Scene of Victory

When the Turkish empire lay in ruins after World War 1, two men prevented their occupied homeland from being reduced to impotence. One was the great Kemal Ataturk, who is dead. The other:

Ismet Inonu, who last week was stoned by Turks in the very town where, 37 years ago, he captured the Greek commander after shattering the Greek armies.

Scattered Crowds. Ismet Inonu, 74, who succeeded Ataturk as President (1938-50) of Turkey, has another claim to Turkey's gratitude. Strongman Ataturk allowed an obedient opposition party to form, but it was Inonu who in 1950 ran fair elections and, losing them, surrendered office peaceably--the key moment in Turkey's transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Now old and deaf but still alert, he is leader of the Republican People's Party, in opposition to the ruling Democrats of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes.

Hearing insistent rumors that the government will hold elections this fall to fill 21 vacant seats in the Grand National Assembly, Inonu decided to tour the

Aegean provinces. The Menderes government's attitude became clear at the start: on his departure from Ankara, police refused to let any of Inonu's supporters into the railway station. When he tried to speak from the train to a crowd of Republicans at Eskisehir, a city of 125,000, engine whistles blasted throughout his speech, and a freight train was backed onto the main line between Inonu and the crowd.

Reaching Usak, where he had scored his 1922 triumph, Inonu saw police scatter the welcoming crowd with tear gas, made his way with difficulty to the house of Republican Deputy Riza Salci. It was instantly surrounded by gendarmes, and during the night a fire started mysteriously and had to be put out by the Usak fire brigade. The next day, the local police chief announced that he had been suspended from duty because he refused to obey the provincial governor's order to shoot anyone who left Salci's house that night.

Pelting Bricks. By morning Usak was jammed with Democratic toughs rushed into the city by truck from neighboring towns. They rioted through the streets, beating up newsmen and breaking photographers' cameras. On his way to the, railroad station, Inonu found the street blocked by a solid wall of opposition Democratic toughs. He insisted on walking through them, and as he approached, Turkey's old hero shouted: "Aren't you ashamed?" The answer was a barrage of stones. Struck on the head, Inonu was knocked down but, struggling bloodily to his feet, grimly continued his march through the hostile crowd to the station. The incident was watched passively by 250 gendarmes. Cemal Goktan, Turkey's , director general of police, was also on hand to see the fun.

As Inonu's train pulled out, bound for Izmir, it was pelted by bricks, and two reporters aboard were injured. The provincial governor at Izmir (Smyrna) canceled a ball scheduled in Inonu's honor, and two theaters that had been hired by Republicans for mass meetings were padlocked by the building inspector as "unsafe." Just in case Inonu had not vet taken the hint, Turkey's Interior Minister, Namik Gedik, went on the air at week's end, warned that there would be "further trouble" if the old soldier persisted in his tour.

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