TURKEY: Thanks to Aid & Allah

Since last May when the Democrats (led by Celál Bayar) upset the old Republican People’s Party (TIME, May 22), strange things have happened to the Turks. This week U.S. Air Secretary Thomas K. Finletter and aides dropped in for a quick look. He would find a country of energy and action, of democratic ferment and confusion.

Peasants, who never before dreamed of going over the head of the village headman, now stomp into governors’ offices with complaints, happily buttonhole parliamentary deputies on the street.

Ankara has become a spectacular mudslinger’s paradise. Competing in strong invective, Democrats charge Republicans were corrupt, and Republicans torment Democrats for unfulfilled election promises. The partisan press, now free as the wind off the Taurus mountains, got so abusive toward ex-President Ismet Inönü that he refused to go to a diplomatic party given by President Bayar last month.

Last week a heckler made trouble for Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who was addressing a Democratic Party congress. The heckler was finally ejected, but instead of being hustled to the nearest jail (as he would have been a year ago), he was set free to go about his dissenting.

New Freedom. The Turks are enjoying every minute of the new freedom. The government is riding a wave of popularity.

The popularity of the young (five years old) Democratic Party is all the more impressive because it succeeded the party founded by the late great Kemal Atatürk and Atatürk is still the beloved hero of all the Turks. Yet the Democrats are undoing some excesses of Atatürk’s nationalist, Westernizing revolution. The new government, for instance, recognized the deep wellspring of Mohammedan faith among the people, and has encouraged religious teachings in schools. Atatürk’s old party goes along with the Moslem revival in Turkish life. Indeed, its dynamic young secretary general, Kasim Gülek, declares that his party wants bipartisan participation not only in foreign affairs, but in religion as well.

The new government plugs for turning state-owned factories over to private industry and relaxing government control of trade. When Atatürk came to power, there was so little industry, so little private capital to foster it, that state business was a necessity. The Democrats hope that under present conditions the scope of private enterprise in Turkey can be enlarged.

New Wealth. Turkey’s economy is advancing, albeit slowly. The lira stood at 4.5 to the dollar (free market) a year ago, is now 3.5. Foreign capital, long almost pathologically feared, is now free to enter. A new hydroelectric plant, which will increase electrical power by 50%, has been started with ECAid.

Better roads link farms to markets. A quarter of a million acres of land has been distributed to landless peasants, and farm credits are being increased. The southern cotton belt is now mechanized. An EGA agricultural mission has introduced better seed grains, better breeding stock, better farming methods. Turkish farmers eagerly accept the new techniques. Last week Ali Kumyol, 42, a heavy-set farmer from Çorlu in Thrace, proudly displayed his John Deere tractor, said it enabled him to double his wheat and barley production. “For the first time since my marriage, I can afford to keep my wife out of the fields,” he said. “I never knew she could cook so well. My kids can continue their studies. All this, thanks to Marshall aid. Thanks be to Allah!”

New Faces. When President Bayar’s government came to office, it swept out many of Turkey’s most experienced public servants, replacing them with good, but inexperienced Democrats.

Among the new faces is that of General Yamut, who was upped from command of the Turkish land forces when a bevy of high-ranking generals was retired or removed for being overage, overweight or overzealous in their support of Republican Inönü. At 61, Nüri Yamut is a leathery, thin-mouthed veteran who gets along well with top U.S. military aid officers, is thoroughly sold on modern techniques.

At maneuvers near Istanbul, Yamut asked American advisers to show his officers what jeeps, trucks and tanks could do in the rough terrain. He followed the lead jeep as it bounced and slushed through brush, forests and mud hills. Not satisfied to allow his general officers to stand around observing, he herded them into other jeeps or tanks and sent them careering in the dust and mud until they were so dirty the red stripes on their uniform trousers were hardly visible. Next day he sent the shocked generals slithering through sandy terrain in the same jeeps. A few vehicles turned over, but Yamut was satisfied that U.S. equipment was not necessarily road bound.

Now the Moskòfs Know. The Turks are solidly behind the government’s decision to join U.N. forces in Korea. Inönü’s party did not oppose so popular a move, but was considerably piqued at not being consulted, so as to gain some of the credit. It declared that had it been running the government, it would have got some concessions from the U.S. before committing troops. Prime Minister Menderes loftily said that he would not quibble with the U.S. and the U.N. on so critical a matter. “I’d decide the same way a thousand times,” he snapped. A great wake of national pride has followed the waves of fierce Turkish troops who, with bayonets bared, have performed so gallantly and colorfully in Korea.

Having fought the Russians (whom they call the moskòfs) 13 times in the past 400 years and with a half-million men now under arms, the Turks are undismayed at their exposed position on Soviet Russia’s southern flank. They are glad the world is beginning to realize that they have not lost their ancient talent for fighting. The news of spectacular Turkish feats in Korea did not amaze Tahir Atar, a villager from Mengen in central Anatolia. Said he last week: “We knew what our kids could accomplish, but our friends, the Americans, didn’t. Now they know—and so do the moskòfs.”