Black, White, and Gray: Hüsnü Bingöl – Part 1

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Who was Hüsnü Bingöl? Very little has been written about him, but much remains buried in minds and hearts. Yes, who was Hüsnü Bingöl, a man who left his mark on an era, devoted to his duty for the homeland to the point of self-sacrifice, yet leaving behind people with tearful eyes and heavy hearts? Was he an ordinary MIT agent, an officer? Or was he a state official who abused his position? Unfortunately, these ordinary and perhaps insignificant questions will never be enough for us to truly understand him.

To some, he was a hero (WHITE); to others, he was a tyrant (BLACK); and to the state, he was a hero whose value was later understood, meaning forgotten and rediscovered (GRAY).

In this series of articles, I will discuss this important personality, who silently but profoundly influenced not only 20th-century Eastern Anatolia but also the fate of the country during World War II, from all angles and share it with you.

I want my reader to know from the outset: The events he experienced and the duties and responsibilities he undertook prove that it is impossible to compare Hüsnü Bingöl to a present-day MIT director or Undersecretary. This would mean underestimating Hüsnü Bingöl, overshadowing his charismatic and captivating personality. Today, one Undersecretary comes and another goes. There is a well-established and smoothly functioning national security and intelligence organization. However, Hüsnü Bingöl was not so fortunate. The conditions he was in were extraordinary.

Hüsnü Bingöl adapted quickly to extraordinary conditions with great dedication and determination. In this remote corner of the country, he painstakingly established a spy-counter-spy network, as if carving rock with his fingernails. He won the hearts of some of the local people and made them a part of this struggle. In the history of the Republic of Turkey, no intelligence officer in any period or region was as close to the public as Hüsnü Bingöl, nor could they convince ordinary people to be an element of a counter-espionage project, or instill the feeling of "We must protect this homeland altogether."

He entered the world of people from different ethnic and sectarian backgrounds living in the region, winning them over while also taking measures to eliminate those he deemed "harmful." In short, Hüsnü Bingöl was not an intelligence officer who collected his salary, put in his hours, and eagerly awaited promotion. On the contrary, he was a patriot and a civil servant who did not care about money or comfort but wanted to fulfill his duty.

Especially with the reports he wrote during certain periods and his timely informing of his superiors about possible developments, he broadened the horizons of important statesmen like the President and Prime Minister, helping them skillfully use international politics and diplomacy.

In short, Hüsnü Bingöl was an extraordinary personality of an extraordinary era. For many years (1932-1954), for better or worse, he held the fate of Iğdır and the country in his hands, sometimes unleashing the thunderbolts of Zeus's wrath on angry days, and sometimes embracing people with the compassion and generosity he carried deep in his heart.

PROLOGUE

Dear reader! Prologue is a word meaning introduction. However, it contains a little more detail than the usual "introduction." It gives the reader preliminary information about a subject, opening their mind and thus allowing them to journey from the general to the specific. Since what I will write is about an important personality who unconditionally left his mark on the recent history of not only Iğdır but also EASTERN ANATOLIA and, in a sense, TURKEY for a quarter of a century, I have made it my duty to reflect all the details about him to you objectively. If you wish, let me tell you how I first encountered the name of the late Hüsnü Bingöl:

MY ENCOUNTER WITH THE NAME HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL

My father, Mecit Hun, passed away in Ankara in 1998. In those years, I was working for an energy company in America. When I arrived in Turkey via Germany, my father's coffin had already been transported to Iğdır, a place he loved very much. He was buried in Karakuyu village.

When I returned to Ankara, I saw that my father had planned to write his memoirs. I picked up the unfinished pages from the typewriter (I will publish the complete version of this at the end of the article series). It was about thirty pages. I started reading with curiosity. It was full of names I didn't know. Besides, I had lived away from Turkey for many years.

Apparently, my father had formed a writing plan in his mind. With the impressive and gripping sentences he penned with years of journalistic experience, he described his heroes, summarized their shared memories, and in a sense, revived his lost memories from the past.

One of the names hidden among the pages was Hüsnü Bingöl. When I read this section, I felt that my father had chosen his words very carefully. In fact, a faint fear and timidity he carried within him was clearly evident. When I finished reading the 30 pages of memoirs, a strange feeling had arisen within me. For a short time, I had become intimately familiar with the heroes he described. My curiosity had increased, and I was eager to learn more. However, due to my work, I had to return to the USA. I had no time to lose. I collected the writings and papers and secured them in a special compartment. Before leaving Ankara, I remember saying to myself, "I hope one day I will have the chance to turn these writings into a book!" and even preparing myself for it in a way.

