Society, Politics, and Economy in Modern Turkey: Sociology of Turkey - Maintained by Tugrul Keskin
We are at a point in our work when we can no longer ignore empires and the imperial context in our studies. (p. 5)
― Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism

Sunday, May 3, 2015

The death of probably the last Cold War spy

MURAT YETKİN

Hurriyet Daily- May/02/2015

Mecca, the Hajj of 1954, September... Two pilgrims took a ride on the bus carrying 21 Soviet Muslims to the Kaaba.
In the bus, the two men, carrying U.S. passports, start intimidating the others, shouting: “You are not true Muslims, you serve Moscow atheists.” They later pasted anti-Soviet posters on walls of Mecca and threw tomatoes at the mostly Turkic Soviet Muslims. Ian Johnson, who gives more details in his wonderful book “A Mosque in Munich,” speculates that probably on U.S. advice, King Saud of Saudi Arabia turned down a request from the Soviet ambassador to forward his complaints.
An edition of Time magazine, dated Sept. 27, 1954, reported the story as a spontaneous outburst of two Muslims of Russian-origin émigrés against the Soviet regime. But it was not like that at all. In fact, it was probably the first open act against the Soviets via Muslim communities conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), sponsored by a Germany-based cover organization.
Both CIA propagandists in Mecca were also of Turkic origin. One of them was the 42-year-old Hamid Rashid. The other was 37-year-old Ruzi Nazar, or Nasar as it is sometimes spelled in the West.

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