The July 2016 attempted coup d’état in Turkey was the latest in a series of military interventions in the nation’s history. The military has forced out four civilian governments since 1960, when Premier Adnan Menderes was deposed. In 1971 the military forced Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel to resign; in 1980, the Turkish army launched the bloodiest military takeover in Turkey’s history; and in 1997, after the military issued so-called recommendations during a National Security Council meeting, the prime minister agreed to some measures and resigned soon after in what is referred to as the “post-modern” coup.

You can read the entire Moment on ADST. This Moment was edited by Jesse Berman.

NEWBERRY: The 1950 general elections in Turkey had been the first really free and unfettered democratic elections. The party of [Mustafa] Ismet Inonu and his colleagues who had inherited the traditions of Kemal Ataturk was voted out of power. A new party, called the Democrat Party, led by Adnan Menderes, came into power in 1950. When I arrived in Turkey, this new government was still very much in the “bloom” of its success and riding high. Of course, the American government was smiling broadly on this phenomenon of a freely and democratically elected government in the Middle East.

This situation had its pitfalls. Adnan Menderes was very shrewd and quick to exploit this situation. He spread the notion that he was the “chosen instrument” of Washington. We played this game, consciously or unconsciously. The first thing we knew was that Adnan Menderes and his Democratic Party began to abuse their power; the American government was also tarred with the same brush.
We were regarded as not only condoning but encouraging Menderes to abuse his power. There were very strong restrictions on the role of the other parliamentary parties and what they could do. There was a misuse of police power. Tax breaks were accorded to important members of the governing Democrat Party.

From his point of view what he had to tell me was terribly urgent, because what he had picked up from the Turkish military garrison right next door to his wife’s estate was an open discussion of the beginnings of a plot by the military to overthrow the Adnan Menderes government.
As soon as I got back to the Consulate General, I made my notes and drafted a report about what I’d been told and what questions I’d asked my friend. I didn’t talk to any of the military attachés assigned to the Consulate General. I felt that my Turkish-American friend was pretty astute, and he took this report very seriously, as did I.

I showed this report to the Consul General. He looked absolutely terrified. I sent it in the CONFIDENTIAL diplomatic pouch to Ankara, and that’s as far as it went. It was never reported to the [State] Department. Then, lo and behold, the Turkish military overthrew the Menderes government [in 1960].

Washington might have had a good two years of lead time to collect additional intelligence on this event, because the report was in such detail. According to my friend, the military officers involved in this coup d’état talked about their contacts throughout the Turkish military structure. At least this report could have assisted our intelligence people, if no one else, in tracking down what was going on.

HART: Adnan Menderes was a very adept politician and who knew how to handle the United States so as to get the maximum aid possible. He spent it in ways which increased his popularity.

Adnan Menderes’ popularity had led him toward a kind of republican and democratic absolutism. In other words, he had gotten to the point where he wouldn’t tolerate any opposition to his ruling party which had originally been an opposition party. For ten years he had had everything his own way. He was not only re-elected when he needed to be — by crushing majorities – but he was also spending the country into bankruptcy on some good projects but also many that were not so well considered.

The military had done this on the grounds that the military in Turkey is by custom, and by [Mustafa Kemal] Ataturk, mandated as the guardian of the republic against all threats from within as well as from without. They felt that Menderes and some of his people were very guilty of violating the fundamental tenants of Ataturk and of what we call the pillars of the republic, more fundamental than any constitution in Turkey.

The constitution in Turkey is a mechanism for governing the country, but its obedience to the principles of Ataturk is written right into the document and they may not be amended. One of the pillars is secularism. Another is code of dress-no more tarbush, or fez.

Another is that the country shall always remain a republic and never go back to being an empire. The royalty and all of its trappings are gone. Women are to cease wearing the veil and have equal rights.
In any event, the military tried a lot of these Democrats. They had imprisoned most of them on the island of Yassiada in the Marmara Sea. Menderes, and his finance minister, and foreign minister were all hanged after being judged guilty of violating the fundamental tenets of the republic.

Then they had prepared a new constitution which provided what they call the d’Honte (Belgian) system of proportional representation, a national remainder system of utilizing excess votes to broaden political representation in parliament and to provide checks against excessive authority.

WHITE: The phone rang at about 3:00 AM. It was the Embassy Duty Officer saying: “Don’t come to work tomorrow morning. Something’s happened.”

