Helped End Sultans’ Reign : Ex-Turkey Leader Celal Bayar Dies

Former President Celal Bayar, 103, the last surviving member of the Grand National Assembly that led Turkey to independence more than six decades ago, died Friday. The statesman who approved the final remnant of the political battles led by Kemal Ataturk that successfully ended the reign of Turkish sultans died in an Istanbul hospital.

In his long and eventful life, Bayar was a guerrilla against the Ottoman Empire, revolutionary legislator, coup victim, defiant condemned man and revered elder statesman.

A military coup ousted Bayar as president in 1960. He was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison and he was released after three years because of poor health.

Assembly Formed

The Grand National Assembly, Turkey’s parliament, was formed to conduct the war of independence led by Bayar’s friend, Ataturk, and held its first meeting April 23, 1920, in Ankara.

It formulated a constitution in 1921 and abolished the office of sultan the next year. Turkey became a republic Oct. 29, 1923.

Bayar, strongly anti-Communist, was a Free World hero after World War II as the Soviet Union began its domination of Eastern Europe. He was widely praised by American leaders, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a 1954 visit to the United States before his own strict rule brought on his political demise.

He was born May 15, 1883, in the province of Bursa, son of a religion teacher. His early career was in banking, but his spare time went to the Young Turks fighting the corrupt Ottoman sultans.

Guerrilla Fighter

Before joining the Grand National Assembly he was a guerrilla fighter and commander.

When the republic was established, Bayar served as a member of Parliament and Cabinet minister, and then as prime minister from 1937 to 1939.

He left the Republican People’s Party in 1945 to join Adnan Menderes in forming the Democrat Party, which swept to power in 1950 elections.

The victory made him, at 67, Turkey’s third president and the only one with a civilian background.

But in 1960, thousands of students rioted in protest of his government’s anti-democratic measures, including restrictive press laws and suppression of his own former party.

Junta in Power

The military overthrew him that year and a junta ruled for 17 months, during which Democrat Party officials were prosecuted. Bayar tried to kill himself when army officers invaded his Ankara home, but soldiers foiled the attempt.

At subsequent trials, observers often compared the conduct of Menderes and Bayar. Menderes was frightened and servile, Bayar rock-like and defiant. Bayar would not speak to Menderes.

Both were sentenced to death and Menderes was hanged. Bayar’s sentence was commuted because of his age and, in 1963, he was paroled for medical treatment but was kept in a hospital under guard.

A general political amnesty in 1964 freed Bayar and other Democrat leaders.

After that, he became the force behind a chain of clubs for former Democrat Party politicians known as Our House.