Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXIX, Eastern Europe; Eastern Mediterranean, 1969–1972

458. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Ankara, December 2, 1972.

PARTICIPANTS

• His Excellency Suleyman Demirel, Former Prime Minister
• Ambassador William J. Handley

On Saturday, December 2, I called, at my request, on former Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel. I had telephoned him earlier to suggest that I would like to have an informal chat with him, and he proposed that we meet at his house. (I had seen him earlier this year, but, since I had been getting some echoes from his friends that he felt he was being neglected, I thought it a good idea to see him, especially since the most recent political crisis had passed.)²

Demirel seemed genuinely glad to see me and was in good form. Our conversation pretty much followed his answers to some questions that, in advance of the meeting, I had thought I wanted to ask him.

I began the discussion with an account of my recent short trip to Iran to a CENTO naval exercise on the Persian Gulf. I mentioned how I continued to be impressed with changes I had seen through the years in Iran as compared with what it was when I first went there as a Labor Attaché in 1945.

I asked Demirel how he sized up the present political situation. He began with a general philosophical response about the problems of democratic government, and in particular of a Turkey which had only recently emerged from a one-party state to something approaching a full democracy. He spoke, as he has in the past, about the dangers to a political democracy of military intervention, making his familiar (and very credible) point that growing political and social institutions are severely damaged by military interventions, and that quite often the shock to these young “plants” is enough to finish them off. He felt that the present situation was especially unusual, since the Government was like a “hermaphrodite.” It is, he said, neither male nor female; it is neither a full military intervention not is it a politically responsible government, i.e., responsible on a party basis to the Parliament.

Demirel added that there was a very good chance that elections would take place on schedule in 1973. All the parties, he said, were for it, and it would be difficult for the military to prevent the elections. But, he added, one can never be sure. Much could happen between now and October 1973, and indeed between now and March 1973 when a new President was due to be elected. He said the military could try to find excuses to disband Parliament and call for a constitutional assembly. It was, therefore, very much a matter of urgency for his party, as well as for the others, to make sure that the reforms pressed by the military should be passed before March 1973. From his standpoint, he would do everything possible to see that these reforms were adopted so that the military could not have this excuse. It was possible, of course, he added, that the military would consider the reforms to be “mini” reforms and unacceptable, but that chance had to be taken.

Demirel spent some time in justifying his stewardship as Prime Minister and in criticizing what the military had done in March of 1971. He said that when they had come to him, criticizing him for not having maintained law and order, he had told them that on three occasions he had arrested the principal anarchists, but that the courts had let them go. Demirel said that as a Prime Minister, as head of the largest party in Turkey, as a political figure, he could not be a judge as well as an executive. It was not his responsibility to “try as well as to charge” the accused anarchists. He asked the military to show him where in any way he had violated the Constitution. He had done this, he said, because in 1960 the military had accused Prime Minister Menderes of violating the Constitution. Rather, he said, he had told the military in March 1971 that it was they who had violated the Constitution.

Following up his comments on the military, I asked Demirel whether, as some Turks had said, the military would veto him as Prime Minister even though he and his party were to win the next election. He said that this would be a major test for Turkish democracy and the “will power” of the Parliament. As Chairman of the Justice Party, he would refuse to permit the military to dictate who should be the Justice Partyʼs choice of the countryʼs next Prime Minister, assuming the Justice Party were to win the election. He stated flatly that the Justice Party would, under those circumstances, take no part in participation in the Government.

I asked Demirel who he thought would be the next President: would it be a civilian or military figure? He pondered this for a while, but refused to make a specific guess. He said it was far too early to tell who it might be or whom he might support. It was even premature to speculate whether he would be again a military figure or whether some civilian might receive enough support to be elected by the combined Senate and House. He did not think it made too much difference whether the man would come from military or civilian life. It was a question of the man rather than of his professional background. He again referred to the dangers that were facing the Republic even now, and that the months immediately ahead up to March could be dangerous for the future of democracy in Turkey.

