Milli İstihbarat Teşkilati
MILLI İSTIHBARAT TEşKILATI
The Turkish government's intelligence bureau, referred to as MIT.
MIT was organized in 1965, as the reformulation of the older National Security Organization of Turkey. At the time, its 4,000 personnel, linked directly to the prime minister, were to track conspiracies within the armed forces and among radical leftist groups. In later years, officials of the Turkish National Security Council sat on MIT's board.
In the 1970s, MIT was criticized for inefficient intelligence on urban guerrilla groups and for subversive infiltration of leftist and Kurdish groups. It did not inform the government, intentionally or out of ignorance, of secret meetings among generals before the 1980 coup. Officials blamed MIT's inefficiency on understaffing—it had only 390 officers in 1979—and a small budget (equivalent to about $30 million in 1983).
Bibliography
Ahmad, Feroz. The Turkish Experiment in Democracy 1950–1975. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977.
Birand, Mehmet Ali. The Generals' Coup in Turkey, translated by M. A. Dikerdem. Washington, DC: Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1987.
elizabeth thompson