Well, what had happened is that finally General [Kenan] Evren (seen right), in what is called a bloodless coup d’état — and it was really bloodless — simply announced that the country was not being governed and that it had to be. He put the leaders of both major parties under house arrest and formed a government of technocrats.

Now if ever there was a reluctant general, General Evren was that person. The next morning I went down to the Embassy. I went a little later than usual, after I saw that there were no disturbances. Nothing was happening.

I didn’t take the car for some reason. I took the bus downtown. Traveling by bus is a nice way to find out what people are thinking.

The sense of relief among the people was palpable. For the first time I saw Turks smiling. There is an unwritten article in the Turkish Constitution that says, in effect: “If the government isn’t governing, the Army has a moral responsibility to step in and make things happen.”

This is what General Evren did. He appointed a government of technocrats. He sensibly realized that the Army knew nothing other than the Army. So there wasn’t a situation of colonels running ministries that they didn’t understand. He brought in a man named Turgut Ozal and made him “Economic Czar.” In effect, he told Ozal: “I don’t know anything about the economy. They say that you do. So you run the economy.”

SPAIN: Security had been deteriorating again almost from the time I left in 1974. Right and left extremists were back to battling in the streets. Violence was growing; the politicians were squabbling; and the military was obviously growing more and more restless. Things were bad.

We sat in the second floor sitting room in the Residence in Ankara and listened to gun battles going on all over the city. Americans were prime targets of the left. Between June 1979 and September 1980 eleven Americans were killed. Then on September 12, 1980, the military took over the government. In two days they had the graffiti scrubbed off the walls and all the agitators (as well as some innocents) locked away in jail. We were back to peace and quiet, if not democracy.

And the military does let go of the situation after a while. As a policy the United States is opposed to this, but in your heart of hearts you must have felt soon rather than later they have to do it.

Each intervention took longer. If I remember correctly, the 1961 intervention when they hung Prime Minister Menderes lasted something like 18 months. The 1971 takeover, which happened when I was in Istanbul, ran 20 plus months. The 1980 takeover stretched to three years or so.

So, this kind of thing is accepted by most Turks. There is a tradition dating to Ataturk, if not an actual constitutional provision for it. In 1961 they jumped a little fast — Menderes was juggling the army promotion lists, not exactly a crime deserving the noose. But in 1971 and 1980 they waited until well after law and order had broken down under the elected governments.

BOEHM: Turkey was a functioning parliamentary democracy. Within a few weeks of my arrival, [Prime Minister Suleyman] Demirel (seen right) was once again thrown out by the military. There had been a lot of terrorism, which was a very serious problem indeed — bombs going off and assassinations, right in the heart of downtown Ankara.

The situation was getting very nasty, and the government wasn’t controlling it. So in accordance with what you might call “tradition” in Turkey, the military, who regarded themselves as the guardians of democracy, thought that the threat required them to move in. Once again, Demirel was out. The military were in power then, throughout the rest of my stay there.

As a diplomat, you get to know as many people as you can who might be able to help you out on the subject. You keep in touch with them — especially military people. You find out what they’re thinking. You analyze the causes which might lead to a takeover and see how that’s going. Then you have intelligence sources as well.

You have the military attachés, and our attachés always had very good connections with the Turkish military. The attachés would be prepared to find out from their best contacts what the thinking in the Turkish military was. You had CIA reports. You check all of these various intelligence sources and try to analyze the situation as best you can.

We looked at this report and checked with a few Turks as to what those tanks were doing. We were told that there was nothing unusual about that. The police had asked for assistance. They were expecting another terrorist attack, and the tanks were to assist the police.

That very night those tanks moved in, and the military took over. It was a coup. I would not say that we had rejected the report but I would say that we had not reached the same conclusion as our young military attaché had reached. But he was absolutely right. He said, “This is it,” and it was.

Most of the Turkish people, I think, were not interested in revolution and basically approved of the military taking over for a specific purpose — that is, to calm things down and move the terrorists out of the way and reform the political system. The Turkish people want democracy. They have shown that in elections and, in fact, the military recognize this.

They moved out. They always have. They seize power, deal with whatever the crucial problem is that caused the coup, and then they move out. In the case of the 1980 coup, of course, they rewrote the constitution to eliminate some of the constitutional problems that had made it difficult for the Parliament to function.

The parliamentary system was almost unworkable and very, very awkward and cumbersome. It was hard to get a majority on anything. The 1980 coup d’état set about restructuring the political system. The military wrote a new constitution. Eventually, elections were held, and the military moved out of power. Turkey is once again a democracy, and Demirel is President.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com