276. 31:04And Celal Bayar was a former prime minister, with experience of the state.
277. 31:11He had seen how many dangers Turkey had lived through.
278. 31:15Let me put it this way: Celal Bayar's person was regarded as a guarantee for İsmet İnönü in founding an opposition party.
279. 31:27Bayar at that time was anxiously awaiting the result of the step he had taken.
280. 31:31He had fired his shot and was straining to hear the sound coming back from the other side.
281. 31:35The People's Party's reaction to this rebellion was as expected.
282. 31:38First, the Memorandum of the Four was heavily criticised in parliament.
283. 31:41Then, on 21 September 1945, the party's governing board unanimously expelled the two most outspoken of the four.
284. 31:50Menderes and Köprülü were cast out — a warning to Bayar as well.
285. 31:54This was the exact midpoint of Menderes's 30-year political life.
286. 31:59His 15-year CHP adventure thus ended, and from that day a period of opposition began that would last exactly another 15 years.
287. 32:07After his friends were expelled from the party, all eyes turned to Celal Bayar.
288. 32:13Everyone was curious about Bayar's reaction. In September, as we returned from the summer house, my father confided to me
289. 32:26his wish to leave his seat in parliament.
290. 32:31"For now I am telling you only; no one but you knows," he said, handing me almost a secret.
291. 32:42When we got to İstanbul, our relatives kept asking me what my father would do in this situation.
292. 32:54Of course, since I had to keep this secret, I gave nothing away.
293. 32:59Bayar kept the secret for a week and then announced it.
294. 33:03He had resigned from parliament but had still not broken with the party.
295. 33:07In fact he had long since resolved to found a new party, but still kept his eyes on Çankaya before taking the final step.
296. 33:15İnönü's cabinet learned of the resignation while watching a horse race at the Ankara Hippodrome.
297. 33:21There İnönü asked his cabinet colleagues for their views.
298. 33:24Nearly all predicted that Bayar would withdraw from political life.
299. 33:28After listening to everyone, İnönü gave his own view.
300. 33:32"In my opinion Bayar will found a party, and this will be good for the country.
301. 33:38Instead of an independent group, we will face an independent party.
302. 33:42Let us prepare accordingly." İnönü finally gave the signal awaited for months, even years, in 1945
303. 33:55at the opening of parliament. "Our only deficiency is that there is no party across from the government party," he said.
304. 34:04According to İnönü, the failure of the two earlier attempts in the face of reactions was a misfortune.
305. 34:11But now, thanks to the natural workings of an atmosphere of freedom and democracy, other political parties could be formed
306. 34:18and the first multi-party election would be held in 1947.
307. 34:23After hearing that Bayar and his friends had gathered around Bayar and moved toward founding a party,
308. 34:31I believe İnönü, who finally knew Celal Bayar from the Atatürk era with a mature understanding of his seriousness,
309. 34:46encouraged, even egged on, the founding of such a party.
310. 34:56It was in such an atmosphere that the Democrat Party was born. It was not as if İsmet Pasha called Bayar in and said, "you be His Majesty's opposition, let's manage things,
311. 35:06just say something now and then like an opposition and I'll decide."
312. 35:10It was not like that. Why not? Because the Democrat Party's opposition before 1950 was not an opposition to be dismissed.
313. 35:23It was harsh. Harsh. Very harsh indeed.
314. 35:28Despite this harsh opposition, the green light from Çankaya was now on for Bayar.
315. 35:33Meanwhile Refik Koraltan had also been expelled from the party, and the new formation's core team was thus complete.
316. 35:38Bayar, Menderes, Koraltan, and Köprülü.
317. 35:42These four men would fill the other pan of the scale in the new multi-party regime.
318. 35:48The four met constantly. Mostly at our house.
319. 35:51Everyone guessed that a party would be founded, but it had not yet been announced.
320. 35:58On the ground floor of our house lived a man who was the director of Agence France-Presse.
321. 36:03He would stop us children on the stairs every so often.
322. 36:07"Is a party being founded? What do you know?" he would ask us.
323. 36:11Yes, a party really was being founded inside. The four worked until morning on the new party's programme and principles, debating.
324. 36:22The meetings were very charged. Köprülü, for one, was a fiery man by temperament.
325. 36:34He made sharp outbursts. When angry he would push forward and speak.
326. 36:43He would offend the others. Many times the party would have dissolved before it was even founded because of his quarrels.
327. 36:50Many people came to our house. Only I would go in, bringing tea and coffee, taking lemonade.
328. 36:57One day I saw my father take Köprülü by the arm.
329. 37:01Without my father this party would neither have been founded nor continued.
330. 37:04Because there were many quarrels, and my father always calmed them.
331. 37:08He immediately took Köprülü into the inner room. A little later Menderes went to him.
332. 37:16Dear God, I had brought water or something, but Köprülü was lashing out like that.
333. 37:24I wondered to myself why he was so angry.
334. 37:31It turned out he was angry that Bayar was to be chairman. Of course in such meetings everyone says something.
335. 37:36So that it would continue regularly... "Oh, why did he offer him the chairmanship?" he was cross with him.
336. 37:42"You want to be chairman yourself." The debates over the party programme were finally completed at the beginning of December.
337. 37:48The programme and the party's founding declaration were typed up in the same house by Koraltan's daughter Ayhan.
338. 37:55Finally the matter came down to finding the party a name.
339. 37:59One day my very old friend Nilüfer invited me to dinner and I went to the house.
340. 38:06Celal Bayar, Nilüfer, myself, and one more person were there.
341. 38:09I sat down beside Celal Bayar.
342. 38:14Celal Bayar said, "What should the Democrat Party's name be?
343. 38:18Come on, you young people, tell us." I asked what names there were.
344. 38:24He said, "They're talking about calling it the Rising Sun Party.
345. 38:29And also Democrat Party." I said, in my view Democrat Party would be more suitable.
346. 38:37Because the word democrat exists in every language and is easy to remember.
347. 38:44The child had been named. Bayar finally announced his resignation from the CHP, in which he had been since its founding.
348. 38:50Now it was time to take the pulse of the mansion. He took the programme under his arm.
349. 38:58He put a party badge in his pocket. An appointment was requested from İsmet Pasha and granted.
350. 39:04He went up to the mansion. At the mansion they joked with each other. Celal Bayar handed over the badge.
351. 39:09He said, "Pasha, it would please us greatly to see this on your lapel as well."
352. 39:13The Pasha laughed. Then the real conversation took place. İnönü took the programme and asked:
353. 39:22"As in the Progressives, is there an article saying we respect religious belief?"
354. 39:28Celal Bayar: "No, Pasha. There is that secularism is not irreligion.
355. 39:33No harm. Will you work on the village institutes and the primary-school mobilisation?
356. 39:38That is, will you oppose these? No. Is there a disagreement in foreign policy?
357. 39:43No. Then it is fine." This "fine" in fact meant the end of a single-party regime that had lasted 23 years.
358. 39:51As Bayar returned from Çankaya, the Democrat Party's founding visa was in his pocket.
359. 39:55The National Chief era was now behind. Now the age of democracy was beginning.
360. 40:00Yet the word democrat was not a well-known word among the people.
361. 40:04Like the democratic regime, the word democrat was foreign to the people.
362. 40:08However, the people soon translated it into their own tongue.
363. 40:11In village coffeehouses, instead of "demokrat," people began saying "Demirkırat."
364. 40:16When speaking of the Democrat Party, people would say the Demirkırat Party.
365. 40:20Demirkırat gradually became the symbol of democracy in Turkey.
366. 40:23Sometimes at full gallop, sometimes reined in, sometimes rearing up, sometimes stumbling, it kept racing toward democracy.
367. 40:31And from 1946 on, unbelievable events shook the entire country.
368. 40:42After a full 23 years of single-party rule, Turkey in 1946 had decided to try democracy once more.
369. 40:51In every attempt until then, the regime had been overturned and abandoned within a short time.
370. 40:55Now a new one was coming. Would the multi-party regime pursued since Atatürk finally be reached this time?
371. 41:03The calendar of democracy began ticking on the morning of Monday, 7 January 1946.
372. 41:09That day became a turning point in Turkish political history.
373. 41:13The Turkish Republic woke up with a single party and by evening was multi-party.
374. 41:25At the DP's headquarters on Sümer Street, a complete holiday atmosphere prevailed that day.
375. 41:31The 23-year single-party regime had changed. Now there was an opposition party and an alternative to power.
376. 41:37The four men who founded the party — Bayar, Menderes, Köprülü, and Koraltan — announced their programme at their first press conference.
377. 41:43One of the journalists following the press conference with curiosity was Metin Toker.
378. 41:49I remember this question was put to Adnan Menderes there.
379. 41:55"Where does the new party stand relative to the CHP?" Bayar brushed it off with "it's democratic."
380. 42:06Adnan Menderes said, "perhaps a couple of fingers further to the left."
381. 42:11In fact, DP stood a couple of fingers to the right of CHP. Judging by their programmes, the Democrats sat on the right of the political spectrum.
382. 42:19DP had two basic goals: liberalism in the economy, democracy in politics.
383. 42:25The party programme promised a freer order in every field and prosperity for the masses.
384. 42:30But like the country, the party itself was in need of prosperity.
385. 42:34The Democrat Party's headquarters on Sümer Street was a simple house, one of Ankara's first three-storey villas with a garden.
386. 42:46The party's means were very limited.
387. 42:52It could sustain its activities only through donations of this kind.
388. 43:00Of course the armchairs and so on were likewise gathered from here and there.
389. 43:10The table at which the party's general assembly met was one taken from our father's
390. 43:19house in Çankaya.
391. 43:25The cupboards had also been used as filing cabinets.
392. 43:29Lack of money was a major problem. In the early days Bayar told journalists who asked where they would find money:
393. 43:36"Among 18 million people we can find 100 or 200 who can help us.
394. 43:42If we take 500 lira from each of them, that makes 100,000 lira, which will see us through one or two years."
395. 43:47Bayar found more than he had hoped for. Hundreds of thousands began flowing to the DP in a very short time.
396. 43:55The Republican People's Party headquarters was in Ulus, where the museum is now.
397. 44:00It was a place where secretaries typed, well-to-do people, smartly dressed elegant men.
398. 44:10It was a cold sort of place.
399. 44:14By contrast, Sümer Street was extremely lively.
400. 44:18Villagers came, townspeople came. The founders were very warm and welcoming.
401. 44:24They met with everyone. It was a lively place carrying the feeling that a new era was opening, truly carrying the excitement of a new era.
402. 44:38That Celal Bayar was the party's locomotive emerged at the chairman election held the day after its founding.
403. 44:47On 8 January the four founders gathered and chose the leader by secret ballot.
404. 44:51Celal Bayar's name was written on three of the four ballots. Whom Bayar voted for was never disclosed.
405. 44:58The Democrat Party's sudden emergence as the centre of attention was enough to wake the People's Party from its deep slumber.
406. 45:05Danger bells had begun to ring for the government.
407. 45:09Starting in February, İnönü moved with a series of decisions to take the banner of liberalisation out of DP's hands.
408. 45:17First students were granted the right to organise. Then universities were given autonomy.
409. 45:22Press offences were pardoned and restrictions loosened.
410. 45:25Some taxes that crushed villagers were abolished. Insurance coverage was introduced for workers.
411. 45:31Then, to deliver the most important blow, the Congress was called to an extraordinary meeting.
412. 45:37At the first extraordinary meeting eight years earlier, İnönü had been proclaimed Permanent Chairman.
413. 45:43At this second meeting, the title of Permanent Chairman was ended at İnönü's own request.
414. 45:50From now on the chairman would come to office by election and could be replaced.
415. 45:55With this decision, after the single-party regime, the single-chief party also passed into history.
416. 46:01But this was not the Congress's real surprise. From the historic podium in the old parliament building, the National Chief made this historic but unexpected announcement to the CHP's deputies.
417. 46:13"I have invited you here so that we may decide on a new step for Turkish popular governance.
418. 46:22It is a matter of a single-stage election. We will experience for the first time a single-stage parliamentary election.
419. 46:31Barring some extraordinary obstacle in the next month or two, we have decided to hold a new election.
420. 46:41I do not wish to doubt that the parties founded so far will enter the election as parties.
421. 46:52The wonders of the great nation have been wholeheartedly...
422. 47:02The multi-party election period had now opened, but İnönü had in the meantime sprung a surprise and brought the elections forward.
423. 47:10This speech threw the Democrat Party into confusion, since there was still a year to the normal election date.
424. 47:14By moving the election forward, İnönü was catching the newborn opposition unprepared, in a true ambush, as Efe put it.
425. 47:23The Democrat Party had been founded only four months earlier.
426. 47:26For a party still in its infancy to enter an election was suicide.
427. 47:31It had not even been able to build an organisation yet, nor had parliamentary candidates been determined.
428. 47:36If they did not take part in the elections it would look as though they were running from the ballot box.
429. 47:40If they said they were in, defeat with this organisation would be inevitable.
430. 47:44At this point the Democrat Party summoned all its provincial and district representatives to Ankara that spring to determine its stance.
431. 47:53At the headquarters building on Sümer Street near Kızılay in Ankara, at the end of March or the first week of April,
432. 48:03we gathered, one delegate from each province that had completed its organisation.
433. 48:10About 50 to 60 of us. For the first time everyone was seeing each other, yet everyone was bound to each other with affection, respect,
434. 48:19and excitement. They looked at one another with eagerness; it was closer than kinship.
435. 48:28Everyone conveyed to the others the closeness, esteem, and interest they had met among the people in their own locality.
436. 48:36The main issue the delegates had to debate was what to do in the face of the snap-election ambush.
437. 48:42With the first step taken toward democracy, the first tension began.
438. 48:46Before the general elections in July, there were also the local elections in May ahead of them.
439. 48:51That is, two elections. Bayar asked the provincial and district chairmen, gathered in excitement, to boycott the local elections.
440. 48:59They had no other recourse anyway. DP was making its first show of strength.
441. 49:03Turnout in the elections was really very low. This was the first sign showing DP's potential strength.
442. 49:11Of course this boycott caused a major reaction on the CHP side.
443. 49:15Would the multi-party regime not function? Were we about to experience another Free Party episode?
444. 49:21It was at this very point that the CHP's Nihat Erim wrote his famous "shawl article."
445. 49:26In the article published in Ulus on 30 May 1946, it said:
446. 49:32"When deep disturbances are observed in the social body, the way to remedy it is for a time to drape a shawl over the goddess of liberty
447. 49:40and to establish an authority from the top down."
448. 49:46Was İnönü too in favour of throwing a shawl over the multi-party regime he had built with his own hands?
449. 49:52Nihat Erim took İsmet Pasha's pulse at Çankaya.
450. 49:55He complained about DP's anti-election propaganda.
451. 49:58He voiced his own views. Judging by what Erim wrote in his diary that day, İnönü gave exactly this reply.
452. 50:06"I am İsmet the revolutionary and nationalist. We brought this state from nothing to this point.
453. 50:13We will not let three or five brigands make a mockery of us. What we have done is an experiment.
454. 50:18If we succeed, all the better. If not, we will give it up and go on in the old way for a few more years."
455. 50:25These words were the most concrete sign of the cold air blowing at the Çankaya summit in those days.
456. 50:29The multi-party regime had begun to gasp for breath in the very year it was born.
457. 50:33The one who best sensed the mood at the summit was Celal Bayar.
458. 50:37With years of experience he knew very well when to accelerate and when to brake.
459. 50:43He was the one who warned those in the opposition who overdid it.
460. 50:47Celal Bayar said to me on one of our trips: "These people know nothing about anything.
461. 50:53Today İsmet Pasha sends two gendarmes, hangs a lock on the party's door, and no one makes a sound."
462. 51:00Bayar knew that the fate of multi-party democracy still hung on two words from the National Chief's mouth.
463. 51:06Faced with the danger, he immediately changed his stance and decided to take part in the general elections.
464. 51:12The first danger had been averted. The tension at the summit eased.
465. 51:15For the first time Turkey entered preparations for a multi-party election.
466. 51:18No one had experience. They would feel their way along.
467. 51:28The country suddenly rose up in a political revival of a kind it had never before experienced.
468. 51:34The weariness created by the 23-year ruling party drove the masses to DP rallies like an avalanche.
469. 51:40For the first time, posters peculiar to a free election were seen on the walls.
470. 51:48The People's Party, long used to elections without an opposition, stirred, and İsmet Pasha took part in an election campaign this actively for the first time.
471. 51:57The big cities were witnessing an unparalleled election campaign with the excitement of enthusiastic rallies.
472. 52:04Among the new faces in the election squares were also some familiar names.
473. 52:10One was the mathematics teacher at Haydarpaşa High School, Osman Bölükbaşı.
474. 52:15A friend had recommended this young man to Fuat Köprülü, saying he was good with words.
475. 52:21All of Turkey would soon learn just how good he was with words.
476. 52:27Another was Associate Professor Dr. Mehmet Ali Aybar.
477. 52:30This young man, who challenged the İsmet Pasha regime with fiery pieces in newspapers and magazines, had caught the Democrats' attention.
478. 52:37While doing his military service at the Kayseri tank battalion, he received an offer of a parliamentary seat from DP.
479. 52:42For the '46 elections, Refik Koraltan came to my headquarters in Kayseri to set up the Democrat
480. 52:52Party organisation.
481. 53:02We welcomed him. "Sir, our struggle too is a struggle for freedom.
482. 53:11Your struggle too is a struggle for freedom. So join the Democrat Party."
483. 53:17I said, "Yes, we are both struggling for freedom, but my understanding of freedom and your understanding of freedom
484. 53:25are not the same. That is why I will not join your party."
485. 53:29"Please do join, we will put you forward as a parliamentary candidate, from a winnable seat, and so on" — I did not accept.
486. 53:38After that the Bursa provincial chairman telephoned.
487. 53:44"Sir, don't join the party. Just let us put you forward as a candidate.
488. 53:52Let us put you forward as an independent candidate." I thought that once in parliament a great deal could be done.
489. 53:59"And you'll announce that you're independent, right?" they asked.
490. 54:03"Of course," they said. "As an independent candidate." So in the '46 elections, from Bursa, we took part and did not win.
491. 54:12The future leader of the Workers' Party of Turkey was also beginning his political career from the DP list.
492. 54:19And Marshal Fevzi Çakmak, DP's heavy artillery, was the hero of the National Struggle, a Marshal.
493. 54:26Frankly, the Marshal was in no condition to engage in active politics, but putting such a historic figure up against İsmet Pasha suited DP well.
494. 54:35Çakmak had been offended with İnönü when he was removed as Chief of General Staff.
495. 54:38For that reason he had repeatedly turned down CHP's offers of a parliamentary seat, but when the offer came from DP he became a candidate without hesitation.
496. 54:46While the race to find candidates went on, old habits did not take long to show themselves.
497. 54:54DP candidates were carrying on their campaigns with enormous difficulty.
498. 54:59Independents could not go about easily or deliver speeches wherever they wished.
499. 55:04They were always harassed, followed. Unimaginable things happened.
500. 55:10So to get my father out of these, when for instance he went to the Black Sea, they intervened.
501. 55:15And quite easily. When entering Edirne there is a bridge.
502. 55:21One must cross the bridge in order to enter Edirne.
503. 55:24When we reached the bridge there was a crowd, and at the same time a Turkish flag had been laid on the ground across the bridge.
504. 55:31I was in the car beside Bayar. Bayar was upset and startled.
505. 55:39Either lift the flag and pass, or pass over the flag.
506. 55:43Passing over the flag was out of the question.
507. 55:47Bayar thought for a moment. He said: "I absolutely do not want citizens to end up in mutual hostility and especially in quarrels.
508. 55:57This is truly sad; let those who want to take such an ugly measure be left to their own shame.
509. 56:08Let us return to Balıkesir and come back to Edirne some other time," we said, and we turned back.
510. 56:15Throughout the entire campaign Bayar adopted an extremely careful attitude.
511. 56:18Despite the interest he saw wherever he went, he tried to calm the masses' reaction.
512. 56:23As for Adnan Menderes, in Aydın, where he was born, raised, and had been elected CHP deputy for years, he was this time seeking votes for the Democrat Party he had founded.
513. 56:34His trust in Aydın was boundless. There is a district called Bozdoğan.
514. 56:39We went there together to organise it. "Doctor, you sit," he said, in the municipal park.
515. 56:46"Let them know I have come." Sitting on a stone wall in the municipal park, I walked around.
516. 56:53I have patients in the market and bazaar; I saw them.
517. 56:56I also set up the organising committee. I found a doctor.
518. 57:02I found a dentist, a technician, a tailor, a barber.
519. 57:08And I found a farmer. I formed the organising committee in the district.
520. 57:12I announced Adnan Bey's arrival. I told everywhere. Nobody came to see Adnan Bey.
521. 57:16I went to him; Adnan Bey was brooding gloomily. "Doctor, I understand," he said, "I understand.
522. 57:21I understood what fortune means, what prestige means."
523. 57:33At last the big day came. At the ballot boxes, smiling leaders and timid voters stood in queues.
524. 57:40For the first time there were options other than the single party. At Ankara's Sümer Street, calls rained in from all corners of the country.
525. 57:47At first all the calls had a single common message.
526. 57:50"We are winning the elections." But as the hours passed, the messages changed too.
527. 57:57Something was going on at the ballot boxes. Yes, I was at headquarters.
528. 58:04At first the elections began. As the closing of the polls or the end of the voting period approached,
529. 58:15news came from the provinces.
530. 58:20And there was very positive news that the Democrat Party had won.
531. 58:27After the ballot boxes were opened — or rather, as we heard afterwards — in many places the boxes were seized, taken to governorates
532. 58:40or hidden in secret places, and when announced again
533. 58:49there were reports over the phones that the situations had been reversed.
534. 58:55On election day in '46 I went around the ballot boxes. In many places, because the law required, voting was open.
535. 59:06Counting was secret. Gendarmes exerted pressure with their weapons.
536. 59:11First of all, all those dominant in terms of money and state authority were at the ballot box.
537. 59:19"Who will you vote for? Will you vote for the aircraft thief Bayar?"
538. 59:23"You will vote for İnönü, hero of the National Struggle and close friend of Atatürk."
539. 59:29This was what was said to those voting. And in that period, those who said "why interfere, I'll vote as I please"
540. 59:37and those who encouraged others were treated harshly.
541. 59:43There were some who were told "Gendarme, take this one to the station" and were taken.
542. 59:47At that time I was in the Soma district of Manisa, serving as a court clerk.
543. 59:58I was in Manisa. After the elections, I asked my friends to explain how the fraud had been carried out.
544. 1:00:14They showed me, in a room in the municipality where the boxes were brought, the counting reports inside a cupboard.
545. 1:00:28The back of the cupboard was plywood, they said, and there was no wall.
546. 1:00:33They remove the plywood and take the reports out of the cupboard.
547. 1:00:39Then substituted, altered reports are put back in their place.
548. 1:00:43The result was a complete fiasco. The stain of fraud had tainted Turkey's first multi-party election.
549. 1:00:49Under the electoral law inherited from the single-party era, voters had cast their ballots openly in front of everyone.
550. 1:00:57And these votes were counted by the ballot-box committees in secret from everyone.
551. 1:01:01Fraud seemed unavoidable. Reports were stolen, boxes spirited away, votes changed, voters beaten.
552. 1:01:08When darkness fell, the victory intoxication at DP headquarters had given way to disappointment and revolt.
553. 1:01:16At Democrat Party headquarters there was tremendous fury and tremendous protest.
554. 1:01:21People were coming from all over Turkey. They were saying that fraud had been committed everywhere.
555. 1:01:27There was an atmosphere of ferment. At the other end of one of the anxious calls that night was Adnan Menderes.
556. 1:01:35He had stood as a candidate from Aydın and Kütahya. He was anxiously awaiting the result in his birthplace, Aydın.
557. 1:01:40But the result was a disappointment. He had lost in Aydın. He phoned his wife in Ankara.
558. 1:01:46"Pull yourself together, we're going back to the farm in Aydın," he said. But the voice on the phone said he had won the election in Kütahya.
559. 1:01:54"I told him, you've been elected from Kütahya." "Yes." "Look, you're joking, what a nice joke."
560. 1:02:01"Really?" "Exactly." "I wish you'd saved that nice joke until I arrived," he said.
561. 1:02:08On learning he had won from Kütahya, that dejected Adnan Bey was gone.
562. 1:02:14An Adnan Bey with new excitement, new zeal, new cheer, and new morale arrived.
563. 1:02:21At CHP headquarters, too, a joyless night was being spent.
564. 1:02:25The first news was not at all encouraging. Everyone was asking what was to be done.
565. 1:02:30But most CHP organisations in the provinces had already done what they would do at the ballot boxes.
566. 1:02:35According to CHP, İnönü wanted a fair election. The cause of the fiasco was the electoral system and the bad habits of provincial bureaucrats.
567. 1:02:44But DP never accepted that İnönü truly wanted an honest election.
568. 1:02:49It held İnönü primarily responsible for all the fraud committed.
569. 1:02:54"Those elections were not as honest as the 1950 elections.
570. 1:03:00That is my belief. And at that time we even found some ballot boxes in the river.
571. 1:03:09Foolishly swapped and thrown away. If that election had been an honest one like the 1950 election, the Democrat Party would have won."
572. 1:03:20In fact, even without fraud DP had no chance of winning.
573. 1:03:24Because they had not been able to field enough candidates. Even so, the Democrat Party always made the '46 elections a propaganda theme.
574. 1:03:32It now had mass support behind it. By the results, they had managed to win 62 of 465 seats.
575. 1:03:41But Demirkırat knew that it had the people at its back.
576. 1:03:46The next day all the villagers came to the Democrat Party.
577. 1:03:51Some were weeping. They fell on one another's necks. "From now on we won't go to the ballot box.
578. 1:03:57Let them count us, we will be counted. If we have to go, take us as far as Ankara.
579. 1:04:03Let us go to Ankara, let them count us as votes. We will be the votes."
580. 1:04:10To keep that excitement alive, we as the Democrat Party were obliged to carry on the struggle.
581. 1:04:15A new era had opened. Everything of real consequence would begin after this.
582. 1:04:19There was good will, but there were also inexperience, bad habits, misunderstandings, and the panic of losing the power in hand.
583. 1:04:27Both sides were sliding into a struggle whose outcome neither knew.
584. 1:04:32An era was being entered whose end no one knew.
585. 1:04:39After the election, the first Democrat deputies began to stream into Ankara.
586. 1:04:45Send-off and welcome ceremonies turned into protest rallies.
587. 1:04:49Above all, the send-off of Marshal Fevzi Çakmak, who received the most votes, from Haydarpaşa station to Ankara was a complete show of strength.
588. 1:04:56Amid excited happiness, marches, and applause, the Marshal was sent off to parliament.
589. 1:05:01Along the way, villagers came out to greet the Marshal wherever the train passed.
590. 1:05:06Ankara awaited the opposition. The first meeting was held at the headquarters building on Sümer Street.
591. 1:05:13Winners from everywhere came and gathered in the party building, in the party hall.
592. 1:05:22The first subject: there had been a great deal of fraud in these elections.
593. 1:05:29The reports had been destroyed, altered.
594. 1:05:34The phrase "return to the bosom of the nation" came onto the agenda for the first time that day.
595. 1:05:38That is, the government and parliament would not be recognised, they would return to the bosom of the nation, and turn the opposition into a popular movement.
596. 1:05:45As the deputies debated this option with fiery speeches, Bayar arrived.
597. 1:05:51Bayar said: "We will express all you have said from the parliamentary podium.
598. 1:06:00But abandoning it in this way could lead the country into anarchy.
599. 1:06:07Let us therefore enter parliament and voice all the rights that have been trampled.
600. 1:06:18Let us struggle. The parliamentary podium is a very necessary and fitting platform for this struggle."
601. 1:06:26After these speeches it was said, "very well, we will take part in parliament."
602. 1:06:32The decision was taken. At last Turkey's first multi-party parliament opened on 5 August.
603. 1:06:43The 62 DP deputies took their places on the right of the general assembly hall, and the CHP group on its left.
604. 1:06:52The first item on the agenda was the presidential election.
605. 1:06:55The People's Party's candidate was of course İnönü. DP thought it fitting to put up another military figure against İsmet Pasha.
606. 1:07:03Marshal Fevzi Çakmak. The votes were cast and of course İnönü won.
607. 1:07:07As custom required, the Speaker went to Çankaya and invited the re-elected President to parliament for the swearing-in.
608. 1:07:15Again as custom had it, İnönü put on formal dress, came to parliament, and entered the general assembly hall.
609. 1:07:22But here something happened that was not at all customary.
610. 1:07:26Those on the Democrat Party benches sat down and did not applaud at all.
611. 1:07:34Those on the People's Party benches stood up and cheered tremendously.
612. 1:07:40Our explanation at the time was this: parliament is above everything.
613. 1:07:49That is, even a president is a member of parliament.
614. 1:07:56With that reasoning, whether it was a DP president or a CHP one, we would not have stood up.
615. 1:08:05That is how it was put at the time. It was the first sit-in in the history of this parliament.
616. 1:08:11Although DP members explained their stance by democratic principles, what mattered was the DP group's reaction against İsmet Pasha.
617. 1:08:19And a reaction displayed at the very first meeting of the multi-party parliament.
618. 1:08:23For the first time the National Chief was being protested like this in parliament.
619. 1:08:27At the end of the session, when Bayar and his friends walked out of the parliament door, they met a large, excited crowd filling Ulus Square.
620. 1:08:33The applause and cheering soon turned into a single slogan.
621. 1:08:39"Enough! The word belongs to the nation!" With this slogan opened the period that entered Turkish political literature as the "Spirit of '46."
622. 1:08:47The people now wanted a say over the fate of the government.
623. 1:08:51It was a difficult period: an unfortunate election, a worn-out government, an opposition weak in parliament but strong among the people.
624. 1:08:58The outcome of this mixture was tension. The Republican People's Party was in utter disarray.
625. 1:09:01The party had grown sluggish from 23 years of inactivity.
626. 1:09:05İnönü first removed the worn-out Saracoğlu from the premiership.
627. 1:09:08He appointed the hard-natured Recep Peker in his place. DP, meanwhile, was constantly applying attack tactics.
628. 1:09:15The mounting tension finally exploded in the budget debates during Menderes's speech.
629. 1:09:20There is a compartment under the podium. If the podium is like this, there is another space beneath.
630. 1:09:27He had stuffed papers there. In the old term they call it "Eser-i Cedid" paper.
631. 1:09:32That is, written on neat white paper. Not typed — handwritten.
632. 1:09:40Handwritten in the old script, that is. The new script would still not be legible.
633. 1:09:45Anyway, Adnan Bey pulled out a bundle from there and read.
634. 1:09:50But there was not a sound in parliament. They listened like that.
635. 1:09:55Everyone was listening. Truly, like an orchestra at a concert when the sound stops and the baton taps,
636. 1:10:05and then the music begins. It was silent just like that.
637. 1:10:10He made a harsh critique. Indeed Adnan Menderes had made his first reputation as a statesman, his parliamentary fame, during that famous budget debate, the budget critique.
638. 1:10:22People were heckling while Adnan Menderes spoke.
639. 1:10:30Then Recep Peker took the floor. In the course of this, he made a remark about Adnan Menderes as the manifestation of a psychopathic mentality.
640. 1:10:38That word "psychopath" was enough to turn the place upside down.
641. 1:10:45The DP benches suddenly rose. When their objections didn't resolve the matter, they walked out of parliament en masse.
642. 1:10:52Not only the deputies — even the spectators were stirred up.
643. 1:10:57I too was in the spectators' gallery. In front of me was a lady teacher.
644. 1:11:00I suddenly saw the lady take off her high-heeled shoe and hold it like this.
645. 1:11:05"What are you doing?" I said. Her name was Nuriye Hanım.
646. 1:11:09"Nuriye Hanım, what are you doing?" "I'll throw it at his head," she said.
647. 1:11:13"Please, don't do it," I said. I barely managed to calm the lady down.
648. 1:11:17"How," she said, "can a prime minister say 'psychopaths' to the other side?"
649. 1:11:21"Well," I said, "that's what he said. The tongue has no bone." The Democrat Party's first congress met amid inter-party tension.
650. 1:11:36In front of the Ankara New Cinema the crowd was like Judgment Day.
651. 1:11:41The first great congress was truly worth seeing, in an atmosphere to behold.
652. 1:11:47On one side excitement, on the other a holiday air.
653. 1:11:52People from all over Turkey were there.
654. 1:11:55There was no getting enough of speaking, no getting enough of listening.
655. 1:11:58It went on till morning. Congresses held in such rapture were rare in our political history.
656. 1:12:07For the first time since the Republic's founding, ordinary people had found a platform where they could speak freely.
657. 1:12:14With thirst accumulated over 23 years, nearly a thousand delegates poured out their hearts for five days.
658. 1:12:19It was the day of those without uniforms, without ties, without titles.
659. 1:12:24A tremendous demonstration of freedom was taking place. Anyone could say what they wished; the harshest criticisms were voiced.
660. 1:12:30No one wanted to give up the microphone. We leapt onto the podium like a Mirabeau, a Danton, a Robespierre.
661. 1:12:39"It appears that in this country the ways to power are possible only by the methods the People's Party used.
662. 1:12:46It is not possible through legal channels." Bayar, rather calmly, in the face of the speeches we had made,
663. 1:12:52said: "Very well, friends. If you want to take the shortcut,
664. 1:12:56may your swords be sharp. We will not stray from the legal path.
665. 1:13:00We will struggle by legal means until our backs touch the washing-board [i.e., death]."
666. 1:13:05Those who believe in us will stay; those who believe in you will go with you.
667. 1:13:10Those who believed in us left us half an hour later after listening to this speech of Bayar's.
668. 1:13:15Then we were all together. On the final night Bayar was re-elected chairman.
669. 1:13:20Toward morning a report was produced called the Freedom Charter, or in today's term, the Freedom Pledge.
670. 1:13:28In this report DP made three important demands: the abolition of anti-democratic laws, safeguarding of the citizen's vote,
671. 1:13:36and the separation of the presidency of the state from the party chairmanship.
672. 1:13:42As I recall, the late Burhan Belge then stood and said:
673. 1:13:50"We must adopt this Freedom Charter 'kaimen' — that is, standing."
674. 1:13:58The whole hall rose and the Freedom Charter was adopted.
675. 1:14:03This storm of excitement at the congress naturally made the Republican People's Party quite uneasy.
676. 1:14:08Above all, Osman Bölükbaşı's addressing İnönü as "Red Sultan" provoked a great reaction.
677. 1:14:13But İnönü did not want excessive tension. For the regime to remain standing, dialogue was needed.
678. 1:14:19He was the only person who could establish dialogue between these two parties living at opposite poles.
679. 1:14:26For the first time in this period he virtually shed the title of CHP Chairman.
680. 1:14:31He appointed a deputy to head the party. He took on the image of a neutral president and rolled up his sleeves to find a middle ground.
681. 1:14:39İnönü's first success in this new initiative was bringing Prime Minister Peker and Celal Bayar together at Çankaya, enabling the DP members to return to parliament.
682. 1:14:49This arbiter role continued for a while, but the DP–CHP friction did not subside.
683. 1:14:55Bayar complained about the government's pressures. Peker complained about the opposition's destructive activities.
684. 1:15:00A remedy had to be found urgently. The sought remedy was found during a morning walk İnönü took with Nihat Erim at the Gazi Farm.
685. 1:15:09İnönü asked how we would get out of this.
686. 1:15:13When Erim said, "It falls to you to show the way, Pasha," İnönü made his decision.
687. 1:15:17As soon as he returned home he dictated a declaration to Nihat Erim.
688. 1:15:21This document, called the 12 July Declaration, was virtually the identity card of the multi-party regime.
689. 1:15:28İnönü described the talks he had recently held with the leaders of the ruling and opposition parties, and in the end announced the need for the opposition's existence to be guaranteed.
690. 1:15:35İsmet Pasha regarded himself as equally responsible toward both parties.
691. 1:15:44Although not stated explicitly, this in effect meant leaving the CHP chairmanship.
692. 1:15:49The President was assuming a supra-party role, as if to say, this is how democracy should work.
693. 1:15:57During this tense period there were two go-betweens.
694. 1:16:03One was Vehbi Koç of the CHP, the other, close to the DP, was Avunduk.
695. 1:16:12They acted as smoothers between their own parties and İsmet Pasha.
696. 1:16:21The atmosphere was extraordinarily tense.
697. 1:16:27İsmet Pasha, deeply affected by these events, called me to the mansion one day.
698. 1:16:36At the mansion he said, "Read this text."
699. 1:16:43I read the text. "What do you say?" he asked. I told İsmet Pasha, "It is exceedingly apt, Pasha; it will greatly lower the tension."
700. 1:16:50Indeed, when the 12 July Declaration was broadcast on the radio, the tension dropped.
701. 1:16:55DP was relieved. The crisis was being overcome. Something amusing happened that night.
702. 1:17:02After the declaration was read on the radio, at night an aide from the Çankaya Mansion off duty telephoned Vehbi Koç.
703. 1:17:11At length he lavished praise on the declaration and on İsmet Pasha in his own excited manner and words.
704. 1:17:19The aide also said to İsmet Pasha, "Ask whether there is any harm in giving this statement to the press and radio."
705. 1:17:29"Oh dear," said Vehbi Koç, "please — you'll ruin me."
706. 1:17:34In fact, if there was anyone who needed to be afraid, it was not Koç but Prime Minister Recep Peker.
707. 1:17:39Because İsmet Pasha's declaration was more like a criticism of the hardliner Peker.
708. 1:17:44The Group of 35, made up of moderates within the CHP, wanted Peker's head.
709. 1:17:50Indeed, shortly afterwards the prime minister was forced to resign.
710. 1:17:54He was replaced by the moderate Hasan Saka. Then İnönü, taking his wife, his daughter, Nihat Erim from the CHP, and Nuri Özsan from the DP,
711. 1:18:04set out on a trip aboard the White Train. The honeymoon of democracy was beginning.
712. 1:18:10In the White Train, a table had been set in a large compartment.
713. 1:18:13My father sat at the head of that table. Around the table sat all his companions.
714. 1:18:19We too were at the table. It was my father's habit to take an interest in everyone at the table, to chat, to learn things.
715. 1:18:28He asked after everyone and moved on to other personal subjects.
716. 1:18:32Nuri Bey was there too, seated opposite me.
717. 1:18:34It came to Nuri Bey's turn. He was a stranger. He was a bit uncomfortable and did not know what to do.
718. 1:18:40He could not decide how to address my father. "Sir," he says, "Your Excellency Pasha."
719. 1:18:45But he could not relax. My father asked him about his children and about his education.
720. 1:18:51At that moment fish was being eaten. He even asked whether he liked his fish.
721. 1:18:55But only short answers kept coming from Nuri Bey.
722. 1:18:58There was something odd. Perhaps he was bored, or rather embarrassed.
723. 1:19:02Then his head drooped, drooped, drooped, drooped, and he lay down on the table.
724. 1:19:06The man fainted. The DP's Nuri Özsan, from the excitement of dining at the President's table for the first time, had simply fainted.
725. 1:19:14During that trip İsmet Pasha surprised everyone. It was as if the CHP Chairman had gone and a neutral President had come.
726. 1:19:23In every province we visited, both Democrat Party members and Republican People's Party members would greet us.
727. 1:19:32And my father treated both in exactly the same way.
728. 1:19:34He would visit the headquarters of both. At the same time we would go to the governors.
729. 1:19:40And to the governors too he insisted that from now on they must treat both parties exactly equally, and that my father expected this of them.
730. 1:19:52We would go to the commands. He would give them the same instruction.
731. 1:19:56Yet this honeymoon air between government and opposition disturbed some.
732. 1:20:01A group within the DP launched a harsher, more intractable opposition.
733. 1:20:05They even went further and accused Bayar of conciliationism.
734. 1:20:10Thereupon Bayar, in his turn, purged the hawks in his own party.
735. 1:20:15Those who left gathered in the Nation Party under Marshal Fevzi Çakmak.
736. 1:20:20Thus the CHP and DP rid themselves of the hardliners within their own bodies.
737. 1:20:26Two parties and two leaders. İnönü and Bayar, at times hardening, at times in a spring-like mood, arm in arm began to drive the country toward the fifties.
738. 1:20:36Toward the fifties. The most brilliant, most painful, and stormiest decade of young Turkey.
739. 1:20:48Just as individuals do, societies have turning points in their histories.
740. 1:20:53These turning points sometimes knock quietly at the door of their own accord, and sometimes burst like a terrible thunderclap.
741. 1:21:00The year 1950 was precisely such a turning point for Turkey.
742. 1:21:04In the spring of 1950, a reaction long simmering against a worn-out government of 27 years finally burst forth.
743. 1:21:12Society cracked its quarter-century shell. And not by shedding blood in the streets, but by casting votes at the ballot box.
744. 1:21:19Demirkırat had reared up. That is why the election of 14 May 1950 has always been remembered as the White Revolution.
745. 1:21:45That spring Turkey was on its feet. The footsteps of the approaching change rang out in the rally squares throughout the election campaign.
746. 1:21:53The masses were astir. A month before the elections, two funerals took place in Ankara and İstanbul.
747. 1:22:00The first was Recep Peker's. İnönü's hard-natured prime minister withdrew from the world as quietly as he had from government.
748. 1:22:09But the second funeral was not at all as modest.
749. 1:22:12Incidents broke out at the funeral of Marshal Fevzi Çakmak, hero of the War of Independence and leader of the Nation Party.
750. 1:22:19Çakmak was an important figure. But at first the government did not attach importance to the funeral.
751. 1:22:24The radios even continued broadcasting cheerful music.
752. 1:22:28Suddenly the people poured into the streets. The funeral procession turned into a demonstration, and incidents broke out.
753. 1:22:33These two funerals became, in effect, an opinion poll for the two parties, CHP and DP.
754. 1:22:38The wind of change had begun to cut sharply. But a completely different mood prevailed in the CHP.
755. 1:22:44An early intoxication of victory had turned the party's head.
756. 1:22:48Perhaps it was the election campaign that misled the CHP.
757. 1:22:52Tens of thousands greeted İnönü in İstanbul's Taksim.
758. 1:22:56Governor Fahrettin Kerim Gökay took the podium and said: "There you are, Pasha — İstanbul."
759. 1:23:01Yet this crowd would applaud İnönü that day and turn its vote to DP three days later.
760. 1:23:07İzmir was even more promising. Seeing the exuberant crowds, İnönü cheered up and began joking with the journalists beside him.
761. 1:23:15He even teased one of them. "How old are you?" he said.
762. 1:23:18He was twenty-six. "Twenty-six, Pasha," he said.
763. 1:23:20"Oh, just a child," İnönü said. "When I liberated İzmir you weren't even born yet."
764. 1:23:25He teased him in that way. And he added, "At least you, don't batter me.
765. 1:23:29Anyway, your bosses are already after my life.
766. 1:23:32At least you shouldn't do this," he said. Everyone laughed. And on that note he went on speaking.
767. 1:23:37"And I don't care," he said. "Whatever the election result, I will be the winner.
768. 1:23:41Win or lose, the victory is mine," he said. The mood in the rally squares had affected İnönü.
769. 1:23:48When Kasım Gülek returned from abroad, he found İnönü extremely hopeful.
770. 1:23:53"What will happen with the elections?" "I said, Pasha, we are going to lose this election."
771. 1:24:01"My dear fellow," he said, "you've been away two years. You couldn't follow developments in the country.
772. 1:24:07You're reading it badly. That's my view," he said. Afterwards I went to the CHP headquarters.
773. 1:24:15In the large hall where the executive board usually met, there was a huge map on the wall, with places likely to win
774. 1:24:26and lose marked in red and blue in military fashion.
775. 1:24:31Looking at that map gave the impression that the Republican People's Party was heading for a great victory.
776. 1:24:44That Sunday 8 million voters went to the polls. Turnout was 89 percent.
777. 1:24:50For the first time the Turkish voter was taking part in a genuinely free election, with a secret ballot.
778. 1:24:54There were queues in front of the tent at Kızılay.
779. 1:24:58The leaders smiled at the ballot boxes. Inside the boxes, a surprise that neither the CHP nor even the DP expected was slowly taking shape.
780. 1:25:07When darkness fell and the ballot boxes closed, all of Turkey entered a curious wait.
781. 1:25:13Newspapers were on alert. The only paper sure of the result was the CHP's organ, Ulus.
782. 1:25:20The entire editorial staff was at full strength: "We are working."
783. 1:25:26Photographer Hilmi Şahin. In the room opposite he had bought some small snacks and a bottle of rakı.
784. 1:25:35"We'll celebrate the end of the election." Back then, each time a ballot box was finished, the radio
785. 1:25:49would immediately announce: in this village of that district, this party won this many.
786. 1:25:57I'll never forget it. In a village in the middle of Anatolia, the CHP had got two votes
787. 1:26:10more. Hilmi Şahin immediately filled the glasses from the bottle, and we drank our first rakı,
788. 1:26:18and of course our last rakı too.
789. 1:26:23That night the Republican People's Party headquarters fell completely silent with the first news to arrive.
790. 1:26:29The leadership was at İnönü's election table in the aides' room at the Çankaya Mansion.
791. 1:26:35İnönü's daughter Özden Toker described the night a 27-year government collapsed like this:
792. 1:26:41"The news started coming in. Of course the first news, right after five o'clock, was from small villages.
793. 1:26:48Republican People's Party 30, Democrat Party 20.
794. 1:26:51'Well, that's good,' they said. A little later the reverse started coming in.
795. 1:26:54Republican People's Party 20, Democrat Party 30.
796. 1:26:57'Good heavens, what's happening?' they said. My father began pacing the room.
797. 1:27:01He liked to pace like that whenever he was undecided.
798. 1:27:04He paced the room. The others were all waiting for news by the telephone.
799. 1:27:09Meanwhile Faik Ahmet Barutçu got up, went to the telephone, and called Trabzon.
800. 1:27:16The Trabzon deputy. He called Trabzon. At first he couldn't reach who he was looking for.
