328. Memorandum From Director of Central Intelligence Dulles to President Eisenhower 0
SUBJECT
- The Turkish Republican People’s Party (RPP)
The present opposition party in Turkey, the Republican People’s Party (RPP) was organized in 1922 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder and first president of the Turkish Republic. Until 1945 it was the only political party permitted and as such was used by Ataturk, and later by President Inonu, to maintain tight control on the government.
The first openly contested elections in Turkish history, held in May 1950, swept the Democrat Party (DP) into power with a complete change in government leadership. It has been in power continuously since then. The DP was organized by a group of dissidents from the RPP who disagreed with the party’s emphasis on state control of industry and the slow pace of Turkey’s political development. During the past several years the arbitrary tendencies of Prime Minister Menderes have alienated many of his former supporters and brought added strength to the RPP. The next national elections are scheduled for 1961.
The RPP, as the only major opposition party in Turkey, has a nationwide organization and considerable popular support, as indicated by the attached list of recent Turkish national election results (Table I).1 In 1954 the party received 35 percent of the popular vote but, because of the Turkish electoral system, won only 6 percent of the deputy seats in the unicameral Grand National Assembly.
The RPP remained somewhat eclipsed from 1950 until 1957 when it emerged from the national election with nearly 30 percent of the seats in the Assembly. This expression of popular support, or at least dissatisfaction with the regime of Prime Minister Menderes, reinvigorated the party, which had become almost moribund following its defeat in 1950 and the debacle of 1954. RPP leaders feel that they have a popular mandate to protest against the policies of the Menderes regime and the party is attempting to assume the mantle of democracy.
[Page 790]Seventy-four-year-old Ismet Inonu—former army general, principal aide to Ataturk in founding the republic, Ataturk’s political heir, and former president and prime minister of Turkey—is president general of the RPP. Inonu is the man chiefly responsible for Turkey’s successful and orderly transition from dictatorship to “democracy”?.2 He is regarded as a sincere and conservative elder statesman. In international relations, Inonu has always expressed his belief that the interests of Turkey can best be served by cooperation with the West; he feels, however, that Turkey is not getting as great a quid pro quo from the United States under Menderes as it should be receiving.