Adnan Menderes

Menderes greets his supporters

Ali Adnan Ertekin Menderes (1899 - September 17, 1961) was a Turkish statesman and prime minister between 1950–1960. He founded the Democratic Party (DP) in 1946, the third legal opposition party of Turkey. He was hanged following the 1960 coup d'état, along with two other cabinet members, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan.

Early life and career

He was born in 1899 in Aydın, as the son of a wealthy landowner. After primary school, Menderes attended the American College in İzmir. He graduated from the Law School of Ankara Üniversitesi. In 1930, Menderes organized a branch of the short lived Liberal Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası) in Aydın. After the ban of this party, he joined Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican People’s Party) and was elected deputy of Aydın in 1931. In 1945, he was expelled from the party with two other colleagues due to inner-party opposition.

Rise to power

Menderes on the cover of Time magazine

Further information: Multi-Party Period of Republic of Turkey

On January 7, 1946, he formed the Demokrat Parti (Democratic Party), the third legal opposition party in Turkey, after the Liberal Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası) established by Ali Fethi Okyar in 1930, and the National Development Party (Milli Kalkınma Partisi) established by Nuri Demirağ in 1945. He was elected deputy of Kütahya in the 1946 elections and became the highest-ranking man in the party after Celal Bayar. When the DP came to power after the second free elections in Turkish history on May 14, 1950, Menderes became prime minister, and in 1955 he also assumed the duties of foreign minister. He later won two more free elections, one in 1954 and the other in 1957. No other politician since then has been able to win three general elections in a row in Turkey.

During the 10 years of his term of prime ministry, Turkish domestic and foreign politics underwent great changes. Industrialization and urbanization, which were started by Atatürk, expanded further in Turkey. With the economic support of USA via Marshall Plan, agriculture was mechanized; transport, energy, education, health care, insurance and banking progressed.^{[citation needed]} In 1955, Menderes was implicated in the organisation of the Istanbul Pogrom, which targeted the city's substantial Greek minority, an event which is defined as a small Kristallnacht by some circles.^[1] On February 17, 1959 Menderes survived a plane crash. The Turkish Airlines plane "Sev" carrying him to London Gatwick Airport crashed a few miles before the runway, near Horley. He was on his way to sign the London Agreements on the Cyprus issue with the British and Greek prime-ministers, which gave the three sides the right to intervene in Cyprus in case peace is broken by any of the parties.

Political style and beliefs

During a speech

Menderes became quite famous for selling or distributing most of the estate he had inherited to small shareholders. He was more tolerant towards traditional lifestyles and different forms of practice of Islam than Atatürk and his party had been - he campaigned in the 1950 elections almost exclusively on the single-issue platform of legalizing the Arabic language adhan, which had been banned by İsmet İnönü. One of his first political moves was to exclude the pictures of İsmet İnönü on Turkish banknotes and stamps and instead put Atatürk pictures back, which were taken off when Inönü became President in 1938. Thanks to the public support and the legacy of Atatürk, it was a successful move, even if the Turkish law was stating that the image of the President of the country would be placed on the banknotes, in this case İnönü.

While remaining pro-Western, he was more active than his predecessors in building relations with Muslim states. Menderes had a more liberal economic policy than earlier prime ministers, and allowed more private enterprise. In general his economic policies made him popular among the poor half of the population, but it also brought the country to insolvency due to an enormous increase in imports of goods and technology.

He was most intolerant towards criticism, so he instituted press censorship and had journalists arrested, as well as attempted to oppress the opposing political parties (predominantly CHP) and take institutions such as universities under his control.^{[citation needed]} Menderes who was well liked by the people in general and also had the support of Cemal Gürsel who, in a personal patriotic memorandum, had advocated that Menderes should become the president of the republic to secure the national unity, became increasingly unpopular among the intellectuals, university students and a group of radical young officers in the military, who feared that the ideals of Atatürk were in danger. This eventually brought about his fall from power.

Coup, trial, execution

On May 27, 1960 a military coup removed the government, and Menderes was arrested along with some other party members, charged with violating the constitution, sarcastically by the same people who had conspired to stage a military coup-d'etat against a democratically elected government. He and all the leaders of the DP were put on trial by a hastily formed ad-hoc court on the island of Yassıada. In addition to the charges of violating the constitution, the trial also referenced the Istanbul Pogrom, for which he and his fellow defendants were blamed.