801. 1:27:22Anyway, he finally found someone and spoke. Then he came over to us.
802. 1:27:26"The man is stunned," he said. "But if he could see us here and knew what we know here, who knows how much more stunned he would be.
803. 1:27:32He'll go mad," he said, and let out a fine burst of laughter.
804. 1:27:36Those who knew him know: he had an extremely sweet Black Sea accent.
805. 1:27:42And he had a very famous laugh. When we heard him let out that laugh, everyone felt a relief.
806. 1:27:48They had in effect accepted the situation. While at the Çankaya Mansion things were becoming a matter for jokes, the real laughter rang out at Democrat Party headquarters.
807. 1:27:57There was tremendous joy in the party. With each result arriving from the ballot boxes, a wave of happiness blew through.
808. 1:28:03Toward morning Celal Bey arrived, along with Fuat Köprülü.
809. 1:28:10Most of the time he was with the party. He said something showing that power was turning in our favour.
810. 1:28:18There I noticed one incident which would later become a very important one in those days.
811. 1:28:24An Agence France-Presse correspondent asked Köprülü about foreign policy.
812. 1:28:29Fuat Köprülü, as if he were a foreign minister, gave a long statement.
813. 1:28:35Celal Bey did not stay long. He got into a jeep called Uğur and left.
814. 1:28:39The fourth name among the party's founders was in Aydın that night.
815. 1:28:43Adnan Menderes was waiting anxiously by the radio for the result.
816. 1:28:46With him was a group of party friends. One of them was Şevki Hasırcı.
817. 1:28:53This is the recollection Şevki Bey told about that night.
818. 1:28:57"We were together, following the election results.
819. 1:29:01It was a well-advanced hour of the night. Perhaps it was about to turn toward dawn.
820. 1:29:11There was no telephone where we were. An official came from the post office and knocked on the door.
821. 1:29:19From Ankara, from party headquarters, Fuat Köprülü is calling Adnan Bey.
822. 1:29:25'We're leading across Turkey, we have won power. I kiss Adnan on his eyes.'
823. 1:29:35The Democrat Party was relieved. Now the painful hours for the CHP were beginning.
824. 1:29:40Defeat was something entirely unexpected and unfamiliar.
825. 1:29:42What message would be given to the public? Would defeat be admitted?
826. 1:29:47This difficult task fell to the CHP's organ, the newspaper Ulus.
827. 1:29:51Yet the same bewilderment reigned there too. We were not journalists accustomed to a change of government.
828. 1:30:00How would we act? What would the party's view be?
829. 1:30:04All the editorial managers were looking at one another.
830. 1:30:07What shall we publish, how shall we publish it? How, even, shall we write the headline?
831. 1:30:13We were phoning all the homes of the CHP deputies.
832. 1:30:17None of them answered. Because the Democrat Party had taken power with an overwhelming majority.
833. 1:30:27At last it was time for the paper to go to press. The late Nurettin Artam came to mind.
834. 1:30:38He was also our columnist. Let's consult him too, we said.
835. 1:30:46We consulted him, and that night's headline was written by Nurettin Artam.
836. 1:30:55"CHP hands over power." Not an era — a chapter of history had closed.
837. 1:31:02Atatürk's party, the CHP with 27 years in power, had suffered a complete rout.
838. 1:31:07DP's vote exceeded 53%, while the CHP did not even reach 40%.
839. 1:31:12When these figures were reflected in parliament through the majority system, the rout grew even larger.
840. 1:31:18Against the CHP's 69 deputies, DP had a full 408.
841. 1:31:26Atatürk's comrade-in-arms, hero of the National Struggle, National Chief İsmet Pasha had been toppled by the ballot box he himself had set up.
842. 1:31:34But after midnight, an anxiety mixed with victory joy began to prevail in the DP.
843. 1:31:40What was going on at the Çankaya Mansion? Would the National Chief give up power?
844. 1:31:46My father was walking about. He came more calmly and sat beside my mother.
845. 1:31:53"Madam," he said to my mother, "how long would it take us to move out?"
846. 1:31:58My mother replied at once, "I can move in two days, Pasha."
847. 1:32:01"When can we move to our own house?" he said. "I can move in two days, Pasha."
848. 1:32:05Then he thought again. "We won't have a car, Madam," he said.
849. 1:32:09"No problem," said my mother. "I'll take the bus."
850. 1:32:13He was wondering how she would get down to Kızılay. "Well, I'll take the bus and get off," she said.
851. 1:32:18Then after pacing again he came back. "Who will do the cooking?" he said.
852. 1:32:21"I will, Pasha," she said. At that moment my brother Ömer came in.
853. 1:32:25We told him the results. He said there was no longer any use in waiting.
854. 1:32:29"I'll go and lie down," he said. He went upstairs. From upstairs he sent a telegram to my brother Erdal, who was in America at the time.
855. 1:32:35"Lost the majority," in English. He had written "Lost the majority."
856. 1:32:39So there would be no mistake in the telegram. And the next day Erdal's reply came.
857. 1:32:44"Never mind — health is what matters." But that night an extremely disturbing piece of news suddenly shook the surroundings.
858. 1:32:49The commanders had sent a message to İnönü. They proposed to intervene, claiming communists had rigged the elections, if the President gave the green light.
859. 1:33:00The message had been conveyed to the Mansion through Ulus's İstanbul bureau.
860. 1:33:04The National Chief's orders were awaited. Among those waiting for this answer at the newspaper was Orhan Birgit.
861. 1:33:11Saadet Ermak Bey explained the situation in Çankaya to the aide-de-camp he had been put through to.
862. 1:33:17And he asked that what the First Army commander had said be presented to the President.
863. 1:33:25The aide requested permission to present the matter to the President.
864. 1:33:30A time that felt like a century passed to us. The aide returned and conveyed to Saadet Ermak Bey the President's
865. 1:33:39İnönü's message. Saadet Ermak Bey repeated it word by word.
866. 1:33:45As clearly as today I remember: the National Chief was saying that just as the will of the people had manifested itself, the election results must be accepted in that same way
867. 1:33:55and that everyone should come to terms with it.
868. 1:33:59İnönü had used his good judgment and halted the army.
869. 1:34:02No one could predict what an intervention would bring.
870. 1:34:05A counter-coup was also a possibility, because DP had many supporters inside the army too.
871. 1:34:11This could be understood from the votes cast by soldiers' families.
872. 1:34:15It was even said that some officers were preparing a coup against İsmet Pasha if he did not hand over power.
873. 1:34:23One of these young officers was Seyfi Kurtbek, and on election night he was at DP headquarters.
874. 1:34:29The army leadership's meeting with İnönü had greatly surprised him too.
875. 1:34:33At that time when I received the news, I spoke with Bayar.
876. 1:34:39He said the commanders had convened a military council meeting and from there had gone to the mansion.
877. 1:34:51Thereupon he telephoned the Chief of General Staff.
878. 1:34:55"I had gathered them for duty. Now they have all moved to their places," he would say.
879. 1:35:01That night the army commanders returned to their barracks, but the Democrat Party never forgot the incident.
880. 1:35:08The talk of military intervention had confronted DP before it had even taken power.
881. 1:35:13From that night on, the possibility of military intervention would lodge in the government's mind for ten years, and at the end of those ten years, on another May morning, what was feared would come to pass.
882. 1:35:37There was feverish activity at the Çankaya Mansion that day.
883. 1:35:40The mansion's resident of twelve years was packing his belongings.
884. 1:35:44This was İnönü's greatest defeat and his greatest victory.
885. 1:35:48He was no longer President. In the multi-party regime he had built himself, his lot was opposition leadership.
886. 1:35:55What changed was not just a title. What changed was an entire regime.
887. 1:35:59The next day I again went to Çankaya to visit İsmet Pasha.
888. 1:36:06İsmet Pasha was naturally, quite cautiously, but saddened.
889. 1:36:11He took my hand and sat beside me. "Your prediction came true," he said.
890. 1:36:17"Pasha, let's not be sad," I said. "We will win again. And it will be a great honour for us."
891. 1:36:25He liked these words. Another visitor that morning was Celal Bayar.
892. 1:36:30Bayar, who years earlier had taken over Atatürk's premiership from İnönü, was this time taking over the presidency.
893. 1:36:37Once again the same wheel had turned, and when Bayar came to the fore, İnönü had to step back.
894. 1:36:44In his talk İsmet Pasha suggested handing power over to DP immediately.
895. 1:36:48Bayar, however, asked for a little time. He did not even know the deputies yet.
896. 1:36:52They agreed that the government would continue in office a while longer.
897. 1:36:56There was a room at the end of the mansion, a panelled room.
898. 1:37:00They spoke there. Afterwards, when they came out, I was outside with my mother.
899. 1:37:06He came to us, thoughtful but calm. "If I were ten years younger," he said.
900. 1:37:11İnönü was 66 years old and was no longer the National Chief.
901. 1:37:15Single-party rule had passed into history. The silent millions had for the first time stepped onto the stage of history and said, "we are here too."
902. 1:37:22The credit for this belonged as much to the CHP as to DP.
903. 1:37:26And in this atmosphere the new parliament opened. Now, with an entirely new cadre streaming into Ankara from every corner of the country, a new
904. 1:37:34page was being opened in Turkish political history. In his first statement Bayar said they would not create a "devr-i sabık" [settling of scores with the past].
905. 1:37:40That is, the past would remain in the past, and old wounds would not be reopened.
906. 1:37:45The sovereign era of Demirkırat was beginning in such an optimistic air.
907. 1:37:58That day the parliament was worth seeing. Deputies from every part of Anatolia, like heroes of a white revolution, filled the DP group.
908. 1:38:07The parliament, accustomed to the CHP's showy bureaucrats, met brand-new faces, new people.
909. 1:38:15Inside parliament we recognise no one, but there is an album and we look at it.
910. 1:38:21As was said, these are not ordinary nobodies. We look: doctors, engineers, lawyers, retired senior civil servants.
911. 1:38:33All people of a certain standing. There were those in the People's Party ranks who presented them as "Hasans and Memos."
912. 1:38:42Nobody knew anybody. Even to journalists, the winning Democrat Party deputies
913. 1:38:51would throw their arms around and kiss them. Taking them for deputies. They don't even know each other, man.
914. 1:38:56Nobody knew anybody. A real hubbub. Some were coming to Ankara and under the roof of parliament for the first time.
915. 1:39:04They did not know the procedures. They were excited.
916. 1:39:10Most were provincial lawyers. The provincials, who were then known and credited as very powerful, that
917. 1:39:18grand Atatürk-era deputy had instead come to Ankara.
918. 1:39:24The Democrat Party parliamentary group was that day in the lobbies before its first meeting.
919. 1:39:28They were in power with an overwhelming majority. Now a very important stage had been reached.
920. 1:39:34Who would hold the reins of this government? Who would go up to the Mansion?
921. 1:39:38Who would be prime minister? The man who brought Demirkırat to 1950 was Celal Bayar.
922. 1:39:43Within the CHP he had been the first to raise the banner of opposition, and had led the DP movement.
923. 1:39:49Then the premiership was Bayar's by right. That was what was whispered into new deputies' ears in the lobbies.
924. 1:39:57It was said that Bayar had been the Democrat Party's chairman up to 1950.
925. 1:40:05He had carried the party through to 1950.
926. 1:40:10Most of the burden had been on his back. As party leader he had certain pledges to the people.
927. 1:40:18Let him carry these out as head of government.
928. 1:40:22He could serve the people only as head of government.
929. 1:40:28While deputies lobbied in the corridors of the old parliament, upstairs in a committee room the government was being put on paper.
930. 1:40:35Adnan Menderes and Fuat Köprülü had put their heads together and were working on the probable distribution of posts.
931. 1:40:40At the very top of the list followed President Celal Bayar.
932. 1:40:45Bayar had been deemed worthy of İnönü's seat. The list had not yet grown long.
933. 1:40:50Just then the door opened and Bayar walked in.
934. 1:40:53Bayar comes in. "What are you doing?" he says. "We're forming the government, sir," he says.
935. 1:40:59"How are you forming it?" "Well, we're simply forming the government."
936. 1:41:03"And whom are you making head of government?" "Our Adnan Bey is taking the head of government."
937. 1:41:09"The head of government, the prime minister, is Fuat Köprülü."
938. 1:41:14"And I become his deputy," he says. "And who becomes finance minister?" he says.
939. 1:41:20"Whom are you making?" "We haven't got that far yet," says Adnan Bey.
940. 1:41:24"Well, may God grant you success, I wish you the best," he says.
941. 1:41:27He leaves. At last the group convened. On the agenda was determining the presidential candidate.
942. 1:41:33All DP deputies were holding their breath, waiting for the name that would go to Çankaya to emerge.
943. 1:41:39At that moment Mükerrem Sarol and his friends submitted a motion to Bayar, who was chairing the session.
944. 1:41:46He had it read out. "I propose and request that, for the presidential candidacy, the Istanbul deputy, Mr.
945. 1:41:54Celal Bayar, be nominated."
946. 1:42:02Fingers were raised. Seeing the raised fingers Bayar said, "Friends, since this motion concerns my humble self, I will not open it to debate,"
947. 1:42:12he said. "You will express your views through your votes."
948. 1:42:18The motion was put to a vote. Votes were cast by name.
949. 1:42:24We did not vote for Bayar. In our view Bayar should be a member of the government.
950. 1:42:30Because he was the best known, had served in government, was the most experienced politician, and was chairman of the party.
951. 1:42:37In our own way we thought him worthy of that place.
952. 1:42:41Some of us voted for Köprülü. That is, each person voted in a different direction.
953. 1:42:46But except for 34 people the whole group said Bayar. A tremendous storm of applause rang out on the walls of parliament.
954. 1:42:53Bayar was the DP's presidential candidate. Since the first man was going to a representative post at the Mansion, a new horseman now had to be found, the second man, to ride the Demirkırat.
955. 1:43:02Menderes lived through one of the most important turning points of his life that day.
956. 1:43:09After the group, he went to Bayar. After the congratulations, entering the room, he came to the subject in his usual shy manner.
957. 1:43:17"I have come to recommend our teacher for the premiership," he said.
958. 1:43:22The teacher he meant was Professor Fuat Köprülü. Bayar smiled at the bashful young man before him.
959. 1:43:30"No, Adnan Bey," he said. "You will be my prime minister."
960. 1:43:33This is entirely Bayar's own idea, Bayar's own decision.
961. 1:43:38And I think Bayar, feeling himself almost like the father of that party,
962. 1:43:48with such a sense of responsibility looked around to see who would carry it on from here.
963. 1:43:56And a new period was beginning.
964. 1:44:02First of all a new name was needed. Someone without a very conspicuous political past was needed.
965. 1:44:11He needed to be young and dynamic.
966. 1:44:18He needed to be someone who could make contact with the outside world.
967. 1:44:23Perhaps probably someone who spoke languages.
968. 1:44:26He also needed to be someone who could communicate easily with broad masses.
969. 1:44:36Someone who gathers, who pulls things together, who integrates.
970. 1:44:42And of course someone placed right in the very centre of the Democrat Party, who from the start at least
971. 1:44:55had been in the line of fire. I think that as a result of Bayar's four to four-and-a-half years of observation, his gaze suddenly settled on my late father.
972. 1:45:11Now the roles had been shared out.
973. 1:45:15Knowing the reaction created by İnönü's image as a party-affiliated President, Bayar, though not obliged to, had resigned from the DP chairmanship
974. 1:45:23and left the chair to Menderes.
975. 1:45:27Menderes took over the banner of power and the reins of the Demirkırat there and then.
976. 1:45:32He was 50 years old. For 20 years he had waited in the background without wearing out his name, learning meanwhile, waiting for conditions to ripen.
977. 1:45:41Now the conditions were pushing him to the very front of the political stage.
978. 1:45:47As he left Bayar's side, he was now number one.
979. 1:45:51The Prime Minister was Adnan Menderes. That day İnönü convened the 27-year CHP government for the last
980. 1:46:07time. It was his last day as president too.
981. 1:46:11He had to vacate Çankaya, because in that period the parliament that came after each election elected the president anew.
982. 1:46:19The CHP had lost the majority. İnönü would take his seat on the opposition benches at the head of his party.
983. 1:46:25A cabinet, all of whose members apart from the prime minister had lost the election, was at its final meeting.
984. 1:46:31There was sadness on the agenda. İsmet Pasha asked them one by one what they would do.
985. 1:46:37Some were doctors. For example Dr. Kemal Satır.
986. 1:46:41He said he would go to Adana and open a practice.
987. 1:46:44There were lawyers. They were registered with the bar. "We will reopen our law offices," they said.
988. 1:46:52One was a graduate of the Mülkiye [civil service school].
989. 1:46:56He was a graduate of the Faculty of Political Science. To practise law he had completed the law faculty.
990. 1:47:02And he had to do a period of legal traineeship.
991. 1:47:06He would be able to earn his living that way. This was that cabinet's finance minister.
992. 1:47:11Finance Minister İsmail Rüştü Aksal. After these things were discussed, İsmet Pasha bade them all farewell.
993. 1:47:17He wished them success in their new lives. He left.
994. 1:47:21A moment later, as he was leaving, he turned back. "Children," he said, "I am proud of every one of you."
995. 1:47:27Finance Minister İsmail Rüştü Aksal was beet-red.
996. 1:47:31He was on the verge of tears at a touch. That never leaves my eyes.
997. 1:47:39İnönü had a composed face. That is, a fixed face.
998. 1:47:44He got into his car. Shall I mention a very important point here?
999. 1:47:50İnönü's car pulled away. But neither in front nor behind were the motorcycle police who escorted him while he was President.
1000. 1:47:59İnönü went straight to the Pink Mansion.
1001. 1:48:04At the door they handed him a letter from his son Erdal, who was studying physics in America.
1002. 1:48:09He sat down at once and wrote this reply. "My dear Erdal, we have moved into our house.
1003. 1:48:17I feel such ease, as if we had never left it.
1004. 1:48:19I am writing this letter from my old library. Your mother worked very hard for a week on the move.
1005. 1:48:25I can see she is tired. We lost the election by a wide margin.
1006. 1:48:30Why did we lose? There is an unfair reason.
1007. 1:48:34But foremost is the desire for change, which is both an innocent and natural wish of nations.
1008. 1:48:41The most distressing time has passed — the week after an election.
1009. 1:48:46Now that is over. The election has proved how serious and sincere we were in our attempt to establish a new way of life in the country.
1010. 1:48:56It has been an honour for the country, for all of us. We kiss your eyes.
1011. 1:49:03My dear Erdal." That afternoon parliament lived one of the historic days of its history.
1012. 1:49:16The famous Ankara-plated 25-36 jeep Bayar used throughout his election campaign brought the new President and Prime Minister.
1013. 1:49:26First, Refik Koraltan, who would hold that post for 10 years, was elected Speaker of the Assembly.
1014. 1:49:30Then, with votes the DP members gave smiling, Celal Bayar became Turkey's third President.
1015. 1:49:37For the first time a civilian figure was taking the head of the Republic.
1016. 1:49:40Bayar went into the chamber in his brand-new frock coat. He had finally reached the place he had dreamed of for years.
1017. 1:49:48He would sit in the seat of his greatest political rival, İnönü, and become President of the Turkish Republic, in whose founding he had taken part.
1018. 1:49:55But the moment he entered the chamber, something strange happened. No one from the DP stood up.
1019. 1:50:01Because in 1946 when İnönü was elected and entered the chamber, the DP members had remained seated under the rule that "no one stands for anyone in the Assembly."
1020. 1:50:10Only the CHP members had applauded their leader on their feet.
1021. 1:50:14Now it was reversed. The Democrat Party members, having tied themselves to the rule that one does not stand for anyone, applied it.
1022. 1:50:27They sat and applauded tremendously. In contrast, the Republican People's Party members stood and did not applaud at all.
1023. 1:50:36Finally the first Menderes cabinet was announced there.
1024. 1:50:38In fact all DP deputies were awaiting it with excitement.
1025. 1:50:42The power they had won by scraping with their fingernails was now to be handed into the hands of ministers.
1026. 1:50:48However, the council of 14 ministers gave at first glance the impression of a cabinet of celebrities.
1027. 1:50:55Fuat Köprülü had become Foreign Minister, Polatkan Labour Minister.
1028. 1:50:59Perhaps under the influence of CHP tradition, Menderes had chosen famous but unproductive bureaucrats over unknown but loyal party men.
1029. 1:51:08Of course this created a great reaction in the DP from the first day.
1030. 1:51:12"Not one of the Democrats is there. Neither Samet, nor Sıtkı Yırcalı, nor I."
1031. 1:51:17"They fall for the big-cabinet craze. They claimed they were making a man who had been grand vizier seven times for Abdülhamid a grand vizier."
1032. 1:51:25"Can that be? No. You don't tell me, 'you came from the street, you won't do.'
1033. 1:51:32You use my party's programme, its charter, in the party's great congress, among the speakers,
1034. 1:51:44for announcing the idea, the idea of representation, and provoking citizens.
1035. 1:51:50You use it in the most important posts. You use it in leadership roles.
1036. 1:51:54You use it in presidencies. Then you don't give me some made-up ministry.
1037. 1:51:59Can that be? No." Indeed it did not last: the cabinet of celebrities collapsed after a very short time, and those who had borne the DP's burden up to power
1038. 1:52:08would soon reach the seats they deserved.
1039. 1:52:11As Bayar left parliament that day, waiting for him was no longer the station jeep but an official car.
1040. 1:52:17As his first act, he forbade police motorcycles from escorting him.
1041. 1:52:22He wanted nothing that would recall the National Chief era.
1042. 1:52:26Across the way is Ankara Palas, you know. The people had gathered there.
1043. 1:52:29Applause for the sycophants. I went to the door and I'm watching Bayar.
1044. 1:52:34Bayar came out. He was wearing his frock coat. He stopped and looked across.
1045. 1:52:40He took a deep breath. Right?
1046. 1:52:45I mean, from where to where! At that moment, I thought to myself, who knows.
1047. 1:52:51I still wonder. In his head like a ribbon all those old days, with Atatürk, after Atatürk İnönü,
1048. 1:53:01being relieved of the premiership and so on.
1049. 1:53:05Those stories were past, and it was a deep breath. He got into the car and left.
1050. 1:53:17At the Prime Ministry, the DP cabinet took the seats vacated a day earlier by CHP ministers who had not been re-elected.
1051. 1:53:23In İnönü's seat sat Bayar. That evening Bayar visited his predecessor at the Pink Mansion.
1052. 1:53:30Four years earlier, when they met at Çankaya, İnönü was President and Bayar the chairman of a new party.
1053. 1:53:37Now Bayar, as President, was coming as a guest to İnönü, who had returned to head his party.
1054. 1:53:43Bayar related it to me: "I went to visit Mr. İsmet İnönü as former President.
1055. 1:53:53He congratulated me.
1056. 1:53:57I went to visit him too. In my visit at his home
1057. 1:54:02I asked him about some things. I said: we have taken the presidency, but beyond this,
1058. 1:54:12I would like to get information from you about the important problems of the state you will be entrusting to me."
1059. 1:54:22To Bayar, İnönü replied: "You already know all the problems."
1060. 1:54:32And he gave me a summary of Turkey's foreign policy.
1061. 1:54:41Then I asked him this: "My dear Pasha, why did you not join NATO?"
1062. 1:54:48"Didn't you want to join?" I said. He replied, slightly offended:
1063. 1:54:56"Celal Beyefendi, they took us in and we didn't join?
1064. 1:55:01We tried so hard — were we admitted?" It was a plain handover ceremony, far from the eyes of the public.
1065. 1:55:09The historic walls of the Pink Mansion listened to many state secrets.
1066. 1:55:13None of these leaked beyond those walls.
1067. 1:55:24The period effectively began the day Menderes read his government programme with excitement.
1068. 1:55:29Its first part was devoted to a critique of the 27-year single-party regime.
1069. 1:55:33The second part held promises: freedom and prosperity.
1070. 1:55:37From that programme, one sentence has been remembered most to this day.
1071. 1:55:41The sentence "Reforms that have become the nation's own property will be preserved."
1072. 1:55:46That is, DP would not touch the reforms the people had embraced. But what about those not yet embraced?
1073. 1:55:52The CHP group understood for the first time from this sentence that the country was pregnant with major changes.
1074. 1:56:04Menderes had rolled up his sleeves. His office at the Prime Ministry was overflowing with well-wishers.
1075. 1:56:10That Monday too, visitors had been queueing since morning.
1076. 1:56:14While everyone waited their turn, a colonel went in and told the private secretary he urgently wanted to see the prime minister.
1077. 1:56:22The colonel was immediately admitted. After a while those waiting were told the prime minister had cancelled all that day's appointments.
1078. 1:56:30Menderes then hurried out and went straight to the Mansion.
1079. 1:56:33Some ministers and deputies were also summoned. There the prime minister announced the news the colonel had brought.
1080. 1:56:40The army's top leadership was preparing a coup against the government.
1081. 1:56:45So the army issue was before them again, after the first night, at the end of the first month.
1082. 1:56:51The press was curious about all news that could be obtained from the Çankaya summit.
1083. 1:56:56But it fell to a very young journalist to get the first news.
1084. 1:57:01I'll never forget it, I went in. Adnan Bey's was a big room, like a hall.
1085. 1:57:08Immediately on the left there was a round table with armchairs, where he was sitting.
1086. 1:57:13"Come on, sit down," he said. "What do you want?"
1087. 1:57:18"A piece of news, sir," I said. "What do you mean, a piece of news? Well," he said, and laughed.
1088. 1:57:22He had a distinctive laugh. We used to call it giggling.
1089. 1:57:27He laughed, "all right, write," he said. "Today, the results of the village headmen elections and so on are being collected."
1090. 1:57:33"Sir," I said, "Anadolu Agency knows all this anyway."
1091. 1:57:36"That's not news." He laughed again, "all right, write."
1092. 1:57:41"The Chief of General Staff and the force commanders were removed from duty."
1093. 1:57:44"He set these ones aside without fail." The transfer of power
1094. 1:57:52had not been at all easy. Just when everything was thought to have settled, one decision of Menderes's upset certain balances.
1095. 1:57:59The army was startled again. Bayar was uneasy. Menderes went as far as resigning.
1096. 1:58:05The subject of the decision was the call to prayer. "God is great, God is great."
1097. 1:58:14"God is God is great, God is great."
1098. 1:58:27"There is none worthy of worship but God."
1099. 1:58:36"There is none worthy of worship but God."
1100. 1:58:49POWER. The spring of 1950 was also the spring of the multi-party regime.
1101. 1:58:52A new decade, a new regime, a new government.
1102. 1:58:55Democracy's first test was beginning. The National Chief of the single-party era had returned to his Pink Mansion.
1103. 1:59:01The opposition's address was now clear. Once in power, on the very first day the government was shared by a three-legged stand.
1104. 1:59:09In parliament the DP group, at the mansion Celal Bayar, at the premiership Adnan Menderes.
1105. 1:59:14For ten years a quiet power struggle would simmer among these three, and the union of two would always be at the expense of the third.
1106. 1:59:25Look how the roles were distributed. The Democrat Party's parliamentary group was for ten years always a boiling cauldron.
1107. 1:59:31The group was the voice of the people. It had its finger on Anatolia's pulse.
1108. 1:59:35Every deputy had come to parliament after a hard struggle in the provinces.
1109. 1:59:39They were the unsung heroes of the victory. They were excited.
1110. 1:59:43At every meeting they would put the government to the test, at every crisis revolt, at every revolt demand heads — and bring them down.
1111. 1:59:50The tripod's second name was Celal Bayar. Bayar was the DP's representative of the generation of National Struggle heroes who had ruled the Republic until then.
1112. 1:59:58He was İsmet Pasha's age-old rival and knew him very well.
1113. 2:00:03Observing certain balances, he had successfully brought his party to 1950 and to power.
1114. 2:00:09Now he sat in İnönü's seat. A figure who had come through so much struggle could not content himself with a representative role.
1115. 2:00:16The DP's baton was almost the President's shadow over the government.
1116. 2:00:21Bayar seemed to be saying, "the mallet is in my hand." But the drum hung around Adnan Menderes's neck.
1117. 2:00:27Menderes in power was no longer that timid deputy sitting in the back rows of the CHP group.
1118. 2:00:33Along with society he too had cracked his shell. He was now aware of the power in his hands and the love he had created among the people.
1119. 2:00:40For the first time the masses saw in him a prime minister who embraced the people.
1120. 2:00:44The centre of power was shifting from Çankaya to Ulus, to the Prime Ministry.
1121. 2:00:49The reins of power and of Demirkırat were now in the hands of a new, 51-year-old rider.
1122. 2:00:54The word now belonged to Menderes too. Celal Bayar chaired the first meeting of the first Menderes government
1123. 2:01:08himself. Bayar wanted to say "I am here." Now it was time to roll up sleeves.
1124. 2:01:13Behind the government stood an unprecedented coalition.
1125. 2:01:17Workers, villagers, the press, intellectuals, even soldiers.
1126. 2:01:20What brought this coalition together was discontent with the single-party regime.
1127. 2:01:24It was the desire for change. Now the desired change had come about.
1128. 2:01:29But would the DP government be able to retain this coalition's support while in office?
1129. 2:01:34The answer to this question came quickly. Because the coalition cracked at the very first act.
1130. 2:01:40The first place DP laid hands on was the mosques. "God is great, God is great."
1131. 2:01:53"God is great. God is great."
1132. 2:02:05"There is none worthy of worship but God. There is none worthy of worship but God."
1133. 2:02:26Until June 1950, believers in Turkey were called to prayer with this sound.
1134. 2:02:31In a law passed in 1932, Atatürk had banned the call to prayer from being recited in any language other than Turkish.
1135. 2:02:38This law had for years created discomfort among the ultra-religious segment.
1136. 2:02:42Throughout the election campaign, one of the demands DP leaders met most was a return to Arabic in the call to prayer.
1137. 2:02:49They were answered in their own way. Celal Bey would keep quiet, raise an eyebrow, say neither yes nor no.
1138. 2:02:59Adnan Menderes was more political: "When we come to power we will handle all these matters properly."
1139. 2:03:05"We will set everything in its place," he would say. He did not say he was against changing the call to prayer to Arabic.
1140. 2:03:11Nor did they. On such taboo and forbidden subjects they preferred to keep silent.
1141. 2:03:19This silence was broken once they came to power.
1142. 2:03:23DP began going after taboos. The requirement for a Turkish call to prayer was lifted.
1143. 2:03:28The call to prayer could now also be recited in Arabic. Moreover, this initiative was supported by some CHP members too.
1144. 2:03:34And on a Friday the law passed parliament. This decision became a turning point for DP in many respects.
1145. 2:03:41Some intellectuals who had supported DP up to that day broke away for the first time after this decision.
1146. 2:03:46In the army too, sensitive on the matter of Atatürk's reforms, the first unease began over this.
1147. 2:03:53And finally the first show of strength between the mansion and the premiership also arose again over the Arabic call to prayer.
1148. 2:04:01Menderes was in a hurry for the law to be ready by Ramadan.
1149. 2:04:04So he quickly passed it through parliament and sent it to the mansion.
1150. 2:04:08But Bayar took the matter slowly. He just would not give the expected approval.
1151. 2:04:13Perhaps Mr. Bayar found it untimely.
1152. 2:04:24Perhaps, of course, Mr. Bayar had been present at the founding of the state.
1153. 2:04:33He may have been very determined to stay loyal to the certain principles of the state, the principles laid down at that time, to the end.
1154. 2:04:43He may have felt himself torn between a democratic demand on one side,
1155. 2:04:51and on the other a practice that might sit somewhat awkwardly with the founding years of the state.
1156. 2:05:00That is, he may have thought let it be delayed a bit, at least let the calendar stretch out a little.
1157. 2:05:06Here there was a reaction in the sense of "this is our commitment, we will do this" — even to the point of a resignation.
1158. 2:05:12The owner of this reaction was Adnan Menderes. When the law he wanted to pass was delayed, he showed his stance at the very start.
1159. 2:05:19He wrote a letter of resignation, sent it to Bayar, and went to Mersin to rest.
1160. 2:05:23This was a very clear message to Bayar. Menderes meant to say: power is now with me.
1161. 2:05:29Bayar was very surprised on receiving the resignation letter. He immediately had his prime minister called for; they said he was in Mersin.
1162. 2:05:35Menderes's close friends were immediately summoned to the mansion.
1163. 2:05:39The situation was explained to them. He had written a resignation letter.
1164. 2:05:43A few days later Menderes returned to Ankara. Bayar greeted him at the airport.
1165. 2:05:48Menderes kissed Bayar's hand and the matter was closed. Of course by then the call-to-prayer law had also taken effect.
1166. 2:05:57Menderes had won this first show of strength, but the first bitterness between the mansion and the premier had also been born.
1167. 2:06:07Now why would this bitterness arise? Adnan Menderes had a character with ups and downs.
1168. 2:06:17Celal Bey knew how to control these well.
1169. 2:06:20Sometimes they escaped his control. From the time the Democrat Party came to power, especially in the first period, 1950–1954, Celal Bayar, as an experienced statesman,
1170. 2:06:33strove to take the politician Adnan Menderes by the hand and raise him to the level of statesmanship,
1171. 2:06:44appearing like a governess. Celal Bayar chaired all the major meetings.
1172. 2:06:52He was a kind of guardian, a patron. I think Adnan Menderes was not always very pleased with this.
1173. 2:07:00Perhaps at first he was more tolerant, but then Celal Bayar's protective angel-like role began to bother him.
1174. 2:07:11Adnan Menderes made many speeches.
1175. 2:07:16In them, the fault he found with İsmet Pasha was: "Having done all this and become a monument,
1176. 2:07:25retire to your home and let us circle you in veneration. Yet you remain in this dirty politics and trouble me."
1177. 2:07:34He had such lines. It could also be taken to mean: why do you make me dependent on Celal Bayar?
1178. 2:07:43When İnönü did not withdraw to his corner despite the insistence, Menderes this time launched a campaign to make İsmet Pasha forgotten.
1179. 2:07:50He removed his picture from banknotes. He opened the National Chief's white train to the public.
1180. 2:07:55He decided the Savarona [presidential yacht] would no longer be used.
1181. 2:07:57And finally İnönü's reserved box with headset at the State Concert Hall was also removed.
1182. 2:08:03The National Chief was being consigned to history. The Republican People's Party's 8th
1183. 2:08:15Congress met at the People's House building in Ankara, everyone knew a difficult period was beginning.
1184. 2:08:22The party that founded the state was creaking. At the Congress there were even those who said, "the CHP is finished, let's close it down and found a new one."
1185. 2:08:28To dispel the weariness that had settled over the party, something new, fresh blood, was needed.
1186. 2:08:35When İnönü was re-elected chairman by acclamation, this time all eyes turned to the secretary-general.
1187. 2:08:42The sought-after blood would be found in the secretary-general. İnönü's candidate was Nihat Erim, one of the CHP's innovative young people.
1188. 2:08:49But most CHP members held Erim responsible for the rout.
1189. 2:08:53It was Erim who had insisted on the majority system in elections instead of proportional representation.
1190. 2:08:58With six secretary-general candidates in the field, a seventh was suddenly known to be at the door.
1191. 2:09:05A man stands at the door, shaking the hand of everyone who comes in, brother — everyone's.
1192. 2:09:10Kasım Gülek was shaking hands one by one. I look and see Kasım Gülek shaking one hand and holding out a paper in the other.
1193. 2:09:20I looked at the paper; it said "secretary-general Kasım Gülek."
1194. 2:09:22I decided on my own that if the People's Party was going to stay on its feet and serve the country from now on,
1195. 2:09:31a fundamental renewal was needed. And I said to myself, I will bring that renewal.
1196. 2:09:38I stood at the door of the hall and handed every arriving delegate a paper saying "secretary-general Kasım Gülek."
1197. 2:09:47I put it out there. And they voted for it. Gülek's American-style method worked.
1198. 2:09:53Everyone was astonished. İsmet Pasha's candidate had lost.
1199. 2:09:57The sought-after fresh blood was named Kasım Gülek. Over his eight-year secretary-generalship, the CHP would also shed its skin, take off its frock coat and put on peasant sandals.
1200. 2:10:08In his first speech the newly arrived secretary also drew up his new strategy.
1201. 2:10:12Why did the People's Party lose the elections? Let us dwell on this.
1202. 2:10:17In my view the People's Party could not become the people's party.
1203. 2:10:22For that reason it lost the democratic elections. We will win again.
1204. 2:10:27We will win, on the condition that the People's Party becomes the people's party.
1205. 2:10:32Let it go everywhere, go to the people's feet, face the people.
1206. 2:10:38Let it be a truly democratic party. Now there is a renewal in the party, isn't there, it is being sought.
1207. 2:10:45He slammed it down and brought it. Again I ran down the stairs.
1208. 2:10:49İsmet Pasha came out and was leaving. He was going to get into his car.
1209. 2:10:53Kasım Gülek, now elected, was behind him. That is, he was seeing him off.
1210. 2:10:58İsmet Pasha looked at him and said, "Come." İsmet Pasha sat on the right and sat Kasım beside him.
1211. 2:11:05I watch İsmet Pasha. Not a single line moved in his wall-like face.
1212. 2:11:12It was a face that expressed nothing. But what, of course, was the outcome?
1213. 2:11:20The face showed he was not pleased. Had he been pleased, he would have smiled and patted.
1214. 2:11:25It was done, İsmet Pasha. As the Pasha's car drove away, the chief's party had gone, and the people's party had come.
1215. 2:11:32The CHP was ready for opposition. It was at precisely this stage that an event broke out that affected Turkey's place in the world balance, reinforced its basic choice, and tied it to the West
1216. 2:11:42in a way from which there would be no return.
1217. 2:11:46The guns that had fallen silent since the Second World War spoke again for the first time in Korea on 25 June 1950.
1218. 2:12:00One Sunday morning North Korean troops began advancing in South Korea across the 38th parallel.
1219. 2:12:07Within two days, first America and then the United Nations decided on military aid to South Korea.
1220. 2:12:14The capitalist and socialist worlds, regarded as the two poles of the Cold War, were facing each other for the first time in Korea.
1221. 2:12:19The lines had become clear. Yet Turkey still felt alone.
1222. 2:12:25Turkey, which had stayed out of the Second World War, had neither established a relationship with the Soviets nor managed to integrate with the West.
1223. 2:12:33When, after the war, the Soviets laid claim to the Straits and Eastern Anatolia, Turkey understood that it could no longer live alone
1224. 2:12:41and drew closer to the West. But the Western umbrella was closed to Turkey.
1225. 2:12:46It had been left virtually unprotected in the middle of the storm.
1226. 2:12:50Then at last, in the spring of 1946, America discovered Turkey.
1227. 2:12:56The battleship Missouri, entering the İstanbul Strait, coveted by the Soviets, amid enthusiastic demonstrations, heralded that Turkey was no longer alone.
1228. 2:13:04After the Missouri, in whose honour stamps were printed, came $100 million of military material under the Truman Doctrine.
1229. 2:13:13Then the Marshall Plan came into play.
1230. 2:13:16With Marshall, Turkey would receive aid of $3 billion over ten years and thus try to patch up its economic and military deficit.
1231. 2:13:25However, political loneliness had still not been eliminated.
1232. 2:13:28Turkey's basic goal was to enter NATO — to enter the West through that channel.
1233. 2:13:34Yet its insistent applications were always politely turned down.
1234. 2:13:39This was the picture when the Democrat Party government came.
1235. 2:13:42In foreign policy the groundwork was ready. Turkey's basic preference was for the Western world.
1236. 2:13:47DP's own policy was already ahead of this. What had to be done was to complete the work begun as soon as possible.
1237. 2:13:54At exactly this stage the Korean War appeared to the DP government as a golden opportunity.
1238. 2:14:00Support given to the United Nations in Korea could open the doors of NATO to Turkey.
1239. 2:14:05At that time I went to İsmet Pasha.
1240. 2:14:12I said, "Pasha, let this decision not be taken only by the ruling party.
1241. 2:14:20Let the ruling party and the opposition party take it together as a national decision."
1242. 2:14:27"You can't explain this," I said. I went to Adnan Menderes.
1243. 2:14:33Adnan Menderes had been a very close friend of mine in the single-party era.
1244. 2:14:38He was a very joyful friend of mine. In fact, the old parliament was narrow, cramped.
1245. 2:14:45We used to sit in the same row. I went and said, "Look, you have won a great victory.
1246. 2:14:53A historic victory. Now there is again a historic event.
1247. 2:14:57Turkey is going to war. Make this a joint national decision, not only the government's but together with the opposition."
1248. 2:15:07At that time, making a decision in such matters was difficult.
1249. 2:15:13"If I now go and propose this to İsmet Pasha, it will get out.
1250. 2:15:18This party has little experience. They'd say we were obliged to seek advice from the old experienced hands — that won't do for us," he said.
1251. 2:15:27Perhaps he was right. But he too missed the opportunity.
1252. 2:15:33Despite all the CHP's insistence, the decision was taken without being brought to parliament.
1253. 2:15:37As the 4,500-strong Turkish Brigade was seen off to Korea under General Tahsin Yazıcı, eyes were wet with tears.
1254. 2:15:44The Mehmetçik [Turkish soldier] was going to war in unknown lands against an enemy he had never met.
1255. 2:15:49As their ship moved away, Turkey was drawing closer to NATO.
1256. 2:16:03At the signing ceremony in Portugal, everyone was excited.
1257. 2:16:06Years of diplomatic effort had finally paid off, and Turkey, the hero of Korea, joined the family together with Greece.
1258. 2:16:13As Foreign Minister Fuat Köprülü walked proudly to the NATO Council of Ministers' podium, Turkey had determined its place in the new world.
1259. 2:16:22Europe's borders now extended to the Caucasus.
1260. 2:16:28The Menderes Plain: this land bore a prime minister, nurtured him, raised him.
1261. 2:16:36It gave its name to a prime minister. Adnan Menderes was a man of the soil.
1262. 2:16:41He was kneaded by the soil, shaped by the soil. The land was his ancestral legacy.
1263. 2:16:52His grandmother's bequest: "Adnan, do not betray these lands left to you by your grandfather.
1264. 2:16:59These lands are truly your homeland. Your mother.
1265. 2:17:04Your father. Your very being. Your own homeland.
1266. 2:17:10The more you serve these lands, the more they will repay you many times over."
1267. 2:17:16Adnan Bey listened to these words of his grandmother like the words of a saint.
1268. 2:17:21And he would tell me about them. I listened to some of them with goosebumps and moist eyes.
1269. 2:17:28Adnan Bey would liken the weeping willows by the Çine stream, scattering their hair-like leaves over the water,
1270. 2:17:40to rare, beautifully raised young girls.
1271. 2:17:45Now Adnan Menderes held the power to rule not just the Çine stream or the fertile Menderes plain, but the entire nation's land.
1272. 2:17:52For the man who came from the soil, it was now time to repay his debt to the soil.
1273. 2:17:58The soil had to be broken open and awakened from its thousand-year sleep.
1274. 2:18:02Before long the name Marshall rang out on village radios.
1275. 2:18:06Aid was coming from America. First the graders went to work.
1276. 2:18:10Roads reached lands that until then had only heard the whistle of the black train.
1277. 2:18:15Asphalt was laid, then thousands of tractors and tens of thousands of threshers began sowing and reaping crops on poor soil.
1278. 2:18:23Agricultural credits became machinery, seed, fertiliser — they gave life to the soil.
1279. 2:18:29Crops were trucked to the Grain Board silos. The result: the soil awoke, agricultural output exploded.
1280. 2:18:37In 1953 Turkey became the world's fourth-largest wheat producer.
1281. 2:18:43With foreign support obtained over a few years, the country had suddenly turned into a construction site.
1282. 2:18:47Rivers had to be reined in, lands irrigated, electricity and light carried to factories and homes.
1283. 2:18:53That is, dams were needed. Turkey's hope lay in the dam to be built on the Seyhan.
1284. 2:18:59If the Seyhan became reality, production in Çukurova would increase fivefold.
1285. 2:19:03They went to the World Bank; a $40 million loan had to be requested.
1286. 2:19:06A World Bank delegation came to Ankara. Yet they did not seem at all inclined to lend.
1287. 2:19:12In those days Burhan Ulutan was in charge of the treasury.
1288. 2:19:15"At that time the World Bank has $10 billion on hand.
1289. 2:19:19And it scatters it everywhere. But it doesn't want to give us $40 million.
1290. 2:19:24Because there we would be cotton producers. We would rival American cotton.
1291. 2:19:29I knew this. And they didn't give it. The World Bank's deputy director-general brings the report."
1292. 2:19:37When Adnan Bey was told: "Have you gone and seen that place?
1293. 2:19:40Why do you speak so carelessly?" The deputy director-general's name was Garner.
1294. 2:19:46He was a somewhat tactless man who spoke carelessly. Adnan Bey got angry and sent him packing.
1295. 2:19:52He sent him off. In the end, American President Truman stepped in on behalf of the Seyhan Dam.
1296. 2:19:59The loan was reduced from $40 million to $25 million and was obtained in the spring of 1951.
1297. 2:20:04Responsibility for the dam was given to a young project engineer within the State Hydraulic Works.
1298. 2:20:10Until then I knew nobody there — I am an engineer, that is.
1299. 2:20:17And since the conduct of the Seyhan Dam's construction was entrusted to me, I shouldered almost everything.
1300. 2:20:26Both in determining its foundation, in holding the tenders, and in following the construction afterward.
1301. 2:20:34I took up the post in 1952. Construction actually began in 1953.
1302. 2:20:41It was completed on 8 April 1956. The economic development drive of DP's first period was completed with two
1303. 2:20:49important laws: one the law encouraging foreign capital, the other the petroleum law.
1304. 2:20:57The Turkish market was now opening to foreigners. The name the government consulted on these matters was the American Ambassador George
1305. 2:21:07McGhee, originally a Texan oil magnate.
1306. 2:21:08We were trying to interest American firms in investing here, and helping you create an environment which would make investment desirable for them.
