Sir Percy Loraines address on Ataturk HDN | 10/28/1998 12:00:00 AM | daily news Ten years have gone by since the death of Kemal Ataturk, ten years filled with strife and controversy, with dreams of better things for mankind, with fears lest even worse things befall; years which have changed the life of well-nigh every man, woman and child who has survived them. The passage of these years has not dimmed the memory I have of Ataturk. What did he look like? Well... An erect, manly figure, of unmistakable dignity, impeccably dressed; clear-cut features, penetrating ice-blue eyes, Ten years have gone by since the death of Kemal Ataturk, ten years filled with strife and controversy, with dreams of better things for mankind, with fears lest even worse things befall; years which have changed the life of well-nigh every man, woman and child who has survived them. The passage of these years has not dimmed the memory I have of Ataturk. What did he look like? Well... An erect, manly figure, of unmistakable dignity, impeccably dressed; clear-cut features, penetrating ice-blue eyes, bristling eyebrows, some harsh lines on his face, usually a grave and rather a stern countenance; intense vitality showed in every glance, in every gesture and even in immobility. His mind and his body seemed like springs coiled ready for action. It was characteristic of the man that never, after he became President did he again don his military uniform -- glorious as it was. Not even to take the salute at a parade and march past of troops -- then always plain and faultless evening dress, with a silk hat; one decoration only -- the gold medal of the war of liberation. I think he was a very remarkable man; I am certain he was a very unusual man. He appeared quite simply not to know what it felt like to be afraid of danger, or to be hesitant in the presence of difficulties. Some instinctive process -- I cannot find a name for it, for I have not met it in any other man -- enabled him to separate, at once and with no apparent effort, the essential from the unessential in any problem or situation that came to his notice. His own responsibilities were heavy; he accepted them wholly; he never shirked them: he never feared them: he never shuffled them on to anyone else: and to earn his respect you yourself had to have a high sense of responsibility. He loved argument and discussion. It was one of his ways of examining other men; not only their minds, also their character. His judgement was rarely at fault, and rarely lenient. His integrity was absolute, his vision clear, his influence galvanizing. He must have been gifted by nature with immense willpower: I think however he had harnessed it by a perfectly conscious exercise of self-discipline. He knew very well that life is a long, stern and continuous examination. He never stopped schooling himself to answer the question. His favorite method of conversation was to set examinations, psychological as well as intellectual, not only to his immediate circle, including the members of his Cabinet, but also to others with whom he wished to converse. They were searching examinations. One could feel him scrutinizing the reactions of his interlocutor just as closely as the answers given. Sometimes it was a drumfire of questions; at others a long statement of his own views: then an interrogative pause, marked by a piercing look from those ice-blue eyes from beneath contracted eyebrows. One came to be able to translate that look. It meant: dont shilly-shally: we speak as man to man. You are right: you are on the mat a bit; but I detest yes-men and I want to hear what you think. Maybe youve got something. Lets get on it. Now -- what did this man do? What did he achieve? That is, outside and after his brilliant military career. He fashioned and founded a new body politic out of the ashes, and the mentality of despotism. When all seemed last in a disastrous war -- a humiliating experience for a people with a proud heritage of military tradition -- his faith in the Turkish folk never faltered: he restored their faith in themselves; he liberated their minds, he released their energies; he buried an outworn past; he threw open the doors of a future; and he kept faith with his people. Ataturk has been classed a dictator. In my opinion, this view of him is mistaken and misleading. Admittedly we have no authoritative definition of the dictator in modern times, though no one, I fancy would demur to its application to Hitler and Mussolini. Then why, you may ask, does Ataturk not belong to the same category? There are a number of reasons. The main one was that he was consciously building for his own absence, trying to create a system of government and administration that would survive him; trying to teach his doctrines and to explain his ideals rather than to enforce conformity with his views. In the scheme of things he had worked out during the war of liberation with his principal collaborators in the Kemalist movement, the sovereignty of the nation was vested in the Grand National Assembly whose members were elected by the people with which rested the four-yearly election of the President of the Republic and in which the Sovereignty of the State was vested. Revolutions can never be kid-glove affairs and, in the early days, before the new Constitution and its organs could get into their stride, Ataturk had no doubt on a number of occasions to take decisive action on his own initiative. He was nevertheless at pains to act through legal forms. His deference towards GNA was marked. His main care, so far as internal affairs were concerned, was to create a living political organism that would not only function then, but have in it the necessary flexibility to adapt and develop itself as circumstances might demand. So far from giving orders, as is popularly supposed to all and sundry, he was constantly holding Ministers to the discharge of their responsibilities. Had he lived, I think he would quite likely have stood down from the next Presidential election and retired into private life, just to see whether the machine could run itself competently without him. Whether his advisers and friends would have allowed him to do so, it is not possible to guess. His whole attitude was that he, as President was the Head of the State, and that the Government, whose responsibility to the Sovereign Grand National Assembly needed the consecration of a continuous practice of the Constitution, was charged with the administration of the country. Ataturk realized that in the early days of the Republic the people and the time were not ripe for what we know as popular Government. The public was steeped in the traditions of the Sultanate and the Empire, and the ear of the Committee of Union and Progress had not changed very much in that respect therefore the public as well as Ministers had to be educated to the new responsibilities which the new Constitution imposed on them. Meanwhile, things had to be kept steady, and the needs of Turkey as a modern, progressive State had to be studied, and, so far as was possible, with the resources available, provided for. Above all, a visible system of national economy must be created; and as early as 1923 Ataturk boldly told the nation that unless that could be