Inönü, Ismet (1884-1973)

Turkish politician and soldier, president 1938-50, and prime minister 1923-38 and 1961-65. He continued the modernization and westernization of Turkey begun by the republic's founder Kemal Atatürk, and kept his country out of World War II. After 1945 he attempted to establish democratic institutions.

He was born in Smyrna, in Asia Minor, and pursued a career as an army officer before and during World War I. During the Turkish War of Independence 1919-22 he was Atatürk's chief of army staff, and stopped the Greek advance in Anatolia at the first and second battles of Inönü in 1921 (from which he later took his name). Representing Turkey at the peace conference, he signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. He was the first prime minister of Turkey and was elected president after the death of Atatürk in 1938. Despite the efforts of the British prime minister Winston Churchill to bring Turkey into World War II, Inönü managed to keep the country neutral until 1945. Although a supporter of one-party rule between 1939 and 1946, he later became a champion of democracy. Losing power to Adnan Menderes (1899-1961) in the first free elections in 1950, Inönü was leader of the opposition until he became prime minister in 1961 after the military coup of 1960 and execution of Menderes in 1961. He lost power to the pro-Western Suleyman Demirel in 1965.