1307. 2:21:19I remember that we talked quite often about your relations with your neighboring countries,
1308. 2:21:30seeing if we couldn't help you improve relations with some of them that you were having difficulties with.
1309. 2:21:35Also, your view toward the creation of a Middle East Defense Organization,
1310. 2:21:42in which you would be the leading member, since you had the largest military force that would be involved.
1311. 2:21:54I remember one time, three of them, Menderes, Köprülü, and Bayar, asked me to meet them in Atatürk's farm.
1312. 2:22:05I didn't know what in the world they were going to ask me about. It seemed rather unusual to meet with all three.
1313. 2:22:13They told me then that they had decided to denationalize exploration for oil, and invite the oil companies to come in.
1314. 2:22:22They hadn't been finding oil, and they'd been spending a lot of money, and they needed the oil.
1315. 2:22:28So I told them how they could go about it, and that we would help. They had an adviser
1316. 2:22:35who would help them draw up a petroleum law, which your Meclis would pass, and if it was a good law, the companies would come in.
1317. 2:22:48But the foreign companies that came also failed to reach oil in the expected abundance.
1318. 2:22:53The law's real effect emerged in straining government–opposition relations.
1319. 2:23:00In the summer of 1950, the DP and CHP, closing the tension-filled 1940s, were practically enjoying a honeymoon.
1320. 2:23:07The government was at peace not only with the opposition but with the press too.
1321. 2:23:10Bayar would take Prime Minister Menderes with him, invite members of the press too, and tour the Aegean by ship.
1322. 2:23:16Then in the provinces where he landed he would visit the CHP headquarters and ask after everyone's wellbeing.
1323. 2:23:22The amnesty law, which soothed hearts, and the press law, which brought relief to the press, were passed in those very days.
1324. 2:23:29DP won a tremendous victory in the municipal elections held in the autumn.
1325. 2:23:35Of the CHP's 600 municipalities, 560 passed to DP. Now local government too was dominated by DP.
1326. 2:23:43With the strength he drew from this, Menderes renewed his cabinet before a year had passed.
1327. 2:23:47He no longer needed celebrities. Those who bore the real burden were brought to work.
1328. 2:23:52But the 61 red votes that came from the DP group in the vote of confidence were almost a harbinger of potential revolt in the group.
1329. 2:24:01The first sign that spring was over came in winter.
1330. 2:24:05In 1952 an issue called the CHP's "unjust acquisitions" suddenly came onto the agenda.
1331. 2:24:10All the property the CHP had acquired during the single-party era was deemed unjust acquisition.
1332. 2:24:16DP now wanted these assets to be transferred back to the treasury.
1333. 2:24:20Just as the Democrat Party had come into being out of nothing, the CHP too should start from scratch.
1334. 2:24:27First of all the CHP headquarters was seized. This was the historic building where Atatürk had convened the first assembly.
1335. 2:24:33Its title deed was registered in the treasury's name. Immediately afterwards the DP parliamentary group prepared a bill.
1336. 2:24:39It demanded that all the CHP's illegitimately obtained assets be transferred to the treasury.
1337. 2:24:45DP had begun dangling this issue over the opposition's head like a sword of Damocles.
1338. 2:24:50The political atmosphere suddenly heated up. The tension kept climbing.
1339. 2:24:56Things were just about to spin out of control when news from Malatya brought the tension to its peak.
1340. 2:25:02Ahmet Emin Yalman had been shot. Yalman was the chief editor of the newspaper Vatan.
1341. 2:25:06He was the fiercest opponent of the reactionary current that was only just beginning to awaken in the country.
1342. 2:25:11With his writings he had suddenly become a target of bigots across the country.
1343. 2:25:15The gun hit this target in Malatya. The assassin selected was named Hüseyin Üzmez.
1344. 2:25:22"I was in a state of ecstasy there. I was in such a state that against the whole world, the whole universe, stood an Ahmet Emin Yalman.
1345. 2:25:31He is the cause of all evil. If I kill Ahmet Emin Yalman, this evil will vanish.
1346. 2:25:37Humanity will be saved, the universe will be saved, religion and faith will be saved, everything will be saved.
1347. 2:25:42He is a black stain. That stain absolutely must be cleaned.
1348. 2:25:45That was the state I was in." Finally, on the night of 22 November 1952, Hüseyin Üzmez trailed Ahmet Emin Yalman, who had come to Malatya with Menderes.
1349. 2:25:55The moment he had been waiting for had come. "Ahmet Emin came down the stairs, I stood opposite him,
1350. 2:26:03there were three to five steps between us, I began to fire. Of course I know that I fired."
1351. 2:26:08He collapsed at the foot of an acacia tree. Ahmet Emin Yalman survived this assassination seriously wounded.
1352. 2:26:14Hüseyin Üzmez was sentenced to 20 years. The tension had climbed to its peak.
1353. 2:26:19A few days later the incidents came onto parliament's agenda.
1354. 2:26:23A clash was beginning. For a full three hours İnönü and Menderes took turns at the podium, bombarding one another.
1355. 2:26:30All day. They set out their views by taking the podium eleven times in all, five by one and six by the other.
1356. 2:26:48It was so fierce that I saw sweat running from both of them at the podium as they spoke.
1357. 2:26:57Of course this podium struggle spread to the public too.
1358. 2:27:04And the struggle between the Democrat Party and the People's Party intensified.
1359. 2:27:23As Atatürk's remains were carried to Anıtkabir, the tension between the leaders could be read on their faces.
1360. 2:27:30Throughout the ceremony Menderes and İnönü persistently looked in different directions to avoid each other's eyes.
1361. 2:27:35Even when they walked side by side, their paths were entirely separate. The election was very close, and DP was preparing to deliver the final blow to its rival.
1362. 2:27:45The Unjust Acquisitions law came onto parliament's agenda a month later.
1363. 2:27:50The Democrat Party wanted all the CHP's illegitimately acquired assets to be seized.
1364. 2:27:56Not long before, DP had also had the other opposition party, the Nation Party, closed on charges of reactionism.
1365. 2:28:02Now the main opposition party founded by Atatürk was about to be reduced to zero.
1366. 2:28:07It was done untimely, and its form and timing were criticised.
1367. 2:28:13Indeed both the CHP and the opponents always insisted on this point.
1368. 2:28:21If DP had settled this matter immediately when it came to power in 1950, no one could have raised a voice against it.
1369. 2:28:31I too believe it was done untimely. But on the matter itself, the Democrat Party was right in demanding its return.
1370. 2:28:40Because it was bringing the political parties to equal conditions.
1371. 2:28:45This much disturbed even the President.
1372. 2:28:49In memoirs he wrote years later, Bayar would relate that he opposed this law and even tried to prevent it but failed.
1373. 2:28:56Perhaps after the call-to-prayer affair he did not want to enter a new conflict with his prime minister.
1374. 2:29:03At this stage İsmet Pasha put on his boots. In the session in which the law was debated he took the podium and said this was a blow to the democratic regime.
1375. 2:29:13When his words were cut off by heckling he grew angry. He looked at the DP benches and said, "I am watching your condition from the podium of history."
1376. 2:29:21"You are in the panic of the guilty; you are afraid of the light."
1377. 2:29:27And then he walked out of the chamber. Of course the entire CHP parliamentary group followed.
1378. 2:29:35With excitement at its height, Menderes took the podium, angry.
1379. 2:29:40He referred to İnönü as "an elderly gentleman", and "a white-haired general, a man who had borne the title of chief for years."
1380. 2:29:50"İsmet Pasha is a man who would set this country on fire for his ambition."
1381. 2:29:54"Pasha, enough," he said. The CHP members had left parliament but the debates went on.
1382. 2:30:02The CHP's assets were on the operating table. Among these assets, of course, was the newspaper Ulus.
1383. 2:30:08Ulus was officially the CHP's property. Cüneyt Arcayürek followed that day's session from the press gallery on behalf of Ulus.
1384. 2:30:17The articles were taken up; I'm waiting; the first article passed.
1385. 2:30:21Nihat Erim had told me: "As each article passes, ring me on the telephone."
1386. 2:30:26I dialled: "The first article passed, sir." "Fine," I said.
1387. 2:30:30There was debate on the second article. It passed; I dialled: "It passed, sir." "Fine."
1388. 2:30:35Then the third article passed, and we reached the fourth — our Ulus.
1389. 2:30:41The CHP's claim was that Ulus had been given to the CHP with Atatürk's legacy, and that at its founding or source the state's party was not involved.
1390. 2:30:54Therefore Ulus, being CHP property, could not be taken.
1391. 2:31:01Right at that article — a very sensitive article, which concerns us too, the newspaper we work for.
1392. 2:31:08There were speeches, the article passed.
1393. 2:31:14I dialled. "It didn't pass, did it?" said Nihat Erim. "The fourth article, Atatürk's."
1394. 2:31:20"It passed, sir," I said. "Come here quickly."
1395. 2:31:24That day there was great bewilderment in the People's Party. Truth be told, they had entered an atmosphere of old age.
1396. 2:31:33They had founded the Republic, come from the War of Independence, and were living through the shocks of democracy.
1397. 2:31:41There was also a tired cadre in the picture, and in my view the People's Party was in a very difficult position that day.
1398. 2:31:49It was living its hardest days. Right on the eve of the election the bailiffs had practically come to the CHP.
1399. 2:31:55The party was shaken to its roots. The same shock was of course being felt at the newspaper Ulus.
1400. 2:32:01Our departure from Ulus's actual building was a bit dramatic.
1401. 2:32:07We stayed there until that evening. We were told that we must not take anything out of this newspaper.
1402. 2:32:15That is, not even a pencil.
1403. 2:32:19Whatever there was as party property you would leave there.
1404. 2:32:24Of course we left leaving all our pens behind.
1405. 2:32:27But one friend, the late — a very fiery one —
1406. 2:32:35Faruk Taşkıran could not bear it and with a piece of chalk wrote on Ulus's big walls on the second floor: "You godless ones,
1407. 2:32:46we will be back." And indeed, after a while, we did come back.
1408. 2:33:08The 1954 election campaign was truly a campaign worth seeing.
1409. 2:33:12The trump card in the DP's hand was the economic development drive.
1410. 2:33:16What had been done was presented as a guarantee of what would be done.
1411. 2:33:19In the campaign Bayar again came to the fore. In the squares he praised the Prime Minister Menderes and his achievements.
1412. 2:33:25Such was his wish. The CHP, for its part, made the image of a wronged party its propaganda material.
1413. 2:33:31İnönü opened his campaign from Malatya. The National Chief who never left Çankaya was gone; now there was a party leader who toured village to village eating at floor tables
1414. 2:33:39But the CHP leadership was again in a great delusion.
1415. 2:33:47They believed that the people had seen the truth in the past four years and regretted voting for DP.
1416. 2:33:53In spite of everything it was a rather colourful campaign.
1417. 2:33:56Turkish democracy, feeling its way, was discovering new tactics of attrition.
1418. 2:34:05Graduating from a college was not yet common then.
1419. 2:34:10When he graduated he wore a hat on his head, dressed like a dandy.
1420. 2:34:15They found that photo of me. And distributed it around, saying "Kasım Gülek has become a priest."
1421. 2:34:24The public doesn't know, of course; they build on that.
1422. 2:34:29Then again they said "that Kasım Gülek of yours is uncircumcised."
1423. 2:34:36To slander him. "The answer I gave to this," I said — what a chatterbox his daughter turned out to be.
1424. 2:34:49Accusations of that kind could only be answered in this way.
1425. 2:34:58But these were the childhood illnesses of democracy.
1426. 2:35:11The election result was a victory for DP and a catastrophe for the CHP.
1427. 2:35:15The Democrat Party raised its vote share above 56%.
1428. 2:35:18This went down in history as the highest vote share a party achieved throughout the entire multi-party democratic regime.
1429. 2:35:2693% of the seats in parliament were now in DP's hands.
1430. 2:35:29The CHP, meanwhile, was suffering a complete rout. Four years earlier the CHP group had 625 deputies; now only 31 remained.
1431. 2:35:40The country had practically returned to a single-party regime.
1432. 2:35:44The main opposition party was bewildered and crushed.
1433. 2:35:47The government was beginning its second term with an unprecedented victory.
1434. 2:35:51But in this period something happened that should never have happened.
1435. 2:35:55The results went to DP's head. And created a complete intoxication of victory.
1436. 2:36:00With this intoxication, after the elections everyone and everything suddenly changed.
1437. 2:36:05Turkey after 1954 was pregnant with events so extraordinary that we would long, as it were, to search with a candle for what we had seen up to then.
1438. 2:36:18In Turkey's multi-party period, no one has matched the success the Democrat Party reached in the 1954 elections.
1439. 2:36:25From that day to this, no party has repeated the 56% vote share DP won.
1440. 2:36:31Now of every 100 deputies in parliament, 93 were DP.
1441. 2:36:36It was a heavy, overwhelming majority. Menderes was at the peak of his power and prestige, but in politics as in everything else the highest point reached
1442. 2:36:46is also the point from which the descent begins. A few months before the victory, President Celal Bayar made a long
1443. 2:36:56trip to America lasting more than a month.
1444. 2:36:59He visited the major cities and, as the President of the Turks who had fought heroically in Korea, drew great
1445. 2:37:05interest wherever he went. He was received standing in the American Congress.
1446. 2:37:09In the Cold War world, Turkey had taken its place beside America against the Soviets.
1447. 2:37:14This basic choice was now openly demonstrated in Washington.
1448. 2:37:18From the day Bayar and Eisenhower shook hands at the White House, America would always be Turkey's number one ally.
1449. 2:37:27After the 1954 elections it was Menderes's turn to visit America.
1450. 2:37:32The Prime Minister would now cross the bridges Bayar had built and knock on the door of this distant ally for military and economic aid.
1451. 2:37:41Preparations were completed in 10 days, and a week after reading his government programme, Menderes flew to America on a NATO
1452. 2:37:47plane that took off from Naples. On the way, at the hotel in New York where they stayed, Menderes raised a possibility that had occurred to him with the Deputy Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry, Melih Esenbel.
1453. 2:37:57"Look," he said, "these people shouldn't try some devaluation stunt on us."
1454. 2:38:02"Call the ambassador," he said. The late Birgi was with us too.
1455. 2:38:07Nuri Birgi was the secretary-general. I was the secretary-general for economic cooperation and deputy secretary-general's deputy.
1456. 2:38:15"Call him and ask him," he said. "And tell him: if tomorrow, while Eisenhower is speaking, he's going to raise anything like devaluation, I'll
1457. 2:38:24go back to Turkey right now." We called him, told him; the ambassador was struck dumb with panic.
1458. 2:38:31"Let me go and ask," he said. "But tell him this too: if he's thinking of something like devaluation to force Turkey, we're not coming to Washington."
1459. 2:38:41"We'll go back; we'll buy ourselves plane tickets and go back — or on his plane," he said.
1460. 2:38:45We told the man exactly that. He came right away, 10–15 minutes later, in a flap; Avra Warren's face had gone white as a sheet.
1461. 2:38:54"Yes," he said, "in the talks to be opened, when economic problems are reviewed,
1462. 2:39:03a subject like Turkey's need for devaluation was going to be touched on.
1463. 2:39:10But now, given your prime minister's firm stance, you will go to Washington.
1464. 2:39:17"But Eisenhower will not raise this subject," he assured us.
1465. 2:39:21On that basis we went the next day. Despite this coolness, Menderes was received quite warmly in Washington.
1466. 2:39:28He responded to this reception with warm words.
1467. 2:39:50These pleasant speeches continued throughout the trip. Menderes made very heavy speeches against the Soviets.
1468. 2:39:57He declared that there was complete unity of views between America and Turkey in every field.
1469. 2:40:02But when the subject came to economic aid, the Americans' attitude suddenly changed.
1470. 2:40:06The additional $300 million loan Turkey had requested was refused.
1471. 2:40:12The Americans were of the view that investments had been pushed a bit fast.
1472. 2:40:15The World Bank's representation in Ankara had long since informed Washington that danger bells were ringing for the Turkish economy.
1473. 2:40:23The trade deficit tended to grow. Debt payments had begun to fall behind.
1474. 2:40:28Before the elections high prices had been given to agricultural products, which had increased inflation.
1475. 2:40:32Now a fresh loan would mean a bad loan.
1476. 2:40:37The Americans granted Menderes $30 million instead of $300 million.
1477. 2:40:43Turkey understood on its return from Washington that a troubled period was beginning.
1478. 2:40:58The prime minister, returning angry from America, began by punishing the provinces that had not voted for DP in the election.
1479. 2:41:04First İnönü's fortress Malatya was split in two and Adıyaman was created.
1480. 2:41:09Then Kırşehir, which had sent the government's age-old opponent Osman Bölükbaşı to parliament, was reduced to a district by law.
1481. 2:41:17Then a series of repressive laws came one after another to parliament.
1482. 2:41:22With a new election law, radio was closed to political parties and civil servants' political rights were restricted.
1483. 2:41:28Another law made it possible for judges and professors to be sent into early retirement.
1484. 2:41:35Then a law was passed allowing civil servants to be dismissed regardless of their length of service.
1485. 2:41:43When the press set about criticising these arrangements, it naturally drew lightning upon itself.
1486. 2:41:48The press's heaviest guns met with punishment. Nihat Erim was fined.
1487. 2:41:54Bedii Faik was arrested. Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın, aged 80, was thrown into prison.
1488. 2:41:58The government, head spinning with victory, was punishing everyone in its path.
1489. 2:42:04Now neither was Menderes the old Menderes nor DP the old DP.
1490. 2:42:09The rules of the democracy that was being built were beginning to change.
1491. 2:42:13When parliament opened, the prime minister showed his harsh face.
1492. 2:42:16When İnönü set out to defend the 1946 elections, Menderes came to the podium and, turning to İsmet Pasha, said, "Look me in the eye, Pasha, look me in the eye.
1493. 2:42:25No one here is going to be cowed by your false reputation.
1494. 2:42:29You will pay for your crime of 1946." So tension was once again shaking parliament and the country.
1495. 2:42:38Foremost among those uneasy at this tension was İsmet Pasha.
1496. 2:42:44He would say this to those close to him: "These events are happening."
1497. 2:42:48"Some very distressing events are happening."
1498. 2:42:53"What we are talking about here is talked about in every room of every barracks."
1499. 2:43:00İsmet Pasha was an old soldier. A man who knew the military very well.
1500. 2:43:05Indeed the barracks had begun to seethe inside.
1501. 2:43:08Every stirring, every hardening in Ankara echoed in waves in the barracks.
1502. 2:43:14There was unease. Indeed in those months, an artillery captain named Dündar Seyhan at the anti-aircraft artillery school in İstanbul Tuzla was writing in his diary
1503. 2:43:24the following lines. One Sunday night, on duty at the school, he sat with Orhan Kabibay in the officers' club.
1504. 2:43:32While eating sausage-and-eggs together, as usual they were discussing ways of rescuing the country from the impasse it was in.
1505. 2:43:39That night for the first time Kabibay and I talked about a revolution.
1506. 2:43:44The idea of a military intervention against the Democrat Party was first discussed that night, over a plate of fried eggs.
1507. 2:43:52Unknowingly, two captains were planting the first seed of an operation that would take place six years later.
1508. 2:43:58As day was breaking, pistols were drawn, hands were placed one on another, and an oath was sworn for the revolution.
1509. 2:44:05Whatever had happened to the army, which only four years earlier had looked on DP with sympathy, revolution plans had begun to be made in the barracks.
1510. 2:44:16While the army had previously looked on the Democrat Party with sympathy,
1511. 2:44:25it flinched at the Arabisation of the call to prayer.
1512. 2:44:32Murmurings began. The murmurings gradually grew.
1513. 2:44:43Indeed the discomfort had begun with the call to prayer turning Arabic.
1514. 2:44:47Later the government's baiting of İnönü also made the soldiers uneasy.
1515. 2:44:52In the army İnönü was seen not as the CHP chairman but as a general to be obeyed.
1516. 2:44:59And attacks on him were counted as attacks on the army.
1517. 2:45:03Another thing that bothered the soldiers was the American officers who came to Turkey as instructors under the Marshall Plan.
1518. 2:45:10Until the 1950s Turkish officers had never served under a foreign command.
1519. 2:45:16Yet now new alliances were bringing new conditions.
1520. 2:45:20As if the Turkish soldier did not know the technique of war, even at the head of the smallest units, people at sergeant level
1521. 2:45:32we saw brought into Turkey, right up to regiments.
1522. 2:45:38It had almost reached the point where one thought of kicking in the commander's door and stripping his rank — we saw how affected their state of mind had become.
1523. 2:45:49The discomfort in the armed forces, beyond this governance, beyond that bad governance, surely also owed to the effect of the economic shocks and hardships.
1524. 2:46:00Because in the Turkish army, officers like many civil servants said they could no longer make ends meet under economic pressure.
1525. 2:46:09At that date I was a staff major; at night I saw lieutenants and captains driving shared taxis in the streets.
1526. 2:46:17These were all traces of the crisis, and of a search: would
1527. 2:46:26this government go on like this forever? — thoughts began in the armed forces.
1528. 2:46:31The event that directly provoked reaction in the armed forces at that time was the orderlies question.
1529. 2:46:37Some DP deputies started an initiative so that orderlies would not be used in the army as servants.
1530. 2:46:45But the examples they gave while criticising the situation were so demeaning that the soldiers rose up.
1531. 2:46:51As soon as the Democrat Party took power, with the idea of what it could cut from the army, for some reason it took up this orderlies matter.
1532. 2:47:01Or those deputies may themselves have a past as orderlies, I don't know.
1533. 2:47:07But this orderlies case came to parliament with very shaming words, belittling remarks.
1534. 2:47:16It came with remarks belittling officers and their wives; they were spoken about in those terms.
1535. 2:47:23And this, in my view, became the second factor in the army's attitude toward the Democrat Party.
1536. 2:47:33While discontent thus took root in the army from the very first years, the Democrat Party since taking power had been in search of a new defence
1537. 2:47:40policy. In the first cabinet, Refik Şevket İnce had been appointed to the Ministry of National Defence.
1538. 2:47:46İnce was originally a jurist. The first place he laid hands on in the ministry was military justice.
1539. 2:47:52The new minister, on the principle that justice cannot be divided, opposed having a separate judicial arrangement for soldiers.
1540. 2:48:00He favoured members of the armed forces being tried in the same courts as civilians.
1541. 2:48:05It was a major reform that could be put into practice only by the prime minister's decision.
1542. 2:48:11Menderes thereupon brought the minister and the commanders together.
1543. 2:48:14He listened to both sides separately. The commanders were absolutely opposed to the project.
1544. 2:48:20At the very start, the prime minister was caught between his minister and the commanders.
1545. 2:48:24In the end he first withdrew the draft law and then dismissed his minister.
1546. 2:48:29In his first move against the army he had been forced to step back.
1547. 2:48:33Moreover he had given a sacrifice from his government. The second sacrifice was Seyfi Kurtbek.
1548. 2:48:39Kurtbek, DP's second Minister of National Defence, was of military origin.
1549. 2:48:42That a retired colonel should now attain a post above generals created unease in the army.
1550. 2:48:49Moreover, Kurtbek, as a major in the single-party era, had taken part in preparations for a coup against İnönü.
1551. 2:48:55The new minister's goal was to carry out a reform in the army.
1552. 2:48:59Kurtbek wanted National Defence to be entirely restructured and the General Staff to be subordinated to the Ministry of National Defence.
1553. 2:49:06To carry out this project, first some obstructive generals had to be removed from duty.
1554. 2:49:14On entering the cabinet he immediately revealed the reform plan to Menderes.
1555. 2:49:19Menderes said "all right" excitedly, and from the telephone beside him
1556. 2:49:29called the President: "Seyfi Bey is saying some very important things beside me, I ask you to listen."
1557. 2:49:38I went straight. I opened the subject in the library.
1558. 2:49:49I explained. The documents showing why those who had to be purged had to go.
1559. 2:49:58That all the legal matters were ready.
1560. 2:50:09From the evidence shown, Bayar too was convinced of the need for an operation in the army.
1561. 2:50:13That evening at 6 the cabinet met. Kurtbek explained the reform programme in a two-hour briefing.
1562. 2:50:21Bayar stood up. He said, "Friends, Seyfi Bey's plan is a serious plan
1563. 2:50:36that will continue seriously. There will be those who object to it.
1564. 2:50:46There will be those who dislike it. Like it, because for the welfare of this country, for the welfare of the army, it is absolutely necessary.
1565. 2:50:53This is a decisive operation." Seyfi Kurtbek immediately rolled up his sleeves.
1566. 2:50:59He turned his plan into a draft bill. But whatever Bayar said, Menderes in his first term had no intention of risking a clash with the soldiers.
1567. 2:51:08He summoned his minister and, noting that the army was disturbed by the bill, asked for the plan to be postponed.
1568. 2:51:14After a while Kurtbek resigned. In its first four years the DP government changed no fewer than four defence ministers.
1569. 2:51:21Ministers kept changing, but the DP government could not get a grip on the army.
1570. 2:51:25Yet by the end of 1954, the army had begun to organise to seize the DP government.
1571. 2:51:33Dündar Seyhan and Orhan Kabibay had begun recruiting people into the organisation to carry out the revolution decision they had made on a night watch.
1572. 2:51:40The first name Seyhan hooked was the academy student, just back from Korea, Faruk Güventürk.
1573. 2:51:49One day he said to me — I had not yet become a lieutenant colonel —
1574. 2:51:55"Major, how do you find the way this state's affairs are run?"
1575. 2:52:04"Well," I said, "you see how the state's affairs are."
1576. 2:52:10"I don't like it," I said. "I don't like it either," he said.
1577. 2:52:15That passed, but this is how we drew close to each other, with Dündar, God rest his soul.
1578. 2:52:21We drew closer and closer. Finally he said to me, "Major, let's found an organisation together."
1579. 2:52:32"Let's found one," I said. "What's it called?" he said.
1580. 2:52:36"What shall we call it? Reform of the Armed Forces."
1581. 2:52:41And we had made a rule. We would choose friends in this way.
1582. 2:52:48When the chosen friend's name was mentioned among his own year-group, his classmates should say this:
1583. 2:52:57"Yes, that's right — he's capable, honest, hardworking."
1584. 2:53:03And we were choosing our friends carefully in this way.
1585. 2:53:09Our second rule was that no written text could be kept.
1586. 2:53:15Because, regrettably, the requirements.
1587. 2:53:23This formation would work as a cell organisation.
1588. 2:53:29Cells would grow by being added to one another, link to link in their chain.
1589. 2:53:34A person in one cell would know only one person, at most two, from the cell before his own, as reference points.
1590. 2:53:41He would not know more people than that. Under these conditions, in 1954–55 it found opportunities for greater expansion.
1591. 2:53:49The organisation's expansion was somewhat coincidental.
1592. 2:53:54While organising continued in İstanbul, in Ankara too a cadre was beginning to be prepared.
1593. 2:53:58At its head was staff major Talat Aydemir.
1594. 2:54:02Shortly afterwards the Ankara and İstanbul organisations were merged.
1595. 2:54:05And the first joint meeting was held in a mansion in Üsküdar.
1596. 2:54:09I explained then. I said, "Friends, what we have founded is a society — perhaps a revolution society.
1597. 2:54:20Let's put things like the reform of the army inside it."
1598. 2:54:24"This is a revolution society. And the organisation we are founding there, I said openly, is a revolution organisation.
1599. 2:54:33By revolution, I said, we may go as far as the gallows and be executed, or we may succeed.
1600. 2:54:45Whoever takes that risk stays." Everyone took the risk. We swore an oath on it.
1601. 2:54:50The oath sworn was a revolution oath. The organisation the young officers founded there that night, with Lt. Col. Faruk Güventürk as its head, would soon
1602. 2:54:59grow ring by ring, and on the morning of 27 May 1960 would take power.
1603. 2:55:07This ferment at the lower levels of the army soon reflected on the upper levels too.
1604. 2:55:11And in a wholly unexpected place, in a wholly unexpected way.
1605. 2:55:15At the 29 October 1955 ceremonies everything was going smoothly.
1606. 2:55:20The spectators had taken their places, the President had arrived amid applause, and the parade had begun.
1607. 2:55:25Just then a small, barely noticeable gesture set off a great spark.
1608. 2:55:33I don't know why. The Minister of Defence, looking at the Chief of General Staff and those with him standing in the open some 15–20
1609. 2:55:43steps away, made a sign, wiggling his finger as if to call the Chief of General Staff to his side with a finger.
1610. 2:55:55The Chief of General Staff was furious at this.
1611. 2:56:04He shouted as if scolding: "Whom are you calling?"
1612. 2:56:08"How are you calling?" It was calmed on one side.
1613. 2:56:18But the situation reached the officers of the Composite Corps as if transmitted by radio through the air.
1614. 2:56:27In this situation the Composite Corps commander, taking with him his division commanders and regiment commanders, a group of some 8–10
1615. 2:56:39people in ceremonial uniforms, came saluting with their swords and stood before the Chief of General Staff.
1616. 2:56:50They said, "Sir, we are deeply upset. We are awaiting orders from you."
1617. 2:56:57"Give the order now, and we'll throw them all inside, starting with Celal Bayar."
1618. 2:57:07The Chief of General Staff, saying "there is time, I will resolve this some other way," and so on, calmed them
1619. 2:57:17and sent them back. The ferment in the army was steadily growing.
1620. 2:57:22Sometimes a law, sometimes a word, sometimes a small gesture brought this ferment to the surface.
1621. 2:57:27In the barracks the word "revolution" had begun to be whispered secretly into ears.
1622. 2:57:33The Democrat Party government appeared unaware of all these developments.
1623. 2:57:37Menderes had given up reform efforts in the army and was buried in nationwide development works.
1624. 2:57:44Entering 1955, everything seemed as smooth as a milk-filled harbour.
1625. 2:57:49Yet 1955 would be the hardest year for the DP and Menderes — the beginning of the end.
1626. 2:58:03In fact in the spring of 1955 spring winds were also blowing in politics.
1627. 2:58:08The post-election tension had eased somewhat. Parliamentary tension had begun to melt away at the Ankara Palas balls.
1628. 2:58:16A scene long sought in government–opposition relations came to be seen in those very days, on a spring night, after a ball at the Ankara Palas.
1629. 2:58:22My mother-in-law, so that Mrs. İnönü wouldn't be left alone at home,
1630. 2:58:32Özden and I went up to the Pink Mansion that evening until the Pasha returned.
1631. 2:58:37We were sitting in a separate place. When the door rang, I opened it; it was past midnight.
1632. 2:58:42And we saw two men arm in arm. İnönü and Adnan Menderes.
1633. 2:58:48I can't claim they weren't slightly tipsy.
1634. 2:58:50But it was such a sincere pose — there had been a reception at the Ankara Palas.
1635. 2:58:56On leaving they had already talked very closely and paid each other compliments.
1636. 2:59:01Adnan Menderes said, "Pasha, let me take you home."
1637. 2:59:06İsmet Pasha said "all right." They arrived; I opened the door.
1638. 2:59:11He greeted me. "How are you, Metin?" he said. "Won't you come in?" said İsmet Pasha.
1639. 2:59:16"Adnan, I give you my word. I'll come another time.
1640. 2:59:20Now it's late. With your permission, I'll go," he said.
1641. 2:59:23"A promise?" said İsmet Pasha. "Yes, a promise," replied Adnan Menderes.
1642. 2:59:29And he left. I even teased İsmet Pasha: "If there's this much warmth, masha'Allah,
1643. 2:59:35may God protect it from the evil eye." The spring period had begun with the door journalist Metin Toker opened one midnight
1644. 2:59:46and it closed with a crisis again caused by Metin Toker.
1645. 2:59:51That year Toker married İnönü's daughter Özden.
1646. 2:59:56Now he was not only a famous journalist but İnönü's son-in-law.
1647. 3:00:00For this reason the magazine he owned, Akis, drew even more DP lightning.
1648. 3:00:05Akis was one of the most influential magazines of its time.
1649. 3:00:09It showed its influence once again with an article that spring that changed the course of politics.
1650. 3:00:15The article in question was published in Akis's May issue.
1651. 3:00:21The article's headline was: "When the cat's away, the mice play."
1652. 3:00:26The cat mentioned in the article was Prime Minister Menderes. The mice comparison was used for the DP parliamentary group.
1653. 3:00:33When Menderes was abroad and the DP group tore into the government, Akis applied this headline to the group.
1654. 3:00:40A few days after the magazine came out, its managing editor Cüneyt Arcayürek was arrested.
1655. 3:00:44The charge: insulting the Prime Minister. "They took me, cut my hair, and threw me into ward eight."
1656. 3:00:50"That isolation section was a small place. They set it aside for journalists."
1657. 3:00:58"Affairs and so on took place there. Its name became the Ankara Hilton."
1658. 3:01:03"In front of it there was a narrow path between the wall and the blocks."
1659. 3:01:13"That place was called Adnan Menderes Boulevard." A few days later İsmet Pasha, with his son-in-law Metin Toker, went to visit Arcayürek.
1660. 3:01:22In fact everyone knew that the real target was not Arcayürek but Metin Toker.
1661. 3:01:26A few days later Menderes thundered in parliament: "We will not let this venerable body be called rats.
1662. 3:01:33If you do, even if the one who does it is the son-in-law of a very exalted person, they will grab him by the ear and stuff him into a rat hole."
1663. 3:01:42The spring air had once again been overshadowed by clouds of fury.
1664. 3:01:47Perhaps the reason Menderes got so angry was that the article had a large share of truth.
1665. 3:01:53The DP parliamentary group was truly like a bomb ready to explode.
1666. 3:01:57The main cause of the tension was rumours of corruption about ministers that had spread among the public.
1667. 3:02:03Some young deputies who came to parliament in the 1954 election were closer to the people.
1668. 3:02:09They could gauge the reaction. Thereupon in spring 1955 eleven deputies submitted a motion to parliament demanding the right of proof.
1669. 3:02:19Under the existing laws, if a corruption allegation raised in the press about a minister went to court, in the hearing the press
1670. 3:02:27was not granted the right to prove what it had written. Now the "provers," led by Fethi Çelikbaş, demanded that this provision be changed and that if there was corruption, it could be proven before the court.
1671. 3:02:37The right of proof, which came onto the agenda as an innocent legal demand, suddenly acquired a political content and
1672. 3:02:46lit the fuse of the group. The group wanted the armour of immunity that covered up corruption to be torn.
1673. 3:02:52The minister in the crosshairs was the state minister responsible for press relations, Mükerrem Sarol.
1674. 3:02:57But Menderes opposed the right of proof. He thought that if this right were granted, slander would never end.
1675. 3:03:04He summoned the deputies who had submitted the motion and asked them to withdraw the text.
1676. 3:03:08"We did not withdraw it, we submitted it to parliament. But apart from the 11 friends, the other deputies who signed this text were expelled from the party."
1677. 3:03:20"The friends were saddened. 'Don't make us sad,' he said. We said we'd resign too."
1678. 3:03:24"In the end we too finally resigned."
1679. 3:03:29The 19 deputies who left founded the Freedom Party.
1680. 3:03:32The DP had taken a serious wound. The motion was gone but the fight was not over.
1681. 3:03:37The right-of-proof issue became the banner of the opposition within the DP.
1682. 3:03:42The fuse had been lit. Complaints suddenly began to rain down.
1683. 3:03:45The country had experienced a severe drought in 1954.
1684. 3:03:49Turkey, which had entered the world rankings in wheat production a year earlier, was forced that year to buy wheat from America.
1685. 3:03:56When foreign credit could not be obtained either, foreign exchange dwindled. Imports were restricted.
1686. 3:04:00Thereupon shortages of goods appeared. Investments begun one after another came to a standstill.
1687. 3:04:07Glass could not be found for construction. There was cheese but it could not be sold because there were no tins.
1688. 3:04:11There was no medicine. The black market had run rampant. The market was in a state of panic.
1689. 3:04:17The DP government had come to the brink of losing in a single day everything it had built in its first four years.
1690. 3:04:22The group was already on edge. An incident that broke out in İstanbul caused complete panic.
1691. 3:04:35That day Bayar and Menderes were at the Park Hotel in İstanbul.
1692. 3:04:39Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, meanwhile, was in London.
1693. 3:04:41The government had for the first time taken up the Cyprus question, turned it into a national cause, and begun negotiations.
1694. 3:04:48But the talks in London had deadlocked. Zorlu saw no remedy other than freezing the problem for five years.
1695. 3:04:55But a report in the İstanbul Ekspres newspaper that appeared on the morning of 6 September changed everything.
1696. 3:05:01The report claimed that a bomb had been thrown at Atatürk's house in Salonica and that the house had been destroyed by Greeks.
1697. 3:05:06The report was not true, but no one felt any need to investigate.
1698. 3:05:11While in London Zorlu was putting this matter on the table as a trump card against the Greek side, in İstanbul university students
1699. 3:05:18organised a demonstration with the "Cyprus is Turkish" association. In the late afternoon, as Menderes and Bayar were being driven to Haydarpaşa Station to return to Ankara, the course of the demonstrations suddenly
1700. 3:05:28changed. Thousands of people flowing from İstanbul's outskirts onto İstiklal Avenue began attacking shops in Beyoğlu belonging to minorities.
1701. 3:05:37It was as though a hidden hand had suddenly poured the masses into the streets.
1702. 3:05:42Within a few hours Beyoğlu became unrecognisable.
1703. 3:05:45There was no place left unlooted; attacks on churches had begun.
1704. 3:05:49On learning of the events in Ankara, Mükerrem Sarol immediately telephoned the İstanbul Governorate.
1705. 3:05:53Governor Fahrettin Kerim Gökay came to the phone. "Mr. Governor," I said, so that he would grasp the seriousness,
1706. 3:06:00"While İstanbul is being wrecked and burned, how can your conscience allow you to sit there in the security the police provide you?
1707. 3:06:07Isn't that a shame?" I said. "This is a great catastrophe.
1708. 3:06:13A national catastrophe." "I have the Interior Minister beside me; I'll put him on," he said.
1709. 3:06:17He handed the phone to Namık. Namık said: "It's not any national catastrophe," he said.
1710. 3:06:25"This is a national revolt. The national rising of the youth." "Namık," I said, "I am very saddened to hear this from you.
1711. 3:06:33This is truly a national catastrophe. In the whole of İstanbul there is no state, no security, no safety of life, no safety of property.
1712. 3:06:42They are looting shops in Beyoğlu and you call this the national rising of the youth."
1713. 3:06:53Shortly afterwards the events in İstanbul were intervened in with tanks.
1714. 3:06:56It was far too late; everything, beginning with Turkey's reputation, had been razed to the ground.
1715. 3:07:01At that moment Prime Minister Menderes, at the train station, received a telephone call.
1716. 3:07:05Fatin Rüştü Zorlu was calling from London and proposed suspending the Cyprus question for five years.
1717. 3:07:12Menderes took the phone; "he's saying this," I said, and then he took it too.
1718. 3:07:16Zorlu repeated it to him: "Sir, let's have a moratorium, five years.
1719. 3:07:22We won't pursue this matter at all. Neither we nor Greece."
1720. 3:07:27He suddenly got angry, very angry. "Fatin Bey, what are you saying?" he said.
1721. 3:07:33"This has now become the nation's problem," he said — "has become."
1722. 3:07:39"Because of it İstanbul is burning," he said. "We were going to the train at about nine."
1723. 3:07:46"İstanbul is burning," he said. "I accept neither a moratorium nor anything."
1724. 3:07:51"Drop everything and come," he said. In any case, with these events Turkey was in no state left to defend its new thesis.
1725. 3:07:58All Zorlu's efforts had gone to waste. On his return Ambassador Mahmut Dikerdem was with him.
1726. 3:08:05On that return trip, I'll never forget, on the plane Zorlu, so pensive and of course grieved, I went to him.
1727. 3:08:16"In a single night," he said, "all our effort has... what can I do?" he said.
1728. 3:08:21While Zorlu returned in sorrow, Menderes and Bayar were on the train on the way to Ankara.
1729. 3:08:26But when the events got well and truly out of control, Mükerrem Sarol sent an urgent telegram from Ankara.
1730. 3:08:32He reported the situation and said, "return to İstanbul urgently."
1731. 3:08:35Menderes got off the train at Sapanca and called Sarol.
1732. 3:08:39Menderes telephoned. I explained all of this.
1733. 3:08:42He told me: "Call our fellow ministers — assemble at the Prime Ministry."
1734. 3:08:47"We will declare martial law, we will declare martial law."
1735. 3:08:51"And come to İstanbul tomorrow morning on the first plane."
1736. 3:08:54In the morning we went to İstanbul on the first plane. The moment we set foot at Yeşilköy, the effects of the 6–7 September events had reached there.
1737. 3:09:06By the time we reached the governorate it had spread to the İstanbul side as well.
1738. 3:09:15At the governorate I found Adnan Bey very distraught, very sad, very dejected, very troubled.
1739. 3:09:25Until that day I had never seen him so distraught, his hopes gone.
1740. 3:09:32When Menderes went to Beyoğlu, the place had turned into a battlefield.
1741. 3:09:36İstanbul was unrecognisable. Some people were still picking up useful things among the belongings scattered on the ground.
1742. 3:09:44Governor Gökay resigned that day. Immediately after came the resignation of Interior Minister Namık Gedik, who had described the events in the first moment as an uprising of the national youth.
1743. 3:09:526–7 September were the most troubling two days that not only the DP but the country had experienced in recent years.
1744. 3:10:12The events in İstanbul drove the DP parliamentary group in Ankara into full revolt.
1745. 3:10:16True, the Interior Minister had resigned, Sarol, whose head had been demanded, had gone, and the defenders of the right of proof had broken away from the party — but the storm
1746. 3:10:25had not died down; on the contrary it had grown. So much so that even a party founder like Fuat Köprülü had begun turning against Menderes.
1747. 3:10:33When Menderes came to parliament that day, the cauldrons of hell had already begun to boil.
1748. 3:10:39I went to parliament on Monday and found it like a volcano.
1749. 3:10:44Everyone who stood up was speaking — complaint after complaint after complaint had come out: how can such a scandal be?
1750. 3:10:49What's going on with these tyres? What's going on with these trucks?
1751. 3:10:53What's going on with all this abuse? Where did this brother-in-law of Polatkan's come from?
1752. 3:10:57Where did Polatkan's mansions come from? The group was overflowing like a cascade.
1753. 3:11:02In four hours 30 deputies took the floor. Each speaker was steeped in shortages and corruption.
1754. 3:11:09Menderes was listening to the group meeting from his room one floor above.
1755. 3:11:13The group had now overcome its fear of Menderes too. Downstairs a kind of Janissary uprising was under way.
1756. 3:11:20Commerce Minister Yırcalı, realising he could not cope, offered his head to this revolt and resigned.
1757. 3:11:26But the group was like a hungry lion. It would not be sated with one sacrifice.
1758. 3:11:30Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan was called to the podium and his resignation demanded.
1759. 3:11:34Polatkan resigned. Then they shouted "Zorlu, resign."
1760. 3:11:38Zorlu too came to the podium and gave his resignation. The mainspring had snapped loose.
1761. 3:11:43As ministers fell one by one, the group, in the elation of a revolutionary tribunal, chanted "resign, resign" in rhythm.
1762. 3:11:51The group members met these resignations with applause.
1763. 3:12:01They had reached the point of having dissolved the government.
1764. 3:12:07In this situation the prime minister proposed that the parliamentary group give a recess so that the cabinet could hold a meeting.
1765. 3:12:24And upstairs, on the upper floor of parliament I think,
1766. 3:12:33the Council of Ministers, meeting in the room of Speaker Koraltan,
1767. 3:12:42held a deliberation of five to ten minutes.
1768. 3:12:48Menderes was extraordinarily agitated. He was even somewhat panicked.
1769. 3:12:54Faced with the group's unexpected agitation. He was extraordinarily agitated.
1770. 3:13:00He was sad, of course. At that meeting all the ministers handed Menderes their resignations.
1771. 3:13:05The cabinet had collapsed. The prime minister had Bayar telephoned to report his resignation.
1772. 3:13:11But in the group, a new formula for solving this crisis was about to take shape at that moment.
1773. 3:13:16"Downstairs I'm talking with some colleagues. I say: 'Hey, 15 days ago you split your palms clapping, Menderes, Menderes.
1774. 3:13:23Menderes has been abroad for 15 days, and in fact for 15 days now.
1775. 3:13:26Did these scandals, these farces, happen within 15 days?
1776. 3:13:30Has your tongue only now come loose? Shame on you, I say.
1777. 3:13:33"We're not saying this to Menderes. Who are you saying it to?"
1778. 3:13:36"To the unqualified. May I tell Menderes this idea of yours?" I say.
1779. 3:13:40"Of course," they say. "We are pleased with Menderes," they say.
1780. 3:13:42When I got this authority, this mandate, I bolted upstairs like the wind.
1781. 3:13:51"Boss," I say, "where are you going? You are not an ordinary prime minister.
1782. 3:13:55You are not an ordinary party chairman. You are a man who has taken the destiny of this country in hand.
1783. 3:14:01You are the chairman of this party. Besides, the People's Party is outside.
1784. 3:14:05It is waiting for you to stumble, for the tripping-up thrown at you to topple you.
1785. 3:14:11The nation watches you. You owe a debt to the nation.
1786. 3:14:14You can't leave. Go downstairs and personally request a vote of confidence,› I say.
1787. 3:14:17"Personally." This formula would later enter the literature as the Sarol formula.
1788. 3:14:24A little later Menderes mounted the podium like a defeated commander who had lost his army in a calamitous war.
1789. 3:14:31They listened like a hunter who had struck down his prey and made it kneel.
1790. 3:14:34Finally Adnan Bey spoke: "I am surrendering my political fate to you.
1791. 3:14:39You are a body representing sovereignty, the sovereignty of the nation."
1792. 3:14:43He said that line there for the first time: "You can even bring back the caliphate."
1793. 3:14:48It was a remark that slipped from his mouth under the influence of excitement, too much excitement, and a little panic.
1794. 3:14:55The group approved this formula in excitement. The ship had sunk, but its captain had managed to reach shore.