To my question about the present state of the RPP,³ he made, I thought, one of his more interesting replies. He said that what was now taking place in the RPP was far more important to Turkish democracy and to the Turkish Republic than what had occurred in March 1971. He said that the RPP, which had been a party of the state and had been the single party that had run Turkey between 1923 and 1950, was getting itself into a position where it might in the future be able to offer the Turkish voter a democratic alternative to the Justice Party. It all depended, he said, on whether or not the RPP would decide to get rid of its previous elitist notions and become a party “of the people.” In the past, he said, the RPP had always attached itself to, and in fact had ridden on the backs of, certain select “institutions” in Turkey. Among these were the army, the courts, the civil service, the universities, and the intelligentsia. This was in many ways nothing but a further application of the Ottoman division of power between the saray, the hodjas and the military. Nothing would please him more than to see the RPP really go to the people, get support from the people, and emerge as a powerful political institution, drawing its strength from a wide people-oriented base, rather than from selected institutions. He attributed to these past practices of the RPP the fact that it is “the courts” who run Turkey today, and that the executive, because of this, had very limited power.

I asked him what he thought of Mr. Inonu and his future role in Turkey. He replied rather carefully to this question, saying that one has to think of the Inonu to whom the Turkish Republic owed gratitude for favors performed a long time ago. But it was Inonu, he said, who more than anyone else had virtually ruined Turkish democracy by pushing the military into the 1960 coup, and he could never forgive nor forget that.

Turning back to the RPP and its future, Demirel said, with some pretension of sincerity, that if the RPP were to win the election in 1973 on the basis of support “from the people,” he could be a happy man. He had always hoped that such a party would some day offer the kind of strong opposition that could challenge his own party. He went on to say that he did not expect, however, that the RPP could win in 1973 no matter what they did, since the Justice Party was enormously strong, but in 1977 they might have a fair chance, and by 1981 they could possibly emerge with the majority of support with the Turkish voter, if, he repeated, they abandoned their traditional role. He said I should never forget that in the days when the RPP was the one party in Turkey the Turkish Parliament was not much more than the “Iran Shahʼs” Parliament: it was hand picked, non-representative, and in many respects quite meaningless.

I asked Demirel whether he thought elections could take place when martial law was still in effect. He recalled that elections had taken place in 1961, when martial law was in effect. Martial law would still probably be needed in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir during the 1973 elections. It would take some time for the civilian security forces to be rebuilt. Their morale, he said, had been gravely weakened by the action of the military in March 1971 and subsequently. Until such time as the state civilian security forces were once again strong and competent, martial law, in at least those three provinces, would be required. He then added to this list, Diyarbakir since “this is the gateway for Barzani (a Kurdish nationalist) as well as for Palestinian terrorists.”

I asked him what would be the aims of his party during the 1973 elections. At this point, he got up and took down a book from his library and handed it to me. It was Corwinʼs “The President: Office and Powers.” As I thumbed through it, he said, “you need not read the whole book; all you need to read is the inscription,” and he asked that I read it aloud, which I did. It read as follows, and the attribution was to Secretary of State Seward:

“We elect a King for four years, and give him absolute power, within certain limits, which, after all, he can interpret for himself.”

I asked him if this meant that he planned in his platform to urge an increase in the executive powers of the prime minister, and he said very definitely yes. And then he told me that, in October 1970, following the defection of the right-wing members of his party, he had wanted to dismiss Parliament and call for new elections. He was unable to do this, however, because of the constitutional weakness of the executive. He was not exactly sure just how this could be remedied, but the need was clear and he would do whatever he could to increase the authority and discipline of the Prime Minister over the governmental machine. Turkey is still, he repeated, being run “by the courts.” Even today, the military courts, he commented, showed themselves nearly as inefficient as their civilian counterparts. For example, there are people who have been on trial on law and order charges since March of 1971 and have not been convicted or exonerated. Another aspect of his campaign will be to seek the improvement of the quality and speed of justice in Turkey.

Demirel went on to point out that had he had the authority to dismiss Parliament in 1970 he might have succeeded in doing what Indira Gandhi did. He noted that 45 members of his party had defected and set up a new party (the Democratic Party), and that while 65 members of Indira Gandhiʼs party had defected and set up one of their own with highly respected politicians leading the pack, she had returned to power with an overwhelming majority; and he thought he would have had the same kind of result.