Menderes was sentenced to death. Despite pleas for forgiveness by Head of State Cemal Gürsel, and similar pleas from several world leaders, he was executed by hanging on the island of İmralı on September 17, 1961. The age of Democratic Party was over after this execution. Two months later, İsmet İnönü formed a new government, with the help of the newly emerging Adalet Partisi, after taking the majority of the votes in 1961 election. Adalet Partisi, which was seen as the successor of the heritage of Menderes, would win victories in later elections and İnönü would end up losing his support in CHP.

Legacy

On September 17, 1990, he was posthumously pardoned and his grave was moved to a mausoleum in İstanbul. Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan, the two other members of his cabinet who were hanged, were similarly pardoned. Adnan Menderes University in Aydın and Adnan Menderes Airport in İzmir are named after him. Two high schools, Istanbul Bahcelievler Adnan Menderes Anadolu Lisesi and Aydın Adnan Menderes Anadolu Lisesi, also adopted his name.

In 2006, Mehmet Feyyat, Attorney General of İstanbul at the time, suggested that "İsmet İnönü and Cemal Gürsel placed phone calls to the prison's administration for Menderes' execution to be halted but the Communications Office cut the lines off" (see below).

Trivia

• He spoke English, French and Greek.

Reference sources and supporting documentation

An extremely important document that sheds light on the past has been revealed. Testimony from eyewitnesses at the time helped make known that the letter had been modified after May 27, but the location of the original letter was unknown. This important document adds a new dimension to the May 27 revolution. We have come face to face with a new document that changes our written history. It was my greatest wish to obtain just such a document; not for my own satisfaction, but for my father, to prove this reality and obtain genuine evidence. I was thrilled when I heard about this. Mr Aydın Menderes, Author, the Son of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, September 2006

"They cut off our phone lines. Adnan Menderes was hanged against the regulations. I was supposed to oversee the execution. The revolution tribunal's chief prosecutor Altay Egesel conducted the execution despite not being authorized. İsmet İnönü and Cemal Gürsel were already phoning for him (Menderes) not to be executed but the telecommunications' office cut off the lines and Egesel made use of the (communication) gap to conduct the execution." Mehmet Feyyat, District Attorney General, Istanbul Province Prosecutor General 1961, The Administrator of the Imrali Prison, The Lawyer of the Year, Senator. (Reported by Özkan GÜVEN, STAR Newspaper, November 13, 2006 with a summary in Turkish at Law in the Capital)

• The full text of Cemal Gürsel's letter in WikiSource

• Cemal Gürsel supported him and wanted him to become the Republic's president

External links

• Adnan Menderes Turkish Biography

See also

• Adnan Menderes University
• Adnan Menderes Airport

Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey

Bekir Sami Kunduk • Ahmet Muhtar Mollaoğlu • Yusuf Kemal Tengirşenk • İsmet İnönü • Şükrü Kaya • Tevfik Rüştü Aras • Şükrü Saracoğlu • Numan Menemencioğlu • Hasan Saka • Necmettin Sadak • Mehmet Fuat Köprülü • Adnan Menderes • Fatin Rüştü Zorlu • Ethem Menderes • Selim Sarper • Feridun Cemal Erkin • Hasan Esat Işık • İhsan Sabri Çağlayangil • Osman Olcay • Haluk Bayülken • Turan Güneş • Metin Esenbel • Gündüz Ökçün • Hayrettin Erkmen • Ertuğrul Ekrem Ceyhun • İlter Türkmen • Vahit Melih Halefoğlu • Mesut Yılmaz • Ali Bozer • Ahmet Kurtcebe Alptemoçin • Safa Giray • Hikmet Çetin • Mümtaz Soysal • Murat Karayalçın • Erdal İnönü • Coşkun Kırca • Deniz Baykal • Emre Gönensay • Tansu Çiller • İsmail Cem • Şükrü Sina Gürel • Yaşar Yakış • Abdullah Gül • Ali Babacan

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