President & Pacifiers

Secretive Kamal Ataturk,* "Father of the Turks," is close and noncommittal in his dictatorship. Turkish consulates abroad last week had not even yet been officially informed that famed old General Ismet Inonu, dismissed as Premier, had been officially replaced last month by former Economics Minister Jelal Bayar (TIME, Oct. 11). Since Premier Bayar's elevation, Turkish politicians have been anxiously watching him for any indication of what new policies the Dictator picked him to carry out in the Parliament which sat last week. About all they have seen the Premier do is to stand respectfully at the elbow of the Father of the Turks during a recent army and air force display, chiefly remarkable for its 2,000 female Janizaries.

Ousted ex-Premier Ismet Inonu was slated to be elected last week president (speaker) of the Grand National Assembly, which was slated to adopt a new Turkish constitution. But events proved how little even the best informed Turks know the mind of their masterly Father. An obscure wheelhorse, Abdulhalik Renda was re-elected to the Assembly's presidency, and its members listened in vain for Kamal Ataturk to mention a new constitution.

The speech of the Dictator, wildly cheered as usual, was strongly pro-French and pro-League of Nations in tone. omitted for the first time those enthusiastic references to Soviet Russia which the Father of the Turks started making some years ago. The dispute between France and Turkey over the administration of Alexandretta was settled through the League of Nations by giving Alexandretta "autonomy," i.e., turning it over to its Turkish majority (TIME, Feb. 15), and the Dictator declared last week: "There is no doubt that France will continue to act in good faith!"

The Non-Aggression Pact lately signed by Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq "is a further contribution to world tranquillity," proudly declared the Father of the Turks. "The collaboration of Turkey is assured in any initiative toward pacification of the world, and particularly toward reinstatement of good relations between all Mediterranean countries."

Pacifiers in the form of $2,670,000 worth of military airplanes are to be bought in the U. S. by Turkey, which last week was the largest applicant in October for licenses from the State Department to acquire U. S. munitions. The Department announced that it contemplates negotiating a reciprocal trade treaty with Turkey, whose trade with the U. S. nearly doubled in the past eight months to reach $18,585,000.

--After changing his name and titles more often than any other Dictator, the Turkish leader today is named Kamal Ataturk and calls his system of government the Kamalist.

In childhood he was called simply Mustafa, having like most Turks under the Sultanate no family name. His mathematics teacher called this smart pupil Kemal, meaning "Perfection." In the Army he rose to the rank of Pasha.

After the victory of Sakarya in 1921 Mustafa Kemal Pasha was given by the Turkish Assembly the title Ghazi, meaning the "Victorious One," and for several years as Dictator he was called El Ghazi.

Later he forced all Turks, including himself, to take a family name. Mustafa he dropped altogether as too common. Kemal he rejected because of its similar sound. Finally the Grand National Assembly gave him his present title Kamal Ataturk meaning "Father of the Turks."

In Turkish ears the Kamalist system of government is simply the Strong system, an accurate description.

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