Mutiny in the Ranks

Menderes is the Turkish name of the old, wandering Meander River and, inappropriately, of the hard-driving man in a hurry who is Premier of Turkey. Adnan Menderes led his Democratic Party to victory in the 1950 election, but in the years since, he sometimes seemed to be heading his party and his country toward dictatorship. But inflation, foreign debts, corruption, crop failure and industrial mismanagement are all combining to jeopardize Turkey's once promising economy (TIME, Oct. 24), and Menderes could no longer still the restlessness within his own party.

Fortnight ago, while the Premier was off to Baghdad to sign the METO pact, a Deputy named Ali Ceylan spoke out at a party caucus in Ankara. He wanted an explanation for the acute national shortage of horseshoe nails. His outburst encouraged others to air their complaints and to prove, in a sense, that for the want of a nail, a Cabinet can tumble.

Last week Menderes and all his ministers faced a caucus of angry Democrats. First, the Minister of Commerce, besieged with charges from the floor that he had played favorites in passing out foreign-exchange allocations, resigned. Unappeased, the Deputies next demanded the head of Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan, who is also on the foreign-allocating board. One Deputy accused the minister's brother-in-law of importing defective trucks and tires from East Germany and unloading them on the public. Rushing to Polatkan's defense, Menderes argued for two hours that Turkey's economy is in the most skillful of hands, ever responsive to the wishes of Parliament. "Gentlemen," purred Menderes, "you are capable of everything. You have such power in your hands that you can bring back the Caliphate if you so desire. Is it possible that I, Menderes, can be a dictator in the face of such a strong group?"

Feeling their own strength, the Deputies cried for more blood. Finance Minister Polatkan resigned. "Now Zorlu!" they cried. Blanched and trembling, Menderes' flint-eyed right-hand man, Acting Foreign Minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu, the third member of the foreign-allocations board, announced that he would quit the board. "More, more!" shouted the rank and file. Zorlu surrendered the Foreign Ministry. The chant of "More!" persisted, and Zorlu quit as the Republic of Turkey's delegate to NATO.

To save himself, Menderes jettisoned the rest of his Cabinet, demanded a vote of confidence in himself personally. By a narrow margin, he got it, but he was now a Premier without a Cabinet. When Parliament convened next day, no fewer than 150 Democratic Deputies showed up in dark blue suits--the proper thing to wear in case one should be invited to become a Cabinet minister.

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