CIA activities in Turkey

Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. conducted operations focused on subverting communism in Turkey, executed chiefly through Operation Gladio's Turkish extension, the Counter-Guerrilla.

Here "CIA" is used to denote the entire U.S. Intelligence Community, unless indicated otherwise.

Reconnaissance

U-2 reconnaissance flights flew from Incirlik in Turkey since the 1950s. The U-2 flown by Francis Gary Powers and shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960, departed from Turkey.

False flag attacks

In 1970, Duane Clarridge, the CIA station chief in Rome at the time of the papal shooting, had previously been posted in Ankara.^[1] In that year, armed bands of Grey Wolves unleashed a wave of bomb attacks and shootings that killed thousands of people, including public officials, journalists, students, lawyers, labor organizers, social democrats, left-wing activists and ethnic Kurds. In his 1997 memoirs, A Spy for All Seasons, Clarridge makes no reference to the Turkish unrest or to the papal shooting.^[2]

Coups

The Counter-Guerrilla carried out the coups of 1971, and 1980.^[3][4] The Turkish security forces cited the need to restore order which had been shattered by rightist groups secretly sponsored by those same state security forces.^[2]

Recruitment

During the Cold War, an important asset was the Counter-Guerrilla, and the Grey Wolves; the paramilitary youth branch of the Nationalist Movement Party.^[5] Before the death of Counter-Guerrilla Alparslan Türkeş, the far-right paramilitary Grey Wolves were used to attack leftists.^[4]

The CIA also maintains a cadre of moles inside the National Intelligence Organization, as acknowledged in 1977 by its former deputy director—and CIA recruit—Sabahattin Savasman.^[6]

See also

• Turkey–United States relations

References

1. ^ Valentine, Douglas (2001-11-08). "Homeland Insecurity by Douglas Valentine. Part Six: The Counter-Terror Network". Counterpunch. http://www.counterpunch.org/homeland6.html. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Lee, Martin A. "On the Trail of Turkey's Terrorist Grey Wolves". ConsortiumNews.com. http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story33.html. 
3. ^ Deliso, Christopher (2008-02-09). "Deep State Coup Averted in Turkey". Antiwar.com. http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=12332. Retrieved 2008-12-12. "Military coups in 1971 and 1980, and chronic massacres of civilian demonstrators throughout the 1970s, were all led by Counter-Guerrilla/Grey Wolves elements." 
4. ^ ^{a b} Celik, Serdar (February/March 1994). "Turkey's Killing Machine: The Contra-Guerrilla Force". Kurdistan Report 17. http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/017.html. Retrieved 2008-12-12. 
5. ^ Pacal, Jan (1997-04-04). "The Short and Bloody History of Ulkucus". Turkish Daily News (Hürriyet). http://arama.hurriyet.com.tr/arsivnews.aspx?id=-500825. Retrieved 2008-12-30. "Ulkucus, the ultranationalists, were the lead players of the Turkish Gladio ..." 
6. ^ "THE NAME OF THE WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE: THE CONTRA-GUERRILLA". Ozgur Politika. 1997-02-11. Archived from the original on 1998-02-14. http://web.archive.org/web/19980214105822/http://www.ozgurluk.org/contrind/brochu/part1.html. Retrieved 2008-12-12. "The CIA has a delegation of at least 20 people who co-operate in the MIT with the CIA and who occupy high positions inside the MIT. They supply information, contacts and they participate in operations at home and collectively in operations abroad... All technical equipment is supplied by the CIA. A lot of personnel was trained by the Americans in courses abroad, the buildings were constructed by the CIA, the instructors were supplied by the CIA... The employees have been working for years as CIA agents, for the benefit of the American secret service, it takes over its tasks without pay in operations at home and abroad..."