Politician, Statesman, and Prime
Minister (B. 1899, Çakırbeyli Village / Koçarlı / Aydın – D. the 17th
of September, 1961, İmralı Island / Bursa) His full name was Ali Adnan Ertekin Menderes. In 1934, with the surname law, he took Ertekin as
surname. During his second term deputyship, when he graduated from Ankara University,
Law School,
he changed his surname as Menderes, inspired
from his own region.
He was born into a rich farmer
family. His father, İbrahim Ethem Bey, worked as a clerk in the
government office and later started farming. His mother, Ali Rıza Pasha's
daughter Tevfika Hanım, was coming from one of the most rooted families of the
region. He was the father of Aydın Menderes,
politician. His grandfather, Hacı Ali Pasha, was a Crimean Tatar and emigrated
to Tire from Eskişehir. Adnan Menderes, whose sister had died at a
very young age, was raised as an only child. After
primary school, he graduated from Kızılçullu
American College.
During the World War I (1914-18), he was educated as the reserve
officer. However, he did not take place in war because of falling sick. He fought in the War of Independence and earned the
war of independence medal. He graduated from Ankara
University, Law School
in 1935.
Adnan Menderes' politic career started, after he joined in the Liberal
Party (Serbest Fırka), which was founded by Fethi Okyar in 1930. The great attention shown to this party in Aegean Region, made Menderes, the master of Çakırbeyli Farm, take part in it.
However, after a very short period,
Okyar dissolved the Serbest Fırka personally. During his trip to the Aegean region, which was made for researching the
reasons of the great opposition movement created by the Serbest Fırka, Atatürk
met young Adnan Menderes. Atatürk
gave special interest to this young man, who gave brave and logical answers to
his questions, and immediately offered him to join the Cumhuriyet Halk Party
(CHP). Adnan Menderes, who accepted this offer, was nominated in 1931's
elections and was able to join the parliament as a deputy. However, in 1945, because of his intraparty
opposition movement, he was dismissed from the party. After the
permission was given for the multi-party system, he was one of the founders of the
Demokrat Party (DP), which was founded on the 7th of June, 1946 as Turkey's first
legal opposition party. In 1946's elections,
he became the second most important figure in the party, right after Celâl
Bayar.
Adnan Menderes' long and continuous deputyship,
from the very first day, on which he joined the parliament, to the
establishment of Demokrat Party, with his own words, was a self-education
period. In these years, he not only studied at Ankara
University’s Law
School, but he also dealt with the main
problems of sports in Turkey.
He was himself an old sportsman.
While he was a student, he used to play football and basketball at the İzmir
Karşıyaka Sports club.
After Celâl Bayar had announced his intentions
about founding an opposition party, he signed the famous “memorandum of the
four”, quit the CHP eventfully, and became one of the Demokrat Party's founders.
After that day, his name was mentioned with Celâl
Bayar, Refik Koraltan and Fuat Köprülü. Demokrat
Party could not come into power in 1946's elections. However, Menderes
eventually became a name, which was widely known all around the country. Upon having won the elections in 1950, Menderes was charged with forming the government with
Bayar, who was elected as the President of Turkish Republic. Thereby, he became the first and the last prime
minister of the Demokrat Party, whose government lasted for ten years.
The first democratic
election in Turkey
was held in 1950. Previous elections were always held under the gendarme's
oppression. Such a strange application, namely 'open vote, hidden count' was
used in those elections. People had to disclose their votes to the gendarme and
during the hidden counting, their votes were being changed in the favor of CHP.
In 1950, people voted secretly and counting was held open to the public.
In the first democratic
elections held on the 14th of May 1950, Demokrat Party so to say,
walked over the Cumhuriyet Halk Party. In this election, people scattered their
487 representatives as such: Demokrat Party: 415, CHP: 69, Independents: 2, Millet
Party: 1.
Voters rushed to ballot boxes to vote for the Demokrat Party, of which the
motto was, "Enough is enough!” specifically written against CHP.
After the elections, importation of
agricultural machines started immediately, which was a result of Menderes' brave decisions. Convenience offered by the Ziraat
Bank during loan allocations, which had never been provided until that time,
made beaten and crushed Turkish villagers very happy. Menderes,
himself having an agricultural background, had a feeling for the villagers. The
community found money, fullness, and independence that they had never seen
before. With the Demokrat Party, which ended dishonored time of single party
regime and replaced with an honorable period, citizens were no more afraid of
the public officers. Road, drinking water, school, and other benefits of
development were brought to villages, those used to be abandoned to their
faith. An end was brought to the gendarme pressure, and there were no more
torture on the public such as the six-lira-road duty and stone breaking
obligation. Tens of thousands tones more seed than what CHP had been able to
give in four years were given to people in harvest season. Roads, dams,
bridges, harbors, power plants, irrigation facilities, airports were
constructed with a meteoric speed. Turning into a work-site, the whole
country's economic life arose with richness.
On the second day of May 1954, in the second democratic elections, the Demokrat
Party gave 488 deputies to the parliament, while the CHP could only give 31
deputies. These numbers became the unbreakable record
of all times. CHP could not give any deputies, except from three cities: Malatya, Kars
and Sinop.