Soon after, two years later, I found myself in Ankara again. I took a leave of absence from the company for a certain period. My goal was to turn my father's memoirs into a book format and send them to print. This did not seem like a time-consuming task. For a few days, I sifted through the notes. Some were typed, some were written in neat handwriting. As I read the manuscripts, a list caught my eye. My father had arranged the names of the heroes he intended to write about in a sequence. There were over a hundred names. I didn't know most of them. My father had only written his memories about a few of them. I didn't know if those on the list were still alive. Some names had stuck in my mind from my childhood, but of course, this was not enough.

I visited libraries. There wasn't much information about Iğdır. Apart from a few technical books or academic works providing a general introduction to Iğdır, there was no other source to help me understand Iğdır. Only one solution remained: to go into the field, that is, to conduct face-to-face interviews.

Taking a recorder and a camera, I set out to contact the names on my father's list. Most of the people I reached with great difficulty were either no longer alive or had scattered all over Turkey. In short, a long and tiring work awaited me.

My interview style was very simple and not tiring for my interlocutor. I asked questions about the past and family genealogy, trying to capture details by asking questions at points I found important. I conducted over a thousand interviews. I encountered an interesting situation: whether Kurdish, Azerbaijani, or Terekeme (Karapapak), the name Hüsnü Bingöl came up in some way in the sections and narratives of the people I interviewed. It was clear that he had strongly taken root in the public's memory, even woven himself into their being like a spider's web.

Inevitably, my curiosity about the name and person of Hüsnü Bingöl increased. I knew that he had held an important position in an organization called MAH (MIT) at one time, but the other parts of his life were dark. The public's narrative, so to speak, gave reality in fragments. It would be very laborious to put these small mosaic pieces together and reveal the true picture. Was there a shorter way to do this?

MIT AND HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL

I was in Iğdır. A relative, understanding my curiosity, suggested I go to MIT and get information. He was right. It was best to get detailed information about Hüsnü Bingöl from the organization where he had spent almost his entire life. However, I did not want to enter the MIT building.

I would like to share the reasons for this with you in all sincerity: The first reason was that when I invited my father to Germany in 1992, he told me on the phone that he had not received a passport due to a report prepared about him by MIT. I was very upset. In those years, my brother Atila Hun, who was elected a Member of Parliament, personally met with the then Minister of Interior, İsmet Sezgin, and requested the lifting of the ban, thus making it possible for my father to obtain a passport.

The second reason was this: In the 1991 early general elections, the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP), led by the late Erdal İnönü, and the People's Labor Party (HEP) formed an electoral alliance. Atila Hun, who belonged to a CHP and Social Democratic family since the 1950s, became a parliamentary candidate from Kars on the SHP list and was elected, as Iğdır was not yet a province in those years. Due to some negative developments, General Chairman İnönü removed the HEP-origin MPs from the party, and they joined HEP. Soon after, when HEP was closed, they became members of DEP. During this process, pressure was put on Atila Hun, who was elected MP from the SHP list, to join DEP. When Atila Hun did not accept the proposal, a smear campaign was launched against the HUN family, and they were targeted. The conductor of this orchestra was Yaşar Kaya.

Yaşar Kaya, the General Chairman of DEP and originally from Iğdır, fled abroad in 1994, became a chief columnist for the pro-PKK newspaper Özgür Gündem, and declared Mecit Hun, whose political influence he had long been uncomfortable with, as "the most important man of the counter-guerrilla in Kurdistan." A few months after the publication of this article, Mecit Hun's house in Iğdır was bombed. (Yaşar Kaya wanted to be a candidate from the Republican People's Party in the 1973 General Elections but did not receive the support he wanted from Mecit Hun. Apparently, a past reckoning also came into play.)

Yaşar Kaya, in his newspaper Özgür Gündem, which he owned, became obsessed with publicly targeting anyone who came his way. Güldal Mumcu, in an interview with Yeni Asır newspaper dated 02.12.2012, considered it significant that her husband Uğur Mumcu was assassinated after Yaşar Kaya targeted him in his column. Interestingly, we will encounter the name Yaşar Kaya from time to time in this article series.

When I returned to Turkey and went to Iğdır for interviews, I was saddened to see that this "counter-guerrilla" propaganda had been very successful. The public's approach to me was cold and distant. Under these circumstances, even if I were a researcher and writer, entering the MIT building without any precautions would have confirmed the slander against me.