done in ten years, all the struggles and sacrifices of the war of liberation would prove to have been in vain. His foresight was so shrewd and accurate, almost uncannily so, his sense of march of events of popular feeling, of the needs of Turkeys external relations was so often proved right, that his collaborators habitually consulted him about their course of action in circumstances that to them were difficult and obscure. His help was always available to them, but by way of counsel, not of order. And what was there in the foreign policy of Ataturk that smelt of the dictator? Nothing. It was a policy of peace, friendship, reconciliation and guarantee against war, so long as neighbors were willing to respect the integrity and independence of the New Republic and its territories. The hatchets with Russia were buried; the quarrel with Greece was ended and replaced by close relations; the Balkan feuds were extinguished by the Balkan Entente Treaty; Bulgaria alone abstaining from participation. The non-aggressive Pact of Saadabad with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan was a guarantee of peace on the Eastern border. Relations with France, good and friendly. With Fascist Italy correct, but not so good. With Britain, not only complete reconciliation, also the growth of the closest and most cordial relations, that so happily subsist today. Lastly, as regards her own frontiers, the policy of Kemalist Republic was, in name and fact, non-revisionist. Has this anything in common with a Dictator policy? Surely the answer must be emphatic No. The conclusion is that the work of Kemal Ataturk has stood the test of time -- a test which since 1939 could hardly have been stood -- and still stands it. Not only is Turkey stable in herself; she is also a stable factor in a distressed and uncertain world. she knows her mind; she knows her friends; she steadfastly pursues her course; she keeps her engagements. Turkey is fortunate to have had Ataturk; she is fortunate to have Ismet Inonu; she is fortunate to be inhabited by a great people; industrious, self-disciplined, endowed with plenty of good sense, who seek freedom for themselves and deny it to no other man. The plan I made for this talk was to give listeners a picture of the man, and an outline of his work as the Founder of the Republic. It may seem to err on the impersonal side. If it does, I have to a valid reason for handling my subject in that way. It is that an Ambassadors relations with the Head of the State to whom he is accredited are necessarily of a formal character. Especially so in the case of Ataturk, because he never gave an audience to diplomatic envoys except on purely formal occasions, he never received them privately, nor did he entertain them in his residence. It was one rule for all, and he was wise enough to make no exceptions; he knew very well what jealousies and heart-burnings any such exceptions were likely to cause. Furthermore, he let it be clearly understood that diplomatic representations could not be addressed to him, but should be addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The grounds for his unequivocal attitude are not far to seek, and are perfectly correct. His duties as President, towards the outside world were not executive, they were representative. The Government were the Executive, and it was their business to acquaint him with negotiations and conversations with diplomatic envoys. Nevertheless, on a formal occasion, such as the presentation of Letters of Credence, or the announcement by me of the Accession of the King, after the formal part of the audience was over, during which both he and I remained standing, he would ask me to sit down and have a talk, at which the Minister of Foreign Affairs, already there on duty, would remain present. Such occasions were obviously rare; even so, I found them most interesting and always helpful. They had to be rather ceremonious, but they did supply an occasional personal contact, and an opportunity for each of us to size the other up. I have no doubt that my foreign colleagues had similar opportunities. Usually he spoke in Turkish, my acquaintance with which is very elementary and the Minister translated; every now and then he used French, a language in which he was not very fluent, but nevertheless able to make his meaning clear. His one reception of the year was in the evening of the national fete day on October 29th, in a public building. In the morning he had already received, in the Grand National Assembly and Mission by Mission, the diplomatic representatives, accompanied by the members of their staff, all in full uniform. There was a huge reception, with lavish refreshments to which were bidden Ministers of State, deputies, high Turkish officials and officers, prominent Turkish citizens and the diplomatic body. The latter were conducted to a separate room and the President, after greeting each individual with grave dignity that became him so well, would sit down in the middle of an arc of armchairs, and then instruct his aide-de-camp to invite now these, now those, members of the company to join his circle. It was his evening; it habitually ran on till the small hours of the morning and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Even so, the examination system to which I alluded earlier was never relaxed. The last one was on Oct. 29, 1937, and that evening I must have sat next to him for nearly five hours; it was a first-class opportunity for observing Ataturks fantastic power of concentration. He had something to say to, or to learn from each newcomer to the circle; the talk never became light or chatty; everything he said was leading somewhere, and one could sense the unflickering purpose and the tireless spirit of enquiry that lay behind it. An inquest, if you will; but not an inquisition. Upon my soul I do not know what kind of biographer Kemal Ataturk, ought to have had: a Samuel Pepys or a Baswell? or both, or neither? I think, however, you will now understand why I cannot say what he liked for breakfast, who his tailor was, or what toothpaste he preferred. I wouldnt know, and it really doesnt matter. I am concerned with the man himself, and will say one last word about him. He was not a convenient man -- anything but. He was harsh -- his life had been cast in harsh places -- but he was just. He knew his own mind very clearly; but he would always listen. He did not frequent societies; he made them. He demanded loyalty, and he earned it. Power never went to his head. He was incapable of meanness. The welfare of the Turkish people was his first concern. He saw it in terms of peace, security, progress and fraternity; never in terms of war and conquest. Hard as he seemed, and unsentimental as he was, I think he nevertheless felt a deep need to be surrounded by affection. Cool health do not always mean cold hearts. * Sir Percy Loraine was the British Ambassador to Turkey from 1934-1939. This address was given as a tribute to Ataturk by Sir Percy and broadcast on the BBC on November 10, 1948, the tenth anniversary of Ataturks death * This has been republished by the British Council on the occasion of 75th year celebrations of the Turkish Republic. 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