1795. 3:15:01Menderes's political career had returned from the dead.
1796. 3:15:05Bayar gave Menderes the task of forming a cabinet again.
1797. 3:15:09The prime minister could form his new government only in ten days.
1798. 3:15:13It is a period in which I saw my late father very absent-minded, pensive and sad.
1799. 3:15:20He generally stayed at home and did not go out much.
1800. 3:15:25I mostly recall Mükerrem Bey at that time.
1801. 3:15:30There may perhaps be a few more names. But in '55, while he was forming the new government, that he was lost in thought,
1802. 3:15:43very pensive and sad, with that look on his face, his presence at home — is before my eyes now as if it were yesterday,
1803. 3:15:53in your question too. Menderes was exactly halfway along the road.
1804. 3:16:00Either he would leave in this fury, or he would make the imposed concessions, abandon his ministers, his closest friends,
1805. 3:16:07and continue on his way. He chose the second. The ministers the group had toppled were not taken into the cabinet, and were also subjected
1806. 3:16:14to investigation. Mükerrem Sarol, who saved Menderes with the formula he found, was expelled from the DP.
1807. 3:16:19Some time later Fuat Köprülü resigned from the party he had founded, accusing Menderes heavily.
1808. 3:16:24The DP's other two founders, Bayar and Koraltan, were aware that things were heading toward the abyss.
1809. 3:16:31In 1955–56, in our modest house in the Kalender [district] — Bayar had come as a guest.
1810. 3:16:42"We want to talk," they said, and all of us withdrew.
1811. 3:16:45That day, as I was again bringing and taking tea and coffee, a sentence or two caught my ear
1812. 3:16:53— "We are heading at great speed toward the abyss," Bayar said to me.
1813. 3:17:01I remember it very well. And Bayar, "what shall we do, what will we do," they spoke like that.
1814. 3:17:10The rider of Demirkırat was now alone.
1815. 3:17:16He had sacrificed his cabinet at a wolves' table, and thereby saved himself.
1816. 3:17:19In the midst of a rebellious group, a lost cabinet, an anxious president, and a seething army, he was advancing utterly alone toward an unknown
1817. 3:17:28target. 1957–60 would be the hardest years of a weary government.
1818. 3:17:42Looking today from beyond history at the turmoil of the fifties, it is hard not to feel sad.
1819. 3:17:48Even knowing the end of the story, one wants something to happen, for mistakes to be noticed, for a common ground to be reached, and for the accident that says "I'm coming" to be prevented.
1820. 3:17:58But in vain: today, after the accident, all we can do is look at its causes and draw lessons.
1821. 3:18:05From the mid-1950s onward, the democracy that had earlier been knitted stitch by stitch with so much labour began to unravel, stitch by stitch,
1822. 3:18:13The hopeful period was now behind.
1823. 3:18:17It was replaced by a tense, truculent atmosphere in clouds of dust and smoke.
1824. 3:18:21The government had chosen pressure and harshness over conciliation.
1825. 3:18:43The countdown in fact began with Menderes's Gaziantep rally.
1826. 3:18:47The prime minister launched his new strategy of attack there.
1827. 3:18:51He lashed out at the opposition and the press. He said some communist groups were on the move.
1828. 3:18:56And he announced that if the existing laws were not enough to end these revolutionary methods, they would bring new laws.
1829. 3:19:03The laws Menderes mentioned there began to rain down one after another a few weeks later.
1830. 3:19:09First 23 judges were sent into retirement by a single order.
1831. 3:19:13Among them were the president of the Council of State and the chief public prosecutor of the Republic.
1832. 3:19:17Immediately after, the press law was passed. Most of the newspapers that had given the DP great support before 1950 had now become the voice of the opposition.
1833. 3:19:26With one law, publications that would invite ill thoughts about officials were banned.
1834. 3:19:32Every piece of news could fall under this definition. Indeed, before long the newspapers felt the breath of the law on their necks.
1835. 3:19:39For instance, we would criticise the municipality: there is no water. And truly that day water did not flow in the city.
1836. 3:19:45A rebuttal would come: there is water. We had published a photograph.
1837. 3:19:51People lining up with buckets at a fountain for water.
1838. 3:19:56Because water wasn't reaching homes; it reached some fountains.
1839. 3:19:59In the rebuttal, instead of that photo, a picture of a tap with water flowing.
1840. 3:20:06Whether such a running tap had been photographed earlier or what, who knows.
1841. 3:20:09One day it happened that all these rebuttals came together in one day.
1842. 3:20:15We were hit by a stream of rebuttals covering almost every place on our front page.
1843. 3:20:22We were obliged to publish them. And we published them, putting them where they belonged.
1844. 3:20:29We would report from the front page: some events are happening in Turkey and the world.
1845. 3:20:33On top of that we said: we moved our front page to our last page.
1846. 3:20:37The front page was filled almost entirely with rebuttals.
1847. 3:20:41The back page became the front page. Under the new law penalties were also being made heavier.
1848. 3:20:46In the last four years 238 journalists had already been convicted.
1849. 3:20:50After the law was passed, İnönü's son-in-law Metin Toker also joined this caravan.
1850. 3:20:55Behind the bars of Ankara prison there were now more journalists than in a newspaper bureau.
1851. 3:21:02Finally the last attack order was given against the opposition.
1852. 3:21:05Twenty days after the press law, the law on assemblies and demonstration marches was passed.
1853. 3:21:10Now every protest demonstration would be deemed a crime and fire could be opened to disperse it without any target being indicated.
1854. 3:21:18The streets were being closed to the opposition. The law's first victim was the CHP's much-travelling secretary-general Kasım Gülek.
1855. 3:21:26"I decided to myself that we could leave this unestablished [i.e., let it go].
1856. 3:21:33In spite of everything we would still hold meetings. We would still grow strong among the people.
1857. 3:21:42And I set out. I first went to Zonguldak. In Zonguldak the people of course were excited.
1858. 3:21:49A tremendous crowd had come. We got off the ferry.
1859. 3:21:55I'm going by car. They stopped the car. Someone came.
1860. 3:22:01"I am the chief of police," he said. "I am arresting you."
1861. 3:22:05"I don't know that you are the chief of police," I said. "Do you have identification in your pocket?" I said.
1862. 3:22:10He felt in his pocket. Nothing. "Show it," I said. It doesn't come aboard the ferry, of course.
1863. 3:22:19After that, on the ferry, of course, at the quay, the chief of police
1864. 3:22:27came in his official uniform. And the opposition's secretary-general Kasım Gülek was arrested.
1865. 3:22:36The sentence for the Black Sea tour was six months. The government was showing it was not joking.
1866. 3:22:41The CHP was under heavy pressure. Menderes seemed to be avenging the pain he had suffered while in opposition.
1867. 3:22:48İsmet Sezgin, then mayor of Aydın, still remembers being scolded by the prime minister for allocating the municipal building in Aydın to the CHP for its congress.
1868. 3:23:00"Mr. Mayor," he said, "why did you give the hall to the CHP for their congress?" "Sir," I said,
1869. 3:23:11"we held our congress there, you yourself spoke there as prime minister." "I am prime minister, I speak," he said. "Mr. Mayor," he said,
1870. 3:23:19"don't you know that in Aydın they didn't give us a hall to hold a congress?"
1871. 3:23:29"They didn't give us cinemas. We held our congress in donkey stables. Do you know what our closed-hall meetings were like?
1872. 3:23:38For example, we have a congress in Çarşamba; we've rented a cinema; all the windows of the cinema,
1873. 3:23:48every place that lets in light is shut, the doors are shut,
1874. 3:23:58let alone letting light out, so that no sound is heard what is said is shut in everywhere — but into a room, if you put a cat
1875. 3:24:10and take a stick in your hand and walk toward the cat saying "I'll beat it,"
1876. 3:24:19and strike, that cat will hurl itself at that wall, throw itself at this wall, then turn
1877. 3:24:28and leap at the face of the man with the stick in his hand, at his head, and leave her claws
1878. 3:24:38raking the face of that man. That was the Republican People's Party's situation.
1879. 3:24:44In fact the other opposition parties were in the same situation.
1880. 3:24:47At the tip of the cannon was the leader of the Republican Nation Party, Osman Bölükbaşı.
1881. 3:24:52Bölükbaşı's immunity was lifted, and he was then arrested on the grounds that he insulted parliament.
1882. 3:24:58While the opposition was reeling from this onslaught, a heavy gun from inside the DP virtually pointed the way for them.
1883. 3:25:05The Democrat Party's founder Fuat Köprülü resigned, saying he no longer recognised the party he had founded.
1884. 3:25:11Moreover, on leaving he issued a statement that it was a debt to the homeland for everyone to cooperate to topple Menderes.
1885. 3:25:20The word "cooperation" set the agenda of those days.
1886. 3:25:24Menderes had brought the elections forward without putting into effect the economic stabilisation measures he had planned.
1887. 3:25:30For the opposition there was now no choice but to unite its forces.
1888. 3:25:34In that period the opposition too had three heads: İnönü's Republican People's Party, Bölükbaşı's CMP, and Karaosmanoğlu's Freedom Party.
1889. 3:25:43In the summer of 1957 the three leaders met at İnönü's house on Heybeliada and set a joint election strategy.
1890. 3:25:49In fact the three parties did not trust one another much, but this appearance of a coalition disturbed the DP.
1891. 3:25:55Months of cooperation efforts were wrecked by an election law passed in a single day.
1892. 3:26:13History books write that the 1957 election campaign was the harshest political struggle in the history of the Republic.
1893. 3:26:20For the CHP it was a fight for existence, for the DP a fight of life and death.
1894. 3:26:24The rising tension almost dragged the country into upheaval because of the DP.
1895. 3:26:28Menderes delivered the campaign's heaviest speech in Trabzon.
1896. 3:26:32"İsmet Pasha is ill," he said. "The name of his illness is the disease of power."
1897. 3:26:38The Pasha replied immediately: "If the DP has a chance, my health too will be favoured with withdrawing."
1898. 3:26:44"I will be the only man who will defend them in the future."
1899. 3:26:47At the end of this extremely violent campaign, people went to the polls on 27 October 1957.
1900. 3:26:53The Democrat Party government was entering its second examination.
1901. 3:26:58That night I was with İsmet Pasha at the party headquarters.
1902. 3:27:06At first a hopeful air blew. Announcing election results on the radio throughout Turkey is forbidden until polling hours end.
1903. 3:27:17But from 2 o'clock the radio begins announcing results from places the Democrat Party won.
1904. 3:27:28This is unacceptable. Because such an air is given that it seems the Democrat Party is winning everywhere.
1905. 3:27:35It creates an air among those who haven't yet voted that "look, the Democrat Party is winning."
1906. 3:27:43Complaints come to İnönü.
1907. 3:27:47At that time the person responsible for the radio, Tadir Üçüzoğlu — they telephone Tadir Üçüzoğlu,
1908. 3:27:57"be careful," he says, "cut this broadcast immediately"; the other says "I'll cut it, I won't cut it"; after a while it is cut.
1909. 3:28:04Before the election night we still thought the opposition, the Republican People's Party, would win,
1910. 3:28:14we hoped, a little, of course, and I was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Yeni Gün; that evening as a precaution
1911. 3:28:25I made a preparation of what we call a "female matrix" [a printing plate].
1912. 3:28:29We sent a huge headline to the plate room — "The nation has toppled the DP" — and it came back in black bold type.
1913. 3:28:39If the result were so, we would publish it; I put it there; and of course I took precautions for the possibility of defeat too, but for that no female matrix
1914. 3:28:48was needed; I had prepared something; of course that female matrix turned out to be of no use.
1915. 3:28:57Toward midnight the news came. In fact the news was not at all bright for the DP.
1916. 3:29:06They had practically turned back from the edge of the abyss; while taking 48% of the votes, the CHP got 41% — in one respect a big increase.
1917. 3:29:15When the other opposition parties were also factored in, the DP was practically in a minority; the CHP's seats in parliament
1918. 3:29:23had risen from 31 to 178. Celal Bey again, with the Democrat Party baton in hand I think,
1919. 3:29:34came to the Prime Ministry; pictures were also taken while he talked with Adnan Bey at the Prime Ministry.
1920. 3:29:43Adnan Bey there was by now so worn out, because "he's gone, he's going, the election was a trial" — "may God never again
1921. 3:29:51let me live such a night," Menderes said. He was truly distressed; his prayer was answered: he never again lived such an election night.
1922. 3:30:09Of course it was a warning: we lost in many places; in some matters there should have been more tolerance; a system change was necessary.
1923. 3:30:20That is, a more conciliatory, more bridging policy between opposition and government would have been more useful.
1924. 3:30:31When the election results were in I go down into the square; the crowd — suddenly — the youth are there too, of course; a bit
1925. 3:30:40I reacted; I said: "Stop, don't come at me, you're applauding — don't applaud. Why are you applauding me? In the previous election
1926. 3:30:48if I'm not mistaken you sent us off with a 60,000-vote margin, now you're sending us off with a 1,500-vote margin — what did I do to you?"
1927. 3:30:57"What have you done with these votes of mine?" An old man said, "Sir, look around and you'll understand." Looking around, what could be seen was largely
1928. 3:31:05scarcity and poverty. The DP, which had come to power promising prosperity and had made the masses smile in its first four years, had begun to clog.
1929. 3:31:13Cut-off credits, mounting debt payments, and a melting foreign-exchange reserve left the economy breathless; national income had fallen,
1930. 3:31:21inflation had risen. After the election Menderes decided on devaluation: the dollar, at 2.80 lira, tripled and rose to 9 lira.
1931. 3:31:30While ordinary people were being crushed under suddenly rising living costs, among the soldiers, who also regarded the Turkish lira as their pride,
1932. 3:31:38this devaluation decision stoked reactions even more. The army too
1933. 3:31:55was now counting the days to revolution. Dozens of juntas big and small were finding opportunities to seize the government. At the joint meeting of the
1934. 3:32:02two major organisations in Ankara and İstanbul, Talat Aydemir had proposed 29 October for the decisive coup; Republic Day was just two days after the elections.
1935. 3:32:12Anyhow the DP would lose the elections but would not want to give up power, and so the intervention would become legitimate.
1936. 3:32:20The scenario was ready: as an armoured unit passed before the tribune of honour, the state dignitaries watching the ceremony would be arrested; but, even if narrowly,
1937. 3:32:29the DP won the election, so this scenario fell through. The organisation was scattered and a commander, a leader, was needed at once. First İsmet Pasha was sought for contact, but
1938. 3:32:40the Pasha refused the meeting. Thereupon the chairman Faruk Güventürk suggested a new name: Defence Minister Şemi Ergin.
1939. 3:32:49At Sezai Okan's headquarters we said: "Friends, we cannot find a leader; there is a Defence Minister known for his closeness to us."
1940. 3:32:59"Let us propose [it] to this Defence Minister. Who will propose?"
1941. 3:33:09"Who will? Since I am your chairman, I —" "Weren't you the chairman?" I said.
1942. 3:33:17"With these affairs I am the chairman," I said; "if we do not succeed I will be hanged." In the last week of 1957
1943. 3:33:31the Ministry of National Defence witnessed an almost unbelievable meeting: a lieutenant colonel [proposing] to the Defence Minister that he overthrow his own government.
1944. 3:33:42Faruk Güventürk had taken precautions against every eventuality: he had strapped his pistol to his waist and placed a jeep at the door; the jeep was waiting at the door.
1945. 3:33:51If he reacted — said "I've got you" and so on — I would openly [declare], and the compulsory revolutionary committee would emerge.
1946. 3:34:00In that case, the gilded door was open; I would carry out the assassination there, go down from there, and drive off by jeep to the forests.
1947. 3:34:10Another guarantee for Güventürk was the Defence Minister's aide-de-camp Adnan Çelikoğlu, who had arranged the meeting and was holding the door.
1948. 3:34:18Çelikoğlu too was an organisation member. "I'm around, but I don't talk with Şemi Bey, because what I say I always say [openly]
1949. 3:34:26so that there might be some influences beyond what I say we put Güventürk in between; Güventürk went in.
1950. 3:34:34He went in and said: "I wish to make some submissions to you about the armed forces. You are very close to the armed forces,
1951. 3:34:43we love you very much too. Before you flows a River of History, and you are looking at this River of History.
1952. 3:34:53You can take upon yourself the honour and glory of this River of History. Come," I said.
1953. 3:35:03"Be our chief, be our leader; we want to be rid of this government."
1954. 3:35:12He said to me: "Faruk Bey, you are quite right, right in everything.
1955. 3:35:20But I am a small-town lawyer; my character is not suited to this.
1956. 3:35:31So do whatever you wish," he said. After Şemi Ergin said "do as you wish" to the organisation,
1957. 3:35:40Şemi Ergin flew to İstanbul to Menderes. At the same hours as he was discussing revolution with Güventürk at the ministry, in İstanbul
1958. 3:35:48a major named Samet Kuşçu had already sent word to Menderes, denouncing a revolution preparation. In the nine-person list Kuşçu gave as "revolutionaries,"
1959. 3:35:58Faruk Güventürk's name was also there. Learning of the revolution preparation, the government immediately convened a crisis table under Bayar's chairmanship.
1960. 3:36:07The prime minister took it up and said: "Yes, an
1961. 3:36:15attempted coup has been detected. We have taken the necessary measures; we are deepening the matter,
1962. 3:36:25we are going down to its full depth, and the necessary offenders will be caught and the necessary punishment will be given," he said.
1963. 3:36:35Defence Minister Şemi Ergin said at this meeting that he did not consider such preparation possible, though only a few hours earlier that organisation
1964. 3:36:44had offered him leadership; moreover even the aide-de-camp waiting outside was a member of the organisation he did not take seriously.
1965. 3:36:52Şemi Bey came out after about an hour; Şemi Bey, his face long, when he was so upset he would smoke cigarette after cigarette
1966. 3:37:00and would not speak at all; Şemi Bey wasn't speaking and I called out nothing either; we left, "let's go to the governorate," he said.
1967. 3:37:10"Why are we going to the governorate, we should go to the Park Hotel," I said. "Sir, is something wrong?" With his face so glum, "our Samet," he said,
1968. 3:37:18"had done something, had reported something," he said, "we'll discuss it."
1969. 3:37:23At those hours the arrest order for the organisation's leader Faruk Güventürk had already been communicated to the Polatlı Artillery School; on returning to the school, Güventürk was taken straight to the commander.
1970. 3:37:34I went up and looked: a military judge and the school commander, a colonel, were sitting.
1971. 3:37:44The judge said to me: "Lieutenant colonel, you — the constitution
1972. 3:37:56violation, inciting the army to rebellion and attempting to overthrow the government — we are arresting you," and I was charged.
1973. 3:38:08I said, "what will be the end of this?" He said, "if it is proven, it is the death penalty." "Then there's no problem," he said.
1974. 3:38:17"Now I must get the news to our friends; this Faruk Güventürk has been arrested, no one knows.
1975. 3:38:26In Samet's denunciation no one yet knows anything; the papers aren't writing; no information is given to anyone; if they catch someone suddenly
1976. 3:38:33and ask "come on, who is Faruk Güventürk, who is Samet" and arrest them, we'd go under the arrows; they must be told."
1977. 3:38:41I phoned Zülfü Uğay at Davut Paşa; there was Dündar Seyhan, God rest his soul, whose name comes up often, an important friend
1978. 3:38:50in these affairs he too of course; "Dündar, it's like this, this happened" — we called Güventürk "Makaryos" then,
1979. 3:38:59code name Makaryos: "Güventürk's Makaryos has been caught, tell the friends, let them take precautions accordingly."
1980. 3:39:09The organisation took precautions at once and dispersed, but nine people were arrested; three weeks later the government announced the affair of these nine officers to the public on the radio.
1981. 3:39:17A conspiracy against the government was mentioned; it was especially
1982. 3:39:25stressed that this movement could not be attributed to the Turkish armed forces; yet at the same time Celal Bayar was on tenterhooks; as an old conspirator he had immediately grasped the importance of the event.
1983. 3:39:33He believed swift action was needed; first of all the Defence Minister had to be forced to resign. Bayar assigned the job of persuading Şemi Ergin
1984. 3:39:42to the minister's close friend Muzaffer Kurbanoğlu. "I called Şemi Ergin; I searched a long time, couldn't find him
1985. 3:39:54and when I informed the prime minister it was approaching 18:00; the prime minister told me to give the President
1986. 3:40:03the explanation I had given him and an appointment was arranged for me; I went; the President was in great nervousness
1987. 3:40:13and told me: "Şemi Bey's resignation must be completed today; it must be obtained."
1988. 3:40:23"I have come through these events; the ground beneath us is sliding; we must watch Muzaffer Bey."
1989. 3:40:32The government was in turmoil. The Defence Minister, forced to resign, did not disclose the revolution preparation until the revolution actually came about.
1990. 3:40:41Menderes appointed his closest friend Ethem Menderes to the ministry, trying to close the matter. Finally, after long interrogations, the nine officers
1991. 3:40:50were brought before the court. The judge started harshly: "What is this? You've all followed after Samet.
1992. 3:41:00You're going — what is this all about?" My excitement and
1993. 3:41:08the biggest crime I committed: I said, "Pasha, in my life
1994. 3:41:17I have never been a wagon; I have always lived as a locomotive. If there were such an event — but there isn't — I would be
1995. 3:41:25its locomotive." It was entered into the record at once, and when this statement of mine was read to Celal Bayar in the evening,
1996. 3:41:35he said: "I am a conspirator myself — squeeze him, make him talk" — and I spent 115 days because of this.
1997. 3:41:46There Celal Bayar also says "no — he is the leader; I am a conspirator, he is the leader, make him talk," says Güventürk;
1998. 3:41:55he had let slip that he was the leader. The old conspirator, President Bayar, had also sensed the situation; he insistently wanted the invisible face of the iceberg
1999. 3:42:03to be brought into the open. The President convened the cabinet for a moment, spoke with them, and said: "This matter is serious;
2000. 3:42:10let us dwell on it; don't accept it as only nine officers; these juntas have taken root in İstanbul; across the whole country the army may be riddled;
2001. 3:42:19there are some in Ankara, there are some in Erzurum; they have settled in, a group operating as cells; we will bring them into the open;
2002. 3:42:27we will carry out the necessary legal process; dwell on it seriously," he told the prime minister and the cabinet members. We do not know why the late prime minister
2003. 3:42:38did not want to dwell on this matter: "Doctor," he says, "I worked in this army for seven years, I stayed seven years, I stayed in the struggle
2004. 3:42:48I worked in the office under Ali İhsan Pasha," he says, "you cannot know better than I; we — this belongs to this army as a wound," he says,
2005. 3:42:56"an appendage belonging to the army; making a move that evokes the possibility of spreading it and letting it infect all Turkish armies would be a mistake."
2006. 3:43:05They themselves put it off, acted among themselves; after a six-month trial the nine officers were acquitted;
2007. 3:43:11only the informing major, Samet Kuşçu, was sentenced to two years for inciting the army to rebellion; the incident was closed. Despite all of Bayar's warnings, Menderes
2008. 3:43:22insisted on not going after the army and stopped his ears to the footsteps of the approaching intervention; but only a few months later
2009. 3:43:29another sound of intervention, heard from afar, would convince Menderes of the seriousness of the matter. That hot July morning
2010. 3:43:44a major welcoming ceremony had been arranged at the airport; President Bayar, with Prime Minister Menderes, for the Baghdad Pact meeting
2011. 3:43:51were waiting for the plane from Iraq; the plane would bring Turkey's favourite ally of those days, Iraq's young King Faisal
2012. 3:43:59and Prime Minister Nuri Said; but the expected plane just wouldn't appear; a little later, instead of the plane, came news of disaster.
2013. 3:44:08There had been a coup in Iraq, and the expected king and prime minister had been brutally killed by coup officers and the people.
2014. 3:44:15Those waiting at the airport, Menderes especially, were shocked. The coup in Iraq had importance in two respects for the Turkey of those days.
2015. 3:44:23First, in Turkey too some officers had been caught preparing a coup; this event gave the Turkish leadership a very serious example.
2016. 3:44:32The second reason was the Baghdad Pact: the Pact, of which Iran and Pakistan were also members, represented a mission Turkey had undertaken on behalf of the West against the rising Nasser movement
2017. 3:44:39in the Middle East; Iraq was Turkey's most important pillar for the Pact.
2018. 3:44:46Now this pillar was being pulled from under Turkey; there was panic not only in Turkey but throughout the Middle East; one of the most anxious was
2019. 3:44:55King Hussein of Jordan, and the King of Jordan summoned me that morning and said: "If Iraq is lost, I too am lost —
2020. 3:45:07I cannot live — that is, Jordan cannot live — in its sense, and together with Turkey
2021. 3:45:17to march on Iraq, on the new regime, because at the time this event was taking place in İstanbul
2022. 3:45:28there was to be a meeting — the Baghdad Pact meeting — and heads of state were to be received in İstanbul; and the three leaders
2023. 3:45:37Bayar, the Shah and the Pakistani president moved to Ankara; there they began
2024. 3:45:45to monitor the situation; King Hussein's proposal was conveyed to the president at that time through me.
2025. 3:45:56When the Baghdad Pact meeting began in Ankara, Baghdad was no longer in the organisation bearing its name; like King Hussein,
2026. 3:46:03Menderes too had at first thought of a military intervention in Iraq, but the conference produced only a condemnation resolution; Britain and America recognised the new regime.
2027. 3:46:13This coup effectively ended the Baghdad Pact and the DP's Middle East policy. The tanks that stormed the Iraqi palace had deep effects both on Turkish foreign policy
2028. 3:46:22and in the prime minister's inner world. What happened to his friends and acquaintances
2029. 3:46:31I think had a very battering effect on Adnan Menderes's psyche, on his nervous system.
2030. 3:46:40Where do I deduce this from? For the first time in Turkey, at the end of that summer, the gallows
2031. 3:46:50were mentioned: at the DP's first Balıkesir congress, Menderes suddenly worked himself up
2032. 3:47:00and became unrecognisable; our journalist boys who followed the congress told me this;
2033. 3:47:08we wrote it too; Mükerrem Sarol had called it "a state of trance" for Menderes — this was now beyond trance,
2034. 3:47:18completely beside himself; ours even wrote "Dr. Jekyll has gone, Mr. Hyde has come."
2035. 3:47:26In that speech Menderes said these things: citing Iraq as an example, "Won't some vagabond emerge to kill them?" they say.
2036. 3:47:35"We sense this sinister aim of theirs. At one time even assassinations were plotted against Atatürk, but those who dared this"
2037. 3:47:45let them remember that they gave their lives on the gallows." The Republican People's Party's
2038. 3:47:5714th Grand Congress became a turning point in the party's life; for the first time at that congress the CHP stopped defending and went on the attack.
2039. 3:48:05A few months earlier the Freedom Party's joining the CHP had tightened the opposition ranks considerably.
2040. 3:48:13It was the opposition's turn to attack; what remained was pointing out the target. At that congress the CHP accepted, with marches sung and in tears, the text
2041. 3:48:22called the Declaration of First Goals. This 10-article declaration was virtually a draft constitution.
2042. 3:48:31The party wanted an impartial head of state, judicial guarantees, a constitutional court, press freedom, democratic laws, private universities and a second chamber.
2043. 3:48:42All the goals listed there would make up the acts of the administration established after 27 May.
2044. 3:48:50With the Declaration of First Goals the CHP revealed what kind of regime, administration and government it would establish.
2045. 3:48:59It set out its principles, but slowly in the country the worry that this could not be ended by election, that it would not be allowed,
2046. 3:49:10that is, that the government would not accept leaving power through an election, slowly, heavily began to make itself felt.
2047. 3:49:20What was the alternative? Of course a military coup, or a popular rule — certainly a change not at the ballot box.
2048. 3:49:30Then the Republican People's Party, with the Declaration of First Goals, in one way or another
2049. 3:49:39was giving a plan to those who would take over the administration.
2050. 3:49:45Menderes answered the opposition's quest for unity of forces with the Fatherland Front; and front hearths began sprouting like mushrooms all over the country.
2051. 3:49:55The DP gathered volunteers close to the party in these hearths and formed a bloc under one name; the radios every day for hours
2052. 3:50:04announced the names of the esteemed citizens who joined the Fatherland Front; these bulletins, that is, the bulletins containing the names,
2053. 3:50:13came from the Anatolian Agency together with the news bulletins, as text, and in that period for the radio
2054. 3:50:21a cyclist would bring both the news bulletins and these lists, and roughly thirty seconds before broadcast, sometimes just as the broadcast began,
2055. 3:50:31that is, as the news bulletin was starting, they were thrust into the announcer's hand; and above all these news items
2056. 3:50:39and lists, the Fatherland Front lists, Can Okan would read; and one day, being so fed up with reading these names,
2057. 3:50:48on air he read my name too, as if I had joined the Democrat Party; and the announcer on duty at that moment, Jülide Gülizar's
2058. 3:50:57name was read too; we were both listening of course, and suddenly we were startled, and I waited very curiously to see what the reaction to this would be;
2059. 3:51:06no reaction came at all, because the names counted out there had no significance; I think across all Turkey the public
2060. 3:51:15knew it as well, and surely nobody believed that so many people had gone over to the Fatherland Front.
2061. 3:51:23By now the matter had left political struggle; a blood feud was being pursued; the opposition truculent, the government tired, nerves strained,
2062. 3:51:32cadres divided into fronts were dragging the country neck and neck toward a catastrophe; the grounds and justifications for intervention were ready;
2063. 3:51:39the country had come to the brink of a bloody clash; Menderes was nearing the end of the road.
2064. 3:51:45Now there were two important words in Turkish political literature: revolution and gallows. Whoever opened his mouth spoke of revolution and the gallows.
2065. 3:51:54(Even as they were spoken of,) the revolution was a year and a half away, and the erection of the gallows three years.
2066. 3:52:00But a wholly unexpected event made both the gallows and the revolution forgotten.
2067. 3:52:06It changed the course of Menderes and of Turkey.
2068. 3:52:09On 17 February 1959 Menderes was going to England to complete the London–Zürich agreements that founded the Republic of Cyprus,
2069. 3:52:18when suddenly a storm broke out and the prime minister's plane went down.
2070. 3:52:22"Pure white, we see nothing. After that only I saw —
2071. 3:52:30as we were going in, I looked there: the tops of trees, the tips of pine trees.
2072. 3:52:39From the cloud layer the top showed through — that is, we were descending onto that wooded place.
2073. 3:52:48Eh, he couldn't hit it; the late chief pilot landed us in the forest as if it were the airfield; he landed us in the forest.
2074. 3:52:56A piloting error, piloting error — crash, bang — breaking the branches of the trees
2075. 3:53:04we came down, came down, slid along the ground like a torpedo, then stopped.
2076. 3:53:12At that time we found a way; a hole or something opened up; we pushed ourselves from the side
2077. 3:53:21and got out; the late — and I jumped from behind, jumped from the tail, from the tail;
2078. 3:53:29he was sitting at the back with the deputies; I was more in the middle, in front; I went straight to him.
2079. 3:53:38"Sit by a tree," I said — perhaps something had happened to his spine, keep still, that kind of thing.
2080. 3:53:46There wasn't much; in front there was a little wound, torn here and there, but I understood
2081. 3:53:55that there were no great fractures; but as a precaution I said "sit" — it affected him greatly, poor man; "look at this state of ours — a tragedy," he said; because he used the word "tragedy"
2082. 3:54:04the friends were in distress. The prime minister was immediately taken for treatment at a London clinic; in the accident, among them
2083. 3:54:13the Minister of Tourism, an Eskişehir deputy, general managers, journalists and the flight crew, fourteen people had died.
2084. 3:54:20Menderes had managed, by great luck, to survive lightly wounded; the news exploded in Turkey like a bomb; troubles, inflation,
2085. 3:54:29the Fatherland Front, the revolution — all would be forgotten; Turkey prepared a magnificent welcome for its Prime Minister.
2086. 3:54:36Our esteemed Prime Minister appeared at the door of the plane surrounded by five or three people; the area around the plane was suddenly in uproar; this immense gathering of citizens
2087. 3:54:44was in the excitement and haste of embracing its precious and dear prime minister as soon as possible; our prime minister
2088. 3:54:58was shaking the hands, one by one, of those who came to welcome him and could advance only with difficulty; boarding a car with difficulty, our prime minister
2089. 3:55:05left the square amid the cheers of hundreds of thousands of citizens. On a snowy Saturday morning as Menderes's train approached Ankara,
2090. 3:55:11there was extraordinary excitement at the station; Bayar and İnönü, together with all the state dignitaries, had come to welcome him.
2091. 3:55:20The people, eyes on the train, wanted to break the police cordon and meet our prime minister on the platform; the train entered the platform;
2092. 3:55:32the locomotive decked with flowers and flags, all eyes seeking our prime minister; above, our prime minister Adnan Menderes
2093. 3:55:41trying to open his way among those greeting him with excitement and smiling faces.
2094. 3:56:28My mother and I welcomed my late father at Ankara Station; we —
2095. 3:56:39were standing with our backs toward Istanbul, my mother and I; facing us stood İsmet Pasha and Kasım Gülek.
2096. 3:56:49The train was to stop at that point, but the driver couldn't stop it and it slid a little further; I suppose it was said
2097. 3:57:01to my late father "İsmet Pasha is here too," and in the crowd there was a tendency, always turning toward the side where he was.
2098. 3:57:12As they took him away, I think he was extremely pleased and moved; Celal Bey pretended not to see İsmet Pasha;
2099. 3:57:20but Adnan Menderes saw him, came over, İsmet Pasha went to him too and said he was very sorry;
2100. 3:57:29wishes of recovery were offered, condolences for the dead; Adnan Menderes was greatly moved.
2101. 3:57:39"You have honoured me," he said, "you took the trouble, my Pasha," he said, "thank you very much."
2102. 3:57:42After so much tension, this warmth turned that snowy winter day into a sunny spring; Menderes had been practically reborn.
2103. 3:57:51He had both mended his relations with the opposition and regained the masses' love; that day the road from the station to Çankaya
2104. 3:57:59was lined on both sides with tens of thousands of people; but when the road ended and
2105. 3:58:39Bayar and Menderes withdrew with close friends to the mansion to talk, the prime minister met a proposal he had not at all expected;
2106. 3:58:47it was being advised that, for his health, he rest abroad. He said to me:
2107. 3:58:55"Some friends say that I should rest for three months, not here but abroad; that's completely wrong," I said.
2108. 3:59:04"Those are intrigue games; to get rid of the sultan they either issue a fatwa or stage a raid — it's an action just like that.
2109. 3:59:12Absolutely." After the London plane crash, Adnan Menderes's
2110. 3:59:21staying abroad for a while to rest was considered in certain circles in Ankara;
2111. 3:59:29one of these circles, perhaps the most important, was the Presidency;
2112. 3:59:39and had that idea been realised, at least for a temporary period
2113. 3:59:47a change of government, the appointment of a new prime minister, I suppose would inevitably have had a place in that thinking;
2114. 3:59:55but that day, given his age, his dynamism,
2115. 4:00:04the services he had rendered, his standing in society, the
2116. 4:00:13communication he had established, the unity he formed with the members of that political party,
2117. 4:00:21in neither the group nor the organisation of the Democrat Party was there a political need to find an alternative to a Menderes;
2118. 4:00:32but for the near future — say that in 1960 or in 1961, relative to 1959–1960,
2119. 4:00:42when there would be an election, I suppose it should have been on the agenda of the DP and of Menderes
2120. 4:00:51to form an alternative for the presidency; that the idea was absent
2121. 4:01:00must be interpreted as a deficiency.
2122. 4:01:04While a group inside the DP was making plans to send Menderes abroad and perhaps continue with another prime minister,
2123. 4:01:11Menderes was preparing the opposite strategy.
2124. 4:01:16The political thaw created by the plane crash had to be sustained.
2125. 4:01:20Answering İnönü's gesture at the station with a return visit could open a new chapter in relations.
2126. 4:01:26One of those who made this suggestion to Menderes was Mükerrem Sarol.
2127. 4:01:31"I explained in detail why he should go, why a return visit was necessary; he said the President is not of this view;
2128. 4:01:42the President believes the DP lost prestige because of the interest it showed in İsmet Pasha.
2129. 4:01:50It would have been good for the prime minister to thank the main opposition party leader who came to welcome him that day.
2130. 4:01:58The man I knew, whom I knew as my father, was a man of a nature that would embrace anyone who extended his hand, who shook his hand.
2131. 4:02:06I know he had a personality structure extremely suited to taking such a step.
2132. 4:02:15So I think he himself cannot have been the obstacle to it.
2133. 4:02:23As we said at the very beginning, sometimes a tiny gesture, a hand extended sincerely, a sentence or two from the heart can create wholly unexpected results.
2134. 4:02:32The plane crash was a rare opportunity through which great reconciliations could be created with such small gestures. It could not be made use of.
2135. 4:02:41Menderes did not go to visit the Pasha. İnönü returned to the policy of harshness, put on his boots, and on the very ground where he had won a great military
2136. 4:02:48victory, this time launched a political offensive.
2137. 4:02:53The country was heading into the last year on the road that would lead to 27 May.
2138. 4:02:57After that warm, snowy day at Ankara station, Menderes and İnönü never shook hands again.
2139. 4:03:12Human beings are strange creatures. They rarely look back at where they came from and how far they have come.
2140. 4:03:17The more he is praised and applauded, the more his self-confidence grows, and he thinks that only he knows what is best in everything.
2141. 4:03:23He cannot see, or does not accept, that the time to go, the time for change, has come.
2142. 4:03:27Yet societies are like water boiling on a fire turned all the way up.
2143. 4:03:31As the heat rises, the steam tries to escape. If it finds no hole, it blows the lid off.
2144. 4:03:38This is the best thing about democracies. When the rules of democracy are operated well, they act as a safety valve.
2145. 4:03:44They remove the pressure without blowing the lid. The tragedy of the Democrat Party was that it could not, or did not want to, operate the rules of this democracy, still in its infancy.
2146. 4:03:56With self-confidence swollen by applause, it thought that circles that had tasted freedom — however restricted they were — could be brought into line by harshness and pressure.
2147. 4:04:07In the end matters had slipped out of hand, the train had derailed, the balances had been upset once and for all.
2148. 4:04:13In experienced democracies, things that should least of all be done or even thought of had begun to be done and thought of.
2149. 4:04:19The countdown to the finish line began in the spring of 1959, and for a year the country ran breathlessly toward a revolution saying "I'm coming."
2150. 4:04:29It was virtually democracy's suicide run. In the past, when spring came, a spring atmosphere would also be felt in politics.
2151. 4:04:43But the spring of 1959, by contrast, brought the CHP's spring offensive.
2152. 4:04:49Seeing that after Menderes's plane crash the possibility of dialogue was entirely lost, İsmet Pasha put on his boots in April.
2153. 4:04:55Taking 46 deputies with him, he set out on a campaign.
2154. 4:04:59The route chosen was the route of the great offensive of the War of Independence.
2155. 4:05:03The first stop was Uşak, where the Greek commander-in-chief Trikoupis had been taken prisoner.
2156. 4:05:09The first incident took place in Uşak.
2157. 4:05:14Moreover Uşak was where the Western Front command was located.
2158. 4:05:19That is, İsmet Pasha had commanded the Western Front there during the great offensive.
2159. 4:05:24The people had been poured onto the streets. Sticks, stones — a stone thrown by a small child hit İsmet Pasha's head.
2160. 4:05:32It bled. The first blood of the offensive had been shed. After that, incidents broke out in every province the CHP convoy visited.
2161. 4:05:38One of the most violent attacks took place at Topkapı in İstanbul.
2162. 4:05:42A group of youths rushed the Pasha's car. The car's windows were smashed.
2163. 4:05:47But the most important link in İnönü's chain of eventful trips that year was Kayseri.
2164. 4:05:52Because for the first time in Kayseri the army revealed its stance.
2165. 4:05:55It refused to take part in what was happening. In Kayseri the armed forces treated İnönü not like a political party leader but like a commander.
2166. 4:06:04The army was showing its colours. There too, soldiers had seized a bridge.
2167. 4:06:10They told İsmet Pasha, "you can't cross, there's an order." İsmet Pasha came to the front of the bridge with his hat in his hand.
2168. 4:06:23There was a major there. He said to the major, "Will you make them open fire on me?"
2169. 4:06:30The major said, "Rather than have fire opened on you, I'd put the bullet in my own head."
2170. 4:06:36"Fine then," said İsmet Pasha. He crossed the bridge and went to Yeşilhisar.
2171. 4:06:41All the soldiers were saluting. The name of the major who opened the way for İnönü there was Selahattin Çetiner.
2172. 4:06:47Major Çetiner resigned from the army the next day.
2173. 4:06:49Twenty years later he became Interior Minister in the 12 September cabinet.
2174. 4:06:53In Kayseri İnönü had practically returned to the head of the army.
2175. 4:06:58Soldiers resigning, units not obeying orders, commanders saluting İnönü.
2176. 4:07:02All of this heightened anxieties on the government side.
2177. 4:07:06Was İnönü perhaps preparing a coup hand in hand with the army?
2178. 4:07:11He surely had knowledge of these preparations and these fusions.
2179. 4:07:14Because I know that some of the friends who later took part in the National Unity Committee constantly went to his house and talked with him.
2180. 4:07:23Like everyone he too sensed it: being a soldier, knowing the nature of officers better, and since news that did not reach others also reached his ear,
2181. 4:07:31he knew that such an arrangement was being made.
2182. 4:07:45He did not know names. No one came to him and asked "we're going to make a revolution, what do you say?"
2183. 4:07:56But İsmet Pasha also knew well that when the day came, if he took a position beside them — that is, beside the government —
2184. 4:08:08and a stance like "an intervention was also made against me" — an extremely great
2185. 4:08:17confusion, even bloody events, would flare up, he feared.
2186. 4:08:21So I am a hundred percent sure that İsmet Pasha was not inside these arrangements.
2187. 4:08:30Was he aware of these arrangements? He was aware. Meanwhile the revolutionary organisation inside the armed forces looked, until early 1959, like a scattered underground structure.
2188. 4:08:41Meetings were constantly held, plans were prepared, but no action could be taken.
2189. 4:08:45Because the organisation still had no leader. The revolution was still looking for a head.
2190. 4:08:51The soldier who would later head the revolution was waiting in İzmir, far from all these preparations, in a passive post, for an appointment.
2191. 4:08:58Cemal Gürsel in İzmir was a regional commander.
2192. 4:09:03A post like a regional commander's branch chiefdom.
2193. 4:09:06Or a place like a chief clerkship. That is, a very backward service.
2194. 4:09:09He could not stomach it, given the rank of lieutenant general he carried on his shoulders; it didn't sit well with him.
2195. 4:09:15In the evening he would give a dinner at Kadifekale; he's sitting on my right.
2196. 4:09:19He says, "Mr. Sarol, since you are of military origin, we thought it appropriate to bring to you the soldiers' wounds, pains and problems that can be remedied.
2197. 4:09:29At the head of these is my own trouble.
2198. 4:09:34First find a remedy for me. I am in a post here like a branch chief that constitutes humiliation for me.
2199. 4:09:42What do I do? I have no use apart from playing backgammon and bezique.
2200. 4:09:47Yet I am a man who knows what your government has done, as well as the deputy among you," I say.
2201. 4:09:56And he lists for me, an hour long, our achievements up to that date.
2202. 4:10:03He lists them chronologically. I become very impressed, excited.
2203. 4:10:08I come, I tell the Chief of General Staff Baransel here.
2204. 4:10:15I tell the army commander.
2205. 4:10:21Then I have Menderes sign off on it. We bring that man up in the army.
2206. 4:10:25We make him army commander in Erzurum. We make him Land Forces commander.
2207. 4:10:29Cemal Gürsel's arrival at the Land Forces command was a blessing for the organisation.
2208. 4:10:33True, Cemal Ağa, as he was known in the army, was not a revolutionary soldier.
2209. 4:10:37His only aim was to retire and withdraw to his home in a garden in İzmir.
2210. 4:10:42But the members of the organisation thought they could persuade him more easily.
2211. 4:10:46Cemal Gürsel Pasha was approached on this during a trip to Europe — Germany — on a NATO visit, NATO manoeuvres,
2212. 4:10:56on entry. The staff officer who was then at the Land Forces headquarters, I suppose at that
2213. 4:11:05time a lieutenant colonel, Sadi Koçaş raised the subject.
2214. 4:11:15The Pasha did not agree to participate; he said nothing in the direction of participating.
2215. 4:11:19But he didn't say no either. For the organisation, even that much was enough for now.
2216. 4:11:23In the first stage, all they asked of Gürsel was to appoint some revolutionaries to key points of the army.
2217. 4:11:29This was achieved. Alparslan Türkeş was appointed to the Land Forces General Secretariat Branch Directorate, Suphi Karaman to the General Staff Department, and Osman Köksal
2218. 4:11:38to the Presidential Guard Regiment command.
2219. 4:11:42The organisation had now taken hold of the main corners.
2220. 4:11:45And then we saw that Osman Köksal had come. I said to the President, "Sir, we had done this — he is very close to Ethem Bey,
2221. 4:11:56his most trusted friend. He brought him as his [trusted man]."
2222. 4:12:02"Consequently let us leave it; the responsibility is theirs."
2223. 4:12:06Thus Osman Bey came. The real task of Osman Köksal, who came to head the Guard Regiment, was not to protect the mansion but to take it over on the night of the revolution.
2224. 4:12:16But the organisation had now seized the most critical point as well.
2225. 4:12:19The days to the revolution were being counted. With the government in a bewildered state, the government's harsh policy, the opposition's truculent attitude, conditions were ripening day by day.
2226. 4:12:28After this stage only one thing could stop the revolution.
2227. 4:12:32The decision for an early election. The most magical medicine of democracies, the element that lets societies breathe.
2228. 4:12:38Only through an early election could the course be changed and the tension lowered.
2229. 4:12:44We often talked with the late Adnan Bey. I am of the opinion that there was a need for renewal.
2230. 4:12:51A new confidence. Because there was in general a political unease.
