TURKEY: Deaf Ears

Slight, grey-haired, slack-chinned General Ismet Inönü, right hand man and successor to the late, great Mustafa Kama! Atatürk, is peculiar among statesmen in that he is quite deaf. President Ismet Inönü, who in his soldiering days wanted to go on fighting the Greeks long after The Atatürk knew he had been whipped, is also quite fearless. Last week into the deaf ears of this master of the Dardanelles poured blandishments, at his stout heart were hurled threats, as Ambassador Franz von Papen sought to detach Turkey from its French-British guarantees, hook it to the Swastika.

To Turkey, oldtime friend of the Soviet Union with which it shares the Black Sea, news of the German-Russian Pact was almost as serious a shock as it was to Germany’s friend Japan. It came just as the ink was drying on a French-Turkish trade pact. It also brought on what was later described as “extraordinary pressure” from Germany. Von Papen was given an hour in which to perform his suave, bully act, then President Inönü made clear to France and Britain that he stood with them in the great lineup. Turkey, said her No. 1 editor, would stand with the Allies “even if the Reich were ten times stronger.”