1960 Turkish Coup d'État and the Cold War: A Historical Analysis

[00:00:00]In an episode a long time ago, in a  galaxy far far away, we talked about the   situation in post-war Turkey. It’s a story of  questionable governments, Soviet intimidation,   and seemingly infinite Marshall Plan dollars.   Now, where we left off that particular episode  was in the buildup to the 1960 Turkish election   when the Democrat Party government of  Adnan Menderes responded to increasing   agitation and unrest from the Republican  People’s Party or CHP, led by Ismet Inonu,   by suspending all political parties and declaring  martial law. I’m your host David and today,   we are going to finally pick up where we left  off the Turkish story. This is...The Cold War!

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[00:02:18]But first, a quick recap of where we left  off. Turkey had remained neutral during the   Second World War, and its already precarious  economic situation was exacerbated by the need   to maintain a large standing army to prevent  possible interference from either the Axis or   the Allied powers. Although Inonu had ruled the  one-party state since the death of Kemal Ataturk,   the promise of Western financial support in  exchange for the democratization of Turkey   was a carrot that Inonu could not ignore.  The introduction of multi-party politics in   Turkey was also consistent with the country’s  position as a founding member of the UN and the   UN Charter which placed an emphasis on the  importance of human rights and democracy.  As for the American-led West, its interest in  Turkey was considerable, although the cynic in   me feels their interest was less in ensuring  the Turkish people had a political voice   and was more about ensuring that Communism, and  the Soviet Union, couldn’t obtain a foothold   in a key strategic location. A Sovietized  Turkey would have given the Soviet Union an   easy strike position towards the middle eastern  oil fields as well as unfettered Naval access to   the Mediterranean while also threatening the vital  Suez Canal zone. So, the strengthening of Western   relations with Turkey, including its membership  to NATO in 1952 were major strategic victories.  Now, Inonu and the CHP had begun to lay the  groundwork for a transition to democracy   and multi-party politics as early as 1945,  bemoaning in a speech the lack of opposition   and contested elections. It didn’t take long after  this for four of the leading dissenting members   of the CHP to sign a memorandum calling for  democratization and fair elections. In response,   the CHP forced them to leave the party and  the four men, including Adnan Menderes and   Celal Bayar, formed a new political party, the  Demokrat Party. The new DP quickly attracted the   attention and support of CHP members who were  disenchanted or tired of Inonu. The DP however,   was careful to still proclaim their adherence to  the core principles of Kemalism; both secular and   pro-Western. Where the DP diverged from the  CHP was largely on economic matters. The CHP   wanted to continue with its policies of statism  while the DP wanted increased economic liberties   and freedoms from government direction. 1946 saw Turkey’s first contested election,   one which the CHP won comfortably, amid claims of  electoral fraud made by the DP. Despite the CHP’s   victory, the period that followed did see change  begin to happen in the country. This was largely   driven by the DP’s role in Opposition. Laws on  land distribution were liberalized giving more   people access to farming opportunities, the ban on  trade unions was removed, and some of the negative   pressure on religious education were decreased.  The DP was leaning into the religion card for   support...Turkey, despite the secularism  of the Kemalist movement, was still very   much a religious and conservative society,  which the DP took advantage of, positioning   itself as being more friendly towards religion  while painting the CHP as the enemy of Islam.   This was highlighted when the CHP banned the  Arabic call to prayer. Capitalizing on this in   the 1950 election, the DP won 408 seats compared  to only 69 for the CHP. For the first time since   the creation of the Turkish Republic, the CHP was  not in power. Adnan Menderes, as party leader,   assumed the role of Prime Minister and Celal  Bayar was elected President by the Parliament.  The ascent to power of Menderes and the DP  changed the power dynamic in the country.   While the CHP elites had been largely made  up of people with backgrounds in the military   and from the urban bureaucracy, the elected  representatives of the DP were businessmen   and landowners with more provincial backgrounds.  One of the first steps the DP took after assuming   power was to lift the ban on the Arabic call to  prayer as well as the restrictions on religious   programming on the radio. But Menderes also  continued to foster Turkey’s ties to the West,   responding to the UNs call for a coalition  of troops to be sent to the Korean Peninsula   after the outbreak of war there. In fact, Turkey  was the 2nd country to agree to send troops,   after the United States. Turkey’s  commitment and sacrifice in Korea,   which saw over 700 dead, helped make the case  for Turkey’s acceptance into NATO in 1952.  The Menderes government also benefited from those  sweet sweet Marshall Plan dollars which allowed   for economic growth in Turkey. This growth allowed  for easier access to business loans from the West,   which further allowed the Turkish economy to  strengthen and grow, resulting in infrastructure   growth, especially roads, to assist in that  growth. All of this helped to further boost   the popularity of the DP with the Turkish people.  