2231. 4:12:59Let's go to an election. Even if the election law needed to be changed at that date, let's do it, I said, and I got in touch with the opposition too.
2232. 4:13:10We were even talking about it informally at a meeting of ours, at the mansion.
2233. 4:13:15Bayar joined us too. When he understood the subject he said, "Personally, I'm — to say it plainly — sixty percent not in favour, forty percent
2234. 4:13:28in favour of holding an election in spring. But if the government wishes it, I am never against that either."
2235. 4:13:34An early election often came onto the agenda. But the President said, "if we go to an election in this atmosphere, surely
2236. 4:13:43blood will be shed. The election squares and ballot boxes will be wrecked.
2237. 4:13:47We will be disgraced before the world, and within ourselves we will cause certain incidents.
2238. 4:13:54Let us calm these matters down and then go to an election."
2239. 4:13:57In the end whatever happened happened, and an early election remained in informal debate.
2240. 4:14:01Parliament was sent on recess. Justice Minister Esat Budakoğlu, who had made all these preparations, resigned on 2 April.
2241. 4:14:07The last chance to keep the democracy in its infancy on its feet had been missed.
2242. 4:14:12Yet with such an election everything could have been put back on track, and the wagon about to topple could have been saved.
2243. 4:14:18The basic rule of democracy had not been operated. Once the arrow leaves the bow, when instead of mutual tolerance, reconciliation and seeking, you slide into punishments, stopping the course
2244. 4:14:30becomes difficult. Silencing the opposition instead of listening to it and taking measures accordingly, hardening instead of calming tension by using the safety valve
2245. 4:14:37on the contrary raises the reaction. The development that sent matters off the rails was the setting up of an investigation committee in parliament.
2246. 4:14:50The DP group had decided to set up an investigation commission on grounds such as that the CHP had built a cell organisation, armed itself, and was preparing a revolt in order to come to power by non-electoral means.
2247. 4:15:04This 15-member commission would serve three months and investigate the activities of the press and the CHP.
2248. 4:15:10Counter-revolutionism had escalated thoroughly.
2249. 4:15:19Partisanship had taken hold and marched on — a party dictatorship, just like that.
2250. 4:15:24The economic conditions complete it. Meanwhile, as it was about to happen, about to happen, the
2251. 4:15:33thing that most spurred the nation, the drop that overflowed the glass as I call it: on top of that the Democrat Party got up and set up an investigation commission.
2252. 4:15:41It went very blindly. That is, it isn't really we who made the revolution.
2253. 4:15:48They made it. As the commission began work, all political activity was banned, and publication of news concerning the commission was also forbidden.
2254. 4:15:56Then, with a law brought in, the commission was given extraordinary powers.
2255. 4:16:01The 15 would try, even punish, the press and the opposition, but there would be no appeal against the decisions they took.
2256. 4:16:09The commission was prosecutor, witness and judge all at once.
2257. 4:16:12This was virtually the CHP's death sentence. That day İnönü gave one of the most important and unforgettable speeches of his political life, concerning this law.
2258. 4:16:21and said, "Friends, when the conditions are complete, revolution is a legitimate right for nations.
2259. 4:16:28If you continue on this path, I will not be able to save you either."
2260. 4:16:33In the parliamentary session where the decision to set up this investigation commission was to be taken, İsmet Pasha, in a way everyone could understand, to the forces that wanted to save
2261. 4:16:46[the country] in another way, but whose aim, indeed whose main aim, was also to return to democracy, even if he did not light the green light,
2262. 4:16:55he lit the yellow light. The forces to which the Pasha lit the yellow light were of course the armed forces.
2263. 4:17:04İnönü was conveying the message: the conditions are complete, now revolution is legitimate.
2264. 4:17:09The news threw parliament into confusion. It exploded like a bomb in the newspaper offices.
2265. 4:17:12"I cannot save you either" was that evening's headline in Ulus newspaper.
2266. 4:17:18We sent the paper to press. One hour, two hours passed during the evening printing.
2267. 4:17:26The policeman we always encountered in our — in the times of newspaper closures —
2268. 4:17:36came to me, Yahya the policeman, with an envelope in his hand.
2269. 4:17:41Policeman Yahya, who had for months been bringing the orders to close Ulus,
2270. 4:17:50our civil-servant friend.
2271. 4:17:55Because of that we knew each other well and were good friends.
2272. 4:18:04I looked: an order to confiscate the newspaper.
2273. 4:18:12Yet the newspaper was being printed inside; we would not be able to distribute it.
2274. 4:18:18"Please go; disappear for two hours. And in two hours, come and collect the newspapers.
2275. 4:18:24We've only just started the new print run anyway." "Şefik abi," he said, and left without a sound.
2276. 4:18:32We kept printing, and meanwhile we sent word by telephone to all our friends, to all CHP members who had cars, to CHP deputies.
2277. 4:18:44To come with their cars to distribute the newspaper.
2278. 4:18:47Some in jackets, some without, some with ties, some without, some with hats, some without.
2279. 4:18:54They came like firemen. Not a single policeman called by until morning.
2280. 4:19:00Loading the newspapers last was of course unplanned. That is, it couldn't be planned well enough.
2281. 4:19:07But as I took all the newspapers with my wet hands from the wire basket and loaded them into the cars, I had to hold most of them by the hand.
2282. 4:19:15"Take what you take, take yours, send the ones after you to Ordu immediately."
2283. 4:19:22Ordu took them night and day. He said, "you send it immediately to Giresun."
2284. 4:19:27Giresun took them; "you send them to Trabzon, send them to Rize."
2285. 4:19:30Right up to Artvin: the next morning even a hundred papers went to Artvin.
2286. 4:19:37They duplicated these newspapers too. In this way, in Turkey alone, these items appeared in the Ulus newspaper dated 19 April.
2287. 4:19:48The commission began work the next day and started its investigations.
2288. 4:19:51Some prominent journalists and CHP deputies were summoned to give statements.
2289. 4:19:56The press was under full control. Political demonstrations were entirely banned.
2290. 4:20:01Against the pressures of the investigation commission, the opposition and the press were developing new techniques of struggle.
2291. 4:20:06The most unforgettable and effective was Çetin Altan's one-line column.
2292. 4:20:11"Today I don't feel like writing, dear." Other papers were publishing photographs and news of how the people in Korea rose up against the dictator.
2293. 4:20:21This Korea comparison got İnönü into trouble in parliament a few days later.
2294. 4:20:26The parliamentary session of 27 April was in itself a session that went entirely off the rails.
2295. 4:20:35Now this law would pass; the opposition, by speaking and resisting, wanted to prevent the law from passing.
2296. 4:20:46It was clear it could not prevent it, but at least it wanted to say its last words.
2297. 4:20:52İnönü's speech was of course a harsh speech.
2298. 4:21:01It was the session in which he uttered the words "The Turkish nation is no less dignified than the Korean nation."
2299. 4:21:08After that the Speaker gave İnönü the penalty of exclusion from parliament for 12 sessions.
2300. 4:21:16The opposition, removed from parliament by police force, was now in the street.
2301. 4:21:19Parliament had been closed to İnönü, the press completely silenced.
2302. 4:21:22As they said "bow," it kept being drawn tighter; the pressure was raised without stopping.
2303. 4:21:26As the last month began, the opposition would now rise from the streets.
2304. 4:21:30The news would be read from the "whisper newspaper." The awaited earthquake had begun.
2305. 4:21:34The earthquake's epicentre was the universities. The signal flare of the revolution was fired on a Thursday morning at Beyazıt in front of İstanbul
2306. 4:21:48University. From the first hours of the morning students began gathering in front of the Atatürk statue.
2307. 4:21:55They were shouting "Down with dictators, we want freedom."
2308. 4:21:59Before long the police intervened. The students were put under cordon.
2309. 4:22:03When the young people did not disperse, fire was opened. One student was killed, 40 people were wounded.
2310. 4:22:08The arrested students were being dragged away.
2311. 4:22:11When the rector Sıddık Sami Onar tried to intervene at that moment, he too was roughed up.
2312. 4:22:17Things had gone thoroughly off the rails. Army units were brought to the university as reinforcement.
2313. 4:22:22It was at that moment that whatever happened happened. The students chanted "Long live the Turkish army."
2314. 4:22:29The soldiers at first hesitated. Then one by one they began embracing the young people.
2315. 4:22:35The slogans suddenly turned into "We are with the army."
2316. 4:22:38The very next day, the same scenes that took place on 28 April, remembered as Bloody Thursday, were experienced in Ankara.
2317. 4:22:45Demonstrations were held in front of the Mülkiye and law faculties.
2318. 4:22:48Martial law had been declared and the universities closed.
2319. 4:22:51When a publication ban was also imposed on the newspapers, the "whisper newspaper" went into action.
2320. 4:22:56News spread that hundreds of young people had been killed in İstanbul and their bodies buried under asphalted roads.
2321. 4:23:02Mülkiye rose up. The police opened fire again. But the soldiers did not.
2322. 4:23:07The tanks were there, but their barrels had begun to turn toward the government.
2323. 4:23:12As the crisis period began, Menderes gradually began to show signs of losing his former self-confidence.
2324. 4:23:29Because at some moments he hesitated; he became angry very quickly.
2325. 4:23:34When the university incidents occurred, he sent Professor Memduh Yaşa, who was then serving at the Prime Ministry.
2326. 4:23:44"Go to the university and have a look." I spoke with the dean.
2327. 4:23:49Everyone was sad, and of course everyone was accusing, blaming.
2328. 4:23:53They were blaming the government. Everyone, half hopeful, half hopeless, wanted a remedy to be found and waited for it.
2329. 4:24:02I phoned his house at once; his house was in Maçka then, in Nişantaşı, on the Maçka road.
2330. 4:24:08I got up and went; I arrived a bit early, below the salon.
2331. 4:24:11He had a bandage on his head, you know — he had taken a serious wound.
2332. 4:24:18But he was very [composed], his morale was good, he was in order.
2333. 4:24:23"I," he said, "lost control over the students."
2334. 4:24:27"Other methods came into play," he said. "Where can we reconcile with the students?"
2335. 4:24:32"It is very hard to cut it off from here on," he said. "So some different measures need to be taken."
2336. 4:24:39"There is great complaint about the police chief and the governor. Let us not act partially," he said.
2337. 4:24:44"Of course I'm not saying let them be tried, but at least let them be removed from duty for a while," he said.
2338. 4:24:51Learning of these things at Çankaya, Bayar was on tenterhooks.
2339. 4:24:54He immediately sent the Chief of General Staff and his aide to İstanbul.
2340. 4:24:56He wanted to find out what was going on. I immediately called Bekir Turgay.
2341. 4:25:05I saw him there and said, "Dear General, our President sent me.
2342. 4:25:11We haven't been able to get good information about this incident. What is going on?" I said.
2343. 4:25:15"How is it being handled, why is it happening?" "Honestly, Tayyar Bey," he said, "I could not cope."
2344. 4:25:19"These kids," he said, "these faculty members, CHP supporters, are stirring it up."
2345. 4:25:26The soldiers told the President's envoy that day that the demonstrators had been arrested.
2346. 4:25:31Indeed, hundreds of young people who marched out of the university had been crammed into army trucks and taken to Davutpaşa barracks.
2347. 4:25:39Aide Mustafa Tayyar had returned to Ankara somewhat relieved when the phone rang.
2348. 4:25:49"The İstanbul governor, Yetkiner, is calling me from İstanbul," they said.
2349. 4:25:54I took the phone; he said, "Tayyar Bey, all those students we caught in the evening and put on trucks never
2350. 4:26:02reached the Davutpaşa barracks; they were left on the trucks along the way. Only 40–50 people went there.
2351. 4:26:09The next day they played a match with the Davutpaşa barracks football team.
2352. 4:26:13They ended up 2–2. That's how the situation is." The army's stance had thus been revealed.
2353. 4:26:18The army was no longer under the government's control. Behçet Kemal Çağlar ended the elegy he wrote for the three young people who died in the events with a plea for the Turkish army to come to the rescue.
2354. 4:26:29[A poem is recited, mourning one of the dead youths, a "lamb of Malatya."]
2355. 4:26:37[It calls out to Atatürk, asking where he is.]
2356. 4:26:44[It pleads with the lost son to return.]
2357. 4:26:49[It ends by placing the last hope in the Turkish army.]
2358. 4:26:56That night Menderes sat down at the radio.
2359. 4:27:01He gave a long speech. His voice was tired and trembling.
2360. 4:27:05"My dear and esteemed fellow citizens. By reporting today's events around the atmosphere of rebellion that some want to stir up in the country,
2361. 4:27:15we begin the duties of enlightening our esteemed military at large, which constitutes the main purpose of this speech."
2362. 4:27:24"No incident has occurred in Ankara today. In İstanbul, today's events have been quite simple and insignificant,
2363. 4:27:34consisting of two attempts. And furthermore, apart from İstanbul and Ankara, in the other parts of the country there is nothing worth noting."
2364. 4:27:45Menderes saw the ferment only in a few large cities and universities, and that the rest of the country was calm,
2365. 4:27:54and did not give the events importance. He asked the state intelligence organisations, and no tangible information came from them either.
2366. 4:28:02It was claimed that the army was loyal to the government and that the chaos stemmed from the opposition and a handful of people they incited.
2367. 4:28:09This was the basic mistake. The MİT organisation brought no news at all.
2368. 4:28:14It brought trivial daily news. We would get news like that from the gendarmerie.
2369. 4:28:18Roughly the same things came from the National Security Council.
2370. 4:28:25Nothing radical — "sir, in the army there is such-and-such a ferment toward revolution" — would come.
2371. 4:28:30That April night a meeting was held at Çankaya. Bayar trusted Professor Ali Fuat Başgil.
2372. 4:28:35He consulted him. The solution Başgil proposed was very simple.
2373. 4:28:38The government should resign at once. Then a National Unity Government in which the People's Party would also take part should be formed.
2374. 4:28:45That is, the common sense of democracy and another of its rules should be operated.
2375. 4:28:49Bayar got angry. "No," he said. "The time for criticism has passed. Now is the time for punishment, that is, for harshness."
2376. 4:28:56The one thing that should least have been chosen had been chosen: harshness. For now harshness brought more harshness and events could not be stopped.
2377. 4:29:04Events in the streets were immediately reflected in the army. For a section of the officers the homeland had fallen into chaos, and brotherly blood had begun to flow.
2378. 4:29:11What mattered was not democracy or the rules of the game but saving the country.
2379. 4:29:16In their view the only way to do this was to say stop to this course.
2380. 4:29:19In that atmosphere no one was thinking about the regime's future or the problems that might be encountered later.
2381. 4:29:24Or could not. Turkey, with its government, its opposition and its army, was now sliding toward somewhere.
2382. 4:29:32Finally on 3 May the government received a letter. The signature under it belonged to Land Forces Commander General Cemal Gürsel.
2383. 4:29:47One day he sat down and wrote a letter in the old script to Ethem Menderes.
2384. 4:30:00In the letter, after pointing out that sending troops to the university was wrong, that opening fire on university youths was wrong, that mistaken moves were being made and so on,
2385. 4:30:12it said that to resolve the crisis, it would be good for Celal Bayar to resign from the presidency
2386. 4:30:23and for Adnan Menderes to be installed as President in his place.
2387. 4:30:31Because, it said, despite all the Democrat Party's mistakes, despite its wrong conduct, the great
2388. 4:30:39mass of the people holds affection for Menderes and trusts him.
2389. 4:30:47"Such a change would calm the country," it said, "it would be good."
2390. 4:30:50Such a letter. He summoned me. He said, "I am the aide-de-camp."
2391. 4:30:58There was a personnel major, Şeref Bey, the aide-de-camp.
2392. 4:31:03A very valuable officer. He said, "Take it, go to your room, lock your door from the inside, have this typed — this
2393. 4:31:15letter of his," he said. "Have three copies made and bring them to me."
2394. 4:31:20He took these three typed copies [to him].
2395. 4:31:24He signed all three. After signing, he gave one to me.
2396. 4:31:27"You keep this," he said to me, "let it stay with you."
2397. 4:31:33He signed one more: "Put this in an envelope and write the name of Defence Minister Ethem Menderes on it."
2398. 4:31:42He himself went to the minister. He handed the minister the letter.
2399. 4:31:50Then he came back. I said to myself, "get the minister's reaction; the minister thinks as we do," he said.
2400. 4:31:59He too held that view: "The Democrat government," he said, "made very serious mistakes."
2401. 4:32:05That was his view. Ethem Menderes was the prime minister's childhood friend.
2402. 4:32:09He was so close that he took his surname. They had grown up together and entered political life together.
2403. 4:32:15Until that day they had always been shoulder to shoulder. Now, in a very critical period, this deep-rooted friend came with a memorandum letter in his hand.
2404. 4:32:23The two comrades-in-fate made an extremely important decision that day.
2405. 4:32:28At Adnan Bey's house [Ethem] pushed for the resignation and persuaded Adnan Bey.
2406. 4:32:33The form of the resignation was this: the resignation would first be announced on the radio.
2407. 4:32:37After that Bayar would learn of it. The resignation letter — they talked; Adnan said "yes," said "all right."
2408. 4:32:46He persuaded Ethem Bey [to leave] the house. Meanwhile the Speaker came to Adnan Bey's house, Refik Koraltan.
2409. 4:32:54Refik Koraltan looked on; Ethem Bey told me about it.
2410. 4:32:57He looked and said, "Children, is something going on with you?" Adnan Bey couldn't hold out.
2411. 4:33:02As I said — he told him, "this and that, I am resigning."
2412. 4:33:07Koraltan wept, they said; Koraltan said nothing.
2413. 4:33:12He sat five minutes, then said "with your permission, I'm going."
2414. 4:33:15He wept and left. Half an hour later they summoned Ethem Bey.
2415. 4:33:22Not Adnan Bey — Ethem Bey. What was said, according to what Ethem Bey told me, was: "yours is going to resign, yours."
2416. 4:33:33The expression was exactly like that: "Tell him not to resign." Ethem Bey says: "I am the one, Adnan Bey, who made the suggestion,
2417. 4:33:43who urged it. I am convinced that resignation is necessary, and I presented this conviction to Adnan Bey.
2418. 4:33:53I told him, he accepted. Now I cannot say 'don't resign,' Adnan Bey."
2419. 4:33:58"However I'd say the President doesn't want this."
2420. 4:34:06"We'll know as soon as he accepts or refuses." He goes downstairs and sees Adnan Bey.
2421. 4:34:11He tells Adnan Bey, "This and that happened. I gave this answer."
2422. 4:34:16"Well," says Adnan Bey, "let's wait a little longer and see."
2423. 4:34:21Waiting, that is waiting. The mansion was not informed of Gürsel's letter in these talks.
2424. 4:34:26That night Ethem Menderes summoned Land Forces Commander Cemal Gürsel and told him he had been granted three months' leave.
2425. 4:34:33Anyway, when his leave ended in July, Gürsel would retire.
2426. 4:34:37While the Pasha packed his bags to go to İzmir, the organisation was seized by panic.
2427. 4:34:41The danger of being left headless had appeared. But on the very day Gürsel was to go, a new leader surprisingly emerged.
2428. 4:34:49On the day the leave paper in its envelope was put on the desk of Chairman Gürsel,
2429. 4:34:58my secretary came to me and explained the situation.
2430. 4:35:09"Well," I said, "isn't there a send-off for Gürsel Pasha?"
2431. 4:35:13"No," he said; they thought it risky. I decided to take advantage of this.
2432. 4:35:22Both to see off Gürsel and, by my stepping forward to see off Gürsel when nobody else was, to say to the organisation:
2433. 4:35:33"I am here" — that is what I wanted to tell the organisation.
2434. 4:35:38I sat down; these send-off matters, protocol matters, are the duty of the personnel chiefs,
2435. 4:35:48but since none of them moved, I, as logistics chairman, sent an order to all the Land Forces offices:
2436. 4:35:57"Tonight at 9:30 at the Officers' Club a send-off ceremony will be held for General Gürsel."
2437. 4:36:07It became 9:30, I came to the meeting place, nobody was there.
2438. 4:36:14The party's pressure is such that they're angry anyway that Gürsel is leaving — officers saying "he's leaving us."
2439. 4:36:24My notice went to waste; nobody came. I was in a very difficult position; my secretary came.
2440. 4:36:33"Do you have an order?" I said go to the Officers' Club, all those playing bridge, playing cards, drinking, civilian, military, however many,
2441. 4:36:43"gather them all here, quickly — we're being disgraced, you know the situation."
2442. 4:36:48He went, gathered them all, came back; the place filled up, anyway.
2443. 4:36:52At that moment Gürsel Pasha — my luck had turned up.
2444. 4:36:57He was delighted. As the plane carrying Gürsel to his home in a garden in İzmir, long dreamed of, took off, the organisation, Cemal Ağa
2445. 4:37:08knew that he would soon be called back to Ankara.
2446. 4:37:11But for that day they needed a new general at their head.
2447. 4:37:14There was only one candidate: General Cemal Madanoğlu.
2448. 4:37:19When Orhan Kabibay knocked at Madanoğlu's door with the offer of leadership, he found before him a pasha even more fiery than himself.
2449. 4:37:26"I said, 'Orhan, where do we stand — are these commanders asleep?'
2450. 4:37:34When I said that, Orhan poured it all out.
2451. 4:37:40'Commander,' he said, 'the commanders are asleep but we are not.
2452. 4:37:46Only, we have no head,' he said; 'you will be our head.' His arm is trembling; I laughed; I said, 'Orhan, you're afraid of me.'
2453. 4:37:54'No, Pasha,' he said, 'why should we be afraid; we know you're a man of your word.'
2454. 4:37:57'Even if you don't accept,' he said, 'you won't tell anyone.' 'Look at your arm,' I said — his arm was still trembling.
2455. 4:38:02Orhan looked at his arm — I'll never forget it — grabbed it and brought it into his lap."
2456. 4:38:17555 K: for days everyone in all the universities had been whispering this password to each other.
2457. 4:38:24555 K meant: the fifth day of the fifth month, at five o'clock, at Kızılay.
2458. 4:38:30At those very hours Bayar and Menderes were to be returning from the airport.
2459. 4:38:34In Kızılay there was the silence before an approaching storm.
2460. 4:38:38This silence was broken by a march hummed through whistling.
2461. 4:39:02"We'll start this with whistling first; we'll sing this song by whistling.
2462. 4:39:07Then if the crowd grows, it will become a sung song."
2463. 4:39:13We hesitated at first; there were latecomers and so on.
2464. 4:39:16It's called 555 K, but the demonstration actually began at a quarter to six, amid those hesitations.
2465. 4:39:26In the end, whistling in a rather odd way, we began walking downhill.
2466. 4:39:35The whistling had begun to rise. We went down like that for a while.
2467. 4:39:42When I looked again there, it had become quite crowded.
2468. 4:39:45I'd estimate that there were one or two hundred people.
2469. 4:39:48Then the march began to be sung spontaneously.
2470. 4:39:51Thus we had begun. Then the crowd reversed.
2471. 4:39:56Those at the very back came to the very front. We stayed behind.
2472. 4:40:02Voices were heard from the other side. They said "Menderes is coming."
2473. 4:40:07The President in front, the three of us, Koraltan, Mr. Menderes and I, moved together.
2474. 4:40:16When I got to Kızılay, I saw the front was closed. There were some movements, people running and so on.
2475. 4:40:22He turned the car toward Necatibey Street.
2476. 4:40:26From behind Adnan Bey said, "Where did he go, Tayyar Bey?"
2477. 4:40:29"Sir, I think it's closed there," I said. And the traffic officers there signalled to us that the road was closed.
2478. 4:40:35"No, no," he said, "let's go in." We went into that commotion.
2479. 4:40:42Kızılay had suddenly turned into a scene of fire. The prime minister, getting out of his car in front of the old Kızılay building, had practically dived into the middle of a boiling cauldron.
2480. 4:40:51Walking among his bodyguards in front of Güvenpark, he was asking those shouting around him, "What do you want?"
2481. 4:40:58A young man shouted "We want freedom." Menderes was angry.
2482. 4:41:02"If there were no freedom, could you say these things to a prime minister?" he shouted.
2483. 4:41:06In the shoving and jostling his clothes were ruffled, his tie askew, the tail of his shirt out of his trousers.
2484. 4:41:12He barely threw himself into a journalist's car waiting by the roadside and sped away toward the Prime Ministry.
2485. 4:41:19I was sitting in my room; Namık Gedik was also in my room.
2486. 4:41:26Suddenly the door opened and Bayar came in. Namık is leaving.
2487. 4:41:33"Namık Bey, go to Kızılay immediately, announce by megaphone, announce that they must disperse."
2488. 4:41:46He said that if they did not disperse, fire would be opened.
2489. 4:41:50At Kızılay that evening no fire was opened, but the order Bayar gave there was debated for years.
2490. 4:41:57Now the reins had fully passed into the President's hands.
2491. 4:42:00Bayar had taken charge of the situation; Menderes had fallen to second place, as in the early years of power.
2492. 4:42:15The famous İzmir trip took place in this atmosphere.
2493. 4:42:18In Ankara's stifling air, among those who kept talking to him of approaching disaster, resignation, and repressive measures,
2494. 4:42:26Menderes felt oppressed. As he always did in such situations, he threw himself into the crowds.
2495. 4:42:31On Demirkırat's tenth birthday he went to the Aegean, to the land where he was raised, seeking healing in the masses' love.
2496. 4:42:39He found far more than he sought. At the İzmir quay he was met by two hundred thousand people.
2497. 4:42:46It was a sea of people. Between the Atatürk [statue] and the sea, the sea and the people merged.
2498. 4:42:56All the roads were closed. A very large crowd.
2499. 4:43:00He passed with difficulty through the people, went to the podium and gave his speech.
2500. 4:43:08And a huge crowd took him to İzmir's breast.
2501. 4:43:12"It was a very beautiful meeting," he said. "A country is going through a great crisis," he said.
2502. 4:43:25"There are those who want the country and the state to go bad," he said.
2503. 4:43:32"Only an election can lead out of this crisis, this tension," he said.
2504. 4:43:37"And we will do this," he said. "We will hold an early election," he said.
2505. 4:43:40For someone who took part in that trip, it would have been extremely hard to imagine that this government would be toppled a month later.
2506. 4:43:47Because there was great enthusiasm. For example, passing through Tarsus I saw with my own eyes a father who had adorned his son and taken him in his arms.
2507. 4:43:58Knife in hand: "I'll sacrifice him," he said. With difficulty they took the knife from his hand.
2508. 4:44:05This scene in İzmir was also the best answer to those in Ankara who were suggesting he resign.
2509. 4:44:11The deceptive magic of the crowds suddenly enveloped Menderes.
2510. 4:44:16If he had been thinking of resigning, he gave it up there. The Aegean's love prepared Menderes's end.
2511. 4:44:33The footsteps of the revolution rang out in Ankara one Saturday.
2512. 4:44:37The Military Academy, already uneasy for some time because of the university incidents, rose up.
2513. 4:44:41The day Menderes was to arrive in Ankara, the cadets being lined up along the roads like military police became the last straw.
2514. 4:44:49The soldier who whispered the rendezvous point to the young students was Captain Fuat Noras.
2515. 4:44:54We met at the Officers' Club at half past one. Only a very small group had formed.
2516. 4:45:02It was dangerous. Although it was two o'clock, we walked along the pavement.
2517. 4:45:07There were no cadets. Then, at one or three minutes past two — from all the roads at those junctions coming down to Kızılay, as if poured from a bucket,
2518. 4:45:19cadets poured out there. Suddenly traffic stopped automatically.
2519. 4:45:26Then the police, who had a bad image, began to run away.
2520. 4:45:35Uniformed police. They were afraid of the soldiers.
2521. 4:45:40Captain İhsan Savım. This friend was at the General Directorate of Mapping at that time.
2522. 4:45:48Mappers generally go out into the field in spring to do their work.
2523. 4:45:56To prepare at home, he had taken a rope in his hand, needed for his bales.
2524. 4:46:04During the march, from excitement, the wrapping paper, newspaper or whatever on this rope fell off.
2525. 4:46:12The bare rope in his hand. The then martial-law commander Namık Argüç stormed furiously at him.
2526. 4:46:21We look on as a group. "What's that rope in your hand," he said, "are you going to hang me?"
2527. 4:46:28The answer: "Yes, if necessary." The revolution had actually begun there.
2528. 4:46:32The cadets marched as far as the Victory Monument. There they sang the Independence March and the Military Academy March and dispersed.
2529. 4:46:38The army had risen, challenging the government in the most open way.
2530. 4:46:43The cadets' footsteps were heard at the Çankaya Mansion in a very short time.
2531. 4:46:47I told the President, "Sir, this is a movement.
2532. 4:46:51They are testing us. What lies behind this leads toward a revolution.
2533. 4:46:56The army is on the stage. They have come out into the open. First they are summoning these;
2534. 4:47:00the other big ones will come from behind. I said there is no remedy but to disarm the war school and send it out.
2535. 4:47:10I said we must remove them from Ankara at once.
2536. 4:47:14"All right," he said, "let's go to Koraltan's house." We set off from there and came to Koraltan.
2537. 4:47:18In front of Koraltan too I explained the situation. From there we came to the Prime Ministry.
2538. 4:47:23The Prime Ministry was like doomsday. At the summit there it was decided to put the war school on holiday immediately and transfer it with its weapons to İzmir.
2539. 4:47:33The decision was communicated to the Military Academy commander, Sıtkı Ulay.
2540. 4:47:35But Ulay was part of the organisation. He immediately flew the news to his friends.
2541. 4:47:40Since they would not bring the rank-and-file Mehmetçik into the matter, the Military Academy was the only weapon in their hands.
2542. 4:47:45If the Academy went, the revolution would end. Therefore they had to hurry at once.
2543. 4:47:50That evening the revolution committee met under Madanoğlu's chairmanship.
2544. 4:47:54They had been somewhat startled by the Military Academy march, which had taken place without their knowledge.
2545. 4:47:59Everyone was speaking in whispers. It's contagious.
2546. 4:48:04It spreads like a microbe. Everyone starts speaking in whispers.
2547. 4:48:08What kind of revolutionism is this? But there's no way of preventing it.
2548. 4:48:12By now I was thoroughly angry. I struck the tray.
2549. 4:48:17Everything on the tray spread across the room.
2550. 4:48:21He'd held it tight, it seems; the tray stayed in his hand.
2551. 4:48:25By its two handles. The tray stayed in his hand. I turned to the boys.
2552. 4:48:30"Son," I said, "are we doing this right now, or not?"
2553. 4:48:34Shouting, though. I was beside myself.
2554. 4:48:38I've come out of that whispering now. I tore that curtain.
2555. 4:48:42I'm shouting: "Are we doing it or not?" They all shouted at once.
2556. 4:48:46"We're doing it," they said, "we're doing it." "Then let's disperse."
2557. 4:48:55While the organisation was moving into action, the government at Çankaya was searching for a remedy.
2558. 4:48:59At a meeting chaired by Bayar, the DP's brain trust came to Menderes with a proposal.
2559. 4:49:05To overcome the crisis, some ministers had to be changed in the government.
2560. 4:49:09Neither Menderes nor Bayar liked this proposal.
2561. 4:49:16They said it would express a weakness, a weakness.
2562. 4:49:25And that it would be counted as a reward, a concession, to the pressure the opposition was exerting,
2563. 4:49:34and that more would follow, that things would get even worse — and so this measure, hoped to improve things,
2564. 4:49:48might perhaps have even worse results.
2565. 4:50:00The DP General Executive Board meeting continued the next day at the Prime Ministry.
2566. 4:50:05The agenda was the same again, but this time the prime minister was more irritable.
2567. 4:50:09"I understood," he said. I explained, that is, this tense atmosphere.
2568. 4:50:14I said it needed to be changed, that a change of policy, that we had to do something in a striking manner.
2569. 4:50:26And I gave some examples. The Kayseri events and so on.
2570. 4:50:35Of course, while listening to these, to my speech, the prime minister was getting irritated.
2571. 4:50:43"You said this before, you said it yesterday, you said it before — but how do you get out of this: an administration,
2572. 4:50:54a state administration, difficulty, tension — how does one exit from here?
2573. 4:51:01One does not get out of here by the ways you say.
2574. 4:51:05I will bring us out," he said there. "I will get you out of this difficulty."
2575. 4:51:15"You can't get us out," I said. Tension arose.
2576. 4:51:19The prime minister stood up. "I have work to do," he said.
2577. 4:51:27"I can't stay here any longer. I can't listen to you," he said.
2578. 4:51:32He left. He walked out of the meeting. The prime minister no longer wanted to hear criticism.
2579. 4:51:38Yet everyone who opened his mouth was listing his mistakes.
2580. 4:51:41Next on the agenda was the cabinet. But he was impatient to throw himself into Eskişehir, into the arms of the crowds.
2581. 4:51:48The whole cabinet: "postpone this trip. Postpone it, so that we finish this business."
2582. 4:51:55We said, "Dear, what difference will two days make? I'll come in two days."
2583. 4:51:59After those two days all hell broke loose. While these cold winds blew at the Prime Ministry, the revolution committee at various Ankara headquarters was reviewing final preparations.
2584. 4:52:08Power was now only a few days away.
2585. 4:52:11The lower ranks of the army were ready to intervene. The upper ranks, that same day, in an ill-fated move, went to tell the prime minister there was nothing to worry about.
2586. 4:52:21After the march of the war school students, there were meetings between significantly high-ranking generals and the then prime minister, Adnan Menderes.
2587. 4:52:35In this meeting they expressed their loyalty to the regime, that the war school march should not be taken seriously,
2588. 4:52:48that an idea such as joining forces with the opposition and sidelining the government could never come to mind,
2589. 4:52:58and especially that their trust and positive feelings toward him as prime minister continued without any diminution.
2590. 4:53:08This was the visit that misled Menderes most.
2591. 4:53:11Nearly 20 generals, including the Chief of General Staff, were saying "we are with you."
2592. 4:53:17Then he could sleep soundly. That night, sipping his drink on the mansion terrace, his ears were closed to the sound of approaching tanks.
2593. 4:53:27He did not want to listen even to Mükerrem Sarol, who was worried about a military intervention.
2594. 4:53:32"The sentry is pacing behind. He turned his head — the sentry goes.
2595. 4:53:36He goes some distance with hard steps. From there he turns back, again with hard steps returns to where he started.
2596. 4:53:44"Doctor," he said, "will this Mehmet draw a weapon on us?" he said.
2597. 4:53:48"Will this Mehmet fire on us?" he said. Menderes senses the course but cannot make the exact diagnosis.
2598. 4:53:54He does not take, or cannot take, decisive steps that could change this.
2599. 4:53:58As events developed, errors multiplied, and a vicious circle that was hard to escape was entered.
2600. 4:54:05It was exactly five to twelve. At the last moment his door was knocked and a warning came from his closest friends.
2601. 4:54:12"Tomorrow there is a coup; resign."
2602. 4:54:22When the conditions are complete, revolution is a legitimate right for nations.
2603. 4:54:28When İsmet Pasha spoke these words some time before 27 May, the earth had shifted from its place.
2604. 4:54:33The greatest reaction came from the DP. In the view of the ruling party there was no circumstance in the country that would justify a military intervention.
2605. 4:54:40There was a year to the elections. The prime minister was met with enthusiasm wherever he went.
2606. 4:54:46Apart from the student incidents in a few big provinces, the country was at peace.
2607. 4:54:50But when the same scene was viewed through the lenses of the opposition parties and other dissident circles, the situation was very different.
2608. 4:54:57The press, universities, unions, political parties were under pressure.
2609. 4:55:01Freedoms were being increasingly restricted, and the government was trying not to let anyone say a word against it.
2610. 4:55:06The economy worsened day by day, and the discontents brought by daily life were added to this.
2611. 4:55:13It was as if the main opposition party was being closed and the country slid into a dictatorship.
2612. 4:55:17Society had come to the brink of an explosion. According to the officers living in all this atmosphere, the conditions were complete, just as İsmet Pasha said.
2613. 4:55:26Revolution was now a legitimate right. The country had to be saved from the edge of the abyss.
2614. 4:55:31Meanwhile it occurred to no one that the democratic regime would suffer a deep wound.
2615. 4:55:35No one thought that the crisis could be overcome by applying the rules of democracy.
2616. 4:55:42It was now five to twelve. The hardest day began in parliament.
2617. 4:55:54The DP group was in revolt again. Ninety deputies had submitted a motion to discuss the latest developments.
2618. 4:56:01They wanted the investigation commission abolished, an early election held, and the ferment in the army discussed.
2619. 4:56:07But Menderes had no intention at all of having the army put on trial by the group.
2620. 4:56:12The prime minister came out last. Tired, he too was on edge.
2621. 4:56:21Because although he had told the group "let's not talk about it here today, it is inappropriate," the group insisted on talking.
2622. 4:56:32So he came out in this state of mind: angry, tired and irritable all at once.
2623. 4:56:42He said, "as your party leader, let us settle this."
2624. 4:56:48This would be the prime minister's last meeting with the group. After the party leadership and the group of ministers, the prime minister was also parting from his parliamentary group on bad terms.
2625. 4:56:56Before leaving for Eskişehir, Menderes went up to Çankaya.
2626. 4:57:00The real surprise awaited him at Çankaya. Beside Bayar was the Chief of General Staff, Rüştü Erdelhun.
2627. 4:57:07The President explained to Menderes the new formula he had found to save the regime.
2628. 4:57:11By a parliamentary resolution, the powers of martial law would be increased.
2629. 4:57:16What was proposed was a semi-military regime. It was also written that Mr. Bayar met separately with his Chief of General Staff, the late Rüştü Erdelhun,
2630. 4:57:24and that he himself would chair a cabinet meeting; that in this meeting with Rüştü Erdelhun
2631. 4:57:38at which the prime minister was also present, a legal arrangement that would at least grant the army broader powers in running the country
2632. 4:57:50might perhaps be made; that there was such a three-way meeting; that it would be discussed the next day at the cabinet
2633. 4:58:00meeting; that he went to the Prime Ministry to chair the government meeting, but that Prime Minister Adnan
2634. 4:58:10Menderes did not take part in that meeting — such pieces were also written and published.
2635. 4:58:19This meeting at the mansion gave rise to various rumours in the capital.
2636. 4:58:23It was even said that Bayar offered Erdelhun the premiership.
2637. 4:58:26At the very least, the transfer of certain powers to the General Staff was at issue.
2638. 4:58:31When he learned he would go to Eskişehir, Erdelhun Pasha went and saw the prime minister and said, "in your absence, when you are not here,
2639. 4:58:43if an event like the war school march, like that of 21 May, should occur, who will deal with these matters,
2640. 4:58:53who will give the orders? If you leave Ethem Menderes, it would be wrong, it would be a mistake."
2641. 4:59:02And the prime minister said, "you deal with it, you look after these matters."
2642. 4:59:13Then, after he left, the prime ministry undersecretary Ahmet
2643. 4:59:22Salih Korur told the prime minister, "this is a political matter, a political matter that concerns the cabinet.
2644. 4:59:35That is, you cannot give such an authority to Erdelhun Pasha."
2645. 4:59:42He warned the prime minister. But when Rüştü Pasha told me, he said, "the prime minister told me nothing."
2646. 4:59:51Menderes told Bayar "let me think about it" and rushed off to the airport.
2647. 4:59:55As his plane took off for Eskişehir he was fleeing the gloom of Ankara that gnawed at him, running into the arms of a people whose loyalty he never doubted.
2648. 5:00:03Yet Eskişehir would be his last stop.
2649. 5:00:17When Menderes's plane landed at the Eskişehir military airfield, things had begun to go awry.
2650. 5:00:21Menderes, who until that day had never considered a military coup possible, for the first time realised there, on leaving the airfield, that he was at the edge of the abyss.
2651. 5:00:31While we sat in front of the [stand], Menderes's party came by cars.
2652. 5:00:40As it followed a route, a group of 40–50 officers stepped forward.
2653. 5:00:49He thought they would salute him. But on a command the officers turned about and with their hands
2654. 5:01:00made a gesture. They made a protest gesture.
2655. 5:01:06The prime minister was shocked and shaken by this act of rebellion.
2656. 5:01:10When he mounted the podium on the rally square he still had not recovered.
2657. 5:01:14That he had not completely overcome his shaken state could be understood from a speech he made there.
2658. 5:01:21Because he had a prepared speech.
2659. 5:01:26He generally prepares his speech but puts it in front of him and mostly speaks off the cuff.
2660. 5:01:32This time he did not even take that speech out, spoke entirely off the cuff, and it was a gentle speech.
2661. 5:01:38We could not hear most of it because one of the loudspeakers set up in front of the governorate had had its cable cut.
2662. 5:01:49He was obliged to speak shouting. What Menderes was trying to convey by shouting was actually the news that the investigation commission had completed its task and that elections would soon be held.
2663. 5:02:00He had neither the voice left to announce it nor the lifetime to carry it out.
2664. 5:02:16While Menderes was laying a foundation stone in Eskişehir, Chief of General Staff Rüştü Erdelhun in Ankara, in the General Staff's cinema hall, was holding an assessment meeting with high-ranking
2665. 5:02:24commanders.
2666. 5:02:27Erdelhun told the commanders that all authority lay with him.
2667. 5:02:31The armed forces were not part of any movement against the government.
2668. 5:02:35He did not know that some of the commanders listening to him there would overthrow the government a few hours later.
2669. 5:02:40As Erdelhun, after the meeting, carried the army's message of loyalty to the government to the mansion, the core cadre of the Revolution Committee at midnight
2670. 5:02:48was making the final touches to its operation.
2671. 5:02:52First at 11 in the morning, then at 2 in the afternoon, we met, standing,
2672. 5:02:59that is, meeting standing in Samih Çiğ's room we made our definite decision, and the revolution machine began to run.
2673. 5:03:08After 2 o'clock everything was done. That is, the decision for revolution was taken by 14:00 and the machine started to run.
2674. 5:03:17The revolution's core cadre parted, having agreed to gather at the war school at 21:00.
2675. 5:03:22Everyone began to operate his own channels. The revolution was impatient.
2676. 5:03:28The headquarters was at the war school. In İstanbul the operation would be run by Major Ahmet Yıldız from the martial-law command centre.
2677. 5:03:35At the Presidential Mansion, Osman Köksal was waiting for the signal to arrest Bayar.
2678. 5:03:41When darkness fell, at the war school all hands were on alert.
2679. 5:03:53That night Menderes sat down at the Eskişehir Sugar Factory to the last dinner he would eat as prime minister.
2680. 5:04:00At first everything seemed fine. The prime minister cheered up there.
2681. 5:04:06An officer came and offered him a rose. He cheered up.
2682. 5:04:10"Come on, smoke has taken the mountaintop" — everyone started singing the song.
2683. 5:04:13He signalled the orchestra and so on. Then they called him to the telephone.
2684. 5:04:18He went to the phone. The caller was Refik Koraltan.
2685. 5:04:22He was reporting that in İstanbul the university professors had started a silent march.
2686. 5:04:26When the prime minister returned his mood had soured. Adnan Bey is getting excited.
2687. 5:04:32We look and his face is reddening. Gradually ready [to burst]. He is also drinking a little, of course.
2688. 5:04:37And we become a bit uneasy. Ercüment even sent word to the band
2689. 5:04:42not to play any more. And indeed Adnan Bey came out.
2690. 5:04:46He gave a very harsh oration, the famous one about the "black-robed ones" (kara cübbeliler).
2691. 5:04:52Ercüment and I were very upset. I got up and went to him.
2692. 5:04:58"It was a bit harsh," he said. "Yes, it was, wasn't it," he said.
2693. 5:05:03"There are journalists here, sir; they've gone to phone their newspapers," he said.
2694. 5:05:07Menderes had a publication ban placed on that speech in which he addressed the university professors as "black-robed ones" (kara cübbeliler).
2695. 5:05:13Yet there was no chance of this news being published anyway, because next day's papers would come out with revolution news.
2696. 5:05:27The operation was about to begin in Ankara. The core cadre gathered at the war school.
2697. 5:05:31Telephone connections to the outside were cut. City plans were spread on the floor.
2698. 5:05:35A point of no return had been reached. I said, "Friends, these will topple at a touch.
2699. 5:05:42And they will fall. You'll see. We have now begun our work.
2700. 5:05:51The difficulty is only until we begin. After that there's nothing.
2701. 5:05:56Now give me your word," I said. "Neither the embassy nor the Interior Ministry.
2702. 5:06:05None of us accepts any post outside his duty.
2703. 5:06:11We are doing this for this state, for this country, for this nation.
2704. 5:06:19Like that. In round terms. I can't recall exactly now.
2705. 5:06:26I had them swear an oath. The oath had a great effect too.
2706. 5:06:29They all came very much alive. On the night of 26 May, at the war school, the oath for the revolution was sworn in this way.
2707. 5:06:35The night of the revolution was beginning. As Menderes in Eskişehir and Bayar in Ankara drifted off to sleep, tanks were slowly marching toward the squares.
2708. 5:06:44The Democrat Party, which ten years earlier had taken power by the ballot box on a May night, would ten years later be toppled by arms on a May night again.
2709. 5:06:52The night of 26 May was a night in which the fate not only of a government but of the Turkish Republic changed.
2710. 5:07:05While the government slept deeply, the brain cadre of the revolution was completing final preparations at the war school.
2711. 5:07:11Only a few hours remained to the revolution prepared for six years.
2712. 5:07:14Despite six years of preparation, in fact there was no serious plan in hand.
2713. 5:07:18A complete night raid, without plan or programme, would be organised.
2714. 5:07:23The army's command echelons were pro-government. For this reason an intervention within the chain of command was impossible.
2715. 5:07:30It would be an operation from the base. The operation's main pillar was the war school.
2716. 5:07:36Apart from the war school there was no force that could be fully trusted.
2717. 5:07:39Even units such as the Central Command might go into resistance.
2718. 5:07:43The day of 27 May thus began with unknowns and risks like these.
2719. 5:07:48The last word would be said by the commander of the revolution headquarters, Brigadier General Cemal Madanoğlu.
