ADNAN MENDERES

'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.

Contents

Early life and career

Rise to power

Political style and beliefs

Coup, trial, execution

Legacy

Trivia

Reference sources and supporting documentation

External links

Early life and career

He was born in 1899 in Aydın, 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 1935. 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

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 elections on May 14, 1950, Menderes became prime minister, and in 1955 he also assumed the duties of foreign minister. During the 10 years of his term of prime ministry, Turkish domestic and foreign politics underwent great changes. Industrialization and urbanization started in Turkey. Agriculture was mechanized; transport, energy, education, health care, insurance and banking progressed. In 1955, Menderes was implicated in the organisation of the Istanbul Pogrom, which targeted the city's substantial Greek minority. 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.

Political style and beliefs

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.
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. 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. He was put on trial 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.

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