I asked Demirel what he thought of the international situation, and he said he did not want to sound like a McCarthyite, but that he was deeply concerned about the intentions of the Communist world. He said that one should never forget that Communism extends not only over the Soviet Union and China, but includes North Korea, Indo-China, the Baltic States, Central Europe, the Balkans (including Yugoslavia and Albania), has great influence on Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Algeria, is probing into Black Africa, controls Cuba, and is trying to affect other Latin American countries, including Chile. It is therefore highly desirable that the democratic world recognize that the threat of Communism remains, although the guise may be different. Those countries in the Western World who believe in democracy should therefore support, wherever they can, their democratic allies and friends. For this reason, he was disturbed that the Western press had been “applauding” what was currently going on in Turkey. He said that the present political situation in Turkey could not be anything else but a setback for democracy, and the press was making a mistake in applauding it. I said that his comment surprised me, since, from what I had seen in the Western press, there had been a great deal of criticism of what had been going on in Turkey, and there had been quite a few references to “a thinly veiled military dictatorship.”

Demirel went on to say that he had recently been making speeches about the failure of military regimes in Greece and Pakistan (he has in fact made several speeches in the past month on the subject) and that the military did not like what he had been saying, but he thought it necessary to point out that the Greek colonels were having their difficulties and that Yahya Khan had made a mess of things in Pakistan.

I told Demirel that we had been very pleased with Turkeyʼs decision to ban opium. As I made this point and elaborated on it, he looked at me very carefully and seemed embarrassed by my comment that some members of his party had been trying to rescind the ban so as to permit growth of opium for the purpose of obtaining vegetable oil. He said that he thought the way the Erim Government had tackled the problem was not the best way, and that it had created a number of complicated problems. But he could assure me—and he spoke very carefully at this point—that he would never permit this issue to affect Turkish-US relations. He would continue, as he has, to keep an eye on the problem. He was interested in seeing what was being done to assist the farmers. And, responding to a supplementary question from me, he did not think that there was any likelihood that the bill would emerge in the near future from the Committee. In any event, he would watch that as well, adding that it was a complicated matter and highly charged politically. He repeated once again his determination not to permit it to become an issue between them and the United States. But, he added, the Government has to avoid “polemics.” Some people, he said, had been charging that he and his party, when they were in power, had done nothing to compensate the farmers in those provinces which had been withdrawn from cultivation when he was Prime Minister. Polemics of this kind could be a “hot wind” which could cause real trouble.

Comment:

The meeting lasted about one and one-half hours and was one of the widest ranging meetings I have had with Demirel in the three and a half years I have known him. He has lost a great deal of weight, seemed even more reflective than I recalled in the past, but continued to show bounce and enthusiasm. He was, as always, an eloquent spokesman on behalf of democracy. His comments on the RPP and its possible future were, I thought, very significant, and from all I could tell he meant what he said. I would have liked him to have been somewhat more categoric about his opposition to any kind of anti-poppy ban action, but my conclusion from what he said and the way he said it was that he will not permit the Justice Party politicians to play havoc with Turkish-US relations for sectional political interests.⁴

1. Source: Department of State, Turkish Desk Files: Lot 75 D 137, POL 2. Secret; Limdis;Noforn. Drafted by Handley on December 11. The conversation took place at Demirelʼs home.
2. According to a letter from Dillon to James Spain, November 13, the Department had received intelligence reports indicating that Turkish officers were ready to block Demirelʼs return to power, arguing that “the U.S. does not particularly like” him. Dillon commented: “I find this disturbing. On the one hand, I think it is important that the U.S. not embrace Demirel, thus avoiding giving the impression he is an American puppet. On the other hand, Demirel is the symbol of free democracy in Turkey and it would be a great mistake for us to permit the impression to exist that we would ‘approve’ his being denied the fruits of an electoral victory by military pressure.” (Ibid.) In a November 27 reply, Spain noted that Handley intended to make a call on Demirel prior to returning to the United States. (Ibid.)
3. On May 8 Inonu resigned as head of the RPP. Bulent Ecevit won election as his successor on May 14.
4. In a December 27 attached memorandum to Sisco and Davies, Dillon recommended that they read this memorandum of conversation, noting “Demirel remains the most important civilian politician in Turkey.… I would judge there is a better than 50–50 chance he will once again be prime minister of Turkey.” (Department of State, Turkish Desk Files: Lot 75 D 137, POL 2)