On such a day, a relative came to my aid. This person was a young man named Reşit G., the former headman of Taşlıca village. Understanding my distress, he told me that he frequently entered and exited MIT and that if I wished, I could go to MIT and research Hüsnü Bingöl. Even a few pages of information about Hüsnü Bingöl would be very important to me. It would undoubtedly help me understand Iğdır better.

Reşit G. returned sadly. He told me that no one at MIT knew or had heard the name Hüsnü Bingöl. I was surprised. In a way, my curiosity had increased even more. The institution where this important personality, who had taken root in the public's memory like an old plane tree and woven himself into their being like a spider's web, worked and dedicated years, claimed not to know him and had never heard his name. Was this true, or was it a way to avoid leaking information? I couldn't tell that day!

THE BOOK IĞDIR SEVDASI (LOVE OF IĞDIR)

Finally, I completed my interviews. The book reached the printing stage in March 2002. My goal was to prepare a book of at most two volumes. However, when the texts and pictures were uploaded to the Adobe Design program, a massive four-volume work emerged.

My brother Selahattin made a suggestion: "Remove the recurring topics from the book in a way that does not disrupt the integrity of the text!"

There were mostly memories related to Hüsnü Bingöl. I was forced to remove a significant portion of the memories related to Hüsnü Bingöl from the book, and even, with a sense of "fairness," I did not include a significant part of the memoirs of my great-aunt Gurci Selçuk. In later years, I published my aunt's memoirs as a book titled "My Name is Gurci," thus freeing myself from this moral responsibility.

After the book Iğdır Sevdası was published, I was working on a book about Hüsnü Bingöl. In a corner of my mind, I wanted to write a novel-like book. While preparing for this, an event beyond my control caused me to postpone this plan. Since my esteemed readers expect me to speak and write the truth here, I want to share with you why I postponed this plan.

Let me re-convey to you this section, which I also touched upon in my book "Kurdish-Azerbaijani Iğdır Republic," published in 2017:

THE DOCUMENTARY FILM OF THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATION (MIT): LIGHT ON THE BORDER

In my book Kurdish-Azerbaijani Iğdır Republic, I wrote:

"The absence of archives in state institutions is not a crime. It is a deficiency that needs to be remedied. But the event I will describe below is very serious, even disgusting: In 2000, when I set out to write the book Iğdır Sevdası, my job was truly extraordinarily difficult. Having lived abroad for many years, I found it difficult to adapt to the conditions in Turkey. Several months passed in getting used to this difficulty.

Later, I undertook very laborious tasks such as going to libraries, searching for archives that were not in state institutions, and interviewing more than a thousand people scattered across Turkey. My aim was, on the one hand, to complete my father's unfinished memoirs on the typewriter, and on the other hand, to render a service to Iğdır, where I spent my childhood.

My research continued feverishly for months, and many mysteries related to Iğdır's past and history were illuminated. In the meantime, I also brought to light a great personality who was ingrained in the public's consciousness but forgotten (or made to be forgotten). This historical and important personality was Major Hüsnü Bingöl, the chief of MAH (MIT) of that period, who left his mark on the history of Republican Iğdır for a quarter of a century between 1932 and 1954. As I mingled with the people and conducted interviews, I saw the importance of this personality and his profound impact on the local people. I mobilized all my strength to uncover his hidden aspects, thus wanting to enable Iğdır to confront its past.

One day, while in Iğdır, my aunt Hacı Safiye Alagöz took me to the grave of the late Hüsnü Bingöl. It didn't look like a place that could be called a cemetery. It seemed certain that it would be removed in five or ten years and a building would be placed on it. My aunt and I worked together to clean the abandoned, dilapidated, garbage-strewn grave of the late Hüsnü Bingöl, filled with empty water bottles, cigarette butts, and faded newspaper pieces. I took a picture of the grave. When I published the book Iğdır Sevdası, I was frankly ashamed to put the grave picture in the book. We recited a Fatiha and left.

Soon after, I learned that Hüsnü Bingöl's two daughters were alive. I went to Istanbul. Since my uncle, the late Fetullah Kakioğlu, and my aunt, the late Hacı Nazire Kakioğlu, lived in Istanbul, I asked for their help. My aunt Nazire had been friends with Hüsnü Bingöl's two daughters, Şükran and Müjgan, in her childhood. She was in the same age group as Ms. Şükran. They were neighborhood friends. Perhaps because none of them were married, they continued their friendship in Istanbul as well.