Menderes, the energetic prime minister of
that time, managed to change the ordinary system and was able to keep in
contact with the community till his last days. CHP, becoming an opposition party, was fed up after being in power for 27 years;
moreover, it had traces of exhaustion. Consequently,
all these reasons made CHP extremely bureaucratic, in contrary to the DP. In
comparison to the CHP, the DP was
much better in coping with community's problems and Menderes,
undoubtedly, had a great chance in such a party. However, Menderes' free enterprise and
private sector policies lost their first paces in oncoming years. Several old
friends moved away from his party and him. Therefore, this dynamic and
energetic man became more and more lonely and started to turn into an
ill-tempered man. Economic situation
was also resenting in a quite different condition than the first years of the DP
government.
In the meantime, while second round of negotiations about the Cyprus dispute was being held in London, on the 6th of September, 1955, at
night, some newspapers wrote about a plantation of a bomb in Atatürk's house in
Thessaloniki.
This caused incidents against the minorities. In these incidents, predominantly
taken against Greeks, several churches, holy spring of orthodox Greeks,
cloisters, 4340 shops, 110 hotels and restaurants, 21 factories and 3600 houses
were attacked. One priest was killed during these incidents. These incidents
went down in history as "6-7 Eylül Olayları" (a.k.a the Istanbul
Riots). The DP Istanbul deputy, Aleksandros Hacopulos said "It is
obvious that incidents were premeditated." and pointed out the neglect
shown by law enforcement officers during the incidents. Upon this, with the effects of media pressure and arrest of opposition
party's deputies, insurmountable obstacles occurred between Menderes
and intellectual public opinion. By the way, on the 17th of
February, 1959, while going to England
for trio-negotiations about the Cyprus
dispute following the dual agreement signed in Greece,
even though Menderes' airplane fell of and crushed near London Gatwick
Airport, he survived even
without taking wounds. This accident resulted with a short-term
moderation between the opposition party and government.
On Sunday the 27th of October, 1957, at the
general elections, the Demokrat Party got into power for the third time. The DP
had 421 deputies in assembly, while the CHP had 173, the Millet Party had 4
deputies elected from province
of Kırşehir, and the Hürriyet
Party had 4 deputies from Burdur. İsmet İnönü, who provoked the army,
universities, and students, was about to imply that the CHP could not get in
power without the support of the army, or in a democratic way, by saying
"Metin, our job is really hard." to his journalist son-in-law, Metin
Toker.
In fact, with the help of provocations by the CHP,
several student movements and rebellions initiated on the day of 28th
April 1960 in Istanbul, 29th April – 5th May 1960 in
Ankara. Istanbul and Ankara Universities
published notifications. Upon this, authoritarian administration was started by the government in
both of aforementioned cities. On the 21st of May, 1960, War
Academy students made a huge protest
in Ankara. On the night
of the 27th of May, 1960, Turkish Armed Forces claimed that they
seized the administration in order to prevent the incidents and go to the polls
as soon as possible.
Being in Eskişehir at that time, Adnan Menderes went
to Kütahya, where he was elected as the deputy for the first time, when he learnt the military coup made on the 27th
of May, 1960. He was captured in Kütahya and brought to Ankara. He was arrested so as the
President, all ministers and deputies of the DP. Despite Armed Forces had
claimed that they seized the administration in order to "prevent the quarrel
of brothers", with the reports made by professors, it became obvious that
intervention delegitimized the DP government. Menderes and
all prisoners were taken to Yassıada where a special Supreme Court of Justice (the Yassıada Court) was
formed. They were on trial there for about one and a half year. The President Celâl
Bayar, Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan, foreign affairs minister Fatin Rüştü
Zorlu, Adnan Menderes, and fourteen other people were sentenced to death while
thirty one others took life imprisonment. Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan were executed on the 16th of
September, 1961. On 17th day of September 1961, one of four founders
of the DP, the general president and prime minister of the part for the last
ten years, Adnan Menderes was executed in İmralı Island
and buried there.
Honors of Adnan Menderes and his friends, who were executed in the same
time period with him, were re-established by the Turkish Grand National
Assembly, with a law, accepted on the 11th of April, 1990. In accordance with the mentioned legislation, his corpse
was transported to a mausoleum, specially made for him in the Vatan Avenue, a construction
of his era, with the attendance of President Turgut Özal and hundreds of
thousands on the 17th of September 1990, or in other words, on his
29th death anniversary. This same street had been opened for service
by Menderes himself in 1958 and its name was
changed into Adnan Menderes Avenue
with the proposal of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, mayor of that time, in 1994.
In Menderes' premiership,
soldiers were sent to help Korea,
fighting against China.
This act paved Turkey's way for joining in NATO. This situation was interpreted as
gaining power against the USSR. In 1958, Menderes
gave permission to the United States of America
for establishing military bases in Turkey, thus country took the same side
with the Western World.
His name was given to the international airport in Izmir,
the university established in Aydın, to the avenue, which was constructed along
the Seyhan Barrage
Lake in his premiership period, and
several streets and education institutions in several cities throughout Turkey.
The Demokrat Party, whose leader was Adnan Menderes,
took huge amount of support from the community because of changing the rigid
attitude against the freedom of religion and thought. In particular, azan,
which was banned during the single-party period, was released again and
religious educations started again. These acts pleased the community very much.
On the other hand, during Menderes' period,
country's public works hastened. With the liberalization policy on politics and
economy, a new era started for free enterprises which helped the investments to
speed up. Political parties, which followed Menderes’
moderate and liberalist policies, gained more success and public’s courtesy
than CHP which was considered to have less tolerance.