2720. 5:07:54When I went in, Cemal Madanoğlu Pasha was not chatting.
2721. 5:08:00Like this, he had put his two elbows on his knees.
2722. 5:08:04Sir. Between these two thumbs and index fingers he holds his head like this.
2723. 5:08:12He looks at the floor like this. He sits like this. At the doorway I stopped; I looked inside.
2724. 5:08:26"Good evening to you," I said to those in the room.
2725. 5:08:32I greeted them with my head [bowed]. And I said "good evening to you."
2726. 5:08:39When I said this, Cemal Madanoğlu raised his head and saw me.
2727. 5:08:45On seeing me he said to me: "There is no plan.
2728. 5:08:50There is no preparation," he said. "There is nothing," he said.
2729. 5:08:57"Let's drop this business," he said. "Let's go and get an appointment with Celal Bayar," he said.
2730. 5:09:03"Let him dismiss Adnan Menderes. That way this business will be settled better."
2731. 5:09:07We had no plan, that is, no plan put down on paper.
2732. 5:09:12Everything was in our heads; we were doing the planning from our heads.
2733. 5:09:14But anything on paper was forbidden, it did not exist. For the first time at that hour, that is at 23:15 at night,
2734. 5:09:22after things had been laid down and brought to calm, large city plans of Ankara were spread on the floors, on the tables, and over them we began
2735. 5:09:34to arrange the units and divide up the tasks.
2736. 5:09:38Soon key targets began to be selected on the plans laid out on the floor.
2737. 5:09:41The first points to be captured were determined, with names, continually.
2738. 5:09:46The Military Academy was impatient by now. It was awaiting the operation order as soon as possible.
2739. 5:09:51Toward eleven the orders were finished.
2740. 5:10:00Everyone withdrew. Five or six of us were left on our own. They asked me at what time the war school would move.
2741. 5:10:19"We'll start the action at 3, at a quarter to three," I said.
2742. 5:10:27Meanwhile, at the end of the planning, Sıtkı Pasha said, "Well, an announcement has to be made on the radio."
2743. 5:10:39"You haven't prepared anything." "We haven't prepared anything," he said.
2744. 5:10:42I said, "I'll prepare that. Don't worry about it."
2745. 5:10:47I got up from there. Next door there is the room of the Training and Operations Officer; I went in there.
2746. 5:10:54I sat down there. I wrote the first-issued Communiqué No. 1 there.
2747. 5:11:02Meanwhile those writing would now and then read me what they had written.
2748. 5:11:06For example, what stuck in my mind was three times, but two are in my mind.
2749. 5:11:16In one they said "the Turkish army has seized power."
2750. 5:11:23"Has taken over the administration," [I said]. They said "all right" and corrected it.
2751. 5:11:28In the end it was to be signed underneath.
2752. 5:11:33What signature should we put under it? Brigadier General Cemal Madanoğlu would be too small in front of the Turkish army.
2753. 5:11:44If we said General Cemal Gürsel — Cemal Gürsel isn't around.
2754. 5:11:47Everyone knows he went to İzmir, that he is on leave.
2755. 5:11:55"The Armed Forces Union." Not Armed Forces — Turkish Armed Forces.
2756. 5:12:00"All right," they said, "Turkish Armed Forces." Thus the operation was attributed to the Turkish Armed Forces.
2757. 5:12:11The password was "revolution." At that hour the most important question in the revolutionaries' minds was still: what will happen — will any unit resist?
2758. 5:12:20The atmosphere in the country was favourable, but nothing was known. First the armoured units in İstanbul moved.
2759. 5:12:27Then at exactly 03:00, four teams left the War School.
2760. 5:12:31The first task was to take the Central Commander into custody. If Central Command joined the revolution, a great military force would be gained.
2761. 5:12:38Otherwise resistance could spread. The commander was woken and the situation explained.
2762. 5:12:44Instead of resisting, the Central Commander immediately picked up the telephone and ordered his units to join the revolution.
2763. 5:12:50The greatest difficulty had been overcome. But when the team sent to take into custody the army's commanders met resistance and had to open fire,
2764. 5:13:00Ankara woke from its deep sleep. Everyone leapt out of bed and ran to the telephone.
2765. 5:13:04Among the places whose lights came on at once was first of all the Presidential Mansion.
2766. 5:13:09I ran upstairs to the President; they were dressing. I said, "Sir, such gunshots are coming, it must be something serious,
2767. 5:13:17we also hear the sounds of tanks, there are booms with the tanks, it's about 3:15 at night, pitch dark everywhere, everything is pitch-black,"
2768. 5:13:27"I'm coming," he said. As Bayar dressed anxiously, in Ankara certain main
2769. 5:13:38military targets and commanders had been seized, and the armed forces' support had been secured.
2770. 5:13:43Now it was the turn of civilian targets, especially the radio.
2771. 5:13:46It was impossible to rouse Turkey without capturing the radio.
2772. 5:13:50At half past three the Military Academy cadets began marching toward the city in two battalions.
2773. 5:13:55The first target was the Radio House. The officer charged with seizing the radio was Staff Colonel Alparslan Türkeş.
2774. 5:14:02I came to the Radio House and saw that there was no one in the Radio House.
2775. 5:14:07By knocking on the door I managed to bring an attendant who was inside, and he opened the door.
2776. 5:14:17I said to him, "where are the staff?" "There's nobody," he said.
2777. 5:14:22"Well, don't you know their homes?" "I know some of them," he said, "some I don't."
2778. 5:14:29"Well then, where are others besides the attendants? Let's find them."
2779. 5:14:35We had them found — one or two people. I said "let's get the radio working immediately."
2780. 5:14:43"We'll make an announcement." We went into the broadcasting room.
2781. 5:14:48The communiqué was not yet complete. I completed part of the communiqué there.
2782. 5:14:54I wrote there. From there I started the live broadcast first.
2783. 5:15:01"This is the Turkish Radio Broadcasting Stations. The Turkish Armed Forces invite Turkish citizens to their radios.
2784. 5:15:10Dear citizens, since last midnight, throughout Turkey, the sea, air, land
2785. 5:15:19Turkish Armed Forces have joined hands and taken over the administration of the country.
2786. 5:15:26This movement was accomplished without bloodshed thanks to the joint cooperation of our Armed Forces.
2787. 5:15:34We ask our dear citizens to remain calm and for no one, whatever his official capacity, to go out into the streets.
2788. 5:16:06This proclamation, read word by word in the firm voice of Staff Colonel Alparslan Türkeş, was repeated frequently on the radio while outside the gunfire intensified.
2789. 5:16:14Clashes had begun in the Yenişehir and Ulus districts.
2790. 5:16:18Meanwhile war school student Lieutenant Ali İhsan Kalmaz was shot and died.
2791. 5:16:23The revolution was suddenly stained with blood. Ankara was in turmoil.
2792. 5:16:26The news that the revolution had begun started to make the capital seethe like a volcano in pitch darkness.
2793. 5:16:40While guns spoke in Ankara, Turkey's prime minister Menderes was asleep in Eskişehir.
2794. 5:16:44According to the plan they would go to Konya early in the morning.
2795. 5:16:48But nobody guessed they would get up this early.
2796. 5:16:52A few hours after they went to bed, toward four in the morning a telephone call came.
2797. 5:16:58At our prime ministry the Private Office's duty clerks always stay overnight there.
2798. 5:17:03The duty clerk, in a very excited voice on the phone, said to me: "Sir, guns are going off here, they have entered the Prime Ministry,
2799. 5:17:15I'm in Medeni Berk Bey's room now, I'll flee from here too — you flee as well."
2800. 5:17:24Upon this I woke the Finance Minister — I woke Hasan Polatkan —
2801. 5:17:33and with him we went to the prime minister and I told him: "such and such." The prime minister was sleeping, of course; he woke, began to dress, but was extremely cool-headed.
2802. 5:17:42He showed no sign of panic.
2803. 5:17:49He told me: "Connect me by phone with the Chief of General Staff, the Martial Law Commander, the Ankara Governor, the Interior Minister, the Defence Minister, and so on."
2804. 5:18:00Generally for the telephone — there was no automatic telephone then — they would give us a special number at the place we went,
2805. 5:18:08we would call that special number and they would connect us instantly.
2806. 5:18:13I telephoned and told them, but no answer from Ankara came at all.
2807. 5:18:28Ankara was in no state at that moment to answer telephones.
2808. 5:18:31Cadets had positioned themselves at all of the city's key points.
2809. 5:18:34Meanwhile the revolution headquarters was also moving from the war school to the newly captured Martial Law Building.
2810. 5:18:40We went up. As Martial Law Commander I broke the door [lock]; at that moment a telephone was ringing inside,
2811. 5:18:55on the phone: "I am the PTT official so-and-so; what's happening?" "This is here," "soldiers are turning everything upside down," he said.
2812. 5:19:07I said, "Sir, this is the Martial Law building but right now it is the revolution headquarters." "Well, bless your mouth," he said,
2813. 5:19:17and hung up. The units in the capital were now at the revolution's command; now it was the turn of the army commanders in Anatolia,
2814. 5:19:25who would carry the revolution to Anatolia. "First find me the army commanders," I said. Second Army came up; at Second Army there was no commander
2815. 5:19:35the Second Army commander had come to act in Gürsel's place at the Land Forces;
2816. 5:19:44I spoke with the general there and explained the situation; nobody
2817. 5:19:52objects, they only give somewhat cautious replies. The Third Army commander
2818. 5:20:03"is ready," they said; I speak from the Third Army commander: "With how many divisions did you surround Çankaya?" he says. "My Pasha," I said, "we have the martial-law units."
2819. 5:20:11"What divisions — we barely got one battalion up to Çankaya —" "all right, all right" and so on; meanwhile
2820. 5:20:19it occurred to me — I'm a brigadier general, these are full generals — "Pasha," I said,
2821. 5:20:29"at our head," I said, "is full General Gürsel; we will have him brought." When I said so, the sound of their coming out grew livelier;
2822. 5:20:38it began to come. At exactly four, from the martial law headquarters, staff lieutenant colonel Sezai Okan dialled the mansion's number, and to the aide who answered
2823. 5:20:46read a harsh ultimatum: Bayar was demanded to surrender within forty-five minutes. A voice on the phone: "Sir, this is the revolution headquarters."
2824. 5:20:56"We are the revolutionaries. Let the President surrender at once or we'll blow up the mansion."
2825. 5:21:04"Who are you, what are you, who is at your head?" I asked. "We are the revolution headquarters, that's all," he said, and hung up.
2826. 5:21:19By the time this telephone conversation took place, all positions in Ankara had fallen; only the Presidential Mansion was left.
2827. 5:21:26The target that worried the revolutionaries most was this one; they feared Bayar attempting resistance with his guard regiment and bloodshed at Çankaya.
2828. 5:21:36This could change the fate of the entire regime. Tanks had surrounded Çankaya, barrels turned toward the mansion. Bayar looked from the window, through the panes,
2829. 5:21:45toward the tanks that were visible; then, calling to his side the Guard Regiment commander Osman Köksal, he said, "Commander, why have these tanks come?
2830. 5:21:54What is their strength? Do we have such tanks?" Köksal was the revolutionary organisation's man at the mansion; he was charged not with protecting Bayar but with taking him into custody.
2831. 5:22:03He said that the firepower of the tanks outside was very high: "we have none of these." Yet against the four tanks outside,
2832. 5:22:12in the mansion's tank section there were exactly 21 tanks. Soon Bayar and Köksal went out onto the mansion's balcony together; he was looking for ways to resist.
2833. 5:22:20To understand the tanks' intent a lieutenant was sent to the mansion gate; the lieutenant returned soon and said the following: the captain at the head of the tanks
2834. 5:22:29says they have come under Osman Köksal's orders. Bayar only then understood that the man standing beside him on the balcony was one of the revolutionaries;
2835. 5:22:37he hurried inside and went up to his room; in his mind he had decided to resist. From the drawer of his writing desk
2836. 5:22:46he took his pistol and put it in his left pocket: if necessary he would fire four bullets at those before him and the last bullet into his own brain.
2837. 5:22:54Meanwhile the prime minister's wife, who had come to the mansion in haste,
2838. 5:23:03tense — perhaps one could even say flustered — but in addition with a calm
2839. 5:23:12and sure air, passing before us and greeting those of us sitting there with her head,
2840. 5:23:21as my mother stood up and addressed her: "Sir —
2841. 5:23:29have you been able to talk with Adnan? Have you had any contact?" I remember that this question was directed at the late Bayar,
2842. 5:23:38in exactly these words, and that he paused a little too, turned toward my mother and said "well —
2843. 5:23:47it is too late now, madam" — I remember it; truly, it was now too late.
2844. 5:24:00Menderes, who for months had resisted taking measures despite all warnings, was now trying to get news from the capital in Eskişehir.
2845. 5:24:08At that moment a coffee that was served showed how serious the situation was. At the Home Defence Command, the defence commander
2846. 5:24:18served coffee and, before giving the coffee that came to the prime minister, drank from it himself — because it was understood there that now
2847. 5:24:27it was a revolution, so it was not clear who would do what to whom; in Eskişehir, out of fear of an assassination,
2848. 5:24:41whether the coffee that came to Menderes was poisoned was checked in this way, while in the garden houses, on Ayten Sokak in Ankara,
2849. 5:24:48there was abnormal activity: the homes of Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan and İsmet Pasha had been surrounded by cadets.
2850. 5:24:56İsmet Pasha, who as he went to bed that night had said "the revolution is at our door," in the morning truly found the revolution at his door. Of course not everyone took the event so naturally.
2851. 5:25:32With heavy telephone traffic the DP members, trying to get news from one another, found cadets at their doors with the first light of morning.
2852. 5:25:39The arrests were beginning. A sand cart had come to haul sand, a pickup with its back open.
2853. 5:25:49They put us in it. They sit the late Namık Gedik beside the driver and me in the open part at the back, my back against the driver's cab.
2854. 5:25:59While we went, there were three Military Academy students; they have me under guard in a triangle, and in front of all three a pistol.
2855. 5:26:08A Walther pistol, hammers cocked; all the pistols — one comes at me, every other moment he puts the pistol to my forehead.
2856. 5:26:16"Ah, scoundrel," he says, "if only I could take the order, take the eyebrow, squeeze him" — the hammer is raised; from a jolt it could go off. They brought me to the old Military Academy where I had trained as an officer,
2857. 5:26:27and from the back door there is something large; there is the selamlık entrance there;
2858. 5:26:36the staircase is very wide; officers, young officers had filled both sides; that my footsteps were heard —
2859. 5:26:46rotten beasts came: scoundrels, dishonourable men, thieves, pimps, traitors to the homeland — their brains so washed —
2860. 5:26:55I became the target of terrible hostility from people whom I had never once faced in my life, whose hands I had never shaken; my heart pounds.
2861. 5:27:03When were these people filled with such bad feelings against us?
2862. 5:27:10In fact, according to the first list made in the operation planning, only the members of the government's investigation commission and a few prominent deputies
2863. 5:27:18were to be arrested by the military, but over time this 73-person list swelled and swelled; a kind of hunt for Democrats began in the city.
2864. 5:27:26As the number of those brought to the war school approached 200, things were increasingly getting out of control.
2865. 5:27:33Whoever hears the gunfire leaps into the street, gets into a taxi, comes; everyone has gathered and everyone wants
2866. 5:27:46to do something; they say "there's a Democrat matter over there too," and that Democrat matter is taken;
2867. 5:27:56"there's one here too," "there's one here too" — continually, while I sat there,
2868. 5:28:04arrest orders began to come in front of me. Who is issuing these orders?
2869. 5:28:13How do they issue them? I didn't understand. To sign, I read the orders; I look: "National Security Chairman," they say.
2870. 5:28:22"Fine," I say, "let him be arrested" — police, police chiefs be arrested; among them there are some generals.
2871. 5:28:31I strike out the generals. Such a confused situation in one room.
2872. 5:28:41Twenty or twenty-five generals, they'd come as if to look around, to see how things stood — "Hey, what are you after now?"
2873. 5:28:49In this fuss, "you, we are under arrest," he said; how can we be under arrest, now that there was no one left to arrest —
2874. 5:28:58ours, the cadets, had begun arresting the generals too.
2875. 5:29:07At dawn the Military Academy had been filled with Democrats but Çankaya had not yet fallen; what was feared had come to pass: Bayar had gone into resistance.
2876. 5:29:16Now the revolution's units were going to Çankaya to break this last point of resistance; a company reinforced with 5 tanks was sent to the area;
2877. 5:29:24two anti-aircraft guns were positioned in the surroundings and the mansion was surrounded on all sides; the revolutionaries began to wait
2878. 5:29:32for the 45-minute deadline to expire. Of course my whole fear in all these events was this:
2879. 5:29:42the President was an extraordinarily honourable man of strong character, and in his pocket he always
2880. 5:29:51carried a pistol. Faced with the gravity of this event, I was scared to death he would draw it and kill himself. I said, "Yunus Bey, for heaven's sake
2881. 5:29:59keep an eye on him — I think the President has a pistol — what can I do?" Finally, patience ran out outside;
2882. 5:30:07by now the Guard Regiment units had also joined the revolutionaries; a group of revolutionary officers headed by Brigadier General Burhanettin Uluç
2883. 5:30:15began marching toward the mansion to take Bayar into custody.
2884. 5:30:20At that moment the sentry police officer at the gate telephoned: "Sir," he said,
2885. 5:30:28"three or five officers have arrived here in a jeep, with a general at their head; they have entered the mansion with them.
2886. 5:30:36They are coming that way." "Who are they, son, why forbidden?" we said, "forbidden." "Sir," they said, and took the pistols in our hands.
2887. 5:30:45I went up the steps of the mansion, the Pink Mansion; I saw eight or ten people coming, with a general at their head. I said,
2888. 5:30:52"Pasha, what's going on, what is this? This is not a sultanate, not a palace; inside is someone who came by election."
2889. 5:31:00"The armed forces have seized the army. Haven't you listened to the radio?" Pushing me aside they entered. When the officers entered the mansion,
2890. 5:31:09Bayar was standing beside the billiard table, his left hand in his jacket pocket holding his pistol; the barrel of the weapon was turned outward.
2891. 5:31:18The Victorious Hodja of the National Struggle had clung to his weapon once more after forty years. When General Burhanettin Uluç entered the room he told Bayar,
2892. 5:31:27"The nation and the army do not want you; you forced us to this." It was at that moment that the decision was being taken for Bayar. Very harshly to them:
2893. 5:31:37"I came by the national will, I came by being elected; I can leave here only by the word of the national will; in no way will I go."
2894. 5:31:46"You cannot take me anywhere, sir." "We will host you at the Military Academy, that's what we'll do." "You cannot do this."
2895. 5:31:54"You cannot go." At that moment he drew his pistol and, as he put it to his temple, they leapt on him; before the pistol did anything
2896. 5:32:05they walked him downstairs. At the last moment Bayar had given up firing at those before him and turned the weapon on himself. The revolver's bullet
2897. 5:32:14had shifted in the barrel but, without firing, it was taken from his hand. With Bayar being taken to the Military Academy in a red station wagon,
2898. 5:32:26Ankara had now completely fallen. Now only one living target remained.
2899. 5:32:33Adnan Menderes: the prime minister, learning of the revolution, had decided to leave Eskişehir; he wanted to get away from there at once
2900. 5:32:40and go to a safer place where he might take refuge. A little later outside a
2901. 5:32:49pickup jeep and a jeep truck [appeared]; the jeep truck [carried] a squad; into the jeep pickup
2902. 5:33:00one or two officers got in, [seats] set aside for officers; in front was the prime minister's car, the private office
2903. 5:33:10car; the prime minister said, "I'll ride in the jeep pickup." Nobody much wanted to ride beside him
2904. 5:33:22from there someone from our side would usually ride with him; seeing that state of affairs, I went
2905. 5:33:31to ride beside him; he said to me, "you stay here — let Colonel Erzmert Bey come, my chief of staff colonel," and he got in, willy-nilly.
2906. 5:33:43We boarded the prime minister's car and set off toward Kütahya. Then
2907. 5:33:53I heard for the first time there, from the car's radio, that the announcements in Ankara had begun. When Türkeş's voice reached Eskişehir,
2908. 5:34:01everyone at the jet base garrison rose up. Colonel Muhsin Batur had been waiting for this voice impatiently for hours.
2909. 5:34:09This future famous general was in those days serving at Eskişehir's main jet base. On the evening of 26 May a lieutenant colonel had come and told him of the revolution preparation
2910. 5:34:18and asked him to take the necessary measures in Eskişehir; the so-called necessary measure was the taking into custody of Prime Minister Menderes.
2911. 5:34:26As soon as Batur heard the attention announcement on the radio, he sprang up; they had set out but we of course didn't know which way they went, so
2912. 5:34:36we sent planes up toward various directions — Kütahya, İstanbul, Ankara; soon the planes, as they entered Kütahya, saw the convoy
2913. 5:34:45and reported; our air training brigade was there in Kütahya; its commander was telephoned
2914. 5:34:55and asked to have Menderes detained in Kütahya. After going some distance, jets appeared
2915. 5:35:03overhead and the jets began to dive — if of course they had received a firing order.
2916. 5:35:14The prime minister was not in his car, he was in the pickup; the first rocket would have come onto us. They circled for a while
2917. 5:35:23then turned back; after they had turned, we entered Kütahya. At the entrance to Kütahya the deputy governor,
2918. 5:35:33the gendarmerie commander and, I think, the commander of the air training regiment that was there,
2919. 5:35:42and one or two officers greeted us; we went to the governorate in a very respectful manner.
2920. 5:35:53At the governorate it became clear that an order had come to detain him — the colonel had the order in his pocket;
2921. 5:36:02so it seems; and beside him there is a first lieutenant who seems to be saying "do this quickly" and so on, coming and going, talking with him.
2922. 5:36:11Only the colonel's situation is of course extremely difficult, understandably: something has happened in Ankara,
2923. 5:36:21an order has come, but what has happened, how far, will it succeed or not — and before him is a prime minister of ten years;
2924. 5:36:28if he locked up that prime minister and it did not succeed, he could badly lose his life; conversely if he let him slip away
2925. 5:36:38and it succeeded, the same situation. In fact that colonel's duty was only to stall the prime minister. The soldier who would actually arrest Menderes was then coming toward Kütahya in a C-47 aircraft:
2926. 5:36:48Staff Colonel Muhsin Batur. Meanwhile Menderes tried to get news by telephoning several places from Kütahya,
2927. 5:36:56but in vain; Ankara and İstanbul were silent as a wall. The colonel, apparently to be safe,
2928. 5:37:04said in a very respectful and polite manner, "my prime minister, let's go to our place,
2929. 5:37:13there are phones there too, let's continue there"; the prime minister understood and again they
2930. 5:37:22boarded the cars and set off toward the training regiment. Entering the regiment's main gate,
2931. 5:37:30which was about half past six or seven in the morning, we looked from where we were and saw the building had been surrounded with bayonet-armed soldiers,
2932. 5:37:40apparently so there would be no possibility of escape; the prime minister saw this too. A little later a plane landed.
2933. 5:37:48Muhsin Batur got out of the plane; the garrison commander greeted me — "where is the prime minister?" I said. "In my room," he said.
2934. 5:37:57I went up; the other officers were with me. I saluted him: "The Armed Forces
2935. 5:38:08have taken over the administration of Turkey; my duty is to take you to Eskişehir," I said. "What is my crime?" he said.
2936. 5:38:23"Do you want to arrest me?" he said. "No," I said, "I will take you to Eskişehir under protection." "Well, what is my crime?" I said [he asked again].
2937. 5:38:33"In the idiom of the time, like Arabic to me — I am not in a position to explain a crime to you; my duty is only this," I said.
2938. 5:38:42Polatkan too was tired and sallow, showing more signs of fear than the others.
2939. 5:38:52He kept wanting to telephone somewhere; we of course prevented it; they asked us for permission, as if to say "step out so we can talk among ourselves."
2940. 5:39:00Of course we didn't leave the room, and since we didn't, they gave up. "Because you will board a plane, we need to search you for weapons," I said.
2941. 5:39:07That was done; "please, let's go," I said. We boarded the plane; as we boarded there were young lieutenants with submachine guns;
2942. 5:39:15indeed one of them, with a submachine gun, as the prime minister was entering, Muhsin Batur said, "lower your weapon appropriately."
2943. 5:39:23And the plane was boarded; Muhsin Batur said "this is the only plane we could find;
2944. 5:39:32it was a plane used by paratroopers, a somewhat uncomfortable plane; we apologise," he said, and we departed.
2945. 5:39:42On the way to Ankara Menderes was very sad, tired and worn out; he smoked constantly.
2946. 5:39:52His cigarettes ran out, and then we kept offering him cigarettes. Hasan Polatkan was in a terrible state;
2947. 5:40:02that is, in a state beyond shock. Menderes was not so. During the flight Menderes
2948. 5:40:12showed no sign of panic; as always he treated those near him, everyone, very kindly.
2949. 5:40:21That is, he showed no sign of fear, no sign of anger, but that this affair
2950. 5:40:30had reached the point of no return — I think he had come to that conviction, because he was in a kind of submission on this plane, I suppose.
2951. 5:40:40Either Tahsin Yazıcı or Zeynep Özergener [as transcribed] said to me, "Colonel, who is at your head?" "I don't know," I said, but just as we were landing at Ankara
2952. 5:40:50two planes spoke by radio; it was announced that Cemal Gürsel Pasha too was about to come to Ankara from İzmir in a C-47;
2953. 5:40:58then we understood that Cemal Gürsel Pasha had been put at the head of the affair. A strange twist of fate:
2954. 5:41:06the leader of a toppled regime and the leader of those who toppled it had met in the air at the same time. Cemal Gürsel, three weeks earlier
2955. 5:41:14as a full general awaiting retirement had gone to İzmir, was now returning from there as a revolution leader. For Menderes the situation was the exact opposite:
2956. 5:41:21going to Eskişehir he was a prime minister; now he was landing at Ankara's Güvercinlik Airport as a prisoner. Soon a communiqué signed by General Cemal Gürsel
2957. 5:41:30was read on the radio, announcing that Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan had been captured.
2958. 5:41:38Now the government was there in full, at the war school. Celal Bayar, in the memoirs he wrote years later, would recount his last conversation with his prime minister that day at the war school like this:
2959. 5:41:47"I was going to the washroom; guards were with me. Adnan Bey had come before me and was washing his hands.
2960. 5:41:56We met suddenly. His face had thinned in a few days, his eyes were shadowed with grief. "What's done is done, Adnan Bey," I said,
2961. 5:42:04"be steadfast." A sad smile appeared on his face; spreading his hands to either side he said, "Is there any other way anyway?"
2962. 5:42:12We could not talk any more; the soldiers cut off our words." A ten-year government had been overthrown in four hours. The two names at the pinnacle of power
2963. 5:42:23had their last face-to-face meeting end there. With the first light of morning, despite the curfew, people
2964. 5:42:30filled the streets; on one side people were joyous, on the other a hunt for DP members was going on. In fact democracy had suffered a wound
2965. 5:42:39that would take many years to heal. At that time what this would bring and take away was hardly calculated; it was thought everything would be rosy.
2966. 5:42:48In the first real democratic experiment in Turkish political history, for the first time the military had seized an elected government and had completely purged a cadre.
2967. 5:42:57That is well and good, but what would be put in place of those toppled? This was the question that the officers who made the coup,
2968. 5:43:06until 26 May, had never thought about at all; it confronted them at noon on 27 May: now what would happen?
2969. 5:43:18There is a famous saying: one can come to power with bayonets, but one cannot sit on them.
2970. 5:43:24Those who carried out 27 May had come with bayonets.
2971. 5:43:27And these young officers had overthrown the government by shattering the Turkish army's traditional chain of command.
2972. 5:43:33In fact they had created a wholly unaccustomed situation that offended sensibilities from the very first moment.
2973. 5:43:40The Turkish army was not at all accustomed to a general standing up when a committee member of lieutenant-colonel rank entered the room.
2974. 5:43:48Although the streets were full of jubilant crowds and the people's support had been won, the real work, the real responsibilities, were now beginning.
2975. 5:43:58When the intervention ended successfully on the morning of 27 May, the real question came onto the agenda.
2976. 5:44:03"So what shall we do now?" While the revolution brought sadness and tears to some homes in Ankara,
2977. 5:44:16in most it created a complete revolutionary euphoria. Flags hung from balconies from the early hours of the morning
2978. 5:44:23were the first signs of this festival joy. Going out was forbidden but nobody listened.
2979. 5:44:29First the tanks were saluted; then people climbed onto them and celebrations began.
2980. 5:44:34After the curfew ended, the place turned into a complete festival ground.
2981. 5:44:37Soldiers were carried on shoulders, tanks were decorated with flowers, tens of thousands of people embraced one another in the avenues.
2982. 5:44:45Buses and taxis announced that they would carry army members free for three days.
2983. 5:44:50The euphoria was so great that the next day a statement had to be made over the radio that the cheering should now stop.
2984. 5:44:57A part of society had relaxed, as if rescued from a nightmare.
2985. 5:45:02Truly, even the revolutionaries did not expect this much.
2986. 5:45:04The same victory intoxication was experienced that morning at the revolution headquarters as well.
2987. 5:45:08But as the hours passed, a very important question began to gnaw at the brain of the general who headed the headquarters.
2988. 5:45:15The coup had succeeded, but what would happen now? "What are we going to do, I'm saying, with a huge state?
2989. 5:45:26When we were five or ten officers, how are we going to set it in order?
2990. 5:45:31All the thought is in my head. I wander about with this thought; my cheer has all but gone."
2991. 5:45:39Madanoğlu first planned to put a full stop to the old regime by forcing Bayar to resign.
2992. 5:45:44And, taking the new army commanders with him, to the Military Academy.
2993. 5:45:47He went to Bayar. "I brought the generals, I lined them up.
2994. 5:45:52I said, 'Sir, here are the generals and admirals of the land army, the air force, the navy.
2995. 5:45:59We are in control of the situation at this moment. We have come to ask you to resign.'
2996. 5:46:09General Bayar stirred in the armchair where he sat.
2997. 5:46:14Extending his finger to his forehead, he said: 'I am, by the national will, the
2998. 5:46:25President of this state. Even if you put a pistol to my forehead I will not resign.'
2999. 5:46:32Upon this clear stance of Bayar's, the resignation plan was abandoned.
3000. 5:46:35At that moment Madanoğlu recalled a formula he had had in mind earlier.
3001. 5:46:40He would bring the university into play. "It was as if a light flashed inside me.
3002. 5:46:48'All right,' I said, 'on revolution day I'll call the professors.
3003. 5:46:55With that revolutionary excitement I'll have them form a constituent assembly.
3004. 5:47:05I remembered at once. I said, go to Laz Mehmet.
3005. 5:47:10The houses with gardens — that friend of Hikmet Bey's is around there too,
3006. 5:47:19you know the houses. Take him too and bring the two of them here,' I said."
3007. 5:47:26Until that moment the military intervention had not gone beyond a simple coup.
3008. 5:47:29It had no long-term political plan, no social dimension.
3009. 5:47:32By this order, Madanoğlu, perhaps without realising it, was also pioneering the effort to turn the 27 May coup into the 27 May revolution.
3010. 5:47:39Soon the trusted family friend Hikmet Keriman was brought in haste.
3011. 5:47:46He was asked to write down, one under another, the names of the professors he knew.
3012. 5:47:50The resulting list was given to an officer, and in the cool of the morning a military plane took off to bring the professors on the list.
3013. 5:47:57One of those whose doors were knocked on first was Professor Tarık Zafer Tunaya.
3014. 5:48:02One morning my door was knocked; at that time we lived a bit further along from here.
3015. 5:48:11First İsmet Giritli came in, then a colonel or something — I think a colonel — Şefik Bey; they
3016. 5:48:22came. And they asked us to set out to bring us to Ankara,
3017. 5:48:33to prepare. Strangely, I was almost ready.
3018. 5:48:38They put us on a military plane: "They want you in Ankara," they said.
3019. 5:48:48We're going, but what we'll do, what will happen — we have no idea.
3020. 5:48:55Indeed, on the plane at one point the late Sıddık Sami Onar — there was an empty seat beside me — got up and came over.
3021. 5:49:04"Hıfzı Veldet Bey," he said, "we are going to an unknown destination; let's see, God willing it ends well," he said.
3022. 5:49:13In fact the journey into the unknown of these seven professors on the military plane was for a worthy cause.
3023. 5:49:19The board of professors consisting of Sıddık Sami Onar, Hıfzı Veldet Velidedeoğlu, Hüseyin Nail Kubalı, Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Ragıp Sarıca, Naci Şensoy and İsmet Giritli
3024. 5:49:29was awaited in Ankara by a historic task: preparing the new constitution.
3025. 5:49:33I came; they had seated the professors in a hall at the General Staff, lined up side by side as if to watch a film, and they sat;
3026. 5:49:45in front of them there is a table; I came to the table, I did not sit, I stood at the table.
3027. 5:49:51Everything I had said, was going to say, everything I had thought in my head, all went out of my head.
3028. 5:49:59I said, "dear professors, we have done a job" — it came out of my mouth like that.
3029. 5:50:10They immediately shouted, "you are lions who saved the homeland, you did this, you did that," and so on.
3030. 5:50:16I said, "now is not the time for literature; that's for later.
3031. 5:50:20Now listen to me," I said, "this is what I think.
3032. 5:50:23You," I said, "the board of professors, the Court of Cassation, the Council of State, the Military Council — let's gather all of you in front of the national assembly, let's call you the constituent assembly,
3033. 5:50:36let's put you inside. The time limit is until tomorrow at 12.
3034. 5:50:41By 12 declare your government as a constituent assembly, and I will pull the army back."
3035. 5:50:49This was the picture in the first hours of the operation. The army had liquidated the government and was preparing to hand the country to trusted hands and withdraw to its barracks.
3036. 5:50:58But when it came to the professors' turn to speak, the situation changed.
3037. 5:51:02Sıddık Sami Onar stood up. He said, "Sir, we have conferred among ourselves, we have thought it over.
3038. 5:51:12This business is not as you say; it has to be like this."
3039. 5:51:17"How?" I said. "You will set up," he said, "a revolution committee equipped with legislative powers.
3040. 5:51:25That is, you will set up a revolution committee armed with legislative authority.
3041. 5:51:34The head of state from among you, the government from among you." Everything changed at that moment.
3042. 5:51:39The board of professors headed by Sıddık Sami Onar had come up with a new regime formula.
3043. 5:51:44The professors were telling the soldiers who wanted to leave: stay.
3044. 5:51:48But how would this revolution committee be formed?
3045. 5:51:51The thing called the committee was a body the like of which had never been seen in the world.
3046. 5:51:54Generals had come under colonels' orders. There were nearly fifty officers, but since they came from different organisations, nobody knew anybody.
3047. 5:52:03Full General Cemal Gürsel, whom they had brought to be their leader, did not even know any of their names.
3048. 5:52:09In public opinion Gürsel was known as the leader, but he was only a symbol.
3049. 5:52:15A handful of young officers had organised and carried out the operation from start to finish.
3050. 5:52:19Yet now there was a tendency for these young officers to return to their barracks as soon as possible.
3051. 5:52:24Of course most of them were not willing. Thus the foundations of the first splits within the brain cadre were laid.
3052. 5:52:31When it came to the real task of choosing the committee, things got really confused.
3053. 5:52:35Everyone took on an air of "I made the revolution." It exceeded forty-five, as far as I remember,
3054. 5:52:41the number of National Unity Committee members. Friends and others discussed it.
3055. 5:52:46"It won't be like this. Friends said: let's form a board.
3056. 5:52:52A board that knows the inside of the matters from the very beginning of this business.
3057. 5:52:58Let this board determine who will remain in the National Unity Committee and who will go.
3058. 5:53:04Let those who are to go separate and go, let those who are to stay stay." After long discussions, eight officers from among the most senior organisers shut themselves in a room and from among those who had taken part in the operation
3059. 5:53:14produced a list of thirty-eight people. The National Unity Committee was ready.
3060. 5:53:19At the very top was written the name of full General Cemal Gürsel, who had come straight to the General Staff with the dust still on his feet.
3061. 5:53:26Gürsel Pasha sat down. He took the chair's seat.
3062. 5:53:32And he said to us, "We believe in the university."
3063. 5:53:39"In fact we do not merely believe; we have faith," he said.
3064. 5:53:44"What we ask of you is a new constitution," he said. "We do not want to put pressure on you in any respect."
3065. 5:53:53"We insist only on two things being included," he said. "One is that provisions safeguarding secularism be included," he said.
3066. 5:54:05"And that provisions against the exploitation of religion be included. And the other: let there be a second chamber," he said.
3067. 5:54:12The board of professors withdrew to prepare the new constitution.
3068. 5:54:15Meanwhile the legislative and executive duty remained with the National Unity Committee.
3069. 5:54:20Since the professors had tossed the ball to the soldiers, Gürsel would form the government.
3070. 5:54:24But with whom would he form it? For the officers who made the revolution had sworn 8–10 hours earlier that they would accept no post.
3071. 5:54:33I went up to the General Staff. In the council hall at the General Staff there was a long table.
3072. 5:54:41Gürsel was seated at the head of the table. Beside him there was an armchair, empty.
3073. 5:54:48I sat in that armchair. All around the table they could touch the table from the edge of their chairs.
3074. 5:54:59Two by two, two by two. They had surrounded the whole table.
3075. 5:55:08Gürsel Pasha is speaking. "What other ministries remain?" he says.
3076. 5:55:14I understood at once. Gürsel Pasha is forming the government there.
3077. 5:55:22I said to Gürsel Pasha, "Pasha, we swore an oath last evening at the War School."
3078. 5:55:30This time Gürsel Pasha turned. "Madanoğlu is talking about an oath," he said.
3079. 5:55:33"What is this oath?" he said. I look at my friends; nobody makes a sound.
3080. 5:55:39Directly opposite Gürsel at the table sits Sami Küçük.
3081. 5:55:43The muscles in Sami Küçük's cheek are rising, rising and falling like this.
3082. 5:55:48At that moment I said to myself, what is going on with these people?
3083. 5:55:55I banged my fist on the table. And the fist I struck made it ring out with a thud.
3084. 5:56:03So as not to seem to have struck it at Gürsel Pasha, I turned to my friends.
3085. 5:56:11"You useless lot," I said. "Which of you understands finance, which of you commerce, which of you economics?
3086. 5:56:19We came to this state because of where I did this," I said.
3087. 5:56:22Now as I burst out at them like this, at the officers around the table —
3088. 5:56:28those officers, there are a few organisers among them.
3089. 5:56:34The others were all latecomers, people who rushed to the situation trying to get posts.
3090. 5:56:42Upon this, upon this fist of mine, Gürsel Pasha —
3091. 5:56:46"Well, Madanoğlu, what will happen?" he said. Gürsel was quite helpless.
3092. 5:56:50The professors had refused to form the government, and the soldiers had bound themselves by oath.
3093. 5:56:55So what would happen? "I said, 'Pasha, there's nothing to happen.'
3094. 5:56:58These are young,' I said. 'You and I are tired.
3095. 5:57:04We'll go and lie down. They'll [work] till morning,' I said — I used the expression 'like hounds.'
3096. 5:57:09'Being young they'll go around. For every ministry they'll bring you four or five names,' I said.
3097. 5:57:18And we'll form this civilian government. You'll form it tomorrow morning.'
3098. 5:57:24'Understood,' he said, 'all right, friends. The government will be formed tomorrow morning.'"
3099. 5:57:29Telephones were taken in hand at once and a technocrats' government of civilians with clean pasts was formed.
3100. 5:57:35Thus the confusion increased one more notch. Now there was a board of professors, a National Unity Committee, and a council of ministers.
3101. 5:57:43At the head of them all was Cemal Gürsel, who had in fact only just met all of them.
3102. 5:57:48Amid this confusion Gürsel that day went to the microphone and, addressing the public anxiously awaiting news of the new rulers,
3103. 5:57:55made the following speech. "Dear Turkish nation, you know the events which for some time have been taking place in the country and dragging the nation rapidly into terrible crises.
3104. 5:58:06I presume that every sensible citizen appreciates that this course was taking the country to a bloody fratricidal struggle.
3105. 5:58:19How far will this go? Must we remain uninvolved, unconcerned spectators of this disastrous outcome?
3106. 5:58:27Thus, my fellow citizens, I have for months been thinking about these circumstances in repose and I have shown the ways out to this poor country.
3107. 5:58:35But they, because of the derangement political ambition had caused in their minds, did not listen, and fell for the passion of pushing things through by force.
3108. 5:58:46The laws passed and the actions followed show that they are bent on putting the Turkish nation in chains.
3109. 5:58:55With these thoughts and considerations I decided to put an end to this disastrous course and took over the administration of the state.
3110. 5:59:03I want to tell all citizens at once that I have not the slightest desire to be a dictator.
3111. 5:59:13Our aim is [garbled in the transcript] to establish a clean, honest democratic order in this country and to leave the administration of the state to the will of the nation.
3112. 5:59:24Believe me and trust me." Indeed these words underlined a principle that the Turkish army would never abandon.
3113. 5:59:33They had not come to power with a dictator's ambition to go again to government.
3114. 5:59:36The aim was to stop a course, a chaos, and put democracy back on its rails.
3115. 5:59:43They had done what was most right by their own thinking.
3116. 5:59:45Their intentions were clean. But the matter did not end with this.
3117. 5:59:49The real problem was how what they wanted to do would be realised.
3118. 5:59:53They were inexperienced. Pressures came from every direction; everyone tried to pull them in a different direction.
3119. 5:59:59The real danger was that, while trying to do what was most beneficial for the country, matters would get even more tangled through successive mistakes.
3120. 6:00:08And so it turned out. Gürsel's radio speech gave the CHP members morale.
3121. 6:00:20Everyone suddenly rushed to İnönü's house. So that İsmet Pasha, when he stepped onto the balcony of his house in Tandoğan, could not believe his eyes.
3122. 6:00:28The front of his house was like a rally ground. On one side the cheering crowd, on the other the soldiers assigned to protect him and
3123. 6:00:34right beside the Pasha some revolutionary officers who had come to visit him.
3124. 6:00:38Outside it was as if the victory of a joint action were being celebrated.
3125. 6:00:43Yet inside, İsmet Pasha was in a completely different mood.
3126. 6:00:47What he feared was virtually happening to him. Noon came.
3127. 6:00:51A very serious expression of worry never left İsmet Pasha's face.
3128. 6:00:57At one point he cut short one of these conversations.
3129. 6:01:00"What a pity," he said. "I worked hard, I could not prevent it. I could not warn them," he said.
3130. 6:01:05"I could not make myself understood to them. Is it better now?" he said.
3131. 6:01:08That was his expression: "is it better now?" "Now the revolution comes, military rule comes, but when it will go and how it will go is not clear."
3132. 6:01:17A little further in front of us Ferit Melen is sitting.
3133. 6:01:23Ferit Melen, a CHP deputy. But he does not come from the Finance Ministry.
3134. 6:01:30At the Finance Ministry he had been director general of revenues.
3135. 6:01:35But he knows his job. I looked: he had come out of his house and was going.
3136. 6:01:39I said to the Pasha, "Ferit Bey has gone out." "Call him," he said; Ferit Bey came.
3137. 6:01:43He said, "Where are you going?" He said, "Pasha, in three days salaries will be paid.
3138. 6:01:49They won't know how to pay them. There's a certain procedure.
3139. 6:01:52These have to be done. I'll go to the Finance Ministry and sort these matters out."
3140. 6:01:56"You go and sit at home. This is not our revolution.
3141. 6:02:01It is a move made by the military. There's no need for the People's Party to get involved either."
3142. 6:02:06It must be them anyway. Indeed the soldiers did not want the impression to arise that the revolution had been made together with the CHP.
3143. 6:02:14But although İnönü said "this is not our revolution," some CHP members had already risen, and some had even
3144. 6:02:22already joined with the soldiers in the campaign to arrest the DP members.
3145. 6:02:26Indeed, thereupon a messenger came to İnönü's house.
3146. 6:02:29The Committee wanted the Pasha to warn the CHP organisation.
3147. 6:02:32A statement was written at once, and in this delicate period feelings of revenge were asked to be avoided.
3148. 6:02:38The CHP was neither inside nor outside the revolution. On the day after the intervention
3149. 6:02:54the most important development was Cemal Gürsel, now Prime Minister, telephoning İsmet Pasha.
3150. 6:02:59When the phone rang in the morning, since the Pasha was hard of hearing, Metin Toker mediated this conversation.
3151. 6:03:06According to the notes Toker took that day, Gürsel began exactly like this.
3152. 6:03:10"We are lambs before you, my Pasha. We did not inform you in advance of our movement.
3153. 6:03:16But we knew that had we done so, you would have wanted to dissuade us from it.
3154. 6:03:20We had nothing else left to do. We ask you to forgive us.
3155. 6:03:26Your orders are always as binding as a Prophet's command for us, my honoured Pasha."
3156. 6:03:32"İsmet Pasha [replied], you have done a good deed for the country and the nation.
3157. 6:03:37You have done a great thing. I wish that it be happy and auspicious.
3158. 6:03:41For your real success I am at your orders, Your Excellency Pasha.
3159. 6:03:46I understand you. Whenever you have any wish, I am ready at your command," he said.
3160. 6:03:51The phone call ended. Gürsel, having received İsmet Pasha's moral support, was relieved.
3161. 6:03:56That very day he held a press conference and declared that the 27 May Movement had not the slightest connection with İsmet Pasha.
3162. 6:04:03At the same press conference Gürsel announced the good news that the DP members would not be tried and that elections would be held within three months.
3163. 6:04:13İsmet Pasha visited Gürsel the next day. The promise of elections had been given.
3164. 6:04:17But İnönü was suspicious. Since the intervention had been made to put democracy back on track, an election had to be held.
3165. 6:04:25An election was unavoidable. When the Pasha came out of the meeting, his son-in-law Metin Toker was waiting curiously for him.