One day, my aunt took me to a house in the Gayrettepe area. I interviewed Hüsnü Bingöl's two daughters. From the very first moment, they put forward a condition: no one would know their address. Nearly 45 years had passed since Hüsnü Bingöl's death, but the two sisters were still somehow uneasy and fearful. I found this situation both strange and considered it part of Hüsnü Bingöl's mysterious personality.

An unfortunate incident occurred. Since the microphone cable was not fully seated in the recorder, all the recordings I made throughout the day were wasted. I returned from Ankara to Istanbul again. My aunt took me back to the address in Gayrettepe, and I recorded the statements of both sisters again. All of this had been quite laborious and tiring for me. If the sole purpose and subject of my book had been Hüsnü Bingöl, this effort would have been understandable, but I had hundreds of people to interview, and I didn't have much time. My book Iğdır Sevdası was published in three volumes in March 2002.

Time passed. In July 2010, I was on vacation in Fethiye with my mother and sisters Süheyla Aksoy and Leylagül Özalp. I was relaxing on the beach. A phone call came. A person who introduced himself from the Ankara National Intelligence Organization and said that he had held a high-level position in Iğdır MIT at one time, asked if it would be possible for him to have a special meeting with me about Hüsnü Bingöl when I returned to Ankara. I accepted, a little startled.

When I returned to Ankara, we met at a cafe near Kuğulu Park. There was also a lady with the gentleman, who introduced herself as Pelin (or Selin). The gentleman's request was this: a documentary about Hüsnü Bingöl was to be prepared. He said that he did not have time due to his heavy workload, that he had assigned the lady he introduced as Pelin to this task, and that he would be happy if I could help.

When it came to Iğdır, I accepted unconditionally. In the following days and weeks, Ms. Pelin came to the address of the institution where I worked on Cinnah Street many times. At one point, she would need to go to Iğdır and do some filming. I gave her a list of people she needed to interview. I asked my brother Hacı Ahmet Hun, who lives in Iğdır, to take her to the people she would interview, as a guest named Ms. Pelin would be coming soon. I later learned that my brother had taken the time to help.

Some time later, MIT, probably thinking that Ms. Pelin would not be able to handle this job, made an agreement with a Media and Advertising company serving in Ankara. This time, I met several times with the company representative and a person named Gürsel Görgülü, who undertook this job on behalf of MIT. I gave interviews many times at the company's headquarters. I did all this, of course, with a great idealistic feeling and without any financial expectation.

A few months later, the Hüsnü Bingöl documentary prepared by MIT, titled "Light on the Border," was published on its official website via the Internet. (https://www.mit.gov.tr/husnu_bingol.html). I eagerly started watching the documentary. In the credits section, clippings from my father's Pamukova Newspaper were shown, and sentences from the book Iğdır Sevdası were conveyed almost without alteration.

Neither at the beginning nor at the end of the documentary was there any reference or thanks to me or the book Iğdır Sevdası. This situation was a great insult to me and, moreover, a blatant copyright infringement. MIT was learning about the late Hüsnü Bingöl, whom it had not been aware of for years, from me and my book, covering up one of its shortcomings by having a documentary prepared, but on the other hand, committing a much greater shame by infringing copyright and disrespecting labor. They did not even bother to call and thank me. If this had happened in another country, the legal cost would have been heavy, but this was Turkey. The powerful also determined the rules and the law. An institution that arbitrarily prevented my late father from going abroad had, again arbitrarily, seized a writer's labor and work.

I was initially eager to file a lawsuit for "copyright infringement," but then I chose to remain silent in order not to allow the memory of the late Hüsnü Bingöl to be trampled upon in front of the press. What is noteworthy is that they had planned to commit a crime in advance, and by somehow pushing into the background or covering up the references about me with the cooperation of the production company, they had a hidden intention to prevent any possible legal struggle I might have in the future. What can I say, poor people! If the late Hüsnü Bingöl were alive, he would not remain silent about this injustice, he would slap this gentleman's face, I thought. Who knows, maybe he would have him thrown into his famous prison with chains on his feet!"

Yes, I wrote something like that in 2017! Looking back today, when I think about whether I would contribute to such a documentary knowing that copyright infringement would occur in the end, I would definitely say no, since it was not an individual but a serious state institution.