But, and there is always a but, this growth also   coincided with an increase in certain repressions  by the Menderes government. This included such   actions as the seizure of significant amounts of  CHP assets, the forced closure of the Millet Party   and their single Parliamentary MP on the grounds  that the Party was a religious organization. The   Village Institutes, teacher training enterprises  that the CHP had established in the villages,   were also closed down. And yet, despite this, the  DP continued to be popular, even increasing its   seat count in the 1954 elections, winning 508  seats and a massive 57.5% of the popular vote.  This second DP term however was  more...problematic. Economic growth slowed,   shortages of consumer goods began to appear and  the authoritarian trend of the DP continued.   September of 1955 saw a pogrom carried  out against the Greek minority in Turkey   resulting in the deaths of between 11 and  30 people. The DP was widely implicated in   the orchestration of the pogrom, but the DP  used it as an opportunity to crush dissent   in the country. Blaming communists for the attacks  on the Greek community, many prominent Turkish   Communist Party activists were arrested. Menderes  also used the pogrom as an opportunity to shut   down the “Cyprus is Turkish” organization which  was poised to cause a potential rift with Greece,   another Western ally. In response to these actions  by Menderes, four prominent Democrat Party MPs,   including one of the original four founders of the  party Fuat Koprulu, quit the DP and established   the Hurriyet Party. In summary, Menderes and  the DP were stirring up violence and dissent   in order to use it as a pretext to extend  their own direct power over the country.  So, amid this political instability, growing  economic challenges and before things could   deteriorate further, Menderes decided to call  early elections in 1957. The DP won again,   but had lost 10% of the popular vote compared to  1954 and had lost seats in parliament to the CHP   and several other opposition parties. The new  Menderes government had further troubles to deal   with as foreign loans became due and needed to be  repaid. Feeling a lack of options, managing this   included the rapid devaluation of the currency,  hurting the economic growth which the DP depended   on to win votes. In real terms, the currency  devaluations shredded the savings of many and made   monthly wages irrelevant. And through all of this,  Menderes’s authoritarianism continued to grow.   The press found itself censored, journalists  were arrested and some news outlets, including   the pro-CHP newspaper Ulus was shut down. And then in 1959, the leader of the CHP Inonu   was attacked at a CHP rally being held in one  of the regions and then again, a few days later   at a rally in Istanbul. It is most likely  that these attacks were at least condoned,   if not sponsored, by the DP and its supporters.  But publicly, the DP-dominated Parliament   established a commission in order to investigate  the actions of the media and the opposition.   The Commission, made up exclusively of Demokrat  Party MPs came to a conclusion that the CHP had   united all the destructive forces in the  country to its banner and were inciting   the people and the army against the government. As you can imagine, the situation in the country   was tense. Which is an understatement, by the way.  Inonu, himself a former soldier and a war hero,   had a very loyal following among military  circles in Turkey, and he warned Menderes   to restrain his actions. Inonu even went so far  as to state that he would not be able to save   Menderes if the turmoil in the country continued.  His statement, made on April 18 1960, was:   "Even I cannot even save you if you continue to  follow this path. Revolution is a legitimate right   for nations once the necessary conditions are  set." This was basically a thinly veiled warning   to Menderes that the army could and probably  would intervene against the DP government.  This brings us now to late April of 1960. By this  time, student protests were becoming a regular   occurrence and Menderes decided to crack down on  them, calling out the police to forcibly break up   the protests. He even went so far as to declare  martial law. In early May however, Menderes found   himself accidentally confronted with protestors  who attacked him and even managed to force him to   publicly resign from office. Bayar, the President,  however refused to accept the resignation and   urged a further crack-down on the protestors. OK, now while all this was going on, there   was also action happening on the international  stage. Turkey, suffering an economic downturn,   was finding it difficult to sign new loans  with Western partners. As a result, Menderes   began to court the Soviet Union as a source  of international aid and was even planning a   state visit to Moscow to help him in this goal.  This naturally, was a cause for great concern   internationally but even more so among many  Turks, especially those in the armed forces.  So this actually brings us to a perfect time to  discuss the Turkish Armed Forces. The military   in Turkey considered itself to be the guardians  of the secular Turkish state. It was very much a   bastion of pro-Western thought and naturally, any  attempts in the country to improve its relations   with the Soviet Union were going to be met with  disapproval. As early as 1957, young officers,   mostly colonels and other lower ranked officers,  had been organizing committees without the   knowledge of their commanders, in order to plan  a possible overthrow of the Menderes government.   