3166. 6:04:33İsmet Pasha did not leave all that satisfied.
3167. 6:04:38He said, "He doesn't seem to have understood much of what I said."
3168. 6:04:42İsmet Pasha had given him three pieces of advice. One:
3169. 6:04:48keep the unity of the army. The second, he said, was that you, as the National Unity Committee,
3170. 6:04:58keep your unity among yourselves. İsmet Pasha's third simple piece of advice was this:
3171. 6:05:06He said, "Go to an election at once. Go to an election as soon as possible."
3172. 6:05:11And he said his famous words: "There are more national interests than can be counted in going to an election as soon as possible."
3173. 6:05:19Gürsel found all three recommendations odd, because he thought both the army and the National Unity Committee were in complete unity.
3174. 6:05:27And since he had announced that elections would be held within three months, there was no need to worry.
3175. 6:05:32Gürsel put this talk down to the Pasha's impatience for elections.
3176. 6:05:37Indeed, while relaying the meeting to his friends he said, "İsmet Pasha was as hasty and excited as a young man about to enter the bridal chamber."
3177. 6:05:45Yet İsmet Pasha's concern stemmed from certain presentiments.
3178. 6:05:50From the very first day the atmosphere had begun to change.
3179. 6:05:53Within the committee there were those who believed there should be no haste about the election.
3180. 6:05:58Alparslan Türkeş was one of them. He opposed an early election.
3181. 6:06:04"An early election as a fait accompli would mean handing power as it is to the Republican People's Party, to İsmet Pasha.
3182. 6:06:13And this would destroy the appearance we think so important, of the army acting above parties, neutrally.
3183. 6:06:23In any case this intervention has brought the army a certain definite thing.
3184. 6:06:30That is, it marched against the Democrat Party. It toppled the Democrat government.
3185. 6:06:36Consequently it has invited a section of the people's complaint.
3186. 6:06:43If such an election yields such a result, they will say 'there, they took it and handed it to that side.'"
3187. 6:06:51Another group within the National Unity Committee that opposed the election advanced a different rationale.
3188. 6:06:58According to them, the Democrat Party should not be put into an election before those responsible for the toppled government were tried.
3189. 6:07:04This was the most important development. Especially when the members of the Constitution Commission wrote a report supporting this view,
3190. 6:07:13the atmosphere changed still more. In this report the professors stated that the 27 May Movement was not a coup but an action —
3191. 6:07:23even a revolution — against a government that had lost its legitimacy. The hands of the soldiers within the committee and the army who wanted an early election and a return to barracks
3192. 6:07:31were thus tied. Of course in this case the question of what would become of the members of the old regime came onto the agenda.
3193. 6:07:39When the Military Academy overflowed with detainees, Madanoğlu on the evening of 27 May had released most of them.
3194. 6:07:46The professors who came — now Sıddık Sami Onar, Velidedeoğlu —
3195. 6:07:56I've forgotten the name, four or five professors — Sıddık Sami Onar said:
3196. 6:08:06"Sir, all these Democrat detainees you speak of are constitutional criminals,
3197. 6:08:17all of them are death-penalty escapees." "Gürsel Pasha has released them — how can that be?" he said.
3198. 6:08:32I understood at once that it was not Gürsel Pasha but I who had released them; everyone knows, since a day had passed,
3199. 6:08:42but the committee members and the professors had talked; the professors had put words in the committee members' mouths against me. Now
3200. 6:08:52I felt that I was being asked, and would be asked, to give up this business.
3201. 6:08:57Madanoğlu sat cross-legged on the floor and listened to us attentively, very attentively.
3202. 6:09:06We said to him: "By what authority did you detain them? This is a revolution —
3203. 6:09:16well then, by what authority are you releasing them?" He said, with Sıtkı Yırcalı's
3204. 6:09:28testimony we asked who was extreme and who was not. Sıtkı Yırcalı too
3205. 6:09:39a member of the Democrat Party, and in this way, he said, we released some and some
3206. 6:09:49remained." Then Sıddık Sami Bey said: "Well then, what will the assembly
3207. 6:09:58do when in the end it brings them to court: why, on what authority
3208. 6:10:07did you detain them, on what authority did you release them without trial, without a decision, without questioning?
3209. 6:10:17You released them." Madanoğlu said: "Look, I hadn't thought of this," and I said "this business
3210. 6:10:27is easy; if I made a mistake — I, Cemal Madanoğlu, not Cemal Gürsel, released them, because," I said, "that's how we had talked:
3211. 6:10:36arrests would be limited; we released these; if necessary," I said, "I'll bring the matter to the committee,
3212. 6:10:45it will decide and we'll take them in again," and so it was. The committee convened, a decision was made, and all the released DP members
3213. 6:10:53were gathered up again one by one; within two days the wheels had begun to turn against the DP. Meanwhile the DP's Interior Minister Namık Gedik
3214. 6:11:01jumped, for a reason not understood, from the window of the room where he was detained at the Military Academy, and died. The atmosphere suddenly tensed.
3215. 6:11:12A broad campaign was begun in the press against the toppled regime: it spoke of the DP's plans to blow up the Military Academy, of the mass graves on the Konya road,
3216. 6:11:21of animal feed being made from young people's corpses, of Kars and Artvin being left to the Russians; Bayar's
3217. 6:11:30having 103 million lira in a bank was also among the day's important rumours; these claims, none of which could be verified, were preparing public opinion for harsh penalties.
3218. 6:11:39In Ankara, so that DP members could not hide and flee, cars were driven around with their trunk lids open. We
3219. 6:11:51were of the view that sending the Democrat Party leaders to Switzerland and having them reside
3220. 6:12:01abroad there for a while would suffice; indeed to that end the Foreign Minister
3221. 6:12:10had also been told to make a preliminary preparation. Some of the professors [said]: for your revolution to be legitimate,
3222. 6:12:23their guilt must be established and they must be punished as guilty; if you do not punish them
3223. 6:12:35you will fall into an illegitimate position and tomorrow you will be accused of having made an
3224. 6:12:46unlawful revolution against a legitimate government. In that case
3225. 6:12:56it must be demonstrated that you are right, and this is possible only if their guilt
3226. 6:13:05is confirmed by a court decision and penalties are applied to them — they were making such requests.
3227. 6:13:14Now, if they were not tried but released, what would become of everything?
3228. 6:13:23Just think about it: then immediately, [by force], these poor men
3229. 6:13:33who intervened to establish democracy would be seized and brought before a war council, a military court, martial-law courts
3230. 6:13:42and so on — would democracy still be established then?
3231. 6:13:48Their being tried is actually far better than their not being tried, because in a trial
3232. 6:13:58and in non-trial there is no law, but when a person is tried he is tried according to certain rules, according to laws,
3233. 6:14:06so in that respect this was much better.
3234. 6:14:13This view influenced the soldiers. Gürsel, who had said on the first day that there would be no trial, changed his mind: "We are convinced they are guilty," he said.
3235. 6:14:22The Democrat Party had now seen the courthouse door.
3236. 6:14:25On a rainy, drizzly evening we leave Ankara — a weather that makes one sad —
3237. 6:14:37but they take us from outside the city, not through it; they took us around the outside; we don't know where we're going, but
3238. 6:14:48we understood that we were going to Etimesgut Airfield; we were taken to Etimesgut Airfield and put on a plane.
3239. 6:14:57After the plane [took off], the officers on duty with us
3240. 6:15:05were there; we saw that they put on [coats]; they opened a few windows,
3241. 6:15:14air comes in from outside; there are thin friends, they are cold, because it was summer, there's no
3242. 6:15:22extra clothing on top; in their hands submachine guns; the friends are well [positioned], they aim, and we came to Yeşilköy.
3243. 6:15:31When we arrived, searchlights; the cover of the truck was opened — the "twenty-five head of animals" I told you about — soon my foot touched the ground.
3244. 6:15:41I crouched, sprang up: "Which way shall we go, sir?" "This way, you!" they said; I looked: a corridor, and at the end of the corridor a boat.
3245. 6:15:49"For God's sake nobody hold me" — a hundred metres, despite my age — I was fifty-one then — like a hundred-metre runner
3246. 6:16:02I sprang off; behind me voices: "don't hit, it's shameful, don't"; the sound of feet, the sound of the crowd; out of breath we reached the ship; the ship we boarded
3247. 6:16:12took the entire cadre of the toppled government to a small island in the Marmara, to Yassıada. Yassıada, which until then had hosted only a military installation, from that day on
3248. 6:16:20would be remembered in Turkish political history as the place where an era was tried. In these two days following 27 May everything had been turned upside down.
3249. 6:16:29The three-month election project had been shelved, and in its place old files had been taken down from the shelf. From that day on, with the belief that great corruptions
3250. 6:16:38would be revealed across the whole country, [the public] listened at the radios to an endless, timeless trial; an adventure to be remembered with sorrow for years
3251. 6:16:48began. When Menderes stepped onto Yassıada on a June night,
3252. 6:17:07astonishment could be read on his face; armed soldiers were lined up on both sides of the pier; he did not know where or why he had been brought.
3253. 6:17:27Climbing the island's steps with timid steps, he passed between bayonets and was amazed. Then Bayar came.
3254. 6:17:45He had lost nothing of his proud bearing; putting his left hand into the jacket pocket where he had held his pistol on revolution morning, he walked on unconcerned.
3255. 6:18:09Yassıada would be, as it were, a laboratory that further revealed the different natures of these two leaders who had marked an era.
3256. 6:18:24Within a week 400 Democrat Party members climbed the steps of Yassıada: the president, the prime minister, the speaker, ministers, commanders,
3257. 6:18:33deputies — a whole government. A bitter period that would last a year and a half began for "the fallen," as the expression of the time had it.
3258. 6:19:02The island had been placed in a very tight security ring; security destroyers cruised around, anti-aircraft guns waited on the shore. The island's command was in the hands of
3259. 6:19:11Lieutenant Colonel Tarık Güryay, who was never without his [stick] in his hand, from one day on. Güryay was appointed island commander the day after the intervention
3260. 6:19:20and on arriving, as his first act, placed listening devices in the rooms where the detainees would stay.
3261. 6:19:27The wards would be secretly listened to, all conversations recorded. The second-tier detainees were placed two or three at a time in wards where the privates had previously stayed,
3262. 6:19:35while Bayar and Menderes were isolated in single-person rooms; they were not allowed to meet with anyone.
3263. 6:19:43Until the trial began, apart from brief chats with sentries and the island commander from time to time, they were not put in contact with the outside.
3264. 6:19:52This loneliness affected Menderes most; a prime minister who until only a few weeks earlier had thrilled hundreds of thousands could now see no one.
3265. 6:19:59His only consolation was the fifty-word letters he received every day from his wife, Berin Hanım: "Dear Adnan, we received the first news of your health from Yassıada;
3266. 6:20:10I can't say how glad we were. In Kavaklıdere, on Göreme Street, there was a flat; I took it without seeing it.
3267. 6:20:18I was very upset to learn from the newspapers that you spent the night in your shirt. Anyway, the suitcase you needed has come along behind.
3268. 6:20:28I will send laundry, money, but I don't know how; write to me at once what you want. Aydın, Metin
3269. 6:20:36are a great support to me. Dear little one, we pray for you every moment; here the two of us are very alone."
3270. 6:20:52From time to time in a letter my late father would say "why don't you move out of this house," and we couldn't make any sense of it.
3271. 6:21:00What could he know that we didn't — we wondered what the reason for leaving this house might be.
3272. 6:21:11There my mother reminded him: "We are comfortable, don't worry, we are content with the house too,
3273. 6:21:20we have no trouble or complaint," she said; then my late father — "not for that; I don't like the name of the street,"
3274. 6:21:31I remember him saying; "Göreme" can also be understood as "göreme emri" [an order: do not see].
3275. 6:21:40Like Göreme in Nevşehir, but also as a kind of curse — "göreme emi" [don't see, my dear]; we flinched at that, all at once;
3276. 6:21:50it had never occurred to us. Of course, at Yassıada it was not only Menderes who was anxious about never seeing his relatives again;
3277. 6:22:02life on the island was not easy for the other detainees either; incoming and outgoing letters were
3278. 6:22:10strictly monitored by a military committee; since newspapers and radio were banned they lived cut off. Yet outside there were extremely important changes.
3279. 6:22:31It had become certain that the army would not withdraw to its barracks without putting things in order. In June the laws of the revolution began to operate.
3280. 6:22:39With the first law it issued, the National Unity Committee prepared the legal ground of the coup: an article in the Army Internal Service Law
3281. 6:22:46was cited as the basis: according to it, the Turkish army was charged with watching over and protecting the Turkish Republic, and the revolution had been made with the authority it drew from this law.
3282. 6:22:57With Law No. 1 the National Unity Committee suspended the 1924 Constitution and took over legislative power entirely; whatever came out of its mouth would be law, working like a parliament.
3283. 6:23:07By the same law, NUC Chairman General Cemal Gürsel became Head of State.
3284. 6:23:15At the same time the Premiership, the Ministry of National Defence and the Supreme Commandership of the Armed Forces were also in his hands — a man who a month earlier had been a soldier awaiting retirement.
3285. 6:23:25Now he was sitting in Bayar's seat and taking the revolution oath of the National Unity Committee.
3286. 6:24:18While all the members of the NUC, one by one, swore a democracy oath in the assembly hall decked with flags, the Constitution Commission
3287. 6:24:26was beginning to work on the most liberal, most democratic constitution the Republic had ever seen; the new and young Republic would be built on this new constitution.
3288. 6:24:45The article of the NUC's Law No. 1 that most concerned the detainees was that it provided for the establishment of a High Court of Justice.
3289. 6:24:54The court's task was to try the old government; it was virtually a revolutionary court; the court's decisions could not be appealed;
3290. 6:25:04only the execution of death sentences would be possible with the approval of the NUC. Who would be tried
3291. 6:25:12would be decided by the High Investigation Board. The board went to work immediately at Yassıada.
3292. 6:25:24– Regarding the Yeşilhisar and Kayseri incidents... – Yes.
3293. 6:25:28Regarding the Yeşilhisar and Kayseri incidents, you have a letter dated 28 March 1960, addressed to the Prime Minister.
3294. 6:25:36– Yeşilhisar.
3295. 6:25:40Now, I won't be able to state it exactly as it was. – Yes.
3296. 6:25:45But I will explain it in general terms. An incident took place in Yeşilhisar.
3297. 6:25:52– Who conveyed these Yeşilhisar events to you, and how? In your letter you say, "I dwelt on the Yeşilhisar case."
3298. 6:26:00Judging by what I saw of the situation on the spot, of course, as a person with first-degree responsibility,
3299. 6:26:10one takes whatever measure is required. That is to say:
3300. 6:26:14I was lying ill in bed. – Yes. I regarded the incident as serious.
3301. 6:26:21And I wanted to go. That is what I am explaining. Had I been able to go, I would have taken measures on the spot.
3302. 6:26:27– But what measure would he take? The incident had already happened.
3303. 6:26:30No, the incident has happened, I am hearing of it; I immediately think of flying there and getting on top of the incident.
3304. 6:26:38On the matter of the plane... I wished for the colleagues here to go.
3305. 6:26:46The detailed scrutiny in the interrogations gave an idea of the scale of the trial
3306. 6:26:53approaching Bayar and Menderes. Lengthy statements were taken, and the files kept swelling.
3307. 6:26:58The island commander, Güryay, was usually present at these interrogations. One day this led to an incident.
3308. 6:27:05DP deputy Perihan Arıburun, one of the island's few female detainees, exploded when she was called to the island commander's office after an interrogation.
3309. 6:27:15We were standing, and he was sitting. I
3310. 6:27:21said to him, "are you a People's Party member?" But he suddenly flew into a rage, badly enraged,
3311. 6:27:31and shouted "get out, get out" and stood up.
3312. 6:27:34I went out myself. Then I looked and he was following me and approaching me.
3313. 6:27:40He stretched out his hand and touched toward my shoulder. He touched my shoulder.
3314. 6:27:45"Lieutenant colonel, don't touch me," I said to him. As if this were for everything, he stretched out his hand again to push me.
3315. 6:27:55"Lieutenant colonel, pull [your gun], shoot me," I said. Then he was afraid. A sign of fear appeared in his eyes.
3316. 6:28:05I turned to the Mehmetçik who had come with me, rifle on his shoulder: "Mehmetçik, my son,
3317. 6:28:13you shoot," I said. And the Mehmetçik said to me, "Walk, mother, walk, let's go."
3318. 6:28:19There was a sorrowful air. Even those who had suffered a great deal under the Democrat Party government
3319. 6:28:29felt a discomfort when they saw the condition of some of those men, the state to which they had fallen.
3320. 6:28:39From the start. The situation that caused the most grief on the island was experienced on 14 September.
3321. 6:28:48At midnight all the detainees were suddenly woken.
3322. 6:28:50They were told to dress at once and be ready. Most thought "the time has come."
3323. 6:28:55Yet all this preparation was only for the shooting of a film.
3324. 6:28:59In those days rumours had arisen among the public that the condition of those on Yassıada was very bad.
3325. 6:29:04Thereupon the military administration ordered a film to be prepared at once to be shown in cinemas.
3326. 6:29:11All the detainees were taken at midnight to the pier as if they were newly arriving, and were walked up the steps.
3327. 6:29:17That was not all. To show how good life on the island was, filming was done at the barber's, in the hospital, in the wards.
3328. 6:29:26Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, pretending to read a book in his room, showed his unease on his face.
3329. 6:29:32Refik Koraltan was uncomfortable as he shopped at the canteen.
3330. 6:29:37Perihan Arıburun could be seen in the film walking with a slight limp.
3331. 6:29:40"I couldn't walk. This right foot is seized up."
3332. 6:29:46We went down; we saw that the roads were nice and clean like this — now we were going to shop from there.
3333. 6:29:55The film cameras came; we are walking arm in arm on that narrow road,
3334. 6:30:04on a stroll. Yet I never saw that narrow road again, never at all.
3335. 6:30:10The film "The Fallen at Yassıada" was put on the market at once and began to be shown in cinemas.
3336. 6:30:16Of course it was made with an unusual voice-over.
3337. 6:30:19"Commander-in-chief of the Fatherland Front, Kemal Aygün. Protection-racket boss of the bars, Faruk Oktay.
3338. 6:30:27And the merciless executioner of university youth, Bumin Yamanoğlu.
3339. 6:30:38Here is İstanbul's collective company of gambling, heroin and murder."
3340. 6:30:46It was as though verdicts had been dressed on them before the trials even began.
3341. 6:30:50Especially the scene of Menderes, unseen by the public for months, forcing himself to eat before the camera, astonished viewers.
3342. 6:31:01"He can't help posing. Although there is no black caviar, sold at a thousand lira a kilo, on his table,
3343. 6:31:16Bayar appears to have lost nothing of his appetite."
3344. 6:32:04These films were shown at our school too. The French headmaster was a very nice person.
3345. 6:32:10He felt great closeness to me. "Nazlı," he said, "don't go in to these films.
3346. 6:32:14Because you will be upset." "No," I said, "I will go in."
3347. 6:32:18And I would go in to the films. In the film, for example, Menderes appears.
3348. 6:32:22There, in the background, a voice. A voice comes out in Menderes's background.
3349. 6:32:24It speaks against Menderes. And I would shout, with great applause, "bravo Menderes, long live Menderes."
3350. 6:32:31Alone in that hall. Nobody reacted.
3351. 6:32:37The reaction to the film came at a wholly unexpected moment, from a wholly unexpected place: from Celal Bayar.
3352. 6:32:43On the morning of Sunday, 25 September, Bayar wrote these lines addressed to his family.
3353. 6:32:48"To my family. Do not be ashamed of the name Bayar. The days when you will take pride in it are near."
3354. 6:32:55Then, with his bag and laundry in his hand, he went to the island's bath.
3355. 6:33:00He took off the belt at his waist, wound it around his neck and began to tighten it with all his might.
3356. 6:33:05The sentry who came in at that moment found the 77-year-old deposed president with his face purple, his ears drained of blood.
3357. 6:33:12Bayar was taken urgently to treatment. He was saved at the last moment.
3358. 6:33:16When he came to, he said to us: "They had a film made, like Yeşilçam actors."
3359. 6:33:22"Is this right?" Two days after this failed suicide attempt by Bayar,
3360. 6:33:31a civil court of first instance in Ankara closed down the Democrat Party.
3361. 6:33:36The decision was taken on the application of a lawyer, on the ground that the party had not held its congress for five years.
3362. 6:33:43The hearing did not even last five minutes. The newspapers did not even count it as news.
3363. 6:33:48A fifteen-year-old party that had ruled the whole country for ten years became history in five minutes.
3364. 6:33:54There was no remedy left but to kill the wounded Demirkırat.
3365. 6:33:59The fate of its cavalrymen would be determined in the trial of the century that would begin at Yassıada.
3366. 6:34:06Open speaking began in the courtroom.
3367. 6:34:11The defendants were brought in. They were taken to their places unbound.
3368. 6:34:17The defence counsel are ready. Now the roll will be called by reading out the defendants' names and surnames.
3369. 6:34:26The defendant whose name and surname is read will stand up to show who is here.
3370. 6:34:40WE HAVE REACHED THE END OF THE ROAD. For more than two months we have told you the founding story of a democracy.
3371. 6:34:47We witnessed the collapse of a single-party regime and the disappearance of the National Chiefdom.
3372. 6:34:53We lived together through the first free general elections and the painful sprouting of democracy.
3373. 6:34:58And finally we showed you the birth, the rise and the fall of a new government.
3374. 6:35:06The place we finally arrived at was a military intervention.
3375. 6:35:09Whatever its justifications, once the storm of revolution had blown, it had blown.
3376. 6:35:14Now the task of the officers who seized power on the morning of 27 May was to rein in that storm.
3377. 6:35:19But it did not work. After a while the storm began to sweep them too before it.
3378. 6:35:25The scenario left over from history repeated itself. The revolution devoured some of its children.
3379. 6:35:31The revolution was now speaking in its own language. The greatest political trial in the history of the Republic began in October,
3380. 6:35:48after a preparatory investigation lasting five months.
3381. 6:35:52In front of the liaison office set up at Dolmabahçe, those who wanted to watch the trial had formed a long queue.
3382. 6:35:57Relatives of the defendants, journalists, National Unity Committee members — everyone was together on the Dolmabahçe ferry.
3383. 6:36:03A ten-year era, a whole government, a vast party was to be tried.
3384. 6:36:20The indoor sports hall on Yassıada had been chosen for the trial.
3385. 6:36:23Extraordinary security measures had been taken in the vicinity; Yassıada had been put on alert.
3386. 6:36:28It was a case without parallel in the world. 592 defendants would be tried in exactly 19 separate cases.
3387. 6:36:36The atmosphere of the revolution had spread through the courtroom even before the defendants were brought in.
3388. 6:36:40Everyone, as it were, held their breath, awaiting the DP cadre who would appear before the public for the first time in months.
3389. 6:36:48Shortly Celal Bayar appeared at the door of the sports hall.
3390. 6:36:52Right behind him was Menderes. Then all the ministers and deputies were brought into the hall in technical groups.
3391. 6:37:00From the president to the chief of general staff, an entire government was now in the dock.
3392. 6:37:09I remember the first hearing; it was a very dramatic event.
3393. 6:37:17The deputies we had been watching in parliament a short time before, who made up a very large part of parliament, were there.
3394. 6:37:28That is, nearly the whole of parliament was there, opposition aside.
3395. 6:37:35I think they were brought into the hall ten at a time, and seated in their places.
3396. 6:37:41Among the spectators they looked for familiar faces; I think some of their relatives had been allowed in.
3397. 6:37:52That is, I remember feeling a sadness, finding it strange, and wishing that
3398. 6:38:02such things did not happen; I remember thinking that.
3399. 6:38:06At Yassıada the number-one defendant was Celal Bayar, who sat at the very front, at the head.
3400. 6:38:11He had his cap in his hand; he was extremely elegant and calm.
3401. 6:38:14Right beside him was Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. Though they sat side by side they did not speak at all, virtually averting their eyes from each other.
3402. 6:38:22Yassıada was the last stop of this fifteen-year togetherness.
3403. 6:38:30A moment later, when the members of the High Court of Justice entered, everyone stood up.
3404. 6:38:34The court consisted of 15 judges and 9 prosecutors. The president was Salim Başol.
3405. 6:38:40Başol, a Court of Cassation member whom nobody had known until that day, would from that day become the unforgettable name of the Yassıada hearings.
3406. 6:38:47His voice, which would later be etched in memories, was heard for the first time that morning.
3407. 6:39:03With these words a case that would last exactly 11 months began.
3408. 6:39:07All of Turkey's ears were on this first session.
3409. 6:39:10Everything in the hearing reached all of Turkey instantly through the radio programme "Yassıada Hour."
3410. 6:39:15One incident, one hitch, could change or spoil everything.
3411. 6:39:19While the roll was being called, Başol was as excited as anyone.
3412. 6:39:22Years later he would tell his relatives about that day like this.
3413. 6:39:28"We are going to the first hearing," he says. "We are very excited.
3414. 6:39:32Why? Because [the defendant] had run an era and signed his name to an era.
3415. 6:39:37The prime minister will be tried. Some had voted for him, some had watched him with sympathy, some were angry, some loved him.
3416. 6:39:47There were those among the court members who thought this way too.
3417. 6:39:50We were people of this society. If he had stood up at the first hearing and said "you are a revolutionary court, I do not recognise you" —
3418. 6:39:59we worried he would say so. I personally did.
3419. 6:40:03What would we say, what could we say if he said that?
3420. 6:40:08I thought about this and became anxious." While Başol was in the tension of this expectation, a lawyer came to the rostrum and said what he feared.
3421. 6:40:16"Sir, [my] client Adnan Menderes has been taken ill [as transcribed]."
3422. 6:40:19"Sir?" "Your client Adnan Menderes has fallen ill; I request this."
3423. 6:40:23"They request the floor. Do you want to come out, sir?"
3424. 6:40:25"They request the floor." The awaited moment had come.
3425. 6:40:30Menderes would speak for the first time in months. He raised his hand, buttoned up his jacket and came to the rostrum.
3426. 6:40:36Everyone was waiting with curiosity for the words that would come out of his mouth.
3427. 6:40:39"Had it not been for the great kindness of the Commander, had he not given me the opportunity from time to time to meet and to go out, now
3428. 6:40:51I would not even have been able to have the opportunity of being in your presence.
3429. 6:40:59My wish is that a regime be extended to me that will give me the means to correct my morale, my nerves, my indisposition.
3430. 6:41:13Before you, I express my gratitude to the Commander.
3431. 6:41:20Before you I thank all the young officers for their kind treatment."
3432. 6:41:36Menderes, in a trembling and respectful voice, said that he had lived in isolation for five months, that his power of speech and mental faculties had weakened, and asked for these conditions to be corrected.
3433. 6:41:46He had not rejected the court. Everything changed in that instant.
3434. 6:41:50The deposed prime minister's extremely polite manner relieved the Revolution Court and the revolutionary officers among the spectators.
3435. 6:41:59It had become clear that Menderes would not resist; the most important doubt was behind them.
3436. 6:42:03From then on it was easy for the court. Burhan said, "They have put all of them in a very morally broken state.
3437. 6:42:15Here we talk procedure; here a [fierce] speech is a must," he said.
3438. 6:42:27"Make an absolute speech," he said.
3439. 6:42:32We were waiting for the interrogations to begin. But what happened was a kind of exhibition,
3440. 6:42:38in the sense of exhibiting the defendants. Thereupon I stood up and said, "I request the floor."
3441. 6:42:45"Mr. President, on procedure, if I am permitted, I would like briefly to touch on a matter relating to a constitutional principle that has entered the record."
3442. 6:42:59And, upon asking for the floor on procedure, I walked to the microphone.
3443. 6:43:07I stated that, for the first time in the world, placing the legislative organ in the position of being tried before the judicial organ was contrary to the principle of the separation of powers.
3444. 6:43:23Thus I wanted to indicate that the court was unnecessary.
3445. 6:43:33[Court proceedings, spoken:] Open session of the hearing began in the courtroom.
3446. 6:43:38The defendants were brought in. They were taken to their places unbound.
3447. 6:43:44The defence counsel are ready. Now the roll will be called by reading out the defendants' names and surnames.
3448. 6:43:53The defendant whose name and surname is read will stand up to show that he is present here.
3449. 6:44:01The hearings began with this unforgettable introduction by Başol, repeated every day.
3450. 6:44:07The subject of the first case was a dog. The dog, which would be called the "dog case" in public opinion, was actually an Afghan hound.
3451. 6:44:16It had been given to Bayar as a gift by the Afghan king.
3452. 6:44:18According to the indictment, Bayar had ordered the Atatürk Forest Farm to buy a hound worth at most 1,500 lira for 20,000 lira, and with that money
3453. 6:44:27had a fountain built in a village. For this crime, 5 years' imprisonment was requested for Bayar.
3454. 6:44:33Frankly, it was found odd that such a grand court should be opened in the first instance with such a trivial charge.
3455. 6:44:39There were those who said "the mountain gave birth to a mouse." Even Bayar seemed a little relieved.
3456. 6:44:44If the charges were all like this, there was nothing to fear.
3457. 6:44:46When he was asked for his view on the hound, he came to the rostrum and said this.
3458. 6:45:01Bayar was sentenced to 4 years and 2 months in prison in the dog case.
3459. 6:45:05The baby case fell to Menderes's lot.
3460. 6:45:08The subject of the case was the allegation that an illegitimate child of the prime minister had been killed at birth.
3461. 6:45:13On the morning the case was to begin, Cemal Gürsel sent a telegram to the court asking that the hearings be held in closed sessions, but this
3462. 6:45:21was refused. This scandal-filled hearing, contrary to expectation, would win Menderes and his secret love sympathy and would be the only case from which the former prime minister was acquitted.
3463. 6:45:29The court was losing credibility with the charges chosen in the first hearings; the revolution was wearing down a little more with each passing day.
3464. 6:45:39This business has been trivialised.
3465. 6:45:45That is, with a big [spectacle] and evening prayer —
3466. 6:45:54on the island, and the charges started with a strange
3467. 6:46:19The violation of the constitution and so on came afterward, unfortunately.
3468. 6:46:26They should have taken this up at the start. Who were those who incited this violation?
3469. 6:46:35Bayar? Menderes? Or others?
3470. 6:46:39They were supposed to find these. No. They started with the baby case and the dog case, and in this way the trials dragged on and on.
3471. 6:46:53"Dog case, baby case" went around on people's tongues.
3472. 6:46:59It went around in the press. They say, "why did the High Court of Justice start with these?"
3473. 6:47:07As I have submitted, the reason for starting was this. The High Investigation Board could not send us a complete,
3474. 6:47:16fully completed constitution-violation file.
3475. 6:47:21Since it could not, we were obliged to wait for the files on the material facts of these unconstitutionalities to arrive.
3476. 6:47:30All of them would come so that a consolidation could be made with them all.
3477. 6:47:34Because we could not do that, we were obliged to look at the files of small cases piece by piece, and naturally this took time.
3478. 6:47:44It is a loss, in fact a waste of time, but the court was not at fault in it.
3479. 6:47:57In those days the officers in the revolution committee had also fallen out with one another.
3480. 6:48:02The disagreements between the cadres who had come together by chance surfaced at once.
3481. 6:48:06While a group within the committee led by Cemal Madanoğlu insisted on going to elections at once and withdrawing to the barracks,
3482. 6:48:14the group of Alparslan Türkeş, who had been made undersecretary of the Prime Ministry, believed this would mean handing power to İnönü.
3483. 6:48:22Instead of going back to the barracks, they should stay in power for a while longer, form a party and enter the elections.
3484. 6:48:29Türkeş the prime minister, his chief undersecretary
3485. 6:48:37does some things on his own.
3486. 6:48:44He works day and night and leaves us facing faits accomplis.
3487. 6:48:50The committee convenes, and step by step he gains supporters.
3488. 6:48:54Those who speak on his side raise their hands; there are 20–22 of them.
3489. 6:49:00We are left in the minority. The tension rose and rose and rose.
3490. 6:49:06But we were in the majority. In the National Unity Committee, whenever any decision was to be made, our decisions would become decisions with roughly 10
3491. 6:49:15or 12 against 25-26-27 votes.
3492. 6:49:22Or any decision, any proposal that the other side wanted to get accepted, since the majority of votes was on our side,
3493. 6:49:33was not accepted. Such tension continued among us.
3494. 6:49:42This tension spread to every area in a very short time.
3495. 6:49:45First, in August, 235 generals and 5,000 officers were sent into retirement.
3496. 6:49:49This wide purge, known as the "235" affair, aimed to rebuild the pyramid that had been broken in the army.
3497. 6:49:56But the wet burned along with the dry. Some retired for personal reasons, some because of the group they belonged to, some out of envy for nothing at all.
3498. 6:50:04The army was openly wounding itself. Then it was the university's turn.
3499. 6:50:10Exactly 147 faculty members were dismissed from the university, again on mutually inconsistent grounds.
3500. 6:50:15As criticisms grew, restrictions also began to be placed on the press.
3501. 6:50:19The National Unity Committee was virtually repeating the mistake the DP had made ten years earlier, turning the supports of its power against itself one by one.
3502. 6:50:26Soldiers have a certain training.
3503. 6:50:32They are trained to do military service. Building a new state framework amid extremely complicated balances is far harder.
3504. 6:50:39The officers had no experience whatsoever in this matter.
3505. 6:50:42Indeed, in a short time things increasingly deteriorated.
3506. 6:50:46Instead of going to elections by the short route and getting democracy working again, as things dragged on with factionalism, purges and wounding trials
3507. 6:50:55dragged on, the revolutionary officers were losing both time and prestige.
3508. 6:51:00The situation had begun to slip increasingly out of control. Now even Cemal Gürsel no longer commanded the situation.
3509. 6:51:06We told Gürsel, "what a disgrace this is, what a situation?
3510. 6:51:12We did this job with these intentions. Now we find ourselves facing many faits accomplis."
3511. 6:51:22Gürsel Pasha sided with us too and said, "boys, every day my aides-de-camp are being changed here without asking me.
3512. 6:51:34When I say I want to meet certain people, find them and bring them,
3513. 6:51:39they bring the man I do not want to meet.
3514. 6:51:43They do not let me meet the man I want to meet.
3515. 6:51:46While I am speaking with you now," he said, "I do not even know whether there is a listening device under this table or not; make sure," he said.
3516. 6:51:53To create splits within the National Unity Committee and to weaken me, such a theme is being worked on both with Cemal Gürsel Pasha
3517. 6:52:03and with the members of the National Unity Committee.
3518. 6:52:08That is, Türkeş will be Turkey's Nasser, a Cemal Nasser.
3519. 6:52:13And Cemal Gürsel Pasha will fall into the position of Muhammad Naguib.
3520. 6:52:18That is, the day after tomorrow Türkeş will put Cemal Gürsel Pasha into the position of Muhammad Naguib, remove him, imprison him somewhere,
3521. 6:52:27and he himself will take everything into his hands as head of state.
3522. 6:52:31In those days this propaganda was made a great deal.
3523. 6:52:36And it worked. Türkeş was forced after a while to resign from the undersecretaryship of the Prime Ministry.
3524. 6:52:42However his weight in the committee continued. İnönü's warning to Gürsel on the second day of the intervention had proved right and the committee was split.
3525. 6:52:50İnönü was on the alert. He was against any movement that could delay the election.
3526. 6:52:55It was at this stage that he stepped in. As the move toward the purge of the "14" went ahead, İsmet Pasha,
3527. 6:53:03sitting with National Unity Committee members one-on-one in some houses, held talks and [said], "I am in favour of a government that has come by election being established as soon as possible.
3528. 6:53:17I will also stand against those who oppose this."
3529. 6:53:24It is certain that he gave them this message. The committee's pro-early-election Madanoğlu group also received İsmet Pasha's support.
3530. 6:53:33Now the only thing to do was to destroy the cell deemed cancerous.
3531. 6:53:37Gürsel and Madanoğlu set out so that nobody would hear and settled this matter talking in the official car.
3532. 6:53:44Gürsel pressed a button. The glass between us and the driver went up.
3533. 6:53:50That is, the driver cannot hear our conversation. He turned to me.
3534. 6:53:56I said, "Madanoğlu, what do you say? How would it be if we shut seven of these up in Kars Fortress?
3535. 6:54:06Now, shutting seven of these in Kars Fortress — I have another preparation in mind, but this one goes very radically,
3536. 6:54:19by a short path to the target. Are you resolved?" I said.
3537. 6:54:27"I'm resolved," he said. "In that case," I said, "whether it's seven or fourteen, leave that to me."
3538. 6:54:33"Fine," he said. I went back. I met with five or six of the friends I trusted most.
3539. 6:54:41We decided. We voted.
3540. 6:54:47We stopped at fourteen people. It was a coincidence. "Enough," he said.
3541. 6:54:54It does not amount to having sent into exile more than our own number.
3542. 6:55:01One morning we got up and found our house surrounded.
3543. 6:55:08They served us with an order.
3544. 6:55:12"The National Unity Committee has been dissolved.
3545. 6:55:19It has been re-established. The new National Unity Committee is composed of the following," it says.
3546. 6:55:24We the fourteen are not there. The other members' names are.
3547. 6:55:34And we are told: do not go out of your homes.
3548. 6:55:39"From there you have been sent into retirement." After ten days in custody Türkeş was sent to a passive post at the embassy in New Delhi, India.
3549. 6:55:49His thirteen other friends were likewise exiled abroad with similar assignments.
3550. 6:55:53The file of the Fourteen was closed this way. The revolution had begun to eat its children.
3551. 6:56:05The first effect on Yassıada of the thaw outside was that families were given the chance to visit.
3552. 6:56:10Families who had been apart for six months would meet for the first time.
3553. 6:56:15Everyone was excited. They took us somewhere.
3554. 6:56:25Then we learned that it was the Yassıada commander's room.
3555. 6:56:30First the commander received us.
3556. 6:56:35My mother and I were there. After a while my late father came.
3557. 6:56:43We embraced. The time we stayed, I think, was 45–50 minutes.
3558. 6:56:52During that time we could not be alone.
3559. 6:56:57The island commander was constantly there. So we said there not what we always wanted to say but what we had to say.
3560. 6:57:09And of course photographs were being taken every other moment.
3561. 6:57:14After that, from time to time the commander would say things like, "Adnan Bey, you stand by me."
3562. 6:57:21Those photographs disturbed me greatly. They disturbed me in this way:
3563. 6:57:26Those photographs would in a way be a tool of display.
3564. 6:57:31Perhaps the person who had them taken would one day say, "I treated them well, we were together."
3565. 6:57:39But the expression on everyone's face in those photographs in fact reflected the conditions they were subject to.
3566. 6:57:46When Hasan came, of course, I hadn't seen him for seven months.
3567. 6:57:50His colour was deathly yellow. He had grown very thin. For half an hour he could not breathe.
3568. 6:57:58"What's the matter, Hasan?" he said. "Weren't you glad to see us?" I said.
3569. 6:58:02Afterwards I learn that without giving any notice they had said "come, Polatkan" and taken him.
3570. 6:58:10Inside something, inside the hut, coming face to face with us — "my children, our families are coming here too" —
3571. 6:58:18he could not breathe from excitement. But there were also those who could not experience this joy.
3572. 6:58:23Some turned back from in front of the liaison office at Dolmabahçe.
3573. 6:58:27I went. There was an officer there.
3574. 6:58:32He asked me my name. I said my name is Nazlı Çavuşoğlu.
3575. 6:58:36When he said "what are you to Muammer Çavuşoğlu?" I said "I am his daughter."
3576. 6:58:41"Well, then," he said, "where did you get this ticket? Did you buy it with money?" he said.
3577. 6:58:45"No," I said, "why would I buy it with money?" He said to me, "your father is in prison.
3578. 6:58:51Of course you would buy it with money to see your father."
3579. 6:58:59And I said, "Since he is such an important father to you, why don't you send me?"
3580. 6:59:06Anyway. The Constituent Assembly's
3581. 7:00:06missing piece was of course the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party had been closed.
3582. 7:00:12Actually the Constituent Assembly took on the tasks that the assembly formed after elections three months later would have carried out.
3583. 7:00:28But since the Democrat Party had been closed in the meantime, the Constituent Assembly was formed only with the People's Party, the Nation Party,
3584. 7:00:38or the Republican Nation Party, and people known as more neutral.
3585. 7:00:43It became a very high-quality assembly. They were led by the principles of the Declaration of First Goals adopted at the last Republican People's Party
3586. 7:00:53congress before 1960.
3587. 7:00:59This first step of civilianisation was immediately followed by others.
3588. 7:01:02Political parties were freed. In February 7 parties were founded at once within 3 days.
3589. 7:01:07The Justice Party, the Workers' Party of Turkey, the New Turkey Party were born in those days.
3590. 7:01:12While the Democrat Party was being tried at Yassıada, its legacy was being shared out in Ankara.
3591. 7:01:20Finally the 1961 constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on the first anniversary of 27 May.
3592. 7:01:26The new constitution promised brand-new rights and freedoms and gave hope of an exit from a period full of suffering.
3593. 7:01:32The most advanced, most liberal constitution of the Republic of Turkey had been brought.
3594. 7:01:37The 1961 constitution, which in later years was even complained of as too libertarian, received 60%
3595. 7:01:44"yes" votes in the referendum held on 9 July 1961. A new page was now opening in the history of the Republic of Turkey.
3596. 7:02:00While the country was in the excitement of a new era, the cases at Yassıada went on with all their weight.
3597. 7:02:07Moreover, things had begun to harden day by day.
3598. 7:02:10Rumours spread in İstanbul that plans were being made to rescue the defendants by digging a tunnel to Yassıada from the Yenikapı shore.
3599. 7:02:17Thereupon Gürsel made a harsh outburst. He said that if such an attempt were made, those who went there would find nothing but a heap of flesh and bone.
3600. 7:02:26At the trial, Salim Başol's reply to the defendants' complaints — "what can we do, the force that crammed you in here wants it this way" — increased the rumours that the High Court of Justice was under pressure.
3601. 7:02:35At Yassıada, the early dog and baby cases had been replaced by new ones full of much more serious charges.
3602. 7:02:43Cases such as violation of the constitution, the secret allowance, Topkapı and the 6–7 September events gave the DP members hard moments.
3603. 7:02:52"I have not the slightest knowledge or information about the 6–7 September events beginning in an organised way in İzmir, İstanbul, Ankara.
3604. 7:03:03Who might have run such a wide destruction movement? It could not, of course, be spontaneous; it must have been organised.
3605. 7:03:13Since you were President at that time and had come from [...], what can you say — who arranged it?
3606. 7:03:23Your Excellency, to follow and wait upon every public-opinion movement
3607. 7:03:32was materially impossible for us. Because at that time public opinion was in such a state that even in the smallest village there was a desire to hold demonstrations and rallies.
3608. 7:03:42And it was not possible for me to follow these closely.
3609. 7:03:47A document at the Prime Ministry — a paper. It is said so, when [it was] in the Excellency's hands.
3610. 7:03:52Mr. President, this is entirely beyond reason and logic.
3611. 7:03:57If you permit, Your Honour, this is a question raised and directed on the basis that the occurrence of an arrangement is certain, according to the statements of the Chief Prosecutor.
3612. 7:04:13Whereas we claim that no such arrangement existed.
3613. 7:04:19And in truth no such arrangement existed.
3614. 7:04:24The difference in manner between Bayar and Menderes drew everyone's attention.
3615. 7:04:27The more Bayar had an air of looking down on the court from above, the more Menderes seemed conciliatory.
3616. 7:04:33Seen from the bench where the judges sat, this difference was even more clearly noticeable.
3617. 7:04:38Adnan Menderes sat and spoke in a more courteous, that is, well-mannered, well-bred attitude.
3618. 7:04:48He always sat sideways to Celal Bayar. He did not give his full front.
3619. 7:04:55He was always turned half-away from Celal Bayar like this.
3620. 7:05:00He never once pronounced the name Celal Bayar.
3621. 7:05:06That is, he did not want to put his name in his mouth. He seemed aware that what had befallen him had come from Celal Bayar,
3622. 7:05:21and to be in his anger and resentment. When he had to say Celal Bayar's name, he always passed over it by saying "the Deposed President."
3623. 7:05:30This relationship and difference in manner between Bayar and Menderes of course immediately affected attitudes toward them too.
3624. 7:05:38When the trials entered the island, all the attacks were on Bayar.
3625. 7:05:42Two months later, after the interrogations began, they redirected the attacks, the insults, the target to Menderes.
3626. 7:05:49They piled onto Menderes. Under every event — from the Fatherland Front, to the story of the bombing of Atatürk's house in Salonica and Ekspres newspaper's reporting of it,
3627. 7:06:01to the 6–7 events, the Gediz Dam, İzmir, Turgutlu, Yeşilhisar, 28
3628. 7:06:10May and 555K — in every case Menderes went to court at the head of the convoy.
3629. 7:06:17The political target in the trial was not Bayar but Menderes.
3630. 7:06:23The revolutionaries and the Republican People's Party calculated that political power, the people's love, was with Menderes.
3631. 7:06:30To wear Menderes down, they opened various cases there.
3632. 7:06:33They made it a show of material and moral power; they made physical impressions.
3633. 7:06:38They tried to bring Menderes down in the eyes of the people.
3634. 7:06:40Yet only a few months earlier, hadn't Gürsel, now head of state, written Menderes a letter saying, "The nation loves you; let Bayar resign and you become president"?
3635. 7:06:50After 27 May Gürsel had made this letter public, but these two very vital lines had been removed.
3636. 7:06:59Menderes's lawyer Burhan Apaydın, thinking that if the original of the letter were made public it would greatly help the defence, brought the matter to court.
3637. 7:07:06He wrote a petition without Menderes's knowledge and submitted it to the court.
3638. 7:07:10If the original of Gürsel's letter were read in court, Menderes would be freed from great pressure.
3639. 7:07:16Meanwhile I heard Salim Başol's voice: "Do you have something to say?"
3640. 7:07:28Hearing it I raised my head; Adnan Menderes was at the microphone.