All these efforts had at least two beneficial results: MIT enlarged a picture taken from the Iğdır Sevdası book and hung it in the MIT Iğdır building (according to a journalist friend). The grave, which was on the verge of being lost, was protected, repaired, and surrounded by iron railings.

INTELLIGENCE IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AT THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Intelligence has always existed in the establishment of states and empires, continuing its existence by changing its form and shape. Until Sultan Abdülhamit, intelligence mostly had an interstate function, but suddenly its content and essence changed, and it began to be used as a mechanism of pressure and control over its own citizens. We see the first example of this in the Yıldız Organization. All intelligence organizations established consecutively in the period up to the establishment of MIT in 1965, in a sense, became a continuation of each other, and the experience gained was transferred to the next generation.

YILDIZ ORGANIZATION

The Yıldız Intelligence Organization was the first organized intelligence agency established by Sultan Abdülhamid in 1880. Its purpose was to maintain or, in a sense, protect the Turkist and Islamist spirit against the nation-state formations, consisting of Christian populations, whose presence was increasingly felt, especially in the Balkans. The Yıldız Organization served only Sultan Abdülhamit. The organization carried out intelligence activities, especially against Armenian committees, sensing possible Armenian revolts and informing the administration about them.

However, it was also very well organized abroad, closely following individuals and institutions in centers such as Paris, Rome, and London. Thanks to the spies spread over a wide geographical area in a very short time, more than 3000 reports reached the palace every month. The organization continued its activities until Abdülhamid's dethronement in 1908. After the organization was closed, hundreds of thousands of intelligence information were burned, but the spirit of the organization continued, and in a sense, this intelligence experience was transferred to the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa.

TEŞKİLÂTI MAHSUSA (SPECIAL ORGANIZATION)

To understand Hüsnü Bingöl's life story, we must understand the Committee of Union and Progress, which seized power in the Ottoman Empire in 1912, and its philosophy. Especially without understanding the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa, the intelligence organization of that period, established under Enver Pasha, it will not be possible to evaluate the intelligence organizations that would be established later. The Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa benefited from the structure and experience of the "Yıldız Organization," and many personnel working there joined the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa.

As the demand for nation-states by Muslim Arabs and Albanians became increasingly dominant, the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa organized itself solely around Turkism and Turanian political views, setting aside Islamic sensitivities. According to various sources, the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa made its presence felt from 1911 onwards, gaining official organizational identity under the Ministry of War on August 5, 1914. With the departure of the Committee of Union and Progress government from power on October 8, 1918, the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa was officially dissolved. The organization disbanded, but its spirit and philosophy this time passed to the supporters of the Kuvâ-yi Milliye (National Forces).

TEŞKİLÂTI MAHSUSA AND KUVÂ-Yİ MİLLİYE

The Kuvâ-yi Milliye emerged during the period when harsh conditions were imposed on the Ottoman Empire, which was defeated in World War I, with the Armistice of Mudros. It is a national resistance organization that emerged when the weapons of the Ottoman army were seized and distributed in various regions. The Kuvâ-yi Milliye, which emerged during a period when Ottoman territory was occupied by Greek, British, French, and Italian forces, is the first defense organization and move of the Turkish War of Independence.

Almost all of the leading leaders of the Kuvâ-yi Milliye and Müdafaa-i Hukuk groups formed in Anatolia after World War I were members of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa. The efforts of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa to organize resistance against the Italians in Trablusgarp, against the Bulgarians and Greeks in Western Thrace, and against the British in Egypt and Iraq are largely documented. In contrast, the role played by the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa in the 1915 Armenian Deportation, although frequently mentioned, has not yet been fully substantiated.

The archives of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa are not available. It is claimed that the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress destroyed all documents before fleeing abroad in 1918.

The Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa carried out sabotage actions in World War I. Sülayman Askeri, one of the organization's leaders, organized hit-and-run attacks against the British with a gang recruited from Kurdish and Arab tribes, and burned the oil facilities in Abadan. In response, the British moved and inflicted a heavy defeat on the Turkish army at Shuayba on April 12-14, 1915. Süleyman Askeri committed suicide with his pistol after the defeat.

Some of the important statesmen who served in the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa are: Enver Pasha, Major Süleyman Askeri, Yakub Cemil, Mithat Şükrü Bleda, Ohrili Eyüb Sabri, Fuat Balkan, Ali Fethi Okyar, Ali Çetinkaya, nicknamed "Kel Ali," Çerkez Reşit Bey, Nuri Conker, Rauf Orbay. It is claimed that the organization had nearly 30,000 members at its strongest.

