How to Stay in Trouble

When Turkey's Premier Ismet Inonu finally let his old enemy ex-President Celal Bayar out of jail for medical treatment fortnight ago, he figured the least he should get was a little gratitude from the opposition Justice Party. Instead, Bayar's noisy supporters turned the occasion into a week-long political demonstration against the government.

Five hundred autos filled with Justice Party followers formed a traffic-snarling motorcade to escort the 79-year-old Bayar from prison to his Ankara home. Next day, huge crowds milled around the house, and 10,000 supporters massed near parliament to shout his slogans. Two sympathetic Turkish air force pilots happily buzzed the city in their jets.

Growing angry--and a bit nervous--over the popular demonstration, the army officers who run Turkey from behind the scenes locked up one batch of exultant Bayar men who stopped their bus in front of the Ministry of Defense and "made signs against the army," then issued an announcement warning that the "events threaten national unity." At this signal, pro-government demonstrators themselves took to the streets yelling "Bayar, back to your cave," and ransacked Justice Party headquarters. In Istanbul, cops tried to prevent a bloody clash by opening both pontoon bridges across the Golden Horn, thus separating pro-and anti-Bayar groups.

Bayar himself was doing nothing to calm things; he publicly attacked the court at Yassiada that sentenced him to prison 18 months ago; tearfully, he embraced the son of the late Premier Adnan Menderes, Bayar's colleague who was sent to the gallows by the Yassiada tribunal.

Throughout it all, Premier Inonu per formed a classic slow burn, letting the Justice crowd have its fun for six days. At last, the exasperated authorities could take no more, sent Bayar off to a hospital. Just a physical examination, the cops assured the old man, who promptly went on a hunger strike. A guard was put on the door of his hospital room, and the news soon spread that Bayar's parole had been revoked. The end of the trail might well be the jailhouse again, for at week's end the public prosecutor began proceedings against him for talking down the regime in public.

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