3641. 7:07:33"I have a submission," he said. I was suddenly surprised, because Adnan Menderes could not, without the court president giving him the floor,
3642. 7:07:42without saying "come" — there is no way — rise from the bench.
3643. 7:07:49And most of the time he would not give the floor. Now Adnan Menderes's rising and coming to the microphone without asking the court president for the floor
3644. 7:07:59was a striking event.
3645. 7:08:07I understood everything at once. Menderes began speaking like this.
3646. 7:08:13He noted that protecting the high interests of the country and the state was a duty for everyone.
3647. 7:08:24"Meanwhile I do not consider it suitable to the country's interests for the head of state's name to be mentioned under this sacred roof,"
3648. 7:08:32he said. And, turning his head slightly: "I request of my esteemed lawyer," he said,
3649. 7:08:40looking at me from the side, "that he withdraw his request."
3650. 7:08:54Everyone froze. In this way Menderes had squandered the most important defence trump in his hands.
3651. 7:09:00A few days later his lawyer Apaydın was arrested, and the matter of Gürsel's letter was thus closed.
3652. 7:09:09The capital was seething. Despite the exile of the "14," the split in the committee could not be healed.
3653. 7:09:15In the committee, now down to 23 members, the quarrel between those who wanted to prolong power and those who wanted to hasten the elections grew.
3654. 7:09:22Moreover, outside the committee, within the armed forces, juntas organised by Talat Aydemir had begun to form and to interfere in decisions.
3655. 7:09:31The army had remained stuck right in the middle of politics. Although the old regime had been liquidated in a single day, the new one still could not be established after a year.
3656. 7:09:40The country's fate swung back and forth between democracy and a military dictatorship.
3657. 7:09:46As the elections came under threat, the possibility of interference in the Yassıada decisions had also arisen.
3658. 7:10:00The army was sick. Head of State General Cemal Gürsel himself said so, before two months had passed since 27 May.
3659. 7:10:07The germ of the disease was politics. Gürsel said, "In a country where the military deals with politics, ruin and destruction are inevitable."
3660. 7:10:16Yet the military was now in politics up to its throat.
3661. 7:10:19It could be seen that distrust was gradually appearing between the commanders and the revolutionary officers too.
3662. 7:10:24The basic problem was that the operation had not been carried out within the chain of command.
3663. 7:10:30A group of staff officers had seized the administration of the country, and consequently the commanders had come under their orders.
3664. 7:10:35If a staff colonel who was a National Unity Committee member summoned the Chief of General Staff, all hell broke loose; the army's customary hierarchical order
3665. 7:10:44was turned upside down. Thereupon an anti-committee tendency appeared within the armed forces.
3666. 7:10:51The commanders, among them Chief of General Staff Cevdet Sunay, demanded that the committee members cut their ties with the army and deal entirely with politics.
3667. 7:10:58The chaos could thus be eased to some extent.
3668. 7:11:02Some revolutionary officers who could not get onto the committee, such as Talat Aydemir, also joined this current.
3669. 7:11:08The Armed Forces Union was formed in just this way.
3670. 7:11:12The committee members, for their part, knew they drew their strength from the armed backing behind them and did not want to break away from their units.
3671. 7:11:19This irregularity between the army and the committee surfaced through an incident on 6 June.
3672. 7:11:25When the Council of Ministers tried to appoint Air Force Commander İrfan Tansel to Washington, all hell broke loose.
3673. 7:11:31Air Force jets made low passes over the Çankaya Mansion.
3674. 7:11:36A few days later Gürsel had to reinstate Tansel to his post.
3675. 7:11:41It thus became clear that the committee no longer had its old strength.
3676. 7:11:46An Armed Forces Union was formed. After this Armed Forces Union was formed, I now
3677. 7:11:55understood that I had lost control of the situation. Moreover, so as not to provoke further, I submitted a petition.
3678. 7:12:06I resigned to Chairman Gürsel and, for information, to the committee.
3679. 7:12:12I left. From that moment the committee began to fall apart.
3680. 7:12:17That is, they said they were organised to protect us.
3681. 7:12:21But on 6 June 1960 they handed us a memorandum.
3682. 7:12:25"So-and-so's appointment will go, so-and-so's cannot be made, so-and-so will retire, so-and-so cannot."
3683. 7:12:31And that day, 27 May faced a great danger.
3684. 7:12:40Because 27 May could now be diverted from its intended course by people other than its makers.
3685. 7:12:47Those who used force on us on 6 June, using force for certain wishes, would later use force for other things too.
3686. 7:12:55And at the head of these would be the execution, or non-execution, of the decisions to be given at Yassıada.
3687. 7:13:05This was clear. The second would be the non-holding of assembly elections, the assemblies not convening.
3688. 7:13:21While the army and the National Unity Committee seethed in Ankara, Yassıada had by now approached the stage of decision.
3689. 7:13:28Almost everyone guessed the outcome. So much so that when at the end of August the defendants' families came to the island for the second time, almost everyone
3690. 7:13:36seemed to know that this was a farewell visit. But nobody dared to say it.
3691. 7:13:46Let me say that the meeting formed a very sorrowful picture.
3692. 7:13:52Our eyes were always tearful; even my late father was crying, my mother likewise, all of us were.
3693. 7:13:59On one hand there was no chance to make peace, to say farewell; there was another person there.
3694. 7:14:06And surely those who were there knew what fate awaited them.
3695. 7:14:14Even if they did not know, it was highly probable that death sentences would come.
3696. 7:14:22We could not be alone even for two minutes. In that sorrowful scene my late father turned to my mother
3697. 7:14:33and at one point, I remember, said some things to the effect that it might be good to seek a meeting with Cemal Gürsel,
3698. 7:14:48who was head of state. Menderes now guessed the coming decision, and although he did not know what was going on outside, by instinct
3699. 7:14:57he thought Gürsel could help. The authority to approve the death sentences coming out of Yassıada lay with the committee.
3700. 7:15:03The committee's chairman was Gürsel, and he was against executions.
3701. 7:15:07On paper, Gürsel was thought to have the last word.
3702. 7:15:10Yet it was not so at all. The reins had long since slipped out of Gürsel's hands.
3703. 7:15:15When Cemal Ağa realised he could not control the committee, he thought of warning the court.
3704. 7:15:19On 2 August, taking 6 members of the committee with him, he invited the court president and his deputy to a meeting.
3705. 7:15:25Among those who attended this meeting in Florya was Suphi Karaman.
3706. 7:15:29There Cemal Gürsel gave a fine speech explaining the situation Turkey was in at that moment, the democracy to be established in a month or two,
3707. 7:15:38the elections to be held, and the conditions for that democracy to live with the 1961 [constitution], and said the following
3708. 7:15:46to the judges, these two judges: "Until today we have not exerted the slightest influence on you.
3709. 7:15:54If you are going to reach very important decisions, you will take those decisions by your legal thinking and your conscientious conviction.
3710. 7:16:04We are not exerting any outside influence in our name, but we cannot tolerate any influence being exerted in our name either.
3711. 7:16:13Do as you see fit, but think also, to one side, of the country's future.
3712. 7:16:18You will not depart from the law, but at one side you may consider the political situation, or not consider it."
3713. 7:16:26Was Gürsel, between the lines, meaning "don't give death sentences and make things difficult," or was he trying to neutralise those trying to influence the court in the committee's name?
3714. 7:16:37Whichever it was, one thing was certain.
3715. 7:16:39Just as in Ankara, Yassıada too had gone out of Cemal Ağa's control.
3716. 7:16:44The İstanbul team had taken over the matter and put Yassıada under control.
3717. 7:16:48Moreover, it had chosen the place where the executions would be carried out, and had even started the preparations.
3718. 7:16:52While the hearings continued at Yassıada, graves were being dug on İmralı.
3719. 7:16:58About a month before these executions, the prison prosecutor had been summoned to the İstanbul Courthouse.
3720. 7:17:08On return, in the meeting we had with them, they said the executions would be carried out at İmralı prison, that this was deemed suitable.
3721. 7:17:17Consequently preparations for the executions needed to begin.
3722. 7:17:23Under the pretext that it was being made into an army ammunition depot, they began to make coffins.
3723. 7:17:32Meanwhile the gallows were prepared.
3724. 7:17:43Saying "we're going to plant olive trees," so as not to attract attention, eighty-odd graves were dug.
3725. 7:17:58When September began, the countdown had started.
3726. 7:18:01The announcement of the decisions was a matter of days. The executions were at the door.
3727. 7:18:05The committee seemed to be in complete chaos. Some members had begun to voice the view "let's hang them all."
3728. 7:18:11In early September, 13 of the 22 committee members favoured converting the death sentences to life imprisonment.
3729. 7:18:18Those who said "let's hang them" numbered 9. But the army was seething so much that these balances could be upset at any moment.
3730. 7:18:25When things got out of control, 2 committee members decided on a last attempt.
3731. 7:18:30They went to İnönü. They had no strength left. They asked İsmet Pasha to use his weight over the army to save his old rivals.
3732. 7:18:39To disguise it, we also visited our wives and, taking them as if for a courtesy call, Ahmet Yıldız and I went to İnönü's house, his house on Ayten Sokak.
3733. 7:18:49Our wives stayed downstairs. We went upstairs, withdrew from the work, and explained the situation there.
3734. 7:18:56First he said: "After 16 months have passed, I do not think there are still thoughts of execution among the committee's civilians.
3735. 7:19:07I can't take it in," he said. "I know you all as intelligent people.
3736. 7:19:10Execution after 17 months, after 16 months? So there are those who think that way."
3737. 7:19:17"I am astonished," he began. He said executions would be an extremely wrong thing.
3738. 7:19:25It was proposed that İnönü first make a statement to the public, but that would count as influencing a pending case.
3739. 7:19:30Thereupon İsmet Pasha decided to write a letter addressed to Gürsel himself.
3740. 7:19:35The letter, dated 13 September 1961, was written in harsh language.
3741. 7:19:39İnönü reminds that the country is going to elections one and a half years after the revolution.
3742. 7:19:44He says that the army's approving such an execution would create an irreparable rift between the people and the army, and
3743. 7:19:52asked that these views also be conveyed to the National Unity Committee.
3744. 7:19:56It was evident that the inclination toward execution was beginning to prevail in the committee.
3745. 7:19:59Even some constitutional-law professors favoured carrying out the executions if the court decided so.
3746. 7:20:04One of them was Professor Hıfzı Veldet Velidedeoğlu.
3747. 7:20:09İnönü, while talking about this and that, said to me, "Professor, is there execution?"
3748. 7:20:16"Execution?" he said, stretching out his hand like this in his peculiar manner.
3749. 7:20:23"Pasha, I cannot know that," I said. "Is there execution or isn't there?
3750. 7:20:28However the laws command, by whatever path it comes, if guilt
3751. 7:20:37is established, in the Ottoman word of the time "tebeyyün," that is, proven,
3752. 7:20:45if it is plainly clear, then of course there would also be execution," I said.
3753. 7:20:50Thereupon he said, "but execution settles nothing," he said.
3754. 7:21:00"Look, İsmet," [someone] had said, "we hanged so many men; their having been hanged was forgotten — the disgraceful things they did, the things they did
3755. 7:21:10were forgotten; their having been hanged was not forgotten. Be careful, take care," he said.
3756. 7:21:14But nobody in the army was in a state to heed İnönü's voice easily.
3757. 7:21:17The 14 ministers of the Gürsel cabinet wrote a warning letter saying "let there be no executions."
3758. 7:21:23But they too no longer had any weight.
3759. 7:21:26Two days before the announcement of the decisions, the committee and the army commanders held a joint meeting.
3760. 7:21:32The commanders favoured severity. Executing would, as it were, show the strength of the soldier.
3761. 7:21:37As the day of decision approached, the winds had started to blow the wrong way.
3762. 7:21:41The force commanders headed by Cevdet Sunay [...] came outside.
3763. 7:21:49We negotiated with them. We asked them: what do you think?
3764. 7:21:54"You tell us the benefits and drawbacks of this," they said.
3765. 7:21:57We brought out two teams — one for, one against.
3766. 7:22:01There were very fierce debates. They listened to us.
3767. 7:22:04In the end, when we said let's find some support, they said that authority in this matter belongs to the National Unity Committee.
3768. 7:22:11In Cevdet Sunay's words exactly: "We have no authority.
3769. 7:22:16We do not want to be involved with this side of the matter.
3770. 7:22:19According to our current constitution this authority belongs to the National Unity Committee.
3771. 7:22:26The armed forces support the National Unity Committee.
3772. 7:22:32If no execution comes out, there will be discontent — there may be.
3773. 7:22:37May God help us," he said, and said nothing else.
3774. 7:22:52At last the day of decision arrived. That day at Yassıada the last word would be spoken by Salim Başol.
3775. 7:22:57But Menderes did not leave the word to him. Since childhood he had always feared death, always fought death, always returned from death.
3776. 7:23:04But now, on this distant island in the Marmara, he heard that death was now knocking at the door.
3777. 7:23:09When death came this close, this time he wanted to throw himself into its arms.
3778. 7:23:13At four in the morning the sentries at his door heard that he had fallen from his bed.
3779. 7:23:17When they went in, Menderes was in a coma. He had hoarded under his tongue the sleeping pills given to him, hidden them, and that morning swallowed them all at once.
3780. 7:23:25By the time the doctors arrived, he was sleeping the deepest sleep of recent months.
3781. 7:23:30Panic seized Yassıada. Menderes's stomach was pumped at once and he was saved at the last moment.
3782. 7:23:35While Menderes was under care, the Yassıada defendants gathered in front of the courtroom.
3783. 7:23:40The end of a marathon of 287 sessions lasting nine months and twenty days had been reached.
3784. 7:23:44Toward noon the defendants began to be admitted to the hall in groups.
3785. 7:23:48Nerves were taut. A fly's flight would have been heard. Defendant Celal Bayar, under Article 146
3786. 7:24:00paragraph one of the Turkish Penal Code, is sentenced to the penalty it prescribes, by unanimous vote.
3787. 7:24:07They listened with great dignity. Even to the death sentences.
3788. 7:24:10They listened with great dignity. They listened to the court, in a somewhat provoking, indifferent attitude,
3789. 7:24:19and left. I remember Bayar in particular.
3790. 7:24:24Bayar remained quite cold. His ears were listening.
3791. 7:24:28He said nothing, tried nothing. They announce the verdict.
3792. 7:24:33As soon as it is announced, they take a photograph of you.
3793. 7:24:38I suppose they want to measure your reaction at that moment.
3794. 7:24:46Of course at this moment one does think to oneself; one does.
3795. 7:24:53I prepared myself. This is at least life, but execution is also within the likelier probabilities.
3796. 7:25:00Before me was Emin Kalafat. To Emin Kalafat: "under 146/1, to execution," he said.
3797. 7:25:09The Çanakkale deputy. One of the former ministers, Emin Kalafat.
3798. 7:25:13Emin Kalafat swayed a little. He had suffered a collapse in the London plane crash too.
3799. 7:25:23But he held himself upright. Yet he felt a sway.
3800. 7:25:27I said to myself, let me try not to sway.
3801. 7:25:31It came to me too: "under 146/1, to execution," he said.
3802. 7:25:37A laugh came from inside me. And to the one taking the photograph I readily struck a pose, smiling.
3803. 7:25:45When the reading of the verdicts ended, there were 15 death sentences in total, headed by Bayar and Menderes.
3804. 7:25:51Among 43 defendants, most had been sentenced to life imprisonment for violating the constitution.
3805. 7:25:55On the way out they separated the condemned from the lifers and handcuffed them.
3806. 7:26:12Those who got life, in those cuffs, were put on a motorboat.
3807. 7:26:19The condemned on another motorboat. That too was a sorrowful scene.
3808. 7:26:25A sorrowful scene. Think about it: you became a deputy, you became a minister, you became [garbled in the transcript].
3809. 7:26:31One day you are handcuffed by a political accusation and conviction.
3810. 7:26:37And finally, 14 of the 15 death-sentenced, all except Menderes, left the island on a destroyer.
3811. 7:26:45The era that began on an island in the Marmara would close on another island in the Marmara.
3812. 7:26:51The minutes spent in the destroyer's hold on the way to İmralı were the journey of a group of people physically
3813. 7:27:01weakened but morally unchanged. Believe me, we went as if going on a picnic.
3814. 7:27:18Those making their last journey with hands cuffed in the hold of a destroyer on the way were a former era's president, ministers and deputies.
3815. 7:27:26Although they did not know exactly where they were going, they now knew very well for what.
3816. 7:27:31This was a journey of death. As the destroyer made its way toward İmralı, Bayar turned to the former Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu.
3817. 7:27:39And, as if at a cabinet meeting, he began to speak.
3818. 7:27:45He said to Fatin Rüştü Bey, "You are one of our friends who knows best Turkey's economic conditions and world politics.
3819. 7:27:59Now explain to us," he said, "let's hear it:
3820. 7:28:09would our entering the Common Market be to Turkey's benefit or its harm?
3821. 7:28:15Explain that." Jumping into the conversation, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu began to explain this matter.
3822. 7:28:30While the condemned men were discussing Turkey's Common Market relations on the road to İmralı, the death sentences had been heard all over the world.
3823. 7:28:37Meanwhile the message of the embassy in Ankara had reached the White House in America.
3824. 7:28:42One of the first to read the message was Turkey's former American ambassador George McGhee.
3825. 7:28:58"I began to read this message. I went to meet Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
3826. 7:29:06Immediately he said, we must do something. He picked up the telephone and called Kennedy.
3827. 7:29:14He explained the situation. Kennedy had seen the television.
3828. 7:29:17Kennedy said, you can do anything. Help these people.
3829. 7:29:20[Zero.] So I called Raymond Hare.
3830. 7:29:24He is our telephone. And I told him that the President
3831. 7:29:33[garbled]. He said, I am only going to meet the Junta.
3832. 7:29:40In a controlled group. And I will do what the President says."
3833. 7:30:00When a naval staff colonel climbed the steps of the assembly with a [bulging] bag under his arm, it was already 18:00.
3834. 7:30:08Now the last word would be spoken by the 22-member National Unity Committee.
3835. 7:30:13We met at 18:00 in a very tense atmosphere.
3836. 7:30:20A jet brought the [files] by plane from Yassıada. Two sets of decisions.
3837. 7:30:28Heading it was a naval staff colonel, a friend, who brought it.
3838. 7:30:36The committee convened. Under Cemal Gürsel's chairmanship the presiding board was formed.
3839. 7:30:41Two of our friends took over as clerks: Selahattin Özgür and Rafet Aksoyoğlu.
3840. 7:30:49And Cemal Gürsel perhaps fell into a worry that the committee members might kill one another if these deliberations grew very heated.
3841. 7:31:02He wanted to resolve the matter by a short path, without dragging it out.
3842. 7:31:11In fact the carrying out of the executions was [put forward] in Cemal Gürsel.
3843. 7:31:19That is, taking the tense atmosphere very much into account. Without opening the matter on procedure or the general subject, "everyone knows everything," he said.
3844. 7:31:28"How shall we decide?" he began by having the procedural deliberations on this held.
3845. 7:31:37A little after the meeting opened, there were a few mute attendants of the assembly known to everyone.
3846. 7:31:47One of them came in. That is, because they did not hear, they said there was no objection to their entering secret sessions.
3847. 7:31:54He came in and handed a paper to Cemal Gürsel. Cemal Gürsel read the paper.
3848. 7:32:00The Foreign Minister is waiting outside. Selim Sarper conveys to us a message received from the American President, a message on this matter.
3849. 7:32:10Kennedy: "According to news I have just received, the High Court of Justice in the trials held at Yassıada has given 15 death sentences.
3850. 7:32:24They have informed me that whether these sentences will be approved or not by the National Unity Committee, the authority lies with the National Unity Committee.
3851. 7:32:34I am writing to you very urgently.
3852. 7:32:38In democratic countries, in democracies, the carrying out of executions for political crimes has a bad effect.
3853. 7:32:46Interfering in the internal affairs of the Turkish State is not our duty, we Americans.
3854. 7:32:52In your internal affairs you are entirely [free], but it would be more appropriate not to do these things.
3855. 7:32:58Even, if necessary, I am ready to meet you somewhere on this matter."
3856. 7:33:01He is not aware that the matter would be settled this quickly.
3857. 7:33:03It was done like this; this was read and passed. In that atmosphere nobody on the committee was in a state to listen to Kennedy.
3858. 7:33:10At one point it had been proposed that İsmet Pasha's letter to Gürsel be read to the committee, but this too was rejected.
3859. 7:33:16The letter was placed on the meeting table. "Let whoever wants read it," it was said.
3860. 7:33:20Most did not read it. Dozens of journalists waited outside for the decision.
3861. 7:33:24The lives of the 15 on İmralı were in the hands of 22 soldiers in Ankara.
3862. 7:33:29For days threats of the "let's see" kind had been coming to their homes.
3863. 7:33:34There were even those saying, "if you don't hang them, we will hang you."
3864. 7:33:37A section of the committee members favoured converting all death sentences into prison terms.
3865. 7:33:42A group wanted all the death sentences given by the court to be confirmed.
3866. 7:33:47And there were those who advocated a middle solution. They said, "let's hang some of them."
3867. 7:33:53The atmosphere was thoroughly electric. Meanwhile news arrived that some armed cadets had surrounded the assembly.
3868. 7:33:58Everyone panicked. Gürsel found the remedy in moving to a vote at once.
3869. 7:34:02First he asked the committee members this question: "Shall we convert all of them to life, or shall there be execution?"
3870. 7:34:10Now the hands that would rise would decide life or death.
3871. 7:34:15Perhaps in those hours, and until a few hours earlier, the majority in the committee had favoured converting them to life.
3872. 7:34:24A vote was held under Cemal Gürsel's chairmanship. And in that vote it was seen that four persons had switched.
3873. 7:34:32The decision on carrying out the executions emerged: 13 to 9.
3874. 7:34:37The committee had said yes to execution by a four-vote margin. Now the second vote was coming.
3875. 7:34:42Who would be executed? What was discussed at that meeting has remained a secret to this day.
3876. 7:34:48Who asked for executions and why, who opposed and how, why four members switched sides at the last moment — none of this was ever explained.
3877. 7:34:56Whatever was discussed inside, the view "let's hang some of them" had won.
3878. 7:35:01In determining who would be hanged, the court's decision was taken as the measure.
3879. 7:35:05The decision on four of the 15 condemned had been given by the unanimous vote of the High Court of Justice.
3880. 7:35:11In the others there were members who had not concurred with the decision.
3881. 7:35:14So the committee converted the sentences of these 11 DP members to life imprisonment and decided to carry out the sentences of the other four.
3882. 7:35:23The four whose execution was approved were Bayar, Menderes, Zorlu and Polatkan.
3883. 7:35:29In the same meeting Bayar's sentence was converted to life imprisonment because he had passed the age of 65.
3884. 7:35:35The three-hour meeting had ended with three death sentences.
3885. 7:35:40The meeting ended at 19:21. We leave the meeting hall; all of us in uniform.
3886. 7:35:50As we go down the stairs, in front of the front door of the stairs, the honour door, on the lower level there were hundreds of
3887. 7:35:59photo reporters, press, foreign and local.
3888. 7:36:04Suddenly the lights flashed; the evening was now dark. We were going down the stairs but we had decided we would say nothing to anyone.
3889. 7:36:11The decision was finished, but we decided that the Yassıada liaison office would make the announcement of that decision.
3890. 7:36:16That is, with the thought that society's stomach should not be upset at that moment, we said the liaison office would give the result.
3891. 7:36:24Now everyone is asking questions, they are explaining; we say nothing.
3892. 7:36:28Someone asked Cemal Gürsel a question: "Sir, was it what the civilians said, or what the soldiers said?"
3893. 7:36:38Before Cemal Gürsel could answer, I jumped in.
3894. 7:36:40It was neither what the civilians said nor what the soldiers said.
3895. 7:36:44"It was what our conscience said," he said. That is an interesting question, since it shows that the soldiers, not the civilians, interfered in the matter.
3896. 7:36:51That is, we did not want public opinion to dwell on that either at that moment.
3897. 7:36:56The committee's decision was again flown to the İstanbul liaison office by couriers from Yassıada.
3898. 7:37:02At midnight the office made the statement the press was awaiting with curiosity.
3899. 7:37:05The news burst like a bomb first on the radios and then in the newspapers.
3900. 7:37:09Three executions. That night the eleven o'clock agency said the executions were confirmed.
3901. 7:37:15There were at least twenty sacks of documents. They did not take these twenty sacks of documents to Ankara.
3902. 7:37:20They took only the decision. That decision was at least five hundred pages.
3903. 7:37:25The National Unity Committee did not even read that decision.
3904. 7:37:29It was entirely a matter of bargaining. A bargain among themselves.
3905. 7:37:41The fourteen condemned men, unaware in Ankara of the decisions given about them, had by then arrived at İmralı.
3906. 7:37:47It was afternoon prayer time when they arrived. The place was teeming with soldiers.
3907. 7:37:51Their hands were cuffed in front. Escorted by two guards, they were brought ashore one by one.
3908. 7:37:57The first to arrive was Celal Bayar. We are waiting for the second.
3909. 7:38:04In protocol order. Strange — no Menderes.
3910. 7:38:10They come out behind him in order, from Refik Koraltan and so on.
3911. 7:38:14The cuffs in front of them were switched to the back, and they began to be taken one by one up to the places at the top, cells,
3912. 7:38:23one by one. We were lined up. Fourteen people — Adnan Bey is not there.
3913. 7:38:30We were lined up, fourteen people. They signal with Bayar at the front.
3914. 7:38:36He goes. After he has gone, fifteen minutes pass up there.
3915. 7:38:41"OK," says someone. After him the next one goes.
3916. 7:38:46"OK," he says. "I know about the government's [procedures]."
3917. 7:38:53A prisoner condemned to death, when he is to be hanged, has his hands tied behind him.
3918. 7:39:00Within five minutes he is executed and the job is done.
3919. 7:39:06This is within the information I know. Well, they have tied our hands.
3920. 7:39:09They tied them behind us. Every fifteen minutes someone says "OK," and everyone goes.
3921. 7:39:15I suppose they hang the man who goes. "Come on, dear, let the other come," they say.
3922. 7:39:19So I suppose. It is not possible to think otherwise.
3923. 7:39:26They took us. Our turn came. Before me, of course —
3924. 7:39:30I have no information about what happened to those who went before me.
3925. 7:39:33I suppose they were hanged. Then they took us and crammed us into a room.
3926. 7:39:40The place where they were brought, hands cuffed behind, was a cell one square metre in size.
3927. 7:39:45It was dark. Soon someone came and photographed them.
3928. 7:39:49Then a corporal with fourteen sentries pressed up to the door.
3929. 7:39:54"I divided up the sentries. I'm at the head of the late gentleman."
3930. 7:39:58But meanwhile, since he was not an officer, over us at the top were the ten: Celal Bayar, Refik Koraltan, Hasan Polatkan,
3931. 7:40:11Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, Agah Erozan, İbrahim Kirazoğlu, Emin Kalafat.
3932. 7:40:21These are the ones I remember now. I said "get well soon" to all of them.
3933. 7:40:25There is such a narrow corridor. I said "get well soon" to all of them.
3934. 7:40:29The late Fatin Rüştü Zorlu did not much want to talk.
3935. 7:40:37Then, when I pressed a little more, he told me that he had only one daughter, that he had a house in Şişli, and
3936. 7:40:46that his daughter was engaged and that he would not be able to see his daughter's wedding.
3937. 7:40:53And we said, "God willing, God will save us from everything."
3938. 7:41:01Meanwhile, feverish activity was going on outside.
3939. 7:41:03Although the decisions had not yet been finalised, the gallows had been erected.
3940. 7:41:07Two executioners to carry out the executions had even been found and taken into the prison director's room.
3941. 7:41:15He came. The situation was explained to him.
3942. 7:41:19He said he would do the duty. Of course we called the storekeeper.
3943. 7:41:27There is a [hurgan] there. We said it should be given, and an olive-oil can should be given.
3944. 7:41:35He went out of the door. Then suddenly I saw him come back.
3945. 7:41:39The guard said he wanted to talk. "Let him come."
3946. 7:41:42The prosecutor sat there like that. We said, "What is it?" He said, "in two matters you have written executioner.
3947. 7:41:50I hanged Börekçi Ali," he said. "My experience is greater [than the other's]."
3948. 7:41:54"If possible, write me down as chief executioner," he said. Meanwhile the execution decisions had also been brought to İmralı by special courier.
3949. 7:42:02There was a ripple on the island. A group of officers, whose origin and reason for being brought in were not clear, began to stir.
3950. 7:42:11Inside there were perhaps 15–20 lieutenants, fresh-faced young men just graduated.
3951. 7:42:18They were loading rounds into their Thompsons like this. Click-clack and so on.
3952. 7:42:22The rounds fly like kernels. Nobody picks them up from the floor and puts them back.
3953. 7:42:28[Garbled.] Hearing of this incident, these were persons who came to İmralı saying "why three executions,
3954. 7:42:42why have the others been converted to life? If necessary, we will carry them out ourselves."
3955. 7:42:53The situation reached Cemal Tural. Cemal Tural came.
3956. 7:42:58He intervened in the matter. He said, "I have spoken; the Pasha wants it this way.
3957. 7:43:05It has been so. You will absolutely not cause any incident here.
3958. 7:43:10This will not be allowed," he said. When the time passed midnight, the uncertainty still had not ended for those awaiting death in the 14 cells of İmralı prison.
3959. 7:43:19They had been waiting for nine hours with their hands cuffed behind them.
3960. 7:43:22Bayar was asleep, propping the book of Yassıada decisions that had been given to him at the last moment against his back.
3961. 7:43:29Toward three o'clock, footsteps were heard in the narrow corridor.
3962. 7:43:34"Agah Bey, Agah Bey. The journey has begun; we are going."
3963. 7:43:39"Bring the word of testimony," he said. A voice from a cell.
3964. 7:43:44A recitation of the Throne Verse rose from one of the cells.
3965. 7:43:50After the Throne Verse recitation, footsteps began.
3966. 7:43:54They came. Those who came were Yassıada Chief Prosecutor Ömer Altay Egesel and İstanbul Execution Prosecutor Hüseyin Yücel.
3967. 7:44:02They re-read to the DP's Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan the decisions that had long since been pinned to their collars.
3968. 7:44:11The gallows had been prepared. They took the late Fatin Rüştü Zorlu first.
3969. 7:44:21They brought him downstairs. Below, the sentence was announced to him again.
3970. 7:44:28In fact it had already been done to his face. There he said he felt the need to perform ablution.
3971. 7:44:36He was allowed; he performed ablution. He wrote a letter addressed to his wife, his daughter, his mother.
3972. 7:44:44He asked that it be delivered. "My dear mother, my dear Emel, my dear Sevinç and my dear brother.
3973. 7:44:50Now I am going before the presence of the Almighty; I am calm.
3974. 7:44:53I am at peace. Do not grieve for me. Your living calmly and in peace will always set my mind at rest.
3975. 7:45:01Be united and together. God's decree was thus.
3976. 7:45:04I served and always preserved my honour.
3977. 7:45:09Mother, look after those I love and, with God's grace, secure their peace.
3978. 7:45:15I entrust you all to God. I ask you not to grieve again and to carry on in life, leaving me in peace.
3979. 7:45:24May God save the country. Fatin Rüştü Zorlu." He did not want to take off his tie, once.
3980. 7:45:38"Until the last moment a diplomat — that's not done in diplomatic terms," they said.
3981. 7:45:42"Fine," he said, and then made no sound. And [...]
3982. 7:45:48That is, he did not so much as blink. [...]
3983. 7:45:58He died as he lived, like a great gentleman. After that Hasan Polatkan was taken from his room.
3984. 7:46:05A white shirt was put on him and the summary of the judgement was hung around his neck.
3985. 7:46:09He looked exhausted. [Garbled.]
3986. 7:46:14Had we been a little late, I do not know whether his heart was sound or not, perhaps he would even have died.
3987. 7:46:19They took him. After he went out of the door, the same religious exhortation was made to him too, but he was weak.
3988. 7:46:26There is this building, and behind it a place used as a bath.
3989. 7:46:33In front of it is the sock workshop. Between those two there is a road.
3990. 7:46:37The gallows had been placed there. His execution too was carried out there.
3991. 7:46:47When morning came, the footsteps on İmralı had died down.
3992. 7:46:51The prisoners in separate cells called out to one another, trying to determine who had gone and who had remained.
3993. 7:46:57Only two calls went unanswered. Soon the Yassıada commander Tarık Güryay came and informed each of them individually that they had been saved from execution.
3994. 7:47:08Meanwhile Bayar had tucked his tie under the mattress.
3995. 7:47:13And he had tucked a green pencil in like this too. He forgot it there.
3996. 7:47:18However they gave it, they handed the tie to Tarık Güryay.
3997. 7:47:23We went out to the hall to go downstairs. Tarık Güryay took his coat out of my pocket.
3998. 7:47:28"What is this, Bayar?" he said. "Were you going to do it again as you did on 26–27 September?"
3999. 7:47:36He lifted his head back like this. "The insult you did to me on 26–27 September, my self-respect
4000. 7:47:47did not accept, and I acted. But now, unfortunately, I am not a man who fears death.
4001. 7:47:55Go ahead, do it to me too, don't hesitate." Tarık Güryay then struck him on the shoulder with his hand.
4002. 7:48:02The lion was [weeping], a lion. And we went downstairs. When we gathered in the room, all alone among ourselves, after that Yassıada prosecutor had gone, Mr. Bayar
4003. 7:48:14said, "Friends, look and see: apart from Hasan Bey and Polatkan, is there anyone else
4004. 7:48:22other than Adnan Bey who is not among us?"
4005. 7:48:26They said, "unfortunately these two friends."
4006. 7:48:31"We know Adnan Bey did not come either, but we do not know what happened."
4007. 7:48:38"No," they said. Then he said, "gentlemen, do not lose your fortitude.
4008. 7:48:49Preserve your calm and your power." What he meant by this was politics.
4009. 7:48:59"Our stay in prison will not be long," he said. That talk gave great moral strength to all of us, myself included.
4010. 7:49:14We saw two tears flow from Celal Bayar's eyes.
4011. 7:49:22Everyone saw this. "Thanks to the National Unity Committee," he said.
4012. 7:49:26That was all. He took off his glasses to wipe away his tears.
4013. 7:49:32Of course the lenses were thick. When I looked, there was a deep emptiness.
4014. 7:49:36[Garbled.] He put them on again.
4015. 7:49:41Bayar, who from 27 May until that moment had managed to resist at every instant, shed tears for the first time that day.
4016. 7:49:47The two friends with whom he had worked for ten years had been hanged.
4017. 7:49:49Now it was the turn of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. They had sat side by side with Menderes through all the Yassıada hearings and had not spoken a single word.
4018. 7:49:58Only one day, as Menderes was taking notes in court, his pen ran out.
4019. 7:50:03Bayar extended his own pen; after taking notes and finishing his work, Menderes said "thank you" and returned it.
4020. 7:50:10This was the last word Bayar heard from Menderes.
4021. 7:50:14He kept that pen until he died. On Saturday morning the newspapers came out with the news that the committee had approved three of the death sentences.
4022. 7:50:29Another subject on the front pages was Menderes lying in a sickbed.
4023. 7:50:34No one yet knew of the executions. On the morning of the decision my family tried to hide it from me, took the newspapers away,
4024. 7:50:43did not give them to me. But a relative could not control himself — this impossible
4025. 7:50:51"they can't do something, there can't be such a thing," when he shouted this, I began to feel it.
4026. 7:50:57I asked insistently one friend, finally — "Can I still hope? Can I still hope?" — and from his eyes: "No," he said.
4027. 7:51:06When we got up on the morning of 16 September, in the newspapers were both the death sentences and a picture of my late father lying in bed with his eyes closed, a drip attached.
4028. 7:51:20On the other side there were photographs showing that the executions of Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan
4029. 7:51:29had been carried out.
4030. 7:51:34It seemed that almost nothing remained to be done.
4031. 7:51:42Meanwhile we had not received the health news in full either.
4032. 7:51:49Had medicine been given? Was public reaction to be measured in this way?
4033. 7:52:01Or, daring not to take him to the gallows, had a kind of death been arranged in the guise of a suicide?
4034. 7:52:15All these thoughts passed through our minds that day.
4035. 7:52:19We were trying to learn his health condition. But probably one of the hardest things in the world is to learn the health of a person condemned to death.
4036. 7:52:29Because if he recovered, there was hope, but if he recovered, perhaps he would be going to his death in worse conditions than at that moment.
4037. 7:52:39That day, with a last hope, Berrin Menderes first called Osman Bölükbaşı.
4038. 7:52:45Bölükbaşı was saddened; he said "there seems to be little that can be done."
4039. 7:52:48One remedy was left: going to İsmet İnönü.
4040. 7:52:51Could İsmet Pasha, who just a year earlier from the parliamentary podium had said "even I cannot save you," save Menderes now?
4041. 7:52:59While my mother was talking, I was looking carefully at İsmet Pasha.
4042. 7:53:04İsmet Pasha's eyes had misted over; his eyes were tearful.
4043. 7:53:09He looked extremely saddened. "Regarding what my mother said, I have made attempts of this kind," [he said].
4044. 7:53:22"But they are in a frenzy. The words have stayed in my mind exactly.
4045. 7:53:28They won't listen at all; I can't make them listen," I remember him saying.
4046. 7:53:35And after a few sentences from my mother in the same direction,
4047. 7:53:45İsmet Pasha turned to my mother again, looking at me too: "Of course I too do not want anything bad to happen,
4048. 7:53:55I wish for this. But we cannot know what the outcome will be.
4049. 7:54:00But whichever way it goes, as his family, [...] all of you know that
4050. 7:54:10whatever his fate, there will be nothing about Menderes that you will have to explain away."
4051. 7:54:19After this meeting, in the early hours of the morning İnönü visited Gürsel and asked him to stop the executions.
4052. 7:54:25He learned there that Zorlu and Polatkan had been hanged.
4053. 7:54:29At least Menderes could be saved. But Gürsel was not in a position to do this; the reins had slipped out of his hands.
4054. 7:54:35İmralı was entirely under the control of the Armed Forces Union.
4055. 7:54:39After meeting İnönü, Gürsel first tried to call the army commander in İstanbul,
4056. 7:54:43Cemal Tural, and could not find him. Then he had another strong name of the Armed Forces Union, 66th Division Commander Faruk Güventürk, called.
4057. 7:54:52He too was nowhere to be found. His wife came to the phone. "My son, I want Güventürk," he said.
4058. 7:54:58"Tell [him], madam, I want to speak with my son Güventürk," he said.
4059. 7:55:02"Then there is no Güventürk. Do you know where he is?" Insistently.
4060. 7:55:05"Sir, I don't know," she says. Gürsel says, "she must know."
4061. 7:55:10"Ask — she must know." "I don't know, sir," I said.
4062. 7:55:13"Even if I knew, I would let you know." I immediately asked for a car and went to the Division.
4063. 7:55:18I said, "I think they are going to stop the executions; they are looking for the Pasha."
4064. 7:55:24Nobody did anything. Nobody volunteered to stop it.
4065. 7:55:30That is, to find him. "Forget it, sister-in-law, how would we know, where would we find him now?"
4066. 7:55:34The friends did not volunteer. Adnan Menderes's execution was not [prevented].
4067. 7:55:40The army approved. There was nothing left that Gürsel could do.
4068. 7:55:47In the afternoon İnönü also met with Foreign Minister Sarper and Chief of General Staff Sunay.
4069. 7:55:52Sunay favoured the execution. "Perhaps they have even hanged him by now," he was saying.
4070. 7:55:57There was no authority able to halt the committee's decision.
4071. 7:56:00Ankara was on its feet. Gürsel was holding a summit with the leaders of the four parties and trying to soften the atmosphere.
4072. 7:56:05Meanwhile from abroad US President Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth of Britain, French head of state de Gaulle, and Pakistan's
4073. 7:56:12head of state Ayub Khan were sending messages one after another asking for the executions to be stopped.
4074. 7:56:18But in vain; the National Unity Committee had said its last word.
4075. 7:56:30Adnan Menderes's last day was a Sunday. He woke relatively recovered.
4076. 7:56:35To his room came the island commander Tarık Güryay and his childhood friend Ethem Menderes.
4077. 7:56:40Güryay was apprehensive that Menderes's suicide attempt might cause him trouble in the future.
4078. 7:56:45They asked Adnan Menderes to write a statement that nobody was responsible for the suicide.
4079. 7:56:51Menderes, while the tape recorder in the room was running: "Actually I had long since been determined to die.
4080. 7:56:57I had grown tired and weary of enduring, of putting up with it," he said.
4081. 7:57:01He described how he had attempted suicide. He also wrote it on paper and signed it.
4082. 7:57:05The journey of death he had just returned from would begin again shortly.
4083. 7:57:09He looked exhausted in his pyjamas. He did not even know about the court's decisions.
4084. 7:57:15Ethem Menderes also had his last meeting with him. Ethem was his first and last friend.
4085. 7:57:20A friendship that began in childhood had lasted half a century and had now come to its end.
4086. 7:57:25The two friends returned to their childhood that day. They talked about Aydın, the Çakırbeyli farm, the Çine stream.
4087. 7:57:41There he said, "ah, Ethem, what do we need politics for."
4088. 7:57:45"We joined the Free Party; we [garbled]."
4089. 7:57:49"We caused the people of Aydın a great deal of trouble. We joined the Democrat Party.
4090. 7:57:53With all our effort and all our sincerity we served the country; we wanted to serve.
4091. 7:57:59Look at the state we have brought the country to. By my mother and my wife, may I repent, if I ever come to Aydın again from the farm,
4092. 7:58:06let alone politics — if I come to Aydın I will sit at the foot of the willow trees by the Çine stream.
4093. 7:58:13I will turn my head to the sky. I will be content with the happiness that the leaves of the willow trees brushing my face will bring me.
4094. 7:58:22I will not interfere in anything." Yet Aydın and the Çine stream were now too far away ever to be seen again.
4095. 7:58:29Soon Menderes was dressed and taken to the pier.
4096. 7:58:33He asked "where to?" The island commander said, "you will go to the naval hospital."
4097. 7:58:37This would be the last lie he heard. As he left, he said, "please, commander,
4098. 7:58:43when a letter comes from Berrin, give me the message."
4099. 7:58:47After seeing Menderes off to İmralı, the island commander Tarık Güryay returned to his office.
4100. 7:58:53Soon the telephone rang. The caller was Cemal Gürsel.
4101. 7:58:55He spoke at once. "Tarık," he said, "do not send Adnan Menderes anywhere."
4102. 7:58:59Gürsel had perhaps found a formula at the last moment, or perhaps wanted to try his luck one last time.
4103. 7:59:05But Menderes had already set out. Güryay said, "if you have an order, I will convey it to İmralı at once."
4104. 7:59:11Gürsel was not very sure whether his order would be carried out at İmralı.
4105. 7:59:14"No," he said, "there is nothing to be done. What's done is done."
4106. 7:59:19When the phone was put down, the last door that could have saved Menderes was also closed.
4107. 7:59:24Soon the ferry carrying the deposed prime minister toward death docked at İmralı.
4108. 7:59:29Right behind it came the chief prosecutor's ferry.
4109. 7:59:31On the pier two officers took Menderes by the arm.
4110. 7:59:34They brought him and handed him over to two warders. Menderes understood there that the place he had come to was not a hospital.
4111. 7:59:41Three assault boats came. From the middle assault boat came one person.
4112. 7:59:47In a navy-blue suit. It cannot have been even half past [the hour].
4113. 7:59:53I imagine. That sky, open like glass, storm, wind,
4114. 8:00:02dust. Dust. A very light rain fell too.
4115. 8:00:07The late [Menderes] got down from the [boat]. They went into a building a little way from the pier.
4116. 8:00:16There Menderes's hands were cuffed in front. The execution decision was pinned to his collar.
4117. 8:00:21He was seated in an armchair in an empty room. Sadness could be read from his face.
4118. 8:00:28Very weak. Exhausted, bewildered like that. I mean, I want to say this —
4119. 8:00:33let it not be misunderstood — he was not fully alert.
4120. 8:00:38It was unclear. He came and sat there. Even at one point when I entered he stood up.
4121. 8:00:43That is, there was an unease. When I said "please, have a seat," I will never forget it, he said to me:
4122. 8:00:47"How can I sit while you are standing?" That is, this much respect was a bit too much.
4123. 8:00:54It is like a kind of fear in a person. While waiting in the room, a hodja was brought to Menderes.
4124. 8:01:03He wanted to be left alone with the hodja. This was not permitted.
4125. 8:01:06His last words were asked for. He had the following written: "At this moment when I am about to bid farewell to life,
4126. 8:01:13I wish my state and my nation eternal happiness.
4127. 8:01:16Meanwhile I remember my wife and my children with affection."
4128. 8:01:22His hands were cuffed behind him. A white execution shirt was put on him.
4129. 8:01:26He was led out of the building. With two warders beside him, he began to walk toward the garden of İmralı prison.
4130. 8:01:33Soldiers were lined up on both sides of the road at intervals of twenty paces.
4131. 8:01:59As he set out on his last journey he looked at the world one last time, and these two sentences were heard from his mouth:
4132. 8:02:07"I am not at all resentful. I feel no bitterness."
4133. 8:02:35This is the end of our story. A great deal of time has passed over all these events, yet they are as fresh as yesterday.
4134. 8:02:43On that morning of 27 May, we too were among the university and high-school youths filling the streets; our generation
4135. 8:02:49was there too. Youth was in excitement. We carried food to the demonstrators and sang the song "can it be, can it be like this?"
4136. 8:02:59We believed that we were doing something for the good of the country.
4137. 8:03:03Today I look back and feel a bitterness inside me.
4138. 8:03:07One says to oneself: it should not have been like this, it should not have ended like this.
4139. 8:03:13It is then that the passion for true democracy grows even greater.
4140. 8:03:18So who is responsible for all these events? In fact, all of us are responsible.