KARAKOL CEMİYETİ (POLICE SOCIETY)

With Enver Pasha, the chairman of the Committee of Union and Progress, fleeing abroad after the defeat, the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa also, in a sense, completed its mission. This time, the Karakol Cemiyeti was established. It served as the Ottoman intelligence organization during the Armistice period.

After the occupation of Istanbul, various resistance organizations were established with the feeling of national awakening. The Karakol Cemiyeti is just one of them. The society, founded and managed by Kara Kemal and Kara Vasıf under the directive of Talat Pasha, smuggled weapons and soldiers to Anatolia to aid the National Struggle. The name Karakol (Police Station) comes from the names of these two founding administrative members (KARA). The MAH would later be established with the merger of this organization and other organizations.

The Karakol Cemiyeti conveyed the plans and activities of organizations such as the English Sympathizers Society to Mustafa Kemal Pasha. However, the Karakol Cemiyeti entered into secret relations with the Bolsheviks and engaged in efforts to claim ownership of the National Struggle. On March 16, 1920, during the occupation of Istanbul by the Allied Powers, it suffered a major blow with the arrest of its leaders, and the activities of Karakol were terminated by order of the Representative Committee (Heyet-i Temsiliye), which was elected to implement the decisions of the Erzurum and Sivas Congresses.

HAMZA GROUP

After the dissolution of the Karakol Cemiyeti, various intelligence groups became active. One of them was the HAMZA group. It started its activities on September 23, 1920, and changed its name to FELAH GROUP on August 21, 1921. It continued its activities until the end of the War of Independence.

MİLLİ EMNİYET HİZMETİ (MEH) RİYASETİ (NATIONAL SECURITY SERVICE PRESIDENCY)

The National Security Service Presidency (Milli Emniyet Hizmeti Riyaseti) was established by a decision taken at the Council of Ministers meeting on December 19, 1926. It served between 1926 and 1965. An important point to remember is that the National Security Service was established by order of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the days following the dissolution of the Karakol Cemiyeti and Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa. The first head of MEH was Colonel Şükrü Âli Ögel, originally from Trebinje, Bosnia. The government briefly named the organization MAH for ease of pronunciation and to prevent its name from being easily deciphered. (I will also use the term MAH instead of MEH.)

Before MAH was established, an intelligence group was formed within the army, and the country's intelligence needs were tried to be met in this way. However, it soon became clear that neither the manpower nor the financial resources were sufficient to continue this intelligence work. Thereupon, with the direct directive of Mustafa Kemal, MAH was established to compensate for this deficiency. Polish-born German Colonel Oberst Walter Nikolai, who led Germany's intelligence during World War I, was invited to Turkey. In this way, MAH became operational.

The first founders of MAH were military personnel. Hüsnü Bingöl, who served in army intelligence, held the rank of Cavalry Major when he was invited to join MAH.

The MAH, established in 1926, had serious goals:

• The rising internal opposition against Mustafa Kemal's revolutions was supported by foreign intelligence units, creating internal unrest in the country.
• In those years, German and British spies, who had the strongest intelligence network in the world, were rampant in Turkey, but there was no national intelligence force to track them.
• As shown by the İzmir Assassination Attempt, secret societies were forming within the country, and dangerous decisions were being made for the homeland.
• The personnel of the Committee of Union and Progress needed to be rapidly purged.
• Since the methods applied by Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa and Karakol did not meet the requirements of the era, the newly established intelligence organization needed to be structured in accordance with modern methods.

On November 1, 1928, the Alphabet Reform took place, and Latin characters were adopted instead of Arabic letters, but MAH continued to use Ottoman Turkish in its correspondence until the 1950s. Interestingly, the acronym MAH remained a puzzle; some interpreted it as Milli Asayiş Hizmeti (National Public Order Service), while others understood it as Milli Amale Hizmeti (National Labor Service). In reality, it had nothing to do with either. MAH continued its activities as an organization affiliated with the Ministry of Interior.

DEAR READER! IN MY NEXT ARTICLE, I WILL INTRODUCE THE ŞIXLINSKİS, WHO LIVED IN THE KAZAKH REGION OF AZERBAIJAN, TO WHICH HÜSNÜ BİNGÖL'S ANCESTORS BELONGED, AND EYÜP PASHA, THE SON OF GULİCEVHAR AĞA.