Cyprus and Menderes’ Fate

Wishing to portray itself as being under intense domestic public pressure, the Turkish government did everything in its power to get Cyprus adopted as a national cause across the country. Part of these propaganda efforts involved the organization of a street demonstration; however, this event, held on 6 September 1955, turned into a general rampage against the Greeks of Istanbul and Izmir. Houses were raided, shops were set on fire, cemeteries and churches were desecrated—in short, what had been planned as a propaganda show degenerated into vulgar plunder and arson. Having thus lost control, the DP government proclaimed martial law in Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara. Cyprus, which was to be used as a pretext to deflect pub lic scrutiny out of the country, served in the end only to focus all attention inward.

The backfiring of the Cyprus issue was the last straw in escalating the discontent within the DP: on 22 November 1955, the DP group decided to open a parliamentary investigation on the government; hearings started a week later, following the prime minister's return from Iraq. The criticism quickly grew like a flood, and Menderes's political career almost came to an end. Indeed, the rebellion within the parliamentary group reached such proportions that ministers began to fall one after another. For a time, Menderes too considered withdrawing, but then he fell prey to his ambition: sacrificing all his ministers, he asked the group for a vote of confidence only in himself. The group yielded to Menderes's effective personality, and in an unusual development, the cabinet fell but the prime minister received a vote of confidence.

The weakness displayed by the DP group was to cost the country, the party, and Menderes himself, dearly. Indeed, having seen his own political death at such close range, Menderes's fear and ambition became unrestrainable, ultimately dragging the country into the darkest dictatorship. As a result, the army, until then painstakingly kept out of politics, was brought to power, initiating a tradition of military coups in republican Turkey.. . .Adnan Menderes, who started his political career as a patron of freedom and undertook unforgettable efforts in order to draw the people into the political arena, became increasingly rigid in the measure to which he succumbed to his fears and paranoia, and, losing all perspective toward the final years of his rule, ended his life on the gallows.

From "The Establishment of Multiparty Rule: 1945-71," in Turkey in Transition: New Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 1987).