By 1960, these plans were prepared and ready  to be carried out. A Committee of National   Unity was formed with the aim of executing  the coup. It called for the deployment of   troops to both Istanbul and Ankara where key  installations like the Parliament and the state   radio would be occupied and Menderes would be  arrested as well as other key DP politicians,   forcing them to accept a new political reality. On the 27th of May, 1960 the Committee took   action, moving troops loyal to the Committee  into Ankara and occupied the State Radio station.   One of the Committee leaders, Alparslan Turkesh  broadcast a statement announcing the coup,   asking people to stay in their homes and  that the Turkish Armed Forces had taken over   the country in a bloodless effort to regain  control over the situation in the country.   Following the announcement, high ranking  military officers who were known to be   loyal to Menderes or whose loyalties were unknown  were also placed under arrest. Included in these   arrests were President Celal Bayar as well  as various government ministers in Ankara.   Menderes, who was travelling outside of Ankara,  was arrested and brought to the capital.  General Ragip Gumushpala, the commander  of the 3rd Army at the time of the coup,   was initially opposed to it and threatened to  move troops under his command into Ankara in   order to suppress the coup. He would only agree to  stand down if the more senior military commanders   agreed to the coup. This left very few  individuals who could intervene. But, when   the former commander of allTurkish Land Forces,  Cemal Gursel, came out in favour of the coup,   Gumushpala stood down his troops, opening the  path for a full military takeover. At 11:30am   on the 27th of May, Cemal Gursel entered Ankara  and that afternoon made a radio broadcast to the   nation that the Armed Forces had taken over and  the Committee of National Unity was now in charge.  The arrested, including Menderes and Bayar  were taken to the island of Yassiada, south of   Istanbul, in the Sea of Marmara. Over the course  of the following year, court proceedings for the   arrested took place on the island. The court was  composed of judges appointed by the new military   junta that had established itself. Charges  included high treason, misuse of public funds   and abrogation of the constitution. At the end  of the trial, 15 men were given death sentences,   although this was commuted to life in prison  for 12 of them, including Celal Bayar. On   September 16, 1961 the former Minister of  Foreign Affairs Fatin Rustu Zorlu and the   former Minister of Finance Hasan Polatkan were  hanged to death. The following day, the same   sentence was carried out on Adnan Menderes. The Armed Forces remained in direct control   of Turkey after the May 27 Coup but they did  organize and run elections in October 1961.   These elections were largely to oversee the return  of administrative control of Turkey to civilian   government and the Generals retained executive  command, with Inonu in the role of Prime Minister.   Free and full elections would not  be held again in Turkey until 1965.  As for International reactions to the 1960  coup, the major governments of the West,   including the United States and Great  Britain, were comfortable with the results.   The increasingly fractious relationship  with Menderes had been causing concern for   Western governments who looked to Turkey as  a vital strategic ally against the Soviets.   The US military relied heavily on the airbase  at Adana, now called Incirlik Air Base,   which was used to launch reconnaissance missions  against the USSR and would be used to recover   long-range strategic bombers in the event of  a shooting war with the Soviet Union. And not   to mention of course that an agreement had been  reached in 1959 to allow the deployment of Jupiter   medium-range ballistic missiles to Turkey in order  to further threaten the USSR with their freedom.   So, the replacement of Menderes with sympathetic  men in uniform was of great comfort to the West.  The 1960 coup was a first for the Turkish  Republic, but certainly wasn’t the last   with 3 more occurring just in the 20th Century.  Turkey through this time period was a country   where the military was seen to play a vital role  in maintaining order and stability and was held   in very high regard by most people as a result.  What this created in Turkey was a situation where   the armed forces could exert a great deal of  influence over the running of the country even   when they were not in direct control. It acted  as a stabilizing force and maintained momentum   but also meant radical reforms with which the  military disagreed with were doomed from the   outset. In a Cold War context, this meant that  Turkey remained a firm ally on the southern   flank of NATO with very low risk of the country  being turned into an ally of the Soviet Union.   A veneer of democracy could be presented  overtop of an anti-democratic deep state,   influenced and guided by a secular and pro-Western  military. Not the first time we’ve heard   this story and certainly not the last. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode   and to make sure you don’t miss all of our future  episodes, please make sure you are subscribed   to our channel and have consulted the military  junta who are REALLY in control of this channel   for permission to press the Bell Button. We can be  reached via email at [email protected].   And we are active on facebook and instagram  at TheColdWarTV. If you enjoy our work   your financial support would be greatly  appreciated via www.patreon.com/thecoldwar   or through YouTube membership!. This is  the Cold War Channel and don’t forget,   “The trouble with a cold war is that it doesn't  take too long before it becomes heated.”